Security Pipeline | News | Spam-Virus Marriage Seen As Leading 2004 Internet Threat:
"The use of viruses to commandeer personal computers on the Internet for relaying spam is a trend that started this year and is expected to escalate in 2004, an e-mail security company said Friday.
In the last six months, MessageLabs Inc. has seen a steady rise in the use of spam and virus techniques in sending out junk e-mail hawking drugs, pornography and sexual enhancements. "
The Minneapolis-based company, which filters corporate e-mail for spam and viruses, intercepts about 27 spam messages a second today, up from two per second at the same time last year. Sixty-six percent of those messages are generated from PCs that have been taken over by spammers without the knowledge of the computers' owners, Mark Sunner, chief technology officer for MessageLabs, said.
The number of PCs commandeered by spammers is expected to increase next year. "Spammers are taking advantage of the flaw in traditional anti-virus software people are running on their desktops today," Sunner said.
Traditional anti-virus software requires users to download code capable of detecting a virus after it's released on the Internet.
Until this year, people seeking a thrill from the chaos they could cause on the Internet accounted for most of the viruses. The malevolent code is hidden in an e-mail attachment that the sender tries to trick a person into opening by pretending the message is from a legitimate vendor or someone who can be trusted, like a friend.
Spammers are now using the same techniques to get PC users to unknowingly install applications that allow the machines to be used later to relay spam. The pre-eminent example of this kind of malevolent code was the Sobig.F virus, which had such an effective mass-mailing engine that it managed to shut down some corporate and government networks.
"The authors behind Sobig were definitely spammers using the virus to harvest lots of machines to blast spam," Sunner said.
Relaying spam through other computers enables spammers to remain anonymous and avoid law enforcement agencies. In addition, by hiding the original source of the mass-mailings, spammers can avoid black lists used by filtering software to separate spam from legitimate messages.…
http://informationweek.securitypipeline.com/news/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=F1K3ID3UJ3UQIQSNDBCSKHQ?articleId=16600263
Saturday, December 13, 2003
Iraq Army Desertions Force Pay Review:
"The U.S.-led coalition will reconsider the pay scale for members of the new Iraqi army after about half of the recruits deserted, the U.S. general in charge of Iraqi military operations said Saturday.
Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, speaking at a news conference, said the major reason for the defections was pay, specifically allowances for married soldiers who were struggling to support their families on $60 a month."
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iraq.html
"The U.S.-led coalition will reconsider the pay scale for members of the new Iraqi army after about half of the recruits deserted, the U.S. general in charge of Iraqi military operations said Saturday.
Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, speaking at a news conference, said the major reason for the defections was pay, specifically allowances for married soldiers who were struggling to support their families on $60 a month."
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iraq.html
Friday, December 12, 2003
U.S. Draws on Israeli Methods for Iraq:
"In fighting insurgents in Iraq, the United States is drawing on some of Israel's methods and experiences in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, including running checkpoints and tracking militants with drone aircraft, Israeli officials say."
Israeli and U.S. security experts have met repeatedly in recent months to discuss urban warfare and Israel's lessons from its grueling three-year fight against Palestinian militants.
In public comments, Israeli and U.S. officials acknowledge ``strategic cooperation'' and confirm high-level meetings, the most recent one last week in Tel Aviv. However, they play down the contacts as routine, apparently for fear the Arab world will be outraged.
Recent U.S. methods in Iraq increasingly mimic those Israel uses in the West Bank and Gaza -- setting up impromptu checkpoints, keeping militants on the defensive with frequent arrest raids and, in at least one case, encircling a village and distributing travel permits.
An Israeli security official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Israel has briefed the U.S. military on its frequent use of drones, or unmanned reconnaissance aircraft, which allow officers at Israeli military headquarters to watch operations in real time.
Israel uses drones to monitor targeted killings, often helicopter missile attacks on fugitives' cars. Israel has killed at least 117 terror suspects and 88 bystanders in targeted attacks.
The Israeli security official said Israel has taught the U.S. military how to make use of intelligence information within minutes to attack a moving target. The U.S. military has not formally adopted targeted killings, though some wanted Iraqis have been killed in arrest raids.
A U.S. Army officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said U.S. troops try to stay clear of methods that look like collective punishment. Israel routinely demolishes the family homes of Palestinian attackers in hopes of deterring future attacks.
The British newspaper The Guardian recently reported Israeli advisers are training U.S. soldiers at Fort Bragg, N.C.
Lt. Col. Hans Bush, of the U.S. Army's Special Operations Command, said there are no Israeli forces ``currently teaching Army Special Operations Command forces at Fort Bragg.''
Last week, a large delegation from the Army Training and Doctrine Command in Fort Monroe, Va., visited Israel. Harvey Perritt, the command's civilian spokesman, said the meeting was routine, but would not elaborate.…
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Iraq.html
"In fighting insurgents in Iraq, the United States is drawing on some of Israel's methods and experiences in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, including running checkpoints and tracking militants with drone aircraft, Israeli officials say."
Israeli and U.S. security experts have met repeatedly in recent months to discuss urban warfare and Israel's lessons from its grueling three-year fight against Palestinian militants.
In public comments, Israeli and U.S. officials acknowledge ``strategic cooperation'' and confirm high-level meetings, the most recent one last week in Tel Aviv. However, they play down the contacts as routine, apparently for fear the Arab world will be outraged.
Recent U.S. methods in Iraq increasingly mimic those Israel uses in the West Bank and Gaza -- setting up impromptu checkpoints, keeping militants on the defensive with frequent arrest raids and, in at least one case, encircling a village and distributing travel permits.
An Israeli security official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Israel has briefed the U.S. military on its frequent use of drones, or unmanned reconnaissance aircraft, which allow officers at Israeli military headquarters to watch operations in real time.
Israel uses drones to monitor targeted killings, often helicopter missile attacks on fugitives' cars. Israel has killed at least 117 terror suspects and 88 bystanders in targeted attacks.
The Israeli security official said Israel has taught the U.S. military how to make use of intelligence information within minutes to attack a moving target. The U.S. military has not formally adopted targeted killings, though some wanted Iraqis have been killed in arrest raids.
A U.S. Army officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said U.S. troops try to stay clear of methods that look like collective punishment. Israel routinely demolishes the family homes of Palestinian attackers in hopes of deterring future attacks.
The British newspaper The Guardian recently reported Israeli advisers are training U.S. soldiers at Fort Bragg, N.C.
Lt. Col. Hans Bush, of the U.S. Army's Special Operations Command, said there are no Israeli forces ``currently teaching Army Special Operations Command forces at Fort Bragg.''
Last week, a large delegation from the Army Training and Doctrine Command in Fort Monroe, Va., visited Israel. Harvey Perritt, the command's civilian spokesman, said the meeting was routine, but would not elaborate.…
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Iraq.html
Dispatches: The Military: Marines Plan to Use Velvet Glove More Than Iron Fist in Iraq:
"No force has a tougher reputation than the United States Marines. But the marines who are headed to Iraq this spring say they intend to avoid the get-tough tactics that have been used in recent weeks by Army units. "
Marine commanders say they do not plan to surround villages with barbed wire, demolish buildings used by insurgents or detain relatives of suspected guerrillas. The Marines do not plan to fire artillery at suspected guerrilla mortar positions, an Army tactic that risks harming civilians. Nor do the Marines want to risk civilian casualties by calling in bombing strikes on the insurgents, as has happened most recently in Afghanistan.…
The increase in guerrilla attacks on American troops in Iraq has prompted Army units in the so-called Sunni triangle in central Iraq to adopt a hard-nosed approach — and spawned a behind-the-scenes debate within the American military about the best way to quash the insurgents.
While some Army commanders insist the hard-nosed tactics have been successful in reducing enemy attacks, other military officers believe they are alienating Iraqis and thus depriving American commanders of the public support and human intelligence needed to ferret out threats.
In an interview at his headquarters at Camp Pendleton, General Conway was careful not to criticize the Army. Still, he indicated that he plans to pursue a very different strategy.
"I don't want to condemn what people are doing," General Conway said. "I think they are doing what they think they have to do. I'll simply say that I think until we can win the population over and they can give us those indigenous intelligence reports that we're prolonging the process."
The Marines, General Conway says, will try to design their raids to be "laser precise," focused on the enemy with a maximum effort made to avoid endangering or humiliating Iraqi civilians.
After American forces invaded Iraq last spring, United States marines fought some of the fiercest battles of the war at Nasiriya and at a mosque in eastern Baghdad. After Saddam Hussein was ousted, the Marines assumed the responsibility for stabilizing south-central Iraq, where most of the inhabitants are Shiite Muslims who were persecuted under Mr. Hussein and were glad to see him gone. In contrast to the Army's experience, no marine was killed in action after mid-April.
The Marines insist their success also reflected their energetic efforts to work with the local population, an effort guided by their "Small Wars" manual, which derives from their 20th-century interventions in Central America.
There were several parallels between the Marine experience in southern Iraq and how the Army's 101st Airborne Division has approached northern Iraq — and many differences from the aggressive tactics of the Army's Fourth Infantry Division and other Army units in the Sunni triangle.
On their return to Iraq now, the Marines will be dealing with a much more challenging area which includes restive towns like Falluja, west of Baghdad.
In that region, American military units have come and gone so often that they have had little time to understand their surroundings. Falluja was initially occupied by the 82nd Airborne Division, which was soon replaced by the Third Armored Cavalry Regiment, which was in turn replaced by the Second Brigade of the Army's Third Infantry Division. In early summer, the Third Infantry Division had some success in helping to establish the local police. But it returned to the United States, handing the town back to the Third Armored Cavalry, which was soon replaced by the 82nd Airborne.
