"It has $61 billion in equipment shortages. It has a $50 billion shortfall in the vital equipment and parts you need to run a war," said the former commander-in-chief of the U.S. Southern Command. "I hope there's new thinking and new debate because the course we're on now won't sustain us for the next 24 months."

The 14 Army brigades now deployed in Iraq have their full complement of troops and "extremely competent" leadership, said McCaffrey, but "the other two-thirds of the Army's combat brigades are not ready to fight."

That's because many brigades leave their equipment in Iraq for their replacements when they return home and are rapidly depleted of manpower as returning soldiers complete their service and leave, McCaffrey said.

Any new emergency, he said, such as heightened tensions in Korea or Taiwan, a domestic terrorism attack or natural disaster, could push the Army beyond its limits.

"If the other shoe drops, we are breaking the U.S. Army," he said.

McCaffrey said the Army has been fighting "on a World War II footing" since 9/11, exhausting its capacity.

"I think it's irresponsible. I think we put the nation in the position of strategic peril," he said.

Col. Lee Packnett, a Pentagon spokesman, declined to discuss the specifics of McCaffrey's statements Tuesday, but said "that is the opinion of a retired general officer, and he is not speaking for the Army."

But the Army's own chief of staff, Gen. Peter Schoomaker, refused to submit a required 2008 budget plan in August to protest what he considered inadequate funding proposed by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the Los Angeles Times reported last month.

Money for equipment and operations is not the only dangerous deficit for the Army, McCaffrey said. Manpower standards are falling in order to meet enlistment quotas, he said, citing the Army's own announcements.

As a result, he said, the enlistment age has been raised to 42, more recruits are being accepted from the lowest category of aptitude scores, and more morals waivers are being granted for recruits with arrest records.

McCaffrey assailed both the Bush administration and Congress for failing to mobilize the country to support its military.

But McCaffrey also cautioned that leaving Iraq or Afghanistan in the midst of turmoil would unleash civil war and instability.

He urged major new efforts to rebuild both countries' economies and initiate diplomatic efforts with neighboring countries to achieve stability.

Under their plea agreements, prosecutors will ask U.S. District Judge Franklin Burgess to waive mandatory minimum sentences on the charges of arson, attempted arson and use of a destructive device. That bomb charge alone would otherwise carry a statutory minimum of 30 years, and a maximum term of life.

The plea deals instead will ask that Kolar serve five to seven years and Phillabaum face a recommended sentence of three to five years. Sentencing is scheduled for Jan. 5.

Neither woman commented to reporters after leaving the courtroom.

After the hearings, U.S. Attorney John McKay said the women had "the misguided belief that they would influence public policy. They have not."

"These violent acts of destruction are not a valid form of political speech," he said, calling the arson an act of domestic terrorism.

The fire on May 21, 2001, severely damaged the building, which was rebuilt at a cost of about $7 million. The center had done work on fast-growing hybrid poplars in hopes of limiting the amount of natural forests that timber companies log.

The Earth Liberation Front, a shadowy collection of environmental activists, claimed responsibility and issued a statement saying the poplars pose "an ecological nightmare" for the diversity of native forests.

Kolar also pleaded guilty Wednesday to an attempted arson charge for a failed 1998 firebombing that damaged a Colorado gun club that organized a multistate turkey shoot.

At least three others were involved in the UW firebombing, court documents allege.

Briana Waters of Berkeley, Calif., has pleaded not guilty and is scheduled for trial in May. William Rodgers of Prescott, Ariz., committed suicide in jail after being charged with other acts of ecoterrorism.

A fifth suspect, Justin Solondz, formerly of Jefferson County, Wash., remains at large.

The Redds told their daughter they were taking her on a shopping trip Aug. 4 and then drove from Provo to Grand Junction, Colo., according to Provo police Capt. Rick Healey. Myers, 23, called police when his bride didn't attend a pre-wedding dinner with his parents that night.

The Redds spent the night in Colorado and drove back to Provo, about 40 miles south of Salt Lake City, the next day, Healey said. They arrived after the young couple was supposed to have been married in a ceremony that day at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Temple in Salt Lake City.

"I was totally confused and manipulated," Julianna Myers told KTVX-TV in Salt Lake City. She said she supports the charges and hopes her parents get help.

"They had their concerns, their reasoning," she said. "Honestly I don't understand. It had nothing to do with Perry."

Bryson said after reviewing the police investigation it was clear a crime was committed.

The couple, both students at Brigham Young University, were married in the temple on Aug. 8, Myers said. They are expecting their first child in May.

"We were just glad the way it ended and she just came back and she was OK," Myers said. "We've gone forward since then.

