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Heading into the final weekend of the 2004 presidential campaign, John Kerry was feeling good about his chances of winning the White House.

The Democratic nominee thought he had bested President Bush in their three prime-time debates. He also felt he’d convinced Americans his military and foreign affairs experience left him better equipped to end the Iraqi war.

Then Osama bin Laden weighed in with the most recent “October surprise” to land with a thud on a presidential campaign.

Kerry believes bin Laden cost him the presidency by issuing a videotape that criticized Bush and warned U.S. voters that “your security is in your own hands” in the election. And the Massachusetts senator thinks that’s instructive for both Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain during the final month of their campaign.

From Henry Kissinger’s declaration that “peace is at hand” in Vietnam a month before the 1972 election, to a report just before the 2000 vote that George W. Bush had once been arrested for drunken driving, last-minute sensations have demonstrated the potential to reshape a race.

“It changed the entire dynamic of the last five days,” Kerry said this week of the bin Laden tape. “We saw it in the polling. There was no other intervening event. We saw the polls freeze and then we saw them drop a point, because all the security moms, it agitated people over 9/11.”

Kerry added, “Whenever you’re close to an election, things have more impact, you don’t have time to respond, you don’t have time to change the dynamics backwards.”

That certainly was the concern in 1980, the election year that spawned the term “October surprise.” In a twist of fate, the name grew out of a fear that never was realized.

Republican Ronald Reagan was challenging Democratic incumbent Jimmy Carter in 1980. Precisely a year before Election Day, a group of Islamic radicals had stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, Iran, and seized American hostages.

President Carter worked throughout the campaign to secure their release, including launching an ill-fated rescue mission in April 1980 that killed eight U.S. servicemen. Critics say the Reagan team was so concerned that Carter would gain a boost by winning their release just before the election, that his campaign manager and others negotiated privately with the Iranians to ensure that did not happen.

It didn’t, and Reagan ended up beating Carter. The 52 hostages were released Jan. 20, 1981 — the day the former California governor was inaugurated as president.

At least three books on the subject have the term “October surprise” in their title, although no conspiracy was ever proven.

Even though the month has just begun, the specter of an October surprise has already factored into the 2008 campaign.

Obama’s campaign had to bat down reports that his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, was going to release a book this month. Obama distanced himself from Wright earlier this year after the preacher, among other things, suggested the U.S. government was capable of planting AIDS in the black community.

McCain’s running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, stopped cooperating with lawmakers investigating her firing of the state’s public safety commissioner after one joked that the findings could amount to an “October surprise” for the vice presidential nominee. Sen. Hollis French, a Democrat, later apologized for the remark. Palin was to debate her Democratic rival, Sen. Joe Biden, on Thursday.

U.S. intelligence sources, meanwhile, have warned about the potential for another attack by bin Laden and al-Qaida terrorists, seen by some as a potential boost for McCain. The Arizona senator and Vietnam veteran has argued he has stronger national security credentials than his Democratic rival, a freshman senator from Illinois.

The same concern was voiced last spring by Harold Ickes, then an adviser to Obama rival Hillary Rodham Clinton.

In emphasizing the credentials of the New York senator and former first lady, Ickes said: “We don’t know enough about Senator Obama yet. We don’t need an October surprise. And (the chance of) an October surprise with Hillary is remote.”

From Obama’s perspective, an October surprise may have begun a month early: The turmoil in U.S. financial markets that erupted in September triggered criticism of McCain’s leadership and economic understanding, and polls showed Obama starting to open a lead in key battleground states.

That movement could be reversed in the two remaining presidential debates — or by a true October surprise.

Kerry said any surprise deliberately engineered by one of the campaigns would be a risky endeavor.

“I think the media has grown much more suspicious of it because of the recent experiences,” he said, “so I suspect there’ll be a lot of scrutiny and maybe even some backlash.”

The House on Wednesday rejected a Senate-backed measure extending a multiyear program of payments to rural counties hurt by federal logging cutbacks.

The House removed the provision from a huge spending bill after the White House objected to the legislation. A White House statement said the timber program should be phased out, as the Bush administration had previously proposed.

Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., was outraged at the removal of the timber program, which was approved Tuesday by the Senate.

He called the vote extraordinarily disappointing and devastating to counties in southwest Oregon.

“It is outrageous that the president is willing to borrow $465 million for foreign aid, the majority of which is going to the Republic of Georgia, and $700 billion to bail out his Wall Street buddies, but he is turning his back on schools, law enforcement and other vital public services in rural communities,” DeFazio said.

DeFazio vowed to continue to fight to restore the program, but said lawmakers were running out of options as they prepare to adjourn for the elections.