In Iraqi society, which emphasizes personal relationships, the constant rotations have made a difficult job that much harder. So have some tactics: in April, soldiers from the 82nd Airborne based themselves in Falluja and were fired on during an anti-American demonstration. The troops fired back. Iraqis say 17 people were killed and more than 70 wounded, many of them civilians who never fired on the American troops. The 82nd Airborne has disputed that account.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/12/international/middleeast/12MARI.html?pagewanted=all&position=
"No force has a tougher reputation than the United States Marines. But the marines who are headed to Iraq this spring say they intend to avoid the get-tough tactics that have been used in recent weeks by Army units. "
Marine commanders say they do not plan to surround villages with barbed wire, demolish buildings used by insurgents or detain relatives of suspected guerrillas. The Marines do not plan to fire artillery at suspected guerrilla mortar positions, an Army tactic that risks harming civilians. Nor do the Marines want to risk civilian casualties by calling in bombing strikes on the insurgents, as has happened most recently in Afghanistan.…
The increase in guerrilla attacks on American troops in Iraq has prompted Army units in the so-called Sunni triangle in central Iraq to adopt a hard-nosed approach — and spawned a behind-the-scenes debate within the American military about the best way to quash the insurgents.
While some Army commanders insist the hard-nosed tactics have been successful in reducing enemy attacks, other military officers believe they are alienating Iraqis and thus depriving American commanders of the public support and human intelligence needed to ferret out threats.
In an interview at his headquarters at Camp Pendleton, General Conway was careful not to criticize the Army. Still, he indicated that he plans to pursue a very different strategy.
"I don't want to condemn what people are doing," General Conway said. "I think they are doing what they think they have to do. I'll simply say that I think until we can win the population over and they can give us those indigenous intelligence reports that we're prolonging the process."
The Marines, General Conway says, will try to design their raids to be "laser precise," focused on the enemy with a maximum effort made to avoid endangering or humiliating Iraqi civilians.
After American forces invaded Iraq last spring, United States marines fought some of the fiercest battles of the war at Nasiriya and at a mosque in eastern Baghdad. After Saddam Hussein was ousted, the Marines assumed the responsibility for stabilizing south-central Iraq, where most of the inhabitants are Shiite Muslims who were persecuted under Mr. Hussein and were glad to see him gone. In contrast to the Army's experience, no marine was killed in action after mid-April.
The Marines insist their success also reflected their energetic efforts to work with the local population, an effort guided by their "Small Wars" manual, which derives from their 20th-century interventions in Central America.
There were several parallels between the Marine experience in southern Iraq and how the Army's 101st Airborne Division has approached northern Iraq — and many differences from the aggressive tactics of the Army's Fourth Infantry Division and other Army units in the Sunni triangle.
On their return to Iraq now, the Marines will be dealing with a much more challenging area which includes restive towns like Falluja, west of Baghdad.
In that region, American military units have come and gone so often that they have had little time to understand their surroundings. Falluja was initially occupied by the 82nd Airborne Division, which was soon replaced by the Third Armored Cavalry Regiment, which was in turn replaced by the Second Brigade of the Army's Third Infantry Division. In early summer, the Third Infantry Division had some success in helping to establish the local police. But it returned to the United States, handing the town back to the Third Armored Cavalry, which was soon replaced by the 82nd Airborne.
In Iraqi society, which emphasizes personal relationships, the constant rotations have made a difficult job that much harder. So have some tactics: in April, soldiers from the 82nd Airborne based themselves in Falluja and were fired on during an anti-American demonstration. The troops fired back. Iraqis say 17 people were killed and more than 70 wounded, many of them civilians who never fired on the American troops. The 82nd Airborne has disputed that account.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/12/international/middleeast/12MARI.html?pagewanted=all&position=
Thursday, December 11, 2003
Bush Defends Policy on Awarding Contracts to Rebuild Iraq:
"White House officials declined to say how Mr. Bush explained the Pentagon policy to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, President Jacques Chirac of France and Chancellor Gerhard Schröder of Germany. France and Russia were two of the largest creditors of Saddam Hussein's government. But officials hinted, by the end of the day, that Mr. Baker might be able to show flexibility to countries that write down Iraqi debt.
'I can't imagine that if you are asking to do stuff for Iraq that this is going to help,' a senior State Department official said late Wednesday."
Under the Pentagon rules, only companies whose countries are on the American list of "coalition nations" are eligible to compete for the prime contracts, though they could act as subcontractors. The result is that the Solomon Islands, Uganda and Samoa may compete for the contracts, but China, whose premier just left the White House with promises of an expanded trade relationship, is excluded, along with Israel.
Several of Mr. Bush's aides wondered why the administration had not simply adopted a policy of giving preference to prime contracts to members of the coalition, without barring any countries outright.
"What we did was toss away our leverage," one senior American diplomat said. "We could have put together a policy that said, `The more you help, the more contracts you may be able to gain.' " Instead, the official said, "we found a new way to alienate them."
In public, however, the White House defended the approach. Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, said "the United States and coalition countries, as well as others that are contributing forces to the efforts there, and the Iraqi people themselves are the ones that have been helping and sacrificing to build a free and prosperous nation for the Iraqi people."
He said contracts stemming from aid to Iraq pledged by donor nations in Madrid last month would be open to broad international competition.
Richard A. Boucher, the State Department spokesman, said Wednesday that while the bidding restriction applied to prime contracts, "there are very few restrictions on subcontractors."
He also said the World Bank and International Monetary Fund "may have different, or their own, rules for how they contract."
When the committee was drafting the policy, officials said, there was some discussion about whether it would be wise to declare that excluding noncoalition members was in the security interests of the United States. As a matter of trade law, countries are often allowed to limit trade with other nations on national security grounds.
"The intent was to give us the legal cover to make the decision," one official said.
But the phrase angered officials of other nations because it seemed to suggest they were a security risk.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/11/international/middleeast/10CND-PREX.html?hp=&pagewanted=all&position=
"White House officials declined to say how Mr. Bush explained the Pentagon policy to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, President Jacques Chirac of France and Chancellor Gerhard Schröder of Germany. France and Russia were two of the largest creditors of Saddam Hussein's government. But officials hinted, by the end of the day, that Mr. Baker might be able to show flexibility to countries that write down Iraqi debt.
'I can't imagine that if you are asking to do stuff for Iraq that this is going to help,' a senior State Department official said late Wednesday."
Under the Pentagon rules, only companies whose countries are on the American list of "coalition nations" are eligible to compete for the prime contracts, though they could act as subcontractors. The result is that the Solomon Islands, Uganda and Samoa may compete for the contracts, but China, whose premier just left the White House with promises of an expanded trade relationship, is excluded, along with Israel.
Several of Mr. Bush's aides wondered why the administration had not simply adopted a policy of giving preference to prime contracts to members of the coalition, without barring any countries outright.
"What we did was toss away our leverage," one senior American diplomat said. "We could have put together a policy that said, `The more you help, the more contracts you may be able to gain.' " Instead, the official said, "we found a new way to alienate them."
In public, however, the White House defended the approach. Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, said "the United States and coalition countries, as well as others that are contributing forces to the efforts there, and the Iraqi people themselves are the ones that have been helping and sacrificing to build a free and prosperous nation for the Iraqi people."
He said contracts stemming from aid to Iraq pledged by donor nations in Madrid last month would be open to broad international competition.
Richard A. Boucher, the State Department spokesman, said Wednesday that while the bidding restriction applied to prime contracts, "there are very few restrictions on subcontractors."
He also said the World Bank and International Monetary Fund "may have different, or their own, rules for how they contract."
When the committee was drafting the policy, officials said, there was some discussion about whether it would be wise to declare that excluding noncoalition members was in the security interests of the United States. As a matter of trade law, countries are often allowed to limit trade with other nations on national security grounds.
"The intent was to give us the legal cover to make the decision," one official said.
But the phrase angered officials of other nations because it seemed to suggest they were a security risk.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/11/international/middleeast/10CND-PREX.html?hp=&pagewanted=all&position=
Wednesday, December 10, 2003
In Ethiopia's Malaria War, Weapons Are the Issue: "
With a major malaria outbreak sweeping Ethiopia, an international doctors' group working there contends that outdated drugs are being used to fight it and may even worsen the epidemic.
Unicef, the United Nations agency providing the drugs, defended the choices it made in consultation with the Ethiopian government. The older drugs are still effective, it said, and changing policy midepidemic for a health system as battered as Ethiopia's can be disastrous.
But an internal World Health Organization memo from Dec. 3, obtained by The New York Times, disagrees and 'strongly recommends' that a new but more expensive drug be used."
The struggle illustrates problems confronting the makers of world health policy. Drug-resistant strains can evolve faster than new drugs can be discovered, and new cures are inevitably more expensive, forcing choices between costly drugs that work and cheap ones that may not.
The W.H.O. expects Ethiopia's epidemic to spread to 15 million of its 65 million population — triple the normal rate.
The aid group arguing for newer drugs, Doctors Without Borders, says that in the two Ethiopian areas where it runs clinics, up to 60 percent of patients have strains that appear resistant to the first-line treatment that Unicef and Ethiopia picked, a two-drug cocktail of chloroquine and sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine, better known by its initials, SP, or the brand name Fansidar.
The doctors' group said the second-line treatment, hospitalization for five days of quinine, was inaccessible for many patients and hard on malnourished children. Ethiopia is a mountainous country, where many people live far from clinics or are nomadic.
Doctors Without Borders wants to introduce artemisinin, a chemical that Chinese herbalists first derived 30 years ago from the sweet wormwood plant. It has become the latest wonder drug against malaria. But it is relatively expensive. Even at the prices drug companies offer to the poorest countries, cocktails that use it cost $1 to $2.50 an adult treatment. A typical treatment of chloroquine and SP costs about 20 cents.
