WASHINGTON

ARMY COMBAT TRANSPORT VEHICLE CALLED FAULTY

WASHINGTON – The Army has deployed a new troop transport vehicle in Iraq with many defects, putting troops there at unexpected risk from rocket-propelled grenades and raising questions about the vehicle’s development and $11 billion cost, according to a detailed critique in a classified Army study. The vehicle is known as the Stryker, and 311 of the lightly armored, wheeled vehicles have been ferrying American soldiers around northern Iraq since October 2003. The Army has been ebullient about the vehicle’s success there, with General Peter Schoomaker, the Army chief of staff, telling the House Armed Services Committee last month that “we’re absolutely enthusiastic about what the Stryker has done.”

But the Army’s December 21 report, drawn from confidential interviews with operators of the vehicle in Iraq in the last quarter of 2004, lists a catalog of complaints about the vehicle, including design flaws, inoperable gear, and maintenance problems that are “getting worse not better.” Although many soldiers in the field say they like the vehicle, the Army document, titled “Initial Impressions Report – Operations in Mosul, Iraq,” makes clear that the vehicle’s military performance has fallen short. The internal criticism of the vehicle appears likely to fuel new controversy over the Pentagon’s decision in 2003 to deploy the Stryker brigade in Iraq just a few months after the end of major combat operations, before the vehicle had been rigorously tested for use across a full spectrum of combat.

– The Washington Post

BUSH REQUIRING CABINET SECRETARIES TO SPEND TIME AT WHITE HOUSE

President Bush is requiring Cabinet members to spend several hours a week at the White House compound, a move top aides say eases coordination with government agencies but one seen by some analysts as fresh evidence of the White House’s tightening grip over administration policy.

Under a directive instituted by Chief of Staff Andrew Card Jr. at the start of Mr. Bush’s second term, Cabinet secretaries spend as many as four hours a week working out of an office suite set up for them at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, adjacent to the White House. There, they meet with presidential policy and communications aides in an effort to better coordinate the administration’s initiatives and messages. “It allows us to work on a much more regular basis with the Cabinet in helping to manage issues,” said Mr. Bush’s domestic policy adviser, Claude Allen. “It also helps us lay the groundwork that is going to be necessary to implement the very aggressive agenda that the president has laid out for his second term.” The new practice applies to every Cabinet agency, although the heads of the Defense, State, Homeland Security, and Justice departments are required to be at the White House so regularly for meetings that they rarely use the suite, said Erin Healy, a White House spokeswoman.

– The Washington Post

SOUTH

FORMER BOY SCOUT OFFICIAL PLEADS GUILT Y TO CHILD PORN CHARGE

A former high-ranking Boy Scouts of America official who ran a task force that worked to protect children from sexual abuse pleaded guilty yesterday to a child pornography charge. Douglas Sovereign Smith Jr., 61, faces five to 20 years in prison. Authorities found 520 images of child pornography, including video clips, on Smith’s home computer, federal prosecutor Bret Helmer said. The images included children engaging in sex acts. Smith entered his plea to a federal charge of possession and distribution of child pornography without making a deal with prosecutors. During a hearing, he answered the judge’s questions with “yes, sir” or “no, sir” but did not speak otherwise.

– Associated Press

LIBERAL GROUPS RUN ADS DEMANDING DeLAY’S RESIGNATION

HOUSTON – Two liberal groups are running TV ads demanding that Tom DeLay resign as House majority leader and urging fellow congressmen to mobilize against the Texas representative, who is under investigation for alleged ethics violations. The ads focus on the allegations regarding Mr. DeLay’s fund-raising practices and travel. Mr. DeLay has not been charged with wrongdoing. “Tom DeLay can’t wash his hands of corruption by involving Congress in one family’s personal tragedy. … But Congress can certainly wash its hands of Tom DeLay,” the narrator says in one ad, referring to Mr. DeLay’s efforts in the Terri Schiavo right-to-die case. Mr. DeLay’s spokesman, Dan Allen, dismissed the ads as liberals’ “latest attack on a well-organized effort to move America forward.”

– Associated Press

WEST

JUDGE TO ALLOW TEACHER TO SUE OVER TEACHING PLANS

A federal judge is likely to allow a California schoolteacher to proceed with a lawsuit alleging that he was illegally banned from giving his students religious-related excerpts from American historical documents, such as the Declaration of Independence, lawyers involved in the case said yesterday. During a morning hearing at San Jose, Judge James Ware said there may be merit in the claim that the Cupertino schools denied the teacher, Stephen Williams, his constitutional right to equal protection by singling out his teaching plans for advance clearance. However, the judge signaled that said he was inclined to grant the school system’s motion to throw out three other legal grounds advanced by attorneys for the teacher. “He was pretty clear because he announced right at the beginning where he was leaning,” the attorney who argued for the schools, Mark Davis, said of the judge.

Judge Ware said he expected to dismiss a count that asserted that the school violated Mr. Williams’s rights to free speech. Counts alleging that the school’s policies were unconstitutionally vague and that the school improperly burdened the teacher’s religious beliefs will also likely be thrown out, the lawyers said. Mr. Williams has described himself as an “orthodox Christian.” The judge said the case could probably be resolved without a trial because few, if any, facts are in dispute. An attorney with the conservative legal organization representing the teacher, the Alliance Defense Fund, said he did not expect the ruling to hurt Mr. Williams’s case. “We’re very happy to go forward on equal protection grounds,” the lawyer, Joshua Carden, said. “We’ll be exploring the reason for the different treatment.”

– Staff Reporter of the Sun