Down on the Ranch, President Wages War on the Underbrush
Bush Conscripts Aides in Tireless Pursuit of Clearing Ground
By Lisa Rein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, December 31, 2005; Page A03

CRAWFORD, Tex., Dec. 30 -- On most of the 365 days he has enjoyed at his secluded ranch here, President Bush's idea of paradise is to hop in his white Ford pickup truck in jeans and work boots, drive to a stand of cedars, and whack the trees to the ground.

If the soil is moist enough, he will light a match and burn the wood. If it is parched, as it is across Texas now, the wood will sit in piles scattered over the 1,600-acre spread until it is safe for a ranch hand to torch -- or until the president can come home and do the honors himself.



President Bush, shown clearing cedar at his Crawford, Tex., ranch in 2002, has not lost his enthusiasm for the task during recent trips to what aides call the Western White House. (By Eric Draper -- White House)
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The House passed legislation last week to name two buildings at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta after the late civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks and what other person?

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Sometimes this activity is the only official news to come out of what aides call the Western White House. For five straight days since Monday, when Bush retreated to the ranch for his Christmas sojourn, a spokesman has announced that the president, in between intelligence briefings, calls to advisers and bicycling, has spent much of his day clearing brush.

This might strike many Washingtonians as a curious pastime. It does burn a lot of calories. But brush clearing is dusty, it is exhausting (the president goes at it in 100 degree-plus heat), and it is earsplitting, requiring earplugs to dull the chain saw's buzz.

For Bush, who is known to spend early-morning hours hacking at unwanted mesquite, cocklebur weeds, hanging limbs and underbrush only to go back for more after lunch, it borders on obsession ...

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Nice to know he has something to do with Nature, even if it involves a chainsaw. Anyone notice how much calmer it's been since he went on vacation?

In other news, oil futures prices jumped higher. So did gasoline, natural gas and heating oil contracts. And consumers can expect more of the same in 2006.

From Iraq, the news is not good:

Long lines formed at gas stations in Baghdad on Friday as word spread that Iraq's largest oil refinery had shut down in the face of threats against truck drivers.
Ahmed Khalaf, 33, said he left his home at dawn and was still in line at noon.
"After the rise in gas prices, now we have a gas shortage," he said. "I don't think I will have the opportunity to return to work today because of this long line."
At least 17 people were killed in violence around the capital, including nine people sitting along the Tigris River who died in a drive-by shooting.
The U.S. military announced the deaths of two soldiers Friday. A bomb killed one soldier when it struck his vehicle in Baghdad on Friday. The second soldier was shot and killed in the western city of Fallujah.
Their deaths brought the number of U.S. military members killed so far in 2005 to 841, five fewer than the 846 troops killed in 2004. In 2003, 485 U.S. military personnel were killed.
In Beiji, some 155 miles north of Baghdad and near Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, the deteriorating security situation led authorities to shut down Iraq's largest oil refinery Dec. 18, former Oil Minister Ibrahim Bahr al-Uloum said.
As word of the shutdown spread through the country, abut 1,000 vehicles waited at one of Baghdad's biggest gas stations, known as the Jindi al-Majhoul, or Unknown Soldier station.
Ali Moussa, a 51-year-old tanker truck driver, said he and his colleagues were working in a dangerous situation. "We demand that the government provide security and protection," he said.

The oil crisis has already cost one job, that of Mr. al-Uloum, the oil minister, who was given a 30-day vacation Wednesday and replaced with Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Chalabi. Mr. al-Uloum had opposed a recent decision to raise prices by ninefold.
Meanwhile, violence continued unabated.

In the most serious incident, nine people were killed in a drive-by shooting – possibly because they were drinking alcohol in public, police said.

In separate attacks in Baghdad, a suicide car bomber blew himself up next to a police patrol, killing three Iraqi civilians, and a mortar landed in a market, killing another three civilians.

Two Iraqi Army captains were gunned down in the town of Dujail, north of Baghdad, as they drove home.

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Extremism -- whether of greed over oil   or religous delusions -- is the ugliest human face.

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