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WASHINGTON, (AP) -- After weeks of suggesting Democrats would temper their approach to Iraq legislation in a bid to attract more Republicans, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid declared abruptly Tuesday that he had no plans to do so. The Democratic leader said he will call for a vote this month on several anti-war proposals, including one by Sen. Carl Levin that would insist President Bush end U.S. combat next summer. The proposals would be mandatory and not leave Bush wiggle room, said Reid, D-Nev. "There (are) no goals. It's all definite timelines," he told reporters of the planned legislation. Levin,...

"Dubbed "Operation Eagle Justice," the GOE events will start with a rally on the National Mall and conclude with a counter-demonstration along the ANSWER march route. "As ANSWER and their allies in the hate-America crowd will stumble by, we will treat them to some good old-fashioned, red-blooded American 'free speech,'" the group says on its Web site."

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- Twenty retired federal judges, two rear admirals and a Marine general joined 383 current or former members of the European and British parliaments on Friday in urging the Supreme Court to grant detainees at Guantanamo Bay full access to the U.S. court system. Lower court rulings supporting the Bush administration's opposition to full court access "were seized upon by repressive governments as a license to incarcerate their own citizens and others with impunity," 25 retired American diplomats wrote in one court filing. In June, the Supreme Court agreed to take the detainees' case, reversing a decision in...

Members at S.F. convention reject banning presence at suspects' questioning -- After a raucous debate about what role - if any -- psychologists should play in U.S. government interrogations of terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, the American Psychological Association voted overwhelmingly today to reject a measure that would have banned its members from those interrogations. Instead, the association passed a competing measure that reaffirms the organization's position against torture "and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment" of terror suspects. For the first time on record, the resolution lists specific treatment that the association opposes, including mock executions, water-boarding,...

AS THE saying goes, "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." It may be catchy, but history has shown its peril as foreign policy. It's now the risky strategy U.S. commanders are following in arming Sunni fighters who pledge to hunt down al Qaeda guerrillas in Iraq. Given lackluster results with a surge of 30,000 new troops, the American military is gambling on a new tactic. It's running guns, ammunition and supplies to one foe in hopes it will go after another. The aim is to equip Sunni forces, who have turned on al Qaeda ranks responsible for a...

ORCAS ISLAND, Wash. — Vandals burned dozens of small American flags that decorated veterans' graves for Memorial Day and replaced many of them with hand-drawn swastikas, authorities said Monday.

MADRID, Spain (AP) -- Prosecutors on Friday appealed a judge's decision to charge three U.S. soldiers with homicide in the death of a Spanish journalist in Iraq, a court official said. Prosecutors at the National Court said the troops from the U.S. 3rd Infantry, based in Fort Stewart, Ga., committed no crime when their tank fired a shell at Baghdad's Palestine Hotel in 2003, killing Jose Couso, a cameraman for the Spanish television network Telecinco, and Taras Portsyuk, a Ukrainian cameraman for Reuters. The prosecutors characterized the attack as an accident of war, said a court official who spoke on...

When a deputy assistant secretary for the Defense Department blasted U.S. law firms for representing prisoners at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba, the Pentagon was quick to say that his comments did not reflect the "thinking of its leadership." For his part, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was quick to say that "good lawyers representing the detainees is the best way to ensure that justice is done in these cases." The deputy apologized, saying that he believed that "a foundational principle of our legal system is that the system works best when both sides are represented by competent legal counsel." He then...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Seventy-five lawyers for nearly 400 Guantanamo Bay detainees urged Congress on Tuesday to give the prisoners access to U.S. courts. Fanning out across Capitol Hill for private meetings with senators and House members, the attorneys are seeking legislation to overturn a section of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 that stripped the detainees of court access. Under last year's law, the detainees are entitled to a procedural review by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia into whether they were properly designated unlawful enemy combatants.

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- Anti-war legislation on the way to President Bush for his promised veto represents a rare rebuke by Congress of a large and ongoing ground conflict, even eclipsing challenges made during the Vietnam War. While a bill ordering troops home from an ongoing military mission is not unprecedented — legislation aimed at conflicts in Somalia and Haiti are other examples — the Iraq bill is an unusually swift feat by a Congress forcefully challenging a war involving thousands of U.S. troops. "Congress is not shy usually about attempting to create problems for a president when a war becomes...

PORT HADLOCK - Two Jefferson County residents were arrested Saturday outside the entrance gates of Naval Magazine Indian Island as 16 people brandished cardboard signs - and one spilled marinara sauce to symbolize blood - to protest Thursday's arrival of the nuclear-powered submarine USS Ohio at the munitions base. Jefferson County Sheriff's deputies arrested Liz Rivera Goldstein, 49, of Port Townsend, and Bethel Alice Prescott, 46, of Irondale, on investigation of disorderly conduct when they blocked the entrance to the base after a five-minute warning to clear the way expired at about 2 p.m. Both women face a charge of...

