Voting for Non-believers

Since the 2000 Presidential Election Scandal, millions of Americans are feeling less certain about having their vote count, and for good reason. Paul Krugman wrote about the perils of electronic voting earlier this year:

First of all, the technology has simply failed in several recent elections. In a special election in Broward County, Fla., 134 voters were disenfranchised because the electronic voting machines showed no votes, and there was no way to determine those voters' intent. (The election was decided by only 12 votes.) In Fairfax County, Va., electronic machines crashed repeatedly and balked at registering votes. In the 2002 primary, machines in several Florida districts reported no votes for governor.

And how many failures weren't caught? Internal e-mail from Diebold, the most prominent maker of electronic voting machines (though not those in the Florida and Virginia debacles), reveals that programmers were frantic over the system's unreliability. One reads, "I have been waiting for someone to give me an explanation as to why Precinct 216 gave Al Gore a minus 16022 when it was uploaded." Another reads, "For a demonstration I suggest you fake it."

Computer experts say that software at Diebold and other manufacturers is full of security flaws, which would easily allow an insider to rig an election. But the people at voting machine companies wouldn't do that, would they? Let's ask Jeffrey Dean, a programmer who was senior vice president of a voting machine company, Global Election Systems, before Diebold acquired it in 2002. Bev Harris, author of "Black Box Voting" (www.blackboxvoting.com), told The A.P. that Mr. Dean, before taking that job, spent time in a Washington correctional facility for stealing money and tampering with computer files.

California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley has such strong concerns about electronic voting that he ordered a ban in 14 counties, which was recently upheld against protests.

US Representative Rush Holt's website reads:

ON ELECTION DAY 2004, HOW WILL YOU KNOW IF YOUR VOTE IS PROPERLY COUNTED?
ANSWER: YOU WON’T

Representative Holt has introduced legislation to require all voting machines to produce a voter-verified paper trail.

On his website, US Rep. Dennis Kucinich quotes a study which showed Deibold voting software permit a person to:

• vote multiple times,
  
• view ballots already cast on a machine,
  
• modify party affiliation on ballots,
  
• cause votes to be miscounted,
  
• create, delete and modify votes on voting machine, and
  
• tamper with audit logs and election results.

He also goes on to describe:

• Partisan Conflicts of Interest
  
• Diebold Employee Manual Reveals Knowledge of Software Flaws
  
• Diebold Internal Memos Reveal Knowledge of Software Flaws
  
• Diebold has been using coercive legal claims to intimidate internet service providers and even universities to shut down websites with links to its memos and remove the memo content.

And in Illinois and Ohio, companies with close ties to the Bush administration, Populex and Diebold respectively, are selling machines to count the votes in November.

Those who've sold us on the idea of electronic voting would have us believe that these systems will serve our democracy better than our current methods.

If it's an act of faith to vote using a touchscreen voting machine, then the Republicans are non-believers while also selling the machines for profit. The party is telling Florida Republicans to vote using absentee ballots --

"The liberal Democrats
have already begun their
attacks and the new electronic
voting machines do not
have a paper ballot to verify
your vote in case of a recount.

Make sure your vote counts,
order your absentee ballot today."

If you live in a precinct that uses electronic voting machines, especially in a battleground state, you should do the same.

Last night President Bill Clinton addressed the Democratic National Convention in Boston:

We live in an interdependent world in which we can't kill, jail, or occupy all our potential adversaries, so we have to both fight terror and build a world with more partners and fewer terrorists. We tried it their way for twelve years, our way for eight, and then their way for four more.

By the only test that matters, whether people were better off when we finished than when we started, our way works better -- it produced over 22 million good jobs, rising incomes, and 100 times as many people moving out of poverty into the middle class. It produced more health care, the largest increase in college aid in 50 years, record home ownership, a cleaner environment, three surpluses in a row, a modernized defense force, strong efforts against terror, and an America respected as a world leader for peace, security and prosperity.

Nathaniel Heatwole Admits Guilt; Receives Probation

We reported last October that Nathaniel Heatwole was arrested for an act of civil disobedience which embarrased the TSA and cost the airlines a pretty penny. Though his actions were ill-advised, he did expose the terrible state of airline security, even more than two years after 9/11.

The prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorney Harvey E. Eisenberg, described Heatwole's extensive cooperation with investigators and said: "It is probably helpful in some sense -- although we do not recommend the method -- that someone knows there is a deficiency in the system."

Before he imposed sentence, [U.S. Magistrate Judge Paul W.] Grimm told Heatwole: "It is without question that your intent was positive and good." He said Heatwole's parents, though no doubt anguished by their son's arrest, "likely were proud of the courage you displayed for your convictions."

Grimm told Heatwole, a senior at Guilford College in Greensboro, N.C., majoring in physics and political science, that "the way to effect change is to persuade with the force of reason."

Would anyone like to address the efficacy of "the force of reason" with the current administration?

Decrypting Enigma

Although I think it's giving the man way too much credit, this article does an interesting job of comparing and contrasting the rhetorical techniques or Bush and Hilter.

Successful hypnosis of the electorate satisfies a demagogue's dream -- uncritical acceptance of the man and his policies by a majority. Bush has been good enough at it to acquire an aura of invincibility that predictably has led to an excess of hubris in his conduct.

How do such otherwise intelligent people get suckered into this way of thinking?

The Church of Bush
What liberal infidels will never understand about the president

None of the people at Kitty and Tom Harmon's bungalow are stupid. Instead they are the kind of "well-informed" that comes from overlong exposure to conservative media: conservatives who construct towers of impressive intellectual complexity on toothpick-weak foundations.

What does the conservative media have to do with this? Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's Minister of Propaganda said it well:

"The rank and file are usually much more primitive than we imagine. Propaganda must therefore always be essentially simple and repetitive. In the long run basic results in influencing public opinion will be achieved only by the man who is able to reduce problems to the simplest terms and who has the courage to keep forever repeating them in this simplified form, despite the objections of the intellectuals."

Talking Points
Jon Stewart explains how keeping up with current events isn't so hard after all.
Talking points -- they’re true, because they’re said a lot.

Are we to conclude that W and/or the Bushies are masters of hypnosis? Truly they are in a league of their own, having taken their artform to a new level entirely.

"The verbal confusion technique, which is quite difficult to administer, involves an approximation of double-talk in which instructions of a somewhat contradictory kind are given in rapid succession making it impossible for the attentive subject either to quite comprehend or quite acquiesce to any of them. Finally, he simply gives up all attempts and more or less collapses into a hypnotic state."

What do you mean by "double-talk" and "contradictory instructions"? Oh, I don't know. Things like Powell: Terrorism report was a 'big mistake',or

The Pentagon on Friday released newly discovered payroll records from President Bush's 1972 service in the Alabama National Guard. A Pentagon official said the earlier contention that the records were destroyed was an "inadvertent oversight."

Molly Ivins has this to say on the subject:

Here's the chain of logic. The CIA was wrong, therefore those on the left who say President Bush lied to us are wrong because he wasn't lying, he just believed the CIA. And you people are being rude and hateful and ugly and just mean about President Bush, and we want an apology.

What I'm worried about here is the amnesia factor. Am I the only person around who distinctly remembers an entire 18 months ago? This is what happened: The CIA was wrong, but it wasn't wrong enough for the White House, which kept pushing the spies to be much wronger. The CIA's lack of sufficient wrongness was so troubling to the anxious Iraq hawks that they kept touting their own reliable sources, such as Ahmad Chalabi and his merry crew of fabulists. The neo-cons even set up their very own little intelligence shop in the Pentagon to push us into this folly in Iraq.

Their first week in office, the Bushies claimed the Clintonites had taken the W's off White House computers, glued the drawers together and committed other vandalism -- all of which turned out to be a big fat lie. Why that didn't tip the media off about what kind of people they were dealing with is unclear to me.

When W Met Hegel

The dialectical method of reasoning bases its premises on constant conflicts of opposites, on natural, ongoing tension between two or more commonly acknowledged truths. Good versus evil is the most commonly understood dialectic.

How is it possible to consider a Hegelian argument? If the ideas are wrong, the interpretations of experiences are wrong, and the sources are all wrong, can a conclusion based on all these wrong premises be TRUE? The answer is no. Two false premises do not make a true conclusion even if the argument follows the formula. Three, four, five, or six false premises do not all combine to make a conclusion true. You must have at least one true premise to reach a true conclusion. Just because an argument fits the formula, it does not necessarily make the conclusion TRUE.