The artemisinin program also requires taking pills for three days instead of one.
Nonetheless, the W.H.O., which usually provides treatment guidance, strongly endorses artemisinin cocktails, which are being used in several African countries, including Burundi, Liberia and South Africa. Because resistance to chloroquine is widespread, the W.H.O. discourages its use.
Dr. Kevin Marsh, a malaria expert working in Kenya, called chloroquine "a failed drug" and said health authorities were foolish to spend money on it.
Heavy rains this year ended five years of a drought that starved and weakened people in wide swaths of Ethiopia. The rains were accompanied by unusually hot weather that let mosquitoes breed at higher altitudes.
Malaria surged. United Nations relief agencies are calling the outbreak the worst since 1998 and the country's "single biggest health problem."
But malaria death rates in some villages are five times the normal rate, said Dr. Pauline Horrill, an emergency coordinator for Doctors Without Borders.
Across the world, malaria kills three children a minute.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/09/health/09MALA.html?pagewanted=all&position=
With a major malaria outbreak sweeping Ethiopia, an international doctors' group working there contends that outdated drugs are being used to fight it and may even worsen the epidemic.
Unicef, the United Nations agency providing the drugs, defended the choices it made in consultation with the Ethiopian government. The older drugs are still effective, it said, and changing policy midepidemic for a health system as battered as Ethiopia's can be disastrous.
But an internal World Health Organization memo from Dec. 3, obtained by The New York Times, disagrees and 'strongly recommends' that a new but more expensive drug be used."
The struggle illustrates problems confronting the makers of world health policy. Drug-resistant strains can evolve faster than new drugs can be discovered, and new cures are inevitably more expensive, forcing choices between costly drugs that work and cheap ones that may not.
The W.H.O. expects Ethiopia's epidemic to spread to 15 million of its 65 million population — triple the normal rate.
The aid group arguing for newer drugs, Doctors Without Borders, says that in the two Ethiopian areas where it runs clinics, up to 60 percent of patients have strains that appear resistant to the first-line treatment that Unicef and Ethiopia picked, a two-drug cocktail of chloroquine and sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine, better known by its initials, SP, or the brand name Fansidar.
The doctors' group said the second-line treatment, hospitalization for five days of quinine, was inaccessible for many patients and hard on malnourished children. Ethiopia is a mountainous country, where many people live far from clinics or are nomadic.
Doctors Without Borders wants to introduce artemisinin, a chemical that Chinese herbalists first derived 30 years ago from the sweet wormwood plant. It has become the latest wonder drug against malaria. But it is relatively expensive. Even at the prices drug companies offer to the poorest countries, cocktails that use it cost $1 to $2.50 an adult treatment. A typical treatment of chloroquine and SP costs about 20 cents.
The artemisinin program also requires taking pills for three days instead of one.
Nonetheless, the W.H.O., which usually provides treatment guidance, strongly endorses artemisinin cocktails, which are being used in several African countries, including Burundi, Liberia and South Africa. Because resistance to chloroquine is widespread, the W.H.O. discourages its use.
Dr. Kevin Marsh, a malaria expert working in Kenya, called chloroquine "a failed drug" and said health authorities were foolish to spend money on it.
Heavy rains this year ended five years of a drought that starved and weakened people in wide swaths of Ethiopia. The rains were accompanied by unusually hot weather that let mosquitoes breed at higher altitudes.
Malaria surged. United Nations relief agencies are calling the outbreak the worst since 1998 and the country's "single biggest health problem."
But malaria death rates in some villages are five times the normal rate, said Dr. Pauline Horrill, an emergency coordinator for Doctors Without Borders.
Across the world, malaria kills three children a minute.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/09/health/09MALA.html?pagewanted=all&position=
High Payments to Halliburton for Fuel in Iraq:
"The United States government is paying the Halliburton Company an average of $2.64 a gallon to import gasoline and other fuel to Iraq from Kuwait, more than twice what others are paying to truck in Kuwaiti fuel, government documents show.
Halliburton, which has the exclusive United States contract to import fuel into Iraq, subcontracts the work to a Kuwaiti firm, government officials said. But Halliburton gets 26 cents a gallon for its overhead and fee, according to documents from the Army Corps of Engineers."
The cost of the imported fuel first came to public attention in October when two senior Democrats in Congress criticized Halliburton, the huge Houston-based oil-field services company, for "inflating gasoline prices at a great cost to American taxpayers." At the time, it was estimated that Halliburton was charging the United States government and Iraq's oil-for-food program an average of about $1.60 a gallon for fuel available for 71 cents wholesale.
But a breakdown of fuel costs, contained in Army Corps documents recently provided to Democratic Congressional investigators and shared with The New York Times, shows that Halliburton is charging $2.64 for a gallon of fuel it imports from Kuwait and $1.24 per gallon for fuel from Turkey.
A spokeswoman for Halliburton, Wendy Hall, defended the company's pricing. "It is expensive to purchase, ship, and deliver fuel into a wartime situation, especially when you are limited by short-duration contracting," she said. She said the company's Kellogg Brown & Root unit, which administers the contract, must work in a "hazardous" and "hostile environment," and that its profit on the contract is small.
The price of fuel sold in Iraq, set by the government, is 5 cents to 15 cents a gallon. The price is a political issue, and has not been raised to avoid another hardship for Iraqis.
The Iraqi state oil company and the Pentagon's Defense Energy Support Center import fuel from Kuwait for less than half of Halliburton's price, the records show.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/10/international/middleeast/10GAS.html?pagewanted=all&position=
"The United States government is paying the Halliburton Company an average of $2.64 a gallon to import gasoline and other fuel to Iraq from Kuwait, more than twice what others are paying to truck in Kuwaiti fuel, government documents show.
Halliburton, which has the exclusive United States contract to import fuel into Iraq, subcontracts the work to a Kuwaiti firm, government officials said. But Halliburton gets 26 cents a gallon for its overhead and fee, according to documents from the Army Corps of Engineers."
The cost of the imported fuel first came to public attention in October when two senior Democrats in Congress criticized Halliburton, the huge Houston-based oil-field services company, for "inflating gasoline prices at a great cost to American taxpayers." At the time, it was estimated that Halliburton was charging the United States government and Iraq's oil-for-food program an average of about $1.60 a gallon for fuel available for 71 cents wholesale.
But a breakdown of fuel costs, contained in Army Corps documents recently provided to Democratic Congressional investigators and shared with The New York Times, shows that Halliburton is charging $2.64 for a gallon of fuel it imports from Kuwait and $1.24 per gallon for fuel from Turkey.
A spokeswoman for Halliburton, Wendy Hall, defended the company's pricing. "It is expensive to purchase, ship, and deliver fuel into a wartime situation, especially when you are limited by short-duration contracting," she said. She said the company's Kellogg Brown & Root unit, which administers the contract, must work in a "hazardous" and "hostile environment," and that its profit on the contract is small.
The price of fuel sold in Iraq, set by the government, is 5 cents to 15 cents a gallon. The price is a political issue, and has not been raised to avoid another hardship for Iraqis.
The Iraqi state oil company and the Pentagon's Defense Energy Support Center import fuel from Kuwait for less than half of Halliburton's price, the records show.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/10/international/middleeast/10GAS.html?pagewanted=all&position=
Tuesday, December 09, 2003
Time Warner to Use Cable Lines to Add Phone to Internet Service:
"Time Warner Cable said yesterday that it had signed a deal with Sprint and MCI to help it send telephone calls over lines once used only to deliver television programming. The move escalates the clash between the cable and the traditional telephone industries, and shows how quickly cable companies are transforming themselves into all-purpose telecommunications providers."
Internet technology has made it possible for the cable companies to use their lines — which reach nearly every American home — to deliver telephone service, as well as high-speed Internet connections. Time Warner said it intended to offer telephone service by the end of next year in major markets in most, if not all, of the 27 states it serves.
Several cable companies already offer phone service using an older technology, though worldwide the number is fewer than eight million subscribers combined.
The newer technology, known as voice over Internet protocol, sends phone calls as digital data over the Internet. Customers using the service would plug regular phones into modems connected to the cable wire in their homes. They would be able to keep their existing phone numbers, and the Internet-based calls could be received on regular phones. Refinements of this technology over the last year allow cable companies to offer phone service in more markets more quickly.
In addition to Time Warner Cable, the cable giants Comcast, Cox Communications and Cablevision have started deployment of Internet phone services, with plans to expand those services in 2004.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/09/technology/09PHON.html?pagewanted=all&position=
"Time Warner Cable said yesterday that it had signed a deal with Sprint and MCI to help it send telephone calls over lines once used only to deliver television programming. The move escalates the clash between the cable and the traditional telephone industries, and shows how quickly cable companies are transforming themselves into all-purpose telecommunications providers."
Internet technology has made it possible for the cable companies to use their lines — which reach nearly every American home — to deliver telephone service, as well as high-speed Internet connections. Time Warner said it intended to offer telephone service by the end of next year in major markets in most, if not all, of the 27 states it serves.
Several cable companies already offer phone service using an older technology, though worldwide the number is fewer than eight million subscribers combined.
The newer technology, known as voice over Internet protocol, sends phone calls as digital data over the Internet. Customers using the service would plug regular phones into modems connected to the cable wire in their homes. They would be able to keep their existing phone numbers, and the Internet-based calls could be received on regular phones. Refinements of this technology over the last year allow cable companies to offer phone service in more markets more quickly.
