(CNSNews.com) - In a development highlighted by the McCain campaign, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee was briefed by Colombian President Alvaro Uribe before Wednesday's rescue of 15 hostages held by terrorists, including three Americans.

The rescue took place while Sen. John McCain was on a three-day visit to Latin America, although the Arizona senator told reporters that with the lengthy planning and coordination required, "there's no way possible that it could have had anything to do with our visit, that I could imagine."

Still, the timing was fortuitous for McCain. In a statement welcoming the freeing of the hostages he noted that Uribe and Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos had briefed him on Tuesday evening on the impending rescue, and again on Wednesday on its success.

The U.S.-backed Colombian military reportedly infiltrated the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and tricked a rebel commander in charge of the hostages into thinking that they were being taken by helicopter to the group's top leader.

Onboard the helicopter, members of the military disguised as rebels overpowered the FARC members accompanying the hostages without a shot being fired before flying them to freedom, reported Santos, who said the operation's "audacity and effectiveness" would go down in history.

Among those rescued in time to celebrate July 4 in freedom were U.S. military contractors Marc Gonsalves, Thomas Howes, and Keith Stansell, who were captured in early 2003 after their plane crashed in the jungle while on a counter-narcotics surveillance mission (FARC killed a fourth American, Tom Janis, and a Colombian intelligence officer who were on board). The others freed Wednesday were French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt, who was in captivity for six years, and 11 Colombian military officers.

The high-value hostages were among hundreds still believed to be held by FARC, and their loss to the Marxist group is the latest in a series of blows which some analysts predict could hasten the end of its bloody narcotics-funded armed campaign.

Written by Shaheen Buneri
Published Thursday, July 03, 2008

 

[Peshawar, Pakistan] The ever-increasing influence of pro-Al-Qa’ida Taliban groups is forcing Pakistan authorities to re-think its policy of reconciliation and devise a more comprehensive mechanism to deal with the militancy that is now threatening Pakistan’s settled districts after sweeping the tribal belt along the Pakistani-Afghan border.

Reports say that Taliban activity is not restricted to the lawless tribal belt, and the government's conciliatory approach has emboldened them to strengthen their support bases in the large cities of the violence-prone south Asian country.

The strong wave of Talibanization that has spread from the South Waziristan Tribal Agency has gradually engulfed the adjoining tribal agencies and has reached the Swat, Charsada, Mardan and Nowshera districts in North West Frontier Province (NWFP).

Starting with a social reform agenda by settling civil disputes and providing speedy justice through their Shari’a courts, Taliban groups have now begun targeting political leaders, civil society workers and rival religious groups, and have established parallel governments in the border areas.

Political analysts believe that government complacency and lack of political will at the center is responsible for the rising tide of militancy.

"We thought that [Taliban] operations were restricted to the tribal region; now they are knocking on our doors," Brigadier Mehmod Shah, former Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) security chief observes.

Official sources say the newly elected government that formed in March, after a coalition of political parties defeated the pro-Musharraf party and a politico-religious alliance in NWFP, is now seriously thinking of reversing the much touted peace process and is planning a more comprehensive and realistic strategy to deal with militancy.

Pakistan Premier Yousuf Raza Gilani said on Monday that the government would ensure its control in tribal areas at all costs.

Gilani said the provincial government had struck a peace deal with tribal chieftains three months ago, but the latter violated the agreement by resorting to hanging people publicly, kidnapping minority citizens and setting ablaze girls’ schools.

"No government can afford a parallel government and we will never compromise the country's sovereignty, dignity and self-respect," he added.

Critics argue that the lack of a unified and consistent policy at the center, links of certain officials with armed groups, demoralized law enforcement agencies, the United States’ presence in neighboring Afghanistan, unemployment and poor health and educational facilities in the tribal belt are the main reasons behind the escalating tide of extremism.