Hegel is an imperialist con artist who established the principles of dialectical "no-reason." Hegel's dialectic has allowed globalists to lead simple, capable, freeborn men and women back into the superstitious, racist and unreasonable age of imperial global dominance. Twisted logic is why cons are so successful, and Hegel twisted it in such a way as to be "impenetrable."

Hegel's brilliance rests in his ability to confuse and obfuscate the true motives of the planners, and millions of people world-wide have been trying to make sense of why it doesn't work for over 150 years. But like the AA definition of insanity, the world keeps trying it over and over expecting different results.

How can we break this hypnotic trance?
I don't know, but I think this may be useful source of therapy: Outfoxed – Rupert Murdoch’s War On Journalism

Greenwald and a team of researchers compiled a list of what they saw as Fox's telltale themes and techniques: stories questioning the patriotism of liberals; relentlessly upbeat reports on Iraq; belligerent hosts who scream at noncompliant guests. Greenwald planned for the list's categories eventually to become organizing sections of the film.

And, of course, Jon Stewart

NEWS IN BRIEF

Vegas Casino Boots Singer Linda Ronstadt

Before singing "Desperado" for an encore Saturday night, the 58-year-old rocker called [Michael] Moore a "great American patriot" and "someone who is spreading the truth." She also encouraged everybody to see the documentary about President Bush.

Ronstadt's comments drew loud boos and some of the 4,500 people in attendance stormed out of the theater. People also tore down concert posters and tossed cocktails into the air.

[Aladdin President Bill] Timmins, who is British and was watching the show, decided Ronstadt had to go — for good. Timmins said he didn't allow Ronstadt back in her luxury suite and she was escorted off the property.

---

How goes the war on terror?
Al Qaeda and its allies are winning because we remain mired in old ways of thinking about fighting an enemy

Our biggest problem is that old ways of thinking about war remain dominant. The Pentagon is full of senior officers who still believe that victory is measured primarily in terms of territory and body count. So our responses to the Sept. 11 attacks have been governed by the principle of invading other countries and conducting campaigns that have featured strategic bombing and classical armored maneuvers.

---

Nixon EPA chief criticizes Bush
Former EPA head Russell E. Train says President Bush has weakened the Clean Air Act.

The head of the Environmental Protection Agency for two Republican presidents criticized President Bush's record on Monday, calling it a "polluter protection" policy.

Russell E. Train, who headed the EPA from September 1973 to January 1977 -- part of the Nixon and Ford administrations -- said Bush's record on the environment was so dismal that he would cast his vote for Democrat John Kerry.

"It's almost as if the motto of the administration in power today in Washington is not environmental protection, but polluter protection," Train said. "I find this deeply disturbing."

---

The Arabian Candidate

The Arabian candidate wouldn't openly help terrorists. Instead, he would serve their cause while pretending to be their enemy.

After an attack, he would strike back at the terrorist base, a necessary action to preserve his image of toughness, but botch the follow-up, allowing the terrorist leaders to escape. Once the public's attention shifted, he would systematically squander the military victory: committing too few soldiers, reneging on promises of economic aid. Soon, warlords would once again rule most of the country, the heroin trade would be booming, and terrorist allies would make a comeback.

Last week, Republican officials in Kentucky applauded bumper stickers distributed at G.O.P. offices that read, "Kerry is bin Laden's man/Bush is mine." Administration officials haven't gone that far, but when Tom Ridge offered a specifics-free warning about a terrorist attack timed to "disrupt our democratic process," many people thought he was implying that Al Qaeda wants George Bush to lose. In reality, all infidels probably look alike to the terrorists, but if they do have a preference, nothing in Mr. Bush's record would make them unhappy at the prospect of four more years.

Bush vs Kerry:
"Tax cuts for the very well-off versus health insurance"

With just 104 days left until the presidential election -- perhaps the most important in my lifetime -- it's time to talk about what Kerry plans to do, should he be elected the 44th President.

Health insurance, or lack thereof, has been a looming crisis in America for well over ten years now, but legislators have done little but make things worse by kowtowing to the interests of the powerful pharmaceuticals and insurers. A single-payer system would be a good solution, but given the inherent difficulty of completely overhauling our health care system, John Kerry has proposed a good start by rolling back Bush's tax cuts for the rich. The inimitable Paul Krugman writes:

John Kerry has proposed an ambitious health care plan that would extend coverage to tens of millions of uninsured Americans, while reducing premiums for the insured. To pay for that plan, Kerry wants to rescind recent tax cuts for the roughly 3 percent of the population with incomes above $200,000.

