"I would like to see Jeb run at some point in time, but I have no idea if that's his intention or not," Bush said in an interview with Florida reporters, according to an account on the St Petersburg Times website.

The president said he had "pushed him fairly hard about what he intends to do," but Jeb has not said.

"I have no idea what he's going to do. I've asked him that question myself. I truly don't think he knows," Bush said.

Jeb Bush, 53, will end his second term as governor in January.

His brother George ends his second presidential term in January 2009. Neither can seek re-election because of term limits.

Perhaps most disturbing to Mr. Bush is that he is losing Republicans. The Gallup poll, released Monday, showed a 13-point drop in one week among self-identified Republicans, from 81 percent to 68 percent. Frank Newport, Gallup's editor in chief, cautions against overinterpreting those numbers, given the size of the Republican sample (about one-third of those polled) in any single survey. That number has dipped before and bounced back. But polling experts agree that the overall trend is evident.

"Clearly, he's lost ground among Republicans; all the pollsters are seeing that," says Karlyn Bowman, an expert on polls at the American Enterprise Institute. "Now he is just holding onto his base ... the people who are with you when you're wrong or with you when things are going terribly."

It's difficult to pinpoint exact causes week-to-week for a change in support. Overall, voters cite the Iraq war most often as the decisive issue. In recent news, Mr. Newport points to the immigration debate, the new CIA director, and gas prices as other "logical suspects." And of course, some polls show slightly better numbers; this week CNN had Bush going up from 32 to 34 percent.

Still, Republicans are quietly worrying that Bush could even dip below the psychologically significant threshold of 30 percent in a major poll. And while Bush is bringing fresh faces into the White House - so far, a new chief of staff and press secretary - to try to reinvigorate his team, some analysts suggest it's getting to be too late to significantly alter the nation's sour mood going into the November midterm elections.

On individual issues, such as the new Medicare prescription drug benefit, the White House sees signs of improvement. This week, as Bush tours Florida to tout the program, in advance of the May 15 sign-up deadline, aides say the program is gaining popularity. Indeed, the latest CBS/New York Times poll shows 42 percent of respondents say their prescription drugs expenses have gone down versus 19 percent who say they have gone up.

But the dominant tone among Republicans focused on November remains one of concern that the low public opinion of Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress could affect local races throughout the country. In other words, analysts say, some discouraged Republican voters might not turn out - and that, matched with a highly motivated Democratic electorate, could bring some upsets of GOP-held congressional seats. With only a 15-seat margin of GOP control in the House of Representatives, enough upsets could hand Congress to the Democrats.

And so Republicans are trying to devise messages that will drive turnout, regardless of how Bush is doing. One theme is impeachment: Elect a Democratic House, and Bush could be impeached. House minority leader Nancy Pelosi, who would become speaker of the House if the Democrats win control, denies that there would be a quick move to impeach Bush, but she has promised a series of investigations into the Bush administration.

"We're certainly going to do all we can to motivate our base to turn out by highlighting what our members have done in their districts," says Sarah Chamberlain Resnick, executive director of the moderate Republican Main Street Partnership (RMSP). Then "we will point out what it really means to throw out the Republicans. Do you really want a Nancy Pelosi in there [as speaker]?"

Ms. Resnick notes that a lot of RMSP members represent swing districts, which are critical to maintaining overall GOP control.

Among social conservatives, an important part of the GOP base, another turnout motivator will be a new wave of anti-gay marriage measures on state ballots. So far, measures providing for a state constitutional ban have qualified for the ballot in six states: Idaho, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia, and Wisconsin, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Activists in five other states - Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, and Massachusetts - are also working to get measures on their ballots. In addition, Illinois may have a nonbinding referendum question on same-sex marriage in November. It would not have the effect of law, but it could still drive turnout.

Gary Bauer, a religious conservative activist who ran for president in 2000, says he and other leaders, James Dobson of Focus on the Family and Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, are planning a series of rallies around the country in places with close races to try to stimulate turnout.

"Certainly through my political action committee and others there will be a great deal of advertising on Christian and conservative talk radio to explain what's at stake in the election," Mr. Bauer says.

In addition to the impeachment threat and the prospect of a Speaker Pelosi, whose San Francisco-liberal image is anathema to many Republicans, Bauer says, "We'll remind them that one more vacancy on the Supreme Court could tilt the court in their direction."

