Op-Ed Contributor: Finally, a Fighting Force

 

None of the killers seem to have been Taliban infiltrators, but that alone is not terribly reassuring. The United States’ exit strategy for the war in Afghanistan depends largely on the performance, competence and trustworthiness of the Afghan security forces, and critics of the mission view such episodes as evidence that the Afghan forces are generally unreliable — ineffectual in combat and too often unmotivated, erratic or corrupt. The issue looms over President Obama’s decision about troop reductions in Afghanistan, which he is expected to announce by July.

But there is reason to be hopeful. I was in Helmand Province last week, traveling with Gen. James F. Amos, the commandant of the Marine Corps, and despite the recent setbacks and other problems, my impression of today’s Afghan security forces was encouraging.

?Helmand Province, for years a Taliban stronghold, has in the past year or so seen remarkable progress. Almost all of the populated parts of the province are now under the control of the Afghan government and the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force.

The region is not completely safe, to be sure. But most major roads are serviceable, and government officials now generally use them instead of NATO helicopters to get around. Markets are open; schools have increased almost 50 percent in number since late 2009; twice as many Afghan officials work in local governments as did a year ago; and poppy production is down.

?The even better news is that Afghan forces deserve an increasingly large share of the credit. The message from the Marines and British soldiers I spoke to in the province was one of growing appreciation for the skills and fighting spirit of Afghan soldiers and police officers.

Last year in southern Afghanistan, Afghans made up about half of all the combined forces used to clear the region of most Taliban weapons caches and strongholds. According to the International Security Assistance Force, roughly two-thirds of all Afghan Army battalions nationwide now score at least a 3 on a military-readiness scale from 1 to 5, meaning that while they still require outside help, they are quite effective when conducting missions with NATO troops.

Police and army pay is now adequate by national standards, and local recruiting goals for the Afghan Army and police in Helmand Province have been largely met this spring for the first time since the war began. Desertion rates are still too high, and Afghan troops too often overstay their military leaves, but the trends point in the right direction.

?During my travels, several Marine officers who also had experience in Iraq told me that Afghan police officers and soldiers were better fighters than their Iraqi counterparts. Routinely, in towns like Musa Qala that are still tense, Afghans provide half the personnel on most foot patrols — and I was told that they do not shrink from fighting when they run into trouble.

I heard many anecdotes that spoke to the growing effectiveness of the Afghan forces. Recently, for instance, in the town of Marja, intelligence indicated the presence of Taliban forces in the vicinity. An Afghan unit responsible for that sector leaped into action. A few hours later it returned with Taliban captives.

The unit’s American partners told me that they would have preferred more of a plan — the Afghan forces were somewhat reckless in their response. But the important point was that the Afghans did not avoid combat or expect NATO soldiers to do their fighting for them.

Does this mean the United States should prepare for an immediate drawdown of troops?

No. What I saw and heard in Helmand Province supports the exit strategy — but not for this summer or fall.

An American commander told me that in his estimation, after an area is first cleared of the Taliban, NATO can substantially draw down its forces there 24 to 30 months later. That gives NATO enough time to recruit and train Afghan Army and police units, allows Afghan citizens to gain confidence that the Taliban is not coming back and gives the civilian government a chance to get off the ground. The time frame implies significantly reduced NATO forces in southern Afghanistan by next year.

In the aftermath of Osama bin Laden’s death, many Americans have argued that the country should cut its losses in Afghanistan and bring our troops home. But while the United States does need a better political and diplomatic strategy for the mission (in particular, for dealing with Kabul and Islamabad), this is not the time to jettison a military strategy that has finally hit its stride.

Michael E. O’Hanlon is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

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Online Sex Videos Force Resignations of Six Members of Turkish Opposition Party

ISTANBUL — Just weeks before general elections in Turkey, six leading members of an opposition party were forced to resign from Parliament on Saturday after sexually explicit videos of one of them were posted on the Internet.

