The WAND legislative agenda for 2007 Our priorities on Capitol Hill for the coming year. For example, how about alternatives to war? Less for the Pentagon, more for human beings? Preventing nuclear terrorism? Seems fairly obvious to me...

Love. Not war. Nothing says "I love you" like an anti-war ad on Capitol Hill. Valentine's Day 2007 Skip the candy and the flowers this year. Show your love by helping to pay for an ad that speaks out clearly against a military action on Iran. The ad will be in CQ Daily on Tuesday and Thursday this week. Please help WAND pay for this ad! We're aiming to make an impact, and a difference, NOW. Thanks! See the full ad.

Diplomacy, not war, with Iran Tell Congress: Let’s do all we can to avoid military action against Iran Send a message to your Representative and Senators today.

• Support direct negotiations with Iran
• Promote stronger cultural and people-to-people ties with Iran
• Require a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on the status of Iran’s nuclear program
• Assess the usefulness of so-called pro-democracy provisions

And NOW IS THE TIME TO BRING THE TROOPS HOME FROM IRAQ Urge your Representative to cosponsor HR 508. Take action, read more: here.

FEDERAL BUDGET WATCH

The president said a lotta things in the State of the Union address; and then he submitted his federal budget proposal some days later. That tells the real story.

And it is the same old story. Once again, Pentagon spending up; domestic spending not. Deficit deepens, rich people get tax breaks, middle class tax burden increases, poor people hung out to dry...

The bottom line, as reported by WAND Public Policy Director Marie Rietmann:

In FY07, we are spending $463 billion on the Pentagon--Department of Defense plus the nuclear weapons portion of the Department of Energy. The Administration request for FY08 is $502 billion, an increase of $37 billion, or nearly 8% (adjusted for inflation). That is 52% of the discretionary budget.

And that does not include the $142 billion that is being requested for FY08 for the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. If that money were included in both the request for the Pentagon and the total for discretionary spending, the percentage of Pentagon spending would jump to over 58% of the discretionary budget.

NUCLEAR NOTES

(Washington, D.C.): Arms Control Association (ACA) experts called the multilateral agreement reached earlier today with North Korea a "long overdue and essential first step toward reducing the threat posed by North Korea's nuclear weapons program."

Bold vision needed to counter nuclear threat
Ratifying the Test Ban Treaty and securing nuclear weapons are two of the actions that can be taken to improve global security.
Steve Andreasen | Minneapolis Star Tribune| February 14, 2007

The good news for the men and women who are seeking the presidency today is that the danger of a nuclear war on that scale has largely disappeared with the end of the Cold War. The bad news is that the risk of a nuclear weapon being used today is as high as it has been at any time in the past 20 years...

NUCLEAR INITIATIVE: Fuel reprocessing proposal full of risks
By Bobbie Paul, WAND Atlanta Executive Director| Atlanta Journal-Constitution | 02/09/07

President Bush's latest weapon of "mass deception," being heavily marketed by the nuclear industry is called Global Nuclear Energy Partnership. This initiative is expected to cost between $3 billion and $6 billion in its first five years. GNEP offers a misguided plan to expand global nuclear energy production, while solving the nuclear waste problem here at home and creating a "proliferation resistant" technology to keep nuclear materials out of the hands of terrorists.

These claims are misleading and obscure the real reason for this government funded initiative.

Basically, GNEP is a huge import/export project of the nuclear industry that requires the U.S. to manufacture nuclear fuel rods, ship them to other countries to run reactors, and then take the highly radioactive fuel rods back for reprocessing in newly constructed facilities.

IRAQ UPDATES

More troops, more dollars
National Priorities Project breaks it down for you
Click here for loads of information.

In light of the President's request for additional troops in Iraq, NPP has produced a revised publication, More Troops, More Dollars, which breaks down the cost of the war by state and congressional district. It also shows what the money spent in Iraq could buy each district in health care for children, affordable housing units and new elementary schools. Additionally, state level data is available on the number of soldiers killed and wounded in Iraq.

And more from NPP

NPP now has available state-level factsheets that provide both an overview of the President's budget request for next fiscal year and breakdowns of how his proposed cuts will impact each state in seven different program areas. The factsheet also provides the cost of the Iraq War for each state based on the new request for an additional $100 billion in war spending.

WAND is part of a coalition of groups working every day to move Congress to do something already about the war. Please explore the site.