Supreme Court nominations require approval by the Senate, which is generally seen as a greater long shot for Democratic takeover than the House, but not impossible.

Recall that former CIA Director George Tenet was honored by Bush with the Medal of Freedom for dutifully pretending that the case for WMD in Iraq was a "slam-dunk" and politely taking the hit on Bush's infamous "16 words" State of the Union lie about that African uranium.

The Bush administration long ago abandoned the idea that intelligence should ever be permitted to curb this president's imperial hubris or political agenda. Were it otherwise, the president would not be turning over control of the CIA, long presumed to be a civilian check on the military, to an active-duty general whose loyalty to the president was proved by his eagerness to conduct illegal wiretapping of unsuspecting Americans.

Hayden passed that test superbly while head of the NSA, proudly defending Bush's illegal eavesdropping on the same citizenry whose freedom the president is sworn to preserve, while stonewalling the probes of Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, who considers the wiretaps illegal.

"Now, with Gen. Hayden up for confirmation, this will give us an opportunity to find out" more about the eavesdropping program, Specter told Fox News, probably over-optimistically -- especially since Hayden will be confirmed by a Bush-friendly committee.

Hayden headed the NSA from 1999 until last year, when John D. Negroponte appointed him as his top deputy upon assuming the newly created position of director of national intelligence. And therein lies the real reason for Hayden's appointment; his proven loyalty to Bush and his man, Negroponte, who by forcing out Porter Goss as head of the CIA and replacing him with Hayden now assumes unprecedented control of the vast U.S. intelligence apparatus.

Hayden's track record does not otherwise justify this appointment. It was on Hayden's watch that the NSA, after all, failed to properly alert the president to the Al Qaeda threat. Of course, it is possible that the agency did alert the president of an imminent threat and that the information was ignored as the president traipsed off to his lengthy summer vacation on his ranch; we already know that the system, as Tenet has said, was "blinking red." But if that is the case, Hayden has not said so.

Unfortunately, Hayden has other disasters besides Sept. 11 on his resume. While at the NSA, he tried to implement the expensive, ambitious "Trailblazer" program, aimed at upgrading NSA's technology, but analysts have deemed the outcome a multibillion-dollar bust. Meanwhile, even a number of prominent Republicans have attacked his bypassing of laws protecting our civil liberties, under Bush's direction--conducting unauthorized taps on the e-mail and phone conversations of at least 5,000 Americans.

"You need someone who will stand up to pressure from the president," James Bamford, author of two books on the NSA, told the New York Times. "Instead, he's shown he's willing to throw out his own principles on civil liberties to please the president."

This ability to accommodate totalitarian values in exchange for career advancement is viewed as a terrific asset by Negroponte, who handpicked Hayden for this new job within hours of Goss' abrupt resignation. Negroponte, after all, is most infamous for his tenure as ambassador to Honduras during the Reagan years, when he exemplified that administration's see-no-evil approach to monitoring the malleable military dictatorship's human rights violations -- which included everything from the army's torture and slaughter of nuns to the regime's arming and protecting the United States-created Contra guerrillas who were terrorizing civilians in next-door Nicaragua.

No doubt, Negroponte also won the admiration of the Bush honchos through his role during the Reagan years in supplying arms to the Contras in violation of a congressional prohibition on such sales.

The inescapable conclusion here is that Negroponte was picked by Bush to be the intelligence czar because of, rather than despite, this unsavory past. Negroponte, with a history of disastrous foreign adventures and contempt for the checks on power required for democratic governance, is an all-too-perfect Bush appointee. So, too, his deputy Hayden, nominated by Bush to head the CIA.

Nothing he says can be trusted. In 6 years, he's never uttered a completely reliable statement, just convoluted pronouncements that have to be parsed by experts. That's why it was so satisfying to see him skewered by Ray McGovern's questions. McGovern had Rumsfeld backpedaling like he'd just been harpooned. Honesty has that kind of effect on people like Rumsfeld; that's why they surround themselves with goons like a Mafia kingpin. They need a human-shield to protect them from the truth.

