War Veterans’ Concussions Are Often Overlooked

Abstract: Former Staff Sgt. Kevin Owsley is not quite sure what rattled his brain in 2004: the roadside bomb that exploded about a yard from his Humvee or the rocket-propelled grenade that flung him across a road as he walked to a Porta Potti on base six weeks later. After each attack, he did what so many soldiers do in Iraq . He shrugged off his ailments — headaches, dizzy spells, persistent ringing in his ears and numbness in his right arm — chalking them up to fatigue or dehydration . Given that he never lost consciousness, he figured the discomfort would work itself out and kept it to himself. “You keep doing your job with your injuries,” said Mr. Owsley, 47, an Indiana reservist who served as a gunner for a year outside Baghdad beginning in March 2004. “You don’t think about it.” But more than three years after coming home, Mr. Owsley’s days have been irrevocably changed by the explosions. He struggles to unscramble his memory and thoughts. He often gets lost on the road, even with directions. He writes all his appointments down but still forgets a few. He wears a hearing aid , cannot bear sunlight on his eyes, still succumbs to nightmares and considers four hours of sleep a night a gift. Mr. Owsley is part of a growing tide of combat veterans who come home from Iraq and Afghanistan with mild traumatic brain injuries , or concussions , caused by powerful explosions. As many as 300,000, or 20 percent, of combat veterans who regularly worked outside the wire, away from bases, have suffered at least one concussion, according to the latest Pentagon estimates. About half the soldiers get better within hours, days or several months and require little if any medical assistance. But tens of thousands of others have longer-term problems that can include, to varying degrees, persistent memory loss , headaches, mood swings, dizziness , hearing problems and light sensitivity . These symptoms, which may be subtle and may not surface for weeks or months after their return, are often debilitating enough to hobble lives and livelihoods. To this day, some veterans — it is impossible to know how many — remain unscreened, their symptoms undiagnosed. Mild brain injury was widely overlooked by the military and the veterans health system until recently. Even now, with traumatic brain injury called the signature injury of the Iraq war, some soldiers and their advocates say that complications from mild concussions often are not recognized. Mr. Owsley’s request for a Purple Heart, given to troops wounded or killed in action, was denied by the military, a devastating blow. Others say that their mild brain injury entitled them only to low disability payments, or, if the diagnosis was inconclusive, to none at all. This has happened in large part because there is no quantifiable diagnostic test for the injury, and the language used by the Veterans Affairs Department to rate traumatic brain injury, or T.B.I., is vague. The military, in particular, seldom rates each symptom from a concussion separately, which it is required to do, said Kerry Baker, associate national legislative director for Disabled American Veterans. “The criteria remains ambiguous,” Mr. Baker said. “The military way underrates T.B.I. and its symptoms.” Scant Medical Knowledge Little is known medically by doctors or scientists about what happens to a brain as a result of a powerful bomb blast, as opposed to car crashes on a highway, blows to the head on a football field or a bullet wound. These are the first wars in which soldiers, protected by strong armor and rapid medical care, routinely survive explosions at close range and then return to combat. The bomb blasts, which throw off energy waves — atmospheric overpressures and underpressures — that are absorbed by the body, add a little-studied dimension to the trauma. Scientists are only now beginning to study the extent of the damage. That soldiers are sometimes exposed to multiple blasts during a deployment, or can suffer from a vast combination of wounds, including shrapnel, burns, blows to the head, blast waves, lost limbs or internal injuries, can exacerbate brain trauma in ways unseen among civilians. “It is the black box of injuries,” said Dr. Alisa D. Gean, the chief of neuroradiology at San Francisco General Hospital and a traumatic brain injury expert who spent time treating soldiers at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany . “We’re at the tip of the iceberg of understanding it. It is one of the most complicated injuries to one of the most complicated parts of the body.” These mild concussions, which do not necessarily lead to loss of consciousness, are easy to dismiss, simple to misdiagnose and difficult to detect. The injured soldiers can walk and talk. Their heads usually show no obvious signs of trauma. CT scans cannot see the injuries. And the symptoms often mirror those found in post-traumatic stress disorder , making it hard to distinguish between them. In fact, the two ailments often go hand in hand. But the consequences of these seemingly small concussions can be far-reaching, leading to financial problems, job losses, divorce and mental health issues. The ramifications often go unseen by the military because symptoms often worsen once veterans leave the structure of the Army or Marine Corps for the unpredictability of civilian life. Take the case of Mr. Owsley, a father of three, whose brain injury so impaired his reaction time and memory that doctors advised him not to work. “I almost lost everything,” said Mr. Owsley, whose wife brought home the family paycheck for two years, working at a nursing home. “We were at the point of getting ready to lose the house and the cars. Then you start planning out things. I was planning to do suicide and make it look like an accident so my family would get the insurance.” At first, he said, doctors missed his traumatic brain injury. “She told me nothing was wrong with me, but she gave me like 18 different medications, for pain, to go to sleep, for lots of other things,” he said of his first visit to a Veterans Affairs doctor at a facility in Fort Wayne, Ind. Later that year, another veterans hospital said he had mild traumatic brain injury, post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety , hearing loss and injuries to his hand, ankles, eye and back. He was rated 100 percent disabled by the Veterans Affairs Department and now receives a monthly check for $2,711, easing the financial pressure somewhat. Yet Mr. Owsley, referring to his Purple Heart denial letter, said he felt his injuries had gone unrecognized by the military “because there was no blood” and because he chose to work through his pain. “They said it was because I didn’t report it in the field and seek medical attention at the time, and there was no proof” of any obvious injury, Mr. Owsley said. “I had guys write statements for me to prove it had happened. As a soldier with 23 years in the Army, them badges mean more than anything. When you get injured, you should be recognized, even if you don’t see it over there.” It was not until 2006, three years into the Iraq war, that the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs began to pay close attention to mild traumatic brain injuries. The Pentagon last year opened the Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury, a clearinghouse for treatment, training, prevention, research and education. This year it is spending a record $300 million on research for traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder. “We are more attuned to brain injuries now,” said Lt. Col. Michael Jaffee, the director of the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center. “There has not been as aggressive an effort before.” That effort begins with screening. As of May, service members who deploy longer than 30 days will undergo neurocognitive testing before leaving, to establish a baseline for changes that may occur later, and again upon returning. At the same time, soldiers in battle who lose consciousness or feel dazed after a blast or other event must be screened by a medical provider and are either approved for duty in the field, told to rest for several days on base or sent to Landstuhl for further evaluation. Last year, Veterans Affairs started screening all Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans who come in for clinical help. So far, 33,000 of 227,015, about 15 percent, have screened positive for mild brain injury since April 2007. It is unclear how many service members, particularly those who fought earlier in the war, remain unscreened and whose injuries go undiagnosed. “No doubt that there are significant numbers out there,” said Dr. Barbara Sigford, director of physical medicine and rehabilitation for the Department of Veterans Affairs. Bryan Lane, 31, a former sergeant first class in Special Forces, did not zero in on his head injury until more than a year after a bomb exploded next to him in a house in Baghdad in 2005. The reasons were understandable. He lost a huge chunk of his right arm in the explosion and was fortunate not to have lost the limb altogether. He did not realize that his brain had taken a hit until five months later, when he saw the gaping hole in the front of his helmet. He never lost consciousness after the blast, but the soldier next to him was knocked out for two hours. The possibility that he might have suffered a concussion was never mentioned during his many months at Womack Army Medical Center in Fort Bragg, N.C., where he had several operations to save his arm. Six months after he was medically discharged, when he was putting in a Veterans Affairs disability claim for his arm injury, a V.A. doctor brought up a possibility overlooked at Womack: he might still be suffering symptoms from a concussion. It explained his shortened attention span, his frequent search for the right word during conversation and his forgetfulness . “I hear things, but it doesn’t throw it in the memory box,” he said. “I was completely honest and said I don’t think I have T.B.I.,” said Mr. Lane, who is still articulate, though less so today, he said. “A lot of guys, myself included, fight the label of T.B.I. no matter how mild. In a way, it’s like people are calling you stupid or retarded, and I know that’s not P.C.” The Veterans Affairs Department, which has become increasingly vigilant about mild traumatic brain injury, thought otherwise and did something unusual. It attached a brain injury claim alongside one for post-traumatic stress disorder, covering all bases. “Since no one understands the relation they have to each other, they said, ‘If you have one, you have the other,’ ” said Mr. Lane, who receives benefits for mental and physical injuries. He now works for the Armed Forces Foundation, a nonprofit group that provides troops, many of them injured, with financial support, among other things. Delayed Symptoms Explained Post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury are closely tied, although the precise relationship between the two is unknown. This connection was most recently established in a study in The New England Journal of Medicine in January by Col. Charles W. Hoge, an Army psychiatrist who is leading efforts to identify mental health problems among combat troops. His survey of 2,500 Army infantry soldiers found that more than 40 percent of those who reported loss of consciousness also met the criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder. That was a much higher percentage than those who had suffered other injuries, like Humvee accidents or falls. Dr. Hoge cautioned, though, that some symptoms — anger, headaches, depression , sleeplessness , mood swings — may stem solely from combat stress, a psychiatric disorder, and not traumatic brain injury. Combat, he emphasized, often goes hand in hand with traumatic experiences, including a near loss of life or the death or injury of others. For years most troops with mild concussions stayed on the job, immersing themselves in combat again and re-exposing themselves to additional blasts with little or no time to rest and recover. This pattern only heightened the risk of brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder, doctors say. Civilians with brain injury, on the other hand, are given time to recuperate for long periods in a safe environment, which may explain why they respond differently to stress. Dr. Ibolja Cernak, a brain injury expert who is medical director of the applied physics laboratory at Johns Hopkins University and is conducting research into blast injuries, said she had noted other differences between blast-injured soldiers and mildly brain-injured civilians. Soldiers, she said, can develop symptoms two years after a blast. Some also have greater difficulty walking or talking, or with aggression. “Civilians don’t have the frequency of these symptoms,” Dr. Cernak said. There is no cure for those with prolonged concussion symptoms, only methods to help them learn to adapt. Sgt. Tony Wood, 41, now based at Schofield Barracks in Hawaii , keeps a large color-coded board by the door with reminders about his appointments, his chores and his belongings, all part of the Brain Injury Recovery Kit he received from a nonprofit group called the 10 in 10 Project. His wife calls him all day with reminders, and after losing his keys countless times, he attaches them to his pants. Notebooks fill his pockets. In his view, the military is still failing to grasp the depths of his injury, and those of other soldiers like him. In July 2005, Sergeant Wood’s Humvee hit a roadside bomb cemented into the curb. The blast set off a chain reaction, triggering two American fragmentation grenades inside the Humvee along with an antitank weapon and countless rounds of ammunition. The two other soldiers riding with him died in the blast. The explosion tore through Sergeant Wood’s arm and abdomen and then ricocheted inside his body, leaving only his heart untouched. His liver had a fist-size hole, he lost his spleen and part of his stomach, and he sustained damage to his lungs and diaphragm. Sergeant Wood’s first memory after the bomb was opening his eyes at Walter Reed Army Medical Center about a month later, seeing his wife, and asking, “Why are you in Iraq?” Doctors patched up most of his physical wounds over five months. But his wife, who was born with mild brain injuries, noticed that Sergeant Wood, a military policeman, was not himself mentally. He did not remember someone who had just walked out of the room. He forgot questions he had just asked. He struggled to read one chapter of a book. Still a Soldier, and Struggling While he was at Walter Reed in December 2005, Sergeant Wood said doctors gave him a brain injury test. But it was inconclusive. “They tried to say I had A.D.D. , I needed a good night’s sleep, you name it,” he said, referring to attention deficit disorder . As he recovered in the Warrior Transition Unit at Tripler Army Medical Center in Hawaii, Sergeant Wood tried to decide whether to stay in the military by switching to less taxing jobs, an idea he hated, or to leave, collect his benefits and find a civilian job. But his previous jobs — professional cowboy, scuba instructor, construction worker — were out of the question. “My T.B.I. has impacted my ability to get a good job,” he said, adding that he fears the best position he can get now is as “a greeter at Wal-Mart .” With four foster children, two biological children and a wife, he steered the safe course and applied to try to stay in the military. The Army Medical Board deemed him unfit for active duty and sent him to the Physical Evaluation Board for a disability rating that would determine his benefits package once discharged from the Army. When he saw his rating in March, he was floored. Despite his extensive wounds — brain injury, constant pain, failing hips, headaches, noise sensitivity, no spleen, lung damage, liver damage, panic attacks and chronic esophagitis — he received only a 50 percent rating. His brain injury made up 10 percent of the total. A memorandum from the board said that his “stated difficulties are more consistent” with post-traumatic stress disorder. As a last resort, Sergeant Wood can turn to the federal courts. (He said he had not made that decision yet.) He is not the first soldier to receive a low rating for his injuries from the Army since the Iraq war began. The ratings so distressed Congress that as of January, it ordered the military to follow solely the ratings schedule issued by the Veterans Affairs Department, which consistently grants veterans more money for the same injuries. “The Army was raking these guys over the coals,” said Mr. Baker, of Disabled American Veterans. Asked by The New York Times to review Sergeant Wood’s paperwork, Mr. Baker said his extensive injuries easily should have been rated 100 percent, according to the Veterans Affairs schedule. “This was completely wrong,” Mr. Baker added. Sergeant Wood has stayed in the Army under a program for soldiers injured in combat. He sits at a Hawaiian jail and alerts the military when a soldier gets locked up. He fears he will get an even lower rating the next time he goes before the Army Medical Board, simply because he is doing his job well. “You are still treated like you are trying to beat the government out of money,” Sergeant Wood said. “It’s not like I fell off a barstool.”

