Official: Lawmakers See Iran Explosives

U.S. military commanders in Iraq have shown members of Congress explosive devices that bear Iranian markings as evidence Tehran is supplying Iraqi militants with bombs, a senior U.S. government official said Saturday.

One of the lawmakers, independent Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, said he has seen some of the evidence, though he would not be specific. “I’m convinced from what I’ve seen that the Iranians are supplying and are giving assistance to the people in Iraq who are killing American soldiers,” said Lieberman, who was attending an international security conference in Munich.

The senior official said military commanders in December showed lawmakers mortar rounds and other munitions and fragments that had Iranian serial numbers and markings.

The official, who requested anonymity because the evidence collected has not been made public, said U.S. generals also displayed improvised explosive devices that they said reflected Iranian style.

On Friday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates told reporters that serial numbers and other markings linked the Iranians to explosives used by insurgents in Iraq. His comments were among the Bush administration’s first public assertions about evidence the military has collected.

Senate to Debate Homeland Security Bill
2007/02/27 14:25

A Senate drive to approve homeland security legislation could lead to a clash with the White House over airport screeners and standardized drivers’ licenses.

The Senate planned to begin debate on Tuesday. The legislation would improve rail and aviation security, provide funds for state and local emergency communications systems, improve intelligence sharing between federal, state and local officials, and expand a visa waiver benefit for favored countries.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., told the Senate on Monday that it is time to implement the remaining
recommendations of the 9/11 commission. The panel issued a report card on the status of its recommendations last year, and Reid said any child would be embarrassed to take home those marks.

“It included 12 Ds, five Fs and two incompletes,” Reid said.

A provision in the Senate legislation would require that airport screeners receive the same collective bargaining and whistle-blower rights held by most federal employees. However, it received only Democratic support when it was approved by the Senate Homeland Security Committee.

It’s possible that this language could run into partisan problems on the Senate floor, where there might not be enough votes to overcome a Republican filibuster. By themselves, Democrats would lack the 60 votes needed to end GOP delaying tactics that could kill the provision.

At the time the committee adopted the unionization provision, Chairman Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., said that screeners, who became a federal work force after the 9/11 attacks, had been denied the most basic employee protections.

Saying the screeners had been beset with “unusually high rates of attrition, vacancy, workplace injury, discrimination complaints and other indications of employee dissatisfaction,” Lieberman predicted that the measure would improve security.

The Bush administration strongly opposed the provision, and committee Republicans argued that the Homeland Security Department needs flexibility in setting screeners’ schedules and procedures.

Roger L. Simon had something to say about Joe Liebrman yesterday:

“Sometimes I think Joe Lieberman is the last honest man in Congress. And he’s relatively diplomatic too is his lengthy oped in the WSJ, urging his colleagues to give the “surge” a chance. “

Many of the worst errors in Iraq arose precisely because the Bush administration best-cased what would happen after Saddam was overthrown. Now many opponents of the war are making the very same best-case mistake–assuming we can pull back in the midst of a critical battle with impunity, even arguing that our retreat will reduce the terrorism and sectarian violence in Iraq.

Read the rest here: Lonely are the Liebermen

Found by way of Instapundit

Thanks Glenn

SOURCE:  NewsMax.com Wires
Friday, Feb. 23, 2007

Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut fired a shot across the bow of the Senate’s Democratic majority, warning them he may bolt the party and join the GOP if Congress votes to withhold funding for the war in Iraq.

The move would give Republicans control of the Senate, since Democrats hold the majority by one vote.

Lieberman, who calls himself an “independent Democrat,” has been among the strongest supporters of the war on terror and President Bush’s plan for a troop surge in Iraq.

“I have no desire to change parties,” Lieberman said in an interview published Thursday on politico.com. “If that ever happens, it is because I feel the majority of Democrats have gone in a direction that I don’t feel comfortable with.”

Lieberman cited the upcoming showdown over new funding for the war could be a deciding factor that would lure him to the GOP. Several Democrats, led by Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy, have been agitating for a funding cut-off.

“I hope we don’t get to that point,” he said. “That’s about all I will say on it today. That would hurt.”

Lieberman’s remarks echo earlier sentiments he expressed in an interview with Jeffrey Goldberg in the February edition of The New Yorker.

The Senator told Goldberg that his allegiance to the Democratic Party is based in part on sentiment and should not be considered eternal.

“A lot of Democrats are essentially pacifists and somewhat isolationists,” he said, adding that he had problems with Sen. Ted Kennedy’s proposal to deny President Bush funding for the troop surge, and with his fellow Connecticut Sen. Christopher Dodd’s suggestion that Congress might cap the number of U.S. troops in Iraq.

Asked if he would switch parties if Democrats cut off funding for the war, Lieberman responded: “That would be stunning to me. And very hurtful. And I’d be deeply affected by it. Let’s put it that way.”

Though Lieberman has been loyal to his party, Senate Democrats are not reciprocating. The New Yorker reported that his Democratic colleagues “tend to indulge him, unless they are speaking to reporters off the record.”

Lieberman is well aware that only five Senate Democrats campaigned for him in last year’s general election, which he won as an independent over Democratic and Republican rivals, largely because GOP voters crossed party lines to support him.

Lieberman has already made clear that he will not necessarily support the next Democratic nominee for the White House.

One Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. Dodd, even campaigned for Lieberman’s Democratic opponent Ned Lamont in the 2006 Senate race. Sen. Hillary Clinton, the party’s frontrunner for 2008, actively fundraised for Lamont.

Lieberman once described Dodd as his “best friend” in the Senate, but when asked by Goldberg if that was still the case, Lieberman said only: “I have so many good friends in the Senate. John McCain is a very good friend.”

In fact, most of Lieberman’s closest friends in the Senate of late are Republicans, according to the New Yorker article.

Lieberman acknowledges that at times he feels isolated, as a liberal on social policy and a conservative on defense.

He told Goldberg that he was reading “America Alone” by conservative Mark Steyn, who argues that Europe is being overwhelmed culturally and demographically by Islam.

“The thing I quote most from it is the power of demographics, in Europe particularly,” Lieberman said. “But the other part is a kind of confirmation of what I know and what I’ve read elsewhere, which is that Islamist extremism has an ideology, and it’s expansionist . . . We Americans will have ultimate responsibility for stopping this expansionism.”

Those feelings are related to Lieberman’s reasons for standing by the President on Iraq, he said.

“Why do I trust President Bush in spite of the mistakes that were made, consequential mistakes? Because having watched him, having talked to him, I believe that he understands the life-and-death struggle we are in with the most deadly and unconventional enemy, Islamic extremism.

“And he has shown himself, notwithstanding all these mistakes, willing to go forward with what he believes is right for the security of the country, regardless of what it has done to his popularity.”

Joe Lieberman Concedes to Lamont 

Three term Senator Joe Lieberman conceded the Connecticut Democratic primary Tuesday to newcomer Ned Lamont.

Lieberman vowed that he would continue to seek his Connecticut Senate seat by running as an independaent candidate.

Senator Lieberman’s support for the war in Iraq gave detractors a rallying point on which to attack the the former Vice Presidential candidate.