Key to Murtha’s strategy will be establishing a set of strict requirements that the administration will need to meet to deploy troops into Iraq:

• 1) Troops will need to be certified as “fully combat ready” with the training and equipment that they need;
• 2) Deployments cannot be extended beyond one year;
• 3) Troops must have at least one-year at home between deployments;
• 4) The “stop-loss” program where soldiers are forced to extend their agreed upon enlistment period will be prohibited.

Chairman Murtha described other measures the committee is considering for inclusion in the legislation:

• 1) Prohibit an attack on Iran without Congressional authorization;
• 2) Prohibit the construction of permanent military bases in Iraq;
• 3) Close the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay Cuba;
• 4) Bulldoze the Abu Ghraib prison into rubble;
• 5) Substantially reduce private security contractors and establish greater accountability for those who remain.

Key to adoption of Chairman Murtha’s plan will be the strong support of Congressional Democrats, starting with House leadership. Tom Andrews, former Member of the House Armed Services Committee and National Director of Win Without War, sponsor of the web site, said that activists will make an intensive effort to persuade Members of Congress to support redeployment.

“A non-binding resolution is useless and counterproductive if not followed by strong binding Congressional action. We are launching an effort to convince Members of Congress to back up their words with action upon their return to Washington.”

Chairman Murtha reported that his subcommittee will vote on the Supplemental Appropriations bill on March 14 and send it to the Appropriations Committee where action will be taken three or four days later.

And then there's the "surge"

Since the House passed the nonbinding resolution to oppose the escalation, you gotta wonder how it's all going to roll out.

It won't be easy, it won't be quick, and it won't be cheap:

From the NYT:

...yesterday’s vote, in which 17 Republicans joined the Democrats to produce a margin of 246 to 182, was the easy part. It takes no great courage or creativity for a politician to express continuing support for the troops and opposition to a vastly unpopular and unpromising military escalation...

The next necessary steps will require harder thinking and harder choices. Congress needs to do what Mr. Bush is refusing to do: link further financing for the war to the performance of Iraq’s Shiite-led government, which is making no serious effort to rescue its country from civil war.

Victory Is Not an Option
The Mission Can't Be Accomplished -- It's Time for a New Strategy

By William E. Odom | Washington Post | February 11, 2007

The new National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq starkly delineates the gulf that separates President Bush's illusions from the realities of the war. Victory, as the president sees it, requires a stable liberal democracy in Iraq that is pro-American. The NIE describes a war that has no chance of producing that result. In this critical respect, the NIE, the consensus judgment of all the U.S. intelligence agencies, is a declaration of defeat.

Its gloomy implications -- hedged, as intelligence agencies prefer, in rubbery language that cannot soften its impact -- put the intelligence community and the American public on the same page. The public awakened to the reality of failure in Iraq last year and turned the Republicans out of control of Congress to wake it up. But a majority of its members are still asleep, or only half-awake to their new writ to end the war soon.

Somehow, after four years, the debate on Iraq is still animated by wishful thinking. The White House talks as if a surge of 20,000 troops is going to stop a civil war. Democrats argue that when America withdraws its troops, Iraqis will finally take responsibility for their own security. But we all need to face the likelihood that this story isn't going to have a happy ending.

WHAT UP WITH IRAN?

Love. Not war. Nothing says "I love you" like an anti-war ad on Capitol Hill.
Valentine's Day 2007
Skip the candy and the flowers this year.
Show your love by helping to pay for an ad that speaks out clearly against a military action on Iran.
The ad will be in CQ Daily on Tuesday and Thursday this week.
Please help WAND pay for this ad! We're aiming to make an impact, and a difference, NOW.
Thanks! See the full ad.

Former military chiefs urge talks with Iran
February 3, 2007 | CNN.com

Three former senior U.S. military officials warn that any military action against Iran would have "disastrous consequences" and urged Washington to hold immediate and unconditional talks with Tehran.

The Bush administration has increased the regularity and vehemence of its accusations against Iran, prompting speculation it could be laying the ground for military attack against the Islamic state.

Washington has also sent a second aircraft carrier to the Gulf, a move seen as a warning to Iran, which the United States accuses of seeking atomic arms and fueling instability in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East. Iran denies the charges.

In a letter to London's Sunday Times newspaper, the three former U.S. military leaders said attacking Iran "would have disastrous consequences for security in the region, coalition forces in Iraq and would further exacerbate regional and global tensions," they wrote.