Veteran
Medicine and Health
Traumatic brain injury
Veteran Affairs
Iraq
Afghanistan


Boston’s Pablo Sandoval Loses Job at Third

Abstract: Pablo Sandoval has become a $95 million bench player. The Boston Red Sox announced before their final spring training game Thursday in Fort Myers, Fla., that Travis Shaw, a 25-year-old who made his major league debut last May, would be their starting third baseman. “If it’s the right decision to help the team win, I’m going to be happy,” Sandoval said. “I’m going to be ready for the bench. I’ll get ready for everything in the season and do my job. It’s going to be difficult. I have to be happy and do a great job. It’s still a fantastic spring.” He added, “Nothing is easy.” Sandoval hit .245 last season with a .292 on-base percentage, .366 slugging percentage, 10 homers and 47 R.B.I. A switch-hitter, he gave up hitting from the right side. He also missed spring training games because of back soreness after he dived for a ball on March 22 off the bat of the Marlins’ Giancarlo Stanton. Known as Kung Fu Panda for his physique, Sandoval appeared to be well over his listed 255 pounds when he reported for spring training in February. But the Red Sox said they were not concerned by his weight, and the team’s principal owner, John Henry, said Sandoval’s body-fat ratio was 17 percent, down from 21 percent last season. Manager John Farrell said that “for right now, to start the season,” he felt that “this is the best for our team, to go with this alignment.” “My focus is on the guys that are in uniform, not what’s attached to them or what their contract states,” Farrell said. “We’re all about evaluating and what’s best for our team.” Sandoval, 29, won three titles with San Francisco and was the 2012 World Series most valuable player. He is owed $17 million this year in the second season of a $95 million, five-year contract. Shaw hit .270 with 13 home runs and 36 R.B.I. in 65 games last season. “I feel I did what I needed to do this spring to put myself in this position,” Shaw said. “I’m really looking forward to experiencing my first opening day.” 14TH WINLESS GAME FOR METS Manager Terry Collins hoped a change of venue might do his team good. It did not. The Mets lost, 5-1, to the Chicago Cubs in Las Vegas, in their 14th straight winless game. The Mets’ starting lineup played the entire game. TIM ROHAN NEW ROLE FOR SCHUERHOLZ After 51 years in baseball, the longtime Atlanta Braves executive John Schuerholz is moving to an advisory role he says is perfectly timed to finally provide more family time. As the team approaches its final season at Turner Field, it announced several front-office changes, including Schuerholz moving from team president to vice chairman. Schuerholz and the Braves’ chairman and chief executive, Terry McGuirk, were careful to avoid any hint that Schuerholz, 75, was retiring. (AP) BREWERS’ LIRIANO ON D.L. Milwaukee Brewers outfielder Rymer Liriano will begin the season on the 15-day disabled list as he recovers from injuries sustained when he was hit in the face by a pitch. Milwaukee also placed two pitchers on the disabled list: the right-hander Zack Jones has a shoulder injury, and the lefty Sean Nolin has an elbow injury. The moves, which the Brewers announced on Twitter, were made retroactive to March 25. Liriano was expected to join the disabled list when he sustained multiple facial and nasal fractures after getting beaned in a spring training game against the Los Angeles Dodgers on March 20. (AP)ROCKIES PITCHER BACK IN CAMP The Colorado Rockies left-hander Tyler Matzek returned to spring training in Scottsdale, Ariz., after spending two weeks taking brain tests and receiving coaching for performance anxiety. Matzek started the Rockies’ home opener last year but ended up in the low minors because of control and confidence problems. He failed to get anybody out in his first spring appearance on March 2, was scratched from his next start and then left camp on March 14. (AP)


Boko Haram Attacks With Ease, Causing Death and Mayhem in Nigeria’s Provinces

Abstract: DAKAR, Senegal — A wave of attacks across northern Nigeria, including two on Monday — a suicide bombing at a market and an assault on security facilities — showed that the Islamist terrorist group Boko Haram remained able to strike at will in the region, especially against civilian targets. The most recent attacks attributed to the group occurred in Maiduguri and Damaturu, state capitals in the northeast. Boko Haram, which has its roots in the area, has struck those cities repeatedly over the past five years. The attacks followed a bombing on Friday in a central mosque in Kano, the principal city of northern Nigeria; 120 people were killed in that attack. It was not clear yet on Monday evening how many people were killed in Maiduguri, where women detonated suicide bombs in the city’s biggest market. A similar bombing by two women last Tuesday killed at least 45 people. Witnesses said that despite that earlier attack, no troops were guarding the market on Monday. The Nigerian Army has repeatedly been criticized for its reticence in confronting the Islamist militants, and when military personnel arrived at the scene after the explosions on Monday, they were shouted down by angry youths and told to leave, witnesses said. The Damaturu attack was a raid by Boko Haram on military, police and government facilities that began before dawn. Residents cowered indoors all morning while gunfire rang out, witnesses said. The militants were eventually driven out, with the aid of a Nigerian military jet, but not before they burned what remained of a police facility that was attacked and damaged a year ago. The attackers also tried to reach Government House, the seat of the Yobe State government in Damaturu. The Boko Haram fighters, who obtain most of their weapons by seizing them from the Nigerian military, appeared to be trying to get military equipment stockpiled in the city. Officials and witnesses said the raid had failed, though the gunfire went on for hours. “The security effort is still ongoing,” a spokesman for the Yobe State governor said in a statement Monday afternoon. The bombing in Maiduguri was apparently carried out by two women wearing traditional Muslim clothing. Witnesses said one woman in a hijab carrying a bundle was stopped and questioned by civilian vigilantes as she approached a busy area where chicken vendors have their stalls. The vigilantes insisted on checking her bundle, and as she protested and shoppers gathered to see what was going on, she detonated two bombs. A second woman who was entering a shop at the market at that time detonated another explosive, witnesses said. “There were two women, both of them dressed in Muslim hijab,” said Yaqub Isa, a trader at the market who saw what happened and narrowly escaped being wounded by the explosions. “While the first one was being interrogated,” Mr. Isa said, “the second one sneaked into a nearby shop.” The police at first said that only a half-dozen people had been killed, but witnesses reported seeing many more bodies. The Nigerian authorities routinely understate casualties in their reports. A worker at Maiduguri Specialist Hospital said 25 wounded people and 16 corpses had been brought there. The two attacks on Monday appeared to be part of the grim drumbeat of violence mounted almost daily by Boko Haram. By contrast, the attack on Friday in the Kano mosque was exceptional, both for its high death toll and for its symbolic portent. The mosque is next to the palace of the emir of Kano, one of the highest-ranking figures in Nigerian Islam. Kano is one of Africa’s largest predominantly Muslim cities, and it is outside the usual zone of Boko Haram attacks. The emir — Lamido Sanusi, a former governor of the country’s central bank — has been outspoken in his criticism of the federal government in Abuja, the capital. He recently urged citizens to defend themselves against Boko Haram, in the absence of an effective military. The Nigerian government’s security strategy has shifted frequently and remains uncertain. On Monday, the American Embassy in Abuja said Nigeria had canceled an agreement providing for continued American training of a Nigerian battalion, expressing regret for the “premature termination.” American assistance to Nigeria has been sharply limited by American legal prohibitions against close dealings with foreign militaries that have engaged in human-rights abuses. Washington has refused to provide weapons and equipment that the Nigerian military wants. Those limits have in turn been sharply criticized by Nigerian officials, including the country’s ambassador to the United States. Nigeria was once a principal source of American crude oil imports, but with the United States’ boom in domestic production, Nigeria’s strategic importance has faded somewhat, analysts said.

