timmmmmmmmmmmmmmay!!!!!

timmay's summer to do list:

1. Hank Williams III: June 8. Frenetic hellbilly punk from the grandson of the country legend. $22.50. The Fillmore, 1805 Fillmore St. (415) 346-6000. www.thefillmore.com.

2. Echo & the Bunnymen: June 10. Playing the main stage with a few other "newer bands" at this year's Live 105 BFD. $31.50-$49.50. Shoreline Amphitheatre, Mountain View. (650) 967-3000. www.shorelineamp.com.

3. Stiff Little Fingers: June 16. "The Irish Clash!!!" ... 'nough said. $20. Slim's, 333 11th St. (415) 255-0333. www.slims-sf.com.

4. Kool Keith / Dr. Octagon: June 17. "The Real Black Elvis Himselvis!" $15. The Mezzanine, 444 Jessie St. (415) 625-8880. www.mezzaninesf.com.

5. The Reverend Horton Heat: July 5. Psychobilly/rockabilly fun with the Reverend. $8. The Blank Club, 44 S. Almaden Blvd., San Jose. (408) 292-5265. www.blankclub.com. (Also at Bimbo's, July 8).

6. Joan Jett & the Blackhearts: July 8. "I love rock 'n' roll ... and I love Joan Jett!!!" (performing with 45,342,478 other bands on this summer's Warped Tour). $29.99. Piers 30/32, Embarcadero and Main. (415) 421-8497. www.warpedtour.com.

7. Greg Graffin: July 17. Punk polemics from your favorite "21st Century Digital Boy." $13-$15. Great American Music Hall, 859 O'Farrell St. (415) 885-0750. www.gamh.com.

8. The Avengers: July 21. "It's the American in me that makes me ..." go to this show. $12. Cafe Du Nord, 2170 Market St. (415) 861-5016. www.cafedunord.com.

9. Ween: July 22. "Push the little daisies" with Dean and Gene! (with awesome opening acts: the Flaming Lips and the Go! Team). $41.50. The Greek Theatre, UC Berkeley. (510) 548-3010. www.apeconcerts.com.

10. Buzzcocks: July 27. Concise bitterness from Manchester's pop punk originals. $20. Mezzanine, 444 Jessie St. (415) 625-8880. www.mezzaninesf.com.

11. The Adolescents: Aug. 16. O.C. punk's not dead! $12. Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St. (415) 621-4455. www.bottomofthehill.com.

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URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/06/01/NSG2SJ31IQ1.DTL

Bush troubled by reports of Iraq killings

By NEDRA PICKLER, Associated Press Writer  Wed May 31, 2:14 PM ET

President Bush said Wednesday he was troubled by allegations that U.S. Marines had killed unarmed Iraqi civilians and that, "If in fact laws were broken, there will be punishment."

It was Bush's first public comment on allegations that Marines killed about two dozen unarmed Iraqis in the western city of Haditha last November.

Bush said he had discussed Haditha with Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "He's a proud Marine. And nobody is more concerned about these allegations than the Marine Corps. The Marine Corps is full of honorable people who understand the rules of war."

"If in fact these allegations are true," Bush said, "the Marine Corps will work hard to make sure that that culture — that proud culture — will be reinforced. And that those who violated the law, if they did, will be punished."

The president was asked about the Iraq allegations during an Oval Office photo opportunity with the president of Rwanda, Paul Kagame.

"I am troubled by the initial news stories," Bush said. "I'm mindful that there's a thorough investigation going on. If in fact, laws were broken, there will be punishment."

The killings at Haditha, a city that has been plagued by insurgents, came after a bomb rocked a military convoy on Nov. 19, killing a Marine. Residents said Marines then went into nearby houses and shot members of two families, including a 3-year-old girl.

At first, the U.S. military described what happened as an ambush on a joint U.S.-Iraqi patrol, with a roadside bombing and subsequent firefight killing 15 civilians, eight insurgents and a U.S. Marine. The statement said the 15 civilians were killed by the blast, a claim the residents strongly denied.

Military investigators have evidence that points toward unprovoked murders by Marines, a senior defense official said last week.