“It will take a lot of time, focus and energy to curb militancy in Pakistan,” says Syed Irfan Ashraf, a Peshawar-based analyst. “Earlier, the Taliban were divided into small groups; now they have a well-organized and coherent structure. Their ideological bond makes them stronger as compared to Pakistan’s embattled security forces.”

U.S. authorities and NATO generals in Afghanistan have expressed their concern over growing violence in Afghanistan and say that Pakistan’s tribal areas have become safe havens for pro-Al-Qa’ida Taliban groups.

NATO spokesman Mark Laity told a regular news conference in Kabul on Sunday that, "We know that as long as the insurgents operate safely on the Pakistan side of the border, there cannot be security in Afghanistan." 

Since 2001, when U.S.-led forces dismantled the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, Taliban groups developed strong relationships with insurgent groups across the border.

WASHINGTON — The White House said Thursday that dangerous detainees at Guantanamo Bay could end up walking Main Street U.S.A. as a result of last month's Supreme Court ruling about detainees' legal rights. Federal appeals courts, however, have indicated they have no intention of letting that happen.

The high court ruling, which gave all detainees the right to petition federal judges for immediate release, has intensified discussions within the Bush administration about what to do with the roughly 270 detainees held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

"I'm sure that none of us want Khalid Sheikh Mohammed walking around our neighborhoods," White House press secretary Dana Perino said about Al Qaeda's former third in command.

President Bush strongly disagreed with the Supreme Court decision that the foreigners held under indefinite detention at Guantanamo have the right to seek release in civilian courts. The 5-4 ruling was the third time the justices had repudiated Bush on his approach to holding the suspects outside the protections of U.S. law.

The legal ramifications of the Supreme Court decision remain fuzzy, but it's unlikely that a federal appeals court would order a detainee released into the United States even if a judge finds that the government was holding the detainee improperly. A court might tell the Bush administration to let a prisoner go, but it presumably would be up to the executive branch to figure out where.

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff said Wednesday, July 2, that opening up a third front by a war on Iran would be “extremely stressful” for the US military, but the US would not let Iran block the Strait of Hormuz.

He was commenting on the prospect of Israel striking Iran’s nuclear facilities. Mullen said he has not changed his position that the Iranian regime remains a destabilizing factor in the region, but added “I’m convinced the solution still lies in using other elements to change Iranian behavior, including diplomatic, financial and international pressure.”

Mullen spoke as President George W. Bush reiterated that diplomacy was his first option for addressing Iran’s nuclear program, although all options remained on the table. Israel has said repeatedly that a nuclear-armed Iran would pose a threat to its survival.

Mullen said Iran could block the Strait in retaliation for an Israeli or US strike on its nuclear facilities - but only for a limited time.

Last weekend, the US admiral toured Israel’s borders with Syria, Lebanon and Gaza Strip in company with the IDF chief of staff Lt. Gen. Ashkenazi and the senior officials on the northern and southern fronts. He was briefed on IDF tactics in a war on all these potential flashpoints in the context of a comprehensive conflict with Iran.

Chief of staff Maj. Gen. Hasan Firuzabadi said Saturday, July, 5, Iran’s strategy is to keep the Strait of Hormuz in “southern Iran” open, but “if the country’s interests are jeopardized in the region, we will not let any ship pass through.”

DEBKAfile’s military sources report that this statement, quoted by the official IRNA agency, enlarges on earlier threats by the IRGC commander Ali Jafari that the waterway would be closed if Iran was attacked. Iran’s “strategic interests in the region” cited now by Firuzabadi could extend to attacks on its allies and terrorist arms, Syria, Hizballah or Hamas.

It is in keeping with Iran’s refusal to give up uranium enrichment in its reply to the six-power proposals for ending the nuclear standoff.

Iran offered nothing more than negotiations, its standard gambit for spinning out time to achieve progress on its nuclear bomb program.

