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California fires could burn for days, official says

2008-11-17T05:24:00.000-08:00

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- Firefighters will need at least until midweek to get control of wildfires that have destroyed more than 700 homes in Southern California, a Los Angeles County Fire Department spokesman says.

High winds have fanned blazes from Santa Barbara to Anaheim since Thursday, scorching an estimated 35,000 acres of land. Sustained winds were expected to ease Monday, but locally gusty conditions and humidity in the single-digit range could continue into Tuesday, the National Weather Service predicted.

"If we were being very optimistic, we would be looking at the middle of the week," L.A. County Capt. Dennis Cross said. "If the weather forecast holds and we continue to get the great work being done in the last 24 hours, we're hoping midweek."

The most extensive losses have been in the Oakridge Mobile Home Park in the Sylmar district of Los Angeles, where winds clocked as high as 70 mph drove a wall of flames across the hillsides and destroyed nearly 500 homes. Authorities combed through the scorched wreckage Sunday in an effort to account for the park's residents, only 134 of whom had been accounted for earlier in the day.

No bodies were found during the search, and police believe most of those living in the 608 mobile homes fled the fire, Deputy Police Chief Michael Moore said. But he urged those who escaped to call in and let investigators know they survived.

"If you are a resident of this park, we want to talk to you," he said. "We want to know you are safe and know where you're at."

Crews were still struggling to contain the blazes Sunday afternoon.

"It is a wind-driven fire, and with those gusty winds up to 25 miles an hour, it's giving the firefighters a really difficult time. It's hopscotched throughout the county," said Lynette Round, a spokeswoman for Orange County Fire Authority, said. iReport.com: 'Insurmountable' wall of flames looms

The largest of three fires, the Freeway Complex fire, had set ablaze nearly 24,000 acres in Orange, Los Angeles and Riverside counties. Most of the damage was in Orange County, in the Los Angeles suburbs of Anaheim and Yorba Linda, where more than 100 homes were destroyed.

As of Sunday evening, fire officials said the blaze was about 19 percent contained.

The Sayre fire, which destroyed the mobile home park, was about 40 percent contained Sunday evening after burning about 10,000 acres. Five firefighters and one civilian suffered minor injuries in the blaze, the Los Angeles County Fire Department reported.

And in Santa Barbara County, northwest of Los Angeles, firefighters said they had the Tea fire 80 percent contained after it destroyed more than 100 homes. Among the losses in the 1,900-plus acres it incinerated were a monastery and several mansions in a community where celebrities, including Oprah Winfrey, have homes.

Investigators have deemed the blaze suspicious, having eliminated "all accidental causes," said Doug Lannon, a spokesman for the state fire agency. iReport.com: Share wildfire photos, video

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared states of emergency for the four affected counties after the fire damaged or destroyed hundreds of homes and closed major freeways. The move frees up any state resources needed, and makes the counties eligible for federal assistance grants.

Quake kills at least 3 in Indonesia

2008-11-17T05:23:00.000-08:00

JAKARTA: At least three people were killed and about 30 seriously injured after a powerful earthquake struck near the island of Sulawesi in central Indonesia early Monday.

The epicenter of the 7.5 magnitude quake was located underwater, several kilometers off the coast, prompting the Indonesian authorities to issue a tsunami warning. It was lifted several hours later.

The tsunami alert was the first since the Indonesian authorities officially started its long-awaited early warning system last week.

The authorities said that thousands of houses were damaged and that at least one school had collapsed in rural towns in central Sulawesi. Several aftershocks followed, sending villagers fleeing into the streets, fearing a possible tsunami. At least one hospital was evacuated.

More than 12 hours after the initial shock, residents remained outdoors on high ground, according to the Indonesian state news agency.

The 17,000 Indonesian islands, which straddle the Pacific "Ring of Fire," an area where the merging of three tectonic plates merge causes continuous seismic activity, is regularly struck by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tidal waves. In 2004, a 9.1 magnitude earthquake triggered a tsunami off the coast of Aceh, the northernmost Indonesian province, that killed more than 130,000 people.