If confirmed as unjustified killings, the episode could be the most serious case of criminal misconduct by U.S. troops during three years of combat in Iraq. Until now the most infamous occurrence was the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse involving Army soldiers, which came to light in April 2004 and which Bush said he considered to be the worst U.S. mistake of the entire war.

Once the military investigation is completed, perhaps in June, it will be up to a senior Marine commander in Iraq to decide whether to press charges of murder or other violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

White House press secretary Tony Snow said Wednesday there is no firm date for release of the investigative report. But he said he suspects it will come out in "a matter of weeks, not a matter of months" and include photographic evidence.

London, Mar 28: A family brewery in the Czech Republic has opened the world’s first beer health centre in its cellar. The Chodovar Family brewery in Chodova Plana offers beer baths, beer massages and beer cosmetics.

The cellar has seven huge Victorian style baths where visitors can swim in beer while enjoying a pint poured at a bathside bar.

"Beer can treat a range of conditions, particularly skin conditions, and the health centre should appeal to men who are put off by 'posh' traditional spas. I have heard of some places in other countries where people can swim in beer but it's just a gimmick. We believe in the healing properties of beer and we offer the full range of treatments. We are a fully-fledged beer spa," Ananova quoted Jiri Plevka, the owner as saying.

The guests are charged 80 pounds for weekend packages, and can indulge in a range of health treatments including beer wraps, starting at 12 pounds per session.

Bureau Report

(05-27) 12:39 PDT BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) --

The U.S. military is bracing for a major scandal over the alleged slaying of Iraqi civilians by Marines in Haditha — charges so serious they could threaten President Bush's effort to rally support at home for an increasingly unpopular war.

The investigation involves Marines based at Camp Pendleton, Calif., who are members of the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, military officials said.

And while the case has attracted little attention so far in Iraq, it still could enflame hostility to the U.S. presence just as Iraq's new government is getting established, and complicate efforts by moderate Sunni Arab leaders to reach out to their community — the bedrock of the insurgency.

U.S. lawmakers have been told the criminal investigation will be finished in about 30 days. But a Pentagon official said investigators believe Marines committed unprovoked murder in the deaths of about two dozen people at Haditha in November.

With a political storm brewing, the top U.S. Marine, Gen. Michael W. Hagee, is headed to Iraq to personally deliver the message that troops should use deadly force "only when justified, proportional and, most importantly, lawful."

Haditha is not the only case pending: On Wednesday, the military announced an investigation into allegations that Marines killed a civilian April 26 near Fallujah. The statement gave no further details except that "several service members" had been sent back to the United States "pending the results of the criminal investigation."

Last July, Iraq's ambassador to the United Nations, Samir al-Sumaidaie, accused the Marines of killing his 21-year-old cousin in cold blood during a search of his family's home in Haditha, a city of about 90,000 people along the Euphrates River 140 miles northwest of Baghdad.

The military ordered a criminal investigation but the results have not been announced.

Together, the cases present the most serious challenge to U.S. handling of the Iraq war since the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, which Bush cited Thursday as "the biggest mistake that's happened so far, at least from our country's involvement in Iraq."

"What happened at Haditha appears to be outright murder," said Marc Garlasco of Human Rights Watch. "It has the potential to blow up in the U.S. military's face."

He said that "the Haditha massacre will go down as Iraq's My Lai," a reference to the Vietnam War incident in which American soldiers slaughtered up to 500 civilians in 1968.

The Haditha case involves both the alleged killing of civilians and a purported cover-up of the events that unfolded Nov. 19.

That day, Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas, 20, of El Paso, Texas, was killed by a roadside bomb in Haditha, a Sunni Arab city considered among the most hostile areas of Iraq.

After the blast, insurgents attacked a joint U.S.-Iraqi patrol with small-arms fire, triggering a gunbattle that left eight insurgents and 15 Iraqi civilians dead, the Marines said in a statement issued the following day.

That version stood for four months until a videotape shot by an Iraqi journalism student surfaced, obtained by Time magazine and then by Arab television stations. The tape showed the bodies of women and children, some in their nightclothes.

Although the tape did not prove Marines were responsible, the military began an investigation. Residents came forward with claims that Marines entered two homes and killed 15 people, including a 3-year-old girl and a 76-year-old man — more than four hours after the roadside bombing.

