Wednesday, July 20, 2005

INACTIONS OF GOVERNMENT IS BIGGEST NATIONAL SECURITY THREAT

By Diane M. Grassi

When the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 was signed into law last December by President Bush, Republican Congressmen in the House of Representatives were concerned that the president’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2006 would not provide enough funding for the additional Border Patrol agents and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents which the law was also to provide. The law mandated the doubling of Border Patrol agents from approximately 10,000 now to 20,000 by adding 2,000 additional agents per year for the next five years. It also authorized the tripling of ICE agents, responsible for enforcement of immigration laws in the interior, from 2,000 to 6,000 by adding 800 per year for the next five years. In addition, detention beds where illegal aliens can be detained, were to be tripled to a total of 60,000 within the next five years.

Unfortunately, the proposed budget for 2006 by President Bush did not own up to its promise dictated in the new law, and allowed only for an additional 210 Border Patrol agents instead of the 2,000. In January of 2005, former Homeland Security Secretary, Tom Ridge, was quoted prior to the introduction of President Bush’s budget proposal in February saying, “2,000 new border agents aren’t part of the budget. The notion that you’re going to have 10,000 is sort of a fool’s gold. It’s nice to say you’re going to have 10,000 more Border Patrol agents in five years, but what other part of Homeland Security do you want to take money from?”

The U.S. Senate approved the Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill for fiscal year 2006 on July 14, 2005 in the amount of $31.8 billion. There were two amendments proposed in the bill to specifically provide for the loss of those Border Patrol agents not funded in President Bush’s budget proposal, along with the necessary detention beds. Senator John Ensign (D-NV) sponsored the amendment calling for funding an additional 1,000 Border Patrol agents, and Senator John McCain ( R-AZ) sponsored an amendment for 5,760 more detention beds. Both amendments were far below the amounts ratified in the law and were voted down by no less than 60 senators.

Just a week after the London terrorist bombings in their subway system and on a bus line, the Senate’s vote epitomized the lack of concern over the largest looming problem in the War on Terrorism in the U.S., which remains the lack of security at U.S. borders. In 2004 alone three million illegal aliens were apprehended by the Border Patrol with most of them released due to the lack of detention beds and over 50,000 were from countries other than Mexico (OTM). And the Border Patrol estimates that they catch one out of every three illegal aliens crossing the southern border. Several of the 9/11 hijackers were known to have entered the U.S. through the southern border. Yet even a daily growing illegal alien population which cannot be properly detained and screened did not prevent lawmakers from carrying on politics as usual.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) has recently been quite vocal about wanting to crack down on illegal immigration and adding border security and even posted such on her website saying, “This administration has failed to provide the resources to protect our borders, or a better system to keep track of entrants to this country. I welcome the addition of more border security.” Senator Clinton then voted against both amendments. Likewise, Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) who has led the charge in protecting our ports and has called for mandatory inspection of cargo in the underbellies of commercial airplanes voted against the amendments.

Both Senators Clinton and Schumer were joined by several Republican senators including Rick Santorum (R-PA), Arlen Specter (R-PA), George Voinovich (R-OH) and Richard Lugar (R-IN) in voting against adding Border Patrol agents and adding detention beds. Senator Schumer stated that there would not be enough money for first responders if the amendments went forward. Senator Clinton wanted more money appropriated for mass transit. Instead their failure to vote for the amendments did nothing to address their concerns and in the process let down not only their constituents but the American people. The funding of mass transit in 2006 in this ratified Senate bill was actually decreased from 2005 spending from $150 million to $100 million and a far cry from the requested $1.16 billion.