Since then, the Indonesian government has improved its ability to respond to disasters, revamping its disaster management agency, mobilizing its military and installing the tsunami early-warning system.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said last week that the system was "crucial" in preventing the kind of devastation seen in Aceh in 2004.

A string of buoys set around the country are connected to sensors below the water's surface that quickly detect the kind of undersea earthquakes that cause tsunamis. Scientists said the system can also predict how high the waves will be and when they will arrive on land.

Work not over: Farrakhan

2008-11-10T03:40:00.001-08:00

Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan told his congregation Sunday he saw a "oneness of spirit" among the multitudes who rallied and celebrated Barack Obama's presidential victory at Grant Park and around the nation -- a victory, he contends, God directed.

But he stressed Obama's supporters have the responsibility to stay engaged and help his presidency be a successful one, particularly given the dire state of the nation's and global economies, continuing foreign policy challenges and a high national debt that he said has put the future of America's children at risk.

While labeling Obama's upcoming responsibility of leading the nation a "horrible burden," Farrakhan said Obama has the vision to be successful, with God's help, and a "tremendous capacity to handle what God has put on his shoulders."

The controversial leader stayed quiet during the presidential campaign after voicing his support for Obama at a Chicago Saviors' Day event in February. Farrakhan said he didn't want any of his comments to hurt Obama's campaign.

But in a sermon at the packed Mosque Maryam on the South Side on Sunday, Farrakhan spoke of the joy he saw after Obama's win, reflected in the tears of Oprah Winfrey, which he said matched the tears of the young and old, black, brown and white, and also included the gang-banger.

Obama's campaign "unleashed a spirit that brought more hope" to the world among its diverse people, a hope that he'd never before witnessed in life, Farrakhan said.

But Farrakhan cautioned that America still remains polarized. While commending Sen. John McCain's concession speech, he said it was insufficient to relieve the strain of loss by some of McCain's supporters, many of whom reside below the Mason-Dixon line, "where racial attitudes and traditions die hard." He called on pollsters to examine how deep the divide is and said pastors, teachers and others should work to change those attitudes.

He also warned Congress and others not to "hamstring" Obama as he works to bring about positive change to the country and the world.

On the foreign-policy front, he said Obama should not be goaded into war with Iran because of unsubstantiated nuclear weapon fears.

"It would be suicide for Iran to entertain the thought of using any nuclear weapons against Israel or any other country," he said.

But if Iran truly is only seeking to use nuclear power as an alternative to oil, America should be able to verify that assertion, he noted.

He said the morning after he saw the Rev. Jesse Jackson crying on television following Obama's win, he called the civil rights veteran to thank him for helping lay the foundation for the victory. And Farrakhan thanked other civil rights leaders Sunday as he also noted the Nation of Islam and organizations like the Urban League and National Association for the Advancement of Colored People still have important roles to play to combat injustice.

Looking ahead, Farrakhan referenced Obama's plans to create millions of new green jobs to help wean America from its dependence on foreign oil. That presents opportunity, Farrakhan said.

"We have to double our effort to get our people ready for whatever opportunity can be provided . . . and not look for special favors," he said.

Secret Order Lets U.S. Raid Al Qaeda in Many Countries

2008-11-10T03:39:00.000-08:00

WASHINGTON — The United States military since 2004 has used broad, secret authority to carry out nearly a dozen previously undisclosed attacks against Al Qaeda and other militants in Syria, Pakistan and elsewhere, according to senior American officials.

These military raids, typically carried out by Special Operations forces, were authorized by a classified order that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld signed in the spring of 2004 with the approval of President Bush, the officials said. The secret order gave the military new authority to attack the Qaeda terrorist network anywhere in the world, and a more sweeping mandate to conduct operations in countries not at war with the United States.

