THE CALAMITY HOWLER #174 Resent-Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2007 08:17:38 -0500 (CDT) THE CALAMITY HOWLER August 30, 2007 Issue #174 Sometimes an intended epithet can be turned to good advantage in the sole surviving issue of the Decatur, Texas Times one finds the way Populists not only accepted the label `calamity howler but insisted that they had ample reason to howl and would continue to howl until their objectives had been attained. --- THE POPULIST MIND, edited by Norman Pollack EDITOR\PUBLISHER: A.V Krebs E-MAIL: avkrebs@comcast.net TO RECEIVE: Send name and address to avkrebs@comcast.net OVERVIEW: * BUSH WANTS $50 BILLION MORE FOR HIS IRAQ WAR By Thomas E. Ricks * IRAQ AID HELPS TO KILL U.S. TROOPS ??? By Hannah Allam * GI'S MORALE DIPS AS IRAQ WAR DRAGS ON By Tina Susman * WHY ALBERTO GONZALES' RESIGNATION WON'T RESTORE JUSTICE By Aziz Huq * MINE SAFETY LEADER LOSES SOME RESPECT FOR ACTIONS IN UTAH By Cara Buckley and Dan Frosch * MINE OWNER HAS HISTORY OF RUN-INS ON WORK ISSUES By Susan Saulny and Carolyn Marshall BUSH WANTS $50 BILLION MORE FOR HIS IRAQ WAR By Thomas E. Ricks Washington Post August 29, 2007 President Bush plans to ask Congress next month for up to $50 billion in additional funding for the war in Iraq, a White House official said yesterday, a move that appears to reflect increasing administration confidence that it can fend off congressional calls for a rapid drawdown of U.S. forces. The request --- which would come on top of about $460 billion in the fiscal 2008 defense budget and $147 billion in a pending supplemental bill to fund the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq --- is expected to be announced after congressional hearings scheduled for mid-September featuring the two top U.S. officials in Iraq. Army Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker will assess the state of the war and the effect of the new strategy the U.S. military has pursued this year. The request is being prepared now in the belief that Congress will be unlikely to balk so soon after hearing the two officials argue that there are promising developments in Iraq but that they need more time to solidify the progress they have made, a congressional aide said. Most of the additional funding in a revised supplemental bill would pay for the current counteroffensive in Iraq, which has expanded the U.S. force there by about 28,000 troops, to about 160,000. The cost of the buildup was not included in the proposed 2008 budget because Pentagon officials said they did not know how long the troop increase would last. The decision to seek about $50 billion more appears to reflect the view in the administration that the counteroffensive will last into the spring of 2008 and will not be shortened by Congress. Some consideration is being given to trimming the new request by a few billion dollars, the White House official said. But, he added, "this is pretty close to a done deal." Almost all the spending is relatively noncontroversial, he added, with the vast majority of it necessary just to keep the U.S. military operating in Iraq. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to talk to reporters, said that the supplemental requests are likely to be "rolled together" and considered as one package. The revised supplemental would total about $200 billion, indicating that the cost of the war in Iraq now exceeds $3 billion a week. The bill also covers the far smaller costs of the war in Afghanistan. The Pentagon said recently that the cost of the Iraq war has surpassed $330 billion, while the war in Afghanistan has cost $78 billion. "We have said previously that after General Petraeus reports, we will be evaluating what adjustments may need to be made to our pending [fiscal 2008] supplemental request, which was sent up in February with the rest of the budget," White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said last night. "I'm going to decline to speculate on this, as General Petraeus has not testified. Nor have any decisions been made at this stage about whether, when or what specific changes could be made." A House Appropriations Committee aide said that an additional White House spending request has been anticipated but that it was expected to be far smaller, perhaps about $30 billion. "We haven't seen the details, but we'll give it the scrutiny it deserves," said Jim Manley, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (Dem.