Ishaqi, Haditha, Upset Iraqis, Condi, Details Coming, Bush Has A Secret and Provo, UT.

The military investigation says we did everything right in Ishaqi.

But I think after the embarrassment of having no investigation of Haditha, the military wanted to appear to be on top of things.

And I'd bet that this investigation was more a matter of expedience than an effort to really find out what happened.

NEW YORK The U.S military said Saturday it had found no wrongdoing in the
March 15 raid on a home in Ishaqi that left nine Iraqi civilians dead. But, as
with the apparent massacre in Haditha, will a military "coverup" in this case
come undone? E&P coverage from back in March, and other evidence, suggest
that the official story may soon unravel.

The Iraqi police charge that American forces executed the civilians,
including a 75-year-old woman and a 6-month-old baby. The BBC has been airing
video of the dead civilians, mainly children, who appeared to be shot, possibly
at close range. Photographs taken just after the raid for the Associated Press
and Agence France-Presse, and reports at the time by Reuters and Knight Ridder,
also appear to back up the charge of an atrocity.

The Iraqis certainly don't agree with the military findings.

BAGHDAD, June 3 -- The Iraqi government and residents of a village where
U.S. soldiers killed as many as a dozen civilians in March took a skeptical view
Saturday of an American investigation that ruled in the troops' favor, saying
they wanted a new probe of the incident.

An aide to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Iraq would pursue its
own probe into the incident in Ishaqi, a village north of Baghdad, and would
seek an apology if the U.S. soldiers were proved guilty. "We ought to do our own
investigation into this and reach the fact of what happened," Adnan Ali
al-Kadhimi said in a telephone interview Saturday. "Our own conclusion may not
be the same as theirs."

The WaPo is giving Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice credit for the Bush Administration's agreeing to talks with Iran. I think that they had simply ran out of options and didn't really have any other choice.

At the end of March, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice flew to Europe and
had unusual, one-on-one conversations with German Chancellor Angela Merkel,
French President Jacques Chirac and British Prime Minister Tony Blair. She also
attended a meeting in Berlin on Iran at which the Russian and Chinese
representatives denounced the idea of sanctions to halt Tehran's drive toward a
nuclear weapon.

Rice returned to Washington with a sobering message: The international
effort to derail Iran's programs was falling apart. Her conclusion spurred a
secret discussion among Rice, President Bush, Vice President Cheney and national
security adviser Stephen J. Hadley: Should the United States finally agree to
join the Europeans at the negotiations with Iran?

Iran said that they were going to publish the details of the plan to moniter and contain their nuclear program.

The Iranian president said, ""We will record the talks and we will publish them at the appropriate time, so our people will be informed about the details." If Bush said things like that, he might be above 30%.

TEHRAN, June 3 -- President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Saturday that Iran
would publish details of the package of incentives and possible penalties
prepared by the United States and five other major powers aimed at halting
Iran's nuclear program.

In a speech in which he warned Iran's critics against "threats and
intimidation," Ahmadinejad seemed to sweep aside a request by U.N. Secretary
General Kofi Annan to keep the process confidential. Western diplomats had said
they were trying to avoid the appearance of threatening Iran by keeping the
terms of the package as private as possible, especially the specific penalties
Iran might face if it continues to enrich uranium.

While the President of Iran is saying he wants the people to know, our President Bush don't want us to know anything.

WASHINGTON, June 3 — Facing a wave of litigation challenging its
eavesdropping at home and its handling of terror suspects abroad, the Bush
administration is increasingly turning to a legal tactic that swiftly torpedoes
most lawsuits: the state secrets privilege.

In recent weeks alone, officials have used the privilege to win the
dismissal of a lawsuit filed by a German man who was abducted and held in
Afghanistan for five months and to ask the courts to throw out three legal
challenges to the National Security Agency's domestic surveillance
program.

The good news for Bush is that most of the folks in Provo, Utah, just love him.

"When I watch him, I see a man with his heart in the right place," said
Delia Randall, a 22-year-old mother from Provo, the hub of a county that gave
Senator John
Kerry just 11 percent of the presidential vote in 2004. "I like George Bush
because he is God fearing, and that's how a lot of people in this area
feel."

These voters are among the committed Bush supporters who are standing
proudly by him as he tries to reverse the poll numbers that are sliding even in
Utah, hang on to Republican control of Congress, revive his agenda and stabilize
Iraq.

"We don't talk politics because everyone is so one-sided," said Sarah
Rueckert, a mother of three and a Mormon who just moved back to Utah after 10
years of living in places like Chicago, Portland and San Francisco. "They're all
pro-Bush."