In 2006, for example, a Navy Seal team raided a suspected militants’ compound in the Bajaur region of Pakistan, according to a former top official of the Central Intelligence Agency. Officials watched the entire mission — captured by the video camera of a remotely piloted Predator aircraft — in real time in the C.I.A.’s Counterterrorist Center at the agency’s headquarters in Virginia 7,000 miles away.

Some of the military missions have been conducted in close coordination with the C.I.A., according to senior American officials, who said that in others, like the Special Operations raid in Syria on Oct. 26 of this year, the military commandos acted in support of C.I.A.-directed operations.

But as many as a dozen additional operations have been canceled in the past four years, often to the dismay of military commanders, senior military officials said. They said senior administration officials had decided in these cases that the missions were too risky, were too diplomatically explosive or relied on insufficient evidence.

More than a half-dozen officials, including current and former military and intelligence officials as well as senior Bush administration policy makers, described details of the 2004 military order on the condition of anonymity because of its politically delicate nature. Spokesmen for the White House, the Defense Department and the military declined to comment.

Apart from the 2006 raid into Pakistan, the American officials refused to describe in detail what they said had been nearly a dozen previously undisclosed attacks, except to say they had been carried out in Syria, Pakistan and other countries. They made clear that there had been no raids into Iran using that authority, but they suggested that American forces had carried out reconnaissance missions in Iran using other classified directives.

According to a senior administration official, the new authority was spelled out in a classified document called “Al Qaeda Network Exord,” or execute order, that streamlined the approval process for the military to act outside officially declared war zones. Where in the past the Pentagon needed to get approval for missions on a case-by-case basis, which could take days when there were only hours to act, the new order specified a way for Pentagon planners to get the green light for a mission far more quickly, the official said.

It also allowed senior officials to think through how the United States would respond if a mission went badly. “If that helicopter goes down in Syria en route to a target,” a former senior military official said, “the American response would not have to be worked out on the fly.”

The 2004 order was a step in the evolution of how the American government sought to kill or capture Qaeda terrorists around the world. It was issued after the Bush administration had already granted America’s intelligence agencies sweeping power to secretly detain and interrogate terrorism suspects in overseas prisons and to conduct warrantless eavesdropping on telephone and electronic communications.

Shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, Mr. Bush issued a classified order authorizing the C.I.A. to kill or capture Qaeda militants around the globe. By 2003, American intelligence agencies and the military had developed a much deeper understanding of Al Qaeda’s extensive global network, and Mr. Rumsfeld pressed hard to unleash the military’s vast firepower against militants outside the combat zones of Iraq and Afghanistan.

The 2004 order identifies 15 to 20 countries, including Syria, Pakistan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and several other Persian Gulf states, where Qaeda militants were believed to be operating or to have sought sanctuary, a senior administration official said.

Even with the order, each specific mission requires high-level government approval. Targets in Somalia, for instance, need at least the approval of the defense secretary, the administration official said, while targets in a handful of countries, including Pakistan and Syria, require presidential approval.

The Pentagon has exercised its authority frequently, dispatching commandos to countries including Pakistan and Somalia. Details of a few of these strikes have previously been reported.

For example, shortly after Ethiopian troops crossed into Somalia in late 2006 to dislodge an Islamist regime in Mogadishu, the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations Command quietly sent operatives and AC-130 gunships to an airstrip near the Ethiopian town of Dire Dawa. From there, members of a classified unit called Task Force 88 crossed repeatedly into Somalia to hunt senior members of a Qaeda cell believed to be responsible for the 1998 American Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.

At the time, American officials said Special Operations troops were operating under a classified directive authorizing the military to kill or capture Qaeda operatives if failure to act quickly would mean the United States had lost a “fleeting opportunity” to neutralize the enemy.

Occasionally, the officials said, Special Operations troops would land in Somalia to assess the strikes’ results. On Jan. 7, 2007, an AC-130 struck an isolated fishing village near the Kenyan border, and within hours, American commandos and Ethiopian troops were examining the rubble to determine whether any Qaeda operatives had been killed.