Nigeria
Boko Haram
Terrorism
Maiduguri Nigeria
Damaturu


Arrest in Pipe Attack on Officer Marks Undoing of Brilliant Mind

Abstract: Correction Appended If there truly is a fine line between genius and madness, Gavin Dutchin crossed it often and with little warning. For the very mind that drove Mr. Dutchin’s successes, making him his immigrant family’s brightest hope and winning him degrees from elite schools, seemed to betray him unexpectedly, time and again. Mr. Dutchin, 38, is being treated in the mental health unit at the Rikers Island jail after being accused of smashing an off-duty New York City detective in the head with a lead pipe in the East Village on Sept. 9. The attack left the detective, Sgt. Kenny Roe, 40, with cerebral hemorrhaging and a gash that needed 14 stitches before he left the hospital. It was unprovoked, the police said. At first glance, Mr. Dutchin’s actions, as described by the police, seem baffling. A graduate of the prestigious Brooklyn Technical High School, Mr. Dutchin had two bachelor’s degrees, in math and physics, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a once-promising Wall Street career. In January, he earned a master’s in economics from New York University. But demons had long plagued Mr. Dutchin, who moved with his parents at 14 from Guyana to Jamaica, Queens. As a boy, Mr. Dutchin seemed decades older. His sister Loraine Dutchin said he was like a solemn, pensive man trapped in the body of a child. He had no friends, preferring the companionship of calculus and physics books. His parents shushed their five other children so that Mr. Dutchin, their youngest and brightest, could study. The boy stuffed a towel under his bedroom door, Loraine Dutchin said, to seal out any noise. Long after his parents and siblings went to bed, the teenage Mr. Dutchin stayed up, poring over textbooks as the clock ticked past midnight. “He would tap his head and say, ‘What you have up here, no one can take away,’ ” said Ms. Dutchin, 49, who lives in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. “He was brilliant; everything he touched turned to gold. But his whole life was studying. He was so bottled up.” Mr. Dutchin’s academic prowess earned him entry into top-notch schools, and he landed a scholarship to M.I.T., Loraine Dutchin said. His parents, Carlyle, a nighttime security guard, and Carmen, a housecleaner, sent him whatever extra money they cobbled together so he could pay his phone bills and buy crisp new clothes. A framed picture of Mr. Dutchin’s graduation from M.I.T., displayed in Ms. Dutchin’s living room, shows Mr. Dutchin beaming with pride, gripping the dean’s hand in a firm shake. In November 1992, he was hired as an assistant broker at Cowen & Company, an investment banking firm in Manhattan. But two years later, for reasons he kept secret from his family, Mr. Dutchin lost his job. And then his life began to unspool. In 1996, Carlyle Dutchin, 73, died of prostate cancer. Mr. Dutchin’s mother stayed in Guyana after accompanying her husband’s body there for the funeral. Mr. Dutchin had been living with his parents. Suddenly alone, he became mired in lassitude and despair. Ms. Dutchin took her brother in, but his relationship with her family was strained at best. Though he was a quiet man, she said, he often was overcome by a sudden bursts of anger. He became enraged when her two young children watched television instead of studying, she said. One night, in the summer of 1998, a spat over the children escalated into a violent fight, Ms. Dutchin said, and he shoved her to the ground, repeatedly kicking Ms. Dutchin. Her daughter, Arielle, who was 6 at the time, called 911, sobbing hysterically. “’My uncle’s going to kill my mother,’ ” Ms. Dutchin recalls her daughter saying. The police arrived but Ms. Dutchin would not press charges. Still, she refused to let Mr. Dutchin stay in her home. For two years, Mr. Dutchin drifted through Manhattan, homeless, sleeping in doorways and shelters and spending his days immersed in books at Barnes & Noble. Ms. Dutchin said he sometimes stood in the park across the street from her home, staring mournfully, but then would disappear. Mr. Dutchin began running afoul of the law. He was charged with turnstile jumping in February 1999, and with resisting arrest that summer, though details of that episode are not clear. He was taken to Bellevue Hospital Center, where he was treated for tuberculosis and spent three months in a psychiatric ward. He began taking antipsychotic medicine. When Ms. Dutchin went to visit him, she said that her brother’s face crumpled, and that he whispered, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” as the two embraced. After Mr. Dutchin’s release, he was enrolled in a psychiatric treatment program run by FEGS, the former Federal Employment and Guidance Service. Community Access, a housing and advocacy agency for the mentally ill, placed him in an apartment at 12th Street and Avenue A. Stable once more, Mr. Dutchin let his intelligence shine through, and he tutored high school and college students, all the while dreaming of returning to graduate school. In 2001, The New York Times profiled him as part of its Neediest Cases series. Mr. Dutchin’s prospects seem to brighten. He was a quiet presence in his apartment building, neighbors said, always well-dressed and polite. Almost every Sunday, he rode the No. 2 subway to Ms. Dutchin’s home in Brooklyn, where she served him his favorite home-cooked meal, baked snapper with okra and callaloo. Yet Ms. Dutchin said she still saw anger simmering beneath the surface. “I could tell something was wrong,” she said. “His eyes were wild.” Mr. Dutchin stopped visiting Ms. Dutchin about a year ago, and he began visiting another sister, Olive Dutchin, from whom Loraine Dutchin says she is estranged. Yet he seemed to stay out of trouble, and enrolled at N.Y.U. It is not clear how Mr. Dutchin, who could not be reached for this article, paid the tuition. (His lawyer, David Affler, refused to let him be interviewed.) But in January 2006, he earned his long-dreamed-of master’s degree. And then, it seemed, Mr. Dutchin began to drift again. This summer, the police searched for him after he vanished from his East Village apartment, though he reappeared after several days. Two weeks ago, he saw his mother, who was visiting from Guyana. Carmen Dutchin said she was horrified by how thin her son appeared. “He studied too hard,” she said. Less than a week later, just before 11 a.m. on Sept. 9, a gloriously sunny day, Sergeant Roe, 41, the off-duty detective, set off down East 14th Street with his cousin toward a diner. They had just passed Third Avenue when Sergeant Roe felt a bright, shattering crack, as loud as thunder, across the back of his head. Sergeant Roe and his cousin grappled with the assailant for the pipe. They wrested it from him, and police officers arrived and arrested Mr. Dutchin. And Sergeant Roe, alert but dizzy and bleeding, leaned against a wall and sank slowly to the ground.

Mental Health and Disorders
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
New York City


