Morning News Roundup (27 Apr)

• Another bloody day in Iraq: Three Italian troops and a Romanian soldier have died after their vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb in southern Iraq (BBC). The sister of newly appointed Iraqi Vice-President Tariq al-Hashemi has been killed in a drive-by shooting (BBC).
  
  
• Rice and Rumsfeld’s trip to Iraq drew criticism from Iraqi politicians because they feared it might do more harm than good. “We didn’t invite them,” said Kamal Saadi, a Shiite legislator. “It would be more appropriate if they would leave us alone,” said Mahmoud Othman, a senior Kurdish legislator. “Let us solve our problems by ourselves.” [ThinkProgress' ThinkFast]
  
  
• The cost of the war in Iraq will reach $320 billion after the expected passage next month of an emergency spending bill currently before the Senate, and that total is likely to more than double before the war ends, the Congressional Research Service estimated this week. Even if a gradual troop withdrawal begins this year, war costs in Iraq and Afghanistan are likely to rise by an additional $371 billion during the phaseout, the report said, citing a Congressional Budget Office study. When factoring in costs of the war in Afghanistan, the $811 billion total for both wars would have far exceeded the inflation-adjusted $549 billion cost of the Vietnam War. [WaPo]
  
  
• From the memory hole--Rummy on 19 January 2003 discussing the potential costs of a potential war in Iraq: [T]he Office of Management and Budget has come up come up with a number that's something under $50 billion for the cost. How much of that would be the U.S. burden, and how much would be other countries, is an open question. [Defenselink]
  
  
• 1 in 5. Number of people paying increased out-of-pocket costs under the new Medicare prescription drug program. Many of these beneficiaries are low-income, who had no co-payments for drugs under Medicaid but now pay $1 to $5 per drug. [ThinkProgress' ThinkFast]
  
  
• As record oil prices turn attention to the need for renewable fuels, momentum is building in Congress to buck Senator Edward M. Kennedy's bid to block the proposed Cape Cod wind energy project, potentially reviving efforts to construct the sprawling windmill farm in Nantucket Sound. [Boston Globe]
  
  
• A Senate report to be released next week will recommend that FEMA be replaced with a new National Preparedness and Response Authority whose head would report to the secretary but serve as the president's top adviser for national emergency management, akin to the military role served by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. [WaPo]
  
  
• Rove went back to Patrick Fitzgerald's grand jury yesterday. Salon's War Room has a wrap-up:
  
  

  Rove testified for more than three hours Wednesday in what was his fifth appearance before grand juries investigating the outing of Valerie Plame and the coverup that may have come afterward. As expected, the Post says that Rove spent most of his time trying to explain why he didn't acknowledge -- during an interview with federal investigators in 2003 or his first grand jury appearance in 2004 -- that he had leaked Plame's identity to Time's Matthew Cooper. The Post's source says that Rove argued that it would have been foolish for him to try to hide the Cooper leak from investigators or the grand jury because -- if he remembered it at all -- he would have known that the truth would ultimately come out.
  [...]
  Luskin insists that Fitzgerald has told Rove that he's "not a target" in the investigation, but at least one legal expert says he wouldn't be sleeping easy if he were Rove. Washington defense lawyer Stanley Brand tells the Associated Press that Rove's appearance before the grand jury is an ominous sign. "I don't think you need to drag a guy before a grand jury to wrap up," he said, reminding anyone who has forgotten that Rove "is testifying in an investigation in which a White House aide has already been indicted for lying."

  
  
  
• Escalating the threats between Washington and Tehran, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warned Wednesday that his country would strike U.S. targets around the world in the event it is attacked over its refusals to curb its nuclear program. [WaPo]
  
  
• Some 16,000 people have been evacuated since floods first hit Romania in early April, according to a new situation report by the interior ministry. [AFP via TerraDaily]
  
  
• Exxon Mobil Corp. said Thursday that higher oil prices drove first-quarter profit up 7 percent from the prior year. Net income rose to $8.4 billion, or $1.37 per share, in the January-March period from $7.86 billion, or $1.22 per share, a year ago. In January, Exxon posted the highest quarterly and annual profits of any U.S. company in history: $10.71 billion for the fourth quarter of 2005 and $36.13 billion for the full year. Exxon said it invested $4.8 billion in capital and exploration projects, a 41 percent increase from 2005. [NYTimes]