November 17, 2005
Influential House Democrat Wants Immediate Iraq Withdrawal

By DAVID STOUT
WASHINGTON, Nov. 17 – An influential House Democrat called the Iraq campaign “a flawed policy wrapped in illusion” today as he called for the immediate withdrawal of United States troops.

“It is time for a change in direction,” Representative John Murtha of Pennsylvania, the leading Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee’s defense subcommittee, said as the debate over the war intensified by the hour. “Our military is suffering, the future of our country is at risk.”

Mr. Murtha, a conservative who voted in 2002 for the resolution authorizing use of force in Iraq and who supported the Persian Gulf war in 1991, called for “the immediate redeployment of American forces.”

“It is evident that continued military action in Iraq is not in the best interests of the United States of America, the Iraqi people or the Persian Gulf region,” Mr. Murtha said during an emotional news conference on Capitol Hill.

Mr. Murtha, a 73-year-old Marine Corps veteran of Vietnam combat, lashed back at Vice President Dick Cheney, who in a speech to a conservative group on Wednesday night condemned critics of the Iraq war. “The president and I cannot prevent certain politicians from losing their memory, or their backbone, but we’re not going to sit by and let them rewrite history,” Mr. Cheney said in an address to the group, Frontiers of Freedom, in Washington.

Mr. Murtha was disdainful of the vice president’s remarks, saying that “people with five deferments” had no right to make such remarks. Mr. Cheney, like millions of other young men of the era, avoided military service during the Vietnam war.

Mr. Murtha’s remarks were termed “reprehensible and irresponsible” by a Republican member of the Appropriation’s defense subcommittee, Representative Kay Granger of Texas.

“It shows the Democratic Party has chosen a policy of retreat and defeatism which will only encourage the terrorists and threaten the stability of Iraq,” she said, according to The Associated Press.

House Republicans were expected to issue a general denunciation of Mr. Murtha this afternoon.

Mr. Murtha’s demeanor and personal history as well as his status on the Appropriations Committee may lend extra weight to his words. He generally shuns publicity and does not often speak on the House floor.

After serving in the Marines in the early 1950’s, he re-enlisted in 1966, at the age of 34, and served in Vietnam, earning a Bronze Star, two Purple Hearts and the Vietnamese Cross for Gallantry, according to The Almanac of American Politics. When he won his House seat in a special election in February 1974 he became the first Vietnam veteran to serve in Congress.

Mr. Cheney’s speech came a day after the Senate overwhelmingly passed a resolution calling for the Bush administration to make regular progress reports on the war and for 2006 to be a “transition year” in which the Iraqis will assume responsibility for security of their own country.

The vice president’s assertions that some politicians want to rewrite history was aimed at those who voted in 2002 to authorize force against Saddam Hussein but have more recently become critics of Iraq campaign, charging that the Bush administration manipulated pre-war intelligence to exaggerate the threat posed by the old Baghdad regime.

Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, said Mr. Cheney’s speech of Wednesday night as well as President Bush’s recent remarks on Iraq show that they have “shamlessly decided to play politics.”

“We’re at war,” Mr. Reid said. “We need a commander in chief, not a campaigner in chief.”

At his Capitol news conference, Mr. Murtha became emotional as he spoke of hospital visits to wounded troops. “What demoralizes them is going to war with not enough troops and equipment to make the transition to peace,” he said.

“Our troops have become the primary target for the insurgency,” Mr. Murtha said. Insurgents, he said, “are united against U.S. forces, and we have become a catalyst for violence.” He went on to say that, before the Iraqi elections in December, the country’s people and its emerging government “must be put on notice that the United States will immediately redeploy.”

“All of Iraq must know that Iraq is free,” he said. “Free from United States occupation.”

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

Senior Democrat calls for U.S. troops to leave Iraq

Rep. Murtha: ‘U.S. and coalition troops have done all they can’

Thursday, November 17, 2005; Posted: 12:10 p.m. EST (17:10 GMT)

Senior Democrat Rep. John Murtha told the Bush administration “lashing out at critics doesn’t help a bit.”

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Warning that other global threats “cannot be ignored,” Rep. John Murtha, D-Pennsylvania, a leading adviser on defense issues, called on Thursday for the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.

“U.S. and coalition troops have done all they can in Iraq,” the senior lawmaker said. “It’s time for a change in direction.”

He said he believes all the forces could be redeployed over a six-month period.