The Web site that posted the videos had threatened to release others that it said showed the five other members who resigned.

The resignations could severely weaken the Nationalist Movement Party, the second largest opposition group in Parliament, which is struggling to win the minimum of 10 percent of the vote required to be seated in Parliament.

Four members of Parliament from the same party resigned earlier this month after similar videos were posted on the same Web site.

The Web site, farkliulkuculer.com, has cast itself as part of a breakaway ultranationalist group aiming to cleanse and reform the nationalist movement in Turkey. The site’s administrators are anonymous.

The Public Communication Agency, which monitors Internet traffic in Turkey, blocked access to the Web site shortly after the videos were uploaded, presumably because of their explicit content.

Devlet Bahceli, the leader of the Nationalist Movement, denounced the videos as blackmail. “It is not correct to mess with these people’s personalities,” he said.

He said the Web site had demanded his resignation by last Wednesday if he wanted the videos to remain secret. He had earlier vowed not to yield to such threats.

Representatives of his party, noting that if they lose representation in Parliament the governing Justice and Development Party would be likely to gain, have accused the government of failing to properly investigate the videos and the Web site.

Lawyers for the Nationalist Movement filed a claim with a court in Ankara, the capital, on Wednesday demanding an investigation. The filing, citing calls made on a cellphone linked to the Web site, said that the video scandal was organized in the United States. Party leaders have previously accused a Turkish-American religious group, Fethullah Gulen, of working with the governing party to drive the Nationalist Movement from politics.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has campaigned strongly against the Nationalists, rebuffed those claims in a television show last week, saying that the Nationalist Movement was trying to blame the government for its internal problems.

The Nationalist Movement Party held 72 seats in the 540-member Parliament before the resignations on Saturday, and polls before the resignations showed it winning about 12 percent of the vote in the election next month. The governing Justice and Development Party is expected to win a third term as the majority government.

Political analysts, pointing to the timing of the release of videos that were evidently collected over a long period, expressed concern about the unethical tactics used to attack the Nationalists. “With these large number of resignations, we have an unprecedented scene here in the world of politics,” said Fatih Cekirge, a political analyst speaking on NTV, who called the blackmailing “political genocide.”

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Secret Desert Force Set Up by Blackwater’s Founder

 Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater, has a new project.

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — Late one night last November, a plane carrying dozens of Colombian men touched down in this glittering seaside capital. Whisked through customs by an Emirati intelligence officer, the group boarded an unmarked bus and drove roughly 20 miles to a windswept military complex in the desert sand.

Sheik Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan of Abu Dhabi hired Erik Prince to build a fighting force.

The Colombians had entered the United Arab Emirates posing as construction workers. In fact, they were soldiers for a secret American-led mercenary army being built by Erik Prince, the billionaire founder of Blackwater Worldwide, with $529 million from the oil-soaked sheikdom.

Mr. Prince, who resettled here last year after his security business faced mounting legal problems in the United States, was hired by the crown prince of Abu Dhabi to put together an 800-member battalion of foreign troops for the U.A.E., according to former employees on the project, American officials and corporate documents obtained by The New York Times.

The force is intended to conduct special operations missions inside and outside the country, defend oil pipelines and skyscrapers from terrorist attacks and put down internal revolts, the documents show. Such troops could be deployed if the Emirates faced unrest in their crowded labor camps or were challenged by pro-democracy protests like those sweeping the Arab world this year.

The U.A.E.’s rulers, viewing their own military as inadequate, also hope that the troops could blunt the regional aggression of Iran, the country’s biggest foe, the former employees said. The training camp, located on a sprawling Emirati base called Zayed Military City, is hidden behind concrete walls laced with barbed wire. Photographs show rows of identical yellow temporary buildings, used for barracks and mess halls, and a motor pool, which houses Humvees and fuel trucks. The Colombians, along with South African and other foreign troops, are trained by retired American soldiers and veterans of the German and British special operations units and the French Foreign Legion, according to the former employees and American officials.

