Pentagon seeks $190 billion more for Iraq and Afghanistan

 

Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Wednesday asked Congress to approve nearly $190 billion more in spending for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In prepared testimony to a Senate committee, Gates said the Bush administration sought the money for more training and equipment for the U.S. military, including new armored vehicles that give extra protection to troops against bomb blasts. The funds were for the 2008 fiscal year beginning October 1.

More money was also needed to train and equip Iraqi security forces as well as to improve U.S. facilities in the region and “consolidate our bases in Iraq,” Gates said. Reuters obtained a copy of his remarks in advance of his testimony on Wednesday.

In asking for the money, Gates said he was aware of the controversy surrounding the unpopular war. Since September 2001, Congress has appropriated $602 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

“I know that Iraq and other difficult choices America faces in the war on terror will continue to be a source of friction within the Congress, between the Congress and the president, and in the wider public debate,” Gates said.

But he said U.S. troops had done far more than had been asked of them, and “like all of you, I always keep our troops — their safety and their mission — foremost in my mind every day.”

The administration had already asked Congress to approve

$147 billion for the war effort in the coming fiscal year. Gates said it was seeking another $42 billion more, bringing the total war funding request for fiscal 2008 to $189 billion.

The biggest chunk of the new request would go for force protection, including $11 billion for fielding about 7,000 more of the new Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles, which have V-shaped hulls to disperse the impact of bomb blasts. This amount is being sought in addition to 8,000 MRAPS already funded or requested, Gates said.

Gen. Sean Hannity And Fox News Lay Out Their War Plan For Attacking ‘Ticking Bomb’ Iran

 

The Fox News network is now in full drumbeat mode, trying to promote a war against Iran.

Last night, armchair General Sean Hannity did his part to beat the Iran war drums. On Hannity and Colmes, the bellicose host devoted half the show to previewing “what a U.S. strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities would look like“:

HANNITY: Mission: Iran Showdown. The objective: destroy and disable Iran’s top nuclear facilities, impact its ability to process and enrich uranium, delay its ability to manufacture and deploy nuclear weapons, all while crippling the ruling regime.

The network also announced that this Saturday at 9 pm, it will air a “Fox News investigative piece” entitled Iran: Ticking Bomb. The show will be hosted by Dan Senor, the former spokesman for the Coalition Provisional Authority.

Fox has also been parading one pro-Iran war voice after another.

Earlier in the evening, Hannity hosted former UN ambassador John Bolton to discuss Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s speech at the United Nations. Asked by Hannity “when will America and must America at some time respond militarily,” Bolton responded, “well, I think it’s entirely appropriate.”

Later in the evening, Hannnity brought AEI’s Michael Ledeen and Ret. Col. Chuck Nash on the show to validate the need to bomb Iran. The two analysts are both hawks advocating “regime change” in Iran. Ledeen agreed with Hannity that America should attack “terrorist training camps” in Iran. Nash was open to the military option, but preferred other means.

On Monday, the network displayed a graphic that appears to sum up the fear-mongering feelings about Iran at Fox News: “Is war the only way to stop Mahmoud?”

UPDATE: Last month, Brave New Films put together a video showing how Fox’s rhetoric towards Iran is eerily similar to it’s pre-war rhetoric on Iraq. Watch it HERE.

Instead of sending HUMANS to Mars 11 times, the USA sent them on a Mission to Iraq

   Way back in the day (2004), President Bush promised to send people to Mars. NewScientist reported that the cost of the mission was “expected to cost $40 billion to $80 billion”. That really seemed like a lot of money. A year earlier, in 2003, Bush sent his country’s soldiers into Iraq. It is believed that as of September 27, 2007, the war in Iraq has cost the USA a whopping 454 Billion dollars! (and here’s even a more pessimistic estimate reported at The Boston Globe in 2006)

If the original Mars estimate was accurate, that means that instead of going to Iraq, the USA could have funded somewhere between 5 and 11 independent human missions to Mars! By “independent“, I mean Mars mission programs that start from the ground up, and do not leverage each other’s technology, research, or manufacturing. In reality, it would be much more likely that technology advances would be shared, as well as NRE costs, lowering the mission costs for all involved. That is, many many more than 11 missions could have been sent.