-Nevada). "It's long past time for giving blank checks to the administration." Despite widespread media anticipation of next month's Iraq hearings, Pentagon insiders say they do not expect them to result in any major changes in military strategy. The sessions are expected to occur the week of September 10, with Petraeus and Crocker appearing before a total of four committees in the House and Senate. "I don't see any surprises" coming out of the hearings, said an officer on the staff of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He said he expects Petraeus and Crocker to focus on tactical security gains in and around Baghdad in recent months and on shifts in tribal allegiances in favor of U.S. forces, and to argue that those improvements may open a window for greater political reconciliation in Iraq over the next six or seven months. In any event, this officer said, he expects the current counteroffensive to be maintained into next April. "The surge was designed to last for a year," he said. "I don't think they'll change that." In a speech yesterday to the convention of the American Legion in Reno, Nevada, Bush gave an optimistic assessment of recent events in the war, now in its fifth year. "There are unmistakable signs that our strategy is achieving the objectives we set out," he said. "The momentum is now on our side." Staff writers Jonathan Weisman and Karen DeYoung contributed to this report. IRAQ AID HELPS TO KILL U.S. TROOPS ??? By Hannah Allam Mcclatchy Cairo Bureau August 27, 2007 Iraq's deadly insurgent groups have financed their war against U.S. troops in part with hundreds of thousands of dollars in U.S. rebuilding funds that they've extorted from Iraqi contractors in Anbar province. The payments, in return for the insurgents' allowing supplies to move and construction work to begin, have taken place since the earliest projects in 2003, Iraqi contractors, politicians and interpreters involved in reconstruction efforts said. A fresh round of rebuilding spurred by the U.S. military's recent alliance with some Anbar tribes -- 200 new projects are scheduled -- provides another opportunity for militant groups such as al-Qaida in Iraq to siphon off more U.S. money, contractors and politicians warn. "Now we're back to the same old story in Anbar. The Americans are handing out contracts and jobs to terrorists, bandits and gangsters," said Sheik Ali Hatem Ali Suleiman, deputy leader of the Dulaim, the largest and most powerful tribe in Anbar. He was involved in several U.S. rebuilding contracts in the early days of the war but is now a harsh critic of the U.S. presence. The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad declined to provide anyone to discuss the allegations. An embassy spokesman, Noah Miller, said in an e-mailed statement that "in terms of contracting practices, we have checks and balances in our contract awarding system to prevent any irregularities from occurring. Each contracted company is responsible for providing security for the project." Providing that security is the source of the extortion, Iraqi contractors say. A U.S. company with a reconstruction contract hires an Iraqi subcontractor to haul supplies along insurgent-ridden roads. The Iraqi contractor sets his price at up to four times the going rate because he'll be forced to give 50% or more to gun-toting insurgents who demand cash payments in exchange for the supply convoys' safe passage. One Iraqi official said the arrangement makes sense for insurgents. By granting safe passage to a truck loaded with $10,000 in goods, they receive a "protection fee" that can buy more weapons and vehicles. Sometimes the insurgents take the goods, too. "The violence in Iraq has developed a political economy of its own that sustains it and keeps some of these terrorist groups afloat," said Iraq's deputy prime minister, Barham Saleh, who recently asked the U.S.-led coalition to match the Iraqi government's pledge of $230 million for Anbar projects. Despite several large U.S. military offensives intended to rout insurgents, militants --- or, in some cases, tribes with insurgent connections --- still control the supply routes of the province, making reconstruction all but impossible without their protection. One senior Iraqi politician with personal knowledge of the contracting system said the insurgents also use their cuts to pay border police in Syria "to look the other way" as they smuggle weapons and foot soldiers into Iraq. "Every contractor in Anbar who works for the U.S. military and survives for more than a month is paying the insurgency," the politician said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. "The contracts are inflated, all of them. The insurgents get half." Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said he was aware of the "insurgent tax" that U.S.-allied contractors are forced to pay in Anbar, though he said it wasn't clear how much money was going to militant groups and how much to opportunistic tribesmen operating on their own. "It's part of a taxation they put on trucks through all these territories, but it's very difficult to establish if it's going directly to insurgents," Zebari said. As of July, the U.S. government had completed 3,300 projects in Anbar with a total value of $363 million, the U.S. Embassy said. An additional 250 projects with a total price tag of $353 million are under way. Saleh, the deputy prime minister, said such huge amounts of money in such a volatile place mean corruption is inevitable. But despite qualms, he believes the effort is worth it. "I'm a realist," he said. "When I look at my options, will I have a 100% clean process? No. But will this force me to hold back? Absolutely not." Suleiman, the Dulaimi sheik and onetime U.S. ally, speaks more bitterly. Sitting in his Baghdad office, he displayed a stack of photos and status updates for projects that included two schools, a clinic and a water purification center. The photos showed crumbling, half-finished structures overgrown with