The latest drumbeat from Tehran also posed a fresh challenge to Washington after Adm. Mike Mullen, Chairman of US Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned on July 2 that the US would not let Iran block the strategic waterway through which 40 percent of the world’s oil supplies are transported.

The New York Times Saturday quoted Tehran as stating: “The time for negotiations from the condescending position of inequality has come to an end,”

in its response to the incentives package offered by the five UN Security Council members plus Germany. The letter made no reference to the proposal of preliminary talks to start with a mutual six-week “freeze” both on a fourth round of UN Security Council sanctions and on the expansion of Iran’s uranium enrichment program.

Further hardening its position, Tehran’s reply to the proposals presented last month by Europeam Union foreign executive Javier Solana denounces such sanctions as “illegal.” Chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili was named to lead the delegation in comprehensive negotiations.

By failing to address the “freeze-for-freeze” approach, in which high hopes of a more accommodating Iranian approach had been pinned, Tehran has put an end to the optimistic intimations emanating from Washington, Europe and Israeli officials in the last two weeks. Some American sources were certain that a closed Iranian parliamentary conference Monday, June 30, had endorsed the mutual freeze offer.

DEBKAfile’s Iranian sources add: The Iranian reply to Solana demonstrates that Tehran was not intimidated by the implied threats of an imminent US and/or Israel attack on its nuclear facilities published in the last two weeks; neither is Iran deterred from continuing to enrich uranium by the prospect of more sanctions. Even in accepting the offer of negotiations, the Islamic Republic stiffly denies any world power the right to strike a “condescending position.”

ST. LOUIS, Missouri (CNN) — Sen. Barack Obama, speaking on board his campaign plane as it headed to St. Louis on Saturday, continued to defend his position on Iraq — and questioned reporters’ parsing of his words.

Obama said he was startled “at how finely calibrated every single word was measured” after his Iraq statements Thursday. “I am surprised at how … the press … I’m not trying to dump on you guys, but I’m surprised at how finely calibrated every single word was measured,” he said.

“I wasn’t saying anything that I hadn’t said before. That I didn’t say a year ago. Or when I was a U.S. senator. If you look at our position, it’s been very consistent. The notion that we have to get out carefully has been a consistent position,” he said, adding, “The belief that we have a national security interest in making sure Iraq is secure, I’ve been saying consistently.” –From CNN’s Ed Hornick and Chris Welch

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- One week after Sen. Hillary Clinton made a public show of unity with Sen. Barack Obama, a new survey suggests supporters of the New York senator are increasingly less likely to follow her lead.

Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama appear at a unity rally in Unity, New Hampshire, in June.

A growing number of Clinton supporters polled say they may stay home in November instead of casting their ballot for Obama, an indication the party has yet to coalesce around the Illinois senator four weeks after the most prolonged and at times divisive primary race in modern American history came to a close.

According to a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll released Friday, the number of Clinton supporters who plan to defect to Republican Sen. John McCain's camp is down from one month ago, but -- in what could be an ominous sign for Obama as he seeks to unify the party -- the number of them who say they plan to vote for Obama is also down, and a growing number say they may not vote at all.

In a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey completed in early June before the New York senator ended her White House bid, 60 percent of Clinton backers polled said they planned on voting for Obama. In the latest poll, that number has dropped to 54 percent.

In early June, 22 percent of Clinton supporters polled said they would not vote at all if Obama were the party's nominee, now close to a third say they will stay home.

In another sign the wounds of the heated primary race have yet to heal, 43 percent of registered Democrats polled still say they would prefer Clinton to be the party's presidential nominee. Watch why Clinton supporters are struggling with supporting Obama »

That number is significantly higher than it was in early June, when 35 percent of Democrats polled said they preferred Clinton to lead the party's presidential ticket.

Obama won 59 percent of support from registered Democrats polled in June; now he garners 54 percent.