In outsourcing critical parts of their defense to mercenaries — the soldiers of choice for medieval kings, Italian Renaissance dukes and African dictators — the Emiratis have begun a new era in the boom in wartime contracting that began after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. And by relying on a force largely created by Americans, they have introduced a volatile element in an already combustible region where the United States is widely viewed with suspicion.

The United Arab Emirates — an autocracy with the sheen of a progressive, modern state — are closely allied with the United States, and American officials indicated that the battalion program had some support in Washington.

“The gulf countries, and the U.A.E. in particular, don’t have a lot of military experience. It would make sense if they looked outside their borders for help,” said one Obama administration official who knew of the operation. “They might want to show that they are not to be messed with.”

Still, it is not clear whether the project has the United States’ official blessing. Legal experts and government officials said some of those involved with the battalion might be breaking federal laws that prohibit American citizens from training foreign troops if they did not secure a license from the State Department.

Mark C. Toner, a spokesman for the department, would not confirm whether Mr. Prince’s company had obtained such a license, but he said the department was investigating to see if the training effort was in violation of American laws. Mr. Toner pointed out that Blackwater (which renamed itself Xe Services ) paid $42 million in fines last year for training foreign troops in Jordan and other countries over the years.

The U.A.E.’s ambassador to Washington, Yousef al-Otaiba, declined to comment for this article. A spokesman for Mr. Prince also did not comment.

For Mr. Prince, the foreign battalion is a bold attempt at reinvention. He is hoping to build an empire in the desert, far from the trial lawyers, Congressional investigators and Justice Department officials he is convinced worked in league to portray Blackwater as reckless. He sold the company last year, but in April, a federal appeals court reopened the case against four Blackwater guards accused of killing 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad in 2007.

Mark Mazzetti reported from Abu Dhabi and Washington, and Emily B. Hager from New York. Jenny Carolina González and Simon Romero contributed reporting from Bogotá, Colombia. Kitty Bennett contributed research from Washington.

 

Middle East: Women Still an Untapped Labor Force in Turkey

 

ISTANBUL — Until she gave birth to her first child three months ago, 29-year-old Gulsen Cigdem worked at TransOrient International Forwarding, handling sales and logistics for moving goods by air, truck and sea.

Now, her days are spent caring for her son, Doruk, while she and her husband, Tarik, who works in the technology sector, try to find an affordable baby sitter so she can return to work when her maternity leave expires. She wants to avoid becoming one of the hundreds of thousands of Turkish women who, armed with a university degree, find a well-paying and interesting job but do not return to the work force once they marry or start a family.

“I got an education,” Mrs. Cigdem said during a recent interview. “I worked hard for that, and to just drop it because I became a mother is not my style.”

Creating more economic opportunities for women like Mrs. Cigdem is among the goals of the 2011 Global Summit of Women meeting through Saturday in Istanbul as a sort of Davos for women, mirroring the annual gathering of world economic leaders at the Swiss resort. Held for the first time in Turkey, the conference is taking place in a country where women, once they find jobs, often struggle to stay in them.

Researchers say that nearly half of all Turkish women enter the labor market at some point in their lives, but most end up quitting because of family obligations or poor working conditions. Raising rates of employment by women is “instrumental in building capacity for economic growth and poverty reduction,” a report by the Turkish State Planning Organization and the World Bank said.

While 64 percent of adult women in the European Union were employed in 2007, the figure was 23.5 percent in Turkey as of 2009, according to the Turkish and World Bank report. Of the women employed in Turkey in 2008, 35 percent worked in the service sector, 13 percent in industry and 49 percent in agriculture, according to the International Labor Organization.

