ABCDE Mostly sunny. 102/80 • Tomorrow: Possible storms. 97/72 • details, B8 Farewell to McChrystal SATURDAY, JULY 24, 2010
UNION VOWS CHALLENGE
Firings are result of new evaluations
by Bill Turque LINDA DAVIDSON/THE WASHINGTON POST Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal and wife Annie attend what he called his “awkward, even sad” retirement ceremony at Fort McNair. Story, A7.
In fractious Mosul, Iraq in microcosm City confronts ethnic
divides, insurgency as withdrawal continues
by Leila Fadel
mosul, iraq — In Iraq’s third- largest city, buildings are bombed out and scarred by thousands of bullet holes. But unlike in many parts of Iraq that have calmed sig-
nificantly in recent years, much of the damage is recent. Mosul and the surrounding province of Nineveh are a micro- cosm of Iraq’s most explosive and unresolved conflicts as the United States prepares to draw down to 50,000 troops by Sept. 1. Kurdish and Sunni Arab leaders battle over disputed lands, provincial and central government officials wrestle for control, and Sunni in- surgents continue to slip back and forth across the porous bor-
DANIEL SCHORR, 1916-2010
Reporter challenged officials and his bosses
by Patricia Sullivan
Daniel Schorr, 93, a combative broadcast reporter who over six decades broke major national sto- ries while also provoking presi- dents, foreign leaders, the KGB, the CIA and his bosses at CBS and CNN, died July 23 at Georgetown University Hospital. The cause of death was not reported. Mr. Schorr, a sen- ior news analyst with National Public Radio for the past 25 years, was one of a handful of reporters with firsthand knowledge of news- makers from the 1950s through the 2000s.
Recruited to CBS by the legendary Ed- ward R. Murrow in 1953, he had the first televised interview with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and won three Emmy Awards for his coverage of the Watergate scandal. The Washington Post’s Bob
Daniel Schorr, shown in 1976, worked for CBS, CNN and NPR.
deeds as he was in taking on his employers, including CBS board Chairman William S. Paley and CNN founder Ted Turner. “It must mean something that, unable to accept the dictates of my bosses, I ended up in confronta- tions with Bill Paley after a quar- ter-century at CBS and with Ted Turner after six years with CNN,” he wrote in his mem- oir, “Staying Tuned” (2001). “It may be that I am just hard to get along with, but to me it always seemed that some principle was in- volved.” President Richard M. Nixon ordered the FBI to investigate Mr. Schorr, but viewers liked the newsman’s challenges to the pow- erful. Mr. Schorr’s out- sider status was con- firmed in 1973, as he read Nixon’s enemies list during a live broadcast from the
Woodward in 1977 called Mr. Schorr “certainly one of the finest broadcast journalists, and . . . one of the toughest reporters in the business.” Mr. Schorr was as fear- less in exposing government mis-
Senate Watergate hearings. Reading through the top 20 names, he came to his own name at No. 17, with a notation “a real media enemy.” “I managed not to gasp,” he lat- er wrote. “I broke into a big sweat. This was the most electrifying mo-
schorr continued on A4
ders with Turkey and Syria. “We will remain a thorn in the chest of the Americans,” reads a graffiti tag on one Mosul building. It’s a prediction that U.S. offi- cials are working hard to avoid. They are focusing their attention here so they don’t leave behind a time bomb for the fledgling Iraqi government and for the U.S. troops who will remain in Iraq be- fore all American forces are with- drawn by the end of 2011. Attacks have dropped in Nine-
Te budget forecast
Aſter hitting $1.4 trillion last year, the deficit is on track to break that record in 2010 and 2011. Te red ink will not begin to abate significantly, according to a new White House forecast, until 2012. 2009
ACTUAL 0
–$1.5 –$1.0 –$0.5
SOURCE: White House PROJECTIONS ’10 ’12 ’14 ’16 ’18 ’20
veh over the past year, but it is still one of the most violent places in Iraq. Among Mosul’s approxi- mately 1.8 million residents, there is deep mistrust of the various Iraqi security forces that patrol here. Gen. Ray Odierno, the top U.S. commander, recently sug- gested that a U.N. peacekeeper force might be needed to main- tain security in some areas after the United States pulls out.
mosul continued on A7
D.C. Schools Chancellor Mi- chelle A. Rhee announced Friday that she has fired 241 teachers, in- cluding 165 who received poor ap- praisals under a new evaluation system that for the first time holds some educators account- able for students’ standardized test scores. “Every child in a District of Co- lumbia public school has a right to a highly effective teacher — in every classroom, of every school, of every neighborhood, of every ward, in this City,” Rhee said in a statement, announcing the first year of results from the revamped evaluation, known as IMPACT. “That is our commitment. Today . . . we take another step toward making that commitment a real- ity.”
