December 30, 2006

Anthrax Vaccinations

 
Mandatory anthrax vaccinations raise concerns

By Greg Gordon
McClatchy Newspapers


WASHINGTON - En route home from the Persian Gulf on a military supply ship in 2003, merchant seaman James Francis and his mates got an ultimatum: Take anthrax and smallpox vaccinations or lose your jobs.

Francis' Seattle attorney, Russell Williams, described the shipboard scene the next day off the isle of Crete as: "Wham, bam. 'Get in line. Take your shots.'"

Within days of taking the two shots, Francis' feet began to tingle and burn. When he later took the second in a series of six anthrax shots, his health slid downhill. Since then, the 45-year-old messmate from Las Vegas has fought a rare nervous system disease known as Guillain-Barre Syndrome, along with chronic pain, pneumonia and a life-threatening blood clot.

Vaccine makers are immune from lawsuits, so Francis sued the government, winning what his lawyer calls a "substantial" settlement in December 2005. Others say Uncle Sam shelled out about $2 million.

But Francis' success is unlikely to be duplicated by any soldier harmed in the massive anthrax inoculation program that's set to get under way in earnest early next year. Some 200,000 troops, who unlike private employees are barred from suing the U.S. government, will be required to take the vaccine.

The Pentagon is reviving its mandatory anthrax vaccinations despite allegations that the shots have contributed to as many as 23 deaths and sickened hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of soldiers.

On Tuesday, the Department of Health and Human Services canceled an $877.5 million contract with California-based VaxGen. Inc. for what would have been a substitute anthrax vaccine. HHS said the company missed deadlines for beginning tests on humans.

That puts even more focus on the controversial, decades-old vaccine, which has been used to inoculate 1.5 million military personnel. The Pentagon has been rocked by criticism that it has failed to adequately track whether the shots have caused diseases. Indeed, as occurred with Francis, many soldiers are injected with several vaccines on the same day, making it harder to identify the cause of illnesses.

In 2004, lawyers for sick soldiers won a court injunction blocking the mandatory shots until the Food and Drug Administration reviewed the license of Maryland-based vaccine manufacturer Emergent BioSolutions. In December 2005, the FDA declared the vaccine safe and restored the license.

But testimony from some military doctors undercuts that decision.

Dr. Limone Collins, the medical director of the Vaccine Healthcare Center at the Army's Walter Reed Army Medical Center, testified that Francis had "a rare, vaccine-associated, neuro-immunological disease," according to court papers.

Dr. William Campbell, a neurologist at the center, said the dual vaccinations afflicted Francis with a Guillain-Barre variant in which the body's immune system attacks the nervous system.

In another case, the medical director of a Vaccine Healthcare Center at Lackland Air Force Base testified last year on behalf of Nathan Torquato, a senior airman being court-martialed for using cocaine and methamphetamine to cope with muscle pain and chronic fatigue syndrome, which he blames on his anthrax shots. Helping Torquato win a lighter sentence, Dr. David Hrncir said it "appears that we are having higher numbers of people coming down with chronic fatigue syndrome as a result of this vaccine."

Despite such testimony, Pentagon health chief William Winkenwerder announced on Oct. 16 that safety questions had been resolved and that the shots would soon resume - the Pentagon now says in January - for troops deployed in the Middle East, Korea and other areas at high risk of a terrorist attack with germ weapons such as smallpox and anthrax.

Col. Randall Anderson, who runs the Military Vaccine Agency, said the Pentagon believes health risks from the anthrax vaccine "are equal to those of other vaccines" that cause illnesses in only a tiny percentage of those vaccinated.

Robert Burrows, Emergent's vice president of corporate communications, pronounced the vaccine - sold as BioThrax - to be "safe and effective" and vetted "more than any in history."

But on Dec. 13, lawyers who succeeded in stalling the mandatory program in 2004 filed suit seeking a new injunction, alleging that the FDA manipulated data from a 1950s clinical study and circumvented its rules in licensing a vaccine that was modified multiple times.

Numerous public health experts believe BioThrax causes a range of problems, particularly among women and people prone to autoimmune diseases. They list Guillain-Barre, which can kill or paralyze; other neurological disorders; diabetes; arthritis; chronic fatigue syndrome; chronic muscle and joint pain; respiratory ailments; vision problems; memory loss, and depression.

