Morning Links

Two suicide car bombs exploded Wednesday amid throngs that poured into Baghdad’s streets after the Iraqi national soccer team edged South Korea to reach its first Asian Cup final. Police said at least 50 people were killed and 135 were injured. Celebratory gunfire after Iraq’s 4-3 victory at the game in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, killed at least one person and injured 17, police said. Among the wounded were two police officers and an Iraqi soldier. [Link]

A presidential panel on military and veterans health care released a report Wednesday concluding that the system was insufficient for the demands of two modern wars and called for improvements, including far-reaching changes in the way the government determines the disability status and benefits of injured soldiers and veterans. [Link]

For the many critics of farm subsidies, including President Bush and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, this seemed like the ideal year for Congress to tackle the federal payments long criticized as enriching big farm interests, violating trade agreements and neglecting small family farms. Many crop prices are at or near record highs. Concern over the country’s dependence on foreign oil has sent demand for corn-based ethanol soaring. European wheat fields have been battered by too much rain. And market analysts are projecting continued boom years for American farmers into the foreseeable future. But as the latest farm bill heads to the House floor on Thursday, farm-state lawmakers seem likely to prevail in keeping the old subsidies largely in place, drawing a veto threat on Wednesday from the White House. [Link]

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy threatened yesterday to request a perjury investigation of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, as Democrats said an intelligence official’s statement about a classified surveillance program was at odds with Gonzales’s sworn testimony. [Link]

The U.S. military has noted a “significant improvement” in the aim of attackers firing rockets and mortars into the heavily fortified Green Zone in the past three months that it has linked to training in Iran, a top commander said Thursday. Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, the top day-to-day U.S. commander in Iraq, also expressed cautious optimism over a decline in the number of American troops killed this month. At least 60 U.S. troops have died so far in July after the death toll topped 100 for the previous three months, according to an Associated Press tally based on military statements. Odierno said it appeared that casualties had increased as fresh U.S. forces expanded operations into militant strongholds as part of the five-month-old security operation aimed at clamping off violence in the capital, but were going down as the Americans gained control of the areas. [Link]

Iraq’s ambassador to the United States Wednesday launched a withering attack on what he said was US slowness to provide basic weaponry to his country’s ill-equipped armed forces. Samir Sumaidaie said the foot-dragging was inexplicable given President George W. Bush’s oft-stated desire for Iraqi forces to “stand up” and so allow US troops to withdraw from the frontlines. [Link]

The U.N. Mideast envoy warned Wednesday of impending economic collapse in the Gaza Strip unless Israel reopens the Hamas-led territory’s main commercial crossing to the outside world to ease international isolation. [Link]

A day after President Bush sought to present evidence showing that Iraq is now the main battlefront against Al Qaeda, the chief US intelligence analyst for international terrorism told Congress that the network’s growing ranks in Pakistan and Afghanistan pose a more immediate threat to the United States. In rare testimony before two House committees, Edward Gistaro, the national intelligence officer for transnational threats, said that Al Qaeda terrorists operating in South Asia are better equipped to attack the United States than the network’s followers in Iraq are. [Link]

House and Senate negotiators reached agreement Wednesday on a long-debated anti-terrorism bill as the Democratic majority in Congress scrambled to rack up accomplishments to boost its dismal job-approval ratings. The legislation to implement many of the recommendations of the bipartisan commission that investigated the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks is among a crush of measures that Democrats hope to pass before leaving for their monthlong summer recess next week. [Link]

Senate Democrats scored a crucial pre-recess legislative win Wednesday, as a veterans’ healthcare measure and military pay raise previously attached to the stalled defense authorization bill passed unanimously. [Link]

In a series of AP interviews over the past 10 days, U.S. and Iraqi commanders as well as military intelligence officers described al-Qaeda in Iraq as on the run but not on the ropes. Privately, some senior officers speak hopefully of 2007 bringing the group’s demise. Others are less optimistic. [Link]

Two years ago, when companies received a big tax break to bring home their offshore profits, the president and Congress justified it as a one-time tax amnesty that would create American jobs…But the companies did not create many jobs in return. Instead, since 2005 the American drug industry has laid off tens of thousands of workers in this country. [Link]

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