A bill approved by the Senate includes a four-year, $2.1 billion reauthorization of the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act of 2000, commonly known as “county payments.” The bill also provides $1.7 billion for a separate program that compensates states for lost tax revenue from federally owned land.

Both provisions were removed in the House bill.

The timber law provides hundreds of millions of dollars to Oregon, Idaho and other states, mostly in the West, that once depended on federal timber sales to pay for schools, libraries and other services in rural areas. The law helps pay for schools and services in 700 counties in 39 states. Without the money, teachers and law enforcement officers in rural districts throughout the country could lose their jobs, lawmakers said.

Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, urged House leaders to find a way to pay for the timber program.

“It is important to understand that these funds are not handouts. Far from it,” Simpson wrote shortly before the vote Wednesday. “These funds are critical to the basic education of thousands of Idaho students. In fact, fully one-third of the budget for some Idaho schools comes from this program. They simply cannot absorb the loss of this program.”

A new U.N. report urges countries to phase out energy subsidies, saying they often waste money, do not always help the poor and are bad for the environment.

Gas-rich Russia leads countries spending the most in energy subsidies, laying out $40 billion a year, according to the U.N. Environment Program report released Tuesday at a 160-nation conference aimed at drafting a new treaty to contain global warming. Oil-exporter Iran is second, spending $37 billion, while Saudi Arabia, the world’s leading oil producer, is also among the top five.

Governments spend as much as $300 billion a year total in subsidies that encourage consumption and discourage efficiency. The subsidies delay the transition from dirty energy to more climate-friendly sources of power, said the UNEP report.

Subsidies “don’t always help the poor who need it most” and often benefit the wealthy, said Kaveh Zahedi, UNEP’s climate change coordinator. “Some countries spend more on subsidizing oil than they do on health and education combined,” he said.

Low electricity prices do not help villages that are not connected to the grid, and poor families consume only modest amounts of fuel, the U.N. report said.

Some African countries are known to spend all the foreign development aid they received to pay for the increase in fuel prices, which may be politically popular but economically damaging.

“In the final analysis, many fossil fuel subsidies are introduced for political reasons but are simply propping up and perpetuating inefficiencies in the global economy,” said UNEP director Achim Steiner, who also is a U.N. undersecretary general.

In a statement released with the report, Steiner advised governments to “urgently review their energy subsidies and begin phasing out the harmful ones.”

Several countries have felt the consequences of cutting subsidies. Last year, riots erupted In Myanmar when cash-strapped authorities raised fuel prices as much as 500 percent. In the last few months, India, China, and Indonesia have all trimmed their fuel subsidies, unable to keep pace with the rapid rise in oil prices.

The U.N. report said money could be redirected into programs that support low income families more directly and should be targeted to promote green energy, such as wind or solar.

Cutting off the subsidies would be good for the environment as it would reduce carbon emissions by as much as 6 percent, said Zahedi.

“It’s clearly an area that we need to re-examine in our fight against climate change,” he said on the sidelines of the conference in the Ghanaian capital.

The conference is the third session this year working on the details of a climate change accord to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. Scientists say the emission of carbon and other greenhouse gases, mostly from fossil fuels, must peak within 10 to 15 years and then drop sharply to avoid potentially catastrophic changes in the climate.

A Bush administration rule barring states and local governments from requiring more air pollution monitoring is illegal, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.

In a 2-1 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit threw out a two-year-old rule that may have allowed some refineries, power plants and factories to exceed pollution limits because the Environmental Protection Agency “failed to fix inadequate monitoring requirements … and prohibited states and local authorities from doing so.”

Since 1990, the Clean Air Act has required permits granted to facilities releasing more than 100 tons of any pollutant a year to include enough monitoring to ensure the company is meeting its emissions targets. Approximately 15,000 to 16,000 permits have been issued under the program, mostly by state and local pollution agencies.

“We can’t have strong enforcement of our clean air laws unless we know what polluters are putting into the air,” said Keri Powell, a staff attorney with Earthjustice, who sued the EPA on behalf of four environmental groups.

The EPA said Tuesday that it was reviewing the court’s decision. But an agency spokesman said the monitoring deficiencies should be remedied on the national level rather than on a case-by-case basis.

Appeals court judge Brett Kavanaugh, a former attorney in the Bush White House, wrote the sole dissenting opinion.

He said that while EPA and state and local governments may disagree about whether monitoring requirements will adequately measure compliance, he found “nothing in the statute that prohibits EPA’s approach.”

ederal regulators have declared a bus company affiliated with two others linked to a fatal Texas crash an “imminent public safety hazard.”

In a statement Thursday, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration ordered Liberty Charters & Tours of San Antonio to cease operations using vehicles or drivers affiliated with Angel Tours Inc. and Iguala BusMex Inc.

The federal agency previously issued a similar order against the two Houston bus companies.