Dismissals for performance are
exceedingly rare in D.C. schools — and in school systems nation- wide. Friday’s firings mark the be- ginning of Rhee’s bid to make stu- dent achievement a high-stakes proposition for teachers, estab- lishing job loss as a possible con- sequence of poor classroom re- sults.
under a new evaluation system.
“minimally effective” and given a year to improve their performance.
165 737
the D.C. public school system. 4,000 The Washington Teachers’
Union said Friday that it will con- test the terminations. The firings also are likely to spark a new round of debate about Rhee’s treatment of teach- ers. D.C. Council Chairman Vin- cent C. Gray, who is challenging Mayor Adrian M. Fenty in the Sept. 14 Democratic primary, has not committed to retaining Rhee if elected and has made her hard- edged management style part of his critique of Fenty’s education policy. Gray said Friday that he “wanted to look further at the ba- sis for the dismissals” before drawing conclusions and added that there is “still controversy” re- garding IMPACT. Said Fenty, in a statement: “As
Mayor, I will not sit still, and I will not be satisfied until a highly ef-
teachers continued on A4
GOP finds grist for campaigns in projections of record deficits
by Lori Montgomery Revised
2010 estimate: $1.47 trillion
Previous estimate: $1.56 trillion THE WASHINGTON POST
The federal budget deficit, which hit a record $1.4 trillion last year, will exceed that figure this year and again in 2011, the White House predicted Friday, providing fresh ammunition to Republicans who are hammering President Obama for all the red ink as they campaign to regain control of Congress in November. The latest forecast from the White House budget office shows the deficit rising to $1.47 trillion this year, forcing the government to borrow 41 cents of every dollar it spends. Contrary to official
projections, the budget gap will not begin to narrow much in 2011, because of an unexpectedly big drop in tax receipts. White House budget director
Peter Orszag said in a conference call with reporters that Obama is still on track to cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term. But the forecast provides no re- lief from the gloomy outlook that has been forcing Obama to con- sider deeper cuts to defense and non-security programs as well as additional tax increases. This week, the administration also re- peated its intention to let tax cuts for the wealthy expire in January.
With polls showing high pub- lic anxiety over the economy and government borrowing, Repub- licans wasted no time blasting the new forecast. They accused Obama and congressional Demo- crats of orchestrating a govern- ment expansion that threatens to push the nation toward a Euro- pean-style debt crisis while fail- ing to create jobs. “For more than a year and a
half, the president and his Demo- crat allies on Capitol Hill have pushed an anti-business, anti- jobs agenda on the American people while adding trillions to
deficit continued on A9
Since ’64, a steady stream of oil spills has tainted gulf Rig’s alarm disabled
by Steven Mufson
The oil and gas industry’s off- shore safety and environmental record in the Gulf of Mexico has become a key point of debate over future drilling, but that record has been far worse than is commonly portrayed by many industry lead- ers and lawmakers. Many policymakers think that the record before the BP oil spill was exemplary. In a House hear- ing Thursday, Rep. John J. “Jim- my” Duncan Jr. (R-Tenn.) said, “It’s
A technician for the Deepwater Horizon oil rig testified that the warning system was deliberately inhibited because of false alarms. A5
almost an astonishingly safe, clean history that we have there in the gulf.” Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said the industry’s “his- tory of safety over all of those times” had provided the “empir- ical foundation” for U.S. policy. But federal records tell a differ- ent story. They show a steady stream of oil spills dumping
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“If [Mike] Shanahan is 1
The Washington Post Year 133, No. 231
CONTENTS© 2010
517,847 barrels of petroleum — which would fill an equivalent number of standard American bathtubs — into the Gulf of Mexi- co between 1964 and 2009. The spills killed thousands of birds and soiled beaches as far away as Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. Alto- gether, they poured twice as much as oil into U.S. waters as the Exxon
teachers work in educators were judged
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Rhee dismisses 241 teachers in the District
By the numbers
Among the 241 D.C. teachers fired by Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee:
were given poor ratings
Valdez tanker did when it ran aground in 1989. The industry’s record had been improving before the BP spill. In 2009, the largest one was about 1,500 barrels, about what BP’s damaged well was leaking every hour before it was capped last week. But at least a handful of spills take place annually as a re- sult of blowouts, hurricanes, lax pipeline maintenance, tanker leaks and human error, according to figures kept by the Minerals
spills continued on A5
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