Lemuel Redd, 59, and Julia Redd, 56, were charged Friday and are scheduled to make an initial court appearance Oct. 26. If convicted, they could face one to 15 years in prison.

A call to a listing for Lemuel H. Redd at the address in Monticello, Utah, listed in court documents went unanswered Tuesday. No attorney for the Redds is listed in court documents.

In less than six weeks America selects a new Congress, and once again fear marks the campaign strategies of both parties.

The administration feeds the fear of terrorism by comparing Osama bin Laden with Hitler and Stalin. The White House argues that only the President and his Republicans are tough enough for such a dangerous fight. It is implied that the fantasy of a new caliphate under bin Laden, a Saudi billionaire's son, is on an equal footing with the threats from powers like Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.

The Democratic opposition counters by likewise inciting the fears of the citizenry, but by arguing that George W. Bush and his party have encouraged terrorism with the war in the Iraq, and have worsened American security. But while Republicans create a more favorable rhetorical and ideological dynamic for themselves by encouraging the fear of terror, Democrats see themselves more hindered than helped by doing so. That fear, along with the fear of losing the elections, explains the timidity of their resistance to the excesses of the administration in the anti-terror fight. The effect of the presidential election campaign of 2004 remains strong, when the Vietnam avoider George W. Bush portrayed Vietnam veteran John Kerry as a poor soldier.

BUSH THREATENED BY EXPOSURE

In addition to these openly displayed strategies of fear, the competitors have their own hidden fears. In the White House, the concern is that if the Republican majorities in the House or the Senate are lost, cabinet members and others would be held accountable under oath before Congressional committees for the Iraq war, a disaster for an administration whose failures in the planning and execution of the war would be relentlessly exposed.

But even among Democrats, there are strategists who get queasy at the thought of a possible election victory in November. Among the circle of Democratic presidential candidates, fear circulates that if they are successful this year, their party would be burdened by the wreckage of Bush's policies, with the possible result that the party's chances in the 2008 presidential election would be reduced.

Times of fear are not new in U.S. history, and often have not been good for American democracy. The tradition of overreacting to actual or alleged enemies was begun in 1798 by the second U.S. President, the otherwise intelligent John Adams, who signed the Alien and Sedition Acts. Even at that time the law, which limited free speech and gave Presidents wide powers to deport foreigners, was strongly criticized as destructive to American constitutional government. [The Alien Act expired in 1800, and the Sedition Act in 1801 RealVideo].

This sad chapter was updated in the 20th century by the internment of U.S. citizens of Japanese descent during the Second World War and the hysterical hunt for communists during the early 1950's.

Some historians have noted a particular tendency in the U.S. to react to threats with measures that, in hindsight, seem ill-considered and extreme. One reason may be the founding history of the United States, when a fragile group of colonies fought a war of survival against the superpower Great Britain. And perhaps a giant country protected by oceans that derives its identity from offering prosperity and refuge to immigrants from all over the world would take it particularly badly, when an enemy threatens the security of this refuge and the promise of the American dream.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It can also be said that since September 11, America has reacted to the threat of Jihadi terrorism in a way that makes this one of the darker phases of its history. The elections on November 7 are a test of whether the voters will initiate a new policy tied to the better traditions of American constitutional government and American foreign relations. The strategists in the White House don't share this view: They're betting that the fear of terror will prevail on Election Day, and that voters will approve a policy that sacrifices the lives of non-Americans who the U.S. classifies as terror suspects to the absolute despotism of the President.

BRUTAL FIGHT FOR VOTES

Five years after September 11, the Congressional elections will show whether this dark vision of American sensitivities, and so feebly opposed by the Democrats, really corresponds to the facts. Election researchers today argue whether the opinion surveys suggest only a small shift in the balance of power, which will leave the Republicans a majority in the Senate and perhaps even in the House of Representatives, or whether Democrats will win in a landslide. The fact that for years, America's political landscape has been divided into two more or less equal and apparently firmly entrenched camps, would suggest that the first assumption is true. Favoring the second outcome is the extraordinary unpopularity of the Republican-led Congress - fewer than 30 percent of U.S. citizens are satisfied with its work, according to the polls - and the poor reputation of the President.

Accordingly, the election battle is being conducted with great bitterness; in TV commercials, the sharpness of the attacks on integrity of opponents exceeds the brutality of past competitions, according to experienced election operatives. This election of the entire House of Representatives and a third of the Senate on November 7 is no ordinary Election Day in regard to American history. It is a test of whether America's voters understand that the policy of this government has cost its country friends around the world, and that without these friends, even the great power of the United States cannot survive in the long term.