weeds and surrounded by patchworks of electrical wires. He blamed such failures on "the terrorists" who work under the noses of U.S. and Iraqi officials. "Those responsible for these projects had to give money to al-Qaida. Frankly, gunmen control contracting in Anbar," he said. None of the Iraqi contractors agreed to speak on the record --- they risk losing future U.S. contracts and face retaliation from insurgent groups. Some of the Iraqis interviewed remain in Fallujah or Ramadi on the U.S. payroll; others had fled to Arab countries and Europe after they deemed the business too risky. "I put it right in my contracts as a line item for 'logistics and security,' " said one Iraqi contractor who is still working for a major American company with several long-term projects in Anbar. "The Americans think you're hiring a security company, but how you execute it is something else entirely. This is how it's been working since Day One." One Iraqi contractor who is working on a U.S.-funded rebuilding project in the provincial capital of Ramadi said he faced two choices when he wanted to bring in a crane, heavy machinery and workers from Baghdad: either hire a private security company to escort the supplies for up to $6,000 a truck, or pay off locals with insurgent connections. He chose the latter, and got $120,000 for a contract he estimates to be worth no more than $20,000. "The insurgents always remind us they're there," the contractor said. "Sometimes they hijack a truck or kidnap a driver and then we pay and, if we're lucky, we get our goods returned. It's just to make sure we know how it works. "Insurgents control the roads," he added. "Americans don't control the roads --- and everything from Syria and Jordan goes through there." An Iraqi who used to work as an interpreter for Titan Corp., the U.S. company that supplies local interpreters to U.S. forces in Iraq, said he witnessed countless incidents of insurgents shaking down contractors during the two years he spent as a translator on a U.S. military base in Anbar. He said he was stunned when, from early 2004 to his departure in summer 2006, a parade of sheiks with known insurgent connections were awarded contracts worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Fawzi Hariri, a member of the Iraqi Cabinet and head of the government's Anbar Reconstruction Committee, said some U.S. rebuilding funds certainly have gone into insurgents' pockets, the exception being where construction sites were guarded around the clock by U.S. or Iraqi troops. "If you're on your own, you certainly would have to pay somebody," Hariri said. GI'S MORALE DIPS AS IRAQ WAR DRAGS ON By Tina Susman Los Angeles Times August 25, 2007 YOUSIFIYA, IRAQ --- In the dining hall of a U.S. Army post south of Baghdad, President Bush was on the wide-screen TV, giving a speech about the war in Iraq. The soldiers didn't look up from their chicken and mashed potatoes. As military and political leaders prepare to deliver a progress report on the conflict to Congress next month, many soldiers are increasingly disdainful of the happy talk that they say commanders on the ground and White House officials are using in their discussions about the war. And they're becoming vocal about their frustration over longer deployments and a taxing mission that keeps many living in dangerous and uncomfortably austere conditions. Some say two wars are being fought here: the one the enlisted men see, and the one that senior officers and politicians want the world to see. "I don't see any progress. Just us getting killed," said Spc. Yvenson Tertulien, one of those in the dining hall in Yousifiya, ten miles south of Baghdad, as Bush's speech aired last month. "I don't want to be here anymore." Morale problems come as the Bush administration faces increasing pressure to begin a drawdown of troops. The Times reported Friday that Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was expected to advise Bush to reduce U.S. force levels next year by almost half because of the strain on the military. But Pace on Friday said, "The story is wrong, it is speculative. I have not made or decided on any recommendations yet." Plenty of troops remain upbeat about their mission in Iraq. At Patrol Base Shanghai, flanking the town of Rushdi Mullah south of Baghdad, Army Capt. Matt Dawson said residents used to shoot at troops but now visit them and offer ideas on improving security. "For the 20-year-old kids here who have been shot at for ten months in a row, the change is a tremendous feeling," Dawson said last week. The Army cites reenlistment numbers as proof that morale remains high and says it expects to reach its retention goal of 62,200 for the fiscal year. "On the 4th of July, we reenlisted 588 service members . . . in Baghdad. That has to be an indicator," said Sgt. Maj. Marvin Hill, who visits bases to gauge morale on behalf of Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the commander of U.S. troops in Iraq. Based on his encounters, Hill said, he would rank morale at eight on a scale of one to ten. "Units that are having real success are units where troop morale is extremely high," Hill said. "Units that are sustaining losses, whether it be personnel losses, injuries