But even with the new authority, proposed Pentagon missions were sometimes scrubbed because of bad intelligence or bureaucratic entanglements, senior administration officials said.

The details of one of those aborted operations, in early 2005, were reported by The New York Times last June. In that case, an operation to send a team of the Navy Seals and the Army Rangers into Pakistan to capture Ayman al-Zawahri, Osama bin Laden’s top deputy, was aborted at the last minute.

Mr. Zawahri was believed by intelligence officials to be attending a meeting in Bajaur, in Pakistan’s tribal areas, and the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations Command hastily put together a plan to capture him. There were strong disagreements inside the Pentagon and the C.I.A. about the quality of the intelligence, however, and some in the military expressed concern that the mission was unnecessarily risky.

Porter J. Goss, the C.I.A. director at the time, urged the military to carry out the mission, and some in the C.I.A. even wanted to execute it without informing Ryan C. Crocker, then the American ambassador to Pakistan. Mr. Rumsfeld ultimately refused to authorize the mission.

Former military and intelligence officials said that Lt. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, who recently completed his tour as head of the Joint Special Operations Command, had pressed for years to win approval for commando missions into Pakistan. But the missions were frequently rejected because officials in Washington determined that the risks to American troops and the alliance with Pakistan were too great.

Capt. John Kirby, a spokesman for General McChrystal, who is now director of the military’s Joint Staff, declined to comment.

The recent raid into Syria was not the first time that Special Operations forces had operated in that country, according to a senior military official and an outside adviser to the Pentagon.

Since the Iraq war began, the official and the outside adviser said, Special Operations forces have several times made cross-border raids aimed at militants and infrastructure aiding the flow of foreign fighters into Iraq.

The raid in late October, however, was much more noticeable than the previous raids, military officials said, which helps explain why it drew a sharp protest from the Syrian government.

Negotiations to hammer out the 2004 order took place over nearly a year and involved wrangling between the Pentagon and the C.I.A. and the State Department about the military’s proper role around the world, several administration officials said.

American officials said there had been debate over whether to include Iran in the 2004 order, but ultimately Iran was set aside, possibly to be dealt with under a separate authorization.

Senior officials of the State Department and the C.I.A. voiced fears that military commandos would encroach on their turf, conducting operations that historically the C.I.A. had carried out, and running missions without an ambassador’s knowledge or approval.

Mr. Rumsfeld had pushed in the years after the Sept. 11 attacks to expand the mission of Special Operations troops to include intelligence gathering and counterterrorism operations in countries where American commandos had not operated before.

Bush administration officials have shown a determination to operate under an expansive definition of self-defense that provides a legal rationale for strikes on militant targets in sovereign nations without those countries’ consent.

Several officials said the negotiations over the 2004 order resulted in closer coordination among the Pentagon, the State Department and the C.I.A., and set a very high standard for the quality of intelligence necessary to gain approval for an attack.

The 2004 order also provided a foundation for the orders that Mr. Bush approved in July allowing the military to conduct raids into the Pakistani tribal areas, including the Sept. 3 operation by Special Operations forces that killed about 20 militants, American officials said.

Administration officials said that Mr. Bush’s approval had paved the way for Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates to sign an order — separate from the 2004 order — that specifically directed the military to plan a series of operations, in cooperation with the C.I.A., on the Qaeda network and other militant groups linked to it in Pakistan.

Unlike the 2004 order, in which Special Operations commanders nominated targets for approval by senior government officials, the order in July was more of a top-down approach, directing the military to work with the C.I.A. to find targets in the tribal areas, administration officials said. They said each target still needed to be approved by the group of Mr. Bush’s top national security and foreign policy advisers, called the Principals Committee.

Obama planning US trials for Guantanamo detainees

2008-11-10T03:38:00.000-08:00

WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Obama's advisers are quietly crafting a proposal to ship dozens, if not hundreds, of imprisoned terrorism suspects to the United States to face criminal trials, a plan that would make good on his promise to close the Guantanamo Bay prison but could require creation of a controversial new system of justice.