Murtha, a former Marine Corps colonel and veteran of the Vietnam war, is the first senior lawmaker to call for an immediate withdrawal. Other critics of the war have asked President Bush to set up a timetable for withdrawal.

Murtha’s call for a withdrawal may have a significant impact on the debate over the future of the Iraq war, as both Democrats and Republicans seek his advice on military and veterans’ issues.

Murtha, who has served in the House for over three decades, is the senior Democrat and former chairman of the Defense Appropriations Committee and voted in favor of the Iraq war. Now, he said, the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq are “uniting the enemy against us.”

“Our military has accomplished its mission and done its duty,” he said. “Our military captured Saddam Hussein, captured or killed his closest associates, but the war continues to intensify.”

He said the redeployment will give Iraqis the incentive to take control of their country.

The statement comes amid increased debate over the Iraq war and the intelligence leading up to the March 2003 invasion.

On Wednesday, Vice President Dick Cheney dismissed Democratic critics, calling allegations that the administration misled the country as “one of the most dishonest and reprehensible charges ever aired in this city.” (Full Story)

Murtha took issue with the administration’s counter-criticism, specifically President Bush’s Veterans Day speech in which he said it is “deeply irresponsible to rewrite how that war began.”

“I resent the fact that on Veterans Day, they criticized Democrats for criticizing them,” Murtha said. “This is a flawed policy wrapped in illusion. The American public knows it, and lashing out at critics doesn’t help a bit. You’ve got to change the policy. That’s what’s going to help the American people. You need to change direction.”

Murtha — who recently visited Iraq’s Anbar province — said it is Congress’ responsibility to speak out for the “sons and daughters” on the battlefield, and relayed several emotional stories from soldiers recovering at Bethesda’s Walter Reed Medical Center.

“I tell you, these young folks are under intense activity over there, I mean much more intense than Vietnam,” he said. “You never know when it’s going to happen.”

U.S. Has Detained 83,000 in War on Terror
Nov 16 2:56 PM US/Eastern

By KATHERINE SHRADER
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON

The United States has detained more than 83,000 foreigners in the four years of the war on terror, enough to nearly fill the NFL’s largest stadium. The administration defends the practice of holding detainees in prisons from Afghanistan to Guantanamo Bay as a critical tool to stop the insurgency in Iraq, maintain stability in Afghanistan and get known and suspected terrorists off the streets.

Roughly 14,500 detainees remain in U.S. custody, primarily in Iraq.

The number has steadily grown since the first CIA paramilitary officers touched down in Afghanistan in the fall of 2001, setting up more than 20 facilities including the “Salt Pit,” an abandoned factory outside Kabul used for CIA detention and interrogation.

In Iraq, the number in military custody hit a peak on Nov. 1, according to military figures. Nearly 13,900 suspects were in U.S. custody there that day _ partly because U.S. offensives in western Iraq put pressure on insurgents before the October constitutional referendum and December parliamentary elections.

The detentions and interrogations have brought complaints from Congress and human-rights groups about how the detainees _ often Arab and male _ are treated.

International law and treaty obligations forbid torture and inhumane treatment. Classified memos have given the government ways to extract intelligence from detainees “consistent with the law,” administration officials often say.

On Capitol Hill, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., is leading a campaign to ban cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of prisoners in U.S. custody. The administration says the legislation could tie the president’s hands. Vice President Dick Cheney has pressed lawmakers to exempt the CIA.

“There’s an enemy that lurks and plots and plans and wants to hurt America again. And so you bet we will aggressively pursue them. But we will do so under the law,” President Bush said last week.

Some 82,400 people have been detained by the military alone in Afghanistan and Iraq, according to figures from officials in Baghdad and Washington. Many are freed shortly after initial questioning.

To put that in context, the capacity of the Washington Redskins’ FedEx Field, the NFL’s largest, is 91,704. The second largest, Giants Stadium, holds 80,242.

An additional 700 detainees were sent to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Just under 500 remain there now.

In Iraq, the Defense Department says 5,569 detainees have been held for more than six months, and 3,801 have been held more than a year. Some 229 have been locked up for more than two years.

Many have been questioned by military officials trained at the main U.S. interrogation school, Fort Huachuca in Arizona. Pentagon officials say those mistreated are relatively few when the sheer numbers are considered.

Yet human rights groups say they don’t know the extent of the abuse. “And there is no way anyone could, even if the military was twice as conscientious. It is unknowable, unless you assume that every act of abuse is immediately reported up the chain of command,” said Tom Malinowski, Washington director for Human Rights Watch.