Maybe if the Bush cabal thought there was oil on Mars they’d have told everybody that’s where Saddam was hiding weapons of mass transportation.

Bush to Skip U.N. Talks on Global Warming

 

WASHINGTON, Sept. 23 — Dozens of world leaders are to gather at the United Nations on Monday for a full agenda of talks on how to fight global warming, and President Bush is skipping all the day’s events but the dinner.

 

Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general, is hoping to jump-start negotiations on replacing the Kyoto Protocol.

His focus instead is on his own gathering of leaders in Washington later this week, a meeting with the same stated goal, a reduction in the emissions blamed for climate change, but a fundamentally different idea of how to achieve it.

Mr. Bush’s aides say that the parallel meeting does not compete against the United Nations’ process — hijacking it, as his critics charge. They say that Mr. Bush hopes to persuade the nations that produce 90 percent of the world’s emissions to come to a consensus that would allow each, including the United States, to set its own policies rather than having limits imposed by binding international treaty.

“It’s our philosophy that each nation has the sovereign capacity to decide for itself what its own portfolio of policies should be,” said James L. Connaughton, the president’s chief environmental adviser.

Mr. Bush’s approach sets the stage for a new round of diplomatic confrontation. And it raises the prospect that he could once again put the United States in the position of objecting to any binding international agreement intended to slow or reverse the emissions linked to rising temperatures.

Whether Mr. Bush prevails remains to be seen, but the effort is the last chance in his presidency to shape the debate after years of being excoriated for keeping the United States out of the Kyoto Protocol, the international agreement that limits the emissions of greenhouse gases from most industrialized countries.

“The leadership role of the United States is absolutely essential,” said Timothy E. Wirth, a former senator and an environmental official in the Clinton administration, who is now president of the United Nations Foundation. “Unless the United States decides that it wants to be a major and committed leadership player in this and make very specific commitments, much of the rest of the world is effectively going to hide behind the skirts of the United States and not do anything.”

The growing scientific consensus that humans contribute to rising temperatures and sea levels — reflected in melting glaciers, shrinking Arctic ice and the concerns raised by former Vice President Al Gore — has pushed the issue to the top of a crowded diplomatic agenda at the opening of the United Nations General Assembly this week.

So has the expiration in 2012 of the binding restrictions under the Kyoto Protocol, which was intended to reduce participating countries’ emissions of greenhouse gases below the levels recorded in 1990.

Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general, scheduled Monday’s forum — diplomatically speaking, a “high-level event” — to jump-start talks on how to replace Kyoto, saying an agreement needed to be reached by 2009 to avoid “any vacuum” after its restrictions lapse. Negotiators are to begin those talks in December in Bali, Indonesia.

“Climate change is a challenge to our leadership, skills and vision,” Mr. Ban said at the United Nations Headquarters last week, “and we have to address that challenge boldly.”

About 80 heads of state or government are expected at the meeting, and 154 leaders and officials have signed up to speak. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will represent the United States, though Mr. Bush will attend a closed-door dinner on Monday night. Michael Kozak, a National Security Council official, called the event a “working-dinner format.”

Mr. Bush’s meeting in Washington this week, to be held over two days, involves 15 countries, or major economies as the White House calls them, as well as the United Nations and the European Union. The 15 countries are the major emitters of greenhouse gases.

They include the members of the group of industrialized nations, as well as other large countries with developing economies, like Indonesia, Brazil, China and India. Developing countries did not face emissions limits under Kyoto, which was one of the major reasons the United States ultimately opposed it. China, like the United States, has also gone on record as opposing mandatory caps in the future.

