Iémen: EUA e Reino Unido fecham embaixadas perante suspeitas de ameaça da Al Qaeda

«The U.S. closed its embassy in Yemen on Sunday, citing ongoing threats by the al Qaeda group linked to the failed Christmas Day bid to bomb a Detroit-bound flight.


"The U.S. Embassy in San'a is closed today, January 3, 2010, in response to ongoing threats by al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula ... to attack American interests in Yemen," the embassy said in a brief message on its Web site. The message did not say how long the embassy, which has been assaulted and threatened several times in the past decade, would remain closed.


“There are indications that Al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula is targeting our embassy and targeting our personnel. We’re not going to take any chance with the lives of diplomats,” White House Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Adviser John Brennan said on “Fox News Sunday.”


The British government joined the United States in closing its embassy in Yemen on Sunday, AP reports. Shutting an embassy is a rare and dire step, dramatizing the Arab nation's position as one of the world's premier terrorist havens.


The closures came a day after Gen. David Petraeus, the head of U.S. Central Command, made a surprise visit to the country on Saturday, where he reportedly met with President Ali Abdullah Saleh.


“Gen. Petraeus was in Yemen today as part of our ongoing consultations with and efforts in support of Yemen," a senior administration official said Saturday, painting the trip as part of an ongoing collaboration with the government there.


Yemen is where alleged Northwest Airlines flight 253 bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is believed to have travelled to obtain from Al Qaeda the explosives he tried to detonate aboard the Detroit-bound airplane.


Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula claimed responsibility for the attempted Christmas Day attack, a link President Obama acknowledged for the first time Saturday in his weekly address.


“As President,” Obama said, “I've made it a priority to strengthen our partnership with the Yemeni government—training and equipping their security forces, sharing intelligence and working with them to strike al Qaeda terrorists.”


“We are very concerned about Al Qaeda’s continued growth there,” Brennan said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “But they are not just focusing on Yemen… they are increasingly looking to the West.”


“We keep thwarting their attacks, but they keep pressing,” warned Brennan.

On Thursday, the U.S. embassy had sent out a Security Warden Message encouraging U.S. citizens there “to follow good security practices and maintain situational awareness,” mentioning Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula’s “threats against Westerners working in embassies and elsewhere, characterizing them as ‘unbelievers’ and ‘crusaders.’”


The most recent attack on the U.S. embassy, in September, 2008, killed 19, including an 18-year-old American woman and six of the attackers, though no diplomats or members of the mission were hurt. Al Qaeda in Yemen took credit for that assault.


Petraeus’ visit Saturday came as President Obama and his top national security aides are sifting through the initial findings of reviews of airport security procedures and how the government tracks attempted terrorists.


Obama has called a high-level meeting in the situation room on Tuesday to go over the findings with his senior intelligence and national security officials. In the meantime, the White House dispatched Brennan, who is leading the reviews, to appear on several of the Sunday talk shows.


On CNN, Brennan conceded that “Clearly the system didn’t work. We had a problem in terms of why Abdulmutallab got on the plane.”


But he stressed that “There was no smoking gun out there… we had bits and pieces of information.”


“It was not like 9/11,” Brennan said of the failure of the intelligence process to flag Abdulmutallab before the attack. “There was no indication that any of these agencies were intentionally holding back information. There were lapses and human errors… [but] there wasn’t an effort to try and conceal information.

Former Sept. 11 Commission chairman Thomas Kean said Sunday that Abdulmutallab "probably did us a favor."

"The president now is saying the right things and I believe he'll do the right thing," Kean said on CNN, but added: "No matter what else is going on, this has always got to be number one."

Kean, the former Republican governor of New Jersey, said that Brennan, who appeared just before him, was “a bit defensive,” and that the intelligence failing was similar to 9/11.

"A lot of pieces of information, if they'd been put together, then we might have deterred that plot," he said. "This is the same thing."

Republican Sen. Jim DeMint (S.C.) took a similar line Sunday, saying “There’s no question that the president downplayed the risk of terrorism since he took office.”


“It begins with not even being willing to use the word.”


Sen. Clare McCaskill (D-Mo.), appearing with DeMint on CNN on Sunday, shot back, “It is unfair and frankly political to take pot shots as the president as we respond to this failure in our system that we’ve got to get fixed.”