On Aug. 8, a bus operated by Iguala BusMex taking religious worshipers from Houston to Carthage, Mo., crashed near Sherman, Texas, killing 17 people.

President Bush on Monday warned of a “dramatic and brutal escalation” of violence by Russia in the former Soviet republic of Georgia. He pressed Moscow to accept an immediate cease-fire and to pull back its troops.

Bush put the crisis at the top of his agenda as he returned from the Olympic Games in Beijing.

In a Rose Garden statement, he said there appeared to be an attempt by Russia to unseat Georgia’s pro-Western president, Mikhail Saakashvili.

He demanded an immediate cease-fire, the withdrawal of Russian troops from the conflict zone and a return to the status quo as of Aug. 6.

Russia has ignored calls for a truce and has responded with overwhelming military force. It appeared Bush had little leverage to win Moscow’s compliance.

Bush said the military crackdown has “substantially damaged Russia’s standing in the world. And these actions jeopardize Russia’s relations with the United States and Europe. It is time for Russia to be true to its word and to act to end this crisis.”

Bush appeared in the Rose Garden about an hour after his return from Asia.

“I just met with my national security team to discuss the situation in Georgia. I am deeply concerned by reports that Russian troops have moved beyond the zone of conflict, attacked the Georgian town of Gori, and are threatening Georgia’s capital of Tiblisi,” Bush said.

He cited evidence suggesting that Russian forces may soon begin bombing the civilian airport in the capital city.

“If these reports are accurate, these Russian actions would represent a dramatic and brutal escalation of the conflict in Georgia,” Bush said.

He said the actions “would be inconsistent with assurances that we have received from Russia that its objectives were limited” to restoring peace in separatist pro-Russian areas.

“Russia has invaded a sovereign neighboring state and threatened a government elected by its people,” Bush said. “Such an action is unacceptable in the 21st century.”

He said the Georgian government already had accepted outlines of a peace agreement that the Russian government previously suggested it would accept.

Its terms include “an immediate cease-fire, the withdrawal of forces from the zone of conflict, a return to the military status quo as of Aug. 6 and a commitment to refrain from the use of force,” Bush said.

Bush noted that European leaders and officials were pressing for Russia’s agreement to this peace plan.

“Russia’s government must respect Georgia’s territorial integrity and sovereignty,” the president said. “Russia’s government must reverse the course that it appears to be on as a first step toward resolving this conflict.”

“Russia’s actions this week have raised serious questions about its intentions in Georgia and the region,” the president said.

Republican presidential candidate John McCain on Monday called for a multi-pronged diplomatic effort to force Russia to withdraw from Georgia, saying Moscow’s actions could have long-term implications for its relations with the rest of the world.

Speaking to reporters in Pennsylvania, McCain said Russia appears intent on toppling the Georgian government rather than simply restoring the status quo in the pro-Moscow province of South Ossetia, which Georgia is trying to keep from breaking away.

“NATO’s North Atlantic Council should convene in emergency session to demand a ceasefire and begin discussions on both the deployment of an international peacekeeping force to South Ossetia and the implications for NATO’s future relationship with Russia,” McCain said. He also urged NATO to reconsider its decision to withhold a “membership action plan” for Georgia, saying it “might have been viewed as a green light by Russia for its attacks on Georgia.”

McCain said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice should go to Europe “to establish a common Euro-Atlantic position aimed at ending the war and supporting the independence of Georgia.”

He said the United States “should coordinate with our partners in Germany, France and Britain, to seek an emergency meeting of the G-7 foreign ministers to discuss the current crisis.”

“Our united purpose should be to persuade the Russian government to cease its attacks, withdraw its troops and enter into negotiations with Georgia,” McCain said. “We must remind Russia’s leaders that the benefits they enjoy from being part of the civilized world require their respect for the values, stability and peace of that world.”

A charter airplane carrying the White House press corps was detained for nearly three hours Friday at Beijing’s international airport not long after President Bush arrived to attend the Olympic Games.

The flight crew of the Northwest Airlines 747 had been expecting to park at a VIP terminal, but after landing was instead directed by the control tower to a normal international gate.

White House officials would say only there were “logistical problems” getting clearance to unload the aircraft. The flight crew was told the Chinese were insisting that all luggage be inspected.

Typically, the White House press charter receives the “custom of the port,” meaning reporters, photographers and camera crews are able to get off the plane right after landing, board buses and head to their hotels and work areas while U.S. State Department officials process immigration and customs details.

Delays on landing have happened before, but no one on the plane was able to recall one this long.

The plane landed at 2:10 a.m. local time. Passengers finally were able to get off the plane shortly after 5 a.m. However, they were made to pass through Chinese immigration control individually, and baggage was still being screened.