In addition to Time Warner Cable, the cable giants Comcast, Cox Communications and Cablevision have started deployment of Internet phone services, with plans to expand those services in 2004.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/09/technology/09PHON.html?pagewanted=all&position=
U.S. Programmers at Overseas Salaries - TechUpdate - ZDNet:
"cMarket had been pursued, as many business owners are these days, by an intermediary who promised he could cut cMarket's programming costs significantly by outsourcing his needs to India. So last spring, when cMarket signed an agreement with the national Parent Teachers Assn. (PTA) to handle online auctions for its 20,000-plus local chapters and, simultaneously, began taking on charity auctions from Boston to Miami, Jon knew he had to rapidly expand cMarket's capabilities. He had his IT director call the intermediary and tell him that cMarket needed four programmers, pronto. Jon knew the numbers for experienced American programmers doing the specialty work he required: $80,000 a year, with benefits adding an additional $5,000 to $10,000 per programmer. The intermediary came back with the number for the services from India: $40,000 per programmer. "
It seemed like a cut-and-dried decision, the kind U.S. executives are making every day without hesitating, but for some reason Jon hesitated. Much as he likes the idea of having projects completed at the lowest possible cost, and as responsible as he feels to investors, he didn't like the feeling of becoming someone who callously pushes jobs to other countries. "I'm in the entrepreneurial economy," where competition around both costs and revenues is very intense, he says. "But I was personally very uncomfortable. This situation brought me face-to-face with how easy global disintermediation is being made for folks, to the point where it is almost inevitable."
TOUGH CALL. As he thought more about his decision, Jon realized he had a valid business reason to hesitate: As the head of a startup that had been going for less than a year, he wasn't at all certain he should take the risk of having essential work done at a far-off location by people he didn't know, and with whom he could communicate only via e-mail and phone. Still, there was that matter of nearly $200,000 in annual savings. Each time he hesitated about making his decision, various confidantes reminded him about the big money at stake.
And then Jon had a brainstorm. What if he offered Americans the jobs at the same rate he would be paying for Indian programmers? It seemed like a long shot. But it also seemed worth the gamble. So Jon placed some ads in The Boston Globe, offering full-time contract programming work for $45,000 annually. (He had decided that it was worth adding a $5,000 premium to what he'd pay the Indian workers in exchange for having the programmers on site.)
The result? "We got flooded" with resumes, about 90 in total, many from highly qualified programmers having trouble finding work in the down economy, Jon says. His decision: "For $5,000 it was no contest." Jon went American. And the outcome? "I think I got the best of both worlds. I got local people who came in for 10% more (than Indians). And I found really good ones."
In the interim, Jon has promoted two of the programmers to full-time employees, at standard American programming salaries, rather than risk losing them to the marketplace. And he is convinced that having people working onsite gives him control over quality and timing that he wouldn't have enjoyed if he had subcontracted overseas.
While cMarket has solved its immediate challenge, the implications of Jon's approach are potentially mind-bending. What if other companies begin taking the same approach -- offering Indian-style wages to American workers? On the positive site, we could begin to solve our job-creation problems. But on the negative side, America's standard of living would inevitably decline. There's only one way to find out for sure how it all might shake out, and that is for other executives to replicate Jon's experiment.…
http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/stories/main/US_Programmers_at_Overseas_Salaries.html
"cMarket had been pursued, as many business owners are these days, by an intermediary who promised he could cut cMarket's programming costs significantly by outsourcing his needs to India. So last spring, when cMarket signed an agreement with the national Parent Teachers Assn. (PTA) to handle online auctions for its 20,000-plus local chapters and, simultaneously, began taking on charity auctions from Boston to Miami, Jon knew he had to rapidly expand cMarket's capabilities. He had his IT director call the intermediary and tell him that cMarket needed four programmers, pronto. Jon knew the numbers for experienced American programmers doing the specialty work he required: $80,000 a year, with benefits adding an additional $5,000 to $10,000 per programmer. The intermediary came back with the number for the services from India: $40,000 per programmer. "
It seemed like a cut-and-dried decision, the kind U.S. executives are making every day without hesitating, but for some reason Jon hesitated. Much as he likes the idea of having projects completed at the lowest possible cost, and as responsible as he feels to investors, he didn't like the feeling of becoming someone who callously pushes jobs to other countries. "I'm in the entrepreneurial economy," where competition around both costs and revenues is very intense, he says. "But I was personally very uncomfortable. This situation brought me face-to-face with how easy global disintermediation is being made for folks, to the point where it is almost inevitable."
TOUGH CALL. As he thought more about his decision, Jon realized he had a valid business reason to hesitate: As the head of a startup that had been going for less than a year, he wasn't at all certain he should take the risk of having essential work done at a far-off location by people he didn't know, and with whom he could communicate only via e-mail and phone. Still, there was that matter of nearly $200,000 in annual savings. Each time he hesitated about making his decision, various confidantes reminded him about the big money at stake.
And then Jon had a brainstorm. What if he offered Americans the jobs at the same rate he would be paying for Indian programmers? It seemed like a long shot. But it also seemed worth the gamble. So Jon placed some ads in The Boston Globe, offering full-time contract programming work for $45,000 annually. (He had decided that it was worth adding a $5,000 premium to what he'd pay the Indian workers in exchange for having the programmers on site.)
The result? "We got flooded" with resumes, about 90 in total, many from highly qualified programmers having trouble finding work in the down economy, Jon says. His decision: "For $5,000 it was no contest." Jon went American. And the outcome? "I think I got the best of both worlds. I got local people who came in for 10% more (than Indians). And I found really good ones."
In the interim, Jon has promoted two of the programmers to full-time employees, at standard American programming salaries, rather than risk losing them to the marketplace. And he is convinced that having people working onsite gives him control over quality and timing that he wouldn't have enjoyed if he had subcontracted overseas.
While cMarket has solved its immediate challenge, the implications of Jon's approach are potentially mind-bending. What if other companies begin taking the same approach -- offering Indian-style wages to American workers? On the positive site, we could begin to solve our job-creation problems. But on the negative side, America's standard of living would inevitably decline. There's only one way to find out for sure how it all might shake out, and that is for other executives to replicate Jon's experiment.…
http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/stories/main/US_Programmers_at_Overseas_Salaries.html
News: Worm hits Windows-based ATMs:
"An unknown number of ATMs running Windows XP Embedded were shut down during the spread of the so-called Nachi worm, said executives at Diebold, which made the ATMs and refused to name the customers affected.
The Nachi worm, also dubbed 'Welchia,' was written to clean up after the MSBlast, or Blaster, worm. Instead it crippled or congested networks around the world, including the check-in system at Air Canada. Both worms spread through a hole in Windows XP, 2000, NT and Server 2003. "
"It's a harbinger of things to come," said Bruce Schneier, chief technical officer of network monitoring company Counterpane Internet Security.
"Specific-purpose machines, like microwave ovens and until now ATM machines, never got viruses," said Schneier, author of "Beyond Fear: Thinking Sensibly About Security in an Uncertain World." "Now that they are using a general purpose operating system, Diebold should expect a lot more of this in the future," he said.
John Pescatore, an analyst at Gartner, agreed.
"It's a horrendous security mistake," he said of specific-purpose machines like ATMs running Windows, which is written for general-purpose computers and for which Microsoft releases security fixes on a regular basis. "I'm a lot more worried about my money than I was before this."
Diebold switched from using IBM's OS/2 on its ATMs because banks were requesting Windows, said Steve Grzymkowski, senior product marketing manager at Diebold.
To help prevent future problems Diebold is shipping ATMs with firewall software designed to block out viruses and other attacks, he said.
"As far as it happening again, I wouldn't want to speculate on that," Grzymkowski said.
Schneier and Pescatore said they were worried about the security of other Windows-based Diebold appliances--voting machines, which run Windows CE.…
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105_2-5117285.html
"An unknown number of ATMs running Windows XP Embedded were shut down during the spread of the so-called Nachi worm, said executives at Diebold, which made the ATMs and refused to name the customers affected.
The Nachi worm, also dubbed 'Welchia,' was written to clean up after the MSBlast, or Blaster, worm. Instead it crippled or congested networks around the world, including the check-in system at Air Canada. Both worms spread through a hole in Windows XP, 2000, NT and Server 2003. "
"It's a harbinger of things to come," said Bruce Schneier, chief technical officer of network monitoring company Counterpane Internet Security.
"Specific-purpose machines, like microwave ovens and until now ATM machines, never got viruses," said Schneier, author of "Beyond Fear: Thinking Sensibly About Security in an Uncertain World." "Now that they are using a general purpose operating system, Diebold should expect a lot more of this in the future," he said.
John Pescatore, an analyst at Gartner, agreed.
"It's a horrendous security mistake," he said of specific-purpose machines like ATMs running Windows, which is written for general-purpose computers and for which Microsoft releases security fixes on a regular basis. "I'm a lot more worried about my money than I was before this."
Diebold switched from using IBM's OS/2 on its ATMs because banks were requesting Windows, said Steve Grzymkowski, senior product marketing manager at Diebold.
To help prevent future problems Diebold is shipping ATMs with firewall software designed to block out viruses and other attacks, he said.
"As far as it happening again, I wouldn't want to speculate on that," Grzymkowski said.
Schneier and Pescatore said they were worried about the security of other Windows-based Diebold appliances--voting machines, which run Windows CE.…
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105_2-5117285.html
Chicago Tribune | Congress shrinks away from war responsibilities:
"Louis Fisher, the authority on congressional-executive relations at the Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress, is one who argues that the failure was not personal but institutional. While joining those who challenge the intelligence the Bush administration used to justify the pre-emptive attack on Saddam Hussein's regime, Fisher is even more critical of the lawmakers who sanctioned the action.
In the fall issue of Political Science Quarterly, he writes: 'Month after month, the administration released claims that were unproven' about weapons of mass destruction and links between Iraq and al Qaeda. 'For its part, Congress seemed incapable of analyzing a presidential proposal and protecting its institutional powers.'"