"These things always take time to heal," said Bill Schneider, CNN senior political analyst. "I think Clinton's supporters are waiting to see if Sen. Obama will pick her as vice president. That would certainly be very healing to them."

But most political observers agree the prospects of an Obama-Clinton ticket are dim, most notably because Clinton remains a divisive figure in American politics and Obama's message of change threatens to be muddled by the 16 years Clinton has spent in Washington

But the question remains whether Obama can win enough Democrats without Clinton as his No. 2.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Dale Metta, who manages a gun shop just outside the District of Columbia limits in Maryland, has had to turn away dozens of city residents wanting to buy handguns in recent days. Never mind that the U.S. Supreme Court just struck down Washington's 32-year-old ban on possessing handguns.

"I'd like to sell anything I have," said Metta. But he won't just yet — not until the city draws up new regulations.

The Supreme Court's decision June 26 rebuffed the strictest gun law in the nation.

The National Rifle Association called it "a great moment in American history." But prospective gun buyers and sellers said they remain on hold, awaiting the response of D.C. officials who are scrambling to draft new handgun regulations that comply with the court ruling.

"There's nothing we can do until we know what they will do," Metta said.

Metta, manager of Atlantic Guns in Silver Spring, Md., said his store fielded about 75 calls from D.C. residents after the ruling. Other gun shops outside the city — which has no shops of its own — also received calls. They, too, were turning prospective buyers away.

Writing for a 5-4 majority, Justice Antonin Scalia said: "We hold that the District's ban on handgun possession in the home violates the Second Amendment, as does its prohibition against rendering any lawful firearm in the home operable for the purpose of immediate self-defense."

Two seventh-grade boys were given detention and their classmates forced to miss their scheduled refreshment break when the pair refused to kneel and pray to Allah during a religious studies class.

Outraged parents called the punishment of the boys for not wanting to take part in the practical demonstration at Alsager High School near Stoke-on-Trent, UK, of how Muslims' worship Allah a breach of their human rights.

"This isn't right, it's taking things too far," parent Sharon Luinen told the London Daily Mail.

"I understand that they have to learn about other religions. I can live with that, but it is taking it a step too far to be punished because they wouldn't join in Muslim prayer. Making them pray to Allah, who isn't who they worship, is wrong and what got me is that they were told they were being disrespectful.

"I don't want this to look as if I have a problem with the school because I am generally very happy with it."

Last month, WND reported Principal Robin Lowe was reassigned after staging a mandatory lesson in Islamic religious beliefs for nearly 900 students at her Houston-area school.

The controversy erupted at Friendswood Junior High when students were diverted from a scheduled physical education class and taken to a special assembly.

In the 40-minute session, representatives of the Houston office of the controversial Council on American-Islamic Relations, an organization critics link to terrorist groups, presented a lesson in the religious beliefs and requirements of Islam.

The CAIR representatives instructed students that Adam, Noah and Jesus are prophets; announced "there is one god, his name is Allah"; taught the five pillars of Islam; told students how to pray five times a day; and gave instruction on Islamic religious requirements for dress.

The assembly had not been authorized by the district, officials confirmed.

In May, officials at a Minnesota charter school, housed in the same building as a mosque, attacked a television news crew investigating whether the publicly funded institution had complied with a state order to stop accommodating Islamic prayers and religious programs.

The investigation followed revelations by a substitute teacher who observed children being forced to participate in Islamic prayers.

In the Alsager School incident, the religion teacher, who was not named, made the class wear Muslim headgear and watch a short film. Afterward, she took prayer mats from her cupboard and said, "we are now going out to pray to Allah," parents claimed.

"I am absolutely furious my daughter was made to take part in it and I don't find it acceptable," said parent Karen Williams.

"Not only was it forced upon them, my daughter was told off for not doing it right. They'd never done it before and they were supposed to do it in another language."