The afflicted soldiers blame their government.

Retired Army Capt. B. David Hodge, 54, of Carlsbad, N.M., said he was serving as a chaplain when he and his Tennessee-based Army reserve unit were injected with half a dozen shots of anthrax vaccine at Fort Bragg, N.C., in 1990 before being deployed to Saudi Arabia.

Hodge said Army health care personnel refused at the time to identify the anthrax vaccine, instead calling it "Vaccine A." He said he burned with fever for several days and permanently lost feeling in his fingers. Now he fights an autoimmune disorder that's destroying his lungs. "I love my country," Hodge said. "It's my government I don't trust."

Retired Air Force Sgt. David Lyles, 32, of Mentor, Ohio, said he was injected with the shot in October 2003 at Youngstown Air Force Base.

A few minutes later, Lyles said, he fell off a stool in the base's avionics shop from anaphylactic shock and hit his head on the cement floor. Lyles, who had always been athletic, said that he recovered from the concussion but that Guillain-Barre left him walking with a cane.

"If there is a problem with the vaccine, why subject people that are helping you defend what you believe in?" asked Lyles, who also said he's lost some of his short-term memory.

An FDA system that collects adverse reaction reports for all vaccines has recorded more than 4,700 reports related to anthrax shots over the last 16 years. The number of cases, the agency says, will "inevitably be underreported."

The FDA said it has received 23 reports of anthrax vaccine-related deaths, but has seen no proof that the shots were to blame. The FDA also couldn't readily estimate the number of serious illnesses associated with the vaccinations. In the past, it has estimated 500 cases.

Dr. Meryl Nass, an internist in Bar Harbor, Maine, who has specialized in anthrax vaccine-related illnesses, says the estimates of health problems are vastly understated.

Nass said she has treated more than 500 seriously ill patients and that at least 1,500 more have phoned or sent e-mails.

Defense Department officials say several studies, including analyses of soldiers' disability claims and of post-vaccination hospitalizations, debunk the health concerns. But as recently as May, the Government Accountability Office said that the vaccine's long-term safety "has not been studied."

The Pentagon also draws criticism for giving anthrax shots with other vaccines. John Richardson, a retired Air Force pilot who has crusaded against the vaccine, charges that this is done "so they can hide which vaccine is causing the problem."

He cites the case of Rachel Lacy, a 22-year-old Army reservist who was awaiting deployment to the Persian Gulf in early 2003 when she received an anthrax shot and four other vaccinations at Fort McCoy, Wis.

A month later, she died of a pneumonia-like affliction at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. The Pentagon called her death "a rare, tragic event that may have been related to vaccination," but said two expert medical panels couldn't identify any of the five vaccines as the culprit.

Pentagon spokeswoman Ann Ham said each reported death is similarly investigated, but none has been "causally associated with anthrax immunization alone." Anderson said a government immunization panel found no reason not to give vaccines together.

Much Pentagon data remain out of the public's reach, even though a Defense Medical Surveillance System tracks all illnesses among troops. After the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine found no proof of causal links between the vaccine and illnesses in 2002, but urged more research, the Pentagon stopped issuing quarterly analyses of BioThrax's effects. "There isn't a need for that," Anderson said.

David Geier, vice president of the Maryland-based Institute for Chronic Illnesses, and his father, Dr. Mark Geier, have analyzed the FDA's vaccine adverse reaction reports and published numerous articles on vaccine safety. David Geier said the reactions to BioThrax among healthy soldiers have been "many orders of magnitudes higher" than they've been for nearly all other civilian vaccines.

The Defense Department has said it's given the vaccine to an estimated 175,000 troops involved in the 1991 Gulf War, but said it didn't keep accurate records of who was inoculated.

A Department of Veterans Affairs advisory committee that investigated possible causes of Gulf War Syndrome, clusters of illnesses that afflicted some 200,000 war veterans, didn't rule out the anthrax vaccine as a possible cause, said Steve Robinson, a panel member and official of Veterans for America.

While Anderson said that more BioThrax studies are under way, Nass dismissed the Pentagon research as "epidemiological garbage."