George Bush regards those tax cuts as sacrosanct.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that if these cuts are made permanent, as the administration wants, they will cost $2.8 trillion over the next decade. The Kerry campaign claims that it can pay for its health care plan by rolling back only the cuts for taxpayers with incomes above $200,000. The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, which has become the best source for tax analysis now that the Treasury Department’s Office of Tax Policy has become a propaganda agency, more or less agrees: It estimates the revenue gain from the Kerry tax plan at $631 billion over the next decade.

What are the objections to the Kerry plan? One is that it falls far short of the comprehensive overhaul our health care system really needs. Another is that by devoting the proceeds of a tax-cut rollback to health care, Kerry fails to offer a plan to reduce the budget deficit. But on both counts Bush is equally, if not more, vulnerable. And Kerry’s plan would help far more people than it would hurt.

If we ever get a clear national debate about health care and taxes, I don’t see how Bush will win it.

Electoral Vote Predictor:
Kerry - 322 Bush - 205



A lot can happen in four months, but current polls show Kerry leading Bush, but not by much. Of the 283 closely contested electoral votes, Kerry leads Bush 202-70. Tennessee's 11 electoral votes are up for grabs.

It may come as a surprise to his supporters that Bush's popularity is slipping so quickly. Those of us who've watched the Bush administration closely for the past three and a half years hope that John Kerry wins in a landslide. If you know someone in a swing state, make sure they know what to do in November. And spread the word.

Excerpts from War Is a Racket: The Anti-War Classic by America's Most Decorated General

"I spent 33 years in the Marines, most of my time being a high-class muscle man for big business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for Capitalism."

"War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

"A racket is best described, I believe as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes."

"How many of these war millionaires shoulder a rifle? How many of them dug a trench? How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dugout? How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them were wounded or killed in battle?"

"The general public shoulders the bill. This bill renders a horrible accounting. Newly placed gravestones, Mangled bodies. Shattered minds. Broken hearts and homes. Economic instability. Back-breaking taxation for generations and generations."

"Let the officers and the directors and the high-powered executives of our armament factories and our steel companies and our munitions makers and our ship-builders and the manufacturers of all the other things that provide profit in war time as well as the banners and the speculators, be conscripted."

This book was originally printed in 1935, but is relevant today given the propensity of the chickenhawks in the Bush administration to go to war for big business.

Read Ralph Nader's comments here.

See what modern generals and ambassadors have to say about Bush's fatally flawed foreign policy here.

Lest we forget, the November election is a referendum on Bush's presidency as a whole, and not just his failed foreign policy. Here is a "Photographic History of the Bush Administration Putting Its Mouth Where Its Money Isn’t."

Conservatives Don't Hate...

Dear Dan K, don't forget the terms "expectation of ENTITLEMENT" and "moral compass."

My neoconservative mentor (whose influence I'll sorely miss while he's deployed to Iraq's Messopotamia for the next six months) used all three phrases in one conversation.

"Elitist" "Liberal" "culture of entitlement" and "how can you govern your family without a moral compass?".

Conservatives don't hate children. We just hate YOUR children.
Conservatives don't hate old people. We just hate YOUR parents.
Conservatives don't hate strangers. We just hate YOUR neighbors.

From "Right Wing Populism in America":

One of the staples of repressive and right-wing populist ideology has been producerism, a doctrine that champions the so-called producers in society against both “unproductive” elites and subordinate groups defined as lazy or immoral. 

…But most people in right-wing populist movements don’t get up in the morning and say to themselves, “I’m going to victimize some oppressed groups today to get more power and privilege.”  What they are more likely to say is, “I want to get my fair share.”  They embrace narratives that portray themselves as victims and that depict the people they target as either more powerful than they are, being given an unfair advantage, or being immoral.  And it was equally true in the 1990s, when right-wing populists demanded an end to “racial discrimination against white people” and “no special rights for homosexuals.”  Such claims are a form of scapegoating in defense of social inequality.

Frat Brothers to the End

FEMA Employee Dismissed for Free Speech

Police took Nicole and Jeff Rank away in handcuffs from the event, which was billed as a presidential appearance, not a campaign rally. They were wearing T-shirts that read, “Love America, Hate Bush.”

