Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Court Grants New Hearing In Case of Taped Phone Call

A federal appeals court agreed to hear new arguments in a case involving an illegally taped telephone call leaked to reporters by Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.).

In an announcement last evening, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said all nine judges will hear McDermott's appeal of the case, which dates back nearly a decade. Arguments will be heard in September, the court said.

A three-judge panel of the appeals court ruled in March that McDermott violated federal law by turning over the recording of a 1996 call involving then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.). That upheld a lower-court ruling that McDermott violated the rights of Rep. John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), who was heard on the call. Boehner was then a Gingrich lieutenant and is now House majority leader.

In granting McDermott's request for a new hearing, the appeals court vacated the earlier judgment.

But the appeals court agreed with a lower-court order that McDermott pay Boehner about $700,000 for leaking the taped conversation. The figure includes $60,000 in damages and more than $600,000 in legal costs.

The annual cost of replacing, repairing and upgrading Army equipment in Iraq and Afghanistan is forecast to more than triple next year to more than $17 billion, according to Army documents obtained by the Associated Press.

From 2002 to 2006, the Army spent an average of $4 billion a year in annual equipment costs. But as the war takes a harder toll on the military, that number is projected to balloon to more than $12 billion for the federal budget year that starts Oct. 1, the documents show.

The $17 billion includes an additional $5 billion in equipment expenses that the Army requested in previous years but has not yet been provided.

Army and Marine Corps leaders are scheduled to testify before Congress today and outline the growing costs of the war -- with estimates that it will cost between $12 billion and $13 billion a year for equipment repairs, upgrades and replacements from now on.

-- From News Services