Bush Favors Embryos Over Grown-Ups

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush used his first veto on Wednesday to block legislation to expand embryonic stem-cell research, putting him at odds with top scientists and most Americans, including some in his own Republican Party.

"It crosses a moral boundary that our decent society needs to respect, so I vetoed it," Bush said.

The legislation, passed by both the House of Representatives and the Senate, now returns to Capitol Hill, where it does not appear to have the two-thirds majority needed to overturn Bush's first veto since taking office more than five years ago.

Even conservative Republicans who generally oppose abortion are divided. Bush sees the research as destroying a human life, but others, including Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee and Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, say the embryos are slated for destruction anyway. Iowa Democratic Sen. Tom Harkein pledged to reintroduce the bill next year and said Bush's veto was a "shameful display of cruelty, hypocrisy and ignorance."

Spy Haunts Cheney and Rove

Former CIA officer sues Cheney, Libby, Rove over leak
Plame alleges Bush administration officials ruined her career

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The CIA officer whose identity was leaked to reporters sued Vice President Dick Cheney, his former top aide and presidential adviser Karl Rove on Thursday, accusing them and other White House officials of conspiring to destroy her career.

In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court, Valerie Plame and her husband, Joseph Wilson, a former U.S. ambassador, accused Cheney, Rove and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby of revealing Plame's CIA identity in seeking revenge against Wilson for criticizing the Bush administration's motives in Iraq.

The lawsuit accuses Cheney, Libby, Rove and 10 unnamed administration officials or political operatives of putting the Wilsons and their children's lives at risk by exposing Plame.

"This lawsuit concerns the intentional and malicious exposure by senior officials of the federal government of ... (Plame), whose job it was to gather intelligence to make the nation safer and who risked her life for her country," the Wilsons' lawyers said in the lawsuit.

Libby is the only administration official charged in connection with the leak investigation. He faces trial in January on perjury and obstruction-of-justice charges, accused of lying to FBI agents and a federal grand jury about when he learned Plame's identity and what he subsequently told reporters.

Cheney Lets His Employer Down

Army to End Expansive, Exclusive Halliburton Deal
Logistics Contract to Be Open for Bidding
By Griff Witte, Washington Post

The Army is discontinuing a controversial multibillion-dollar deal with oil services giant Halliburton Company to provide logistical support to U.S. troops worldwide, a decision that could cut deeply into the firm's dominance of government contracting in Iraq.

The choice comes after several years of attacks from critics who saw the contract as a symbol of politically connected corporations profiteering on the war.

Under the deal, Halliburton had exclusive rights to provide the military with a wide range of work that included keeping soldiers around the world fed, sheltered and in communication with friends and family back home. Government audits turned up more than $1 billion in questionable costs. Whistle-blowers told how the company charged $45 per case of soda, double-billed on meals and allowed troops to bathe in contaminated water.

Halliburton officials have denied the allegations strenuously. Army officials yesterday defended the company's performance but also acknowledged that reliance on a single contractor left the government vulnerable.

The heavy involvement of U.S. contractors in Iraq has been one of the defining features of the American presence there, with private companies called on for duties as varied as guarding supply convoys and analyzing intelligence.

No contractor has received more money as a result of the invasion of Iraq than Halliburton, whose former chief executive is Vice President Cheney.

Shrub Quits on Finding bin Laden Dead or Alive

C.I.A. Closes Unit Focused on Capture of bin Laden

By Mark Mazzetti, New York Times

WASHINGTON, July 3 — The Central Intelligence Agency has closed a unit that for a decade had the mission of hunting Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants, intelligence officials confirmed.

The unit, known as Alec Station, was disbanded late last year and its analysts reassigned within the C.I.A. Counterterrorist Center, the officials said.

The decision is a milestone for the agency, which formed the unit before Osama bin Laden became a household name and bolstered its ranks after the Sept. 11 attacks, when President Bush pledged to bring Mr. bin Laden to justice "dead or alive."

Supreme Court Slaps Bush Upside the Head

High Court Rejects

Detainee Tribunals

5 to 3 Ruling Curbs President's Claim Of Wartime Power

By Charles Lane, Washington Post

The Supreme Court struck down July 3rd the military commissions President Bush established to try suspected members of al-Qaeda, emphatically rejecting a signature Bush anti-terrorism measure and the broad assertion of executive power upon which the president had based it.

Brushing aside administration pleas not to second-guess the commander in chief during wartime, a five-justice majority ruled that the commissions, which were outlined by Bush in a military order on Nov. 13, 2001, were neither authorized by federal law nor required by military necessity, and ran afoul of the Geneva Conventions.

"Where, as here, no emergency prevents consultation with Congress, judicial insistence upon that consultation does not weaken our Nation's ability to deal with danger. To the contrary, that insistence strengthens the Nation's ability to determine -- through democratic means -- how best to do so," Justice Stephen Breyer wrote.

"The Constitution places its faith in those democratic means," Breyer concluded. "Our Court today simply does the same."