or casualties --- those are organizations where morale might dip a bit." The signs of frustration and of flagging morale are unmistakable, including blunt comments, online rants and the findings of surveys on military morale and suicides. Sometimes the signs are to be found even in latrines. In the stalls at Baghdad's Camp Liberty, someone had posted Army help cards listing "nine signs of suicide." On one card, seven of the boxes had been checked. "This occupation, this money pit, this smorgasbord of superfluous aggression is getting more hopeless and dismal by the second," a soldier in Diyala province, north of Baghdad, wrote in an August 7 post on his blog, www.armyofdude.blogspot.com. "The only person I know who believed Iraq was improving was killed by a sniper in May," the blogger, identified only as Alex from Frisco, Texas, said in a separate e-mail. The Army's suicide rate is at its highest in 23 years: 17.3 per 100,000 troops, compared with 12.4 per 100,000 in 2003, the first year of the war. Of the 99 suicides last year, 27 occurred in Iraq. The latest in a series of mental health surveys of troops in Iraq, released in May, says 45% of the 1,320 soldiers interviewed ranked morale in their unit as low or very low. Seven percent ranked it high or very high. Mental health trends have worsened in the last two years, said Cindy Williams, an expert in military personnel at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "These long and repeated deployments are causing acute mental stress," she said. Most troops in Iraq expected 12-month deployments. Those were extended in May by three months for the troop buildup. Thousands already were on their second or third deployments. The result is a fighting force that includes many soldiers who are worn down, just as Petraeus, who took command of the war six months ago, is asking them to adopt intense counterinsurgency tactics. Those strategies emphasize living "outside the wire," in military-speak, in outposts that put troops close to Iraqis. The theory is that people will come to trust the soldiers and share information needed to quell the violence. But these posts often lack basic amenities such as running water, flush toilets, telephones and Internet access, which troops at the forward operating bases enjoy, along with food courts and athletic facilities. Being on the front lines, troops in outposts also face greater danger than those at bases. Since the war began, there have been eight months in which U.S. troop deaths topped 100, including three months since the buildup began in February. In Yousifiya, troops occupy the sun-scorched grounds of a former potato-processing plant. They use pit latrines and get showers only when there is enough water. They jog around a shade-less concrete lot that serves as a helipad and mortar-launching site. Other troops in this area have far less comfortable surroundings. Army Maj. Rob Griggs believes rough conditions are good for the mission. Without comforting distractions, troops are more driven to complete their jobs, said Griggs, who is on his fifth deployment, including two in Iraq, since enlisting 17 years ago. "It allows them to focus on why they are here," said Griggs, who sleeps and lives in half of a 20-foot metal shipping container on the Yousifiya base. Having troops live in the same spare conditions as many Iraqis do also helps convince people that the Americans are genuine about wanting to make things better, he said. But the disparities in living and working conditions among soldiers heighten resentments, chipping away at morale. So does the feeling that the mission is futile, a belief fueled by the Iraqi political stalemate and the unreliability of Iraqi forces. "There are two different wars," said Staff Sgt. Donald Richard Harris, comparing his soldiers' views with those of commanders in distant bases. "It's a dead-end process, it seems like." Asked to rank morale in his unit, Harris gave it a four on a 10-point scale. "Look at these guys. This is their downtime," he said, as young soldiers around him silently cleaned dust from their rifles at a battle position south of the capital. A fiery wind blasted through the small base, an abandoned home surrounded by sandbags and razor wire. "It sounds selfish, but if we just had phones and Internet service," said Staff Sgt. Clark Merlin, his voice trailing off. Their unit was supposed to go home this month but its tour was extended until November. That means three more months of using plastic sacks for toilets, burning their waste and hoping for packages from home. "I think the extension has been 99% of the reason morale is low," said Merlin, rating it four or five. Counterinsurgency expert Stephen Biddle of the Council on Foreign Relations said the "two wars" issue is common in conflict zones as front-line soldiers grow to resent troops at the bases and come to believe their commanders are out of touch with the realities in the field. "But this kind of war really highlights it," Biddle, who has advised Petraeus, said of Iraq. Soldiers' discomfort is compounded by the task of forging relations with people whom few trust, and who often make clear their dislike of the U.S. presence. "All war is political, but