The Secretary of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff, also did not make many friends last week across the nation and especially on Capitol Hill. Senator Schumer actually asked for an apology and suggested he resign when he appeared before the Senate’s Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Chertoff’s plan is to overhaul and rearrange the entire Department of Homeland Security which consists of 22 separate agencies. It was created in 2002 shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Secretary Chertoff’s plan calls for appointing an intelligence director to centralize the analysis of information from the different branches of the agency and hiring a directorate to centralize preparedness across agencies, which is now handled by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) which will now focus solely on disaster response and recovery. Chertoff has expressed willingness to address border security primarily through use of a new camera system at the cost of $2.5 billion, after the $250 million spent on surveillance cameras during former Secretary Tom Ridge’s term resulted in a federal investigation on no-bid contracts and a total operational equipment failure.

At the same time, Secretary Chertoff also has been working with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, to ease visa restrictions for foreigners working, attending school or studying in the U.S. He said, “Security at U.S. borders should not come at the cost of migrant immigrants who come to the U.S. to find work.” Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) argued that “Border security was more important than reforming immigration policy.” And on the issue of additional spending for mass transit security in the aftermath of the London bombings, Chertoff said that cities will have to foot the bill themselves when it comes to trains and buses. His priorities are clearly overseeing airplane travel although over 14 million people travel on the mass transit systems of the U.S. every workday, with half of them in the New York Metropolitan area.

Ultimately it is the inactions of the three branches of government and the continuation of rhetoric and politically correct promises which will stall any progress on national security as concerns our borders. Our executive branch, two legislative branches and administration policy makers have become so entangled in their own webs of double talk, that they may actually have fooled themselves into believing that the security needs of the American people are being met.

And as the U.S. Armed Forces are put in harm’s way fighting for the security of Iraq’s borders on behalf of the Iraqi people, with such obvious holes in our own stateside borders, it remains unconscionable that the U.S. government continues to undermine its citizenry in keeping our borders open without the necessary security in place. It rings hollow with the American people and certainly with those out to destroy us.

SPENDING BY U.S. DRUG MANUFACTURERS REAPS REWARDS

By Diane M. Grassi

Drug manufacturers have noticeably been in the headlines these past several months. Most covered was the recall of the arthritis pain medication, Vioxx, and the scrutiny given other COX-2 inhibitor anti-inflammatory medications and the previous non-disclosure of side effects potentially causing heart attacks and strokes in patients primarily with heart disease. Although Vioxx hogged the headlines, the underlying story of how Vioxx in particular became one of the best-selling prescription medications in recent memory, along with many others still on the market, has largely been non-disclosed to the public.

The pharmaceutical industry has a two-pronged approach in generating both revenue as well as influence over key federal legislation and currying favor with the Federal Drug Administration. The $4 billion which the pharmaceutical industry spent on commercial advertising in 2004 alone is just part of the story. In the past seven years pharmaceuticals have spent over $800 million in federal lobbying efforts, campaign donations and state lobbying and presently sit atop all other industries in lobbying efforts on Capitol Hill. Both money for advertising and lobbying go hand in hand.

In addition, of the 1,274 people registered to lobby in Washington, D.C. in 2004 on behalf of the pharmaceutical industry, according to the non-partisan Center for Public Integrity, 476 are former federal officials who worked for regulatory agencies as well as in Congress. They include over 15 former members of the U.S. Senate and over 60 members of the U.S. House of Representatives. The most powerful pharmaceutical industry lobbying group in Washington is the pharmaceutical trade group Pharmaceutical Research Manufacturers of America (PhRMA). It is now headed by former Rep. Billy Tauzin (R-LA) and was central to getting the 2003 Medicare Modernization Act passed while Tauzin was Chairman of the House Energy & Commerce Committee. Drug manufacturers successfully joined with the Bush administration in preventing cost restrictions on drugs with the passage of the new Medicare law which features prescription benefits, shortly going into effect in 2006. In addition, drug companies are awarded with corporate tax breaks by the federal government.