As of March, 108 detainees were known to have died in U.S. military and CIA custody, including 22 who died when insurgents attacked Abu Ghraib and others who died of natural causes. At least 26 deaths have been investigated as criminal homicides.

Last week, Senate Armed Services Chairman John Warner, R-Va., said that more than 400 criminal investigations have been conducted and 95 military personnel have been charged with misconduct. Seventy-five have been convicted.

Through the CIA, a much smaller prison population is maintained secretly by the agency and friendly governments. A network of known or suspected facilities _ some of which have been closed _ have been located in places including Thailand, Central Asia and Eastern Europe.

The governments of Thailand and a number of Eastern Europe countries have denied the CIA operated prisons within their borders. The agency consistently declines to comment.

About 100 to 150 people are believed to have been grabbed by CIA officers and sent to their home countries or to other nations where they were wanted for prosecution, a procedure called “rendition.” Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt are known to cooperate.

The practice has taken on a negative connotation, but that wasn’t always the case. In a December 2002 speech touching on intelligence successes, former CIA Director George Tenet said the agency and FBI had “rendered 70 terrorists to justice.”

While officials won’t confirm the number, another two to three dozen “high-value” detainees are also believed to be in CIA custody. Among them, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, an alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks.

As House Intelligence chairman in 2004, CIA Director Porter Goss took a strong stand on some of the gray areas of detention practices. In an AP interview, he said, “Gee, you’re breaking my heart” in response to complaints that Arab men found it abusive to have women guards at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp.

Before Goss took over the agency, its inspector general completed a report on the treatment of detainees, following investigations into at least four prisoner deaths that may have involved CIA personnel. To date, one agency contractor has been charged.

The inspector general’s report discussed tactics used by CIA personnel _ called “Enhanced Interrogation Techniques.” Former intelligence officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the practices are classified, say some interrogation techniques are well-known: exposing prisoners to cold, depriving them of sleep or forcing them to stand in stressful positions.

Perhaps the most publicly controversial technique is waterboarding, when a detainee is strapped to a board and has water run over him to simulate drowning.

___

AP Military Writer Robert Burns contributed to this report.

“A second Cope album for ’05, DARK ORGASM is a violent sequence of outcast broadsides levelled at the coming new 21st-century conservatism. Dressed in 8 songs of guitar-heavy hard rock split into two short CDs for maximum enjoyment, you can drain your brain to the seven shorter songs of Disc One, then feed your head with the 21-minute garage blitz of Disc Two’s ‘The Death & Resurrection Show’. The 16-page booklet of poetry and lyrics is all wrapped up in a delightful iron cross-inscribed box.”

“EDIBLE ESTATES

An ongoing series of projects to replace the American lawn with edible garden landscapes responsive to local culture, climate and landscape.

The next regional prototype in the Edible Estates series will be established in Los Angeles in spring 2006 and become the basis for an exhibition the following autumn. We are currently seeking the skilled, eager and adventurous occupants of one conventional American house on a typical street of endless sprawling lawns. These L.A. citizens should be brave enough to break this toxic uniformity, by having their entire front lawn removed and replaced by an edible landscape. As role models they will then proudly devote themselves to the indefinite cultivation of fruits, vegetables, grains and herbs for all neighbors and car traffic to see. This once hostile front yard will become the southwest regional prototype for the Edible Estates series. We will work in collaboration to create the layout, design and plant specifications. All costs associated with establishing the garden for the first season will be covered. If you or someone you know of would be interested you will find the complete list of parameters and specifications here and then contact us at info(at)edibleestates.org.”

CNN.com – Iraq officials acknowledge new detainee abuse –

Tuesday, November 15, 2005; Posted: 2:04 p.m. EST (19:04 GMT)

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) — Many of the more than 160 detainees who were held at an Iraqi Interior Ministry building were physically abused, Iraq’s deputy interior minister said Tuesday.

“I saw signs of physical abuse by brutal beating — one or two cases were paralyzed, and some cases of skin peeled off various parts of the body,” the official, Hussein Kamal, told CNN.

“I have never seen such a situation like this during the past two years in Baghdad. This is the worst and cannot be denied.”

Kamal blamed a lack of jail cells in Iraq.

“A major problem we face is that there are not enough places to contain these detainees after the preliminary investigation is through with them,” he said.

The U.S. military found the detainees Sunday when they entered a building controlled by the ministry while looking for a missing 15-year-old boy.

Brig. Gen. Karl Horst of the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division said Monday the prisoners were found “in need of medical care — so I brought medics in.”