On Saturday, the administration official stressed that "we have made Yemen a priority over the course of this year,” echoing language used by Obama in his weekly address. The official said that “Gen. Petraeus briefed John Brennan on the visit, and during the course of his consultations with the president, Brennan updated the president on Gen. Petraeus’s productive visit.”


Several announcements on Saturday seemed to reinforce that narrative. Yemen reportedly deployed several hundred troops to al Qaeda’s strongholds in the nation’s eastern provinces of Marib and Jouf.


Yemen, just south of Saudi Arabia and separated from Somalia, which has also emerged as a Qaeda outpost, by the narrow Gulf of Aden, is the poorest nation in the Arab world. The location of the attack on the USS Cole in 2000, Yemen received $67 million in publicly disclosed training and support funds from the Pentagon in the current fiscal year year, up from just $4.6 million in FY2006 and second only to the $112 million received by Pakistan.


On Friday, Petraeus told reporters in Baghdad that U.S. counterterrorism aid to Yemen ''will more than double this coming year.''


''Al-Qaida are always on the lookout for places where they might be able to put down roots,'' he said.



Yemen, the ancestral home of Osama BIn Laden, is also the native country of nearly half the remaining inmates held at Guantanamo Bay, and the instability of the central government and increased presence and position of Al Qaeda there have emerged as major obstacles Obama’s pledge to close the prison.

While POLITICO, the New York Times and others have reported there was a decision not to release anyone else to Yemen, Brennan said Sunday and claimed that such cases would still be reviewed on a case-by-case basis.

“Some of these individuals are going to be transferred back to Yemen at the right time, at the right pace and the right way, he said. “We want to make sure we are able to close Guantanamo. Guantanmo has been used a propaganda tool by AQ and others.”


America has already stepped up its military cooperation with Saleh’s government, whose influence is mostly contained to the capital, including a U.S.-aided air strike on December 24 apparently directed at al Qaeda leadership there. There were numerous reports that that attack employed drones such as those the U.S. has used to target terrorists in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.


“We are continuing to press and maintain pressure on Al Qaeda in Yemen,” said Brennan on Sunday. “There a number of Al Qaeda operatives in Yemen who are no longer alive as of last month.”


Also Saturday, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown called for an international conference on Jan. 28 on how best to counter radicalization in Yemen, as well as a commitment to fund, along with the U.S., the Yemeni police and coast guard’s counter-terror efforts. Pirates in the Gulf of Aden have taken four ships in the past week for ransom.»

in POLITICO.COM

Mensagem republicana para 2010, por Mitch McConnell

Obama admite ligação da Al Qaeda à tentativa falhada de atentado no voo 253 da Northwest Airlines

«HONOLULU — President Obama publicly acknowledged for the first time a link between Al Qaeda and the 23-year-old Nigerian man accused of trying to blow up Northwest Airlines Flight 253 as it approached the Detroit airport on Christmas Day.


“It appears that he joined an affiliate of Al Qaeda, and that this group — Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula — trained him, equipped him with those explosives and directed him to attack that plane headed for America,” Obama said of the suspect, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, in his weekly radio and Internet address.


White House aides have acknowledged Abdulmutallab’s ties to Al Qaeda, which claimed responsibility for the attempted attack earlier this week, but Obama did not mention the link in either of his two previous statements on the attack.

Amid growing scrutiny of intelligence agencies, Obama ticked off what he’s accomplished in terms of national security since he took office in January. While “often out of sight, our progress has been unmistakable,” he said, adding that it has “saved countless American lives.”

Obama zeroed in on Yemen in the weekly address, highlighting his efforts to strengthen U.S. relations with the central government, which preceded the attempted attack and which he said have already produced results.


“Training camps have been struck; leaders eliminated; plots disrupted,” Obama said. “And all those involved in the attempted act of terrorism on Christmas must know — you too will be held to account.”


While Obama noted that Abdulmutallab traveled to Yemen in advance of the attempted attack, he characterized the country as “grappling with crushing poverty and deadly insurgencies” but did not point out that the would-be bomber was from a very wealthy family in Nigeria.