Royal Dutch Shell’s Profit Down 56% on Slumping Oil Prices

Abstract: LONDON — Royal Dutch Shell became the latest big energy company to file a damage report on the impact of depressed oil prices, saying on Thursday that its adjusted profit fell 56 percent in the fourth quarter of 2015 compared to a year earlier. But the company’s stock rose about 5 percent in Amsterdam trading, as Shell said it would maintain its dividend, paying out at least $1.88 a share for 2016. Promising to continue to pay dividends, which some other big petroleum companies have also pledged to do, is one of the few ways to reward investors during the industry’s lean times — although some analysts question how long the payouts can be sustained if oil prices continue to languish. Shell said earnings adjusted for inventory changes were $1.8 billion, down sharply from $4.2 billion in the comparable period of 2014. For all of 2015, its earnings fell 80 percent to $3.84 billion, compared with $19 billion in 2014. On a conference call with reporters on Thursday, Ben van Beurden, Shell’s chief executive, said that the pending acquisition of the British oil and gas producer BG Group , which is expected to be completed in a few weeks, would be an opportunity to further streamline Shell’s operations as it adapts to the changing energy industry. Mr. van Beurden said that Shell had already cut about 7,500 full-time and contractor positions and that an additional 2,800 jobs would be eliminated from the two companies after the merger. He also promised “impactful decisions” on matters like capital spending. In an immediate move to preserve capital, Shell said it would postpone two major projects: a liquefied natural gas operation in Canada and a deepwater oil and gas development off Nigeria. “We are making substantial changes in the company, “ Mr. van Beurden said, “as we refocus Shell and respond to lower oil prices.” Shell’s diminished earnings came as ConocoPhillips, the third largest American oil company, announced that it was slashing its dividend by two-thirds, and that it posted a $3.5 billion loss in the fourth quarter, compared with a net loss of $39 million the year before. ConocoPhillips is the largest American oil company so far to cut its dividend, in another sign of extreme stress, which has already led to scores of bankruptcies of smaller companies. Low prices for oil and natural gas were responsible for a drop in ConocoPhillips revenues of 42 percent to $6.8 billion. The company also wrote down the value of its oil properties and exploration assets by $2.2 billion. Since it spun off its refineries more than three years ago, the company no longer receives any benefits for lower oil and natural gas prices, which make refining more profitable. “While we don’t know how far commodity prices will fall or the duration of the downturn,” said Ryan Lance, ConocoPhillips’s chief executive in a statement, “we believe it’s prudent to plan for lower prices for a longer period of time.” Chevron last week reported its first quarterly loss since 2002. BP on Tuesday reported a $3.3 billion fourth-quarter loss. Exxon Mobil on that same day said that its profit for the quarter had declined 58 percent. Oil Prices: What to Make of the Volatility Over the last two and a half years, the oil industry experienced its deepest downturn since at least the 1990s. For Shell, despite the cushioning effects of its large refining and chemicals business, the falling prices of oil and gas are still doing damage. Each $10 a barrel change in the oil price, the company says, has an impact of about $3.3 billion on annual earnings. Shell had forecast gloomy earnings two weeks ago, before the vote by shareholders on the proposed acquisition of BG . A few days later, investors approved the acquisition. Shell estimated on Thursday that its reserves of oil and gas still in the ground and under the sea floor, fell by 1.4 billion barrels in the past year, to 11.7 billion barrels, as falling prices had prompted the company to remove some of them from its books. To assure future operations, oil companies need to add to their reserves to replace production. That is one reason Shell has been intent on acquiring BG Group, which would add an estimated 3.6 billion barrels of reserves. Shell produced 1.1 billion barrels in 2015. With petroleum prices down about 70 percent over the last 18 months, the oil industry is experiencing its most brutal downturn since the late 1990s. That period, a time of widespread job losses among oil companies, was a time of industry consolidation, as BP acquired Amoco and Exxon merged with Mobil. Back then, Shell stayed on the deal-making sidelines. But during the current downturn, the company has been the only big oil company to make a bold move in buying BG Groupfor cash and shares now worth about $50 billion. That deal proved divisive with investors, some of whom worried about Shell making a large takeover at a time when oil prices were still on the way down. Mr. van Beurden has long tried to persuade investors that the BG acquisition is not an expensive gamble but rather an opportunity to choose the best of both companies and to cut jobs and expenses like exploration. BG will also raise Shell’s status as Europe’s largest oil and gas company. But that distinction may be difficult to celebrate at a time of falling fuel prices. Big oil companies have responded to plummeting prices by cutting capital spending and operating expenses. But with prices lower than most forecasts, analysts and rating agencies are beginning to argue that Shell and other companies may need to go much further. On Monday, the credit rating agency Standard & Poor's downgraded Shell’s long-term credit one notch — to A+ from AA- — and put five other European oil majors, including BP and the French company Total, on watch for similar potential downgrades. In explaining its downgrade of Shell, S.&P. said it expected the company to generate significantly less cash than it planned to pay out in dividends and capital expenditures through 2017. The agency also said that Shell might be further downgraded after the completion of the BG acquisition. “We now believe many major oil and gas companies’ current and prospective core debt coverage metrics are likely to remain below our rating guidelines for two or three years as the industry adjusts to lower prices,” S.&P. said in a statement. The pressure on the companies’ earnings also raises questions about whether they can continue to pay the generous dividends that are now a crucial attraction for investors — particularly if prices remain in the current range of $30 a barrel, or even lower. BP, in announcing its big loss on Tuesday, said it would continue its 10-cents-a-share dividend but planned to review it each quarter. In a note to clients on Wednesday, Biraj Borkhataria, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets in London, wrote that “2016 is likely to be a year of transition for BP with limited ability” to cover its dividend unless oil prices rose substantially. So far, most oil company chiefs have stuck by their commitments to continue paying dividends. But the dividends, which cost the companies billions of dollars each year and were set when oil was selling for more than $100 a barrel, could prove hard to sustain.

Royal Dutch Shell
Oil and Gasoline
Ben van Beurden
Earnings Reports


At RadioShack, Some Questions (and Now, Answers)

Abstract: Correction Appended CAN a public company express no concern for evidence that its chief executive has falsified his educational background? For two days, RadioShack concluded it could, but that changed last night. It was then that the company issued statements by David J. Edmondson, the chief executive, admitting that "I clearly misstated my academic record and the responsibility for these misstatements is mine alone." The company's board, which had earlier expressed support for Mr. Edmondson, said it would retain independent legal counsel to investigate the situation. The reversal came after two days of reporting by the company's hometown newspaper, The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, that he had claimed two bachelor's degrees from a small Baptist college when the college said he had not graduated at all. RadioShack's depressed shares suffered little damage during the period Mr. Edmondson insisted he had not misrepresented his past. They rose 8 cents on Tuesday and traded higher for much of yesterday, before slipping in the final hour to close down 33 cents at $21.27. The statements came after the New York Stock Exchange trading had ended for the day. While saying he apologized "for the confusion I have created by carrying erroneous information on my résumé and mishandling my explanation of it," Mr. Edmondson gave no indication he was considering resigning. "I love my work at RadioShack and am eager to increase shareholder value moving forward," he said. Mr. Edmondson, 46, was a Baptist minister before he went into business. He joined RadioShack in 1994, with a résumé that claimed, under educational background, "B.S., Pacific Coast Baptist College, San Dimas, CA, Theology-Psychology, 1980." Until Friday, the day he met with reporters for The Star-Telegram, the company's Web site had said he had two degrees, in theology and philosophy. It then took down the claim about a philosophy degree, but kept up the claim of a theology degree. Before the abrupt reversal last night, the company's directors had not indicated any concern. The company issued a statement saying, in its entirety, "The RadioShack Corporation board of directors is aware of the matters raised in The Fort Worth Star-Telegram article and has previously given due consideration to them. The board of directors reaffirms its support for David Edmondson in fulfilling his role as chief executive officer." Kay Jackson, a RadioShack spokeswoman, said neither Mr. Edmondson nor any member of the board would answer questions yesterday. The Star-Telegram also reported that Mr. Edmondson had been arrested for drunk driving last year, and that it was the third time he had faced such charges. Mr. Edmondson told The Star-Telegram that he had completed a Th.G. degree in theology through correspondence courses from Pacific Coast Baptist College in San Dimas, Calif. That college, which says it "seeks no national or regional accreditation but seeks only God's approval," has since moved to Oklahoma City and been renamed the Heartland Baptist Bible College. The newspaper reported that the school's registrar said records showed Mr. Edmondson attended for two semesters but did not receive a degree. Jeff Copes, executive vice president of Heartland, said yesterday that he had no immediate comment on Mr. Edmondson's record. But he did say that Th.G. stood for graduate in theology and was a three-year program that was not equivalent to a bachelor's degree. Heartland's Web site advises prospective students that while the college does award diplomas, it "cannot grant degrees" because it is not accredited. A news release on the Web site of Advanced Micro Devices, where Mr. Edmondson is a director, still states that he has two degrees from the college, in theology and psychology, although it did not characterize the degrees as bachelor's degrees. Mr. Edmondson, in his statement last night, stated, "It is my belief that I received a Th.G. diploma, not a B.S. degree as I asserted." He added, "I understand that I cannot now document the Th.G. diploma." The newspaper said Mr. Edmondson insisted last week that he had completed his degree through correspondence and that the school's records must be mistaken. He said his degree certificate was lost in a garage fire. The paper also said Mr. Edmondson said he was embarrassed by the latest drunk-driving arrest, which occurred last year near his home in Fort Worth. He had been acquitted of a similar charge in 1990. In 2000, after his second arrest for driving while intoxicated, he agreed to plead guilty to a reduced charge of obstructing a highway. Mr. Edmondson has been president of the electronics retailer since December 2000, and added the title of chief executive last year as part of a planned succession plan. His tenure has been marked by flat sales and a lagging stock, as the company has fallen behind rivals in retailing of electronic items. Since he became president, RadioShack stock has lost more than half its value, while the Morgan Stanley Retail Index has more than doubled. Since he became chief executive last year, the stock has declined while the retail index has gained. Of the 20 analysts with ratings listed by Bloomberg, two have buy recommendations, with 16 neutral and two recommending the sale of the stock. Those not recommending the stock note that the company has already said it will not meet its earnings forecasts for last year's fourth quarter, expected to be reported tomorrow. They also express concern that the company has seen profit margins shrink as it has sold more low-margin items like Apple iPods and fewer high margin items like batteries. They also are concerned about the company's success in switching from selling Verizon cellular phone plans to those of Cingular. But Mark Rowen, a Prudential Securities analyst, raised his rating to buy a month ago, saying he thought 2006 could be a year in which Radio-Shack "recaptures significant top- and bottom-line momentum." For Mr. Edmondson, the company's resurgence and questions about his academic background are not the only issues he must deal with. He faces a hearing on the drunk-driving charge on April 19. And last week, The Star-Telegram reported, he and his wife of 26 years filed for divorce. MARKET PLACE Correction: February 17, 2006, Friday The Market Place column in Business Day yesterday, about questions surrounding the education of David J. Edmondson, chief executive of Radio Shack, referred incorrectly at one point to degrees he claimed to have received. They were in theology and psychology, not theology and philosophy.

