LODI NEWS-SENTINEL

SATURDAY, JUNE 20, 2015

19

NATION/WORLD

U.S. report: Iran threat undiminished as nuke deal nears

By Matthew Lee and
Bradley Klapper
ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON Irans support

for international terrorist groups remained undiminished last year and
even expanded in some respects, the
Obama administration said Friday,
less than two weeks before the deadline for completing a nuclear deal
that could provide Tehran with billions of dollars in relief from economic sanctions.
The assessment offered a worrying sign of even worse terror-related
violence to come after a year in
which extremists in the Middle East,
Africa and Asia committed 35 percent more terrorist acts, killed nearly twice as many people and almost
tripled the number of kidnappings
worldwide. Statistics released by the
State Department on Friday also

pointed to a tenfold surge in the most

lethal kinds of attacks.
Yet even as the Islamic State and
the Taliban were blamed for most of
the death and destruction in 2014, the
departments annual terrorism report underscored the ongoing threat
posed by Iran and its proxies across
the Islamic world and beyond.
Tehran increased its assistance to
Shiite militias fighting in Iraq and
continued its long-standing military,
intelligence and financial aid to
Lebanons Hezbollah, Syrian President Bashar Assads embattled government and Palestinian groups
Hamas and Islamic Jihad. While the
388-page study said Iran has lived up
to interim nuclear deals with world
powers thus far, it gave no prediction
about how an Iran flush with cash
from a final agreement would behave. World powers and Iran are try-

ing to conclude an accord by the end

of the month, setting 15 years of restrictions on Irans nuclear program
in exchange for significant relief
from the international sanctions
that have crippled the Iranian economy. The negotiations dont involve
Irans support for militant groups beyond its border. But Israel and the
Sunni monarchies of the Persian
Gulf, Irans regional rivals, fear a
fresh wave of terrorism as a result of
any pact. President Barack Obama,
hoping to ease their fears, has said
most of the money would go to Irans
economic development.
Americas grave concern about
Irans support for terrorism remains
unabated, White House spokesman
Eric Shultz said. That is all the
more reason that we need to make
sure they dont obtain a nuclear
weapon.

In total last year, nearly 33,000 people were killed in almost 13,500 terrorist attacks around the world, according to the figures that were compiled for the State Department by the
National Consortium for the Study of
Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism at the University of Maryland.
Thats up from just over 18,000 deaths
in nearly 10,000 attacks in 2013.
Twenty-four Americans were killed
by extremists in 2014, the report said.
And abductions soared to 9,428 in the
calendar year from 3,137 in 2013.
The report attributes the rise in attacks to increased terror activity in
Iraq, Afghanistan and Nigeria and
the sharp spike in deaths to a growth
in exceptionally lethal attacks in
those countries and elsewhere.
There were 20 attacks that killed
more than 100 people each in 2014,
compared to just two a year earlier,

the report said. Among those were

Decembers attack by the Pakistani
Taliban on a school in Peshawar that
killed at least 150 people and the
June attack by Islamic State militants on a prison in Mosul, Iraq, in
which 670 Shiite prisoners died.
At the end of 2014, the prison attack was the deadliest terrorist operation in the world since Sept. 11, 2001,
according to the report.
Despite all indications pointing toward increased violence, the State
Departments counterterrorism coordinator said the numbers didnt reflect improvements by the U.S. and
its partners in stamping out terrorism financing, improving information sharing, impeding foreign fighters and forming a coalition to fight
the Islamic State. We have made
progress,
Ambassador
Tina
Kaidanow said.

Rand Paul is going

big to shrink taxes
By Richard Rubin
BLOOMBERG NEWS

JOE BURBANK/ORLANDO SENTINEL FILE PHOTOGRAPH

Former president George W. Bush chats with brother Jeb Bush at a fundraiser for the Republican Party of Florida at the
Contemporary Resort at Disney World in Orlando, Fla., on February 17, 2006.

Bush brothers have complex relationship

By Mark Z. Barabak
LOS ANGELES TIMES

MIAMI When Jeb Bush

was born, his big brother didnt exactly celebrate the news.
As a kid, George viewed
him as a completely unnecessary addition to the family,
John Ellis, a Bush cousin, recounted years later. Jebbie
was just a pain. ... I think that
carried on for a long time.
Sibling relations can be
fraught, a tangle of love, envy
and compassion. In that way,
Jeb and George W. Bush
separated by nearly seven
years and vastly different life
experiences are no different than any other set of
brothers.
But they are, of course, like
no other: Theyre part of a political dynasty, and their dramas play out for the world to
watch, their personal history
entwined with that of their
country.
As he strives to become the
third member of his family to
win the White House, Jeb
Bush bears the blessings as
well as the burdens of that
heritage and, especially, the
legacy of his brother, who left
1
the presidency a scant 6 2
years ago amid an unpopular
war and the near-collapse of
the U.S. economy.
Conflating the two, however,
masks a more complex rela-