Obama is currently reviewing preliminary results of the reviews he ordered into the terrorist watch-list system and airport security procedures in advance of a meeting Tuesday with top intelligence and security officials.


He characterized the reviews — which are being led by his counterterrorism adviser John Brennan — as part of his efforts to give intelligence, law enforcement and homeland security officials the resources they need to help keep Americans safe.


“This includes making sure these communities — and the people in them — are coordinating effectively and are held accountable at every level,” Obama said.


Obama recognized his upcoming one-year anniversary in office and offered listeners an accounting of what he’s done in terms of national security since last January.


“On that day I also made it very clear — our nation is at war against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred and that we will do whatever it takes to defeat them and defend our country, even as we uphold the values that have always distinguished America among nations,” Obama said.


“And make no mistake, that's exactly what we've been doing,” he said, citing the war winding down in Iraq and the increased U.S. resources directed to Afghanistan and Pakistan.


Obama said that “though often out of sight, our progress has been unmistakable. Along with our partners, we've disrupted terrorist financing, cut off recruiting chains, inflicted major losses on Al Qaeda's leadership, thwarted plots here in the United States and saved countless American lives.”


He ended by setting his own New Year’s resolution — one that he had high hopes for heading into his first year in office: bipartisanship.


“[A]s our reviews continue, let us ask the questions that need to be asked. Let us make the changes that need to be made. Let us debate the best way to protect the country we all love. That is the right and responsibility of every American and every elected official,” he said.


“But as we go forward, let us remember this — our adversaries are those who would attack our country, not our fellow Americans, not each other,” Obama said, highlighting the “confidence and optimism” Americans shared after Sept. 11.


“Instead of succumbing to partisanship and division, let's summon the unity that this moment demands. Let's work together, with a seriousness of purpose, to do what must be done to keep our country safe. As we begin this new year, I cannot imagine a more fitting resolution to guide us — as a people and as a nation.”»

in POLITICO.COM

Mensagem de Ano Novo de Barack Obama

O CASA BRANCA deseja-lhe um Feliz 2010

Momentos que ficam de 2009 na política americana

Críticas e elogios a Obama no rescaldo da tentativa falhada de ataque terrorista

Já a secretária Janet Napolitano, titular da pasta da Segurança Interna, está sob fogo por ter dito que «o sistema funcionou».

Obama admite «falha no sistema de segurança»

«Caderno Afegão», por Alexandra Lucas Coelho

«Este livro é um acto de coragem. É um acto de optimismo, também.
Paul Theroux explica na introdução a "O Velho Expresso da Patagónia" que "os viajantes são essencialmente optimistas, ou então nunca iriam a lado nenhum".

É esse optimismo que permite a Alexandra Lucas Coelho afastar quaisquer receios com uma espécie de fatalismo paradoxalmente empreendedor: "não há nada a fazer". Mesmo quando por instantes se lhe infiltra na mente a dúvida acerca do desconhecido que a certa altura a transporta, sabe-se lá para onde, numa terra onde "um estrangeiro é um acepipe". "Não há nada a fazer." E a viagem continua.

Vamos com ela aos jardins de Babur. Descobrimos com ela – num país masculino, onde até na morgue há frigoríficos distintos para os cadáveres de homens e mulheres – a herança da extraordinária rainha Gowar Shad. Mergulhamos o olhar no azul intenso de Band-e-Amir, um milagre atribuído a Ali, primo e genro do Profeta, que continua a proporcionar a quem o visita os bens mais escassos num país em guerra: tranquilidade e alegria.

Aquilo que aqui, a ocidente, a milhares de quilómetros de distância, é apenas um borrão sem nome, uma massa de ideias vagas e de lugares-comuns, geopolítica e geoestratégia, toma a forma de gente concreta, ganha contornos, espessura, rosto. O facto de Alexandra Lucas Coelho escrever tão bem faz o resto. É o meio de transporte em que viajamos por um lugar aonde, é quase certo, nunca iríamos de outro modo.»
(do prefácio de Carlos Vaz Marques)

Acompanhou-me nos últimos dias e acabei de o ler há momentos. É um livro belíssimo , que vale a pena ser saboreado.