Part of the problem is that most of the Turkish women who migrate to larger cities like Istanbul from rural areas in the south and east lack sufficient education to find anything but marginal, low-paying jobs. They are also likely to have several children and to find work that is outside the bounds of legal employment and therefore also outside the national social security system, making them more dependent on their spouses.

But it is marriage itself, some studies say, that appears to be the main factor in whether a Turkish woman stays on the job, regardless of her level of education.

“A common explanation suggested for Turkey’s low level of female participation in the labor force is that cultural attitudes that do not approve of women’s presence in the public sphere,” Ipek Ilkkaracan, a professor of economics at Istanbul Technical University, said during an interview by e-mail this week. “But a close look at data does not confirm that. Prior to marriage, women’s participation in the labor market in Turkey is at very high levels.”

Among never-married women age 25 to 45, the rate of participation in the labor force for university graduates is about 90 percent, the same as their male counterparts, Ms. Ilkkaracan said. For never-married women who graduated from high school, the figures are about 55 percent and for primary school graduates, 40 percent.

“By contrast, the figures for married women in Turkey are substantially lower,” she said. “Seventy percent for university graduates, about 25 percent for high school graduates and only 15 percent for married women of prime working age with primary school education.”

“In other words,” she added, “Turkish women participate in large numbers — no matter what their level of education — prior to marriage, but end up leaving their jobs upon marriage and having children.”

Ms. Ilkkaracan, a founding member of the nonprofit Women for Women’s Human Rights and the author of “Toward Gender Equality in the Labor Market: Work and Family Life Reconciliation Policies,” said one reason for the flight was the lack of childcare solutions for working women.

“There are hardly any subsidized childcare centers, crèches or preschools,” she said. “The few that existed have been closed down under the current administration. Given the low wages for women with high school or primary school education, it is hard for them to afford paid childcare.”

The problem is not lost on many of the high-ranking women executives in Turkey, where 12 percent of chief executive positions are held by women, about the same as in Germany according to the World Economic Forum.

Umit Boyner, president of the Turkish Industry and Business Association, or Tusiad, told a conference on working women earlier this year, “We must focus on altering the status of women in education and labor force statistics.”

“I regard the lack of educated women able to take their place in working life of their own free will as a serious loss,” she said. “Let us not squander our resources.”

Guler Sabanci, chairwoman of Sabanci Holding, who ranked third last year in a Financial Times list of the 50 most prominent businesswomen in the world, spoke at the same conference. (She became the first female member of Tusiad in 1984 and for many years was its only female member.)

After hailing the advances made by Turkish women in the era of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, Ms. Sabanci said “the present situation is unfortunately not very bright” in terms of women in the work place. “There is still a lot to be done for women in employment, social and political issues.”

“There is an election process ahead of us,” she said, referring to elections set for June. “Our political parties need to show sensitivity in this matter.”

Of the 550 members in the Turkish Parliament, 48 are women.

But for those like Mrs. Cigdem, the new mother, such lofty goals are a distant concern. She is more focused on finding a way to return to work by the end of this year.

“I am entitled to four months of paid leave,” she said by telephone. “Then I can take another six months unpaid. After that I have to go back to my job, or lose it.”

“Some of my friends are even saying that it’s the husband who has to work and that I should just stay home with the baby,” Mrs. Cigdem said. “But I used to live in England where I worked as an au pair. I saw that all the women went back to work after having children, but in Turkey we don’t have an au pair system.”

“I want to work because one income is not enough: Istanbul is very expensive,” she said, “but it’s also important for me socially, because these days I’m just home, home, home, looking after the child. I want to work, first for myself and second to earn enough money to provide a good education for Doruk.”

 

Electrical Problems Force Delay in Shuttle Launching

Less than four hours before the scheduled 3:47 p.m. liftoff, National Aeronautics and Space Administration officials announced that it would be delayed at least until Monday afternoon while technicians tried to fix the problem, which affects equipment that supplies hydraulic power to move the shuttle’s engines and flaps during ascent and re-entry.