tionship, marked by fierce rivalry, wounded feelings and

long periods of estrangement.
Though they share the same
political philosophy both
are more conservative Republicans than their father, President George H.W. Bush they
have never been personally
close.
Stylistically, they stand
poles apart: George W. Bush,
68, outgoing and gregarious,
using gut instinct as a guide;
Jeb Bush, 62, introverted, data-driven and happiest burrowing in the nooks of a briefing book.
Ron Kaufman, an old family
friend, remembers seeing the
pair once at a black-tie dinner,
where George W. Bush, then
Texas governor, was in his
back-slapping element. Jeb
Bush, Floridas new governor,
was politely pleasant but his
eyes were saying hed rather
be back in Tallahassee, Kaufman recalled, working on the
state budget.
One constant, though, has
been loyalty, to the family
cause and one another.
Jeb Bushs most politically
difficult moments of the 2016
campaign surround his fumbling response when asked
whether he supported the war
in Iraq his brother started.
Bush took several days, shaping and reshaping his answer,

before flatly declaring that, in

the
invasion
retrospect,
should never have taken place.
A few days later, it was news
when Bush took issue with his
brothers fiscal policies, suggesting he should have been
quicker to wield his veto pen.
He could have brought budget discipline to Washington,
D.C., Bush said.
Such public breaches, however, are extremely rare.
In 1983, Jeb and George W.
Bush go fishing with their father, Vice President George
H.W. Bush, in Maine.
I love my mom and dad,
Bush recently told a New
Hampshire audience. (He
sometimes preempts questions about family and fealty
by speaking up before asked.)
I love my brother, and people
are just going to have to get
over that. Thats just the way
it is.
The sentiment, however,
was not always reciprocated.
When they were young,
Jeb was somebody for George
to torture, their cousin Ellis
recounted in the 2004 book
The Bushes: Portrait of a Dynasty.
As adults, the two grew
even further apart. One advisor to George W. Bushs 2000
presidential campaign recalls
him rolling his eyes when his
brother chimed in on confer-

ence calls, suggesting if they

werent related they would
probably have nothing to do
with each other.
From early on the brothers
forged strikingly different
paths.
George W. Bush followed his
fathers route through New
England prep school and Yale,
where he was an unimpressive student. After graduating, he eagerly partook of
bachelor life in Houston I
was a spirited lad, he later
said with wry understatement
and spent more than a
decade knocking about the oil
business, with middling success. Bush was married with
twin daughters when he finally quit drinking, after a 40th
birthday bash that was a haze,
save for the hangover.
John Ellis Bush, by contrast, breezed through the
1
University of Texas in 2 2
years, married at age 21 and
moved to Florida, partly because of the social ostracism
faced by his wife, Columba, a
native of Mexico. He became a
father at 23 the couple has
three children and grew
rich in Miamis booming real
estate business. In the early
1980s, he became active in
state Republican politics,
helped along by the Bush
name; his father was then vice
president under Ronald Reagan.

World briefs
WikiLeaks says its leaking
Saudi diplomatic documents
WikiLeaks is in the process of publishing more than 500,000 Saudi diplomatic documents to the Internet, the
transparency website said Friday, a
move that echoes its famous release of
U.S. State Department cables in 2010.
WikiLeaks said in a statement that it
has already posted roughly 60,000 files.
Most of them appear to be in Arabic.
There was no immediate way to verify
the authenticity of the documents, although WikiLeaks has a long track
record of hosting large-scale leaks of
government material. Many of the documents carried green letterhead marked
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia or Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Some were
marked urgent or classified. At least
one appeared to be from the Saudi Embassy in Washington.
If genuine, the documents would offer
a rare glimpse into the inner workings of
the notoriously opaque kingdom. They
might also shed light on Riyadhs longstanding regional rivalry with Iran, its

support for Syrian rebels and Egypts

military-backed government, and its opposition to an emerging international
agreement on Tehrans nuclear program.
One of the documents, dated to 2012,
appears to highlight Saudi Arabias wellknown skepticism about the Iranian nuclear talks. A message from the Saudi
Arabian Embassy in Tehran to the Foreign Ministry in Riyadh describes flirting American messages being carried
to Iran via an unnamed Turkish mediator.
Associated Press