Mr. Bush, long skeptical of reports of human-driven climate change, proposed for the first time this year negotiating a “long-term global goal” for cutting emissions, while persuading countries to agree to invest more in research on alternative energy sources and lower trade tariffs for products that reduce emissions. While opposing a binding cap on emissions, either domestically or globally, he has supported some mandatory measures, including increases in renewable fuels like ethanol and higher fuel-efficiency standards, efforts his administration once resisted.

Briefing reporters before the week’s meetings, senior aides emphasized that each nation should decide for itself how to reduce emissions.

“The president’s central proposition is really this: Tackling global climate change requires all major economies developed and developing to work together,” said Dan Price, a deputy national security adviser. “And it requires each to make a contribution consistent with its national circumstances.”

Critics argue that the administration’s approach is not aggressive enough because it remains essentially voluntary.

“There’s no serious environmental problem that’s ever been solved by voluntary measures,” said David Doniger, climate policy director at the National Resources Defense Council.

He cited the Montreal Protocol, the 1987 agreement that required countries to ban substances blamed for depleting the earth’s ozone layer. That protocol was amended Friday, with American support, to speed up the phasing out of hydrochlorofluorocarbons used in home appliances, refrigeration equipment and air conditioners.

European leaders, including allies like Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, have also supported setting mandatory caps on emissions. At the Group of 8 meeting this summer, Mrs. Merkel pushed for a 50 percent reduction by 2050 but had to settle for compromise language after President Bush made it clear the United States would not agree to it.

Mr. Bush’s aides are sensitive to the accusation that the White House has ignored climate change.

They said that the administration’s embrace of voluntary measures and some mandatory steps, like requiring renewable fuels to be mixed with gasoline, was having effects that would be lasting.

Kevin Fay, executive director of the International Climate Change Partnership, a business group that supports some actions to limit emissions, said there was cautious support for Mr. Bush’s talks, though it was tempered by the administration’s previous record.

“It will take an awful lot,” Mr. Fay said, “to overcome the skepticism that has accumulated over the last six years.”

John M. Broder contributed reporting from Washington, Andrew C. Revkin from New York and James Kanter from Paris.

NASA : “Men on Mars” by 2037

 

In 2057, “We should be celebrating 20 years of man on Mars,” hopes Michael Griffin.The NASA administrator addressed an international astronautics congress in Hyderabad, India on Monday.

A few years back, President Bush announced an ambitious plan to return to the moon by 2020 and use it as a stepping stone for manned missions to Mars and beyond.

“We are looking at the moon and Mars to build a civilisation for tomorrow and after that,” Griffin added in while addressing heads of the world’s space agencies.

NASA’s “Phoenix” spacecraft is scheduled to land on the northern plains of Mars in 2008 and determine whether or not life could be supported on the Red Planet.

The Mars rovers “Opportunity” and “Spirit” have resumed their three year old mission this month after surviving severe dust storms.
Amid a renewal of global interest in space exploration, missions to the moon and Mars are at the top of the agenda for the 2,000 space scientists, astronauts, satellite manufacturers and launchers who gathered in Hyderabad.“As of now, it appears space tourism may be the only way out to make space transportation economical. Though space tourism will generate funds, we have to evolve a mechanism to train the prospective tourists and ensure their safety. We do not, however, regulate space tourism, as there is no such provision in the US Space Act,” Griffin added.

Photo in the News: Bizarre Object Found Circling Star

An object recently detected orbiting a neutron star is among the strangest planet-mass bodies ever found, astronomers say.

Instead of circling around a normal star, the low-mass object—likely the “skeleton” of a smaller star—orbits a rapidly spinning pulsar, or neutron star.

The neutron star spins hundreds of times a second—faster than a kitchen blender.

The odd mass, which was spotted on June 7 by NASA’s Swift and Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) satellites, orbits the bigger star in a little under once an hour.

The body is located about 230,000 miles (370,149 kilometers) away from the star—slightly less than the distance from Earth to the moon.

Neutron stars usually slow with age, but the gas spiraling from the bizarre object has likely maintained, or even increased, the star’s speed.