"The decision to go to war," he concludes, "cast a dark shadow over the health of U.S. political institutions and the celebrated system of democratic debate and checks and balances. The dismal performances of the executive and legislative branches raise disturbing questions about the capacity and desire of the United States to function as a republican form of government."
That may seem to you, as it does to me, too sweeping an indictment. But Fisher throws down an important challenge when he zeros in on a pattern of congressional behavior that has seen legislators sidestep the question of peace or war.
He quotes from the House International Relations Committee report supporting the Iraq resolution: "The committee hopes that the use of military force can be avoided. It believes, however, that providing the president with the authority he needs to use force is the best way to avoid its use."
As Fisher notes, that has become a common pattern in dealing with possible conflict. He likens it to the Gulf of Tonkin resolution in 1964, which Lyndon Johnson used as authority for the escalation in Vietnam.
The problem, he says, is that such legislation "would decide neither for nor against war. That judgment, which the Constitution places in Congress, would now be left in the hands of the president."
Some may say that presidents, with all of their national security apparatus, are better positioned to make the call than 535 members of Congress. But the Constitution says otherwise, that collective wisdom is to be preferred. Because this situation is likely to recur, this is not a personal or partisan question. Congress needs to reassert its role and step up to its responsibility.…
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/oped/chi-0312090337dec09,1,1473899.story?coll=chi-newsopinioncommentary-hed
"Louis Fisher, the authority on congressional-executive relations at the Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress, is one who argues that the failure was not personal but institutional. While joining those who challenge the intelligence the Bush administration used to justify the pre-emptive attack on Saddam Hussein's regime, Fisher is even more critical of the lawmakers who sanctioned the action.
In the fall issue of Political Science Quarterly, he writes: 'Month after month, the administration released claims that were unproven' about weapons of mass destruction and links between Iraq and al Qaeda. 'For its part, Congress seemed incapable of analyzing a presidential proposal and protecting its institutional powers.'"
"The decision to go to war," he concludes, "cast a dark shadow over the health of U.S. political institutions and the celebrated system of democratic debate and checks and balances. The dismal performances of the executive and legislative branches raise disturbing questions about the capacity and desire of the United States to function as a republican form of government."
That may seem to you, as it does to me, too sweeping an indictment. But Fisher throws down an important challenge when he zeros in on a pattern of congressional behavior that has seen legislators sidestep the question of peace or war.
He quotes from the House International Relations Committee report supporting the Iraq resolution: "The committee hopes that the use of military force can be avoided. It believes, however, that providing the president with the authority he needs to use force is the best way to avoid its use."
As Fisher notes, that has become a common pattern in dealing with possible conflict. He likens it to the Gulf of Tonkin resolution in 1964, which Lyndon Johnson used as authority for the escalation in Vietnam.
The problem, he says, is that such legislation "would decide neither for nor against war. That judgment, which the Constitution places in Congress, would now be left in the hands of the president."
Some may say that presidents, with all of their national security apparatus, are better positioned to make the call than 535 members of Congress. But the Constitution says otherwise, that collective wisdom is to be preferred. Because this situation is likely to recur, this is not a personal or partisan question. Congress needs to reassert its role and step up to its responsibility.…
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/oped/chi-0312090337dec09,1,1473899.story?coll=chi-newsopinioncommentary-hed
Chicago Tribune | U.S. Repulses 2 Suicide Bombers in Iraq:
"Near Fallujah, 30 miles west of the capital, witnesses said guerrillas hit a U.S. reconnaissance helicopter with a rocket-propelled grenade, forcing it to make a hard landing. The two crew members walked away, the military said. "
The attack on this base 30 miles north of Mosul occurred at 4:45 a.m. when an explosives-packed car drove to the base gate. Guards there and in a watchtower opened fire on the vehicle. Moments later it exploded, leaving a large crater just outside the base gate.
Col. Michael Linnington, commander of the 3rd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, which controls the Mosul region and the area west to the Syrian border, said the attacker's remains were "all over the compound."
Maj. Trey Cate, spokesman for the 101st Airborne Division, said 59 soldiers were injured.
"Eight soldiers were medically evacuated, of which four were sent to Baghdad," Cate said. The other 51 soldiers were slightly injured by debris and flying glass, he said.
Several Iraqis were injured, including a translator at the base. The blast damaged nearby homes. A 2-year-old girl was among many civilians hurt by flying glass.
Later Tuesday, the second suicide attacker blew himself up outside a U.S. Army compound near Baghdad, slightly injuring two soldiers, the military said.
A man acting suspiciously walked toward the gates of the base in Husseiniya, 15 miles northeast of Baghdad, said Maj. Josslyn Aberle, a U.S. military spokeswoman. When military police opened fire after the man refused to stop, he blew himself up.
Suicide attackers in Iraq have seldom, if ever, attempted attacks with explosives attached to their bodies. Vehicle bombs have been the norm.…
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/iraq/sns-ap-iraq,1,4003789.story
TALAFAR, Iraq -- The U.S. military repulsed two suicide attacks on American bases Tuesday -- one here in the far north and a second in Baghdad -- thwarting bombers with stepped-up defenses after a series of deadly suicide attacks stretching back to August.
"Near Fallujah, 30 miles west of the capital, witnesses said guerrillas hit a U.S. reconnaissance helicopter with a rocket-propelled grenade, forcing it to make a hard landing. The two crew members walked away, the military said. "
The attack on this base 30 miles north of Mosul occurred at 4:45 a.m. when an explosives-packed car drove to the base gate. Guards there and in a watchtower opened fire on the vehicle. Moments later it exploded, leaving a large crater just outside the base gate.
Col. Michael Linnington, commander of the 3rd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, which controls the Mosul region and the area west to the Syrian border, said the attacker's remains were "all over the compound."
Maj. Trey Cate, spokesman for the 101st Airborne Division, said 59 soldiers were injured.
"Eight soldiers were medically evacuated, of which four were sent to Baghdad," Cate said. The other 51 soldiers were slightly injured by debris and flying glass, he said.
Several Iraqis were injured, including a translator at the base. The blast damaged nearby homes. A 2-year-old girl was among many civilians hurt by flying glass.
Later Tuesday, the second suicide attacker blew himself up outside a U.S. Army compound near Baghdad, slightly injuring two soldiers, the military said.
A man acting suspiciously walked toward the gates of the base in Husseiniya, 15 miles northeast of Baghdad, said Maj. Josslyn Aberle, a U.S. military spokeswoman. When military police opened fire after the man refused to stop, he blew himself up.
Suicide attackers in Iraq have seldom, if ever, attempted attacks with explosives attached to their bodies. Vehicle bombs have been the norm.…
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/iraq/sns-ap-iraq,1,4003789.story
Monday, December 08, 2003
Foes of Bush Enlist Google to Make Point:
"Earlier this year, Google started a widely used news service. Last week, it looked to some users of the Google search that the site had started to editorialize.
Anyone searching on Google for the phrase 'miserable failure' was sent to the official White House biography of President Bush."
Google executives say they have no corporate opinion of the Bush presidency. Instead, the episode is another example of a form of cyber-graffiti known as "Google bombing."
It is a group prank. If enough Web pages link a certain Web page to a phrase, the Google search engine will start to associate that page with the phrase - even if, as in the case of Mr. Bush's official biography, the phrase does not occur on the destination Web site.
Beginning a few months ago, for example, the No. 1 search result on Google for the term "weapons of mass destruction" has been a satiric Web page made to look like a Microsoft error message.
Inspired by this and stirred by his objections to Mr. Bush's policies, a computer programmer, George Johnston, created a Google bomb to tie Mr. Bush's official biography to the phrase "miserable failure," watchwords of the presidential campaign of Richard A. Gephardt. (Mr. Johnston, who lives in Bellevue, Wash., said he had no association with the Gephardt campaign and in fact preferred another Democratic candidate, Dennis J. Kucinich.)
In the middle of October, Mr. Johnston created links on his blog (oldfashionedpatriot.blogspot.com) tying the phrase to the Bush biography and began to send messages to the writers of other blogs with an anti-Bush tilt telling them of his project. Many not only added the catch phrase to their own sites but urged readers to do the same.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/08/technology/08google.html
"Earlier this year, Google started a widely used news service. Last week, it looked to some users of the Google search that the site had started to editorialize.
Anyone searching on Google for the phrase 'miserable failure' was sent to the official White House biography of President Bush."
Google executives say they have no corporate opinion of the Bush presidency. Instead, the episode is another example of a form of cyber-graffiti known as "Google bombing."
It is a group prank. If enough Web pages link a certain Web page to a phrase, the Google search engine will start to associate that page with the phrase - even if, as in the case of Mr. Bush's official biography, the phrase does not occur on the destination Web site.
Beginning a few months ago, for example, the No. 1 search result on Google for the term "weapons of mass destruction" has been a satiric Web page made to look like a Microsoft error message.
Inspired by this and stirred by his objections to Mr. Bush's policies, a computer programmer, George Johnston, created a Google bomb to tie Mr. Bush's official biography to the phrase "miserable failure," watchwords of the presidential campaign of Richard A. Gephardt. (Mr. Johnston, who lives in Bellevue, Wash., said he had no association with the Gephardt campaign and in fact preferred another Democratic candidate, Dennis J. Kucinich.)
In the middle of October, Mr. Johnston created links on his blog (oldfashionedpatriot.blogspot.com) tying the phrase to the Bush biography and began to send messages to the writers of other blogs with an anti-Bush tilt telling them of his project. Many not only added the catch phrase to their own sites but urged readers to do the same.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/08/technology/08google.html
New Medicare Bill Bars Extra Insurance for Drugs:
"Medicare beneficiaries will not be allowed to buy insurance to cover their share of prescription drug costs under the new Medicare bill to be signed on Monday by President Bush, the legislation says.
