Day: February 5, 2007

By LIZ SIDOTI

Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor whose popularity soared after his response to the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, moved closer to a full-fledged campaign for the Republican presidential nomination on Monday.

In a sign that he’s serious about running for the White House, the two-term mayor filed a so-called “statement of candidacy” with the Federal Election Commission, indicating that he would seek the presidency as a Republican should he decide to go forward.

Former presidential candidate Ralph Nader on Sunday left the door open for another possible White House bid in 2008 and criticized Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton as “a panderer and a flatterer.”

Asked on CNN’s Late Edition news program if he would run in 2008, the lawyer and consumer activist said, “It’s really too early to say. … I’ll consider it later in the year.”

Nader, 72, said he did not plan to vote for Clinton, a Democratic senator from New York and former first lady.

By CAREN BOHAN

President George W. Bush is expected on Monday to estimate the costs for the Iraq war at nearly $300 billion over the next 2 1/2 years and propose limiting domestic spending for fiscal year 2008.

The new budget, which also includes a 10.5 percent increase for other military spending, is the first he will submit to the Democratic-controlled Congress. It will be released at 10 a.m./1500 GMT

While the U.S. invasion of Iraq has left hundreds of thousands of that country’s residents dead or wounded, it has also sent some 2 million Iraqis fleeing their homeland — often replacing once secure lives with new ones defined by fear and poverty.

Yet the United States, the force behind the war that is driving Iraqis from their home, has done little, if anything, to welcome such refugees within its borders.

By HOLLY RAMER and MIKE GLOVER

When it comes to the Iraq war, apparently there is more than one right answer.

Among rank-and-file Democrats in early voting states like New Hampshire and Iowa, anti-war passion is so strong that it’s difficult for their party’s presidential candidates to oppose the war too forcefully. On the other hand, candidates don’t want to go too far and risk losing swing voters critical to winning the general election.

U.S. military officers offered their condolences on Monday to an Iraqi family south of Baghdad in a rare admission of error after killing two innocent Iraqis in an airstrike last Tuesday.

A U.S. military statement released on January 31 said two “insurgents” out of a four-man team were killed as they were trying to plant a roadside bomb in the town of Mahmudiya.

Calling the incident a “tragic accident,” the officers on Monday handed out $2,500 to the family for each man killed.

By SUSAN CORNWELL

Democrat Sen. Dianne Feinstein on Sunday warned Republicans not to block consideration of a measure opposing President Bush’s troop increase in Iraq, saying it would be a “terrible mistake” to prevent debate on the top issue in America.

With a Senate vote set for Monday on whether to consider the bipartisan resolution, Feinstein warned that if the nonbinding measure is blocked, even tougher proposals against the president’s Iraq policy will surface before long.

Democratic U.S. presidential candidate John Edwards on Sunday said that he would raise taxes, chiefly on the wealthy, to pay for expanded healthcare coverage under a plan costing $90 billion to $120 billion a year to be unveiled on Monday.

“We’ll have to raise taxes. The only way you can pay for a healthcare plan that cost anywhere from $90 to $120 billion is there has to be a revenue source,” Edwards said on NBC’s Meet the Press news program.