UPI NewsTrack TopNews

Cheney: U.S. accomplished its Iraq goals

WASHINGTON, March 15 (UPI) -- The Bush administration accomplished "nearly everything we set out to do" in Iraq, former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney says.

In his first television interview since leaving office, Cheney told CNN Sunday falling levels of violence in the country and recent elections showed the former U.S. administration's goals had been largely met.

"I think it's my general sense of where we are with respect to Iraq at the end of now, what, nearly six years is we accomplished nearly everything we set out to do," he said. "We have succeeded in creating in the heart of the Middle East a democratically governed Iraq, and it is, in fact, what we set out to do."

Cheney told the broadcaster he wouldn't use the phrase "mission accomplished" to describe the current situation in Iraq. "But," he said, "I would ask people, and the press too, to take an honest look at the circumstances in Iraq today, and how far we've come."

The former vice president also criticized President Barack Obama's nominee as ambassador to Iraq, Chris Hill, saying, "He's not the man I would have picked."

Summers: AIG exec bonuses 'outrageous'

WASHINGTON, March 15 (UPI) -- Millions of dollars in bonus payments to top executives of bailed-out U.S. insurance giant AIG are "outrageous," an Obama administration official says.

White House National Economic Council Chairman Lawrence Summers, appearing Sunday on ABC's "This Week," said the bonus plan by AIG, which has received $170 billion in taxpayer bailouts and posted a $62 billion loss in the fourth quarter, were unacceptable.

"It is outrageous," Summers said. "We are a nation of law, where there are contracts. And there is one other reality we have to recognize, which is that these companies have to be enabled to function, if the government is going to maximize the prospect of getting its money back."

Summers added, "Every legal step possible to limit those bonuses is being taken by (U.S. Treasury) Secretary (Timothy) Geithner and by the Federal Reserve system."

AIG will scale back the bonuses after criticism from the Treasury Department, a letter from AIG Chairman and CEO Edward Liddy to Geithner obtained Saturday by CNN indicated. In the letter, Liddy pledges to reduce 2009 bonus payments, which AIG calls "retention payments," by at least 30 percent.

Public-private partnerships seen for banks

WASHINGTON, March 15 (UPI) -- Private investors such as hedge funds and private equity firms will be a "key component" in the plan to rescue U.S. banks, an administration official says.

White House economic adviser Austan Goolsbee, speaking on the "Fox News Sunday" program, said private-public partnerships will be counted on to help remove "toxic assets" from the books of struggling major U.S. financial institutions.

"That is a key component to the plan, but that is not the only key component," Goolsbee said, adding that stress tests must be used to determine the "situation the banks are in, so the biggest problem that we've had is massive uncertainty over which institution has what and in what situation is each institution."

After that is accomplished, he said, "I don't think that any reasonable person would disagree with the view that the administration has put forward that it's better to do this jointly with private capital than it is to have the government and the American taxpayer pay for the whole thing."

Shalit decision to be made Monday

JERUSALEM, March 15 (UPI) -- Prime Minister Ehud Olmert Sunday said Israel's cabinet is ready to vote on a deal negotiated with Hamas to free kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit.

Olmert said the vote is to come Monday at a special meeting where cabinet officials will review final plans to release Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Shalit, who was kidnapped in June 2006, The Jerusalem Post reported Sunday.

"To this day, Hamas' stance was way beyond what the most moderate elements here were willing to accept," Olmert said Sunday, calling Hamas "an inhuman terror organization which views human compassion as weakness."

Gilad's Father, Noam, in the seventh day of a tent protest outside Olmert's home in Jerusalem, said he doubted Hamas would receive more favorable negotiating conditions once Olmert leaves office and is replaced by the more right-wing Binyamin Netanyahu.

In recent days, Olmert has indicated he is ready to accept Hamas' demand for the release of 450 Palestinian prisoners believed to have killed or injured Israeli's in terrorist acts. Those prisoners would be among as many as 1,400 Palestinian prisoners to be released if the Israeli Cabinet accepts a deal, reported KUNA, the Kuwaiti news agency.