Officials suggested that the launching could be delayed further. “We will not fly this machine until it is ready,” said Michael D. Leinbach, the shuttle launching director, “and today it was not ready to go.”

The delay frustrated huge crowds that had gathered outside the space center to watch the start of the next-to-last mission in the 30-year shuttle program.

Mr. Obama, who had been scheduled to watch the launching with his wife, Michelle, and daughters, was touring tornado damage in Alabama when the postponement was announced. He decided to visit the space center anyway, arriving about two hours later.

At the launching control center, the president and his wife met for about 10 minutes with Gabrielle Giffords, the wounded Arizona Democratic congresswoman and wife of the mission commander, Capt. Mark E. Kelly.

Just before going in to see Ms. Giffords, Mr. Obama greeted Captain Kelly in a corridor. The men shook hands and embraced.

The Obamas also met with the five other members of the shuttle crew. With their daughters, they toured the building where the Atlantis spacecraft is being prepared for the 135th and final shuttle mission, in late June. They walked under the shuttle, getting a close look at its thermal tiles.

The astronauts are under quarantine rules before a launching and ordinarily their contact with others, even family members, is restricted, but NASA officials said flight doctors had cleared the Obamas to meet with the crew.

Ms. Giffords, who suffered a severe head wound in a shooting in January, had arrived on Wednesday to watch the launching. There was no immediate word as to whether she would stay in Florida or return to the Houston rehabilitation hospital where she has been recovering for the past two months.

The astronauts had undergone final medical checks and donned orange flight suits and were on their way to the launching pad in a van when the postponement was announced. The van made a U-turn and parked briefly at the control center before returning to the astronauts’ quarters.

Whenever it begins, the mission, to the International Space Station, is scheduled to last two weeks. The Endeavour crew will install a $2 billion particle-physics experiment, the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, at the space station, where it will search for evidence of the elusive “dark matter” that is thought to be ubiquitous in the universe. The shuttle will also deliver spare parts, and the crew will perform maintenance tasks outside the station in four spacewalks.

Until Friday, preparations for the mission had been relatively smooth, with weather the major concern. But postponements due to equipment problems are not uncommon, and NASA officials had previously said they would not forgo safety procedures just because the president was going to be there.

Mr. Leinbach said the problem that forced the postponement was most likely an electrical short in an area of the shuttle that would take time to reach. Shortly after the decision was announced, technicians drained the spacecraft’s huge external fuel tank, which had been filled with liquid hydrogen and oxygen fuel early Friday. The fuels must be removed before it is safe to work on the spacecraft.

Mr. Leinbach and other officials said that depending on the extent of the problem, a Monday launching might be possible.

NASA has a launching window each afternoon through Wednesday; after that the Endeavour might have to wait until May 9 or 10 to try again.

Helene Cooper contributed reporting.

 

Portland, Ore., Votes to Rejoin Task Force After Terrorism Scare

No, it told Attorney General John Ashcroft in the fall of 2001, its police officers would not join federal efforts to interview thousands of Middle Eastern men. No, it said again in 2005, when it became the first city to stop participating in the Joint Terrorism Task Force, which the Department of Justice operates in cities across the country to unite federal, state and local law enforcement authorities.

And then, on Thanksgiving weekend last year, federal authorities arrested Mohamed Osman Mohamud, a Somali-born teenager they accused of trying to detonate a bomb at a Christmas tree-lighting ceremony attended by thousands of people. The investigation had been under way for many months, but the Portland police were consulted only near the end, largely to help with logistics of a sting operation. Mayor Sam Adams was unaware until after the arrest.

“It showed the challenges we face and the fact that the 2005 resolution, while well intentioned, wasn’t meeting the needs of collaboration between local and federal law enforcement,” Chief Michael Reese of the Portland police said in an interview. “You’re going to be an afterthought, like we were in that investigation.”