"My child has been forced to pray to Allah in a school lesson," the grandfather of one of the students said. "It's absolutely disgusting, there's no other way of putting it. My daughter and a lot of other mothers are furious about their children being made to kneel on the floor and pray to Islam. If they didn't do it they were given detention.

"I am not racist, I've been friendly with an Indian for 30 years. I've also been to a Muslim wedding where it was explained to me that alcohol would not be served and I respected that. But if Muslims were asked to go to church on Sunday and take Holy Communion there would be war."

7/3/2008 (Khyber, Pakistan) - Five people are killed when rival Islamist groups clash.

7/3/2008 (Baghdad, Iraq) - Four Iraqis are blown apart by an Islamist bomb.

 

7/3/2008 (Kandahar, Afghanistan) - Eight local police are killed in a brutal ambush by Sunni militants.

 

7/3/2008 (Yala, Thailand) - A school principal is shot to death by Muslim radicals.

 

7/3/2008 (Hiiran, Somalia) - Ten civilians are killed in an ambush by Islamic militia.

 

7/2/2008 (Nimroz, Afghanistan) - Five people are murdered by a Fedayeen suicide bomber.

As everyone knows, Obama has been going to some lengths to make sure nobody thinks he's a Muslim. Nor has he been making any particular effort to add, "Not that there's anything wrong with that." Today the reliably dhimmi Wall Street Journal gives space to Junaid M. Afeef, director of public and government Affairs at the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago, to blame this not on Obama's canny political calculation and tacit awareness that people are suspicious of the violent and supremacist elements of Islam, but on "Islamophobia," that rampant plague which, he says, has claimed yet another victim: the sainted candidate himself.

It is a particularly grotesque irony that the Wall Street Journal would print this whine about "Islamophobia" the day after a man shouting "Allahu akbar" murdered three people in Jerusalem -- as if the problem (yet again) were not the people who commit such acts in the name of Islam, and the utter failure of peaceful Muslims to take the first step toward cleaning house. Oh no -- that doesn't provoke any "Islamophobia" at all. It's all about racism and bigotry, doncha know. Everyone would love Muslims and Islam, and find them cute and cuddly, were it not for Western non-Muslim "Islamophobes" spreading racism and bigotry by...noting the fact that some guy shouting "Allahu akbar" and running amok with a bulldozer murdered three people in Jerusalem yesterday.

Scientists are eagerly awaiting a much-needed facelift planned for the world's favorite space telescope.

This fall NASA astronauts plan to take a final space shuttle trip to fix the aging Hubble Space Telescope (HST).

Set to fly Oct. 8 from NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Cape Canaveral, Fla., the mission will carry seven astronauts aboard the shuttle Atlantis to upgrade the 18-year-old Hubble. Ground crews at KSC are hard at work on repairs to Launch Pad 39A, which suffered damage during the last shuttle liftoff of Discovery on May 31. The work is expected to be finished in time for Atlantis' launch.

"Hubble's been flying for over 18 years, and although it's old, there's still a lot of great science left in this telescope," said Preston Burch, HST program manager, at a briefing Tuesday at NASA's Goddard Spaceflight Center. "We believe that [this mission] is going to enable us to finally unleash the full potential of the Hubble Space Telescope."

The STS-125 mission will be the fifth trip to repair the orbiting telescope, which has been circling earth about every 97 minutes since it launched in April 1990. The planned 11-day mission is slated to install new equipment and repair broken instruments during five spacewalks.

New additions

NASA's GLAST space observatory has powered up and started sending signals back to Earth.

The Gamma-Ray Large Area Space Telescope launched on June 11 and entered an orbit 345 miles (555 km) above Earth. Now one of its two instruments, the Large Area Telescope (LAT), has been awakened to begin streaming data to the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center's (SLAC) operations center.

"Powering up the LAT has been even smoother than we had hoped," said Rob Cameron, operations manager at SLAC. "We're already receiving high-quality data that we can use to get the instrument ready for the best science return."