Kamal said the facility housed 161 detainees. “There were other registered names in that facility who were interrogated by the Special Investigation Unit, then sent to court,” he said.

The U.S. military did not confirm the condition in which they found the detainees, but Iraqi police said they had been tortured. Kamal confirmed human rights abuses had taken place.

He added that the ministry cannot deny “knowledge of previous abuse cases where human rights were broken during the past two years.”

The U.S. military has taken charge of the building and the detainees, he said.

Horst said Monday he had brought in a legal team to go through the detainees’ files and a joint U.S.-Iraqi investigation was under way.

Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari pledged a ministerial-level investigation.

The American Embassy said it welcomed al-Jaafari’s remarks and that Zalmay Khalilzad, U.S. ambassador to Iraq, and Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, had discussed the situation with Iraqi leaders.

“The Iraqi government has the lead to investigate, prosecute and bring to justice those who may be found responsible for any abuse of detainees,” the embassy said in a statement. ” … Together with the Iraqi authorities, we are committed to making sure that detainee mistreatment is not tolerated.”

President Bush has said his administration doesn’t condone torture.

But concerns that U.S. troops have tortured prisoners have dogged the Bush administration since April 2004, when graphic photographs of Army reservists mistreating prisoners at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad became public.

Recently, Democratic senators called for an independent probe into the treatment of prisoners in American custody in Iraq, Afghanistan and at the U.S. detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Sen. John Warner, R-Virginia, the Armed Services Committee’s chairman, said that Congress already has held dozens of open and closed hearings into allegations of abuse by U.S. troops and the CIA and that investigations have found no policy condoning the mistreatment of prisoners.

CNN.com – U.S. calls medics to Iraq police detention center – Nov 14, 2005

Scores of detainees found in poor health, officials say

Monday, November 14, 2005; Posted: 2:24 p.m. EST (19:24 GMT)

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) — The U.S. Army discovered scores of detainees in poor health at a building run by the Iraqi Interior Ministry during a search for a missing 15-year-old boy, a U.S. general said Monday.

Brig. Gen. Karl Horst of the 3rd Infantry Division said the prisoners were found Sunday “in need of medical care — so I brought medics in.”

Iraqi police went further, telling CNN that many detainees in the Baghdad building “had obviously endured torture” and were “detained in poor health conditions.”

The Iraqi Interior Ministry could not be reached for response.

Horst would not say whether the military found signs of torture among the approximately 175 detainees, who were taken into U.S. custody.

“I brought in a legal team to sort through their files,” Horst said by phone from the building, one day after the mission took place.

On Sunday afternoon, U.S. soldiers entered the building, looking for a teenager who had been missing since September 15, Horst said. The boy was not there.

Iraqi police said the U.S. military “raided” the building, arriving in about 20 vehicles. The building was run by police commandos who work for the Interior Ministry, police said.

Horst denied there was a raid. He said U.S. and Iraqis were working on a joint investigation into the detainees and into the whereabouts of the boy.

Asked what the original purpose of the facility was, Horst replied, “I don’t know — that’s part of the ongoing investigation.”

MES interview, 14 May 2004
C: I wondered if the song “Book of Lies” was a reference to Crowley, whether he’s a figure you’re interested in.
MES: Well I do, but I keep it at the end of my arm. I’ve seen too many people dabble in that shit, you know. Like Genesis, he was into all that wasn’t he. You’ve got to be very careful with that stuff. I do like his Tarot though, the Crowley one. I do still like that. The interpretations of the cards are so funny, some of them. The reverse one is like, you are a crawling cockroach of the worst order [laughter]. The normal one is, you’re blocked, you’re not doing the right thing, you should be a bit more open and think about what you want to do. And he says, you’re a crawling cockroach of the worst order. Hah! You are like a bluebottle in human form. Imagine reading that to somebody. They’d probably kill themselves. [laughter] You are an average person, you’ll never amount to anything. [more laughter]
TC: Do what thou wilt and those phrases.
MES: Oh that’s still good.

A bad contract tore New Orleans’ Meters apart, but they’re back and rebuilding after the storm

by Jeff Chang, Special to The Chronicle
Monday, November 14, 2005

On a good day in a little corner of West Oakland, over the crow of backyard roosters and the low whoosh of cars passing on Interstate 880, you might hear a little bit of New Orleans heaven. Drummer Joseph “Zigaboo” Modeliste is laying down that famous second-line beat with a smile on his face and an extra little snap on his rolls. His band, the Meters, one of the most celebrated in the Crescent City’s storied musical history, is finally back together.

