Nation briefs

WASHINGTON — The government is prosecuting only about one out of four of those charged in connection with terrorism, according to a study that suggests federal agencies don’t agree on who is a terrorist.

People charged with terrorism often go free because the evidence wasn’t strong enough to bring them to trial, says the study by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a data research group at Syracuse University.

Since 2002, the percentage of terrorism cases that federal prosecutors declined to pursue has grown from 31 percent to 73 percent, the TRAC study found.

Nearly 6,000 of the close to 8,900 cases referred for prosecution by federal investigators between 2004 and 2008 were closed without action. Of the remaining cases, 2,302 people were convicted and 1,245 went to prison, the study found, and just 52 were sentenced to 20 years or more.

Intense tracking for swine

flu shot’s side effects

WASHINGTON — More than 3,000 people a day have a heart attack. If you’re one of them the day after your swine flu shot, will you worry the vaccine was to blame and not the more likely culprit, all those burgers and fries?

The government is starting an unprecedented system to track possible side effects as mass flu vaccinations begin next month. The idea is to detect any rare but real problems quickly, and explain the inevitable coincidences that are sure to cause some false alarms.

"Every day, bad things happen to people. When you vaccinate a lot of people in a short period of time, some of those things are going to happen to some people by chance alone,” said Dr. Daniel Salmon, a vaccine safety specialist at the Department of Health and Human Services.

Health authorities hope to vaccinate well over half the population in just a few months against swine flu, which doctors call the 2009 H1N1 strain. That would be a feat. No more than 100 million Americans usually get vaccinated against regular winter flu, and never in such a short period.

Gates: Mistake to set Afghan withdrawal timelines

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Robert Gates says it’s a mistake to set a deadline to end American military action, as some liberals have sought, and that a defeat would be disastrous for the U.S.

In a stern warning to critics of a continued troop presence in Afghanistan, Gates said the Islamic extremist Taliban and al-Qaida would perceive an early pullout as a victory over the United States as similar to the Soviet Union’s humiliating withdrawal in 1989 after a 10-year war.

"The notion of timelines and exit strategies and so on, frankly, I think would all be a strategic mistake. The reality is, failure in Afghanistan would be a huge setback for the United States,” Gates said in an interview broadcast Sunday on CNN’s "State of the Union.”

"Taliban and al-Qaida, as far as they’re concerned, defeated one superpower. For them to be seen to defeat a second, I think, would have catastrophic consequences in terms of energizing the extremist movement, al-Qaida recruitment, operations, fundraising, and so on. I think it would be a huge setback for the United States.”

Gates’ pointed remarks came as President Barack Obama re-examines his administration’s strategy in Afghanistan and as the Pentagon sits on a request for additional troops from Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan.

McChrystal has said a different strategy on the ground as well as more troops are needed in Afghanistan. In a "60 Minutes” profile airing Sunday night, the commander argued for faster progress. "We could do good things in Afghanistan for the next 100 years and fail,” he says. "Because we’re doing a lot of good things and it just doesn’t add up to success. And we’ve got to think quicker.”

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton suggested Obama’s decisions will come after the election in Afghanistan is sorted out.

"This is not like an election in Western Europe or the United States, to carry out an election in these circumstances was going to be difficult under any conditions. It’s not over yet,” Clinton told CBS’ "Face the Nation.”

"We have to wait until it is resolved, hopefully very soon. Then make a new commitment on how to meet our strategic goals. And it’s going to be up to the president to determine how best to achieve that.”

Gates said Obama has made no decision on whether to send additional troops. He said if Obama were to choose to increase combat forces, they would not be able to mobilize until January.

The prospect of sending additional soldiers has created a backlash among some Democrats in Congress and has angered anti-war activists on the left who rallied behind Obama’s presidential candidacy last year.

Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin has said the administration should set a "flexible timeline” to draw down troops. Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, who heads the Senate Intelligence Committee, has called for a timeline and a time limit for achieving objectives in Afghanistan.

"I do not believe the American people want to be in Afghanistan for the next 10 years, effectively nation building,” she told "Fox News Sunday.”

Others, such as Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin of Michigan, have not gone as far, but have urged Obama not to escalate the war.

Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the ranking Republican on the Armed Services Committee, said he hopes Obama will decide to commit the necessary troops.

"I think you will see signs of success in a year to 18 months, if we implement the strategy right away,” McCain said on ABC’s "This Week.”

Obama sent 21,000 additional troops to Afghanistan earlier this year. But in a tough assessment of conditions on the ground, McChrystal warned that without more troops the United States could lose the war against the Taliban and its allies. Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen also has endorsed more troops, telling Congress this month Afghan forces aren’t ready to fight the insurgency and protect the population on their own.

Gates rejected suggestions of a split over troop levels between the Pentagon’s uniformed leadership on one side and Gates and Obama on the other.

"Having the wrong strategy would put even more soldiers at risk,” he told ABC. "So I think it’s important to get the strategy right and then we can make the resources decision.”

He said the strategy review would be "a matter of weeks,” but he said he would not submit McChrystal’s request for troops to the president "until I think — or the president thinks — it’s appropriate to bring that into the discussion of the national security principles.”

In veiled criticism of the Bush administration, which he also served as defense secretary, Gates said the United States was too preoccupied with Iraq to have a comprehensive strategy for Afghanistan.

"The strategy that the president put forward in late March is the first real strategy we have had for Afghanistan since the early 1980s,” he said.