For example, she cited a military study of vaccine links to optic neuritis that excluded troops who developed vision problems in their first 18 weeks in the military, even though many soldiers get their shots in boot camp. The study also omitted other soldiers not diagnosed within 18 weeks of vaccinations - shots given just before they were sent overseas where there were no ophthalmologists, she said.

The mandatory anthrax vaccine program has been beset with problems almost since deputy FDA commissioner Michael Friedman granted a 1997 Pentagon request to expand its use from protecting people against anthrax infection in skin wounds to shielding those who breathe it.

In 1998, FDA inspectors halted production until the vaccine's manufacturer, Michigan-based BioPort Corp. (now an Emergent subsidiary), corrected deficiencies. Its plant didn't reopen until 2002.

From 1998 to 2000, hundreds of active troops, reservists and National Guardsmen risked courts-martial by refusing to take anthrax shots for fear of health problems. Then the 2004 court injunction forced the Pentagon to shift to a voluntary program. About 50 percent of troops have refused the shots.

Vaccine critics note that both the VA and the Pentagon have routinely paid disability benefits to soldiers who blame BioThrax for chronic illnesses, but they list the ailments as "service-connected" without mentioning the vaccine.

Virginia attorney Richard Stevens, who has handled a number of claims, said that way, "they always have plausible deniability."


© 2006 McClatchy Washington Bureau and wire service sources

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December 22, 2006

Medicare - What's in store and what's not for 2007

 
Low-income Medicare beneficiaries will have
trouble getting medications in January 2007
 

Some pharmacists and advocates have raised concerns that many low-income Medicare beneficiaries "will again have trouble getting medications next month, as they did in January of this year," when the Medicare prescription drug benefit began, the New York Times reports.
 
About 600,000 low-income Medicare beneficiaries who automatically received a subsidy to help cover their prescription drug costs this year will have to apply on their own to qualify for the funds for the 2007 plan year, which begins Jan. 1, 2007. According to the Times, some pharmacists and advocates have raised concerns that many of the affected Medicare beneficiaries "will not discover the change in their status until they show up at pharmacies next month" and are charged higher copayments. Medicare beneficiaries have until Dec. 31 to enroll in the prescription drug benefit or make changes to their plans. This year, several states established emergency programs to help Medicare beneficiaries who had problems with access to medications under the prescription drug benefit because of enrollment or other issues, but most states have ended those programs. Stan Rosenstein -- the Medicaid director in California, which will continue such an emergency program until Jan. 31, 2007 -- said, "We anticipated that there could be problems in January. So we kept the program available as a safety net." CMS officials said that they have taken steps to avoid the problems with the Medicare prescription drug benefit that occurred last January. CMS spokesperson Kathleen Harrington said, "Lessons have been learned." Mark Gregory -- a vice president for Kerr Drug, which owns 102 pharmacies in North Carolina and South Carolina -- said, "It can't be as bad as early this year. Some seniors will show up at the pharmacy, unaware they have been reassigned to a different plan" (Pear, New York Times, 12/5).

Additional Coverage
Two newspapers recently examined issues related to the ongoing open enrollment period for the Medicare prescription drug benefit. Summaries appear below.
  • Reuters: Reuters examined revisions to Medicare prescription drug plans for 2007. According to Reuters, while the government says monthly premiums will average around $24 is 2007, "many plans are making big price changes and dropping some covered prescriptions" (Dixon, Reuters, 12/3).
  • Wall Street Journal: The Journal examined a new tool on the Medicare Web site that allows beneficiaries to estimate their monthly and annual spending and determine whether or when they will reach the so-called "doughnut hole" coverage gap (Zhang, Wall Street Journal, 12/5).