The American people have been ripped off big-time by Rummy. From the onset, it's been one wretched excuse after another. Nothing is ever his fault; not the occupation; not the lack of soldiers; not the looting in Baghdad, not the faulty-armor, not the resistance, nothing. Ever!

Every errant bomb, every wayward missile, every downed helicopter, every dead soldier, is someone else's fault.

Teflon Don; the biggest buck-passing narcissist the country has ever produced.

When the photos showed up from Abu Ghraib, Rumsfeld feigned surprise. "A few bad apples", he moaned. Now we know he did everything except fit the prisoners with women's underwear.

Nice touch, eh?

Now he's deployed troops in the United States and has a regional headquarters in Colorado (NorthCom) to spy on American citizens; all part of a sick plan to militarize the country and show everyone what a smart guy he is.

That's what it's all about isn't it? An egomaniac trying to show everyone how brilliant he is? The only problem is he's failed at everything he's tried. Every part of the occupation has been so badly botched it's totally beyond repair. Now, the London-based Senlis-Council is reporting that Afghanistan is unraveling, too.

Should we be surprised?

Iraq, Afghanistan, Haiti; flop, flop, flop, one failure after another.

"We know where the weapons are...they're in the area around Tikrit".

What a joke; it's like a carnival huckster pitching snake-oil to farm boys; nothing but smoke and mirrors; nothing but intellectual flatulence.

Or this:

"As we know, there are known knowns. And there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns. That is to say we know there are some things we do not know, but there are also unknown unknowns, the ones we don't know we don't know."

What type of flim-flam is that? Just more smart-ass, circuitous bullshit meant to impress and confuse; the clever blabbering of confidence man.

Is that what passes for honesty at the Pentagon?

This is what the truth sounds like:

"The decision to invade Iraq, was done with a casualness and swagger that are the special province of those who have never had to execute these missions - or bury the results." Lt. Gen. Gregory Newbold

That's right; "or bury the results".

Here's another Rumsfeld gem describing the war on terror:

"Things will not be necessarily continuous. The fact that they are something other than perfectly continuous ought not to be characterized as a pause. There will be some things that people will see. There will be some things that people won't see. And life goes on" (Oct. 12, 2001, Department of Defense news briefing)

More tortured language; more oblique banter; more meaningless gibberish.

Now, compare that to the candor of one of his strongest critics:

(Rumsfeld is) "incompetent strategically, operationally and tactically" he has "put the Pentagon at the mercy of his ego, his Cold-Warrior's view of the world, and his unrealistic confidence in technology to replace manpower." Army Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton.

Bull's-eye!

So what's Rumsfeld's reward for 6 years of bungling?

Now, he's trying to suck the CIA into the War Department so he'll have control over the entire intelligence budget. That way he can carry out his criminal renditions and deploy his global paramilitaries in complete secrecy. It's another giant step towards a military dictatorship.

Here's a short-list of Rumsfeld's more memorable lies.

A month before the invasion of Iraq Rumsfeld boasted on PBS' News Hour that Americans would "be welcomed by the majority of the civilian population of Iraq...There's no question but that they will be welcomed".

Lie. No candy, no flowers, no cakewalk.

Here's the Pollyanna-way he characterized the "success" in Afghanistan, where the countryside is still 100% controlled by warlords and drug-dealers and where Bush's Marshall Plan has never materialized:

"Go back to Afghanistan. The people were in the streets playing music, cheering, flying kites, and doing all the things that the Taliban and Al Qaida would not let them do."

"Flying kites"? What baloney.

Here's Rumsfeld on Saddam's weapons programs:

6 months before the invasion, he testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee in 2002, and said, "His regime has amassed large clandestine stockpiles of biological weapons" as well as "large clandestine stockpiles of chemical weapons".

Wrong again.

He insisted that Saddam had stockpiles "of VX nerve agent, sarin, mustard gas, anthrax, botulism and possibly smallpox". Later he would claim that Saddam produced, "38,000 liters of botulism toxin, 500 tons of sarin, and upwards of 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical weapons" as well as mobile biological-weapons labs.

What utter nonsense. These numbers were picked out of mid-air with no factual basis whatsoever. The intelligence community had no part in this charade; it was all cooked up by Rumsfeld's stooges in the OSP (Office of Special Plans) so they could drag the country to war.