It isn't clear if questions have been raised about the eight slain people that the Marines described as insurgents.

In March, Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the No. 2 U.S. commander in Iraq, said about a dozen Marines were under investigation for possible war crimes in the incident. Three officers from the unit involved have been relieved of their posts.

Such incidents have reinforced the perception among many Iraqis who believe American troops are trigger-happy — a characterization U.S. officers strongly dispute.

"America in the view of many Iraqis has no credibility. We do not believe what they say is correct," said Sheik Sattar al-Aasaf, a tribal leader in Anbar province, which includes Haditha. "U.S. troops are a very well-trained and when they shoot, it isn't random but due to an order to kill Iraqis. People say they are the killers."

Ayda Aasran, a deputy human rights minister, said Iraqis should be allowed to investigate such cases — something the U.S. command has refused to permit.

Sunni political leaders will find it difficult to defend U.S. actions, even those aimed at establishing the truth, if they want to maintain their position as leaders of the Iraqi minority that provides most of the insurgents.

Even if criminal charges are brought in the Haditha incident, Sunni insurgents are likely to claim the case is simply a charade and argue that the Marines will escape serious punishment.

Haditha, site of a major hydroelectric dam, has long been considered a tough case. It is among a string of Euphrates Valley towns used by insurgents and foreign fighters to infiltrate from Syria to reach Baghdad and the Sunni heartland.

Many Marines have complained to journalists that they conduct repeated sweeps through villages to drive out the insurgents, who then reappear when the Americans leave. That has bred a sense of frustration among troops fighting a difficult war with no end in sight.

Reporters who embedded in Haditha several months before the alleged massacre said Marines considered the town as enemy territory, with frequent roadside bombings. During patrols inside the city, Marines treated inhabitants like terrorists, raiding their homes.

An Associated Press journalist who traveled in Haditha last June with a Marine unit not involved in the November killings saw a Marine urinate on the kitchen floor of a home and on another occasion saw insults chalked in English on the gate of an Arab home. The reporter asked a Marine commander about the incident and was told it would be investigated.

Last August, the British newspaper The Guardian reported that Haditha was under the control of religious extremists who enforced their own strict interpretation of Islamic law — including decapitations of people suspected of collaborating with the Americans.

"This is a war in which the distinction between killing the enemy and massacring civilians is not always completely obvious," said John Pike of GlobalSecurity.org. "Counterinsurgency operations are particularly prone to the killing of people who, in retrospect, are judged to have been innocent civilians, but who in the heat of battle seemed to be the enemy."

Some analysts, however, say the killings of civilians also reflect frustration among young troops fighting a difficult war with no end in sight. They say these young fighters have been thrust into an alien culture for repeated tours in a war whose strategy many of them do not understand.

"What we're seeing more of now, and these incidents will increase monthly, is the end result of fuzzy, imprecise national direction combined with situational ethics at the highest levels of this government," said retired Air Force Col. Mike Turner, a former planner at the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Robert H. Reid is correspondent at large for The Associated Press and has reported frequently from Iraq since 2003.

Associated Press writer Jacob Silberberg contributed to this report.

URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/n/a/2006/05/27/state/n123935D89.DTL

- By DANICA KIRKA, Associated Press Writer
Monday, May 15, 2006

(05-15) 06:09 PDT LONDON, United Kingdom (AP) --

The BBC has admitted it was taken for a ride by a cabbie. The network has apologized to its viewers for a studio mix up that resulted in a cab driver appearing on live television as an expert on Internet music downloads.

"We interviewed the wrong person," a British Broadcasting Corp. spokeswoman said Monday while speaking on condition of anonymity in line with company policy. "We apologize to viewers for any confusion."

The case of mistaken identity occurred on May 8 — the day Britain's High Court awarded Apple Computer a victory in a lawsuit against Apple Corps, The Beatles' commercial arm.

In a reaction piece to the verdict that is now circulating widely on the Internet, BBC News 24 consumer affairs correspondent Karen Bowerman ostensibly welcomed computer expert Guy Kewney.

As Bowerman introduced the apparent expert, there's a moment when the still unidentified driver realized the mistake. He scrunched his face up in a grimace and in panic tried to open his mouth as if to explain.