IN NOVEMBER, US Airways kicked six imams off a plane bound for Phoenix from Minneapolis. According to news reports, passengers and crew had become spooked watching some of the imams pray by the gate, then after boarding, saw the imams move around the plane as they spoke in Arabic -- some said the imams spoke of Saddam Hussein, which the imams deny. They said that the imams also and requested seat-belt extenders -- heavy metal objects -- which some feared could be used as weapons. The imams then were questioned and released without being charged. Last month, the imams filed...

Islamic countries pushed through a resolution at the UN Human Rights Council on Friday urging a global prohibition on the public defamation of religion, a response largely to the furor last year over caricatures published in a Danish newspaper of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad. The statement proposed by the Organization of Islamic Conference addressed what it called a "campaign" against Muslim minorities and the Islamic religion around the world since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States. The resolution, which was opposed by European and a number of other non-Muslim countries, "expresses deep concern at attempts to...

While all the attention is focused on Iraq in Congress, an escalating war of words and new military actions have proceeded apace on Iran. The possibilities for provocation and missteps leading to military confrontation are increasing. The U.S. Navy now has two aircraft carrier strike groups in the Persian Gulf, and is conducting war games involving 15 warships, more than 100 planes and more than 10,000 troops. Iran has been conducting frequent maneuvers in the Persian Gulf and Sea of Oman and test-firing land-to-sea missiles. Iran last week captured 15 British sailors and marines that it accused of straying into...

Prisoners who endure poor or degrading treatment suffer much of the same long-term psychological distress as do captives who are tortured, suggests a study published Monday. The study was based on interviews with victims of ill treatment and torture while imprisoned in the former Yugoslavia, and experts said the findings underscored the need for a broader definition of torture. "What is the basis for the distinction between torture and other cruel and degrading treatment? Science should inform this debate," the study's lead author, Metin Basoglu of the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College in London, told The Associated Press in...

A human rights group is asking President Bush to disclose the fates of all terror suspects held since 2001, including at least 16 it believes have been locked up in secret CIA facilities. Human Rights Watch said it compiled a report about the 16, whose whereabouts are unknown, along with 22 others possibly held by the CIA, based on interviews with former detainees, press reports and other sources. The report — "Ghost Prisoner: Two Years in Secret CIA Detention" — includes an accounting from Marwan Jabour, a Palestinian who says he was held incommunicado for more than two years by...

Defense officials slammed UNIFIL and the Lebanese government Monday night, claiming that their "slackness" was what enabled Hizbullah to plant five deadly explosive devices along the border between Israel and Lebanon. IDF officials said it was possible that the bombs were planted as part of a planned kidnapping attack similar to the July 12 abduction of reservists Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser that sparked the war this past summer. Defense Minister Amir Peretz transmitted a harsh-worded message to UNIFIL command in Lebanon and urged the peacekeeping force to crack down on Hizbullah and prevent the guerrilla group from returning to...

(AP) WASHINGTON -- Opponents of the war in Iraq want their protest on the National Mall to launch a nationwide movement to bring the troops home. Demonstrators chartered buses, bought plane tickets and filled their gas tanks to join Saturday's rally, and hundreds of them planned to flood congressional offices Monday to lobby for a troop withdrawal. Plans call for rallies across the country and visits to members of Congress when they return home to their districts. United for Peace and Justice, a coalition group sponsoring the protest, said there has been intense interest in the rally since President Bush...

San Francisco -- A coalition of San Francisco lawyers is asking the California State Bar to investigate whether a Bush administration official violated legal ethics when he called for a boycott of law firms that represent Guantanamo Bay detainees. The Bar Association of San Francisco announced Thursday it wanted an investigation into the conduct of Charles "Cully" Stimson, a deputy defense secretary for detainee affairs and member of the California State Bar. On Jan. 11, Stimson told a radio audience that he was outraged that big law firms were assisting Guantanamo Bay detainees. He called for the boycott of firms...

A year after President Bush confirmed the government was eavesdropping on Americans' electronic communications without warrants, the practice continues unabated and legal experts say efforts to limit the program by a new Congress could trigger a constitutional showdown. High-ranking Democrats set to take control of both chambers are already mulling ways to curb the eavesdropping program Bush secretly authorized a month after the Sept. 11 attacks. But the White House argues the Constitution gives the president wartime powers to eavesdrop that he wouldn't have during times of peace, even in the face of existing legislation that some scholars and lawmakers...