Now, after five months of public debate and rewritten drafts — and as Mr. Mohamud’s case moves slowly along — city leaders last week approved what one City Council member called a “very Portland” compromise to rejoin the task force.

“Be it resolved, that it is the policy of the city simultaneously to help prevent and investigate acts of terrorism, protect civil rights and civil liberties under United States and Oregon Law, and promote Portland as an open and inclusive community,” reads part of the preamble to the agreement.

The agreement goes on to emphasize that local officers will be guided by state law “in situations where the statutory or common law of Oregon is more restrictive of law enforcement than comparable federal law.” It also advises individual officers working with the task force to consult with the city attorney “whenever the officer has any question about the application of Oregon law.”

Under Oregon law, law enforcement agencies cannot collect information about a person’s political, religious or social views or group involvement “unless such information directly relates to an investigation of criminal activities, and there are reasonable grounds to suspect the subject of the information is or may be involved in criminal conduct.”

The upshot, Chief Reese said, is that his department will soon be able to participate in longstanding regular briefings that already include the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the State Police, county sheriff’s deputies, port authority officials and others. He will be allowed to apply for top-secret government clearance, and Mayor Adams, who is also the police commissioner, will be able to have secret clearance.

“A month from now, if we’re able to be there at the table and assign officers where it’s appropriate, I would be very happy,” Chief Reese said.

The agreement passed unanimously among the city’s five commissioners, though many residents spoke against it. Some said it would stir more fear among Muslims already wary of federal agents. Some said officers would abuse the agreement.

“How do you spell oppression? J.T.T.F!” a small group of opponents chanted on the sidewalk outside City Hall during the debate, in easy earshot of Council members. “How do you spell police state? J.T.T.F!”

Some critics said the agreement was so nuanced that it was hard to understand. “I don’t know if we are or if we’re not” joining the task force, Brandon Mayfield told Council members.

Mr. Mayfield, a lawyer, has experience in terrorism investigations that go wrong. In 2004, he was arrested after the F.B.I. mistakenly said his fingerprints matched one found on a plastic bag containing detonator caps found at the scene of terrorist bombings in Madrid the same year. He eventually received a $2 million settlement and an apology from the federal government.

Mr. Mayfield said in an interview that he opposed the agreement but that he was pleased that “at least they are thinking of civil rights.”

“They don’t want to be deemed as being soft on security, but at the same time they are putting in all these precautions,” he said. “It shows they are listening to the citizens of this city.”

Much has happened in the decade since Portland first resisted. The mayor and the police chief are new. The lead F.B.I. agent in Portland is new, as is the United States attorney here, Dwight C. Holton. The administration in Washington is also new.

“They were uncomfortable with some of the tactics in the war on terror,” said Mr. Holton. “They were uncomfortable with some of the politics of it, the national politics. Those folks are all gone now.”

Jeffrey L. Rogers, who was the city attorney in 2001 when Portland pushed back against Mr. Ashcroft, was among several people struck by the fact that the American Civil Liberties Union has given cautious support to the new agreement.

“It was harder to look for this kind of middle ground because the positions were so hardened,” Mr. Rogers said, recalling earlier debates. “Just on its face, that’s pretty impressive, to have all of those people agreeing.”

 

Electrical Problems Force Delay in Shuttle Launching

 

Less than four hours before the scheduled 3:47 p.m. liftoff, National Aeronautics and Space Administration officials announced that it would be delayed at least until Monday afternoon while technicians tried to fix the problem, which affects equipment that supplies hydraulic power to move the shuttle’s engines and flaps during ascent and re-entry.

Officials suggested that the launching could be delayed further. “We will not fly this machine until it is ready,” said Michael D. Leinbach, the shuttle launching director, “and today it was not ready to go.”

The delay frustrated huge crowds that had gathered outside the space center to watch the start of the next-to-last mission in the 30-year shuttle program.