"Were you suprised by this verdict today?" Bowerman asked.

"I'm very surprised to see the verdict come on me because I was not expecting that," he said in a heavy French accent, blinking in the studio lights. "When I came, they told me something else."

Growing more confident, he gamely went on to deliver his opinion on the future of music downloads following the landmark verdict.

Meanwhile, the real Kewney, who was waiting to be taken to the studio, looked up on a monitor and found another man ensconced in the interviewee's chair.

"What would you feel, if while you were sitting in that rather chilly reception area, you suddenly saw yourself not sitting in reception, but live, on TV? A bit surprised?" Kewney wrote on his Web log.

Kewney, who could not be reached for comment Monday, said on his blog that he was amused at first — but then considered that viewers would think he did not know his subject, hurting his reputation.

Though the BBC did not elaborate on how the mistake occurred, Kewney wrote in his blog that a studio manager, "wringing his hands as if he wanted to suddenly take the day off, retrospectively," had called the reception area — rather than the stage door — and was told the Kewney was there.

Producers apparently realized by the end of the interview that something had gone wrong — and, after they had gone off the air, asked the cabbie if there was a problem.

"He said: 'Well, it was OK, but I was a bit rushed,' Kewney wrote on his blog.

On the Web:  www.newswireless.net/index.cfm/article/2701

URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/n/a/2006/05/15/international/i060818D36.DTL

- By PETE YOST, Associated Press Writer
Sunday, May 14, 2006

(05-14) 07:56 PDT WASHINGTON, (AP) --

The prosecutor in the CIA leak case said more than six months ago that he was not alleging any criminal acts by Vice President Dick Cheney regarding the leak of agency operative Valerie Plame's identity.

Today, the prosecutor is leaving the door open to the possibility that the vice president's now-indicted former chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby, was acting at his boss' behest when Libby allegedly leaked information about Plame to reporters.

A new court filing presents handwritten notes of Cheney. Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald is using them to assert that the vice president and Libby, working together, were focusing much attention on Plame and her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, a Bush administration critic.

Cheney's notes ask whether Plame had sent Wilson on a "junket" to Africa. Subsequently, Plame's supposed role in her husband's trip to Africa allegedly was leaked to the media by both Libby and by presidential adviser Karl Rove.

Cheney's notes on the margins of Wilson's opinion column in The New York Times on July 6, 2003, reflect "the contemporaneous reaction of the vice president," Fitzgerald said in the court filing late Friday.

Wilson's column "is relevant to establishing some of the facts that were viewed as important by the defendant's immediate superior, including whether Mr. Wilson's wife had 'sent him on a junket,'" the court papers say.

Cheney's notes "support the proposition that publication of the Wilson op-ed acutely focused the attention of the vice president and the defendant — his chief of staff — on Mr. Wilson, on the assertions made in his article, and on responding to those assertions," according to the file.

In the column, Wilson recounted how he had been sent by the CIA in 2002 to the Niger to assess intelligence that Iraq had an agreement to acquire uranium yellowcake from the African country. His conclusion: It was highly doubtful that such a deal existed.

A year later, the intelligence about an Iraq-Niger uranium deal was still being given credence by the administration as it made the case for invading Iraq.

Scribbled in the days leading up to the leaks of Plame's identity, Cheney's notes refer to the CIA and to Wilson's trip, asking, "Have they done this sort of thing before? Send an Amb. to assess a question? Do we ordinarily send people out pro bono to work for us? Or did his wife send him on a junket?"

Accused of lying about how he learned of Plame's identity and what he told reporters about her, Libby says Plame's CIA identity was a trivial matter. Libby says he was focused instead on Wilson's accusations that the administration had twisted prewar intelligence to exaggerate the threat from Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

In an effort to undercut Libby's defense, Fitzgerald wants to introduce the evidence that refers to Cheney and to Wilson's wife.

At a news conference last October, on the day he obtained an indictment against Libby, Fitzgerald asked a series of rhetorical questions including, "Why were people taking this information about Valerie Wilson and giving it to reporters?"

Fitzgerald said he does not know the answer because Libby had concealed the truth from investigators. Drawing a baseball analogy putting the prosecutor in the role of baseball umpire, Fitzgerald said, "The umpire gets sand thrown in his eyes. He's trying to figure out what happened and somebody blocked their view. As you sit here now and if you're asking me what his motives were, I can't tell you."