usually privates and specialists don't have to think much about that part of it. In this conflict they do, to a much greater degree," Biddle said, referring to the community activities that troops have been drawn into. These include negotiating with tribal leaders who once harbored insurgents, striking deals with former insurgents to bring them into the Iraqi security forces, and listening to residents' complaints about lack of services. "You have to help people despite the strong suspicion that lots of them mean you ill," Biddle said. "We're asking an awful lot of very, very young people." It is especially difficult for soldiers trained to fight a uniformed enemy but in Iraq face an array of unconventional forces. Most thought their job was finished after Saddam Hussein was ousted. Instead, they found themselves directing traffic in Baghdad's chaotic streets. Four years later, they still are policing and doing community work they did not anticipate. "You couple that with getting blown up and shot at, and it definitely makes it harder to deliver service with a smile," said Staff Sgt. Kevin Littrell, whose plan to leave the Army in May was thwarted when his unit's tour was extended. At another patrol base, Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, commander of U.S. forces in southern Iraq, was introduced to 1st Lt. Jeff Bess. The young man had just arrived for his first assignment. Asked how he liked the Army so far, Bess made an attempt to be polite. "It's a learning experience, sir," he replied. Lynch told him: "You're making history here while those back home are watching it on TV." Times staff writers Julian E. Barnes in Washington and Garrett Therolf, Carol J. Williams and Alexandra Zavis in Iraq contributed to this report WHY ALBERTO GONZALES' RESIGNATION WON'T RESTORE JUSTICE By Aziz Huq The Nation August 28, 2007 The resignation of Alberto Gonzales has brought a smile to the faces of many Bush Administration critics, but will it bring real change? Unless the Senate Judiciary Committee seizes its chance in a new Attorney General's confirmation hearings, the danger is that Gonzales's exit won't just leave Justice tarnished --- it will also mean justice denied. Denial of justice is a theme for this Administration, as illustrated by some very strange bedfellows. Take Jose Padilla, originally accused of a plot to explode a dirty bomb but convicted two weeks ago of being a third-tier member of a fourth-tier conspiracy to aid foreign fighters. Or Scooter Libby, convicted and then pardoned of perjury and obstruction of justice before any full accounting of how the decision to leak Valerie Plame's identity was taken, and what role partisan politics may have played. Then there's George Tenet: As the CIA's own Inspector General made clear, Tenet "did not use" the resources he had to head off the attacks of September 11. Yet rather than explore what went wrong or require Tenet to account for himself in ways that clarify the ongoing management and policy weaknesses of the intelligence community, CIA director Michael Hayden has rejected any accountability or even discussion, claiming these would "distract" the nation. (The suggestion is demeaning: Does Hayden think we are all five-year-olds? It is also perverse: How can any government agency get better at its job if it says that understanding its past mistakes is a "distraction"?) In each case there are serious allegations of criminal wrongdoing or shameful negligence. In each case, accountability has been stymied. The public rightfully resents the official obfuscation as to whether the government is using its awesome security powers responsibly, and whether legitimate fears of terrorist attack are being twisted into grist for a partisan political mill. Will Gonzales's departure leave the nation permanently in the dark? Will the rule of law be further undermined? Gonzales leaves the Justice Department tarnished in two ways. First are the allegations of politically motivated firings of U.S. Attorneys and concerns that criminal prosecutions and dubious charges of "voter fraud" have been timed to influence the results of close federal and state elections. Second, less noticed and perhaps more serious, Gonzales has presided over a wrecking of the rule of law. The Gonzales Justice Department has consistently taken the position that bedrock laws enacted to protect Americans' liberty and constitutional rights --- and the nation's standing in the world --- can be shrugged off at a moment's notice --- in secret and without public debate or even notice to Congress. Thanks to Gonzales and his allies, too many citizens of the world know America as a country that treats international law as "quaint," that recklessly and lawlessly spies on its own citizens and that engages in torture. If we are lucky, that is the America of yesterday; it need not be the America of tomorrow. Yet, Gonzales's resignation will do nothing to repair the deep wounds inflicted on the Justice Department: It will not repair the harm done by politicization. It will not undo the wildly flawed legal opinions licensing torture and warrantless spying. It will not restore the rule of law. Solicitor General Paul Clement, who has become Acting Attorney