The star siphons off gas from the orbiting body, as seen in the above artist’s illustration. The gas flow occasionally becomes unstable and causes the bright outbursts that can be seen from Earth.

Astronomers suspect the system was once two stars, which formed billions of years ago. Eventually the larger star went supernova, leaving behind the neutron star, while the smaller star expanded into a red giant.

It’s unknown whether the smaller star will survive much longer, however.

“It’s been taking a beating,” Hans Krimm of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center said in a statement. The neutron star, after all, has been siphoning away its mass for billions of years.

“But that’s part of nature.”

Global Warming Could Cause World Crop Collapse

With the U.N.-affililated Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) already warning of declining grain harvests due to extreme weather, a U.S. study released last week suggests that global warming could cause world agricultural systems to face possible collapse by 2080, with countries in the south being the hardest hit.

India, Pakistan, most of Africa and most of Latin America would be the areas most affected, according to the Washington-based Center for Global Development and the Peterson Institute for International Economics. India, which is fast becoming the world’s most populous nation, could stand to see its agricultural yield to fall 29 to 38 percent.

William Cline, the study’s author and a well-known economist, notes that global yields for major crops have actually slowed down. “There’s already a sign that there is fatigue in the Green Revolution,” he said, noting that the average annual growth in yields during the 1960s and 1970s was 2.6 percent per year – yet by the 1980s and 1990s it had slowed to 1.8 percent.

“The problem is that you need the technical change to keep up with demand for food,” emphasizes Cline. “I estimate that the global demand for food after you take into account higher population, as well as higher incomes, would about triple from now to late in the century.”

While some analysts believe that excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in fact will benefit crops, citing laboratory studies that show a yield increase of 30 percent, Cline counters that farm field studies have demonstrated that benefits from so-called “carbon fertilization” is closer to 15 percent and eventually leveling out.

Conversely, food production in northern countries, especially in industrialized nations, could increase due to the effects of global warming increasing the length of the growing season. Cline cautions however that it will not meet world demand for food.

Already, there is an increasing competition between human and wild/domesticated animals for food supplies – worldwide meat production is increasing and most of it depends on grain – ultimately bringing into question the future sustainability of such a trend.

Using modelled projections on temperature and rainfall, the study’s results could also be further aggravated by unpredictable factors such as crop pests, severe droughts and water shortages.

“Governments and millions of poor people in developing countries have limited ability to cope with such changes,” said Nancy Birdsall, president of the Centre for Global Development. “At least a billion people live in the poorest countries that are likely to be worst hit by this slow-moving crisis. This will be a serious problem for us all.”

5 Deadliest Effects of Global Warming

5. Spread of diseaseAs northern countries warm, disease carrying insects migrate north, bringing plague and disease with them.

4. Warmer waters and more hurricanes
As the temperature of oceans rises, so will the probability of more frequent and stronger hurricanes. We saw in this in 2004 and 2005.

3. Increased probability and intensity of droughts and heat waves
Although some areas of Earth will become wetter due to global warming, other areas will suffer serious droughts and heat waves. Africa will receive the worst of it, with more severe droughts also expected in Europe. Water is already a dangerously rare commodity in Africa, and according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, global warming will exacerbate the conditions and could lead to conflicts and war.

2. Economic consequences
Most of the effects of anthropogenic global warming won’t be good. And these effects spell one thing for the countries of the world: economic consequences. Hurricanes cause billions of dollars in damage, diseases cost money to treat and control and conflicts exacerbate all of these.

1. Polar ice caps melting
The ice caps melting is a four-pronged danger.

First, it will raise sea levels. There are 5,773,000 cubic miles of water in ice caps, glaciers, and permanent snow. According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, if all glaciers melted today the seas would rise about 230 feet. Luckily, that’s not going to happen all in one go! But sea levels will rise.