In 2002 Rumsfeld addressed the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce and told them he had "bulletproof" evidence linking Saddam to Al Qaida; another lie designed to connect Saddam to 9-11.

When Rumsfeld was challenged about his claim, he protested,

"Never said that...never did. You may remember it well, but you're thinking of someone else. You can't find anywhere me saying anything like either of those two things you just said. I may look like someone else."

No, Rumsfeld does not "look like someone else"; he's the same unctuous, medicine man whose been pedaling his claptrap from the Pentagon-platform for 6 years. He piggy-backed the nation to war on a pack of lies and now he's leading the charge to attack Iran.

It's all been lies; Iraq, Iran, 9-11, Katrina, the war on terror; "a vast tapestry of lies" as Harold Pinter noted. Not a speck of truth to any of it.

The American people are being set up for the next big performance; another terrorist attack on the "homeland". Rumsfeld will undoubtedly spearhead the crackdown on Muslims, leftists, intellectuals, political enemies, union leaders and anyone else who might pose a threat to his crackpot master-plan. His scheme is bound to fail just like everything else, but not before thousands are either "disappeared", brutalized or dumped in a land-fill somewhere. Destruction is the only thing for which Rumsfeld has shown any particular aptitude. I expect he will continue to perfect this one, solitary talent.

"Russia, a country with vast natural resources ... is a partner of the United States on security," Rumsfeld said.

"But on certain issues, Russia has not been very cooperative and has used its energy resources as a political weapon."

Vice President Dick Cheney provoked an angry reaction from Russia earlier this month when he told Baltic and Black Sea leaders that Russian President Vladimir Putin was backsliding on democracy and using energy reserves to "blackmail" Moscow's neighbors.

Russia drew international criticism earlier this year when it briefly turned off its natural gas taps to Ukraine in a pricing dispute that disrupted supplies to Europe.

Rumsfeld said China's lack of transparency over military spending complicated the relationship between the two countries.

"Some aspects of the Chinese attitude are worrying and complicate our relations," he said.

"A notorious lack of transparency (on military spending) is of course worrying for China's neighbors."

China says it has been open about its military spending and says that as a share of gross domestic product and the government budget it is fairly low by international standards.

Last Friday I was at the University of Texas, Austin, giving a presentation on Iraq. After dumping an hour's worth of horrible "real news" about Iraq, I was asked the question I have by now learnt to expect: "Is there anything good happening there at all?" I understand why people ask this. There must be some hope, somewhere, right?

I suggested that there are always the military press releases folks can go to, for an "upper" about Iraq. Here I recounted one of these bogus "news" reports. Released during my second stint in Iraq, a report of May 21, 2004, stated: "The Coalition Provisional Authority has recently given out hundreds of soccer balls to Iraqi children in Ramadi, Karbala, and Hilla. Iraqi women from Hilla sewed the soccer balls, which are emblazoned with the phrase, All of Us Participate in a New Iraq."

THEM

That same evening after my presentation, I received an email from a doctor friend in Baghdad. The email pertains to the question I was asked, so I quote it here:

"Dear Mr. Dahr, I am wondering why? Americans and coalition forces were supported by pro-Iranian Militias, like the Badr Organization! The support and help of Iraqi Shiites at first helped to somewhat stabilize and maintain the occupation. Death squads trained by the coalition forces are working day and night under cover of the Ministry of Interior, attacking innocent people: both Sunnis and Shiites!!!! In spite of knowing very well who is doing what, we still see no improvement in the security situation. On the contrary, the situation is getting worse. I have many colleagues, doctors and other professionals, who are now begging for help to get out of Iraq for their lives and for their families' lives! The only losers are the Iraqis. The only Iraqis who are benefiting from this war are those who spend all their life outside Iraq and are now living in their big castle, the green zone!!!!! Everyone now knows that the invasion of Iraq was carried out upon falsified testimonies and lies!!!! What is going on on the ground differs a lot from what the media tells!!!!! I mean that."

As bad as things are in Iraq today, it may come as a surprise to many people in the US, including many who never supported the illegal invasion and occupation to begin with, that Iraq has been a disaster from the first day of the invasion.

Each time I hear this question, several scenes from my time there flash through my mind, and I am left pondering whether anything good has happened in Iraq since the beginning of the US-led invasion.