"The current crisis must be resolved through diplomacy," they said.

...Nothing prevents Congress from using its power of the purse to prevent an American attack on Iran. President Bush's neoconservative advisors and pundit supporters have been beating the drums of war with Iran since 2003, when the president declared Iran to be part of an "axis of evil." Recall that a senior administration official told The Times that Iran should "take a number" in the wake of the invasion of Iraq. In his recent address to the nation on the troop surge in Iraq, Bush issued more threats to Iran. Now the president has named a Navy admiral to head the U.S. Central Command and dispatched a second aircraft carrier and minesweepers to the Persian Gulf, presumably to prevent Iran from closing the Strait of Hormuz in the event of conflict.

Military action on Iran would be 'catastrophic': El Baradei
Thu. 25 Jan 2007 | iranfocus.com
DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan 25, 2007 (AFP) - UN nuclear watchdog chief Mohamed El Baradei on Thursday urged an end to talk of a military solution to the Iran nuclear crisis, saying any strike against Tehran would be "catastrophic".

"I hope we will stop talking about military action," El Baradei said during a discussion on nuclear proliferation at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

"Military action against Iran would be counter productive and catastrophic," he said, stressing that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was unaware of any facility in Iran capable of producing nuclear weapons.

"Do they have the knowledge? Sure, they have the knowledge. Are you going to bomb the knowledge?" he said.

The UN Security Council passed a resolution last month imposing sanctions on Iran for its repeated refusal to cooperate fully with the Vienna-based IAEA or to suspend uranium enrichment.

Iran insists that its nuclear programme is solely aimed at meeting peaceful energy needs, but the West fears it could be diverted towards building an atomic bomb.

In Vienna on Thursday, IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said the agency had asked Iran to "to reconsider their decision" to ban 38 IAEA inspectors from working in the country.

IAEA inspectors regularly visit Iranian nuclear sites under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to which Iran is a signatory.

Why care?

Because a military intervention would be difficult, if not impossible. Expensive, if not disastrous for our economy and federal budget.

And, oh right, it would kill innocent civilians. A lot. Remember them?

A little meditation on this: Video.

NEWS FROM WiLL

WiLL joins effort to have state legislatures debate the "surge" in Iraq; speak out to Congress
In January, WiLL participated in a national conference call with state legislators all over the country to launch a state legislative campaign to prevent President Bush's escalation in Iraq.

Now WiLL members and state directors across the country are pitching in to introduce resolutions at the state level.

More information about this effort.

WiLL organizes letter to Congress from women state legislators across the country
WiLL is encouraging women state legislators to take action and respond quickly to the President’s budget request before many of his proposed cuts pass through Congress.

An excerpt from the letter; more information here.
"Increased funding for the Pentagon and cuts in funds for other vital security programs do not make Americans more secure, nor do such actions reflect the values of the public. The Administration's request for the Defense Department and the nuclear weapons portion of the Department of Energy is $502 billion for FY08, 8% more than last year's budget. This does not include the $142 billion requested for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for FY08. We believe this is not the best use of our federal tax dollars. "

Faith in Action

Another sad farewell: to Father Robert Drinan
From The Nation:

The Jesuit priest, who has died this week at the age of 86, never hesitated to identify Nixon's military adventurism in southeast Asia as both "morally objectionable" and "illegal." And the wily and whimsical scholar--who had joked with supporters such as a young John Kerry about campaigning on the slogan: "Vote for Father Drinan or Go to Hell"--was determined to hold Nixon to account on both counts.

NOTABLE NATIONAL EVENTS

The Women’s Equality Summit and Congressional Action Day -
March 26 & 27, 2007
Over 400 will attend for a day of sharing information and strategies followed by a day of meetings with Senators and Representatives on Capitol Hill. Click here for more information!

IDEAS, VISIONS, RESOURCES FOR A BETTER WORLD

Love. Not war. Nothing says "I love you" like an anti-war ad on Capitol Hill.
Valentine's Day 2007
Skip the candy and the flowers this year.
Show your love by helping to pay for an ad that speaks out clearly against a military action on Iran.
The ad will be in CQ Daily on Tuesday and Thursday this week.
Please help WAND pay for this ad! We're aiming to make an impact, and a difference, NOW.
Thanks! See the full ad.

LOOKING FOR JOBS?