Second, melting ice caps will throw the global ecosystem out of balance. The ice caps are fresh water, and when they melt they will desalinate the ocean, or in plain English – make it less salty. The desalinization of the gulf current will “screw up” ocean currents, which regulate temperatures. The stream shutdown or irregularity would cool the area around north-east America and Western Europe. Luckily, that will slow some of the other effects of global warming in that area!

Third, temperature rises and changing landscapes in the artic circle will endanger several species of animals. Only the most adaptable will survive.

Fourth, global warming could snowball with the ice caps gone. Ice caps are white, and reflect sunlight, much of which is relected back into space, further cooling Earth. If the ice caps melt, the only reflector is the ocean. Darker colors absorb sunlight, further warming the Earth.

Russia tests powerful ‘dad of all bombs’

 

MOSCOW – The Russian military has successfully tested what it described as the world’s most powerful non-nuclear air-delivered bomb, Russia‘s state television reported Tuesday.

It was the latest show of Russia’s military muscle amid chilly relations with the United States.

Channel One television said the new weapon, nicknamed the “dad of all bombs” is four times more powerful than the U.S. “mother of all bombs.”

“The tests have shown that the new air-delivered ordnance is comparable to a nuclear weapon in its efficiency and capability,” said Col.-Gen. Alexander Rukshin, a deputy chief of the Russian military’s General Staff, said in televised remarks.

Unlike a nuclear weapon, the bomb doesn’t hurt the environment, he added.

The statement reflected the Kremlin’s efforts to restore Russia’s global clout and rebuild the nation’s military might while the ties with Washington have been strained over U.S. criticism of Russia’s backsliding on democracy, Moscow‘s vociferous protests of U.S. missile defense plans, and rifts over global crises.

The U.S. Massive Ordnance Air Blast, nicknamed the Mother Of All Bombs, is a large-yield satellite-guided, air-delivered bomb described as the most powerful non-nuclear weapon in history.

Channel One said that while the Russian bomb contains 7.8 tons of high explosives compared to more than 8 tons of explosives in the U.S. bomb, it’s four times more powerful because it uses a new, highly efficient type of explosives that the report didn’t identify.

While the U.S. bomb is equivalent to 11 tons of TNT, the Russian one is equivalent to 44 tons of regular explosives. The Russian weapon’s blast radius is 990 feet, twice as big as that of the U.S. design, the report said.

Like its U.S. predecessor, first tested in 2003, the Russian bomb is a “thermobaric” weapon that explodes in an intense fireball combined with a devastating blast. It explodes in a terrifying nuclear bomb-like mushroom cloud and wreaks destruction through a massive shock wave created by the air burst and high temperature.

Thermobaric weapons work on the same principle that causes blasts in grain elevators and other dusty places — clouds of fine particles are highly explosive. Such explosions produce shock waves that can be directed and amplified in enclosed spaces such as buildings, caves or tunnels.

Channel One said that the temperature in the epicenter of the Russian bomb’s explosion is twice as high as that of the U.S. bomb.

The report showed the bomb dropped by parachute from a Tu-160 strategic bomber and exploding in a massive fireball. It featured the debris of apartment buildings and armored vehicles at a test range, as well as the scorched ground from a massive blast.

It didn’t give the bomb’s military name or say when it was tested.

Rukshin said the new bomb would allow the military to “protect the nation’s security and confront international terrorism in any situation and any region.”

“We have got a relatively cheap ordnance with a high strike power,” Yuri Balyko, head of the Defense Ministry’s institute in charge of weapons design, told Channel One.

Booming oil prices have allowed Russia to steadily increase military spending in recent years, and the Kremlin has taken a more assertive posture in global affairs.

Last month, President Vladimir Putin said he ordered the resumption of regular patrols of strategic bombers, which were suspended after the 1991 Soviet breakup.

(This version CORRECTS spelling of military official’s surname to Rukshin, not Rukhsin.)

Mars Rovers Survive Dust Storms, Ready for Next Objectives

PASADENA, Calif. – Two months after sky-darkening dust from severe storms nearly killed NASA’s Mars exploration rovers, the solar powered robots are awake and ready to continue their mission.