Senator Bill Frist, a heart surgeon prior to serving in the Senate and now Senate majority leader, has just recently called upon the Government Accountability Office (GAO), a non-partisan investigative branch of the Congress, to examine drug advertising practices. He said, “This advertising can lead to inappropriate prescribing and fuel prescription drug spending.” On the other hand Sen. Frist has personally enjoyed favors from pharmaceutical giant, Schering-Plough, supplying him with a private Gulfstream corporate jet several times at the cost of a first-class commercial fare. Pharmaceuticals regularly supply members of Congress access to private jets at a minimal cost, which often includes a lobbyist along for the ride to capture a lawmaker’s ear on key legislation they either want passed or want to prevent.

Along with the lobbying efforts of pharmaceutical companies themselves are non-profit organizations which directly profit from a money stream from the drug makers. To wit, during the Senate hearings in March 2005 on the FDA’s drug approval process in light of the belated discoveries of the health risks from taking Vioxx, witness Nancy Davenport-Ennis testified on behalf of the National Patient Advocate Foundation which receives funding from pharmaceutical firms, Pfizer, Merck - manufacturer of Vioxx-, and Glaxo-SmithKline. She admitted that “I don’t think there is a patient advocacy group in America that does not receive some level of funding from a pharmaceutical company.” This includes the AARP, instrumental in passage of Medicare’s new prescription drug plan, which remains flawed and confusing to date, even to the Social Security Administration, as it scrambles to outline its rules and benefits for 2006.

Physicians have long been concerned about the direct-to-consumer advertising and want the discretion to prescribe medication put back into the examining room. At a recent American Medical Association meeting several resolutions were proposed to restrict such advertising. Interestingly Washington lobbyists on behalf of several pharmaceuticals attended the meeting in an effort to block such reforms and such issues were then tabled by the AMA for another year.

The practice of advertising drugs to consumers has become deceptive for many patients, who do not get balanced scientific information. The ads are created to make drugs appealing rather than to clearly disclose the benefits and risks in order for proper evaluation. Doctors then wind up wasting valuable time trying to explain to patients why that drug is either inappropriate or would end up costing the patient much more while the present regimen they are on is just as good. Senator Herb Kohl (D-WI), ranking member of the Senate Special Committee on Aging, recently said, “Spending for prescription drugs is one of the fastest growing components of national health care spending in the U.S., increasing fourfold between 1990 and 2002. At the same time, pharmaceutical manufacturers are spending billions of dollars to advertise prescription drugs directly to consumers.” Kohl has joined Sen. Frist in requesting the GAO research on the impact of direct-to-consumer advertising to consumers and how much television and print ads have led to escalation of drug costs.

As such, Senator Frist has asked drug companies to voluntarily police their advertising policies prior to the FDA and the Congress getting officially involved. Presently the FDA only requires that companies only mention the most prevalent potential side effects and provide a toll-free number. But Frist has just asked for a restriction on advertising during the first two year’s of a product’s release on the market. This has not gone over well thus far with pharmaceuticals. First Amendment attorney Floyd Abrams has gone so far as to say that “they fall within the realm of protected speech if they’re not illegal and not misleading.” And the FDA’s only regulatory mechanism is a warning letter and no penalties as long as the objection is corrected.

In 2006 direct-to-consumer advertising is expected to rise 10% and lobbyists show no signs of letting up. While this multi-faceted scenario along with myriad federal laws and regulations is at best confusing, the consumer or patient must not assume that every ill can or should be handled by taking medications, whether prescription or over-the-counter. And it is important to patients to ask questions of their doctors about preventative care first before relying on medications which always are accompanied by side effects of some kind.

And more importantly, the less costly prescriptions are dispensed, the less the costs will continue to rise. Yet the retail costs of medications which many elderly and disabled must pay for out-of-pocket due to no prescription coverage, can easily add up to thousands of dollars each year, and they usually do not have the luxury of doing without their medications. Until medications are affordable for all, especially for those most in need of them, it will be up to the federal government to take on the pharmaceutical industry in containing costs. Sadly, at this juncture it does not appear that will happen anytime soon.