Millions of Medicare beneficiaries have bought private insurance to fill gaps in Medicare. But a little-noticed provision of the legislation prohibits the sale of any Medigap policy that would help pay drug costs after Jan. 1, 2006, when the new Medicare drug benefit becomes available. "
This is one of many surprises awaiting beneficiaries, who will find big gaps in the drug benefit and might want private insurance to plug the holes — just as they buy insurance to supplement Medicare coverage of doctors' services and hospital care.
Congress cited two reasons for banning the sale of Medigap drug policies. Lawmakers wanted to prevent duplication of the new Medicare benefit. They also wanted to be sure that beneficiaries would bear some of the cost. Health economists have long asserted that when beneficiaries are insulated from the costs, they tend to overuse medical services.
Gail E. Shearer, a health policy analyst at Consumers Union, said she had mixed feelings about the prohibition.
"I don't want a return to abuses of 1970's and 80's, when lots of confusing Medigap policies were sold to vulnerable seniors," Ms. Shearer said. But she added: "Many seniors and disabled people will face a huge gap in drug coverage. In a bill that's marketed as providing choice to consumers, comprehensive drug coverage is not really an option. That's a disappointment."
The new drug benefit would be the biggest expansion of Medicare since creation of the program in 1965. But patients would still face substantial costs.
Under the standard Medicare drug benefit, the beneficiary would be responsible for a $250 deductible, 25 percent of drug costs from $251 to $2,250 and all of the next $2,850 in drug costs. Private Medigap policies could not cover any of those costs.
Congress began regulating the Medigap market in 1990, as a way to protect consumers, many of whom had bought duplicative policies. The federal government and state insurance commissioners developed 10 standard policies, to replace thousands then on the market.
Three of the 10 Medigap policies cover drugs. Under the legislation, an old policy with drug benefits could be renewed — but only by a person who chose to forgo the new Medicare drug benefit. A person who enrolls in the new program could not buy or renew a Medigap policy to help defray drug costs.
Nearly 12 million retirees have drug coverage and other health benefits from former employers. If those retirees sign up for the Medicare benefit, the employers can help pay the beneficiaries' share of drug costs. But those payments would not count toward the $3,600 limit on out-of-pocket spending.
Under the bill, low-income elderly people eligible for both Medicare and Medicaid, the federal-state program for low-income people, would receive their drugs through Medicare. Medicare drug plans will almost certainly cover fewer drugs than Medicaid now covers, state officials say. But the bill generally prohibits Medicaid programs from supplementing the Medicare drug benefit.
If state officials wanted to supplement the new Medicare drug benefit, they would have to pick up the entire cost of the extra coverage. States would not get the discounts and rebates they now receive from manufacturers under Medicaid.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/07/politics/07MEDI.html
"Medicare beneficiaries will not be allowed to buy insurance to cover their share of prescription drug costs under the new Medicare bill to be signed on Monday by President Bush, the legislation says.
Millions of Medicare beneficiaries have bought private insurance to fill gaps in Medicare. But a little-noticed provision of the legislation prohibits the sale of any Medigap policy that would help pay drug costs after Jan. 1, 2006, when the new Medicare drug benefit becomes available. "
This is one of many surprises awaiting beneficiaries, who will find big gaps in the drug benefit and might want private insurance to plug the holes — just as they buy insurance to supplement Medicare coverage of doctors' services and hospital care.
Congress cited two reasons for banning the sale of Medigap drug policies. Lawmakers wanted to prevent duplication of the new Medicare benefit. They also wanted to be sure that beneficiaries would bear some of the cost. Health economists have long asserted that when beneficiaries are insulated from the costs, they tend to overuse medical services.
Gail E. Shearer, a health policy analyst at Consumers Union, said she had mixed feelings about the prohibition.
"I don't want a return to abuses of 1970's and 80's, when lots of confusing Medigap policies were sold to vulnerable seniors," Ms. Shearer said. But she added: "Many seniors and disabled people will face a huge gap in drug coverage. In a bill that's marketed as providing choice to consumers, comprehensive drug coverage is not really an option. That's a disappointment."
The new drug benefit would be the biggest expansion of Medicare since creation of the program in 1965. But patients would still face substantial costs.
Under the standard Medicare drug benefit, the beneficiary would be responsible for a $250 deductible, 25 percent of drug costs from $251 to $2,250 and all of the next $2,850 in drug costs. Private Medigap policies could not cover any of those costs.
Congress began regulating the Medigap market in 1990, as a way to protect consumers, many of whom had bought duplicative policies. The federal government and state insurance commissioners developed 10 standard policies, to replace thousands then on the market.
Three of the 10 Medigap policies cover drugs. Under the legislation, an old policy with drug benefits could be renewed — but only by a person who chose to forgo the new Medicare drug benefit. A person who enrolls in the new program could not buy or renew a Medigap policy to help defray drug costs.
Nearly 12 million retirees have drug coverage and other health benefits from former employers. If those retirees sign up for the Medicare benefit, the employers can help pay the beneficiaries' share of drug costs. But those payments would not count toward the $3,600 limit on out-of-pocket spending.
Under the bill, low-income elderly people eligible for both Medicare and Medicaid, the federal-state program for low-income people, would receive their drugs through Medicare. Medicare drug plans will almost certainly cover fewer drugs than Medicaid now covers, state officials say. But the bill generally prohibits Medicaid programs from supplementing the Medicare drug benefit.
If state officials wanted to supplement the new Medicare drug benefit, they would have to pick up the entire cost of the extra coverage. States would not get the discounts and rebates they now receive from manufacturers under Medicaid.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/07/politics/07MEDI.html
Tough New Tactics by U.S. Tighten Grip on Iraq Towns:
"As the guerrilla war against Iraqi insurgents intensifies, American soldiers have begun wrapping entire villages in barbed wire.
In selective cases, American soldiers are demolishing buildings thought to be used by Iraqi attackers. They have begun imprisoning the relatives of suspected guerrillas, in hopes of pressing the insurgents to turn themselves in.
The Americans embarked on their get-tough strategy in early November, goaded by what proved to be the deadliest month yet for American forces in Iraq, with 81 soldiers killed by hostile fire. The response they chose is beginning to echo the Israeli counterinsurgency campaign in the occupied territories."
In Abu Hishma, encased in a razor-wire fence after repeated attacks on American troops, Iraqi civilians line up to go in and out, filing through an American-guarded checkpoint, each carrying an identification card printed in English only.
"If you have one of these cards, you can come and go," coaxed Lt. Col. Nathan Sassaman, the battalion commander whose men oversee the village, about 50 miles north of Baghdad. "If you don't have one of these cards, you can't."
The Iraqis nodded and edged their cars through the line. Over to one side, an Iraqi man named Tariq muttered in anger.
"I see no difference between us and the Palestinians," he said. "We didn't expect anything like this after Saddam fell."
The practice of destroying buildings where Iraqi insurgents are suspected of planning or mounting attacks has been used for decades by Israeli soldiers in Gaza and the West Bank. The Israeli Army has also imprisoned the relatives of suspected terrorists, in the hopes of pressing the suspects to surrender.
The Israeli military has also cordoned off villages and towns thought to be hotbeds of guerrilla activity, in an effort to control the flow of people moving in and out.
American officials say they are not purposefully mimicking Israeli tactics, but they acknowledge that they have studied closely the Israeli experience in urban fighting. Ahead of the war, Israeli defense experts briefed American commanders on their experience in guerrilla and urban warfare. The Americans say there are no Israeli military advisers helping the Americans in Iraq.
Writing in the July issue of Army magazine, an American brigadier general said American officers had recently traveled to Israel to hear about lessons learned from recent fighting there.
Underlying the new strategy, the Americans say, is the conviction that only a tougher approach will quell the insurgency and that the new strategy must punish not only the guerrillas but also make clear to ordinary Iraqis the cost of not cooperating.
"You have to understand the Arab mind," Capt. Todd Brown, a company commander with the Fourth Infantry Division, said as he stood outside the gates of Abu Hishma. "The only thing they understand is force — force, pride and saving face."
…the town of Abu Hishma is enclosed in a barbed-wire fence that stretches for five miles. Men ages 18 to 65 have been ordered to get identification cards. There is only way into the town and one way out.
"This fence is here for your protection," reads the sign posted in front of the barbed-wire fence. "Do not approach or try to cross, or you will be shot."
American forces have used the tactic in other cities, including Awja, the birthplace of Saddam Hussein. American forces also sealed off three towns in western Iraq for several days.
"With a heavy dose of fear and violence, and a lot of money for projects, I think we can convince these people that we are here to help them," Colonel Sassaman said.
In Abu Hishma, residents complain that the village is locked down for 15 hours a day, meaning that they are unable to go to the mosque for morning and evening prayers. They say the curfew does not allow them time to stand in the daylong lines for gasoline and get home before the gate closes for the night.
But mostly, it is a loss of dignity that the villagers talk about. For each identification card, every Iraqi man is assigned a number, which he must hold up when he poses for his mug shot. The card identifies his age and type of car. It is all in English.
"This is absolutely humiliating," said Yasin Mustafa, a 39-year-old primary school teacher. "We are like birds in a cage."
Colonel Sassaman said he would maintain the wire enclosure until the villagers turned over the six men who killed Sergeant Panchot, though he acknowledged they may have slipped far away.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/07/international/middleeast/07TACT.html?pagewanted=all&position=
"As the guerrilla war against Iraqi insurgents intensifies, American soldiers have begun wrapping entire villages in barbed wire.
In selective cases, American soldiers are demolishing buildings thought to be used by Iraqi attackers. They have begun imprisoning the relatives of suspected guerrillas, in hopes of pressing the insurgents to turn themselves in.