Many of those on the plane — roughly 40 journalists — were due to cover the president’s first appearance of the day: the opening of the new Beijing U.S. Embassy complex.

Two former CIA officers Tuesday denied that they or the spy agency faked an Iraqi intelligence document purporting to link Saddam Hussein with 9/11 bomber Mohammed Atta, as they are quoted as saying in a new book.

The White House issued the statement on behalf of the former officials after a day of adamant denials from the CIA and Bush administration about the claim, made in “The Way of the World,” a book by Washington-based journalist Ron Suskind.

“I never received direction from George Tenet or anyone else in my chain of command to fabricate a document … as outlined in Mr. Suskind’s book,” said Robert Richer, the CIA’s former deputy director of clandestine operations.

Richer also said he talked Tuesday to John Maguire, who headed the
CIA’s Iraq Operations Group at the time and who gave Richer “permission
to state the following on his behalf: `I never received any instruction
from then Chief/NE Rob Richer or any other officer in my chain of
command instructing me to fabricate such a letter. Further, I have no
knowledge to the origins of the letter and as to how it circulated in
Iraq,” the statement said.

Suskind claims the White House concocted the fake letter, meant to
come from Tahir Jalil Habbush al-Tikriti, director of Iraqi
intelligence under Saddam, in the fall of 2003 to bolster its case for
the invasion earlier that year as it was becoming clear that there were
no weapons of mass destruction
to be found in Iraq. Those weapons were a chief rationale for the war.
The letter was provided to a British journalist by an Iraqi government
official, according to the book.

“The White House had concocted a fake letter from Habbush to Saddam,
backdated to July 1, 2001,” Suskind wrote. “It said that 9/11
ringleader Mohammed Atta
had actually trained for his mission in Iraq thus showing, finally,
that there was an operational link between Saddam and al-Qaida,
something the vice president’s office had been pressing CIA to prove
since 9/11 as a justification to invade Iraq. There is no link.”

Denying the report, White House deputy press secretary Tony Fratto said, “The notion that the White House directed anyone to forge a letter from Habbush to Saddam Hussein is absurd.”

Fratto said U.S. and other intelligence agencies believed Saddam
harbored such weapons and that Saddam had tried to make his neighbors
believe he had them. In the end, no such weapons were found,
undercutting Bush’s main reason to go to war.

“We know now that those estimates were wrong, but they were the estimates we all relied on,” Fratto said.

Former CIA Director Tenet also rejected Suskind’s allegation that
the U.S. had credible intelligence, before the invasion that Saddam did
not possess weapons of mass destruction.

Tenet, in a statement distributed by the White House, also denied
CIA involvement in the supposedly fake letter. “There was no such order
from the White House to me nor, to the best of my knowledge, was anyone
from CIA ever involved in any such effort,” he said.

“It is well established that, at my direction, CIA resisted efforts
by some in the administration to paint a picture of Iraqi-al-Qaida
connections that went beyond the evidence,” Tenet said. “The notion
that I would suddenly reverse our stance and have created and planted
false evidence that was contrary to our own beliefs is ridiculous.”

Suskind told The Associated Press that the criticisms from the White
House and Tenet were expected. He said Tenet “is not credible on this
issue” and the White House “is all but obligated to deny this.”

“If they go in the other direction, I think they’re probably going to have to start firing people,” Suskind said.

In his book, Suskind writes that Tenet gave Richer the fake letter
during a fall 2003 meeting. Suskind quotes Richer as saying, “George
said something like, `Well, Marine, I’ve got a job for you, though you
may not like it.’”

Suskind also quotes Maguire about the alleged fake letter. “When it
was discussed with me, I just thought it was incredible, a box-checking
of all outstanding issues in one letter, from one guy,” Suskind quotes
Maguire as saying.

The Associated Press was unable to reach Richer and Maguire separately about the book.

Tenet also challenged Suskind’s assertion that the U.S. ignored intelligence that Saddam did not have weapons of mass destruction.

“There were many Iraqi officials who said both publicly and privately
that Iraq had no WMD but our foreign intelligence colleagues and we
assessed that these individuals were parroting the Baath party line
and trying to delay any coalition attack,” Tenet said. “The particular
source that Suskind cites offered no evidence to back up his assertion
and acted in an evasive and unconvincing manner.”

Suskind wrote that Habbush first told British intelligence
officer Michael Shipster in January 2003 that invading forces would not
find the weapons in Iraq.

“After being told that Habbush had said there were no WMD, Bush
was frustrated,” Suskind wrote in the book, quoting Bush telling an
aide, “Why don’t they ask him to give us something we can use to help
us make our case?”

Suskind quotes Richer as saying Habbush’s information was disregarded by an administration determined to invade.

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