Spectators who wore pro-Bush T-shirts and Bush-Cheney campaign buttons were allowed to stay.

“We weren’t doing anything wrong,” said Jeff Rank. The couple, who said they had tickets just like everybody else, said they simply stood around the Capitol steps with the rest of the spectators.

“We sang the national anthem,” Rank said.

The Ranks hardly fit the image of rabble-rousers. Jeff Rank, 29, has a master’s degree in oceanography. Nicole Rank, 30, has degrees in biological science and marine biology. They have been married for seven years.

Nicole Rank arrived in Charleston soon after the Memorial Day floods. She was working as deputy environmental liaison officer for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, making sure cities and counties obeyed federal environmental laws as they repaired roads and bridges.

After police arrested the Ranks, fingerprinted them and took their mug shots, FEMA told Nicole Rank she was no longer needed in West Virginia.

Clear Channel Censors Billboard

What is it that Clear Channel finds so objectionable about a simple illustration of a ticking bomb painted red, white and blue with the caption, "Democracy is best taught by example, not war."

Maybe it's because the billboard ad was purchased by a group of prominent Bay Area women, including Alice Waters of Chez Panisse? You know how the GOP feels about taking money from liberals, especially if they're francophiles.

Maybe Clear Channel simply disagrees with the ad and believes that democracy is best taught through warfare?

Maybe the use of bomb in any shape or form now warrants consideration as a terrorist?

Without further explanation, they took me to the onsite police station, where I waited for an "interview" with the Transportation Security Administration. By then I was being accused of writing "bomb" on a piece of paper and waving it around for people in the back of the plane to see. While two policemen guarded the door, the honcho behind the desk informed me that my choice of dialogue was unfortunate, that life was not a stage play and that the tiniest thing can ignite fear in American travelers these days. He wanted a summary of my novel's plot to get the context for why I'd written what I had.

---

In Long Island, New York, the Port Washington schools dropped Julia Alvarez’s In the Time of the Butterflies for its crude drawing of a hand-made bomb. The highly-acclaimed novel about three sisters active in the resistance movement against the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo was taught in the 10th grade until a school board member questioned whether the illustration could “trigger violence.”

Let's send Clear Channel a metaphorical bomb. Find out whether Clear Channel owns any television or radio stations in your area. Make a point of boycotting them, and encourage your friends, family and neighbors to do the same.

Does Al Gore Read Testpattern.org?

Molly Ivins said she felt like one of us.

On the night of June 5 in the packed ballroom at the Tacoma Sheraton, he pulled no punches. George Bush, he declared, “is the single worst president in U.S. history,...

On November 9, 2003, we said exactly the same thing.

Sunday, November 9

George Bush is the worst president in the history of the United States

Helen Thomas, George Akerlof, and many other respected individuals have said exactly that. George W. Bush is the worst president in the history of the United States.

George Bush is the worst president in the history of the United States. If the fascists can make the people believe a lie by constant repetition and exclusion of opposing information, how are we to help people know the truth? We must repeat this line again and again. George Bush is the worst president in the history of the United States.

Spoiler Effect Goes Both Ways

From the Christian Science Monitor:

While recent successes of the Green Party in New Mexico, Oregon, and elsewhere dominate political talk of Nader as a Kerry spoiler, far less attention has been devoted to the potential of Libertarian and independent successes to drain conservative votes from Bush in swing states. In Wisconsin, where Bush narrowly lost in 2000, the Libertarian candidate in the 2002 gubernatorial context took an impressive 10.5 percent, enough to help Democrat Jim Doyle break the four-term Republican hold on the state house. In Nevada, where the president prevailed by just 3 percent in 2000, the Libertarian and two candidates running as independents took a total of 4 percent of the vote in the 2002 gubernatorial race. Bush took New Hampshire by about 1 percent in 2000 - but votes for Libertarian candidates in the 2002 gubernatorial and US Senate races there totaled more. And in Missouri, another battleground state expected to be narrowly decided in November, the Libertarian candidate's 1 percent in the 2002 US Senate race nearly upended Republican Jim Talent's razor-close win over Democrat Jean Carnahan. In Ohio, the US Senate candidate for the Natural Law Party took 4 percent in 2002. Minnesota's unusually strong support for Ross Perot's campaigns in the 1990s and its election of Jesse Ventura as governor in 1998 far surpass Nader's showings there.