The Oct. 28 indictment charges Libby with five counts of perjury, obstruction and lying to the FBI.

The language in the indictment provided the first indication that the Libby case might also be a case focusing closely on Cheney.

According to the indictment, Libby acknowledged to investigators that Cheney had told him in June 2003 about Wilson's wife working at the CIA. But Libby, according to the indictment, told the investigators that by the next month, he had forgotten that the vice president had told him about her.

The newly filed court papers disclose substantial new detail about Cheney that was not in the indictment, which did not reveal the fact that Cheney had made handwritten notes about Wilson's wife in the margin of Wilson's column in the Times.

URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/n/a/2006/05/14/national/w072423D46.DTL

Donnie Darko director Richard Kelly could be forced to miss the Cannes Film Festival because his passport is being reviewed by the US Government. Homeland Security is investigating 31-year-old Kelly, reportedly because there is a James Kelly on the terrorist watch list. Fearing he will be unable to attend the premiere of his new movie Southland Tales at Cannes later this month, Kelly has contacted a US senator and has recruited his mother to hunt out documents to help him prove his American citizenship. The Virginia-born writer/director fears the issue could be connected to the plot of his new movie, which is in part about security measures taken by the US Government following 9/11. He says, "The paranoid conspiracy freak inside me is starting to think this has something to do with the film."

~ information courtesy of anonymous

Paper Reports NSA Collecting Phone Records
- By LAURIE KELLMAN, Associated Press Writer
Thursday, May 11, 2006

(05-11) 08:39 PDT WASHINGTON (AP) --

Congressional Republicans and Democrats demanded answers from the Bush administration Thursday about a report that the government secretly collected records of ordinary Americans' phone calls to build a database of every call made within the country.

"It is our government, it's not one party's government. It's America's government. Those entrusted with great power have a duty to answer to Americans what they are doing," said Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

AT&T Corp., Verizon Communications Inc., and BellSouth Corp. telephone companies began turning over records of tens of millions of their customers' phone calls to the National Security Agency program shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, said USA Today, citing anonymous sources it said had direct knowledge of the arrangement.

The Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, said he would call the phone companies to appear before the panel "to find out exactly what is going on."

The companies said Thursday that they are protecting customers' privacy but have an obligation to assist law enforcement and government agencies in ensuring the nation's security. "We prize the trust our customers place in us. If and when AT&T is asked to help, we do so strictly within the law and under the most stringent conditions," the company said in a statement, echoed by the others.

The White House defended its overall eavesdropping program and said no domestic surveillance is conducted without court approval.

"The intelligence activities undertaken by the United States government are lawful, necessary and required to protect Americans from terrorist attacks," said Dana Perino, the deputy White House press secretary, who added that appropriate members of Congress have been briefed on intelligence activities.

On Capitol Hill, several lawmakers expressed incredulity about the program, with some Republicans questioning the rationale and legal underpinning and several Democrats railing about the lack of congressional oversight.

"I don't know enough about the details except that I am willing to find out because I'm not sure why it would be necessary to keep and have that kind of information," said House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told Fox News Channel: "The idea of collecting millions or thousands of phone numbers, how does that fit into following the enemy?"

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said bringing the telephone companies before the Judiciary Committee is an important step.

"We need more. We need to take this seriously, more seriously than some other matters that might come before the committee because our privacy as American citizens is at stake," Durbin said.

Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., argued that the program "is not a warrantless wiretapping of the American people. I don't think this action is nearly as troublesome as being made out here, because they are not tapping our phones."

The program does not involve listening to or taping the calls. Instead it documents who talks to whom in personal and business calls, whether local or long distance, by tracking which numbers are called, the newspaper said.

The NSA and the Office of National Intelligence Director did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

NSA is the same spy agency that conducts the controversial domestic eavesdropping program that has been acknowledged by President Bush. The president said last year that he authorized the NSA to listen, without warrants, to international phone calls involving Americans suspected of terrorist links.