THEN

I recollect my experience of May 22, 2004, the day after the soccer ball report. This was weeks after news of American soldiers torturing detainees at Abu Ghraib had hit the corporate media. The first mock-court martial had just convicted one of the soldiers complicit in the atrocities, when I decided to go to Abu Ghraib. I wanted to meet and interview the family members who were attempting to get into the prison to see and talk to their loved ones detained there.

Prior to this trip, my interpreter and I had interviewed a man who had been tortured horrifically in Abu Ghraib. He had laughed, "The Americans brought electricity to my ass before they brought it to my house!" At the dusty, dismal, heavily guarded razor wire-ensconced area outside Abu Ghraib, many more horror stories awaited us. Despair and hopelessness pervaded the atmosphere as grieving family members waited, hoping against hope to be granted their chance to visit a dear one inside that gruesome compound.

Congregated on that patch of barren earth were men and women and wailing children. Their anguish matched their outrage as they remained unable to gain access to their loved ones held in the prison, or to procure any information about them.

Sitting on the hard packed dirt in his white dishdasha, his head scarf languidly flapping in the dry, hot wind, Lilu Hammed stared at the high walls of the nearby prison. It was almost as if he were attempting to see his 32-year-old son Abbas through the tan concrete.

He sat alone, his tired eyes fixed unwaveringly upon the heavily guarded Abu Ghraib. When my interpreter asked him if he would speak with us, several seconds passed before Lilu slowly turned his head to look up at us. "I am sitting here on the ground now, waiting for God's help."

His son had been in Abu Ghraib for 6 months, following a raid on his home that produced no weapons. The young man had never been charged with anything. Lilu held a crumpled visitation permission slip in his hand that he had just obtained, which allowed for a brief reunion with his son on the 18th of August, still three months away.

A pack of Humvees drove past, leaving us engulfed in a cloud of dust. A woman standing near us exclaimed, "We hope the whole world can see the position we are in now!"

I scan my memory further and recall November 11, 2004. My interpreter showed up at my hotel in a very somber mood. The previous night, after the curfew began at 9:30 pm, US military helicopters had been circling his neighborhood until 3 am. "How can we live like this," he asked, holding up his hands. "We are trapped in our own country." He confessed, "You know, Dahr, everyone is praying for God to take revenge on the Americans. Everyone!"

Later that night, another Iraqi friend showed up at my room with a wild look in his eyes, sweat beads on his forehead. "My friend has just been killed, and he was one of my best friends. I can't imagine that he is dead, really, but I guess it is okay." He told me about his friend's family. "They are so poor, they live 21 people in a house with three bedrooms, and they are good people."

This wasn't all. A relative of his had been missing for six days. That day, his body was brought to his family by someone who found it on the road. The body, which showed visible signs of torture, had two shots in the chest and two in the head. The four bullet shells that had killed him had been placed in his trouser pockets.

"I am crazy today with this news Dahr," my friend exclaimed, his hands up in the air, "The number of people killed here is growing so fast everyday, it is shit." He hung his head back and took a deep breath, then slowly exhaled. He reminisced how his whole life had been the same in Iraq but never as bad as at that point. "When I was a child, it was common to have some family member or the other killed in the war with Iran," he said, "but now, everyone is dying every day."

On 12 November 2004, following this grim discussion with my two interpreters, I remember meeting with Dr. Wamid Omar Nadhme, a Senior Political Scientist at Baghdad University. An older, articulate man who vehemently opposed the regime of Saddam Hussein, he had by then grown critical of the US policy that was responsible for the violence and chaos devouring his country.

Commenting on the current situation, he told me: "I can assure you, it is well over 75% of Iraqis who cannot even tolerate this occupation. The right-wing Bush administration is blinded by its ideology, and we are all suffering from this, Iraqis and soldiers alike." I cannot forget his concluding remarks to me. "Iraq is burning with wrath, anger and sadness."

Another telling instance of how nothing good happens in Iraq reached me on November 19th, exactly a week after my meeting with Dr. Nadhme. I received a call from one of my interpreters, who at the time was in his mosque for the Friday prayers. I could hear the deafening roar of hundreds of people chanting, "Allahu Akbar" (God is Greatest). The sound reverberated in the confined area behind his panicking voice: "I am being held at gunpoint by American soldiers inside Abu Hanifa mosque, Dahr." His incredulous bewilderment was palpable as he yelled, "Everyone is praying to God because the Americans are raiding our mosque during Friday prayer!"