Alexandra Lucas Coelho, jornalista do «Público», escreveu «Caderno Afegão», obra na qual relata a sua experiência (única) no Afeganistão, em Junho de 2008.

Numa altura em que o Afeganistão é, cada vez mais, o país chave para se perceber como irá correr o resto do mandato de Obama, aqui fica a sugestão de leitura, no CASA BRANCA.

A edição (muito bonita) é da Tinta da China.

O segundo semestre de 2009 em cinco minutos

Relances de 2009 num minuto e pouco

Nancy Pelosy, 'madam speaker'

Texto publicado no passado dia 21 de Dezembro, no «Histórias da Casa Branca», site de A Bola, secção Outros Mundos, sobre a speaker da Câmara dos Representantes:

Nancy Pelosi, "madam speaker"

Por Germano Almeida

Há um elo fundamental para que a corrente entre a Casa Branca de Barack Obama e o Congresso possa funcionar – e batalhas como a da Saúde mostram que nem sempre tem funcionado da melhor forma. Esse elo chama-se Nancy Pelosi, a poderosa 'speaker' da Câmara dos Representantes.

Nancy Patricia D'Alesandro Pelosi, 69 anos, é a primeira mulher a liderar a House (a câmara baixa), um marco histórico que até George W. Bush (que ainda era Presidente quando Nancy atingiu o posto) destacou durante largos minutos em discurso no Congresso. É, também, a primeira italo-americana e a primeira congressista eleita pelo estado da Califórnia a assumir o posto de speaker.

Filha de um antigo congressista do Maryland, Thomas D'Alesandro, Nancy cresceu numa família com fortes ligações ao Partido Democrata. Além de ter servido no Congresso, o pai de Nancy foi também mayor de Baltimore, tal como o filho, Thomas D'Alesandro III, irmão da actual 'speaker'.

É católica (religião minoritária no meio predominantemente protestante da política americana) e está casada, há 46 anos, com Paul Pelosi. Têm cinco filhos: Nancy Corrine, Christine, Jacqueline, Paul e Alexandra.

A vocação política, que está nos genes de Nancy, levou-a a entrar no Congresso há mais de duas décadas, em 1987. Quinze anos depois, tomou a liderança da bancada democrata, sucedendo a Dick Gephardt, que abandonou o cargo para preparar a sua (mal sucedida...) candidatura presidencial nas primárias de 2004.

Depois de ter liderado a então minoria democrata durante quatro anos, na primeira parte dos anos Bush, a vitória do Partido Democrata nas intercalares de 2006 levou Pelosi a ser escolhida para comandar a Câmara dos Representantes.

Jogo de equilíbrios
Dois anos depois, quando Barack Obama conquistou a Casa Branca, os democratas passaram a beneficiar de um «pleno» de que há muito não dispunham: controlam, desde aí, a Presidência, o Senado e a Câmara dos Representantes.

A somar a este cenário aparentemente tão favorável para o Partido Democrata, falta dizer que, poucos meses depois da eleição de Obama, foi atingido o mítico número de 60 senadores – o limiar que impede um 'filibuster' (minoria de bloqueio) republicano.

É que apesar de terem perdido o influente senador Joe Lieberman, do Connecticut (que passou para a coluna dos independentes), os democratas conquistaram o apoio do senador Arlen Spector, da Pensilvânia, que trocou de partido, abandonando os republicanos, na sequência do apoio que deu ao 'stimulus package' preparado pela Administração Obama para responder à crise económica, aprovado no Senado.

À primeira vista, parecia o cenário político ideal para que a Administração Obama pudesse jogar os seus trunfos com relativa tranquilidade. Mas é sabido que as coisas estão longe de ser assim: o Presidente ainda não sabe se vai conseguir passar no Senado um dos pilares do seu primeiro mandato, a Reforma da Saúde, apesar de esta já ter passado na Câmara dos Representantes. Foi uma aprovação histórica, mas tangencial – e a intervenção de Nancy Pelosi nas negociações de bastidores revelou-se decisiva.

Com um Partido Republicano cada vez mais disposto a subir o tom da oposição a Obama (e ansioso por aproveitar as intercalares de 2010 para alterar fortemente os dados do jogo), e com uma fatia minoritária -- mas significativa para formar maiorias -- de 'Blue Dogs' democratas que vota frequentemente em direcção oposta à do Presidente, não tem sido fácil gerir este jogo de equilíbrios.