The report came as the former NSA director, Gen. Michael Hayden — Bush's choice to take over leadership of the CIA — had been scheduled to visit lawmakers on Capitol Hill Thursday. However, the meetings with Republican Sens. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska were postponed at the request of the White House, said congressional aides in the two Senate offices.

The White House offered no reason for the postponement to the lawmakers. Other meetings with lawmakers were still planned.

Hayden already faced criticism because of the NSA's secret domestic eavesdropping program. As head of the NSA from March 1999 to April 2005, Hayden also would have overseen the call-tracking program.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who has spoken favorably of the nomination, said the latest revelation "is also going to present a growing impediment to the confirmation of Gen. Hayden."

The NSA wants the database of domestic call records to look for any patterns that might suggest terrorist activity, USA Today said.

Don Weber, a senior spokesman for the NSA, told the paper that the agency operates within the law, but would not comment further on its operations.

One big telecommunications company, Qwest, has refused to turn over records to the program, the newspaper said, because of privacy and legal concerns.

Associated Press Writers Katherine Shrader and Elizabeth White in Washington and AP Business Writer Barbara Ortutay in New York contributed to this report.

URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2006/05/11/national/w061414D24.DTL

Monday, May 8, 2006

(05-08) 09:16 PDT LONDON, United Kingdom (AP) --

Keith Richards had surgery Monday in New Zealand to relieve pressure in his head following a fall, his representative said.

The Rolling Stones guitarist was "up and talking" soon after surgery at The Ascot Hospital in Auckland, but was expected to take several weeks to recuperate, LD Communications said Monday in a statement issued in London.

"Last week Keith was under observation in Auckland following a fall in Fiji and was feeling well after being examined by doctors last week," the statement said. "However after complaining of headaches yesterday, doctors thought it prudent to move ahead with a small operation to remove the pressure."

The Stones' "A Bigger Bang European" tour, which was scheduled to start in Barcelona, Spain, later this month, will be postponed until June, the agency said.

Richards, 62, suffered the injury April 27, but details have not been confirmed. News reports have variously claimed that he fell out of a palm tree or from a jet ski.

URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2006/05/08/entertainment/e062714D21.DTL

May 7, 2006 NY Times Editorial

The Intelligence Business

We've been waiting for well over two years for the Senate Intelligence Committee to finally hold the Bush administration accountable for the fairy tales it told about Saddam Hussein's weapons. Republican leaders keep saying it is a waste of time to find out whether President Bush and other top officials deliberately misled the world. But Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's bizarre responses the other day to questions about that very issue were a timely reminder of why this investigation needs to be completed promptly, thoroughly and fairly.

Unfortunately, Pat Roberts, the chairman of the Senate panel, is running it in a way that makes it unlikely that anything useful will come of it.

It is bad enough that Mr. Rumsfeld and others did not tell Americans the full truth — to take the best-case situation — before the war. But they are still doing it. Just look at the profoundly twisted version of events that the defense secretary offered last week at a public event in Atlanta.

Ray McGovern, an analyst for 27 years at the Central Intelligence Agency, stood in the audience and asked why Mr. Rumsfeld lied about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The secretary shot back, "I did not lie." Then, even though no one asked about them, he said Colin Powell and Mr. Bush offered "their honest opinion" based on "weeks and weeks" of time with the C.I.A. "I'm not in the intelligence business," he said, adding, "It appears that there were not weapons of mass destruction there."

First, there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Period. Second, neither Mr. Bush nor Mr. Powell spent long weeks with the C.I.A., whose analysts were largely cut out of the decision making. And that was because, third, Mr. Rumsfeld was, and is, very much in the intelligence business.

The Defense Department controls most of the intelligence budget and is the biggest user of intelligence. Mr. Rumsfeld also set up his own intelligence agency within the Pentagon when the C.I.A. and the State Department refused to tell him what he wanted to hear about Iraq. It was that office's distortions that formed the basis for what the administration told Congress and the public.

In Atlanta, Mr. Rumsfeld denied ever saying flatly that there were dangerous weapons in Iraq. Actually, he did, many times, even as late as March 30, 2003. On Sept. 27, 2002, Mr. Rumsfeld said there was "bulletproof" evidence of ties between Al Qaeda and Iraq, including that Iraq had trained Qaeda agents in chemical and biological warfare, and he repeated that myth in response to Mr. McGovern.