VA 'Defections'?
In related news, CMS officials have promoted the Medicare prescription drug benefit by "pointing to defections" from a Department of Veterans Affairs program, but VA officials report "no signs, large or small, of folks leaving," the AP/Spokane Spokesman-Review reports. HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt recently said that "about a third of those who are on the Veterans Administration plan chose to enroll in a Part D plan." CMS spokesperson Jeff Nelligan said that almost 1.8 million veterans who previously enrolled in the VA program are enrolled in a Medicare prescription drug plan or receive coverage through their former employers, which receive tax breaks to provide the coverage to retirees eligible for Medicare. However, Mike Valentino, pharmacy director for the VA, said, "I've seen some of those comments about a million veterans leaving VA for Part D. Our data doesn't support that." Valentino said that about 4.3 million veterans received prescriptions through the VA program this year, compared with 4.1 million in 2005. According to the AP/Spokesman Review, the comments might indicate that almost two million veterans "are enrolled in both programs" (Freking, AP/Spokane Spokesman-Review, 12/5).

 

 Copyright 2006 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation
 
 
 
 
 
 
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December 18, 2006

Mind Control,...

 
US Secretary of Navy admits
 they oversee Mind Control research


Here below is a link to a document, made available on the web by the Federation of American Scientists, in which the Secretary of the U.S. Navy admits in writing that the Navy is the authority giving approval for research in "severe and unusual intrusions" on human subjects, such as mind control work.

Mind control is an important weapon in the 21st century. Mind control includes electromagnetic devices which can affect the brain and physical functioning, some pharmaceuticals, some behaviour modification "conditioning" and "chaining", and regular hypnotic techniques. Some of these may be used in conjunction with others.

Research into mind control has a valid defense purpose, of course.

For example, the worst excesses of World War 2 could all have been achieved from behind the scenes by mind controllers. It is worth noting that mind controllers get used to enjoying complete concealment, and therefore never do the dirty work themselves.

Highly intelligent people, and highly telepathic people, were early found to be easier to mind-control (in the 1940s this would have included Jews and gypsies, for example). These days, with electromagnetic and pharmaceutical tools, almost anybody can be susceptible.

It is an indictment of current governments that young people are still not warned of this danger, therefore are naive and susceptible, and cannot protect themselves through knowledge from mind control situations.

We will know we have honest governments when schools routinely teach young people, "You can be controlled against your will - watch for these danger signs and be careful."

Crimes are quite often performed by a person who is mind controlled and does not know he is committing the crime. Afterwards he might be instructed to forget and the amnesia might last many years. Other crimes are often covered up using mind-control in officials.

Physical assaults can be committed by knowing people using mind control directly, too. As an example, perhaps a victim is in the middle of conversation when he is suddenly plunged into a trance state, then something is injected into his body. When he is brought back to conscious functioning he is unaware he has been attacked. He may be conscious only of experiencing a little difficulty in speech or concentration for a few seconds.

Here following is the evidence that military research is overseen in the USA by the Navy, in case people have not seen it:



http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/navy/secnavinst/3900_39d.pdf

 
 
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December 12, 2006

'an ally in the war on terror'

 
Britain stops talk of 'war on terror'

Foreign Office has asked ministers to ditch the phrase
 invented by Bush to avoid stirring up tensions
 within the Islamic world

By Jason Burke


Cabinet ministers have been told by the Foreign Office to drop the phrase 'war on terror' and other terms seen as liable to anger British Muslims and increase tensions more broadly in the Islamic world.

The shift marks a turning point in British political thinking about the strategy against extremism and underlines the growing gulf between the British and American approaches to the continuing problem of radical Islamic militancy. It comes amid increasingly evident disagreements between President George Bush and Tony Blair over policy in the Middle East.

Experts have welcomed the move away from one of the phrases that has most defined the debate on Islamic extremism, but called it 'belated'.

'It's about time,' said Garry Hindle, terrorism expert at the Royal United Services Institute in London. 'Military terminology is completely counter-productive, merely contributing to isolating communities. This is a very positive move.'

A Foreign Office spokesman said the government wanted to 'avoid reinforcing and giving succour to the terrorists' narrative by using language that, taken out of context, could be counter-productive'. The same message has been sent to British diplomats and official spokespeople around the world.

'We tend to emphasise upholding shared values as a means to counter terrorists,' he added.

Many senior British politicians and counter-terrorism specialists have always been uneasy with the term 'the war on terror', coined by the White House in the week following the 9/11 attacks, arguing that the term risked inflaming opinions worldwide. Other critics said that it was too 'military' and did not adequately describe the nature of the diverse efforts made to counter the new threat.