Obama sabe que corre o risco de perder estas maiorias alargadas no Congresso dentro de poucos meses – e conta com a habilidade negocial de Nancy para ir passando as medidas essenciais. Já foi assim com a recuperação económica, está a ser assim com a Reforma da Saúde e há-de ser assim com a Climate Bill e, sobretudo, quando chegar o momento do Congresso apreciar a decisão do Presidente para o AfPak.

Refazer pontes políticas
Forte opositora da guerra do Iraque, Nancy também tem sido contra a escalada militar adoptada pelos EUA no Afeganistão, nos últimos anos, e não escondeu as suas enormes reservas sobre a recente decisão de Barack Obama de enviar mais 30 mil efectivos para o terreno.

Também na Reforma da Saúde, Pelosi tem-se situado na ala esquerda das sensibilidades democratas, mostrando-se acérrima defensora de uma via tendencialmente universal – e a favor da polémica 'public option', que está a emperrar uma solução de consenso.

Mas, como 'speaker' do Congresso, Nancy tem sabido interpretar a máxima que nos diz que a política está longe de ser um mundo ideal e deve ser «a arte do possível»: há poucos meses, garantia a pés juntos que «a Reforma da Saúde terá a 'public option' ou então não será uma verdadeira reforma». Perante as ameaças dos 'Blue Dogs' de travarem o diploma, Nancy já diz agora que «vale a pena encontrar vias para encontrar pontes políticas que permitam aprovar o essencial».

Mesmo ocupando uma franja mais liberal do que o Presidente, Nancy Pelosi tem sido decisiva para que Obama possa ver no Congresso um aliado e não um adversário.»

A mensagem de Natal de Barack e Michelle Obama

Reforma da Saúde aprovada no Senado (IV): 60 votos a favor, 39 contra

Reforma da Saúde aprovada no Senado (III): Obama fala numa «reforma real e significativa»

O Presidente agradeceu a Harry Reid, líder da maioria democrata no Senado, a Nancy Pelosi, speaker da Câmara dos Representantes, o «extraordinário trabalho cumprido», falou num «voto histórico» e lembrou: «Desde Teddy Roosevelt, sete Presidentes, democratas e republicanos, tentaram reformar o sistema e essas tentativas foram sempre bloqueadas pelos grandes interesses».

Obama destacou «as medidas mais duras algumas vez já tomadas para travar os interesses das grandes companhias e proteger os cidadãos». É «a protecção para 30 milhões de americanos que não a tinham», insistiu Obama.

E lançou: «É a maior reforma governamental desde a Segurança Social e, no caso da Saúde, desde a implantação do Medicare, nos anos 60».

Reforma da Saúde aprovada no Senado (II): programa vai custar 871 mil milhões de euros

«After months of blown deadlines and political near-death experiences, a sweeping health care reform bill cleared the Senate Thursday on a party-line vote, putting President Barack Obama within reach of a domestic policy achievement that has eluded Democrats for decades.


With Vice President Joe Biden presiding over the session, Democrats gathered in the chamber before sunrise on the day before Christmas to cast a vote long in coming but in the end, hardly a surprise, a 60-39 tally that was the fourth time in as many days that Democrats proved they could muster the winning margin.


But this was the one that counted, the bookend to a House vote last month that puts Congress on record saying that Americans have a right to affordable health insurance, with plans that will cover 30 million Americans currently without it.


“With today’s vote, we are now incredibly close to making health insurance reform a reality in this country,” President Barack Obama said at the White House, calling the bill the important piece of social legislation since Social Security in the 1930s. “Our challenge, then, is to finish the job.”


Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said before the vote that Americans could wait no more. “How much longer can we afford to put this off, or ask the uninsured for their patience?” Reid said. “We may not completely cure this crisis today or tomorrow, but we must start toward that end. We must strive for progress.”


But clearly exhausted, Reid mistakenly voted no when the roll call came to him. Reid shook his head, changed his vote to "aye" – and rested his head on his desk briefly. The chamber erupted in laughter.