“God gave us a gift,” Modeliste says, “and we should be doing it.”

For many hip-hop, funk and rock fans, the reappearance of Modeliste with his original bandmates — keyboardist Art Neville, guitarist Leo Nocentelli and bassist George Porter Jr. — at April’s New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival was a stunning moment.

It was billed as a farewell show. But after their set, Modeliste teased the crowd, saying, “We’ll see you again.” (They play two dates this weekend at the Fillmore.) As New Orleans tries to recover from Hurricane Katrina, many see the band’s return as a sign of hope for the suffering city’s cultural revival.

But bringing the beat back wasn’t easy.

Emerging in the late ’60s as the house band for producers Allen Toussaint and Marshall Sehorn, the Meters gave Labelle, Lee Dorsey and Dr. John their biggest hits. They cut their own strikingly original songs, including “Sophisticated Cissy,” “Thinking,” “Just Kissed My Baby” and “Fire on the Bayou.”

All were propelled by what hip-hop producer Lucas “Cut Chemist” MacFadden calls Modeliste’s “less is more” drumming. Public Enemy’s Hank Shocklee says, “That was the formula for funk and hip-hop as we know it.”

But after eight acclaimed albums, the Meters fell apart in 1977, and their albums went out of print. Modeliste, whom some called the best drummer of his generation, dropped out of the music biz and left for the West Coast.

“It’s a fact that when we got the instruments in our hands, everything is harmonious,” says Modeliste. “It’s when we put the instruments down, that’s when it got kind of hairy.”

Born in New Orleans, Modeliste moved into the music-filled 13th Ward when he was 12. People called it Neville-ville, after the uptown district’s most famous family.
While still precocious teens, Modeliste, Nocentelli and Porter were recruited to play in Art Neville’s band. They worked six nights a week at an integrated Bourbon Street club called the Ivanhoe. The hours were long, but Neville says, “What we didn’t know was that we were really getting a chance to tighten our thing up.”

Toussaint heard them one night and brought them in to record. In 1969, one of the Meters’ first songs, “Cissy Strut,” became a top five R&B hit. They quickly signed with Toussaint and Sehorn, who gained control of all of their sources of income in one fell swoop. That’s when the joy and the turmoil both began.

Toussaint and Sehorn allowed the band lots of time to experiment and jam alone in their studio. As a result, the Meters’ albums were full of funky masterpieces, featuring stupendous grooves and hairpin changes, performed with uncanny cohesion and rhythmic subtlety. “Each one of those songs we did had a thousand songs in them,” says Modeliste. “You could take off bits and pieces and make them into other songs.”

For the past two decades, that’s just what hip-hop producers have been doing. Early this year, a thundering sample of Modeliste’s drums powered Amerie’s “1 Thing” to No. 8 on the Billboard singles chart. The Meters’ Mardi Gras standard, “Hey Pocky A-Way,” is the rhythmic engine for Tweet’s salacious R&B song “Sports, Sex & Food” and the Diplomats’ hard-core rap track “Dutty Clap.” Hip-hop artist Zach “DJ Z-Trip” Sciacca says the Meters catalog remains required material for any aspiring turntablist. “They’re like DJing 101,” he says.

Sundazed Records’ sales and publicity director Tim Livingston, whose label reissued the band’s albums on CD and vinyl in 1999, says the Meters audience now includes “jam-band followers, hip-hoppers, R&B collectors, rock fans, soul-and-funksters and drum enthusiasts.” Neville jokes, “My son Ian, his classmates and his friends know more about me and the Meters than I do.”

According to Nocentelli, young fans have not only learned from the band’s music but from their business problems, too. “All these new rappers, they learn about the business before they even learn to do anything musically,” he says. “Basketball players now are getting paid 20 times what Julius Erving got. But in order for them to get that, there had to be a Julius Erving. In that essence, there had to be a Meters.”

In the early ’70s, Toussaint and Sehorn signed the band to Warner Bros.’ Reprise label, while retaining all the rights to the band. The band retooled itself into a rock-and-funk unit with Neville as the lead singer. They developed a fanatical following, including stars like Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger and Lowell George. Rickey Vincent, a KPFA DJ and author of “Funk,” says, “In and outside of New Orleans, people came to understand that they were the core of a revolution in rhythm.”
But by the mid-’70s, frustrated by their lack of commercial success, the band began to implode. The end came in 1977. “The story was never finished,” says Porter. “I thought there was a lot of music still left undone.”