Eliza Manningham-Buller, the head of MI5, recently stressed the threat from growing radicalisation among young British Muslims. Whitehall officials believe that militants use a sense of war and crisis and a 'clash of civilisations' to recruit supporters, and thus the use of terms such as 'war', 'war on terror' or 'battle' can be counter-productive.

Though neither Blair nor Margaret Beckett, the Foreign Secretary, has used the term 'war on terror' in a formal speech since June, President Bush continues to employ the term liberally. The American leader spoke of how he hoped that Iraq would become 'an ally in the war on terror' during a joint press briefing with Blair in Washington last Friday.

A spokesman for the US State Department yesterday told The Observer that there was no question of dropping the term. 'It's the President's phrase, and that's good enough for us,' she said.

The White House website has a page devoted to explaining the 'war on terrorism', the terminology preferred by the Pentagon, and how it will be won. In April this year Bush compared the 'war on terror' to the Cold War in a keynote speech.

Not all British government figures are abiding by the advice, issued by the Foreign Office's Engaging with the Islamic World Unit. Writing in the Sun recently, Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, referred to 'our police and armed forces in the front line of the war on terror'.

'One of the problems will be getting all parts of government to abide [by the new guidelines],' said Hindle, the RUSI expert. 'Whether the Home Office will want to follow remains to be seen. And politicians all have their own agendas.'


 
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2006
 
 
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December 10, 2006

Host Glenn Beck threatens Muslims

 
Flirting With Fascism on
CNN Headline News

Host Glenn Beck threatens Muslims
 
 with Concentration Camps


The New York Times (12/4/06), profiling new CNN Headline News host Glenn Beck, called him "brash" and "opinionated," with an "unfiltered approach." The conservative talk-radio host-turned-cable news announcer, the paper reported, "take[s] credit for saying what others are feeling but are afraid to say."

The Times mentioned one of the things Beck has said recently, to newly elected U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), a Muslim: "Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies." But as press critic Eric Alterman pointed out (Altercation, 12/4/06), as offensive as that question is, it doesn't begin to suggest the poisonousness of Beck's rhetoric about Muslims.

On his August 10 radio show, distributed by Clear Channel's Premiere Radio Networks, Beck told listeners, "The world is on the brink of World War III," then issued this warning:
 
All you Muslims who have sat on your frickin' hands the whole time and have not been marching in the streets and have not been saying, 'Hey, you know what? There are good Muslims and bad Muslims. We need to be the first ones in the recruitment office lining up to shoot the bad Muslims in the head.' I'm telling you, with God as my witness... human beings are not strong enough, unfortunately, to restrain themselves from putting up razor wire and putting you on one side of it. When things—when people become hungry, when people see that their way of life is on the edge of being over, they will put razor wire up and just based on the way you look or just based on your religion, they will round you up. Is that wrong? Oh my gosh, it is Nazi, World War II wrong, but society has proved it time and time again: It will happen.

On September 5, Beck took the same message to his CNN Headline News audience, declaring, "In 10 years, Muslims and Arabs will be looking through a razor wire fence at the West." He explained:
Since 9/11, Americans have gotten so fed up with the "yes, but" Muslims. The "yes, but" Muslims are the ones who show up on talkshows and in the media and say, "Yes, terrorism is bad, but"—and then they go through a list of reasons on why we should try and sympathize with people who fly planes into buildings.... If, God forbid, there's another attack, we won't have anymore patience for the "yes, buts." The Muslim community better find a spokesman who isn't a "yes, but" Muslim. They shouldn't even understand the word "but," because if they don't, when things heat up, the profiling will only get worse, and the razor wire will be coming.

Beck went on to say:
u want the profiling to stop? Then, here's an idea. Stop murdering innocent people. Stop excusing the people who do. You do that for a while, and I guarantee you won't have any more problems at the airports. Stop blowing stuff up and the world just might be your oyster. Otherwise, it's going to be like that movie, The Siege. You remember that movie? The Muslims will see the West through razor wire if things don't change.