Saturday, July 02, 2005

CHINESE BID FOR UNOCAL: More Than Meets The Eye

By Diane M. Grassi June 28, 2005

The June 23, 2005 announcement by China’s largest state-owned company, China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC), of an unsolicited bid for Unocal, a California-based United States oil company and ninth in U.S. oil production, has been received with considerable reservations. It is that which is not known about the bid and its motivations which present a tremendous task ahead for the U.S. Congress and Wall Street. A Communist country wishing to embed itself in the U.S. economy with ramifications tied to national security is unprecedented, along with it actually being taken seriously by the U.S. government.

In April of 2005 Unocal agreed to a $16.4 billion merger with U.S. owned Chevron Corp., one of the largest oil companies in the world. On the heels of the merger comes CNOOC hoping to break up that deal with a $20 billion all-cash bid. The CNOOC bid follows the June 2005 Chinese take-over bid for the Maytag Corp. by Haier America Trading, a unit of China’s Haier Group. Competing with the Haier Group in their $1.3 billion bid is Ripplewood Holdings, managed out of New York with production facilities in Newton, Iowa. Unlike the Maytag bid, however, CNOOC “Raises questions about how much of the country we are willing to sell to a Communist country that we might be fighting someday,” said Michael O’Hanlon, an international military specialist at the Brookings Institution.

For years the U.S. government has had restrictions placed upon ownership of industries such as airlines, the media, and military contractors, although China is now a subcontractor for many U.S. military weapons manufacturers. But never has the U.S. government entertained outside ownership of U.S. assets by a Communist regime which continues to build up its military arsenal as its economy has grown ten-fold over the past decade. And in order to assure the continual growth of its manufacturing base, largely from the U.S. and the West, China needs oil. Second only to the U.S. in consumption of energy, China now is the fastest growing consumer of oil.

Of importance is that more than half of Unocal’s reserves are concentrated in Southeast Asia and has a pipeline hooked up to strategic American oil reserves as well as a rare-earth mine which remains the only one in the U.S. William A. Reinsch, president of the National Foreign Trade Council states “When you talk about energy supplies, and the market is tight, there is a national security issue.” Yet the U.S. government has an interest in publicly quieting talk about the threat of China both militarily and technologically, which go hand in hand in threatening U.S. competitiveness. And unlike the U.S., China does not distinguish between civilian and military development as profits for both go into supporting the Chinese Communist state.

Not too long ago there was much scrutiny and debate about whether the International Olympic Committee should award Beijing as host of the 2008 Summer Olympics due to China’s continued practice of human rights violations, including slave labor conditions for its people. The Chinese somehow have that covered too making this whole bidding process not such a long shot but a well orchestrated campaign largely with the help of U.S. government insiders and corporate entities lending a willing hand.

Earlier this year International Business Machines Corp. was sold to the Lenovo Group of China, which met with disapproval from Congress. As a direct result IBM sought out former National Security Advisor to both President Ford and President H.W. Bush, Brent Scowcroft, to help seal the deal. But in the Unocal deal, CNOOC CEO, Fu Chengyu, has engaged no less than three U.S. investment banks, four law firms, two media communications groups and some with direct connections to the White House.

The investment banking firms presently on board are J.P Morgan Chase & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. To deal with political and policy hurdles CNOOC hired lobbying law firm, Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, located in Dallas and well connected to both Democrats and Republicans and which represented Halliburton when Vice President Dick Cheney was Chairman. Media firm, Public Strategies, Inc., a public relations company out of Austin, TX led President Bush’s 2004 re-election media campaign and its point person is Mark Palmer, former Enron Corp. communications director. The Brunswick Group which specializes in mergers and acquisitions will also oversee public affairs work.

Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan and Treasury Secretary John Snow appeared before a Senate committee just days before the announced CNOOC bid, and conveniently made a comparison to Japan’s U.S. investments of the 1980’s. But the current Chinese agenda is actually quite different. Japan remains an ally of the U.S. Japan depended on the U.S. for help on defense with U.S. military bases throughout Japan and was not a major competitor for rare resources or strategic assets which impact national security.