"I spent a very restless night last night trying to figure out how I could show some bipartisanship and I think I was able to accomplish that for a few minutes," Reid joked later.


The vote sets the stage for difficult House-Senate negotiations during which Democrats will be forced to settle differences that have lingered for months, and there is still no guarantee a bill will pass in the end.


Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), one of the last Democratic holdouts, once again made clear that his vote isn’t assured when the bill returns to the Senate. In the hallway outside the vote, he told his fellow moderate, Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), “Our work is not over.”


"Splitting the difference here could well break the 60-vote consensus," Lieberman said to reporters.


Moments after the historic vote, Nelson returned to the Senate floor, to reassert his call for strong language in the bill that prevents federal funding of abortion, another likely sticking point in the upcoming negotiations.


Republicans, too, say their work isn’t finished. “This fight isn’t over. My colleagues and I will work to stop this bill from becoming law. That’s the clear will of the American people — and we’re going to continue to fight on their behalf,” Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said.

But with momentum at their back, Democrats believe they can craft a compromise that, in broad strokes, would expand coverage through subsidies to help Americans buy insurance and allowing more people into the Medicaid program. The Senate plan includes a new national health insurance program overseen by the government but offered through private insurers.

Both the House and Senate bills prevent insurance companies from dropping patients who get sick and create a new legal requirement that all Americans must own health insurance – a provision already under growing attack from conservatives and liberals.

For a day at least, however, Democrats basked in the moment.


When Sen. Robert Byrd’s name was called, the ailing West Virginian said, “Mr. President, this is for my friend, Ted Kennedy – aye," a reference to the late Massachusetts senator who long fought for universal health care.


Kennedy’s wife, Victoria Kennedy, attended this vote, as she did early Monday morning. Tears in her eyes, she was emotional after the vote. "This is an enormous step for our country," she told reporters off the Senate floor. "We have some steps to go. But we have come too far. We're not going to let this opportunity slip away"


Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) was the last vote, entering the chamber late to a round of applause, and he yelled out "yes."


The visitor's gallery was filled with staff that worked on the bill, as well as the longest-serving House member in history, John Dingell, whose father fought for universal health care. Following the vote, the usually stoic Reid broke into a broad smile, and accepted a parade of handshakes from Democrats. He embraced Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), who he worked hard to win over last month for the first key test vote.


Senate Republican Jim Bunning of Kentucky was absent for the vote.


Obama has said he would be deeply involved in the negotiations – a contrast to his approach up to this point, involving himself only at key moments and frustrating Democrats who wanted more hands-on help from their leader as they took politically dicey votes.


“We hope to have a whole bunch of folks over here in the West Wing, and I’ll be rolling up my sleeves and spending some time before the full Congress even gets into session, because the American people need it now,” Obama told PBS Wednesday in an interview.


Reid accomplished what was long viewed as impossible: He drafted a comprehensive reform bill palatable to both extremes of his Democratic caucus, moderates and liberals, plus everybody in between.


The Senate plan falls far short of Democrats' initial vision for reform in one key regard — it lacks a government-run insurance option after several moderate Democrats said they’d block the bill if it remained. That decision has divided the Democratic base, with many liberals saying the plan isn’t true reform and would merely enrich private insurers.


But the past four days have still been heady for Democrats, who are well aware of their role in pushing health care reform farther than their predecessors. Reid, in particular, has been singled out repeatedly for praise.

“He is on the verge of achieving what majority leaders going back over a half a century have failed to accomplish,” Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), chairman of the Senate health committee, said. “Make no mistake, Majority Leader Reid has earned his place in the Senate's history.”


Senate Republicans gambled on Democrats becoming so utterly divided that they would be forced to scrap the bill.


Democrats did struggle to find consensus at every step of the process – during the painstaking committee-level negotiations in both chambers, and as Pelosi and Reid attempted to push the bills towards final passage.


But congressional Democrats always remained remarkably united on the need to finish the job. In the last month, as Senate Republicans threw up procedural hurdles and portrayed the bill as a dangerous experiment, Democrats emerged as a more cohesive unit than when the process began.

