FLDS member protests Texas raid in letter to President Bush - Salt Lake Tribune

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Posted: 12:38 PM- salt lake city - A member of an embattled polygamous Christian church likened a foray by Lone-Star State government to an enactment of terrorism in a missive to President Bush
Willie Jessop said he delivered the 10-page missive on Saturday to staff members outside Bush's Lone-Star State ranch, where girl Jenna Shrub got married. Jessop said he had a liqueur conversation with presidential staff members who promised to acquire back to him. The missive protestations an "invasion" by Lone-Star State government and a "mock" detention hearing for 464 children and immature grownups taken from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Of Nazareth Jesus of Latter Day Saints. Last month, Lone-Star State government raided the group's El Dorado retreat over allegations of sexual maltreatment in the polygamous community. Jessop's missive includes an invitation for the president, first lady Laura Shrub and members of the president's staff to see the Longing For Sion ranch. Jessop have also asked Lone-Star State Gov. Crick Ralph Barton Perry and Beehive State Gov. Jon Hunter Jr. for help. The FLDS is based in Beehive State and Arizona.Advertisement

Bush again calls for drilling in Alaska wildlife preserve

WASHINGTON — With gasolene terms reaching yet another new high today, President Shrub reiterated his phone call to open up the Arctic Zone National Wildlife Safety to boring and defended his policy of adding petroleum to the nation's exigency oil stockpile.

But Shrub declined to leap into the political affray over whether the federal authorities should give automobilists a taxation vacation on federal excise taxation tax on gasoline.

"One of the chief grounds for high gas terms is that planetary oil production is not keeping up with growing demand," Shrub said during a Rose Garden news conference.

"If United States Congress is truly interested in solving the problem, they can direct the right signaling by saying we're going to research for oil and gas in the U.S. territories, starting with ANWR," Shrub said. "And we can do so in an environmentally friendly way."

Lawmakers have got blocked geographic expedition in the refuge, Shrub argued, despite Energy Department estimations the country could give a million barrels of oil a twenty-four hours — adequate to make 27 million gals of gasolene and Diesel fuel.

"That would be about a 20 percentage addition of ... petroleum oil production over U.S. levels, and it would likely intend less gas prices," Shrub said. "And yet such as attempts to research in ANWR have got been consistently blocked."

Bush argued that gap more domestic countries to boring "sends a signaling to the human race that ... we're going to seek to go less reliant on upon foreign oil."

At the same time, Shrub defended his administration's scheme of continuing to shoot oil into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, despite record oil prices, arguing the amount of oil going into the reserve is too little to impact oil prices.

"We're buying, at the moment, about 67,000 to 68,000 barrels of oil per day" to fill up the reserve, Shrub said. "World demand is 85 million barrels a day. So the purchases for the (reserve) business relationship for 0.1 percentage of planetary demand, and I don't believe that's going to impact price."

Bush refused to state whether he would back up a proposal backed by Republican presidential campaigner Sen. Toilet McCain of Grand Canyon State and Democratic campaigner Sen. Edmund Hillary Rodham Bill Clinton of New House Of York to loosen up the 18.4-cent per gallon federal taxation on gasoline.

"What I'm not going to make is leap right in the center of a presidential campaign," Shrub said. "We'll allow the campaigners reason out their ideas."

But Shrub said he would see the suggestion.

On the economy, Shrub declined to name the current lag a recession, even though many economic experts state the state is already in one.

"You know, the words on how to define the economic system don't reflect the anxiousness the American people feel," Shrub said. "The norm individual doesn't really care what we name it. The norm individual desires to cognize whether or not we cognize that they're paying higher gasolene terms and they're worried about staying in their homes."

Asked if he thought authorities figs owed out Wednesday on the nation's gross domestic merchandise for the time period from January through March would demo the state was indeed in a recession, Shrub said, "I believe they'll demo we're in a very slow economy."

On other subjects, Bush:

• Said he believes the NATO-led missionary post in Islamic State Of Afghanistan is making paces in tamping down "a very resilient enemy." Shrub said that he believes the NATO-led missionary post in the state is succeeding. "We're making progress, but it's also a tough battle,"Bush said. "

• Declined to openly criticise former President Howard Carter for his meetings last hebdomad with representatives of Hamas, the Palestinian grouping the State Department sees a terrorist organization. "Anybody can speak to whomever they want, but I desire people to understand the job is Hamas," said Bush. "Foreign policy and peace is undermined by Hamas. That's the ground I'm not talking with them," he said.