Neville achieved success with the Neville Brothers. Nocentelli and Porter became in-demand session players and formed new bands. Modeliste toured with Keith Richards and Ron Wood.

He then began scrutinizing the group’s contracts. “When I found out how we was pillaged, how we was misused and abused, I couldn’t get over it,” Modeliste says. “I just completely put the drums in the closet.”

In 1984, he persuaded his former bandmates to join him in a lawsuit against Sehorn and Toussaint to void the contracts and regain control of their music. Nocentelli says, “We started looking at contracts about 15 years too late.”

But in 1989, Nocentelli, Neville and Porter settled out of court, winning back some of their publishing rights and masters, and received a small cash amount. Sehorn sold the Meters’ publishing and master rights to third-party companies.

At the time, the Meters’ music was becoming relevant to a new generation of hip-hop producers. “The settlement was very timely in a positive sense,” says Nocentelli. “If we didn’t settle, then we wouldn’t be in the position to gain some of the financial benefits.”

But Modeliste vowed to carry on the suit by himself. More than two decades later, he continues his litigation. Royalties and publishing moneys are stacking up under Modeliste’s name, but he says he will not accept them until the lawsuit is resolved.

“He’s been pretty beat up,” Porter says of Modeliste. “My heart goes out to him because I absolutely see the wear and tear that this event has taken. I’ve seen it make him so bitter that he just didn’t want to play no more. And Zigaboo should never, ever not play. If there is a 13th wonder, then he is it.”

When Modeliste first heard Amerie’s “1 Thing” on the radio, he chuckled to himself. “I said, ‘Wow! That sounds just like something I would do.’ ” By now, it has become a familiar experience for him.
After Modeliste moved to Los Angeles in the late ’80s, he began hearing himself on records by rappers like N.W.A., King Tee and Compton’s Most Wanted. “All of Compton,” Modeliste says, “seemed to know about the Meters.”

Around the same time, Porter convened the Funky Meters with drummer Russell Batiste and guitarist Brian Stoltz to play and update the band’s music. Neville and Nocentelli even joined the Funky Meters for some dates. But Zig was still missing from the picture.

He was donning a suit and tie every morning for his job as an assistant manager at Kinney’s Shoes. When his father developed cancer, Modeliste brought him from New Orleans to his small two-bedroom apartment in North Hollywood. But his father died soon after.

“That kind of really took it all out,” he sighs. “So I took my drums out of the closet.” He quit the Kinney’s job, joined bluesman Roy Gaines’ band and was soon gigging six nights a week again.

At one point, he was hired by Dr. Dre for a session with an Italian American saxophonist Eazy-E was interested in signing. “I went in, and all they had was double turntables, some Meters records and George Clinton records to sample,” Modeliste recalls. “I said, ‘This is weird.’ ” The recordings were never released, but he was impressed by the hip-hoppers’ interest in him.

After the Rodney King riots, he moved to Berkeley and worked full time at Stepping Stones Growth Center, a job-placement center for disabled adults. He was consumed by the lawsuit.

Yet he also found time to play with Los Lobos and Bill Laswell, even punk hero Richard Hell. He met his wife, Kathy Webster, who later became his manager. Together they bought and restored a railroad house in West Oakland. Soon he was leading his own bands, the Aahkestra and the Funk Revue.

Modeliste reconciled with Porter, Nocentelli and Neville, and even played with them in different settings. But they never all played together. Then in 2000, a big offer enticed the band to come together for a one-night stand at the SF Weekly Warfield. Hopes were raised for a more permanent reunion.
The other band members and their management teams were not interested. So Modeliste released an album, “Zigaboo.com,” on his own independent label, JZM, and another, “I’m on the Right Track,” last year. The latter featured guest appearances by Dr. John and Bernie Worrell, and became a critical favorite.

After seeing the 2002 film reunion of Motown’s house band, the Funk Brothers, in “Standing in the Shadows of Motown,” Modeliste says he and Webster tried to bring the original Meters back together but were thwarted by management problems. As late as last December, Modeliste was telling reporters he had given up hope the band would ever reunite again.

That’s when Quint Davis, producer and director of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, stepped into the picture. Davis was an old friend of the Meters and had helped organize the first JazzFest in 1970 when the Meters played in Congo Square. In the wake of a disastrous 2004 JazzFest, which suffered a $1 million loss, Davis became convinced that a Meters reunion would reignite interest in the festival.