GLAST will use gamma-ray vision to see the most energetic light in the universe and investigate extreme environments, such as black holes and pulsars. The space telescope will also examine the origin of powerful cosmic rays and possibly answer questions about dark matter.

Voyager 2's journey toward interstellar space has revealed surprising insights into the energy and magnetic forces at the solar system's outer edge, and confirmed the solar system's squashed shape.

Both Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 continue to send data to Earth more than 30 years after they first launched. During the 1990s, Voyager 1 became the farthest manmade object in space.

Each spacecraft has now crossed the edge of the solar system, known as termination shock, where the outbound solar wind collides with inbound energetic particles from interstellar space. The termination shock surrounds the solar system and encloses a bubble called the heliosphere.

"The solar wind is blowing outward trying to inflate this bubble, and the pressure from interstellar wind is coming in," said Edward Stone, physicist and Voyager project scientist at Caltech in Pasadena, Calif. He and other researchers published a series of studies in the journal Nature this week that detail the Voyager findings.

This way and that

According to the Palestinian Authority leadership, Samir Quntar epitomizes the ideal Palestinian prisoner. Quntar, who crushed the head of four-year-old Eynat Haran with his rifle, is serving four life sentences for murder in an Israeli prison, but is almost certain to be freed in a prisoner swap with Hizbullah this week.

On one hand, Quntar embodies what the PA considers the "heroism" of terrorists fighting Israel. On the other hand, he's the ultimate symbol of all terrorist prisoners who have murdered Israelis and will eventually be freed as a result of future kidnappings or through some other means.

PA TV, controlled by Mahmoud Abbas, broadcast the following picture honoring Quntar. He is depicted beside a map of Israel completely covered by the Palestinian flag.

[PATV, 23-25 June 2008]

Following are several recent quotes from PA leaders since April 2008, describing Quntar:

"Samir Quntar, the warrior from Lebanon."
"The brave warrior, Samir Quntar."
"The Palestinian people and the Palestinian leadership are standing behind you (Quntar)."
"You (Quntar) are an inseparable part of the action to free our homeland."
"Your (Quntar) patience and strength are a lesson for us."

Besides bludgeoning Eynat Haran to death with rocks and his rifle, Quntar killed her father and was responsible for the death of her infant sister. He also killed two policemen in the 1979 attack in Naharia.

On Sunday the Israeli cabinet voted 22-3 in favor of a “prisoner” swap with Hezbollah. Israel, on its side of the bargain, won’t be receiving any prisoners but instead the corpses of Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser, the two soldiers kidnapped by Hezbollah in 2006, along with partial, inadequate information on Ron Arad, the airman shot down over Lebanon in 1986.

Hezbollah, for its part, gets five live terrorists including child-killer Samir Kuntar, dozens of corpses of terrorists, information on four Iranian diplomats who were detained by Christian Phalange forces in Lebanon in 1982, and live Palestinian terrorists whose number and identity are supposed to be determined by Israel.

The lopsided vote in favor was especially notable given the opposition of Israel’s defense establishment, which stressed the obvious facts that: such deals strengthen terror organizations; such deals both encourage further kidnappings and encourage these organizations to up their demands for hostages already held; and trading live terrorists for dead Israelis further endangers other kidnapped Israelis by telling terrorists they can extort high prices even for their corpses.

The cabinet was also told by Mossad chief Meir Dagan and Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin—staunch opponents of the deal—that Kuntar’s inclusion means losing any further chance for genuine progress on the case of Ron Arad, since Kuntar was Israel’s last remaining bargaining chip for Arad.

The cabinet also heard, however, from Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi—staunchly in favor of the deal—who stated that “I am the commander of all the soldiers...of the living and the dead, and therefore I say to you the deal must be approved.”

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, for his part, told the cabinet that “We have the utmost collective responsibility and must look the [involved] families in the eye—as well as our conscience.” He referred to the “fundamental issue of a country’s obligation toward its soldiers it sends into battle” and said: “A nation that concedes in order to ensure life, save its wounded, bring home its dead—is a nation that creates unbreakable bonds of mutual obligation.”