Thank God for the (Conservationist) Republicans!
Part 4 in a series

Not long ago, the Republican Party had an environmental conscience. Before the days of the Orwellian-named Clear Skies Act and Healthy Forests Initiative, there was President Theodore Roosevelt, who created the National Park system, and President Richard Nixon, who signed into law the Clean Air & Clean Water Acts as well as the Environmental Protection Agency.

George Bush has been, as were his biological (G.H.W. Bush) and ideological (Reagan) fathers, an enemy to any laws which seek to protect the environment, despite the fact that most Americans want stronger, not weaker environmental protection. There was a time when most Republicans understood that the environment is more than just a place for hunting, mining, drilling and dumping. Teddy Roosevelt once said:

"Conservation is a great moral issue, for it involves the patriotic duty of ensuring the safety and continuance of the nation.

I do not intend that our natural resources shall be exploited by the few against the interests of the many."

Thank god for the conservation-minded Republicans at REP America, "the national grassroots organization of Republicans for Environmental Protection." It's encouraging to know that there are still good Republicans out there, and that conservationist Republicans may be endangered species, but are not yet extinct.

Happy Birthday, Dubya

July 6 is George W. Bush's birthday. Hopefully it will be his last spent in the White House.

You can send George a birthday haiku here. But don't expect him to read it.

Ralph Nader is on the ballot in Florida. Again.

Do unto other candidates as you would have them do unto you

The Living Room Candidate Online Exhibit
Presidential Campaign Commercials 1952 - 2004

The idea that you can merchandise candidates for high office like breakfast cereal is the ultimate indignity to the democratic process." - Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson, 1956

There is also a section showing Internet ads, shadow campaigns, campaign websites, and online resources.

Whatever happened to MoveOn.org's attempt to get its ad aired on the Super Bowl?

Iraq Worse Off After 14 Months of US-led Occupation

According to a 105-page report released by the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, Iraq is worse off now than it was before the US-UK invasion. Among the GAO's findings:

• In 13 of Iraq's 18 provinces, electricity was available fewer hours per day on average last month than before the war. Nearly 20 million of Iraq's 26 million people live in those provinces.
  
  
• Only $13.7 billion of the $58 billion pledged and allocated worldwide to rebuild Iraq has been spent, with another $10 billion about to be spent. The biggest chunk of that money has been used to run Iraq's ministry operations.
  
  
• The country's court system is more clogged than before the war, and judges are frequent targets of assassination attempts.
  
  
• The new Iraqi civil defense, police and overall security units are suffering from mass desertions, are poorly trained and ill-equipped.
  
  
• The number of what the now-disbanded Coalition Provisional Authority called significant insurgent attacks skyrocketed from 411 in February to 1,169 in May.

Do you mean to tell me that Halliburton, Bechtel and other GOP-friendly corporations are making millions of dollars to rebuild Iraq and they're not doing a good job? Typical.

But wait, there is more, according to three reports released by the Coalitional Provisional Authority's inspector general.

• The Coalitional Provisional Authority wasted millions of dollars at a Hilton resort hotel in Kuwait because it didn't have guidelines for who could stay there, lost track of how many employees it had in Iraq and didn't track reconstruction projects funded by international donors to ensure they didn't duplicate U.S. projects.
  
  
• The CPA's records were so disorganized that it couldn't verify its actual number of employees.

The responses to this news was to be expected. While experts on the right and left used the reports to criticize the CPA and the Bush administration, a few made weak excuses for conditions in Iraq.

Danielle Pletka, the vice president of foreign and defense policy studies at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said other issues are more important than the provision of services such as electricity. She noted that Iraqis no longer live in fear of Saddam Hussein.

"It's far better to live in the dark than it is to run the risk that your mother, father, brother, sister, husband or wife would be taken away never to be seen again," Pletka said.

But Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that asked for the GAO report, said the report showed major problems.

"So while we've handed over political sovereignty, we haven't handed over practical capacity - that is, the ability for the Iraqis themselves to provide security, defend their borders, defeat the insurgency, deliver basic services, run a government and set the foundation for economic progress," Biden said in a written statement. "Until Iraqis can do all of that, it will be impossible for us to responsibly disengage from Iraq."