• Spoke about intelligence that was released alleging that Syrian Arab Republic and North Korean Peninsula were cooperating on a cloak-and-dagger atomic reactor. He said the intelligence was made public to step up coerce level on North Korean Peninsula to halt its ain atomic programme and to pressure Syrian Arab Republic to stop destabilizing the Center East by aiding insurrectionists in Republic Of Iraq and Hamas in Lebanon. He said it was also meant to direct a message to Iran.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

david.ivanovich@chron.com

Bush unlikely to boycott Olympics opening, despite growing protests of China rights record

: For President Saint George W. Bush, it looks a little gesture would do a large point: Staying away from the gap ceremonials of the Peking Summer Olympic Games would direct a clear signaling of U.S. choler over China's crackdown against anti-Beijing Tibetan protesters.

British Prime Curate Gordon Brown and German Chancellor Angela Merkel will not go to the gap ceremonies. Toilet McCain, the Republican senator Shrub have endorsed as his successor, states he would travel only if People'S Republic Of China improved its rights record. And the two Democratic presidential candidates, Barack Obama and Edmund Hillary Rodham Clinton, are urging Shrub to lose the ceremonies.

Yet Shrub is giving no indicant that he will jump the event. Too much may be at interest for him to make so.

Any Olympic protestation by the United States would deeply pique a proud Peking leading that hopes the games will demo China's outgrowth as a new human race power. It also would run the hazard of hindering a host of international attempts the Shrub disposal necessitates China's aid to solve, including attempts to face Myanmar's military cabal and North Korean and apparently Persian atomic programs. People'S Republic Of China throws a veto on the U.N. Security Council, and the U.S. and Chinese economies, as well as many of the countries' political attempts around the world, are increasingly intertwined.

Pressed repeatedly by newsmen this week, the White Person House said Shrub is attending the Olympic Games but would not denote his specific agenda so far ahead of the games, which get Aug. 8. The disposal did not govern out the possibility of Shrub lacking the gap ceremonies. Today in Americas

On Friday, Shrub repeated his place that the Olympic Games are for sports, not politics. He told rudiment News that his determination to go to the games is not affected by supplications from militants who desire human race leadership to jump the gap ceremonial to protest force in Tibet. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice states the United States will "press the Chinese on human rights issues before, during and after these approaching Olympic Games."

Bush keeps his presence at the games will let him to raise human rights jobs directly with Chinese President Hu Jintao while watching the best jocks in the human race compete.

That place could change if Peking were to present a crackdown reminiscent of the 1 against pro-democracy protesters at Tiananmen Square in 1989.

But Michael Green, Bush's former Asia adviser, states the president probably will go to the gap ceremonies.

"The job with a boycott is you stop up taking 1.3 billion Chinese — World Health Organization have got different positions of democracy, of the U.S., of human rights, but all privation the Olympic Games to be successful — and you turn them all against the U.S.," said Green, an analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies believe tank. "It's a petroleum and blunt instrument to just boycott."

Bush, he added, is "stubborn when he believes he's got the right decision."

Green said he believes the disposal is using determinations by human race leadership to jump the gap ceremonials to force Peking to work with the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan Negro spiritual leader who Peking impeaches of pushing for independency from China.

On Friday, Rice again urged People'S Republic Of China to speak with the Dalai Lama. "China would really make itself a great service, and not to advert the people of Tibet, if it were willing to have got a more than unfastened mental attitude toward responsible Tibetan cultural and spiritual authorities," she said.

Bush have been vocal in his support of the Dalai Lama and presented the monastic with a Congressional Gold Decoration last twelvemonth over strong Chinese protests.

But U.S. lawmakers are urging Shrub to take a base on Thibet at the Olympics.

Clinton and two other Democratic senators sent Shrub a missive this hebdomad saying the crackdown in Thibet "should be unacceptable to anyone who believes in basic human freedoms."

Bush's attending of the gap ceremonies, they wrote, "would direct the inexplicit message to the human race that the United State condones the intolerance that have been demonstrated by these actions of the Chinese government."

China is working difficult to incorporate force in Thibet ahead of the games. It have sent one thousands of police force and regular army military personnel to the part to keep an high-strung peace, Hunt down protestation leadership and cordon off Buddhist monasteries whose monastics led protestations that began peacefully on March 10 before turning violent four years later.

Victor Cha, manager of Asiatic surveys at Georgetown University and another former White Person House adviser, said Shrub is a "sports purist" who sees "the games as athletics only, not politics."

"He will travel and will not name for a boycott," Cha said in an e-mail.

US lawmakers criticize China for Tibet crackdown, urge negotiations with Dalai Lama

: U.S. lawmakers passed a declaration Wednesday criticizing People'S Republic Of China for its crackdown on dissenters in Thibet and urging Peking to throw direct negotiation with the Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama on the hereafter of the region.