He kept making short calls, updating me on the atrocity. After a few sentences of information he would hang up. His intermittent running commentary from within the mosque where he was trapped remains one of my most eerie experiences of Iraq. In the gap between his calls I would quickly type in the last bit of information before he would call back with more.

"They have shot and killed at least 4 of the people who were at prayer and at least 20 are wounded now! I cannot believe this! I can't let them see me calling you. I am on my stomach now and they have guns aimed at everyone. There are so many people inside the mosque, and it is sealed. We are on our bellies and in a very bad situation."

I could hear the screaming in the background amidst gunfire. The soldiers eventually released the women and children along with the men who were related to them. It was sheer luck that my interpreter escaped that day. He was released because a boy approached him asking him to act as his father.

When later he came to my hotel, he was distraught and crying. "I am in a very sad position. I do not see any freedom or any democracy. If this could lead into a freedom, it is a freedom with blood. It is a freedom with emotions of sadness. It is a freedom of killing. You cannot gain democracy through blood or killing. You do not find the freedom that way. People were going to pray to God and they were killed and wounded. There were 1,500 people praying to God, and they went on a holiday where people go every Friday for prayers. And they were shot and killed. There were so many women and kids lying on the ground. This is not democracy, neither freedom."

He had recorded the entire thing on the small tape recorder that we used while interviewing people.

These memories are but a glimpse of the horrible reality that the Iraqi people are suffering on a daily basis under US occupation. The only change that occurs is a worsening of conditions; it's a pattern I have witnessed from the beginning.

NOW: For Us and Them

At least 122 Iraqis died over the last weekend. These were only the reported deaths. The total number of Iraqis killed thus far as a result of the occupation is most likely close to a quarter of a million.

Also last weekend, a British military helicopter was shot down in Basra, killing five soldiers. This sparked a confrontation between British troops and Basra residents, who pelted the occupation troops with petrol bombs and stones while shouting profanities at them. Two British tanks and a Land Rover were set ablaze. In the first week of May, 20 occupation soldiers have been killed in Iraq, bringing the total number to at least 2,420.

At one point during that presentation in Austin, I attempted in vain to describe to the audience what life in Baghdad is like. It was in vain, because how can anyone in the United States begin to imagine what it is like to be invaded, to have our infrastructure shattered, to have occupying soldiers photographing detained Americans in forced humiliating sexual acts and then to have these displayed on television, to have our churches raided and worshippers therein shot and killed by occupation troops?

It is only when more people in the US begin to fathom the totality of the destruction in Iraq that one may expect to hear the public outcry and uprising necessary to end the occupation and bring to justice the war criminals responsible for these conditions. Until that happens, make no mistake: all of us participate in a new Iraq, our hands dyed in the blood of innocents.

Political analyst Alexei Makarkin told Ekho Moskvy radio the "wolf" reference was a response to the "United States, its actions in Iraq and plans toward Iran, its games on the territory of the CIS (former Soviet territory) and its criticism of Russia."

Putin's speech came nearly a week after Cheney on May 4 took a verbal slap at the Russian leader, saying the government sought "to reverse the gains of the last decade."

In another apparent barb aimed at the United States, Putin said countries should not use Russia's World Trade Organization membership negotiations to make unrelated demands.

"The negotiations for letting Russia into the WTO should not become a bargaining chip for questions that have nothing in common with the activities of this organization," Putin said.

In April, U.S. senators visiting Moscow said Russia's democracy record and its stance in the Iranian nuclear crisis would influence Congress as it considers Moscow's bid to join the global trade body.

Nationalist legislator Alexei Mitrofanov told reporters in the Kremlin that Putin's Russia was in no way looking for a confrontation with the West, "but we want to be a politically and economically independent state."

Putin pointed out that Russia's military budget is 25 times lower than that of the United States. Like the U.S., he said, "we also must make our house strong and reliable."

"We must always be ready to counter any attempts to pressure Russia in order to strengthen positions at our expense," he said. "The stronger our military is, the less temptation there will be to exert such pressure on us."