Which brings us back to the Senate committee. In 2004, Democratic members agreed to split the investigation of Iraq intelligence. The committee issued a report on how bad the information was, but put off until after the 2004 election the question of whether the administration deliberately hyped the evidence. Mr. Roberts tried to kill the investigation entirely, and after the Democrats forced him to proceed, he set rules that seem a lot like the recipe for a whitewash.

The investigation, known as Phase 2, is divided into five parts: Did officials' public statements reflect the actual intelligence? Why did the government fail to anticipate the postwar disaster in Iraq? Were there actually any W.M.D. in Iraq? Was the Pentagon's mini-C.I.A. a proper and legal operation? And did any of the disinformation provided by the Iraqi exile leader Ahmad Chalabi get into any "intelligence product"?

Mr. Roberts has so gummed up the first part of the investigation that it is going to take forever to complete and is unlikely to be of much clarity. The only public statements that matter are those by Mr. Bush and his top aides. But Mr. Roberts included any statement, by any public official, including members of Congress, going back to 1991.

Beyond dragging out the process further, the intent, obviously, is to suggest that Mr. Bush said the same things that Democratic senators and others did. That has no significance. They did not decide to have a war and had access only to the sanitized intelligence fed to them by the administration. Bill Clinton and Mr. Bush's father did think there were dangerous weapons in Iraq — back in the 20th century. By the time the war started, those weapons had long been eliminated by inspections and sanctions.

It is worth knowing why policy makers failed to anticipate the insurgency and other postwar nightmares, but the structure of this part of the investigation is flawed as well. The Senate investigation of Mr. Chalabi's involvement is limited to "intelligence products," which the C.I.A. produces. But it was not the C.I.A. that predicted rose petals in Baghdad and a virtually problem-free transition to democracy; it was Mr. Chalabi and his henchmen, creatures of Mr. Rumsfeld's team at the Pentagon. And it was the intelligence business that Mr. Rumsfeld now pretends not to run that used Mr. Chalabi's myths in an attempt to rebut the skeptical State Department and make dubious information seem more reliable.

It was helpful of Mr. Rumsfeld to remind us why this inquiry is still so important. The least Mr. Roberts and his committee can do is to finish the flawed investigation and make the results public.

If you dare, drop your drawers on Friday

If you're the kind of person who is always on the lookout for something to celebrate or commemorate, this is probably your kind of week, especially if you like to walk around without your pants on.

The week kicked off Monday with observances of May Day, also known as International Workers Day, and in the United States, Loyalty Day.

May 1 also coincided with the Day Without Immigrants demonstrations that drew crowds of hundreds of thousands around the nation in protest against tougher immigration laws. Many of the protesters were Mexican, so, in a way, the day was a good lead-in to Friday's Cinco de Mayo celebration.

You can rest up today to get ready for Israel's Independence Day on Wednesday. Go out and dance a hora, maybe.

But don't forget that Thursday is the National Day of Prayer.

You might need it because Friday is not only Cinco de Mayo but also international No Pants Day, which traditionally is celebrated on the first Friday in May.

Cinco de Mayo is a Mexican holiday that also is observed by many Americans. It commemorates a Mexican victory over French invaders at Puebla, Mexico, on May 5, 1862.

For many Americans it's an opportunity to eat Mexican food and drink margueritas and cerveza, and some people on Friday will no doubt be enjoying those things with their pants off.

It's hard to say what No Pants Day commemorates other than simply the freedom associated with not wearing pants.

Participants are urged to show up for work or play in modest boxer shorts or other types of underwear, such as bloomers, slips or briefs.

But whatever you do, don't wear pants, and wearing skirts, dresses or kilts doesn't count.

Apparently the holiday is popular mainly with college students, and it is especially big at the University of Texas in Austin. The holiday has a Web site in Austin at www.nopantsday.com.

With No Pants Day falling on Cinco de Mayo, one would presume that observers of both might want to don serapes and sombreros in addition to not wearing pants.

It's just that I don't know what goes best with a serape — boxers or briefs?

Lou Sessinger is a columnist with The Intelligencer. He can be contacted at (215) 957-8172 or lsessinger@phillyBurbs.com.

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