RADIOSHACK CORP
RADIOSHACK CORP
FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM
EDMONDSON DAVID J
SUSPENSIONS DISMISSALS AND RESIGNATIONS
EXECUTIVES AND MANAGEMENT
BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION
ETHICS
MARKET PLACE (TIMES COLUMN)


Chilcot Report on Iraq War Offers Devastating Critique of Tony Blair

Abstract: LONDON — On July 28, 2002, roughly eight months before the American-led invasion of Iraq, Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain sent President George W. Bush a personal note that alarmed some of Mr. Blair’s top national security aides — and was greeted with relief in Washington. “I will be with you, whatever,” Mr. Blair wrote, in what appeared to be a blanket promise of British support if the United States went to war to topple Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi leader. Getting rid of Mr. Hussein was “the right thing to do,” Mr. Blair wrote, predicting that “his departure would free up the region.” Fourteen years later, Mr. Blair’s pledge was revealed publicly on Wednesday as part of a voluminous, seven-year official investigation into how and why Britain went to war in Iraq. The main conclusions in the report, by the independent Iraq Inquiry Committee, were familiar: that Britain, like the United States, used flawed intelligence to justify the invasion, that Iraq posed no immediate national security threat, that the allies acted militarily before all diplomatic options had been exhausted and that there was a lack of planning for what would happen once Mr. Hussein was removed. Yet the report still had enormous resonance in Britain, in part because it came at a moment when Britons are engaged in a debate over their country’s place in the world after their vote last month to leave the European Union. The report also amounted to a moment of searing public accountability for Mr. Blair, whose legacy has been defined in Britain almost entirely, and almost entirely negatively, for his decision to go into Iraq alongside the United States. Mr. Blair’s note to Mr. Bush was part of what the report showed to be a campaign to back the United States before the war and to steer the White House toward building diplomatic support for efforts to address the perceived threat from Iraq. The report’s 2.6 million words describe a prime minister who wanted stronger evidence of the need for military action and a more solid plan for occupying Iraq and reconstituting a government there. Beyond its pledge of fealty to Mr. Bush, the July 28, 2002, note warned broadly of the risks of “unintended consequences’’ from an invasion and presciently forecast that other European nations would be reluctant to back the war. But by the time the invasion was launched, most of Mr. Blair’s warnings and conditions had been swept aside, the report concluded. The chairman of the committee, John Chilcot, said on Wednesday morning that Mr. Blair had been advised by his diplomats and ministers of “the inadequacy of U.S. plans” and their concern “about the inability to exert significant influence on U.S. planning.” Mr. Blair chose to override their objections. Within hours of the report’s release, Mr. Blair appeared at a nearly two-hour news conference in which he acknowledged missteps and intelligence failures, but defended his decision to go to war. Now rejected by his own Labour Party, his place in British history defined by those crucial days in 2002 and 2003, he looked humbled, even haunted, saying that not a day went by when he did not think about decisions he made more than a decade ago. Image Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, left, at the White House with President George W. Bush in January 2003. Credit Doug Mills/The New York Times “There will not be a day of my life where I do not relive and rethink what happened,” Mr. Blair said. “People ask me why I spend so much time in the Middle East today. This is why. This is why I work on Middle East peace.” A decisive moment seemed to come when Mr. Blair’s draft of the 2002 note to Mr. Bush, classified “Secret-Personal,” circulated to two senior aides, David Manning and Jonathan Powell. The report disclosed that they urged Mr. Blair to soften or delete the “I will be with you, whatever” declaration, and not to tie his political fate too tightly to Mr. Bush’s judgments. Mr. Manning, a former ambassador to Washington and Mr. Blair’s chief foreign policy adviser, testified that he had told Mr. Blair the sentence was “too sweeping,” that it seemed to “close off options” and that there was “a risk it would be taken at face value.” Mr. Blair later said he thought he had amended the sentence, but he had not. Mr. Blair insisted that he had provided no “blank check” to Washington, and the note quickly moved to an assessment of the many difficulties of such a war, including building a political coalition to back it and the “need to commit to Iraq for the long term.” He warned of “unintended consequences,” like large numbers of Iraqi civilian casualties or an eruption “of the Arab street.” Video John Chilcot, who led a seven-year inquiry into the war in Iraq, announced the committee’s conclusions in London on Wednesday, saying the invasion of Iraq in 2003 was based on flawed intelligence. Credit Credit Jeff J. Mitchell/Getty Images The report concluded that Mr. Blair and the British government both underestimated the difficulties and consequences of the war and significantly overestimated the influence he would have over Mr. Bush. The results have haunted Iraq, the United States and Britain ever since: more than 200 British dead, including 179 soldiers, at least 4,500 American dead and more than 150,000 Iraqi dead, most of them civilians, as sectarian warfare, terrorist groups and actors like Iran have filled the vacuum left by Mr. Hussein. Just this week, at least 250 Iraqi civilians died from a car bomb in Baghdad as they celebrated the final days of the holy month of Ramadan. As Mr. Chilcot’s committee delved back into what seems to many young Britons like ancient history — students entering college this year were 4 years old when the critical decisions were being made — they found something of an echo chamber between London and Washington. An intelligence official, Tim Dowse, told the committee that British officials were nervous enough about United States suspicions that aluminum tubes acquired by Mr. Hussein could be used in centrifuges to enrich uranium that they had initially kept the subject out of a British summary of Iraq’s weapons projects published in 2002. Image British forces began withdrawing from Basra, Iraq, in September 2007. Credit Cpl. Steve Follows/British Ministry of Defense After Vice President Dick Cheney had talked about the tubes on American television, “we felt that it would look odd if we said nothing on the subject,” Mr. Towse said. “It would open us up to questions.” So the report mentioned the tubes but noted “we couldn’t confirm that they were intended for a nuclear program.” Such questions about the prewar intelligence were left unresolved, despite Mr. Blair’s oft-repeated desire for a “smoking gun.” Mr. Blair stressed on Wednesday that the report concluded that he had not invented or distorted intelligence. But he won little sympathy: The current leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, apologized for the party’s having led Britain into the war, and the governing Conservatives were happy to let the Labour Party eat itself up over Mr. Blair and Iraq. The sense that Britain was led into carnage by a foolish devotion to the United States has had lasting consequences and made members of Parliament reluctant to authorize further military action alongside Washington. The legacy of Iraq kept Britain from joining the United States in bombing Syria over its use of chemical weapons. It was also a factor in President Obama’s decision to back away from a military strike on Syria’s chemical weapons facilities, and to delay military activity there against the Islamic State. But having been a forceful ally of President Bill Clinton in the Kosovo war and having intervened successfully in Sierra Leone in 2000, Mr. Blair was a believer in using force to impose a more rational world order, and after the attacks on the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, he was quick to align himself with Mr. Bush. The inquiry’s verdict on the planning and conduct of British military involvement in Iraq was withering, rejecting Mr. Blair’s contention that the difficulties encountered after the invasion could not have been foreseen. “We do not agree that hindsight is required,” Mr. Chilcot said. “The risks of internal strife in Iraq, active Iranian pursuit of its interests, regional instability and Al Qaeda activity in Iraq were each explicitly identified before the invasion.” Mr. Blair’s concern before the invasion of Iraq, the report makes clear, was less about the need to overthrow Mr. Hussein than about how to justify doing so. The intelligence that Mr. Blair presented in public had a great deal more certainty than his officials presented in private, the report said. The report says: “At no stage was the hypothesis that Iraq might not have chemical, biological or nuclear weapons or programs identified and examined” by Britain’s Joint Intelligence Committee. “The U.K. chose to join the invasion of Iraq before the peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted,” the report said. “Military action at that time was not a last resort.”

Iraq War
Tony Blair
Great Britain
George W Bush
US Foreign Policy
Iraq Inquiry Committee
Military
John Chilcot
Saddam Hussein


Big Rocks, Torn-Up Roads, Fragile Glass

Abstract: Like many others, Eddie Posselt was drawn to South Texas last year by job opportunities in the oil fields. Initially he found work in Carrizo Springs as a well tester. But six months later, a different opportunity presented itself. “I walked the lots here and noticed that there are many broken windshields in the area,” Mr. Posselt, an El Paso native, said. “I saw a great opportunity to go into business replacing them.” In July, Mr. Posselt opened Windshields Etc, an auto glass repair service, as a side business, but it quickly flourished and became a full-time gig. As with his previous job, he has the Texas oil boom to thank for his new line of work. Bringing a new gas or oil well into production typically requires more than 1,000 loaded trucks traveling to and from a well site. Across portions of South and West Texas, where hundreds of new wells have been drilled, the surge in truck traffic has torn up rural roads and created safety challenges, including the increasingly common occurrence of large trucks sending rocks or debris flying at the vehicles behind them. For some frustrated local residents and transit providers, windshield replacement has emerged as a hidden cost of the drilling boom. “We’ve replaced more windshields in one year than we have in 10,” said Sarah Hidalgo-Cook, manager of the Southwest Area Regional Transit District, which oversees public transportation for eight rural counties in South Texas. Aside from the expense of replacing windshields, the problem can endanger drivers. This month a jury awarded $281 million to the family of a South Texas man who was killed in 2012 when a drive shaft fell off a tractor-trailer truck that belonged to Heckmann Water Resources, an oil patch supplier, and flew through the windshield of the victim’s pickup truck. The award included $100 million in punitive damages related to allegations that the company had not properly maintained its truck. In a statement, Nuverra Environmental Solutions, which owns Heckmann Water Resources, vowed to appeal . The firms drilling in the state’s shale fields emphasize the importance of safety to oil field truck drivers, according to Debbra M. Hastings, a spokeswoman for the Texas Oil & Gas Association. Some firms use GPS technology to track their drivers and ensure that none are speeding or driving in an unsafe manner. “We definitely will also continue to encourage drivers of passenger vehicles to continue keeping a safe distance from the oil field trucks and pass with care,” Ms. Hastings said. Earlier this year, the Brazos Transit District, a public transportation provider covering portions of East and Central Texas, was buying windshields by the dozen because of a spike in incidents, according to John McBeth, the district’s president.The damage occurred most often when one of Mr. McBeth’s drivers was behind a truck that had just exited an oil field site. The truck would often have debris stuck to its exterior, and that debris would fly behind it as the vehicle picked up speed. Mr. McBeth said his drivers were recently instructed to change lanes and stay farther back when behind oil field trucks. That has helped reduce the number of incidents, as has a recent drop in oil field trucks traveling around Brazos County, he said. “We’ve not lost a windshield in about four months,” Mr. McBeth said. “Before that, we were losing a windshield about every other week.” While drilling activity is regularly shifting, it is expected to continue in parts of South and West Texas for years. And as long as it does, entrepreneurs like Mr. Posselt are likely to see thriving business. “The force and also the size of the rocks in this area, they’re pretty big,” Mr. Posselt said. “Most of the time, the damage is not repairable.”