The Americans embarked on their get-tough strategy in early November, goaded by what proved to be the deadliest month yet for American forces in Iraq, with 81 soldiers killed by hostile fire. The response they chose is beginning to echo the Israeli counterinsurgency campaign in the occupied territories."
In Abu Hishma, encased in a razor-wire fence after repeated attacks on American troops, Iraqi civilians line up to go in and out, filing through an American-guarded checkpoint, each carrying an identification card printed in English only.
"If you have one of these cards, you can come and go," coaxed Lt. Col. Nathan Sassaman, the battalion commander whose men oversee the village, about 50 miles north of Baghdad. "If you don't have one of these cards, you can't."
The Iraqis nodded and edged their cars through the line. Over to one side, an Iraqi man named Tariq muttered in anger.
"I see no difference between us and the Palestinians," he said. "We didn't expect anything like this after Saddam fell."
The practice of destroying buildings where Iraqi insurgents are suspected of planning or mounting attacks has been used for decades by Israeli soldiers in Gaza and the West Bank. The Israeli Army has also imprisoned the relatives of suspected terrorists, in the hopes of pressing the suspects to surrender.
The Israeli military has also cordoned off villages and towns thought to be hotbeds of guerrilla activity, in an effort to control the flow of people moving in and out.
American officials say they are not purposefully mimicking Israeli tactics, but they acknowledge that they have studied closely the Israeli experience in urban fighting. Ahead of the war, Israeli defense experts briefed American commanders on their experience in guerrilla and urban warfare. The Americans say there are no Israeli military advisers helping the Americans in Iraq.
Writing in the July issue of Army magazine, an American brigadier general said American officers had recently traveled to Israel to hear about lessons learned from recent fighting there.
Underlying the new strategy, the Americans say, is the conviction that only a tougher approach will quell the insurgency and that the new strategy must punish not only the guerrillas but also make clear to ordinary Iraqis the cost of not cooperating.
"You have to understand the Arab mind," Capt. Todd Brown, a company commander with the Fourth Infantry Division, said as he stood outside the gates of Abu Hishma. "The only thing they understand is force — force, pride and saving face."
…the town of Abu Hishma is enclosed in a barbed-wire fence that stretches for five miles. Men ages 18 to 65 have been ordered to get identification cards. There is only way into the town and one way out.
"This fence is here for your protection," reads the sign posted in front of the barbed-wire fence. "Do not approach or try to cross, or you will be shot."
American forces have used the tactic in other cities, including Awja, the birthplace of Saddam Hussein. American forces also sealed off three towns in western Iraq for several days.
"With a heavy dose of fear and violence, and a lot of money for projects, I think we can convince these people that we are here to help them," Colonel Sassaman said.
In Abu Hishma, residents complain that the village is locked down for 15 hours a day, meaning that they are unable to go to the mosque for morning and evening prayers. They say the curfew does not allow them time to stand in the daylong lines for gasoline and get home before the gate closes for the night.
But mostly, it is a loss of dignity that the villagers talk about. For each identification card, every Iraqi man is assigned a number, which he must hold up when he poses for his mug shot. The card identifies his age and type of car. It is all in English.
"This is absolutely humiliating," said Yasin Mustafa, a 39-year-old primary school teacher. "We are like birds in a cage."
Colonel Sassaman said he would maintain the wire enclosure until the villagers turned over the six men who killed Sergeant Panchot, though he acknowledged they may have slipped far away.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/07/international/middleeast/07TACT.html?pagewanted=all&position=
Chicago Tribune | Study: Terror-Related Cases Often Fizzle:
"The Justice Department has sharply increased prosecution of terrorism-related cases since the Sept. 11 attacks but many fizzled and few produced significant prison time, a new study finds."
About 6,400 people were referred by investigators for criminal charges involving terror in the two years after the attacks, but fewer than one-third actually were charged and only 879 were convicted, according to government records reviewed by Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.
The median prison sentence was just 14 days, said the study by clearinghouse co-directors David Burnham and Susan P. Long, lealeased Sunday. Only five people were sentenced to 20 years or more.
Critics seized on the numbers to question whether Attorney General John Ashcroft and other top law enforcement officials have been overstating the success of their anti-terrorism efforts. Nearly every time Ashcroft talks about the subject, he reads a long list of statistics on arrests and convictions to buttress his contention that great progress is being made.
Sen. Charles Grassley, a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee with oversight of the FBI and Justice Department, said the report "raises questions about the accuracy of the department's claims about terrorism enforcement."
"This report shows that despite the focus on terrorism-related crimes, most of the people accused of terrorism involvement are getting little jail time, if at all," said Grassley, R-Iowa.…
In other words, for every would-be "shoe bomber" such as Richard Reid -- serving a life sentence for trying to light an explosive on a Paris-to-Miami flight last year -- there are many more suspects such as the group of Yemeni-Americans from Lackawanna, N.Y., who were convicted of supporting terrorism by briefly attending al-Qaida camps in Afghanistan.
"This administration's strategy of preventing terrorism has helped protect American for over two years," Justice Department spokesman Mark Corallo said.
According to the study, about 874 cases were pending as of Sept. 30, including some that might produce longer sentences. In October, for example, two members of an Oregon group were sentenced to 18 years each in prison for attempting to travel to Afghanistan and fight U.S. forces there.
Still, critics of Justice Department anti-terrorism policies say the study lifts the veil on what they consider large-scale government deception aimed at reassuring an American public fearful of more attacks.
"This punches a huge hole in the hype the Justice Department has been engaged in," said Timothy Edgar, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. "They are calling people terrorists, on a massive scale, who aren't terrorists."
According to the study, charges were filed against 2,001 of the 6,400 people recommended for prosecution since the attacks. Authorities declined to prosecute 1,554. Some 2,845 of the referrals were pending as of Sept. 30.
Of the 879 people convicted, 373 went to prison and 506 did not. Of those sentenced to prison, 250 got less than a year, 100 got less than five years and just 23 were sentenced to five years or more.
During the two years before Sept. 11, 2001, 24 people were sentenced to five or more years in prison on comparable terror-related offenses, the study said.
The study also found that:
* Prosecutions of individuals suspected of ties to one category, international terrorism, jumped from 142 in the two years before Sept. 11, 2001, to 748 in the two years after. Yet only three people in that category since the attacks have drawn sentences of five years or more, compared with six during the earlier period.
* More than 260 people convicted since Sept. 11 of terrorism-related offenses were sentenced to the time that had already spent in jail awaiting disposition of their case.
* About 35 percent of criminal referrals made by investigators were declined by prosecutors because of lack of evidence or no obvious federal crime had been committed.
TRAC report: http://trac.syr.edu/tracreports/terrorism/report031208.html
Justice Department: http://www.usdoj.gov
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-terrorism-prosecutions,1,7624659.story
"The Justice Department has sharply increased prosecution of terrorism-related cases since the Sept. 11 attacks but many fizzled and few produced significant prison time, a new study finds."
About 6,400 people were referred by investigators for criminal charges involving terror in the two years after the attacks, but fewer than one-third actually were charged and only 879 were convicted, according to government records reviewed by Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.
The median prison sentence was just 14 days, said the study by clearinghouse co-directors David Burnham and Susan P. Long, lealeased Sunday. Only five people were sentenced to 20 years or more.
Critics seized on the numbers to question whether Attorney General John Ashcroft and other top law enforcement officials have been overstating the success of their anti-terrorism efforts. Nearly every time Ashcroft talks about the subject, he reads a long list of statistics on arrests and convictions to buttress his contention that great progress is being made.
Sen. Charles Grassley, a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee with oversight of the FBI and Justice Department, said the report "raises questions about the accuracy of the department's claims about terrorism enforcement."
"This report shows that despite the focus on terrorism-related crimes, most of the people accused of terrorism involvement are getting little jail time, if at all," said Grassley, R-Iowa.…
In other words, for every would-be "shoe bomber" such as Richard Reid -- serving a life sentence for trying to light an explosive on a Paris-to-Miami flight last year -- there are many more suspects such as the group of Yemeni-Americans from Lackawanna, N.Y., who were convicted of supporting terrorism by briefly attending al-Qaida camps in Afghanistan.
"This administration's strategy of preventing terrorism has helped protect American for over two years," Justice Department spokesman Mark Corallo said.
According to the study, about 874 cases were pending as of Sept. 30, including some that might produce longer sentences. In October, for example, two members of an Oregon group were sentenced to 18 years each in prison for attempting to travel to Afghanistan and fight U.S. forces there.
Still, critics of Justice Department anti-terrorism policies say the study lifts the veil on what they consider large-scale government deception aimed at reassuring an American public fearful of more attacks.
"This punches a huge hole in the hype the Justice Department has been engaged in," said Timothy Edgar, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. "They are calling people terrorists, on a massive scale, who aren't terrorists."
According to the study, charges were filed against 2,001 of the 6,400 people recommended for prosecution since the attacks. Authorities declined to prosecute 1,554. Some 2,845 of the referrals were pending as of Sept. 30.
Of the 879 people convicted, 373 went to prison and 506 did not. Of those sentenced to prison, 250 got less than a year, 100 got less than five years and just 23 were sentenced to five years or more.
During the two years before Sept. 11, 2001, 24 people were sentenced to five or more years in prison on comparable terror-related offenses, the study said.
The study also found that:
* Prosecutions of individuals suspected of ties to one category, international terrorism, jumped from 142 in the two years before Sept. 11, 2001, to 748 in the two years after. Yet only three people in that category since the attacks have drawn sentences of five years or more, compared with six during the earlier period.
* More than 260 people convicted since Sept. 11 of terrorism-related offenses were sentenced to the time that had already spent in jail awaiting disposition of their case.
