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While President Bush claims progress in Iraq, the death toll there has passed one million, according to a British study. LA Times Baghdad correspondent Tina Sussman reported on Sept. 14 that ORB, an agency that has conducted several surveys in Iraq, concluded that 1.2 million Iraqis have died as a result of war-related violence. TOM ENGELHARDT will comment; he keeps track of Iraq by the numbers at TomDispatch.com; his book The End of Victory Culture is out now in a new edition.
ALSO: Republicans call it The Presidential Election Reform Act; its an initiative they are trying to get on the June 8 ballot. Democrats call it another Republican dirty trick an effort to win the 2008 presidential election by dividing Californias electoral votes. RICK JACOBS will explain hes head of The Courage Campaign.
PLUS: Since its founding in 1947, the CIA has consistently failed at its primary mission: to understand the world. Instead, it has been turned into a secret police force. TIM WEINER of the New York Times has spent 20 years studying the Agency, an incapable and incoherent service whose deepest secret is its own weakness and ineptitude most evident on 9-11. Tim is a Pulitzer-Prize winning reporter who broke more than 100 page-one stories on the CIA. His new book is LEGACY OF ASHES: THE HISTORY OF THE CIA. Tim will be speaking tonight at 700pm in the ALOUD series at the downtown LA Public Library, 5th and Flower streetsthe event is officially full-standby only.
AND: Your Minnesota Moment: the ACLU has filed a brief on behalf of Republican Senator Larry Craig, arrested in a Minneapolis airport men’s room in that gay sex sting operation. The ACLU argues that Americans have a free speech right to solicit sex that would occur in private.