Logically speaking, then, the “nays” had it. A nation indeed has an obligation toward the soldiers it sends into battle, but that obligation doesn’t include ransoming them with large numbers of lethal terrorists. If soldiers are taken captive by terrorists, a country’s intelligence services have to comb the world relentlessly to find them or find out about them. The country has to threaten, pressure, and punish the terrorists into freeing the captives. It can also agree to proportionate exchanges to free them.

It doesn’t, however, have to further strengthen its deadly enemies by giving in to their extortionate demands. As for making real, tangible sacrifices, like freeing live, dangerous terrorists, to secure soldiers’ remains, it’s a duty that only Israel seems to have discovered.

Ashkenazi and Olmert, though, appealed to emotions of group solidarity and sympathy for the soldiers’ families that clearly prevailed among the cabinet ministers.

(CNSNews.com) - Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the Republican presidential candidate, told the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials on Saturday that comprehensive immigration reform is his "top priority -- yesterday, today and tomorrow."

Addressing the same conference, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), the Democratic presidential candidate, accused McCain of wavering on the issue and vowed that it would also be one of his own top priorities.

Working for "comprehensive immigration reform" was in fact at the top of McCain's legislative agenda in the last Congress, before he started his presidential campaign.

In 2006, McCain worked with Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) to ensure passage in the Senate of a "comprehensive" immigration reform bill that would have given illegal aliens a path to citizenship while allowing 200,000 new "guest workers' to enter the country each year.

In 2005, the House of Representatives passed a rival immigration reform bill that did not include a guest worker program or a path to citizenship for illegal aliens. The House bill focused solely on border security and enforcement of immigration laws.

Proposals including path-to-citizenship provisions for illegal aliens generally have been referred to as "comprehensive" immigration reform plans by their proponents and "amnesty" by their opponents.

Immigration reform efforts died in Congress in 2006, when the House and Senate could not reach agreement on their broadly different approaches. McCain and Kennedy made an effort to revive "comprehensive" immigration reform in 2007, but the effort finally stalled when repeated cloture votes failed in the Senate.

Referring to those efforts on Saturday, McCain told the audience of Latino leaders that in the past he had reached across the aisle in the hope of crafting a "bipartisan" immigration reform that would create a guest worker program, secure the border and "deal practically and humanely with those who came here, as my distant ancestors did, to build a better, safer life for their families, without excusing the fact they came here illegally or granting them privileges before those who did."

He could not win approval in Congress for this plan, McCain said, because "[m]any Americans, with good cause, did not believe us when we said we would secure our borders."

McCain vowed to keep trying if he is elected president.

"We must prove to them that we can and will secure our borders first, while respecting the dignity and rights of citizens and legal residents of the United States," McCain said in his prepared remarks, which were posted on his campaign Web site.

"But we must not make the mistake of thinking that our responsibility to meet this challenge will end with that accomplishment. We have economic and humanitarian responsibilities as well, and they require no less dedication from us in meeting them."

McCain was asked about his commitment to immigration reform in the question-and-answer session following the speech.

"As the next president of the United States of America, will comprehensive immigration reform--and not just enforcement--be one of your top policy priorities in your first 100 days in office?" a questioner asked.

"It'll be my top priority, yesterday, today, and tomorrow," McCain responded."We have to secure our borders. That's the message," McCain said, according to a transcript made by the Congressional Quarterly.

"But we also must proceed with a temporary worker program that is verifiable and truly temporary. We must also understand that there are 12 million people who are here, and they are here illegally, and they are God's children. They are God's children, and they will be treated in a humane fashion, based on certain--based on the principle, obviously, that someone who has come here legally or who has come here legally cannot have be--have [sic] prioritize over someone who came here illegally."