General, is a very fine courtroom advocate, but he is unlikely to linger in that managerial post. And speculation about Michael Chertoff, who presided over the Katrina catastrophe and has overseen a sinister growth in the intelligence activities of the Homeland Security Department, hardly inspires confidence. Like Libby and Tenet, Alberto Gonzales rides off into the sunset just in time to evade a full accounting for his actions. Like Libby and Tenet, he leaves behind a government that knows how to scare Americans by invoking the threat of a dirty bomb or a mushroom cloud, but that seems to possess insufficient capacity to accurately target those who present a real threat. What remains in place is a government good at fostering the impression of toughness but dangerously incompetent at delivering the goods, as the failure even to prosecute Padilla for his alleged conspiracy shows. The Senate Judiciary Committee can use the confirmation process for a new Attorney General to force disclosure of the legal opinions and mandates by which law has been distorted and justice turned from its proper course. It should make plain for the public record what, we hope, has been a low watermark for Justice. But that is only a beginning. The Gonzales resignation can mark a rising tide for the rule of law. For that to occur, the next Attorney General -- and the next President --- must vigilantly repair the corrosion of, and the disrespect for, the rule of law, that Gonzales leaves behind. In November 2008, let the people choose accordingly. AZIZ HUQ is co-writing a book on national security and the separation of powers called Unchecked and Unbalanced, to be published by the New Press. MINE SAFETY LEADER LOSES SOME RESPECT FOR ACTIONS IN UTAH By Cara Buckley and Dan Frosch New York Times August 23, 2007 HUNTINGTON, Utah --- It was a telling moment one day last week in what had become a regular sideshow at the foot of a mountain here, where six coal miners were swallowed whole. The mines blustering and domineering co-owner, Robert E. Murray, was holding forth in front of a bank of microphones, predicting when the trapped miners would be found, a forecast that has not come true. The man charged with running the governments rescue effort, Richard E. Stickler, the head of the federal mining agency, who had been standing off to the side, shook his head and walked away. Mr. Murray and Mr. Stickler, 63, have provided two very different public faces of the Crandall Canyon Mine disaster. But though Mr. Murrays erratic public appearances have made him a favorite target of critics, Mr. Sticklers performance has also dismayed some of his supporters and his detractors, thrown into question his future with the Mine Safety and Health Administration, and drawn fresh criticism onto the agency as a whole. And it came at a time when several of Mr. Sticklers former critics, who fiercely opposed his appointment last year as assistant secretary of labor for mine safety and health, had begun to afford him grudging respect for making changes at the mine agency, long viewed as being too cozy with the mining industry. He established a regular line of communication with us; he was pretty serious about enforcing the law and making changes, said Phil Smith, a spokesman for the United Mine Workers of America. But what has happened now is a serious setback. Mr. Stickler insisted on Thursday that his performance, and that of those with him, was beyond reproach. We worked very hard, long hours, with very little rest," he said in a telephone interview. And I think everyone there put forth a heroic effort to do the best they possibly could. While Mr. Sticklers deep concern for the trapped miners has not been questioned, he has been blamed for a series of missteps at the Crandall Canyon Mine that are likely to be central to a Congressional hearing on the mine deaths to be held next month. Mr. Stickler has been faulted for letting Mr. Murray claim center stage in news conferences and act as a go-between with the trapped miners families. He also allowed Mr. Murray to take reporters deep into the unstable mine days after the collapse. Most disastrously, he helped oversee a doomed rescue effort, in which two miners and a federal mine safety worker were killed and six people injured in a cave-in on August 16. Some who know Mr. Stickler say his character doomed him in a match-up with Mr. Murray. A third-generation coal miner from West Virginia who earned an engineering degree as he rose in the industrys ranks, Mr. Stickler is known as being a thoughtful, bookish, behind-the-scenes man, and he seemed overpowered by Mr. Murrays bluster. In the phone interview, Mr. Stickler said he had spent six hours a day with the miners families during the 16 days he was there, and successfully petitioned the local sheriff to prevent Mr. Murray from attending family briefings when it became apparent that his manner was upsetting them. He said that reporters were allowed only in safe areas of the mine and that he had no authority to prevent Mr. Murray from addressing the news media. As for the deadly rescue effort, he said: We felt confident we were putting in the maximum support and protection, and that there was no immediate danger. These