During his campaign, Obama described Guantanamo as a "sad chapter in American history" and has said generally that the U.S. legal system is equipped to handle the detainees. But he has offered few details on what he planned to do once the facility is closed.

Under plans being put together in Obama's camp, some detainees would be released and many others would be prosecuted in U.S. criminal courts.

A third group of detainees — the ones whose cases are most entangled in highly classified information — might have to go before a new court designed especially to handle sensitive national security cases, according to advisers and Democrats involved in the talks. Advisers participating directly in the planning spoke on condition of anonymity because the plans aren't final.

The move would be a sharp deviation from the Bush administration, which established military tribunals to prosecute detainees at the Navy base in Cuba and strongly opposes bringing prisoners to the United States. Obama's Republican challenger, John McCain, had also pledged to close Guantanamo. But McCain opposed criminal trials, saying the Bush administration's tribunals should continue on U.S. soil.

The plan being developed by Obama's team has been championed by legal scholars from both political parties. But it is almost certain to face opposition from Republicans who oppose bringing terrorism suspects to the U.S. and from Democrats who oppose creating a new court system with fewer rights for detainees.

Laurence Tribe, a Harvard law professor and Obama legal adviser, said discussions about plans for Guantanamo had been "theoretical" before the election but would quickly become very focused because closing the prison is a top priority. Bringing the detainees to the United States will be controversial, he said, but could be accomplished.

"I think the answer is going to be, they can be as securely guarded on U.S. soil as anywhere else," Tribe said. "We can't put people in a dungeon forever without processing whether they deserve to be there."

The tougher challenge will be allaying fears by Democrats who believe the Bush administration's military commissions were a farce and dislike the idea of giving detainees anything less than the full constitutional rights normally enjoyed by everyone on U.S. soil.

"There would be concern about establishing a completely new system," said Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., a member of the House Judiciary Committee and former federal prosecutor who is aware of the discussions in the Obama camp. "And in the sense that establishing a regimen of detention that includes American citizens and foreign nationals that takes place on U.S. soil and departs from the criminal justice system — trying to establish that would be very difficult."

Obama has said the civilian and military court-martial systems provide "a framework for dealing with the terrorists," and Tribe said the administration would look to those venues before creating a new legal system. But discussions of what a new system would look like have already started.

"It would have to be some sort of hybrid that involves military commissions that actually administer justice rather than just serve as kangaroo courts," Tribe said. "It will have to both be and appear to be fundamentally fair in light of the circumstances. I think people are going to give an Obama administration the benefit of the doubt in that regard."

Though a hybrid court may be unpopular, other advisers and Democrats involved in the Guantanamo Bay discussions say Obama has few other options.

Prosecuting all detainees in federal courts raises a host of problems. Evidence gathered through military interrogation or from intelligence sources might be thrown out. Defendants would have the right to confront witnesses, meaning undercover CIA officers or terrorist turncoats might have to take the stand, jeopardizing their cover and revealing classified intelligence tactics.

In theory, Obama could try to transplant the Bush administration's military commission system from Guantanamo Bay to a U.S. prison. But Tribe said, and other advisers agreed, that was "a nonstarter." With lax evidence rules and intense secrecy, the military commissions have been criticized by human rights groups, defense attorneys and even some military prosecutors who quit the process in protest.

"I don't think we need to completely reinvent the wheel, but we need a better tribunal process that is more transparent," Schiff said.

That means something different would need to be done if detainees couldn't be released or prosecuted in traditional courts. Exactly what that something would look like remains unclear.

According to three advisers participating in the process, Obama is expected to propose a new court system, appointing a committee to decide how such a court would operate. Some detainees likely would be returned to the countries where they were first captured for further detention or rehabilitation. The rest could probably be prosecuted in U.S. criminal courts, one adviser said. All spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing talks, which have been private.

Whatever form it takes, Tribe said he expects Obama to move quickly.