Putin blasts U.S. for ignoring Russian

interests, but offers cooperation
Despite the showdown with the West
over Ukraine, Moscow wants to cooperate with Washington and its allies in
dealing with the threat posed by the Islamic State group and other global challenges, President Vladimir Putin said
Friday as he tried to allay investors
fears over Russias course.
Putin blamed the United States for ignoring Russias interests and trying to

enforce its will on others, but he also

sent conciliatory signals, saying that
Moscow wants a quick settlement to the
Iranian nuclear standoff and a peaceful
political transition in Syria.
Speaking at a major economic forum,
Putin also insisted that Russia wants
Februarys Ukraine peace agreement to
succeed. Fighting there will stop, he
said, once Ukraine provides broader
rights to its eastern regions, gives
amnesty to the rebels and calls local elections there.
The annual event, intended to burnish
Russias image before global investors,
was tarnished by the freezing of Russian
accounts in France and Belgium on
Thursday as part of an effort to enforce
a $50 billion judgment to compensate
shareholders of the now-defunct Yukos
oil company. At a meeting with top executives of global news agencies, including
The Associated Press, which began nearly three hours behind schedule at
around midnight, Putin sought to downplay the freeze and said that Russia will
contest it.
Associated Press

Rand Paul promised to go

big on taxes. He did.
The Kentucky senators
tax plan would scrap much of
the U.S. tax system that has
developed over the past century. In its place, Paul proposes a tax code that looks like it
comes from a different era
and is designed to fund a government that would be much,
much smaller.
He would
drive the
top income
tax rate to
its lowest
level (14.5
percent)
since 1915,
repeal the
estate tax
that began
PAUL
in 1916, toss
aside depreciation rules that have developed over 100 years and eliminate a payroll tax thats been
in place since 1937.
Thisll be the biggest proposal of any candidate so
far, Paul said Thursday on
Fox and Friends. Lets
have the debate in our country about where money is
better spent. Is it better spent
by the people who earned it
or is it better spent sending it
to Washington?
Pauls trying to make a
splash in a crowded Republican field, full of candidates
eager to cut taxes as federal
budget deficits shrink. His
answer is a giant tax reduc-

tion aimed at sparking economic growth combined

with significant spending
cuts. In the past, Paul has
proposed cuts that would affect the military and entitlement programs. Pauls proposal is a flat tax in the
sense that it has a single income tax rate, replacing the
current progressive structure. A true flat tax, as tax
nerds define it, would exempt
capital gains altogether.
Pauls plan would tax capital
gains at 14.5 percent; the current top rate is 23.8 percent.
It is a dramatic and interesting pro-growth proposal,
with more detail than others
proposing a flat tax, said
Douglas Holtz-Eakin, the former Congressional Budget
Office director, noting that
Paul hasnt specified international tax rules that are important to companies. Its ultimate success will be driven
by the spending side of the
budget. Poor trend growth is
the most pressing issue, and
this focuses directly on
growth.
Others sound more cautionary notes. Pauls plan
would create a large, large
revenue loss, said Alan
Viard, a resident scholar at
the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. This
is a huge change and people
are going to have to decide
whether its good or bad,
Viard said. Its structural
change on the business side
and maybe you could really
say on the individual side
too.

NIU XIAOLEI/XINHUA/SIPA USA FILE PHOTOGRAPH

Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton addresses

the press on March 10.

For Hillary Clinton, the race

for campaign cash is on
By Anita Kumar
and David Siders
MCCLATCHY WASHINGTON BUREAU

WASHINGTON Hillary
Clinton has courted voters in
the early nominating states
of Iowa, New Hampshire and
South Carolina. Shes rallied
supporters in New York.
Now, shes heading to California to raise big bucks.
Clinton is headlining a series of Hollywood fundraisers this weekend, looking to
take advantage of the long
list of wealthy donors that
her family has relied on to
bankroll their campaigns for
years.
Its almost like she could
come here every week and
raise money, said Bill Carrick, a longtime Democratic
strategist based in Los Angeles. This is just a continuation of a long-term love affair
between Democratic activists and donors and the

Clinton family.
Clinton is spending much
of the month in a dash for
cash before the fundraising
quarter ends, trying to compete with a bevy of Republican candidates. Jeb Bush,
who officially entered the
race Monday, has been collecting millions of dollars for
months, raising expectations
that he may have as much as
$500 million by this summer.
Clinton has added more
fundraisers to her schedule
because of concerns about
potential Republican rivals,
said a campaign official familiar with her schedule but
not authorized to speak publicly as a matter of practice.
She has nearly 30 this month,
including stops in New York,
Boston, Philadelphia, St.
Louis and, of course, LA and
San Francisco. Her popular
husband will eventually help
raise money as well.