mountain bumps are something you cant predict. In Washington, lawmakers have stopped just short of saying I told you so, but Mr. Sticklers name appears at the top of the witness list issued for a hearing on September 5 by a subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee. The Senate had rejected Mr. Sticklers nomination last year, citing concerns about his track record and close industry ties, but President Bush appointed him anyway in October while Congress was on recess. At his nomination hearings, Mr. Stickler came off as politically tone deaf, saying he was satisfied with the countrys mine safety laws, even after 12 men died earlier that year in the Sago Mine disaster in West Virginia. In trying to block his appointment, critics highlighted Mr. Sticklers tenure as director of the Pennsylvania Bureau of Deep Mine Safety and questioned his management at the Beth Energy mines in Pennsylvania, where the mine workers union said mines he supervised had an accident rate higher than the national average, in some cases double it. After nine miners narrowly escaped the flooding of the Quecreek mine in Pennsylvania, in 2002, Mr. Stickler, then the head of the states mine agency, was lauded for his role in the rescue. But while a grand jury found that no one was criminally at fault in that incident, it concluded that Pennsylvanias mine regulation system was weak and outdated. Some mine industry experts said that Mr. Sticklers track record before his appointment by President Bush was better than what his detractors suggested, and that his performance as the head of the Mine Safety and Health Administration had exceeded expectations. Bringing another coal industry executive in did not look good, Tony Oppegard, a mining lawyer and former federal mine safety official, said of Mr. Sticklers appointment. But since hes been in office, I do feel hes done a credible job. Hes a great improvement. Jim Sharpe, publisher of Sharpes Point, a mining and safety newsletter, said that in at least two of the Beth Energy mines under Mr. Sticklers watch in the 1990s, the average days lost to injuries were half the national average or less. After taking over the federal mine safety agency, Mr. Stickler stiffened penalties for mining violations and zeroed in on dangerous operators. He levied a $1.5 million fine against a West Virginia mine owned by his former employer, Massey Energy, Mr. Sharpe said, after two miners were killed in a fire. Congress should be delighted with him, Mr. Sharpe said. They wanted someone tough on mine operators, and he is. Mr. Stickler also began enforcing a provision that the mining agency had not used in 30 years, allowing it to track serial violators and, if they do not heed warnings, shut them down. The agency cited eight mine operators in June, a first. Still, union officials say Mr. Stickler had not gone far enough to change the culture inside the mine agency, where too many people, they say, are lax in monitoring potentially unsafe mines like Crandall Canyon. On Thursday, Mr. Stickler was in Washington. The cause of the mine collapse here remains unknown. CORA BUCKLEY reported from Huntington, and DON FROSCH from Santa Fe, New Mexico. MINE OWNER HAS HISTORY OF RUN-INS ON WORK ISSUES By Susan Saulny and Carolyn Marshall New York Times August 23, 2007 HUNTINGTON, Utah --- If Robert E. Murray accepts a Senate subcommittees invitation to testify next month about what went wrong at the Crandall Canyon Mine, he is likely to be questioned about, among other things, adopting a new and riskier mining plan when his company took over the operation last year. If Mr. Murray hews to the always impassioned at times, bombastic --- style he has shown in news conferences since the mines collapse on August 6, senators can expect his statements to be plain-spoken and provocative. As recently as Wednesday night, Mr. Murray, chief executive of the Murray Energy Corporation, continued to insist that the collapse had been caused by a 3.9 magnitude earthquake. He shouted down two reporters who tried to remind him that seismic scientists at the University of Utah and elsewhere were just as certain that the opposite occurred --- that coal veins already thinned by a risky form of deep mining had buckled, setting off the collapse that sent seismograph needles spiking. Six men were trapped inside the mine. Three more died ten days later in the collapse of a rescue tunnel. It is not the first time that Mr. Murray, 67, has taken a position far afield of the experts. Although most other industry executives have recognized the threat of climate change and the need for energy conservation, he has been among the few to question the concept of global warming and to openly criticize environmental regulations. In testimony last March at a hearing on clean energy, Mr. Murray told a House subcommittee that federal lands should be preserved, but also prudently developed to provide jobs. In every reference to climate change, he used the term so-called global warming. The debate, he said, has been skewed and totally one-sided, because the news media, Congress and pundits have been preoccupied with possible, speculative environmental disasters. In 2001, a jury acquitted Mr. Murray of