Opportunity’s planned descent into the giant Victoria Crater was delayed, but now the rover is preparing to drive into the 800-meter-diameter crater (half-mile-diameter) as early as Sept. 11. 

Top Image: Opportunity had this view from the rim of Mars’ Victoria Crater about 130 feet from where controllers intend to start the rover’s descent inside the crater. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Spirit, Opportunity’s rover twin, also survived the global dust storms. The rovers are 43 months into missions originally planned to last three months. On Sept. 5, Spirit climbed onto its long-term destination called Home Plate, a plateau of layered bedrock bearing clues to an explosive mixture of lava and water.

“These rovers are tough. They faced dusty winds, power starvation and other challenges — and survived. Now they are back to doing groundbreaking field work on Mars. These spacecraft are amazing,” said Alan Stern, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Washington.

Victoria Crater contains an exposed layer of bright rocks that may preserve evidence of interaction between the Martian atmosphere and surface from millions of years ago, when the atmosphere might have been different from today’s. Victoria is the biggest crater Opportunity has visited.

Martian dust storms in July blocked so much sunlight that researchers grew concerned the rovers’ daily energy supplies could plunge too low for survival. Engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., put Opportunity onto a very low-energy regimen of no movement, few observations and reduced communication with Earth. Skies above both rovers remain dusty but have been clearing gradually since early August.

Dust from the sky has been falling onto both rovers’ solar panels, impeding their ability to collect energy from the sun. However, beneficial wind gusts removed some of the new buildup from Opportunity almost as soon as it accumulated.

Opportunity drove to the lip of Victoria Crater in late August and examined possible entry routes. This week, Opportunity has been driving about 40 meters (about 130 feet) toward its planned entry point. The route will provide better access to a top priority target inside the crater: a bright band of rocks about 12 meters (about 40 feet) from the rim. “We chose a point that gives us a straight path down, instead of driving cross-slope from our current location,” said Paolo Bellutta, a JPL rover driver plotting the route. “The rock surface on which Opportunity will be driving will provide good traction and control of its path into the crater.”

For its first foray into the crater, Opportunity will drive just far enough to get all six wheels in; it will then back out and assess slippage on the inner slope. “Opportunity might be ready for that first ‘toe dip’ into the crater as early as next week,” said JPL’s John Callas, rover project manager. “In addition to the drives to get to the entry point, we still need to conduct checkouts of two of Opportunity’s instruments before sending the rover into the crater.”

The rover team plans to assess if dust has impaired use of the microscopic imager. If that tool is working, the team will use it to observe whether a scanning mirror for the miniature thermal emission spectrometer (Mini-TES) can function accurately. This mirror is high on the rover’s camera mast. It reflects infrared light from the landscape to the spectrometer at the base of the mast, and it also can be positioned to close the hole in the mast as protection from dust. The last time the spectrometer was used, some aspects of the data suggested the instrument may have been viewing the inside of the mast instead of the Martian landscape.

“If the dust cover or mirror is no longer moving properly, we may have lost the ability to use that instrument on Opportunity,” said Steve Squyres of Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., principal investigator for the rovers’ science instruments. “It would be the first permanent loss of an instrument on either rover. But we’ll see.”

The instrument already has provided extensive valuable information about rocks and soils in the Meridiani region where Opportunity works. “Mini-TES has told us a lot about the rocks and soils at Meridiani, but we’ve learned that the differences among Meridiani rocks are often too subtle for it to distinguish,” Squyres said. “The same instrument on Spirit, at Gusev Crater, has a much more crucial role for us at this point in the mission because there is such diversity at Gusev.” Researchers will rely heavily on a different type of instrument, Opportunity’s alpha particle X-ray spectrometer, for analysis of rocks at the bright-band target layer in the crater.

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the Mars Exploration Rover project for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. For images and information about the rovers, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/rovers .