Mr. Obama, who had been scheduled to watch the launching with his wife, Michelle, and daughters, was touring tornado damage in Alabama when the postponement was announced. He decided to visit the space center anyway, arriving about two hours later.

At the launching control center, the president and his wife met for about 10 minutes with Gabrielle Giffords, the wounded Arizona Democratic congresswoman and wife of the mission commander, Capt. Mark E. Kelly.

Just before going in to see Ms. Giffords, Mr. Obama greeted Captain Kelly in a corridor. The men shook hands and embraced.

The Obamas also met with the five other members of the shuttle crew. With their daughters, they toured the building where the Atlantis spacecraft is being prepared for the 135th and final shuttle mission, in late June. They walked under the shuttle, getting a close look at its thermal tiles.

The astronauts are under quarantine rules before a launching and ordinarily their contact with others, even family members, is restricted, but NASA officials said flight doctors had cleared the Obamas to meet with the crew.

Ms. Giffords, who suffered a severe head wound in a shooting in January, had arrived on Wednesday to watch the launching. There was no immediate word as to whether she would stay in Florida or return to the Houston rehabilitation hospital where she has been recovering for the past two months.

The astronauts had undergone final medical checks and donned orange flight suits and were on their way to the launching pad in a van when the postponement was announced. The van made a U-turn and parked briefly at the control center before returning to the astronauts’ quarters.

Whenever it begins, the mission, to the International Space Station, is scheduled to last two weeks. The Endeavour crew will install a $2 billion particle-physics experiment, the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, at the space station, where it will search for evidence of the elusive “dark matter” that is thought to be ubiquitous in the universe. The shuttle will also deliver spare parts, and the crew will perform maintenance tasks outside the station in four spacewalks.

Until Friday, preparations for the mission had been relatively smooth, with weather the major concern. But postponements due to equipment problems are not uncommon, and NASA officials had previously said they would not forgo safety procedures just because the president was going to be there.

Mr. Leinbach said the problem that forced the postponement was most likely an electrical short in an area of the shuttle that would take time to reach. Shortly after the decision was announced, technicians drained the spacecraft’s huge external fuel tank, which had been filled with liquid hydrogen and oxygen fuel early Friday. The fuels must be removed before it is safe to work on the spacecraft.

Mr. Leinbach and other officials said that depending on the extent of the problem, a Monday launching might be possible.

NASA has a launching window each afternoon through Wednesday; after that the Endeavour might have to wait until May 9 or 10 to try again.

Helene Cooper contributed reporting.

 

Democrats Sue to Force U.S. Election Agency to Reveal Political Donations

 

The lawsuit seeks to close “a major loophole” that allows private companies and nonprofit groups to operate “under a veil of anonymity” in raising money for political work, said Representative Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat who brought the lawsuit along with lawyers for several liberal groups.

In another push for greater disclosure, President Obama is considering issuing an executive order that would require contractors with federal business to report their political donations. “His goal is transparency and accountability,” said the White House spokesman, Jay Carney.

A surge in corporate spending on political causes — the result of a Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United case in January 2010 — became a major issue in the Congressional races that year and promises to be important in the 2012 presidential race.

Some Democrats attributed their loss of the House majority in November to the flood of largely anonymous spending by conservative groups. They have been unsuccessful in rolling back aspects of the Citizens United decision in the courts or in Congress, where Senate Republicans last year blocked a measure known as the Disclose Act, which Mr. Van Hollen sponsored.

As a result, Democrats are turning to other regulatory and executive branch measures — tactics that conservatives said Thursday smacked of political desperation as the presidential election nears.

“This is a sign of weakness by a group that’s afraid they’re going to lose, and lose big,” said Bradley A. Smith, a conservative lawyer and former Federal Election commissioner who leads the Center for Competitive Politics, a conservative advocacy group.

“Again and again, you see evidence that their real purpose is to try to shut down their political opposition,” Mr. Smith said. He and other conservatives argue that disclosure requirements pushed by Democrats amount to a chilling of free speech.