He concluded:
Look, I'm not saying all Arabs and Muslims are anti-American. Far from it. We should get to know these people and embrace the good Muslims, and eliminate the bad ones. Here's what I don't know. I don't know if the Muslim community will ever step to the plate like the Japanese-American community did during World War II. You know, it was absolutely disgraceful how we rounded innocent people up then and, sadly, history has a way of repeating itself no matter how grotesque that history might be. The Muslim community can prevent this if they act now.

When Beck is talking about "razor wire," he's talking about concentration camps—in the original sense of the word, places where masses of people are imprisoned "just based on the way you look or just based on your religion." Despite his (perfectly accurate) observation that such camps are "Nazi, World War II wrong," comparable to the "absolutely disgraceful" wartime internment of Japanese-Americans, Beck is clearly using the threat of such camps to coerce Muslims into behavior he approves of, like volunteering "to shoot the bad Muslims in the head."

Since the overwhelming majority of U.S. Muslims are neither "murdering innocent people" nor "excusing the people who do," there's really nothing that they can do to avert Beck's threat that "the razor wire will be coming." And Beck is explicit that there's nothing non-Muslims can do to avoid locking Muslims up en masse.

The New York Times, in its profile about Beck, refers to his criticism of the animated film Happy Feet, but fails to mention that he uses his Headline News slot to issue threats that he himself compares to Nazi behavior. For the Times, CNN's decision to give Beck a TV show is a "success," because he "has increased the ratings in his 7 p.m. time period 60 percent among all viewers, and 84 percent among viewers aged 25 to 54."

The Times article quoted CNN executive Kenneth Jautz as saying that the network did not take Beck's politics into account when it hired him. "We did not set out to have anyone from any particular view fronting these shows," he said. In fact, CNN hired Beck knowing that the host's repertoire included hateful attacks--the Hurricane Katrina refugees seen on TV and the father of a terrorism victim were both "scumbags" (Mediamatters.org, 5/17/04, 9/9/05)--as well as a disturbing preoccupation with violence: Beck has told his listeners that he was praying for a gruesome death for Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich (3/16/03), and that he was fantasizing about strangling filmmaker Michael Moore to death (5/17/05). As FAIR predicted (FAIR Action Alert, 1/18/06), Beck has not changed his repellent tune simply because he's been hired by a major media outlet.

Contrary to Beck's suggestion, there are things that the people of the U.S. can do to avoid repeating the "grotesque" history of Japanese-American internment. One of these things is to take people seriously when they start threatening people with concentration camps—rather than looking the other way because of their ratings "success."

ACTION: Please contact CNN/U.S. president Jonathan Klein and urge him to condemn Glenn Beck's chilling threats against Muslims.


CONTACT:
CNN/U.S. President
Jonathan Klein
Phone: 404-827-1500
Web: www.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form1.html?39



 
 
 
 
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December 04, 2006

Pelosi makes excellent choice!

 
Next Chairman for Intelligence Opposed War
 By MARK MAZZETTI and JEFF ZELENY


Representative Nancy Pelosi, the incoming House speaker, sent a strong new signal on Friday that Democrats intend to confront the White House by naming a Texas congressman who opposed the war in Iraq as the next chairman of the House intelligence committee.

This choice, of Representative Silvestre Reyes to head one of Congress’s most important committees, ended weeks of closed-door lobbying and public posturing among Democrats who had been competing for the post. By choosing Mr. Reyes, a former Border Patrol agent and Vietnam combat veteran, Mrs. Pelosi passed over the panel’s top Democrat, Representative Jane Harman of California, a more hawkish figure who voted to authorize the war in Iraq and a political rival with whom Mrs. Pelosi has long had a stormy relationship.

Mr. Reyes, an affable West Texan, has a far lower profile in national security circles than does Ms. Harman, an outspoken and strong-willed centrist who has become a regular guest on Sunday talk shows since the Sept. 11 attacks.

But Mrs. Pelosi chose him over Ms. Harman in part because he has repeatedly taken a more combative stance toward Bush administration policies like the invasion of Iraq, military tribunals for terrorist suspects, and the National Security Agency’s domestic surveillance program.

Mr. Reyes voted against authorizing President Bush to go to war with Iraq, and in June he said that the failures in Iraq “cry out for oversight.”

In September, Mr. Reyes blasted the White House’s justifications for the National Security Agency wiretapping program.