In addition, China continues its practice of theft of American intellectual property primarily in the entertainment sector and patent violations with knockoffs of Dell computers and Nike clothing for example, costing the U.S. more the $30 billion dollars a year. And the loss of U.S. manufacturing to China for the sake of corporate desires to pay wages so low the U.S. cannot possibly compete with continues to eat away what is left of the U.S. industrial base, thus leaving the U.S. with a ballooning trade deficit with China.

It will ultimately be up to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS), an arm of the Treasury Department, which must scrutinize and review the CNOOC bid. Such has already been called for by several members of Congress raising speculation as to how much of a surprise the bid was to lawmakers. According to a 1988 law, CFIUS has the power to stop a foreign country from such a takeover if evidence is found that such will threaten national security and that relevant laws do not have adequate authority in order to protect U.S. security. One such scenario could be the under-sea oil drilling or oil prospecting which might help China’s nuclear testing capabilities. Most CFIUS reviews take about 30 days.

Yet the fear in Washington is that if the CNOOC bid is not accepted that China would then become closer to oil-producing Russia and Venezuela in addition to the rogue states of Iran and Sudan. And of course U.S. interest in protecting Taiwan is at the forefront as well as South Korea. The bigger China grows economically its military prowess likewise grows.

With technology manufacturing along with outright ownership of U.S. and Western firms combined with technological weaponry buildup the missing component now remains energy in order for China’s global power to continue to thrive. Perhaps finally the CNOOC offer will bring the matter of U.S. sovereignty back to the halls of Congress as well as to the boardroom, as the American economy and national security clearly appear to be interwoven. Symbolically this bid and unprecedented deal could press the U.S. government to seriously measure its long-term consequences and is an opportunity to do the right thing, rather than that which merely benefits Wall Street for a short-term gain.

GALLANTRY AT TIME OF WAR IS GENDER-BLIND

By Diane M. Grassi

“I’d give anything to have 10 minutes with Sam now. But I don’t think she should be limited by politics. It’s equality and it’s choice.” Those are the words of Bob Huff, who is the father of 18-year-old Army Pfc. Sam Williams Huff of Tucson, AZ. Sam is one of 37 servicewomen who have been killed thus far in the War in Iraq among the 15,000 female troops serving there. She died on April 17, 2005 serving with the 504th Military Police Battalion when a roadside bomb hit her Army Humvee. Huff’s job included backing up soldiers during enemy roundups, guarding an Iraqi police station and chauffeuring dignitaries on the dangerous roads leading to and from the airport in Baghdad.

Sam Huff had big plans too. She was going to serve five years in the Army, earn a Master’s Degree and work towards becoming an FBI profiler. Her father Bob, a retired police officer in Tucson, AZ, is married to Maggie Williams Huff, who served as an air-traffic controller with the Marine Corps in the Vietnam War. Neither parent ever discouraged their daughter’s enlistment and service in Iraq and both are most proud of her bravery albeit her ultimate sacrifice. Army Pfc. Sam Williams Huff is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

On June 16, 2005, Sgt. Leigh Ann Hester, also with the military police serving on behalf of the Kentucky National Guard, became the first female soldier since World War II to be awarded the Silver Star, the third highest award given for gallantry. The last woman to receive the Silver Star was Mary Louise Roberts, who was an Army nurse. She served in a field hospital during the Battle of Anzio in Italy. Roberts ignored orders to take cover as shrapnel was decimating her surgical tent. She instead remained in order to “help her boys.” Hester’s medal, however, is the first ever awarded a female GI while fighting an enemy.

While caught in an ambush south of Baghdad Sgt. Hester and her unit were patrolling midday on March 25, 2005 near Salman Pak, Iraq, when a convoy of 20 civilian trucks nearby came under attack. Hester and her unit, the 617th Military Police Company, sped three Humvees through weapons fire, turning up a dirt road to cut off the attack by more than 30 insurgents armed with assault rifles, machine guns and rocket propelled grenades, according to the military.