Putin said the government would work to strengthen the nation's nuclear deterrent as well as conventional military forces without repeating the mistakes of the Cold War era, when a costly arms race with Washington drained Soviet resources.

He said Russia would soon commission two nuclear submarines equipped with the new Bulava intercontinental ballistic missiles - the nation's first since Soviet times - while the land-based strategic missile forces would get their first unit of mobile Topol-M missiles.

The new missiles and warheads, which can foil defenses by changing direction in flight, would allow Russia to preserve a strategic balance without denting the nation's economic development goals, he said, adding that Russia needs a military that is capable of answering all modern challenges.

Two-thirds of the army will be professionals instead of conscripts by 2008, he said, allowing the state to reduce the length of obligatory service from two years to one, and nearly 600 rapid-response units will be formed by 2011.

"We need a military that is able simultaneously to carry on battle in global, regional and, if need be, several local conflicts," he said.

The military should be able to guarantee Russia's territorial integrity, he said - a reference to the threat of Islamic extremists in southern regions surrounding Chechnya. He said the threat of terrorism remained significant, and that "extremists of all stripes" feed off of local and religious conflicts.

"I know that someone very much wants Russia to get bogged down in these problems and, as a result, to be unable to solve a single one of its problems of full-scale development," he said darkly without identifying the foe.

Turning to health care issues, Putin called the demographic slide that has shrunk Russia's population by millions since the 1991 Soviet collapse "the most acute problem of contemporary Russia," and he encouraged legislators to budget for more generous birth bonuses, childcare support subsidies and educational benefits for mothers to encourage women to have children.

"I am convinced that with such an approach, you will earn words of gratitude from millions of mothers, young families, all the citizens of our country," Putin said.

He also called on more Russians to take in foster children from institutions where about 200,000 orphans and abandoned children are interned.

Most Russian families are small, with couples usually having only one or two children. Putin and his wife have two daughters.

Russia's population dropped by about 4 percent to 142.7 million between 1993 and 2006, according to the Health Ministry. Experts attribute the plunge to post-Soviet economic turmoil that has badly hurt the state health care system, leading to a drop in birth rates and life expectancy. Increased poverty, alcoholism, soaring crime and emigration have also taken their toll, leading to an average life expectancy of just 66 years - 16 years lower than Japan and 14 years lower than the European Union average.

The ITAR-Tass news agency reported that the comments on reversing the population decline prompted 27 bursts of applause and that listeners in all applauded 47 times - more than in any of Putin's other state of the nation addresses.

The girl, who is 8, is physically OK but will not return to school for the rest of the school year. "We don't know what type of emotional scars it will have on the young lady," Williams said.

"In my mind it's unconscionable that it happened and in my mind people have to be held accountable," Williams said. "How is it this kind of thing is even in the minds of young men?"

The incident happened Friday at Columbia Accelerated Community Educational Center, a school with 400 students in pre-kindergarten through sixth grade on the city's north side.

Shortly after lunch, three classes of first- and second-graders were outside for recess. A student saw several boys huddled around the girl who was on the ground, and alerted a teacher.

School district spokesman Tony Sanders said details of the assault are not yet clear. Police were initially called and turned the investigation over to juvenile authorities.

The boys could face misdemeanor charges of first-degree sexual misconduct and third-degree assault, said Kathryn Herman, administrator of the city's Juvenile Court. She said one of the boys is age 6, seven are age 7, and four are age 8.

"These are really young kids," Herman said. "I can't think of many other cases at this age with this type of incident."

Williams said his office received "sketchy" information about the incident Friday, but he wasn't alerted to the seriousness of it until Monday. He immediately went to the school, then contacted the girl's mother.

The district's crisis team is trying to determine if any other girls were also assaulted, Williams said. A letter was going out to district parents on Tuesday, alerting them to the incident. Counselors were also available to students at the school.

Williams said the district will also consider counseling or other efforts for the boys accused of the crime. They will not return to Columbia but will likely be sent to different schools next school year, he said. The girl may also be transferred to a different school.

"We'll get help for the boys, too, then decide what to do with them," Williams said.

Williams said other adults at the school could also be reprimanded if an internal investigation determines they failed to supervise the recess or swiftly address the incident once it came to light.