* About 35 percent of criminal referrals made by investigators were declined by prosecutors because of lack of evidence or no obvious federal crime had been committed.
TRAC report: http://trac.syr.edu/tracreports/terrorism/report031208.html
Justice Department: http://www.usdoj.gov
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-terrorism-prosecutions,1,7624659.story
Saturday, December 06, 2003
A Lynching Memorial Unveiled in Duluth:
"Among the nightmares that had faded from public memory in the United States until recently, none are more ghastly than the campaign of racial terror that gripped this country from the 1880's to the 1930's, when thousands of black Americans were hanged, mutilated, burned alive or dragged to death while huge crowds looked on. "
Sometimes called "lynching bees" or "Negro barbecues," these events were cast as macabre carnivals, which drew crowds with children and picnic baskets from miles around. The victims' bodies were sometimes photographed for postcards, which were used as instruments of terror until mailing such postcards was barred in the early 20th century. Lynching was not always just random violence. It was sometimes semiofficial violence, directed by whites who feared business competition from emerging black entrepreneurs and who hated the crusading newspapers of the Negro press, which began pressing aggressively for full citizenship for black people around World War I.
Americans who know of the violence of this period at all tend to believe that it was confined to the segregationist South. But the fact that lynchings took place in many parts of the country was underscored recently in the northern Minnesota city of Duluth when the city unveiled a moving memorial commemorating the deaths of Elmer Jackson, Elias Clayton and Isaac McGhie, three young black men who were lynched in Duluth in 1920 while a mob of 10,000 looked on.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/05/opinion/05FRI3.html
"Among the nightmares that had faded from public memory in the United States until recently, none are more ghastly than the campaign of racial terror that gripped this country from the 1880's to the 1930's, when thousands of black Americans were hanged, mutilated, burned alive or dragged to death while huge crowds looked on. "
Sometimes called "lynching bees" or "Negro barbecues," these events were cast as macabre carnivals, which drew crowds with children and picnic baskets from miles around. The victims' bodies were sometimes photographed for postcards, which were used as instruments of terror until mailing such postcards was barred in the early 20th century. Lynching was not always just random violence. It was sometimes semiofficial violence, directed by whites who feared business competition from emerging black entrepreneurs and who hated the crusading newspapers of the Negro press, which began pressing aggressively for full citizenship for black people around World War I.
Americans who know of the violence of this period at all tend to believe that it was confined to the segregationist South. But the fact that lynchings took place in many parts of the country was underscored recently in the northern Minnesota city of Duluth when the city unveiled a moving memorial commemorating the deaths of Elmer Jackson, Elias Clayton and Isaac McGhie, three young black men who were lynched in Duluth in 1920 while a mob of 10,000 looked on.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/05/opinion/05FRI3.html
Hospitals Say They're Penalized by Medicare for Improving Care:
"By better educating doctors about the most effective pneumonia treatments, Intermountain Health Care, a network of 21 hospitals in Utah and Idaho, says it saves at least 70 lives a year. By giving the right drugs at discharge time to more people with congestive heart failure, Intermountain saves another 300 lives annually and prevents almost 600 additional hospital stays.
But under Medicare, none of these good deeds go unpunished.
Intermountain says its initiatives have cost it millions of dollars in lost hospital admissions and lower Medicare reimbursements. In the mid-90's, for example, it made an average profit of 9 percent treating pneumonia patients; now, delivering better care, it loses an average of several hundred dollars on each case."
Medicare's top official is quick to agree that the payment system needs to be fixed. "It's one of the fundamental problems Medicare faces," said Thomas A. Scully, who as the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has encouraged better care by such steps as publicizing data about the quality of nursing home and home-health care and by experimenting with programs to reward hospitals for their efforts.
But the steps taken so far have been small, and many experts say that rather than paying for more studies, Congress should start making significant changes to the way doctors and hospitals are paid.
"They're splashing at the shallow end of the pool," said Dr. Arnold Milstein, a consultant for Mercer Human Resource Consulting and the medical director for the Pacific Business Group on Health, an association of large California employers. He would like to see as much as 20 percent of what Medicare pays doctors and hospitals linked to the quality of the care they provide and their efficiency in delivering treatment.
Two decades ago, Medicare led a revolution in health care. By setting fixed payments for various kinds of treatment — a coronary bypass surgery or curing a pneumonia or replacing a hip — rather than simply reimbursing doctors and hospitals for whatever it cost to deliver the care, it encouraged shorter hospital stays and less-expensive treatments.
But today, many health care executives say, Medicare's payment system hinders attempts to improve care. Dr. James, the Intermountain executive, said that he wrestled with the situation every day.
By making sure its doctors prescribe the most effective antibiotic for pneumonia patients, for example, and thereby avoiding complications, Intermountain forgoes roughly $1 million a year in Medicare payments, he estimated. When a pneumonia patient deteriorates so badly that the patient needs a ventilator, Intermountain collects about $19,000, compared with $5,000 for a typical pneumonia case. And while it makes money treating the sicker patient, Dr. James said, it loses money caring for the healthier one.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/05/business/05UTAH.html?pagewanted=all&position=
"The health care system is perverse," said a frustrated Dr. Brent C. James, who leads Intermountain's efforts to improve quality. "The payments are perverse. It pays us to harm patients, and it punishes us when we don't."
"By better educating doctors about the most effective pneumonia treatments, Intermountain Health Care, a network of 21 hospitals in Utah and Idaho, says it saves at least 70 lives a year. By giving the right drugs at discharge time to more people with congestive heart failure, Intermountain saves another 300 lives annually and prevents almost 600 additional hospital stays.
But under Medicare, none of these good deeds go unpunished.
Intermountain says its initiatives have cost it millions of dollars in lost hospital admissions and lower Medicare reimbursements. In the mid-90's, for example, it made an average profit of 9 percent treating pneumonia patients; now, delivering better care, it loses an average of several hundred dollars on each case."
Medicare's top official is quick to agree that the payment system needs to be fixed. "It's one of the fundamental problems Medicare faces," said Thomas A. Scully, who as the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has encouraged better care by such steps as publicizing data about the quality of nursing home and home-health care and by experimenting with programs to reward hospitals for their efforts.
But the steps taken so far have been small, and many experts say that rather than paying for more studies, Congress should start making significant changes to the way doctors and hospitals are paid.
"They're splashing at the shallow end of the pool," said Dr. Arnold Milstein, a consultant for Mercer Human Resource Consulting and the medical director for the Pacific Business Group on Health, an association of large California employers. He would like to see as much as 20 percent of what Medicare pays doctors and hospitals linked to the quality of the care they provide and their efficiency in delivering treatment.
Two decades ago, Medicare led a revolution in health care. By setting fixed payments for various kinds of treatment — a coronary bypass surgery or curing a pneumonia or replacing a hip — rather than simply reimbursing doctors and hospitals for whatever it cost to deliver the care, it encouraged shorter hospital stays and less-expensive treatments.
But today, many health care executives say, Medicare's payment system hinders attempts to improve care. Dr. James, the Intermountain executive, said that he wrestled with the situation every day.
By making sure its doctors prescribe the most effective antibiotic for pneumonia patients, for example, and thereby avoiding complications, Intermountain forgoes roughly $1 million a year in Medicare payments, he estimated. When a pneumonia patient deteriorates so badly that the patient needs a ventilator, Intermountain collects about $19,000, compared with $5,000 for a typical pneumonia case. And while it makes money treating the sicker patient, Dr. James said, it loses money caring for the healthier one.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/05/business/05UTAH.html?pagewanted=all&position=
Friday, December 05, 2003
Pentagon and Bogus News: All Is Denied:
"Early last year Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld disbanded the Pentagon's Office of Strategic Influence after it became known that the office was considering plans to provide false news items to unwitting foreign journalists to influence policymakers and public sentiment abroad.
But a couple of months ago, the Pentagon quietly awarded a $300,000 contract to SAIC, a major defense consultant, to study how the Defense Department could design an 'effective strategic influence' campaign to combat global terror, according to an internal Pentagon document. "
Sound familiar?
Senior Pentagon officials said Thursday that they were caught unawares by the contract and insisted its language was a "poor choice of words" by a low-level staffer. They said the work did not reflect any backdoor effort to resurrect the discredited office and was merely a study to understand Al Qaeda better and find ways to combat it.
"We are not recreating that office," said Thomas O'Connell, the assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, the policy arm of the Pentagon that deals with the military's most secretive operators and whose staff wrote the document.
But some critics of the former office voiced skepticism, saying that the contract amounted to a veiled attempt to create a low-budget copy of its ill-fated predecessor. A spokesman for SAIC referred all questions to the Pentagon.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/05/politics/05STRA.html
"Early last year Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld disbanded the Pentagon's Office of Strategic Influence after it became known that the office was considering plans to provide false news items to unwitting foreign journalists to influence policymakers and public sentiment abroad.
But a couple of months ago, the Pentagon quietly awarded a $300,000 contract to SAIC, a major defense consultant, to study how the Defense Department could design an 'effective strategic influence' campaign to combat global terror, according to an internal Pentagon document. "
Sound familiar?
Senior Pentagon officials said Thursday that they were caught unawares by the contract and insisted its language was a "poor choice of words" by a low-level staffer. They said the work did not reflect any backdoor effort to resurrect the discredited office and was merely a study to understand Al Qaeda better and find ways to combat it.
"We are not recreating that office," said Thomas O'Connell, the assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, the policy arm of the Pentagon that deals with the military's most secretive operators and whose staff wrote the document.
But some critics of the former office voiced skepticism, saying that the contract amounted to a veiled attempt to create a low-budget copy of its ill-fated predecessor. A spokesman for SAIC referred all questions to the Pentagon.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/05/politics/05STRA.html
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