Where the Wild Burqas Are

By Al Kamen
Friday, April 29, 2005

Afghan watchers were taken aback Tuesday night when Laura Bush , appearing on the "Tonight" show, chatted with Jay Leno about her recent trip to Kabul, where she found things "very encouraging."

She spoke with women at Kabul University and "I didn't see any women in burqas," she told Leno. "I mean, a lot of -- all women, of course, wore scarves, and some covered part of their face. But they [were not] really covered up with that -- with the burqa that's so difficult to be able to see out of."

Of course she didn't see women in burqas, Afghan experts said yesterday. "If you go the same way she did, you wouldn't see any either," said Abdul Raheem Yaseer , assistant director of the University of Nebraska Center for Afghanistan Studies. But if she went to "the old city or to the bazaar for a shopping tour, she would see hundreds of them."

In places where women work, said Barnett R. Rubin of the Center on International Cooperation at New York University, they would have a lot of trouble wearing burqas. "There are no women wearing burqas at offices," he said. But in the other areas, in the villages especially, burqas are much more common, he added.

"Burqas have been worn in Afghanistan forever," Yaseer said. The fundamentalist Taliban and their religious police enforced universal wearing of the head-to-toe burqas, he said, and, while usage has declined substantially since the U.S. invasion three years ago, they are still very much in evidence.

1 Chance in 3 of Escaping OMB

Regulatory czar John D. Graham , the oft-controversial director of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, is reportedly doing some personal cost-benefit risk analyses these days.

Graham, founder and head of the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis before he took over the powerful regulatory job at the Office of Management and Budget, is reportedly one of three finalists vying to become dean of the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland. Enviros, consumer groups and liberal watchdogs have long sparred with Graham, saying his approach to regulatory analysis valued industry profits over safety. Graham responds that he is simply demanding that "sound science" guides regulations.

Graham is in the "end process" for the College Park job, a university official told Inside EPA. The other two candidates for the job are Alvaro Umana , the former Costa Rican minister of natural resources who is now at the U.N. Development Program, and former representative Martin Frost (D-Tex.).

So is Graham feeling good about his odds?

Would Two Others Be 'Top Secret'?

Quote of the week: Former CIA director George J. Tenet says he regrets telling President Bush in 2002 that he had "slam dunk" evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

"Those were the two dumbest words I ever said," Tenet told about 1,300 people at a Kutztown University forum Wednesday.

Lugar's Crystal Ball

Senate Republicans and the White House sound increasingly confident about Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton 's chances of being confirmed as ambassador to the United Nations. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) predicts Bolton will get the job.

And White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Wednesday that "a vote against him is a vote for the status quo at the United Nations," renowned for its bureaucratic paralysis, ineffectiveness and alleged corruption. Close observers noted that, if the White House were truly worried about the nomination, a vote against Bolton would be equated with a vote for Osama bin Laden .

Reeling In the Years

Speaking of Bolton . . . there appear to be conflicting calculations of his years of public service. McClellan told reporters of "his 25 years in public service." Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke of his "nearly 20 years of public service." But Bolton, who should know, lists only 14 years of public service: the Agency for International Development, the Justice Department and State Department.

He did work at a law firm and at the American Enterprise Institute in between those jobs. Maybe McClellan and Rice were counting those stints as "public service"? Or maybe there's extra credit for that time in Florida counting chads?

Tucking In the Jet

This Reuters wire just in from Colombia. Seems Bogota was deemed safe enough for Secretary Rice but too risky for her government aircraft to spend the night.

So U.S. officials sent the Air Force jet 600 miles away to the Caribbean island of Curacao because they believed the tarmac was too easy a target for Colombia's guerrillas.

The blue-and-white Boeing 757 spent a peaceful night on the island. Then it was grounded by fog.

As a result, Rice's departure yesterday for the next leg of her Latin America tour -- Chile -- was delayed. For the $600 million we give them each year in coca eradication money, you'd think they could put a platoon or two around the airport.

It's Official

President Bush nominated longtime South Carolina House Speaker David H. Wilkins yesterday to be ambassador to Canada. Bush also tapped Federal Reserve Board governor Ben S. Bernanke , who has been talked about as a possible successor to Fed chief Alan Greenspan , to be a member of the Council of Economic Advisers.