Meanwhile, the White Person House left unfastened the possibility that President Saint George W. Shrub might jump the gap ceremonials of the summertime Olympic Games in Beijing. Some human race leadership have got suggested that such as a move would function as a powerful signaling of displeasure over China's crackdown in Tibet; the British People Broadcast Media Corp. reported Wednesday that British Prime Curate Gordon Brown will not go to the gap ceremony.

Bush have accepted an invitation from his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, to go to games that People'S Republic Of China trusts to utilize as a show window of its rise economical and political power. Asked Wednesday whether Shrub would travel to the gap part of the Olympics, White Person House fourth estate secretary Danu Perino demurred, citing the fluid nature of a foreign trip.

"It is extremely premature for me to state what the president's agenda is going to be" in August, she said.

Bush have made clear that he will press the Chinese on human rights and other issues "publicly and privately, before, during and after the Olympics," Perino said. Today in Americas

Bush said Wednesday that "it would stand up the Chinese authorities in good position if they would get a duologue with the representatives of the Dalai Lama," Tibet's exiled Buddhist leader.

The House of Representatives declaration also demanded that People'S Republic Of People'S Republic Of China release Tibetans imprisoned for participating in peaceful presentations and let international monitoring devices and journalists unchained entree to the Thibet Autonomous Region and other Tibetan countries of China. It passed 413 to 1.

A similar declaration have been introduced in the Senate. Both say the gap of additional Chinese diplomatic missionary posts in the United States should be contingent on Peking allowing the United States to set up an business office in Lhasa, Tibet's capital.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told lawmakers Wednesday that the United States is looking at the possibility of a U.S. consulate in Tibet. She said the United States have called on People'S Republic Of People'S Republic Of China to let more than U.S. diplomatists into the region, saying entree granted by China so far was not good enough.

"The United States," she added, "has been very active in making the lawsuit to the Chinese that they are going to be better off to cover with moderate military units on Thibet like the Dalai Lama; that they should open up duologue with him."

Protesters around the human race are trying to associate China's mediocre human rights record to the theatrical production of the Olympics. Demonstrations about Thibet have got been held along the way of the Olympic torch in City Of Light and London. Officials in San Francisco, California, urged demonstrators to stay peaceful during the Wednesday's planned torch parade there.

Democratic presidential campaigner Sen. Edmund Hillary Rodham Bill Clinton and others have got urged Shrub to see staying away from the gap ceremonies. On Tuesday, Perino indicated that a boycott of the gap ceremonials was improbable.

China's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu condemned the House resolution, saying it "chooses to stay soundless on the force involved in beating, shattering up properties, robbery and incendiarism in Lassa and the Dalai coterie who premeditated and organized the criminal enactment of violence."

The Dalai Lama, who fled Thibet after a failing rebellion in 1959 but stays the spiritual and cultural leader of many Tibetans, have said that he desires greater liberty for the distant mountain part but is not seeking independence.

___

AP authors Jim Abrams, Ben Lumberman and Jennifer Loven contributed to this report.

Bush searches for new wartime commander after admiral suddenly resigns

: The disconnected going of the four-star general in complaint of the warfares in Republic Of Iraq and Islamic State Of Afghanistan have put off a scuffle within the Shrub disposal to fill up a occupation that necessitates huge armed combat experience, deft diplomatic skills, and the ability to manage the bristly inquiry of what to make about Iran.

While President Saint George W. Shrub may pick a surprise campaigner to replace Adm. William Fallon, who resigned after just one twelvemonth as leader of U.S. Central Command, he's expected to take a senior Army full general who can see the large image and doesn't necessitate a batch of clip to go familiar with the political kinetics of the volatile Center East.

"He's looking for a cat who'll be a speedy study," said retired Army Maj. Gen. Henry Martin Robert Scales, former commanding officer of the Army War College. "He's also looking for person who can take a strategical position of extremist Islamism rather than just focusing on the tactical fight. And he necessitates to be a individual who's trusted in the region."

Each of the military subdivisions will suggest campaigners to win Fallon at Central Command. Defense Secretary Henry Martin Robert Bill Gates will do his recommendation to the president.

Due to his star power, Army Gen. Saint David Petraeus, the top U.S. commanding officer in Republic Of Republic Of Iraq since February 2007, have emerged as a prima possibility although he may be more than valuable in Iraq. Today in Americas

Petraeus is highly regarded inside the White Person House and on Washington Hill for overseeing the decrease in force in Bagdad and other key countries in Iraq. For those reasons, Petraeus should remain right where he is, said retired Army Maj. Gen. Saint David Grange.