76ers Hope to Rebound for N.B.A. Stretch Run

Abstract: NEWARK — As New Jersey prepares to lose its N.B.A. team, the Nets will try to play spoiler in the Atlantic Division. The lottery-bound Nets will host the Boston Celtics, the Knicks and the Philadelphia 76ers during the truncated season’s stretch run, and the effect of these games against their divisional foes is huge, especially three — two at home and one on the road — against the 76ers. The 76ers (30-27) won the first of those games on Tuesday night, eliminating the Nets from playoff contention with a 107-88 rout. Philadelphia snapped a four-game losing streak that highlighted a free fall during which they lost 10 out of 14 games. The win put the 76ers a game ahead of the Knicks for seventh place in the Eastern Conference. “We’ve got 10 games left,” 76ers Coach Doug Collins told his team before the game. “No regrets.” The Sixers, 11-15 away from Wells Fargo Center, have two games remaining at home and close the season with five straight road games, mostly against mediocre competition. Before the game, Collins said that he had a meeting with the owner Josh Harris. Explaining his decision to start Nikola Vucevic and Jodie Meeks in place of Spencer Hawes and Evan Turner, Collins said that he used a principle that Harris utilized in the business sector: intelligent risk. “In life, that’s what you have to take, you have to take intelligent risks,” Collins said. The intelligent risk initially looked foolish. The teams combined shot 4 of 23 to start the game, and the Nets crawled out to a 12-4 lead after seven minutes of play. But the Sixers’ second unit turned the game around. Turner found Hawes with a pass in transition for a layup to tie the game at 20-20 at the end of the first quarter. Hawes took over from there, scoring 9 points on perfect shooting in the second quarter. The game was never in doubt afterward. Collins said that he assigned the duty of telling Hawes he was not starting to the assistant Jeff Capel. “Spencer was not happy at shootaround, but Jeff Capel is the best,” Collins said. “He told Spencer: ‘Go back to your room. Act like a little child. Tear up your room. Give me a bill. And then be ready to play tonight.’ “Spencer texted him. He said: ‘Just went back to my room. Trashed my room. Busted up my TV. Charged my room to you, but I’m ready to roll.’ ” “Just to clear the record, I did not trash the room,” Hawes said. The win was a salve for Collins, who has found himself in strange situations recently. Embroiled in the turmoil that comes with losing, Collins —part coach, part affable politician, and part ex-broadcaster — has offered some head-scratching lines in the past week. On Friday, Collins called out an unnamed former 76ers beat writer for criticizing the team from a distance in a blog post that might not have otherwise caused a stir. Then, after the Celtics blew out the Sixers on Sunday, Collins questioned the sensitivity and fragility of his players . Collins dismissed the minicontroversies, saying, “Get away from all the nonsense, which it is and was and always will be.” What Collins deemed nonsense was a far cry from the beginning of the season, when the Sixers were the league’s postlockout darlings, a team of mostly equal parts that was rising above the superstar-driven fray with a stellar defense and a sharing-is-caring offense. Through 57 games, no player has led the Sixers in points or in rebounds more than 15 times. Lou Williams, who had 20 points against the Nets, entered the game leading Philadelphia in scoring at 15.1 points a game, the lowest average in the league for a team’s leading scorer. Asked if the Sixers needed multiple standouts in every game to truly be successful, Andre Iguodala said, “In order for us to be successful in the playoffs, we do.”


The Kibbutz Sheds Socialism and Gains Popularity

Abstract: KIBBUTZ YASUR, Israel — For much of Israel’s existence, the kibbutz embodied its highest ideals: collective labor, love of the land and a no-frills egalitarianism. But starting in the 1980s, when socialism was on a global downward spiral and the country was mired in hyperinflation, Israel’s 250 or so kibbutzim seemed doomed. Their debt mounted and their group dining halls grew empty as the young moved away. Now, in a surprising third act, the kibbutzim are again thriving. Only in 2007 they are less about pure socialism than a kind of suburbanized version of it. On most kibbutzim, food and laundry services are now privatized; on many, houses may be transferred to individual members, and newcomers can buy in. While the major assets of the kibbutzim are still collectively owned, the communities are now largely run by professional managers rather than by popular vote. And, most important, not everyone is paid the same. Once again, people are lining up to get in. “What we love here is the simplicity,” said Boaz Varol, 38, who rides his bike along wooded pathways to work at the swimming pool, once for communal use, that he rents and runs as a private business at Kibbutz Yasur, in the rolling hills of the Western Galilee, northeast of Haifa. “Everyone does what they want, we have our independence, but without the kind of competition you find outside.” Two years ago he bought a two-bedroom home here for his young family for $71,000. More than 60 other young adults have joined in the past four years, increasing the number of residents by half and bringing new life to an aging population. The Varols are part of a growing trend. In April, Kibbutz Negba, in the south, accepted 80 new members in one day. Many kibbutzim have waiting lists — mostly former residents who want to return, but also urbanites looking to escape the rat race. The kibbutzim were once austere communes of pioneers who drained the swamps, shared clothes (and sometimes spouses) and lived according to the Marxist axiom, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” Today, most are undergoing a process of privatization, though kibbutz officials prefer a more euphemistic term: renewal. The new kibbutz seeks a subtler balance between collective responsibility and individual freedom, with an emphasis on community and values. Its drawing points include a safe environment, usually in the heart of nature, away from the cities scarred by suicide bombings; excellent day care and education; and an improved quality of life at out-of-town prices. This is quite a change from recent years. By 2000, more than half of Israel’s 257 collective farms were bankrupt. The economic crisis exposed a festering ideological one. The second generation of kibbutz offspring — who slept in communal children’s houses with assigned caregivers — began to rebel. With the lifetime security that the kibbutz was supposed to offer in jeopardy, young people began to leave. “By the end of the 1990s,” said Gavri Bargil, executive director of the Kibbutz Movement, an umbrella organization, “you could find kibbutzim with no young generation at all.” Worse, after decades of hard work, the kibbutz founders, now in their 80s and 90s, were left with not even an apartment or a pension to call their own. Part of the recovery involved selling the Israeli dairy giant Tnuva, a cooperative half-owned by the kibbutzim. The sale provided them $500 million to establish pension funds. In the past, kibbutz members were rewarded equally, whether they milked cows or managed a large industry. On the new kibbutz, members earn salaries or receive end-of-month allowances reflecting the income they bring in. “It is not total equality, but basic equality,” Mr. Bargil said. “You earn more, you pay more internal kibbutz taxes, and you get a bit more at the end of the month.” The taxation provides a safety net for the financially weak. “From that point of view, we’ve maintained something of the old values,” said Yaakov Lazar, secretary of Kibbutz Nachshon, between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, which went over to the new system last year. Yasur, established in 1949, had failed. Its textile and toy factories were unprofitable and closed. “Those of us left in our 50s wondered who would look after us in another 20 years,” said Ami Kilon, who was born here in 1951. Then Yasur began its renewal and began to recruit new members in 2003. The empty kibbutz houses are now nearly filled, and Yasur plans to sell plots for new housing on former farmland. About half the kibbutzim have moved into real estate, selling plots for luxury neighborhoods in place of the fields and orchards outside their gates. House buyers generally do not join the kibbutz, but pay for services like child care. Next year the Varols must decide if they want to become full members of Yasur, buying a stake in communal assets like the dairy and chicken farm. If not, they can remain as private residents. “The new kibbutz is not perfect, but economically things are improving,” said Mr. Kilon, who manages Yasur and another kibbutz nearby. “The incentive to work has gone up, and after changes in the management, we are standing on our feet.” Not all kibbutzim followed this kind of strategy. About 30 percent stuck to their socialist principles. But many of them are flourishing, too. “I get calls every day from people who want to join,” said Yaniv Sagee, the secretary of Kibbutz Ein Hashofet. “I don’t have room for them.” Ein Hashofet, a pastoral haven of well-tended manicured lawns, art and culture south of Haifa, has not introduced varying wages. The communal dining room still functions — though diners must pay for their food these days. Ein Hashofet can afford to remain a classic kibbutz because its spotless factories are highly profitable. One of its founders, Yehudit Kotzer, 92, still works four hours a day in one of them. “It’s very sad what’s happening on the other kibbutzim,” she said. “But we’re O.K.” Mr. Varol was born on a kibbutz in the far north, but he left at 18. He is at peace in his new home, but bitter about the past. “My parents worked all their lives, carrying at least 10 parasites on their backs,” he said. “If they’d worked that hard in the city for as many years, I’d have had quite an inheritance coming to me by now.”


Six Possible Jurors Dismissed in Fort Hood Shooting Case

Abstract: FORT HOOD, Tex. — Six Army officers were dismissed on Tuesday as potential jurors on the first day of jury selection in the murder trial of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the Fort Hood shooting suspect. The first group of 20 potential jurors, who must be of Major Hasan’s rank or higher, arrived Tuesday afternoon from Army posts nationwide for the court-martial. Major Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, faces execution or life without parole if convicted in the 2009 rampage that killed 13 people and wounded nearly three dozen here. The judge, Col. Tara A. Osborn, and prosecutors questioned the group for more than an hour. Major Hasan did not ask any questions. Prosecutors said six in the group should be dismissed based on their answers in questionnaires and for other reasons; for example, one officer knew one of the 13 victims. The judge granted the request. At a morning hearing hours before jury selection, last-minute issues were addressed. Major Hasan, an American-born Muslim, told the judge that he wanted to tell potential jurors that he was being forced to wear a military uniform that he believes represents “an enemy of Islam.” It was unclear if Colonel Osborn would allow him to make that statement to potential jurors. Military defendants usually wear a dress uniform during a court-martial. However, both sides and the judge have agreed that Major Hasan, 42, can wear a camouflage uniform worn by troops in combat because it better meets his health-related needs as a paraplegic. He was paralyzed from the abdomen down after being shot by police officers on the day of the shootings. Major Hasan is serving as his own lawyer but is permitted to get help from his former defense lawyers. Jury selection is expected to last at least a month. Groups of 20 candidates will be brought in each week until 13 jurors are chosen.

