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The Justice Department has launched a criminal investigation into whether anyone at the White House revealed the identity of a covert CIA operative to a Washington journalist. But opposition Democrats are demanding that an independent investigator be appointed to handle the case.

 White House spokesman Scott McClellan says the president has ordered his staff to cooperate fully with the Justice Department probe. White House lawyers have ordered staff members to preserve records related to the investigation, such as telephone logs and e-mails.
 
 

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Amb. Joseph Wilson file photo

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Charles Schumer

John Ashcroft

 But Attorney General John Ashcroft told reporters at the Justice Department that he has confidence in those who have been assigned to investigate the leak. "The prosecutors and [FBI] agents who are, and will be, handling this investigation are career professionals with extensive experience in handling matters involving sensitive national security information and with experience relating to investigations of unauthorized disclosures of such information," he said.

 Presidential spokesman Scott McClellan says he has no evidence to indicate any White House involvement in the leak that appeared in a Robert Novak column in July. Mr. Novak says he obtained the information during the course of an interview with a senior Bush administration official. But he says the official did not call him to leak the information.

 Disclosing the identity of a covert intelligence operative is a violation of federal law punishable by up to 10 years in jail.
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White House Remains on Defensive Over Alleged Leak of CIA Operative's Identity Democrats Call for Probe into Disclosure of CIA Agent's Name White House Denies Leaking CIA Agent's Name

Robert Novak columns

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• The draft, which will be made public in the coming days, calls for a democratic government and guarantees the rights of Afghanistan's most vulnerable citizens. 
• Abdul-Salam Azimi, deputy chairman of the commission that drafted the proposed constitution, says it incorporates many of the suggestions made by the country's human rights commission. 

• Under the terms of the draft, the president is given a strong role as leader of the country, serving a term of five years. As now written, the constitution limits the president to two consecutive terms. 
• The draft also calls for the creation of two legislative houses, a lower house whose membership would be based on the population of each constituency. Also an upper house, or Senate, that would contain two representatives from each province. There would also be additional Senate seats appointed by the president. 

"Half of the appointed seats will be reserved for women, who were greatly discriminated against under the Taleban regime.  Mr. Azimi says the constitution would establish a government with equal rights for all ethnic groups.  "

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Afghanistan is preparing to unveil a draft of its new constitution, a document with a goal of, among other things, bridging the gap between the country's Islamic and secular groups. 

The draft, which will be made public in the coming days, calls for a democratic government and guarantees the rights of Afghanistan's most vulnerable citizens. 

Abdul-Salam Azimi, deputy chairman of the commission that drafted the proposed constitution, says it incorporates many of the suggestions made by the country's human rights commission. 

"There is a very clear indication on human rights, and actually this is very rich about women, about [the] handicapped, about widows about children, about families," he explained. 

Under the terms of the draft, the president is given a strong role as leader of the country, serving a term of five years. As now written, the constitution limits the president to two consecutive terms. 

The draft also calls for the creation of two legislative houses, a lower house whose membership would be based on the population of each constituency. Also an upper house, or Senate, that would contain two representatives from each province. There would also be additional Senate seats appointed by the president. 

Half of the appointed seats will be reserved for women, who were greatly discriminated against under the Taleban regime. 

Mr. Azimi says the constitution would establish a government with equal rights for all ethnic groups. 

"This is the problem now in Afghanistan," he said. "It is divided by ... political parties, by ethnic groups and others. But this is not the right way, this not according to the law. ... The positions in the government should be occupied [based on] knowledge." 

The commission that drafted the constitution sought to produce a document that would satisfy all of Afghanistan's various factions and avoid a repeat of the bloody factional fighting of the past. But ethnic rivalries run deep in the country and they are reflected in the debate about the constitution. 

Conservative Muslim scholars are pressing for the adoption of strict Sharia law, while other Afghans are seeking a more secular legal system. The constitution, in its present form, has no provision for Sharia law. Instead it calls on the country to follow Islamic principles. 

Another point of contention is the issue of language. The commission proposes giving Dari, a Persian dialect common in the north and in many of Afghanistan's cities, equal status with Pashto, the language of Afghanistan's largest ethnic group that previously held the status of "national language." 

The commission is expected to present the draft to President Hamid Karzai on Thursday, who will make the document public a few days later. 

After a period of public debate, the constitution will be presented to the grand council, or Loya Jirga, who will vote on it in December. The council is then expected to formally adopt the constitution, paving the way for elections next year.
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US Soldier Killed in Afghanistan Factional Fighting Leaves 5 Dead in Northern Afghanistan Suspected Taleban Kill 7 Afghan Gov't Soldiers Two Suspects Arrested in Killing of Afghan Aid Workers

Two Suspects Arrested in Afghanistan Linked to Fatal Attack Committee to Protect Journalists Honors Reporters from Afghanistan, Cuba, Morocco, Russia NATO to Decide Whether to Expand Forces in Afghanistan Pentagon: Extra Money for Afghanistan Needed Urgently

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Two criminal trials are underway in New York City relating to alleged fraud at major U.S.-based corporations. Two years after accounting irregularities brought down Enron, a huge Texas-based energy company, there are signs that the Bush administration is going to take a tough line in the prosecution. 

Jury selection is underway in the high-profile trial of Dennis Kozlowski, the former head of Tyco, a once high flying conglomerate. Mr. Kozlowski is accused of stealing $600 million from the company. Jay Fahy, a former federal prosecutor, expects the trial to go on for three months. He describes what the prosecution and defense will be looking for in a jury. 