“I take very seriously our obligation to provide the president with the tools that he needs to provide for national security,” he said, “but I also reject the notion that the authorization for use of military force allows the president to ignore the Fourth Amendment and conduct warrantless surveillance on American citizens.”

The choice of an intelligence committee chairman had emerged as the second controversial decision in the early leadership tenure of Mrs. Pelosi. Committee chairmanships are normally decided by seniority, but it is Mrs. Pelosi’s prerogative to choose someone else.

Last month, the Democratic caucus soundly rejected Mrs. Pelosi’s choice for majority leader, electing Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland over John P. Murtha of Pennsylvania. Then, the signal by Mrs. Pelosi that she intended to bypass Ms. Harman for the intelligence post stirred dissent among moderate Democrats, particularly members of the conservative Blue Dog Coalition, who mounted a campaign for Ms. Harman.

Ms. Harman made the case publicly that the centrist course she had taken on national security issues would be crucial to the Democrats maintaining a majority in Congress. Alcee L. Hastings, a liberal Florida congressman who was one of Ms. Harman’s competitors for the position, had also been marshaling support to his side, and had the backing of the powerful Congressional Black Caucus.

But Mr. Hastings, who was impeached and removed from a federal judgeship in 1989 because of a bribery scandal, was opposed by conservative Democrats and ultimately deemed by Mrs. Pelosi to be too controversial for the position.

Mrs. Pelosi called Ms. Harman on Friday morning to deliver the news, and the two Californians spoke for about 10 minutes, according to people familiar with both sides of the conversation. Mrs. Pelosi thanked Ms. Harman for her “service and intellectual contribution.”

Ms. Harman, though, beat Mrs. Pelosi to the punch in announcing the news. In a break of political protocol, she sent out a statement congratulating Mr. Reyes before Mrs. Pelosi’s office had even made the appointment official. In a statement on Friday, Ms. Harman gave her “full and enthusiastic support” for Mr. Reyes and pledged to “stay actively involved in security matters.”

Representative Lincoln Davis, Democrat of Tennessee, was one of the Blue Dog Democrats who signed a letter to Mrs. Pelosi last month urging her to select Ms. Harman. It was Ms. Harman’s instruction on intelligence matters, he said, that helped several Democrats win election and defuse the charge that Democrats are soft on national security.

“Obviously, some of us would have been happier with Jane Harman. She has a grasp of national intelligence issues,” Mr. Davis said in a telephone interview on Friday from his district in Middle Tennessee.

“I really don’t know what the problem is,” he added. “They are both from California, you know.”

But Mr. Davis also said that Mr. Reyes was an excellent compromise and he predicted the storm would quickly blow over inside the Democratic caucus.

Representative Anna G. Eshoo, a California Democrat who sits on the Intelligence Committee and is close to Mrs. Pelosi, said that Mr. Reyes’s low profile would serve him well in the new job.

“He doesn’t shoot from the lip. He’s not a showboat,” Ms. Eshoo said in a telephone interview Friday from California. “He doesn’t alienate people when he offers his views. He’s firm, yet he’s open-minded.”

Born and raised in Canutillo, Tex., a town on the outskirts of El Paso, Mr. Reyes was drafted into the army and spent 13 months in Vietnam as a helicopter crew chief. He lost hearing in his right ear when an explosion rocked his bunker there. Shortly after returning from Vietnam he began what would become a 26-year career in the Border Patrol.

After retiring from the Border Patrol in 1995, he was elected to Congress the next year and has served on the Intelligence Committee since 2001. He will become the seventh Hispanic representative to lead a full House committee.

But he will inherit a committee that in recent years has become one of Congress’s most dysfunctional and partisan panels.

The past two months have been particularly rancorous, beginning in October when Ms. Harman released the findings of a committee investigation over the objection of the panel’s chairman, Representative Peter Hoekstra, Republican of Michigan.

Soon afterward, Mr. Hoekstra suspended the access of a Democratic staff member to classified material on the suspicion that he was the source of a leaked National Intelligence Estimate on global terrorism.

The staff member, Larry Hanauer, was later cleared of wrongdoing.


Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
 
 
 
 
 
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