Court-martial
Nidal Malik Hasan
Tara A Osborn
Fort Hood
Jury
US Military
Murders


Canadians Continue Domination of Moguls

Abstract: KRASNAYA POLYANA, Russia — For the Canadian ski team, success seems to come in twos. First, the Dufour-Lapointe sisters won gold and silver for Canada in the women’s moguls competition. Then, two days later, another pair of Canadians picked up the top two medals in the men’s moguls, wrapping up a dominant run that firmly established the Canadians as the world’s best mogul team. Alex Bilodeau, 26, won his second straight gold medal Monday, followed by Mikael Kingsbury, 21, who won silver. Alexandr Smyshlyaev of Russia won bronze to the delight of a crowd that cheered itself hoarse for each of his runs. The Washington state native Patrick Deneen — whom the announcer insisted on calling “Deneen the Machine” — finished in sixth place. He seemed to get a boost from the Beastie Boys song that played on the loudspeakers while he flew down the mountain, but “(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party!)” wasn’t enough. If the Canadian winners on Monday were not quite the siblings like the Dufour-Lapointes, they were far from strangers. Bilodeau and Kingsbury, the top two mogul skiers in the world, grew up skiing on the same mountain, Mont Saint-Saveur in Quebec. They skied in the same clubs and had the same coaches. Their families have cottages on the mountain that are practically next door to each other. Christian Dufour, an executive at the ski resort who has known both athletes for years said: “You do sense that these guys, it’s their job, it’s what they’re paid to do. And one of them is going to win, and one of them will finish second.” On Monday night, it looked for a moment as if Kingsbury might topple Bilodeau, the defending gold medalist once again. Bilodeau stumbled after an early jump in the finals and fell to eighth place going into the second round. He regained his composure in the next round and finished with the best run of the night, a virtuoso tear down the mountain that ended with a helicopter swirl that inspired a wave of “Oooooooohs” from the crowd. Bilodeau pumped his fist and screamed even before the scores confirmed what he already knew: He had won another gold medal. Image Amanda Kessel, right, of the United States scored twice in a 9-0 victory over Switzerland. Credit Martin Rose/Getty Images After the race, Bilodeau said he had skied his last Olympic competition. He passed the torch to Kingsbury, his rival and tormentor. “That guy that finished second, he is going to win everything after I’m gone,” Bilodeau said. TWINS SPUR DUTCH SWEEP The Dutch are not just hoarding most of the speedskating medals. Now, they are keeping it in the family. Michel Mulder led another sweep by the Netherlands at Adler Arena, edging his teammate Jan Smeekens by 12-thousanths of a second. Mulder’s identical twin brother, Ronald, got the bronze. It was the first gold medal ever in the men’s 500 for the Netherlands, which has won seven of the nine speedskating medals awarded in Sochi so far. (AP) U.S. WOMEN GLIDE IN HOCKEY Amanda Kessel scored two goals in the United States’ 9-0 victory over Switzerland in women’s hockey. The United States has a 2-0 record and is virtually assured of a spot in the semifinals even before playing Canada on Wednesday in a North American grudge match. Canada is also unbeaten after two games, though it needed almost 50 minutes to break a scoreless tie against Finland before prevailing, 3-0. (AP) SWITZERLAND SURPRISES CANADA IN CURLING The Norwegian men, curling’s fashion kings, defeated the United States, 7-4. But the surprise of opening day was Switzerland’s 5-4 upset of two-time defending champion Canada. On the women’s side, Sweden defeated Britain, 6-4, in a matchup of two favorites for the gold medal. On Tuesday, the British team faces the United States, which lost to Switzerland, 7-4. (AP) INJURY KEEPS GENERAL MANAGER HOME David Poile, the general manager of the United States hockey team, will not be in the stands to see if the team he helped build will have success. Poile, the Nashville Predators’ general manager, was hit in the face by a puck at an N.H.L. rink last week. He is recovering from surgery and will watch the Games from home. Pittsburgh Penguins General Manager Ray Shero will take over as acting general manager in Sochi. (AP) CRACKDOWN ON TRIBUTES The International Olympic Committee is reprimanding athletes for wearing items commemorating the dead. The I.O.C. spokesman Mark Adams said the Olympic body sent a letter to the Norwegian Olympic Committee after its female cross-country skiers wore black armbands Saturday in honor of a teammate’s brother, who died on the eve of the Sochi Games. The I.O.C. also barred helmet stickers in tribute to the Canadian halfpipe skier Sarah Burke, who died after a crash in training two years ago. Adams said athletes should find “a better place” to express their grief. The Australian snowboarder Torah Bright said in an Instagram post Friday that the I.O.C. considered the stickers to be a “political protest.” (AP)

2014 Winter Olympics
Skiing
Canada
Patrick Deneen
Alexandre Bilodeau
Mikael Kingsbury


Catholic Order Jolted by Reports That Its Founder Led a Double Life

Abstract: The Legionaries of Christ, an influential Roman Catholic religious order, have been shaken by new revelations that their founder, who died a year ago, had an affair with a woman and fathered a daughter just as he and his thriving conservative order were winning the acclaim of Pope John Paul II. Before his death, the founder, the Rev. Marcial Maciel Degollado, had been forced to leave public ministry by Pope Benedict XVI because of accusations from more than a dozen men who said he had sexually abused them when they were students. But most members of the Legion continued to defend Father Maciel, asserting that the accusations had not been proved. Father Maciel died in January 2008 at the age of 87, and was buried in Mexico, where he was born. Now the order’s general director, the Rev. Álvaro Corcuera, is quietly visiting its religious communities and seminaries in the United States and informing members that their founder led a double life, current and former Legionaries said. The order is not publicly confirming the details of the scandal. Jim Fair, a spokesman for the Legionaries, said only: “We have learned some things about our founder’s life that are surprising and difficult for us to understand. We can confirm that there are some aspects of his life that were not appropriate for a Catholic priest.” Some former members said they expected the order to renounce its founder, but Mr. Fair said: “He is the founder and he always will be the founder of the order. That’s one of the mysteries that we all see in life is that sometimes good things come out of less than perfect human beings.” In Catholic religious orders, members are taught to identify with the spirituality and values of the founder. That was taken to an extreme in the Legionaries, said the Rev. Stephen Fichter, a priest in New Jersey who left the order after 14 years. “Father Maciel was this mythical hero who was put on a pedestal and had all the answers,” Father Fichter said. “When you become a Legionarie, you have to read every letter Father Maciel ever wrote, like 15 or 16 volumes. To hear he’s been having this double life on the side, I just don’t see how they’re going to continue.” Father Fichter, once the chief financial officer for the order, said he informed the Vatican three years ago that every time Father Maciel left Rome, “I always had to give him $10,000 in cash — $5,000 in American dollars and $5,000 in the currency of wherever he was going.” Father Fichter added: “As Legionaries, we were taught a very strict poverty; if I went out of town and bought a Bic pen and a chocolate bar, I would have to turn in the receipts. And yet for Father Maciel there was never any accounting. It was always cash, never any paper trail. And because he was this incredible hero to us, we never even questioned it for a second.” Mr. Fair said he had no comment about whether Father Maciel had misappropriated money, fathered a child or sexually abused young men. The Legionaries, founded in 1941, have grown as the church in many countries has shrunk. It has 800 priests in 22 countries, and 70,000 members worldwide, many of whom are lay people in its affiliate, Regnum Christi. Tom Hoopes, managing editor of The National Catholic Register, which is affiliated with the Legionaries, posted an apology on the Web on Tuesday for having dismissed the sexual abuse accusations, saying, “I’m sorry to the victims, who were victims twice.”

Adultery
Roman Catholic Church
Religion and Churches
Christians and Christianity
Legionaries of Christ
Child Abuse and Neglect
Priests
Degollado Marcial Maciel