"The right jury for the government will be one where you have mid-level management people, people who know something about corporations and may have invested in them," says Mr. Fahy. "The right jury for the defense in the Kozlowski case is going to be people who believe corporate greed is fine, that this is capitalism, that there is nothing wrong with a CEO making all kinds of money." 

Corporate America has been stunned by revelations of fraud and greed inside executive suites and board rooms. The scandals gained widespread attention when Enron collapsed in 2001 and again in 2002 when WorldCom, the second largest U.S. telecommunications company, collapsed in a similar accounting scandal. 

Bernie Markstein, an economic consultant near Philadelphia, says the scandals show that boards of directors have not been doing their jobs. Most of the part-time board members have other jobs, often as the chief executives of other companies. Mr. Markstein says the board members too often just follow the advice of management. 

"Probably these guys are so busy doing something else that they're not fulfilling their function, even though they are being paid fairly nice compensation packages for being on the board," he says. "You'd think they sit down and be looking at this stuff [compensation and business operations]. But I guess they didn't and if they did they glossed over it or accepted whatever the management was telling them." 

Many in investing public have been enraged by the plundering of companies like Tyco, Enron and WorldCom. So far, with the exception of Tyco's Mr. Kozlowski, few of the top executives have been put on trial. William Donaldson, the new head of the government regulator the Securities and Exchange Commission, says he is looking closely at Enron. Mr. Markstein believes more prosecutions are coming and he expects the former head of Enron, Kenneth Lay, will be brought to trial. 

"Yeah, if they [the federal authorities] can prove what he appears to have done [giving the ok to accounting irregularities] and what he did was illegal, I think there'll be jail time thrown in there," says Mr. Markstein. "People are pretty upset. And politically there will be pressure on the judges to hand down some jail time." 

More recently even the venerable New York Stock Exchange has been tainted by scandal. Two weeks ago its chairman, Richard Grasso, was forced to resign after it was revealed that his salary and retirement package totalled nearly $180 million. While Mr. Grasso is not thought to have broken any law, institutional investors were furious that he accepted such generous compensation from a board, many of whose members he appointed and whose companies he was supposedly regulating. 

Some 2800 companies with a market capitalization of $15 trillion are listed on the 211-year-old New York Stock Exchange. Its new interim chairman, former banker John Reed, is promising far-reaching reforms.
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US Executive Pay Issue Stirs Controversy Following NYSE Chairman's Resignation Former Citigroup Exec Tapped as NYSE Interim Chair Grasso's Resignation Causes Rethinking of Wall Street Management Grasso Pay Furor Spurs Calls for More Transparency at NYSE

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•  Pentagon officials tell VOA Mr. Mehalba was among a group of workers at the Guantanamo facility who had been under suspicion for some time for illegal activities.
•  Two others in the suspect group, a Muslim Army chaplain and a senior U.S. airman, had been detained earlier. 
• Defense officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, say still others remain under investigation. But they decline to say how many and what illegal activities they are suspected of involvement in.

•  Meanwhile, in a separate development, a prominent U.S. Muslim activist involved with the military's Muslim chaplain program has also been arrested.
•  Abdurahman Alamoudi was detained in Washington after arriving on a flight from London. U.S. officials say he illegally accepted money from Libya.
•  Pentagon officials last week disclosed the Defense Department will conduct a review of how Muslim chaplains are recruited.
  
  

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Courtroom artist drawing showing Ahmed Mehalba, left, with his attorney Michael Andrews, right

The latest man arrested is Ahmed Mehalba, a naturalized U.S. citizen of Egyptian descent. According to the Department of Homeland Security, Mr. Mehalba, a contract linguist for the military, was detained after arriving in Boston on a flight from Cairo. Officials discovered in his possession at least one compact disc which they say contained information that appeared to be classified.

 Pentagon officials tell VOA Mr. Mehalba was among a group of workers at the Guantanamo facility who had been under suspicion for some time for illegal activities.

 Two others in the suspect group, a Muslim Army chaplain and a senior U.S. airman, had been detained earlier. 

Defense officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, say still others remain under investigation. But they decline to say how many and what illegal activities they are suspected of involvement in.

 The Muslim Army chaplain, Captain James Yee, is suspected of spying but no formal charges have been filed against him.

 The airman, Ahmad al-Halabi, served as an Arabic language translator at the Guantanamo prison camp, where some 660 suspected al-Qaida terrorists and Taleban fighters are held. According to military documents made available to VOA, he faces a variety of charges, including aiding the enemy and espionage.

 The documents claim he took unauthorized photographs of the detention facility, had unauthorized communications with detainees and illegally passed on detainee information to Middle Eastern sources.

 Despite the latest arrest, defense officials are dismissing as "speculation" any suggestion that there was a spy ring at Guantanamo acting on behalf of the detainees held there.

 Meanwhile, in a separate development, a prominent U.S. Muslim activist involved with the military's Muslim chaplain program has also been arrested.

 Abdurahman Alamoudi was detained in Washington after arriving on a flight from London. U.S. officials say he illegally accepted money from Libya.

 Pentagon officials last week disclosed the Defense Department will conduct a review of how Muslim chaplains are recruited.
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Another Member of US Military Charged with Espionage

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