"I wouldn't travel Petraeus," said Grange, a former commanding officer of the 1st Infantry Division. "I would maintain continuity of command. It's too of import to travel person out of there quickly."

Gates said recently that Shrub had made it clear to him that he wanted to maintain Petraeus in Republic Of Iraq until late this year. Petraeus is likely to acquire a 2nd four-star assignment after his circuit in Republic Of Iraq concludes.

Other possibilities include Army Lt. Gens. St Martin Dempsey, Beam Odierno, Francis Edgar Stanley McChrystal and Simon Peter Chiarelli. All have got significant experience in Iraq.

Headquartered at MacDill Air Military Unit Base in Tampa, Florida, Central Command is arguably the military's most of import warfighting organization. Its commanding officer is responsible for trading operations in a swath of the Earth that ranges from Central Asia to the Horn of Africa, a part where spiritual extremism have fueled al-Qaida and other terrorist groups.

The occupation of Central Command head is as much about statecraft as it is about using heavily armed forces. Fallon, like his predecessors, spent much of his clip traveling throughout the part in an attempt to construct human relationships that would bring forth support for U.S. involvements and cut down al-Qaida's influence.

"You really necessitate person who can cover with our friends in that region," said retired Navy Adm. British Shilling Natter, former commanding officer of the U.S. Atlantic Ocean Fleet. "This occupation have more than to make with apprehension (leaders in) the part and being there for a piece so they can acquire to cognize you."

The station is a high-profile 1 and the resident have to be politically savvy. Fallon discontinue after an Esquire magazine article described him as being at likelihood with a White Person House eager to travel to warfare with Iran. Titled "The Man Between War and Peace," the article cast of characters Fallon as a alone voice against taking military action to halt the Persian atomic program.

The Central Command head ostensibly is senior to Petraeus and Army Gen. Dan McNeill, who takes U.S. and alliance military units in Afghanistan. The arrangement, however, led to clash on Fallon's watch, especially over the timing and gait of drawing down U.S. military personnel from Iraq.

Central Command pulls off 10s of one thousands of soldiers, Marines, airmen and sailors, yet those military personnel are recruited, trained and equipt by the individual military branches. The new commanding officer must have got a solid apprehension of the challenges each of the subdivisions confronts in producing a steady flowing of forces.

"The occupation necessitates an military officer with cognition of the area, who hopefully is respected in the area, and who is also respected by the other services," said Microphone Delong, a retired Devil Dog Corps full general who was deputy sheriff commanding officer at Central Command from 2000 to 2003. "And he's got to hit the land running."

Dempsey, Fallon's deputy, have been named acting commanding officer until a lasting replacement is nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. Jack Dempsey is still thought to be a rival for the Central Command station even though the Defense Department announced in early February he had been selected to head Army military units in Europe. The new duty assignment come ups with a 4th star. 1 |

Bush launches bid to revive Mideast talks

WASHINGTON:
US president Saint George Tungsten Shrub was on Monday to establish the greatest pushing for Middle
East peace of his two footing in business office before a major conference which have raised
hopes and recriminations in the Arab
world. Bush, who have said he is
“personally committed” to resolving the decades-old In-Between East
conflict, was to ran into separately during the twenty-four hours with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and
Palestinian president Mahmud
Abbas. The White Person House talks
come on the Eve of a major peace conference to be held in Annapolis, Maryland
gathering more than 50 arrangements and countries, including some 16 Arab
nations. In a major coup d'etat for US
diplomacy, both Syrian Arab Republic and Saudi Arabian Arabian Arabian Peninsula are attending the talks, which will mark
the first clip that Saudi functionaries have got sat with Israelis to speak about peace
in the Center East. A
Palestinian negotiant said a written document scene out the contour lines of the future
negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians would be made public future on
Monday after hebdomads of behind-the-scenes
haggling. “A document
will be made public today (Monday),” Palestinian negotiant Yasser Abed
Rabbo said, on the Eve of Tuesday’s conference. “This document,
which we are owed to reason today with the approval of the Americans will
determine the footing of mention for dialogues - such as as the roadmap and
international declarations - and the modes for dialogues after
Annapolis,” he
said. Major differences remain
between the Israelis and Palestinians over core issues like the position of
Jerusalem, which both sides claim as their capital, the boundary lines of a future
Palestinian state and the fate of Palestinian refugees. But the conference is
already drawing
criticism. Persian president
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad chided Saudi Arabian Arabian Peninsula for taking portion in the peace meeting,
after Arabian engagement in the event left Teheran isolated, Persian media
reported on Monday. Ahmadinejad bluntly told Saudi
king Abdullah over a telephonic conversation that he wished the land was not
attending the conference.