Strains in Guatemala’s Experimental Justice System

Abstract: GUATEMALA CITY — A former president in jail as he faces charges of embezzling money from the military budget. Two former national police chiefs arrested on drug counts. A former dictator’s son and other former Defense Ministry officials charged with fraud and embezzlement. Investigations into drug rings and illegal adoption rackets. Since Guatemala turned its justice system into an experiment under an unusual agreement with the United Nations in recent years, the country has made some visible steps toward shaking up its culture of impunity and strengthening the rule of law. Admitting that organized crime has burrowed deeply into the police, the prosecutor’s office and the courts, Guatemala invited in foreign prosecutors to prepare delicate cases that might otherwise have been shelved by intimidated or corrupt officials. But in the past few weeks, an escalating political struggle over the effort suggested just how fragile it was. The fallout led to the resignation of the charismatic chief of the international prosecutors’ panel and a limbo lasting possibly months while Guatemala picks a new attorney general, also referred to as a prosecutor general. Both positions are essential to keep the experiment working, prompting the United Nations to appoint a new director this past week for the panel, known as the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala, or simply Cicig . Under the agreement between the sides, outside prosecutors work alongside a special group of Guatemalan prosecutors and investigators. “In Guatemala, criminal organizations had never been confronted,” the first director of the panel, the Spanish jurist Carlos Castresana, told a local television station in March. “Cicig is doing it, but so is the prosecutor general’s office and the judiciary. Let’s say it: we are looking the monster in the face, we are holding its gaze and it is reacting.” The trouble started at the end of May, when a new attorney general began to remove prosecutors and investigators working with Cicig. Mr. Castresana responded as though his warning of a backlash had been borne out. He resigned on June 7 after asserting that the attorney general, Conrado Reyes, had links to organized crime — an accusation Mr. Reyes denies. Within a week, Guatemala’s highest court removed Mr. Reyes from office, ruling that the complex procedures leading to his selection by President Álvaro Colom had not followed the law. Now Guatemala is holding its breath, waiting for a new attorney general and for the new director of the United Nations panel, Francisco Dall’Anese of Costa Rica, to jump into the fray. The commission may not be able to afford a long pause in its work. Unless it is extended, its mandate runs out in September 2011. “Castresana is a very big loss,” said Alejandro Rodríguez, one of the top prosecutors at the attorney general’s office. “He has a great capacity for communication and persuasion.” Mr. Dall’Anese, as attorney general in Costa Rica, led corruption investigations of two former presidents. Many Guatemalans believe that the commission is the only bulwark against entrenched power. Alba Trejo’s two-year case helps show why. Ms. Trejo’s husband, Vinicio Gómez, was the interior minister. Two years ago, Mr. Gómez, who had begun to investigate drug trafficking near the Mexican border, died in a helicopter crash . Prosecutors began pursuing a hypothesis that the experienced pilot had somehow taken off without enough fuel, and they are still sifting through evidence. Nobody has yet taken a statement from Ms. Trejo, who says her husband received death threats and was sleeping with an AK-47 under his bed before he died. “The people in organized crime are very well structured,” she said at a news conference she called on June 25 to accuse prosecutors of negligence. “They have permeated all the institutions.” She asked for Cicig to take on the case, and though he had already resigned, Mr. Castresana came to the news conference to describe Mr. Gómez as the commission’s “first ally” in Guatemala. Guatemala’s criminal networks extend deep into the institutions of state. Even the language of Guatemala’s agreement with the United Nations refers to “illegal security groups and clandestine security organizations” with the ability to “avoid investigation or punishment.” Every day, the Guatemalan newspapers offer a bewildering digest of developments in the commission’s caseload — and a glimpse into who is behind these illegal groups. Former President Alfonso Portillo and his defense minister are accused of embezzling money from the defense budget. Six more former Defense Ministry officials, including the son of the former dictator Gen. Efraín Ríos Montt, have also been charged with embezzling more than $100 million from the ministry in a separate case. Two former national police chiefs are in jail as they face drug charges, and the commission is investigating charges that the security detail of another former police chief was running an extortion and hit squad. Some of the military suspects have histories going back to Guatemala’s armed conflict in the 1970s and 1980s, when the military conducted a scorched earth campaign in the countryside that wiped out whole villages. “Before, we denounced these networks and we did not have the proof,” said Helen Mack, a longtime activist who now leads a commission to restructure the police force. “What is happening now is that all this is being aired,” she continued. “The Cicig’s presence has helped to uncover this and to give evidence of a whole system of corruption and impunity in the country.” Amilcar Méndez is also waiting for justice. A well-known human rights activist during the armed conflict, Mr. Méndez has followed his own leads to try to solve the 2007 killing of his son, José Emanuel Méndez, who worked at the airport. Mr. Méndez says he believes that his son was shot dead because he refused to let drug planes land and publicly questioned an agreement that loosened restrictions on private flights between Honduras and Guatemala. After years of inaction from prosecutors and no response from Cicig, Mr. Méndez was startled to hear Mr. Castresana say last month that his son’s boss had probably ordered the killing. But Mr. Méndez is skeptical that the commission will investigate the case. “It has not given the results that Guatemalans expected,” he said. “It should be dismantling the clandestine structures.” Edgar Gutiérrez, who worked with the Roman Catholic Church in the 1990s to provide the most complete account of human rights violations during the armed conflict and later joined the Portillo government, argues that the commission has yet to make much progress in court. But Nineth Montenegro, an influential congresswoman, argued that Mr. Castresana has had access to more evidence than he could present publicly. “We have a police force that is penetrated,” she said. “We have a prosecutor general’s office that is penetrated. We have a president who appears not to see anything. “In Guatemala, we never know who we are talking to,” she said. “I have to believe in someone, and I believe in him, in Carlos.”

Guatemala
Law and Legislation
United Nations
Suspensions Dismissals and Resignations
Organized Crime
Ethics


Senators Press Brennan About C.I.A.’s Drone Strikes

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Engaging a high-ranking Obama administration official for the first time in an extensive public discussion of the use of drones for targeted killing, members of the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday pressed John O. Brennan, President Obama’s nominee for director of the Central Intelligence Agency, about the secrecy of the strikes, their legal basis and the reported backlash they have produced in Pakistan and Yemen. Adding a new element to the roiling debate, the committee’s chairwoman, Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, said she would review proposals to create a court to oversee targeted killings. She gave no details but said such a court would be analogous to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which oversees eavesdropping on American soil. Mr. Brennan was noncommittal, noting that lethal operations are generally the sole responsibility of the executive branch. But he said the administration had “wrestled with” the concept of such a court and called the idea “certainly worthy of discussion.” On the same day two other administration officials, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, and Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, acknowledged in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee that a plan they had supported to arm Syrian rebels had been rejected by the White House, the notably aggressive questioning Mr. Brennan received seemed to underscore the increased scrutiny Mr. Obama’s national security policies are facing as he begins his second term. Mr. Brennan, 57, a 25-year C.I.A. veteran who has spent the last four years as the administration’s senior counterterrorism official, also faced intense questioning about whether he was responsible for leaks of classified information, and whether he had been candid about his involvement in the agency’s interrogation program under President George W. Bush. But the senators repeatedly returned to the targeted killings Mr. Brennan has helped direct over the last four years. The hearing came three days after the leak of a Justice Department document explaining the legal rationale for the killing of American citizens who join Al Qaeda. On the eve of Mr. Brennan’s hearing, the White House gave in to pressure from lawmakers and said the Senate and House Intelligence Committees could see the full classified legal memorandum justifying the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki , an American-born cleric who joined Al Qaeda in Yemen and was killed in Yemen in a C.I.A. drone strike in September 2011. Ms. Feinstein expressed frustration at the committee’s difficulty in getting information about the targeted killing program. She said that while senators were allowed to view two legal memos, they were still seeking eight others, and committee staff members were still prohibited from reading the classified documents. Image John O. Brennan fielded questions Thursday from Senator Carl Levin on waterboarding. Credit Stephen Crowley/The New York Times In his opening statement, Mr. Brennan acknowledged “widespread debate” about the administration’s counterterrorism operations but strongly defended them, saying the United States remained “at war with Al Qaeda.” He said later that when C.I.A. drone strikes accidentally kill civilians, those mistakes should be admitted. “We need to acknowledge it publicly,” he said. “In the interests of transparency, I believe the United States government should acknowledge it.” But senators repeatedly complained that there was too little transparency about the targeted killing program, sometimes producing misleading information in the news media. “I think that this has gone about as far as it can go as a covert activity,” Ms. Feinstein told reporters after the hearing. But she defended the agency’s record on the strikes, saying the number of civilians killed each year has been “in the single digits.” A reporter pointed out that she has accused the agency of lying for years about its interrogation program and asked how she could have such confidence in its claims on casualties in the drone program. “I am confident of those figures until I am not confident of them,” she said. The hearing made clear that even members of the Intelligence Committee, created in the 1970s to be the public’s eyes on secret government programs, are in the dark about many of their details. Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, told Mr. Brennan that the committee had never been given the full list of countries in which the C.I.A. has carried out lethal operations. Senator Angus King, independent of Maine, urged Mr. Brennan — if he is confirmed, as appeared likely Thursday night — to be more candid with the panel than his predecessors. “There’s no one else watching,” he said. Even Mr. Brennan had a hard time explaining how much information he thought should be disclosed about targeted killings. “What we need to do is optimize transparency on these issues, but at the same time, optimize secrecy and the protection of our national security,” he said. The hearing began in chaotic fashion, as protesters began shouting at Mr. Brennan before they were escorted out. One man yelled, “Assassination is against the Constitution!” and one woman held up a sign that read, “Drones Fly Children Die.” Video The Senate confirmation hearing of John O. Brennan, President Obama’s nominee for C.I.A. director, focused on drones and targeted killing. The protests continued as Mr. Brennan began his opening statement. After the fifth interruption, Ms. Feinstein temporarily stopped the hearing and cleared the room, asking that activists from the peace group Code Pink not be readmitted. The rest of the three-and-a-half-hour hearing was held in a mostly empty room. When Mr. Brennan resumed his testimony, the panel’s top Republican, Senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, pressed him on his knowledge of the C.I.A.’s past use of brutal interrogation methods, which were adopted when Mr. Brennan was deputy to the agency’s No. 3 official. “I had some visibility into some of the activities there,” Mr. Brennan said. “But I was not a part of any type of management structure or aware of most of the details.” He said he opposed coercive methods and expressed objections privately to colleagues. Mr. Chambliss sounded skeptical, pressing him for details of such conversations, but Mr. Brennan declined to say with whom he raised his objections. Mr. Chambliss also said records showed that Mr. Brennan had received 50 e-mails about the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, a terrorist facilitator subjected in 2002 to waterboarding, the near-drowning technique then used by C.I.A. interrogators. Unlike Mr. Panetta, Mr. Obama’s first C.I.A. director, Mr. Brennan declined several times to describe waterboarding as “torture.” He instead called it “reprehensible” and “something that should not be done.” The committee recently completed a highly critical 6,000-page study of the interrogation program, and Mr. Brennan said the parts of the report that he had read made him question his entire understanding about the program. “I don’t know what the facts are or what the truth is,” he said. He said he wanted to hear the C.I.A.’s response to the report before making a decision about whether it should be declassified. Some of the most combative moments of the hearing came as Republicans accused Mr. Brennan of disclosing classified information to the press. Senator Jim Risch, Republican of Idaho, accused him of tipping off television commentators about a double agent who foiled a terrorist plot in Yemen to bomb a United States-bound airliner. Mr. Brennan admitted that he told the commentators that the United States had “inside control” of the operation, but denied the suggestion that he had revealed the role of the double agent and said the F.B.I. was investigating the source of that leak. “It seems to me that the leak the Department of Justice is looking for is right here in front of us,” Mr. Risch said. Mr. Brennan strenuously disagreed, saying he was a witness and not a target of the investigation. Showing a flash of temper, Mr. Brennan defended his record at the White House. “Senator, I live this every day and night,” he said. “I go to bed at night worrying that I didn’t do enough that day to make sure I protect the American people.”

John O Brennan
CIA
US Politics
Targeted Killings
US Military
Pakistan
Yemen
Drones
Dianne Feinstein