Mr. Van Hollen said in an interview that the lawsuit reflected an effort to use “all available options” to reduce the influence of anonymous corporate money.

In his lawsuit, Mr. Van Hollen noted that a number of the most prominent conservative nonprofit groups spent a total of more than $65 million on political activities in the 2010 races without disclosing any of the donors who financed their activities.

He singled out, among others, Crossroads GPS, a conservative group tied to Karl Rove, who was a senior adviser to President George W. Bush; Americans for Prosperity, financed by the billionaire brothers who lead Koch Industries; and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has increased its political spending significantly in the face of threatened regulatory restrictions on American businesses.

The chamber charged Thursday that the lawsuit, along with Mr. Obama’s consideration of disclosure rules for contractors, were part of a “witch hunt” by Democrats meant to punish their “political foes.”

Specifically, the lawsuit seeks to reverse a 2007 Federal Election Commission regulation requiring companies and groups to name only those donors who gave at least $1,000 specifically for the purpose of financing political activity. Mr. Van Hollen said the agency overstepped its authority in enacting the regulation because it “gutted” disclosure requirements that Congress had put in place in 2002.

The commission declined to comment on the lawsuit.

 

Democrats Sue to Force U.S. Election Agency to Reveal Political Donations

 

The lawsuit seeks to close “a major loophole” that allows private companies and nonprofit groups to operate “under a veil of anonymity” in raising money for political work, said Representative Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat who brought the lawsuit along with lawyers for several liberal groups.

In another push for greater disclosure, President Obama is considering issuing an executive order that would require contractors with federal business to report their political donations. “His goal is transparency and accountability,” said the White House spokesman, Jay Carney.

A surge in corporate spending on political causes — the result of a Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United case in January 2010 — became a major issue in the Congressional races that year and promises to be important in the 2012 presidential race.

Some Democrats attributed their loss of the House majority in November to the flood of largely anonymous spending by conservative groups. They have been unsuccessful in rolling back aspects of the Citizens United decision in the courts or in Congress, where Senate Republicans last year blocked a measure known as the Disclose Act, which Mr. Van Hollen sponsored.

As a result, Democrats are turning to other regulatory and executive branch measures — tactics that conservatives said Thursday smacked of political desperation as the presidential election nears.

“This is a sign of weakness by a group that’s afraid they’re going to lose, and lose big,” said Bradley A. Smith, a conservative lawyer and former Federal Election commissioner who leads the Center for Competitive Politics, a conservative advocacy group.

“Again and again, you see evidence that their real purpose is to try to shut down their political opposition,” Mr. Smith said. He and other conservatives argue that disclosure requirements pushed by Democrats amount to a chilling of free speech.

Mr. Van Hollen said in an interview that the lawsuit reflected an effort to use “all available options” to reduce the influence of anonymous corporate money.

In his lawsuit, Mr. Van Hollen noted that a number of the most prominent conservative nonprofit groups spent a total of more than $65 million on political activities in the 2010 races without disclosing any of the donors who financed their activities.

He singled out, among others, Crossroads GPS, a conservative group tied to Karl Rove, who was a senior adviser to President George W. Bush; Americans for Prosperity, financed by the billionaire brothers who lead Koch Industries; and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has increased its political spending significantly in the face of threatened regulatory restrictions on American businesses.

The chamber charged Thursday that the lawsuit, along with Mr. Obama’s consideration of disclosure rules for contractors, were part of a “witch hunt” by Democrats meant to punish their “political foes.”

Specifically, the lawsuit seeks to reverse a 2007 Federal Election Commission regulation requiring companies and groups to name only those donors who gave at least $1,000 specifically for the purpose of financing political activity. Mr. Van Hollen said the agency overstepped its authority in enacting the regulation because it “gutted” disclosure requirements that Congress had put in place in 2002.

The commission declined to comment on the lawsuit.