“I started out against all odds. Everybody associated with them told me, ‘It can’t be done,’ ” Davis says. But early this year, he had a long discussion with Modeliste. “Zig said, ‘You’re gonna open up Pandora’s Box,’ and then he said, ‘It’s gonna be like “Jurassic Park.” You’re gonna bring the old dinosaurs back to life.’ That talk was a key turning point.”

Davis, the musicians and their managers came to the table, put aside their differences and hammered out the details. “Magically,” Davis says, “the camaraderie came back.” Their headlining appearance at JazzFest overshadowed an appearance by Brian Wilson, and performances by platinum-selling artists like James Taylor and Nelly.

In June, Modeliste and Webster bought a shotgun house in New Orleans’ Garden District and feverishly made plans to move back to the Big Easy. “I could be closer to the Meters, work on some ideas and that kind of stuff,” he says. “And then the storm came, and that changed everything.”

Porter’s house in Gert Town was flooded. The Nevilles’ home was burglarized after they fled to Nashville. Nocentelli relocated 15 family members to Southern California, including his 86-year-old mother, who drove all the way from New Orleans. Modeliste’s family escaped to Texas. His new house was miraculously left untouched.

Davis says, “Does the Meters reunion take on a larger significance now? Yeah. They’re trying to survive. They’re victims of the storm, and they have to provide for their families and their relatives.

“But of all the things of New Orleans that have been destroyed, the spirit in the music is one of the things that must be carried on,” he adds, “and if there’s anyone that carries that spirit of New Orleans music, it’s the Meters.”

All of the band members insist that they are not symbols for the Big Easy’s renewal. They’re just four guys trying to put it all back together. But for Modeliste, the reunion offers him a kind of closure.

“It’s always good to go home,” he says. “I wish it could have been a lot sooner that we would have made this decision, but it wasn’t. Better late than never.”

Jeff Chang is the author of “Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation.”

Sunday Nov 13, 2005 Washington Post

Libby May Have Tried to Mask Cheney’s Role

By Carol D. Leonnig and Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, November 13, 2005; A06

In the opening days of the CIA leak investigation in early October 2003, FBI agents working the case already had in their possession a wealth of valuable evidence. There were White House phone and visitor logs, which clearly documented the administration’s contacts with reporters.

And they had something that law enforcement officials would later describe as their “guidebook” for the opening phase of the investigation: the daily, diary-like notes compiled by I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, then Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff, that chronicled crucial events inside the White House in the weeks before the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame was publicly disclosed.

The investigators had much of this information before they sat down with Libby on Oct. 14, 2003, and first heard from him what prosecutors now allege was a demonstrably false version of what happened. Libby said that, when he told other reporters about the CIA operative and her marriage to Iraq war critic Joseph C. Wilson IV, he believed he had first learned the information from Tim Russert of NBC News and was merely passing along journalistic hearsay. This was an explanation made dubious by Libby’s own notes, which showed that he previously had learned about Plame from his boss, Cheney.

In the aftermath of Libby’s recent five-count indictment, this curious sequence raises a question of motives that hangs over the investigation: Why would an experienced lawyer and government official such as Libby leave himself so exposed to prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald?

Libby, according to Fitzgerald’s indictment, gave a false story to agents and, later, to a grand jury, even though he knew investigators had his notes, and presumably knew that several of his White House colleagues had already provided testimony and documentary evidence that would undercut his own story. And his interviews with the FBI in October and two appearances before the grand jury in March 2004 came at a time when there were increasingly clear signs that some of the reporters with whom Libby discussed Plame could soon be freed to testify — and provide starkly different and damning accounts to the prosecutor.

To critics, the timing suggests an attempt to obscure Cheney’s role, and possibly his legal culpability. The vice president is shown by the indictment to be aware of and interested in Plame and her CIA status long before her cover was blown. Even some White House aides privately wonder whether Libby was seeking to protect Cheney from political embarrassment. One of them noted with resignation, “Obviously, the indictment speaks for itself.”

In addition, Cheney also advised Libby on a media strategy to counter Plame’s husband, former ambassador Wilson, according to a person familiar with the case.

“This story doesn’t end with Scooter Libby’s indictment,” said Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), giving voice to widespread Democratic hopes about the outcome of Fitzgerald’s case. “A lot more questions need to be answered by the White House about the actions of [Cheney] and his staff.”