“Ultimately, every Democrat from the most liberal to the most conservative realized we had to get a bill, whether they wanted to do health care at the beginning or not,” Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y) said after Nelson, the last holdout, committed his vote last weekend. “Everybody realized there was just no option and nobody wanted to be the last person to bring it down.”


Republicans kept up their fight to the end. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who was once viewed as a potential Republican supporter and spent months negotiating with Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), said passing the bill would be worse than doing nothing.


“When the debate began last year, interested legislators of both parties set forth benchmarks that were no-brainers: Health care reform should lower the cost of premiums. It should reduce the deficit. It should bend the growth curve in health care the right way,” Grassley said. “The Reid bill doesn't do any of those things.”


Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) repeated charges he first made last weekend that the process was corrupt, citing state-specific deals Reid struck with members to secure their votes.


“This vote is indeed historic,” Coburn said in a statement Thursday. “This Congress will be remembered for its arrogance, corruption and stupidity. … If this bill becomes law, future generations will rue this day and I will do everything in my power to work toward its repeal.”


Some of the toughest work remains ahead.


Senate Democrats concede that significant differences with the House – coupled with the fatigue caused by 25 consecutive days in session this month – will prevent delivering a final bill to Obama’s desk by the State of the Union speech.


“Let's be very honest about this, we need a break,” Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said. “We need a break to get home to our families, to repair some relationships with our spouses, and to relax and recharge and come back. And I think we'll have a much more positive outcome after that break. But it does take time away in January. It may mean that this will take a little longer.”

And after a year of deadlines for action that came and went – the August recess, Columbus Day, Thanksgiving, the end of year – Durbin swore them off. “No. Nope. No deadlines. Boy, I have I learned that. I've announced three or four solemn deadlines during the course of this and had to eat my words every time so I'm finished with deadlines,” he said.


The two bills share the major goals of expanding coverage to millions of Americans and slowing the rapid growth in health care costs. But they differ in many ways, both large and small. Beyond the public option and abortion, the House and Senate bills are at odds over the taxes levied to pay for the overhaul, the mandate on employers to provide coverage, and the amount of subsidies for low- and moderate-income people to purchase coverage.

Democrats at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue have been trying to ease the way for a smooth, politically painless negotiation between the House and Senate on a final bill. Few expect the public option to survive when the two bills are merged, but that didn't stop prominent liberals in the House from waging a last-ditch campaign to save it on the eve of Thursday's big vote.


"By eliminating the public option, the government program that could spark competition within the health insurance industry, the Senate has ended up with a bill that isn't worthy of its support," the always-candid Rules Committee Chairwoman Louise Slaughter wrote on CNN.com Wednesday.


On a conference call with her rank-and-file Wednesday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) reminded House Democrats, "We need to let the Senate work its will," according to someone on the call.


But she also appeared to remind them that she doesn’t plan to concede much ground during the conference negotiations.


"They have a good bill. We have a great bill," the speaker told her colleagues.


Pelosi walked House Democrats through the schedule for the negotiations, telling her members that the best-case scenario would have a bill on the president's desk at the end of January or the beginning of February. Hoping to pass the bill before Obama comes to the House for his first official State of the Union, the speaker said the White House has shown some flexibility to schedule the speech a little later than usual. Pelosi also warned her caucus that the Congressional Budget Office would need at least 12 days to deliver its final cost projection on whatever negotiators agree to.


House Democrats want to ensure the final package makes mandatory insurance more affordable. The House bill provides more extensive subsidies than the Senate legislation at the lower end of the income scale. Liberal Democrats would also like to see the final bill impose a greater burden on businesses to cover their employees.


On the call, a number of Democrats also asked the speaker to push for a mix of new taxes in the final bill. Some Democrats in the House want to see a combination of their surtax on the wealthiest Americans and the Senate's tax on high-end health care plans.»

in POLITICO.COM

HISTÓRICO: REFORMA DA SAÚDE APROVADA NO SENADO

Conheça a casa dos Obama no Havai

Claire McCaskill (D-Missouri) sobre a Reforma da Saúde: atitude dos republicanos uniu os democratas

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Reforma da Saúde é votada no Senado na quinta de manhã, véspera de Natal

E Barack Obama só vai descansar depois de ver os seus «amigos do Senado» a aprovar o histórico diploma:

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