Sgt. Hester and her soldiers stopped their Humvee vehicles while firing at the attackers with automatic rifles and grenades until they found cover behind a bunker. Hester and another soldier ran into a trench, firing at three or four fighters just 150 feet away. When all was said and done after the 90-minute firefight, the Americans killed 27 insurgents and wounded or captured seven others. Hester’s award citation states, “Her actions saved the lives of numerous convoy members.” She additionally gave medical attention to several others. Another female soldier in Hester’s squad, Specialist Ashley Pullen, was issued a Bronze Star, also for taking part in the attacks and providing medical care to her fellow soldiers.

Meanwhile as the face of the military has now included female faces in its portrait of the bravery of its troops’ serving in the War in Iraq, especially in 2005, on Capitol Hill the debate raged on this past May for two weeks over scrapping nearly 22,000 positions now available to women in the Army. The Republican leadership in the House of Representatives sought legislation in the Defense Authorization Bill (H.R. 1815) for fiscal year 2006, to limit women soldiers’ role in forward support units for combat personnel. Officially in January 2005 the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division started deployment of female soldiers as forward support companies for combat units, which precipitated the call for the amendment of the House bill.

At issue is the 1994 Pentagon policy that bars women from engaging in direct ground combat units below the brigade level or in the front lines. Yet women have been used in expanded roles in the War on Terror in both Afghanistan and Iraq partially due to a shortage of active-duty recruits, as many of these roles are filled by Army reservists and members of the National Guard. As Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA), believes that the Pentagon violated its own policy. Hunter wanted his proposed amendment “to prohibit the assignment of female soldiers to Forward Support Companies (FSC).”

Lt. Gen James L. Campbell, director of the Army staff, in a letter to Rep. Ike Skelton (D-MO) communicated that an effort to eliminate women from ‘direct ground combat’ would ban women from filling roles in certain support units ultimately wiping out the 22,000 Army jobs and that the Armed Services Committee was applying a narrow interpretation of the Pentagon’s policy. Female soldiers provide infantry, armor and artillery units with the necessary equipment, ammunition, maintenance, food and other supplies in combat zones. Leading Army groups, top military officials and Democrats and other Republicans worked in concert to defeat the amendment, which according to a letter signed by 27 Democrats to Hunter would “tie the hands of military commanders in a time of war and undercut recruiting and careers of women in addition to being confusing and detrimental to units by sending the wrong message to all troops presently serving under fire.”

Adding to the confusion is the ever-present lack of clear battlefield boundaries as Iraq is a guerilla war. Roadside bombs and grenades explode, regardless of gender. And what are considered traditional roles women are primarily performing, which are serving in supply units, with the military police and as medic teams, are just as exposed to attack as the infantry units. The definition of combat units includes infantry, armor, Special Forces, field artillery and combat engineers.

But in a strange twist, with the Democrats rallying with the Pentagon and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, the amendment to H.R. 1815 itself was amended on May 26, 2005 with decisions regarding the role of women in combat zones left up to the Pentagon. However, the passed defense authorization bill includes the requirement that the Secretary of Defense review implementation of the 1994 Pentagon policy on how it assigns jobs to women in combat zones in accord with the 1994 policy. Secretary Rumsfeld must report to the Congress on the review by March 2006. Additionally, the time required by the Department of Defense to advise the Congress was extended to 60 days from 30 days when assigning women to “units such as infantry, armor and artillery.” The proposed Senate Defense spending bill does not address the issue of the roles of women in the military and it is not expected to arise there when final legislation is expected to pass this July.

Says Bob Huff, “Every time I start feeling sorry for myself I think, there are about 1,600 other parents feeling the same thing. It doesn’t make a difference whether their kids are young or old, male or female.”