"In reality and symbolically, the idea that we have people in legal black holes is an extremely serious black mark," Tribe said. "It has to be dealt with."

Obama may order quick changes

2008-11-10T03:35:00.000-08:00

CHICAGO — President-elect Barack Obama is poised to move swiftly to reverse actions President Bush took using executive authority, and his transition team is reviewing limits on stem-cell research and the expansion of oil and gas drilling, among other issues, members of the team said Sunday.

While Obama prepared to make his first postelection visit to the White House today, his advisers were compiling a list of policies that could be reversed by the executive powers of the new president. The assessment is under way, aides said, but a full list of policies to be overturned will not be announced by Obama until he confers with members of his Cabinet once they are named.

"There's a lot that the president can do using his executive authority without waiting for congressional action, and I think we'll see the president do that," John Podesta, a top transition leader, said Sunday. "He feels like he has a real mandate for change. We need to get off the course that the Bush administration has set."

Throughout his presidency, Bush has broadly used his executive authority to put his stamp on a range of hot-button policy issues.

In January 2001, on his first full day in office, Bush reinstated the so-called global gag rule, initiated during the Reagan administration and overturned by President Clinton, which prohibited taxpayer dollars from being given to international family-planning groups that perform abortions and provide abortion counseling. After Obama's victory last week, the Center for Reproductive Rights delivered a 23-page memo to his transition team, calling for "bold policy change," including a repeal of the gag rule.

On Sunday, in a sign that Obama's well-oiled campaign machine had shifted gears and is now focused on quickly forming an administration, the faces of his new team appeared across the spectrum of Sunday talk shows — a changing of the guard more than two months before Obama officially assumes power.

Obama's new chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, said the federal government should provide aid to the automobile industry to help the major automakers and their supplies survive the financial crisis. General Motors, the largest American automaker, said last week that it has been losing more than $2 billion a month from its cash cushion recently and could face bankruptcy.

Emanuel told CBS' "Face the Nation" that the industry was "an essential part of the economy," echoing remarks Obama made at his first postelection news conference last week.

Reiterating Obama's points, Emanuel said that the Bush administration should accelerate $25 billion in federal loans provided by a recent law to help automakers and suppliers retool to build more energy-efficient vehicles. He said that the Bush administration has power to do more and that Obama's economic team — once he chooses it — will devise options for helping the industry in ways that have the added benefit of being "part of an energy policy, going forward, where America is less dependent on foreign oil."

Podesta, who for months has been planning for the transition, said in an appearance on "Fox News Sunday" that Obama was considering Democrats, Republicans and independents for key Cabinet positions. While previous presidents have not announced such appointments until December, he suggested that officials tasked with the economy, national-security, health-care and energy portfolios could be named sooner.

Obama does not intend to name any Cabinet officials this week, aides said Sunday, but is poised to announce additional White House senior staff decisions as early as Tuesday as he works to begin building his administration from the Oval Office to other positions inside the West Wing and other parts of the government.

The executive orders of the Bush administration are among the many items that are being reviewed by the new Obama team. The transition operation that was set up in August, even before Obama was formally nominated at the Democratic convention, included a plan to scrutinize the policies that could be reversed through the power of an executive order of the new president.

The federal Bureau of Land Management is poised to open about 360,000 acres of public land in Utah to oil and gas drilling, a plan that the Bush administration has argued would not harm the land. Environmentalists have opposed the idea, a sentiment echoed by Podesta on Sunday.

"I think across the board, on stem-cell research, on a number of areas, you see the Bush administration even today moving aggressively to do things that I think are probably not in the interest of the country," Podesta said. "They want to have oil and gas drilling in some of the most sensitive, fragile lands in Utah that they're going to try to do right as they are walking out the door. I think that's a mistake."

Emanuel said Congress needed to extend unemployment-insurance benefits and offer states a lift in paying for health-care bills. When the new Democratic Congress convenes in January, he said, members should tackle a wider economic-stimulus package, including the middle-class tax cut that was a centerpiece of Obama's presidential campaign.