But to Libby’s defenders, the timing of Libby’s alleged lies supports his claims of innocence. They say it would be supremely illogical for an intelligent and highly experienced lawyer to mislead the FBI or grand jury if he knew the jurors had evidence that would expose his falsehoods. Libby, they say, is guilty of nothing more than a foggy memory and recollections that differ, however dramatically, from those of several witnesses in the nearly two-year-old investigation.

“People have different memories,” said lawyer Victoria Toensing, a Justice Department official in the Reagan administration. She said the fact that Fitzgerald did not indict on the crime he set out to investigate — illegal disclosure of classified evidence — supports the conclusion that no such crime took place. Fitzgerald has said he could not make such a determination because his inquiry was obstructed by Libby’s deceptions.

Even if Fitzgerald shows beyond a reasonable doubt that Libby’s version of events is wrong, he also must prove the former Cheney aide lied on purpose. But many lawyers and several White House aides said the case against Libby appears strong — and has the potential to embarrass other administration officials if it goes to trial.

The case was prompted by Plame’s name being publicized by columnist Robert D. Novak on July 14, 2003. Eight days earlier, Wilson had publicly criticized the Bush administration for allegedly twisting intelligence to justify the Iraq war. Wilson and his allies claimed Bush officials publicly identified Plame as payback for his dissent.

Libby is the only White House official charged in the case. Karl Rove, the president’s deputy chief of staff and top political adviser, remains under investigation for providing misleading statements about his role in the leaking of Plame’s identity, and people close to the case said he could still be charged. A final decision is expected soon on Rove’s fate.

William Jeffress Jr., one of Libby’s lawyers, declined to comment on the case. So did Fitzgerald’s spokesman, Randall Samborn.

But the emerging case against Libby is bringing more about Fitzgerald’s investigation into public view. In October 2003, agents interviewed several administration officials, who described conversations they had with Libby about Plame in June and early July of 2003. Cumulatively during Fitzgerald’s probe, four officials said they mentioned Plame to Libby, investigators found; three others said Libby mentioned her to them.

This testimony makes the story Libby offered during his first FBI interview look suspicious. He said he believed that he first learned about Plame on July 10 or July 11, 2003, in a conversation with Russert. Libby said he was surprised to learn of Plame’s connection to Wilson. To Fitzgerald’s team, Libby did not seek to deny that he had learned about the Plame link from Cheney — as revealed by Libby’s own notes — but simply said it had slipped his mind that the vice president was an earlier source of the information than Russert, lawyers familiar with the case said.

Even early in the investigation, two key people were publicly known at the time to have been interviewed by the FBI: Ari Fleischer, then-White House press secretary, and Catherine Martin, a Cheney press aide. Martin had learned about Plame’s employment at the CIA from another senior government official, the indictment says, and told Libby sometime in late June or the first week of July. Fleischer reportedly told investigators that, at a lunch on Monday, July 7, Libby told him that Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA and confided that the information was not widely known.

Fitzgerald, in announcing the indictment two weeks ago, called attention to this conversation with Fleischer to show how improbable he regarded Libby’s account: “What’s important about that is that Mr. Libby . . . was telling Mr. Fleischer something on Monday that he claims to have learned on Thursday.”

Libby’s defense must also reckon with his own notes. Lawyers familiar with the case said in general his notes do not recount the details of conversations and do not specifically contradict his account to investigators. Usually the notes explain with whom he met each day. One remarkable exception was when he chronicled a meeting with his boss on or about June 12, in which Libby wrote that Cheney told him that he learned from the CIA that Wilson’s wife worked at the agency.

But when Libby was called to answer Fitzgerald’s questions under oath before the grand jury on March 5 and again on March 24, 2004, he stuck to the story he had given in October. He repeated that he believed he had learned the information from a reporter and had forgotten Cheney had told him about Plame. He explained that he had not thought the material was classified because reporters knew it. But Fitzgerald pressed Libby — and not so subtly raised the specter of a coverup. “And let me ask you this directly,” Fitzgerald said. “Did the fact that you knew that the law could . . . turn on where you learned the information from affect your account for the FBI — when you told them that you were telling reporters Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA but your source was a reporter rather than the vice president?” Libby denied it: “No, it’s a fact. It was a fact, that’s what I told the reporters.”

After lengthy court battles over journalists’ duty to testify in the case — including several contempt citations by a trial court judge, appeals to the Supreme Court and one reporter’s jailing — Fitzgerald got all the reporters’ testimony that he had sought. Russert, Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper and Judith Miller of the New York Times all testified about their conversations with Libby. All contradicted Libby.