Amid budget impasse, Obama holds news conference

'Call me naive, but my expectation is that leaders are going to lead'

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama held a news conference late Wednesday morning, his first formal question-and-answer session since high-stakes debt and budget negotiations began.

Obama opened with comments about spurring the economy and job growth, touching on the deficit talks that have occupied Vice President Joe Biden and congressional leaders over the past several weeks.
"There are steps we can take right now that will help businesses create new jobs here in America," said Obama.

"We're going to need to look at the whole budget," said the president. "And eliminate waste wherever we find it."

Obama continued, "I spent the last two years cutting taxes for ordinary Americans ... it would be nice if we could keep every tax break there is, but we have to make some tough choices to cut our deficit."

"If you are a wealthy CEO ... your taxes are lower than they've ever been," said Obama. He said that if tax cuts for that demographic were changed, "You can still afford to ride on your private jet, you're just going to have to pay a little more."

"The good news is, because of the work that's been done, I think we can actually bridge our differences," said Obama. He said that the White House will continue discussions with lawmakers for "as long as it takes."

He added, "Call me naive, but my expectation is that leaders are going to lead."

Al-Qaida creates 'hitlist' of U.S. officials and business leaders

WASHINGTON - An al-Qaida linked website has posted a potential hit list of targets that include names and photos of several U.S. officials and business leaders, calling for terrorists to target these Americans in their own homes.

The FBI has sent out a new intelligence bulletin to law enforcement agencies, warning that this new web-based threat, while not a specific plot, is very detailed.
The bulletin said the list includes leaders "in government, industry and media."
The FBI has notified those individuals who are named.
The list includes Wall Street firms, political leaders, leaders with think tanks and contractors who do business with the military.

The websites contain 40 specific names, 26 of them with photos attached, and they call for posting home addresses.
One jihadist called for sending package bombs to any listed address as just one possibility.
An FBI spokesman declined to comment.

The FBI is calling the list of names the most detailed web-based al-Qaida-linked threat since Osama bin Laden was killed.
The list has also been discussed on another al-Qaida-linked Web forum.
The concern is a lone actor could try to use the specific information for a plot.
The FBI letter said the information on the overseas websites "is aspirational and it's unknown if the threat will progress beyond these discussion forums."
These specific postings follow calls by Adam Gadahn -- al-Qaida's American-born communication chief -- for individual attacks.

Officials are concerned the list has been shared on numerous jihadist sites.
"What's scary about this is how specific the individual information is," said former New York State Homeland Security Director Michael Balboni. "What you don't know is, when does aspirational become operational in cases like this, involving a possible lone actor here inspired by a website."
The FBI memo stresses al-Qaida and its supporters have a history of making web based threats with little result.

"Part of this is a necessary precaution. You don't want to scare people," Balboni said. "But there is much more specific, individual targeting than we've seen before."
Since bin Laden was killed, intelligence officials have been working to track terrorists and monitor possible plots.

Experts say fear of a homegrown or isolated actor remains a concern.

US: We'll hunt down new al-Qaida boss

 

WASHINGTON — The United States is just as determined to hunt down and kill al-Qaida's new chief as it did his predecessor, Osama bin Laden, Obama administration officials said on Thursday.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Ayman al-Zawahri, al-Qaida's longtime second-in-command and now its top leader, does not have the "peculiar charisma" and operational experience of bin Laden, who was killed by U.S. forces last month.

But Gates and other U.S. officials said al-Qaida remains a threat despite its loss of bin Laden, who was considered the driving force behind the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
"We should be mindful that ... al-Qaida seeks to perpetuate itself, seeks to find replacements to those that have been killed and remains committed to the agenda that bin Laden put before them," Gates told reporters.
"So I think he's (al-Zawahri's) got some challenges but I think it's a reminder that they are still out there and we still need to keep after them," he said.

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made clear that al-Zawahri — an Egyptian-born ideologue — remains high on the U.S. list of hunted militants.
"He and his organization still threaten us. And as we did seek to capture and kill — and succeed in killing — bin Laden, we certainly will do the same thing with Zawahri," Mullen told reporters.

Al-Zawahri has taken over the leadership after the killing of bin Laden, the group announced online on Thursday.
"The general leadership of al-Qaida group, after the completion of consultation, announces that Sheikh Dr. Ayman Zawahri, may God give him success, has assumed responsibility for command of the group," the Islamist website Ansar al-Mujahedeen (Followers of the Holy Warriors) said in a statement.

10 congressmen sue Obama over strikes in Libya

WASHINGTON (AP) - A bipartisan group of 10 lawmakers is suing President Barack Obama for taking military action against Libya without war authorization from Congress.

The lawmakers say Obama violated the Constitution in bypassing Congress and using international organizations like the United Nations and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to authorize military force.

The lawmakers want a judge to issue an order suspending military operations without congressional approval. They said they were filing their lawsuit Wednesday against Obama and Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
The plaintiffs are Democratic Reps. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, John Conyers of Michigan and Michael Capuano of Massachusetts and Republican Reps. Walter Jones and Howard Coble of North Carolina, Tim Johnson of Illinois, Dan Burton of Indiana, Jimmy Duncan of Tennessee, Roscoe Bartlett of Maryland and Ron Paul of Texas.

Obama, Netanyahu face turning point

WASHINGTON — As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel heads to the White House on Friday for the seventh meeting since President Obama took office, the two men are facing a turning point in a relationship that has never been warm.

By all accounts, they do not trust each other. President Obama has told aides and allies that he does not believe that Mr. Netanyahu will ever be willing to make the kind of big concessions that will lead to a peace deal.

For his part, Mr. Netanyahu has complained that Mr. Obama has pushed Israel too far — a point driven home during a furious phone call with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Thursday morning, just hours before Mr. Obama’s speech, during which the prime minister reacted angrily to the president’s plan to endorse Israel’s pre-1967 borders for a future Palestinian state.

Mr. Obama did not back down. But the last-minute furor highlights the discord as they head into what one Israeli official described as a “train wreck” coming their way: a United Nations General Assembly vote on Palestinian statehood in September.

Mr. Netanyahu, his close associates say, desperately wants Mr. Obama to use the diplomatic muscle of the United States to protect Israel from the vote, not only by vetoing it in the Security Council, but also by leaning hard on America’s European allies to get them to reject it as well.


Mr. Obama has indicated that he will certainly do the first. But it remains unclear how far Mr. Obama can go to persuade Britain, France and other American allies to join the United States in rejecting the move, particularly as long as Mr. Netanyahu continues to resist endorsing the pre-1967 lines.

From the day they first met, at the King David Hotel on July 23, 2008, when Mr. Obama, then the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, visited Israel, the two men have struck, at most, an intellectual bond. Mr. Netanyahu, as the leader of Israel’s conservative Likud Party, was far more comfortable with the Republican Party in the United States than with Mr. Obama, the son of a Muslim man from Kenya whose introduction to the Arab-Israeli conflict was initially framed by discussions with pro-Palestinian academics.

“Their relationship is correct at best,” said Judith Kipper, director of Middle East programs at the Institute of World Affairs. Mr. Netanyahu “likes the status quo, and he particularly identifies with conservative Republicans.”

Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League and a friend of Mr. Netanyahu’s, recalled that after the first meeting, Mr. Netanyahu walked out of the hotel and told him that he had been impressed with Mr. Obama’s intellect, and that the American presidency “was his to lose.”