charges that he had assaulted an environmentalist. That same year, the National Labor Relations Board filed a complaint accusing Mr. Murray of violating federal labor laws at one of his companies, Maple Creek Mining, in Bentleyville, Pennsylvania, about 20 miles south of Pittsburgh. The United Mine Workers said Mr. Murray had threatened to replace union workers at the mine after they talked publicly about a labor dispute. In 2003, a federal court jury in Owensboro, Ky., convicted another of Mr. Murrays companies, Ken American Resources, and four current or former employees on charges of conspiracy, lying and violating safety laws pertaining to dust levels at a mine in western Kentucky from 1996 to 2000. They faced fines of up to $1.4 million, but the company appealed and paid roughly $300,000. Mr. Murray has said that none of his miners have ever died in an accident, but federal mine records show otherwise. In April 2001, Thomas M. Ciszewski, a 45-year-old foreman, bled to death in the Powhatan No. 6 mine in Alledonia, Ohio, owned and operated by Mr. Murrays Ohio Valley Coal Company. Federal investigators determined that Mr. Ciszewski, a 22-year mining veteran, was on a routine job when a conveyer belt cut off his arm, and was bleeding profusely from the loss of the limb. He died, in part, because there was not adequate first aid. The company was fined a total of $15,000. A self-made coal baron, Mr. Murray, owns 19 mines in five states, several with safety records far worse that that of Crandall Canyon, which has 33 health and safety violations this year. For instance, his Galatia mine, in Illinois, has accumulated more than 850 federal health and safety violations in 2007, in addition to about $1.46 million in fines. Murray Energy mines produce more than 30 million tons of coal annually, generating annual sales of at least $800 million and fostering accusations from some miners and their families that Mr. Murray cares more about growing his bottom line than he does about making his mines safer for his workers. Its hurting me very much, he said this week during a middle-of-the night phone call to a reporter. What theyre reporting is that Im greedy. That is just so inflammatory and false and misleading to everyone in America. Again and again, he calls himself a champion of miners and an advocate for their well-being and that of their families. But he is not always perceived that way. This week, relatives of the men trapped in the Crandall Canyon mine were outraged when Mr. Murray said that he planned to seal the mine, entombing their bodies inside, and to continue mining in another part of the vast property. He reversed himself the next day, saying he had simply been doing what he always does --- telling the truth. In all likelihood, he said, the miners had died and it was not safe to continue trying to find them. Im no P.R. man, Mr. Murray readily acknowledged. But as he rides over mountain roads on the way to candlelight vigils for the miners or funerals for the rescuers, he passes signs that come close to calling him a liar. Lori Prince, a local insurance agent, put up one such sign, which read, Bob Murray, keep your promises. He did say he was going to get them all out dead or alive, Ms. Prince said. Now hes saying you just have to accept this. Mr. Murray says he refused to hire a public relations firm or disaster management team after the Crandall Canyon collapse because he wanted to make it clear that he was one who should take responsibility. Critics say it was another example of Mr. Murrays outsized ego and cavalier attitude toward industry standards. In terms of him being the face of this, he shouldnt have been, said a spokesman for the United Mine Workers of America, Phil Smith, adding that the Miner Act of 2006 requires the Mine Safety and Health Administration, a federal agency, to be at the forefront of dealing with any disaster. They could have stopped him. Agency officials say they allowed Mr. Murray his First Amendment rights to speak out about what happened at the mine. At Wednesdays news conference, Mr. Murray once again denied that he changed the mining plan when his company took over Crandall Canyon in 2006. I just continued doing what the previous owner was doing, he said in an interview. But federal mine agency documents contradict his assertion. Crandall Canyons previous owner, Andalex Resources, thought it too risky to mine coal barriers, the pillars that hold up the mountain and protect workers thousands of feet below. The technique is called retreat mining, and while common at shallower mines, it is far more problematic at Crandall Canyons depth of 1,800 feet and more. Nevertheless, mine agency documents show, the agency this year approved a plan from a Murray company to perform such mining at Crandall Canyon. SUSAN SAULNY reported from Huntington, Utah and CAROLYN MARSHALL from San Francisco, California These newletters are produced by the Calamity Howler. If you do not wish to receive this e-mail, simply click on the link to :(http://www.thecalamityhowler.com/?unsubscribeCode=595ca&unsubscribeEmail=rich%40math.missouri.edu)unsubscribe:(http://www.thecalamityhowler.com/?unsubscribeCode=595ca&unsubscribeEmail=rich%40math.missouri.edu).