UNDER THE RADAR

ADMINISTRATION -- ROVE IS ORCHESTRATING THE 'BUSH LEGACY PROJECT': President Bush's interview with ABC's Charlie Gibson this week was the "first of several planned 'exit interviews.'" According to White House press secretary Dana Perino, Bush's next interview will be with ABC's Cynthia McFadden on the topic of the faith-based initiative, which will air on Nightline next week. If the first interview with Gibson provides any clue as to what we can expect from these interviews, Bush will paint a rosy picture of his legacy and "refuse to take responsibility for a single thing that went wrong on his watch," as the Washington Post's Dan Froomkin observed. On CNN yesterday, the Weekly Standard's Stephen Hayes revealed that former Bush adviser Karl Rove is currently orchestrating the Bush legacy project. "There's an ongoing Bush legacy project that's been meeting in the White House, really, with senior advisers, Karl Rove, Karen Hughes has been involved, current senior Bush administration advisers," said Hayes. "They are looking at how to sort of roll out the President's legacy." Rove has previously been reported to be advising the George W. Bush Presidential Library Foundation and is said to be spearheading the conservative Institute for Democracy think tank that will accompany the future Bush library at Southern Methodist University.

MILITARY -- CONTRACTOR HOLDS FOREIGN WORKERS IN WAREHOUSE OUTSIDE BAGDHAD: "About 1,000 Asian men who were hired by a Kuwaiti subcontractor to the U.S. military have been confined for as long as three months in windowless warehouses near the Baghdad airport without money or a place to work," McClatchy reports. The company is a subcontractor to KBR, the notorious military contracting company that has been embroiled in scandals, including numerous sexual assault charges from its female employees. The 1,000 employees were hired from India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh. The contractor then held them in conditions that "appear to violate guidelines the U.S. military handed down in 2006 that urged contractors to deter human trafficking to the war zone by shunning recruiters that charged excessive fees." The workers said the company had seized their passports, in violation of the military's rules. "A group of about 50 men living in tents about a mile away were even worse off than the men in the warehouses, and they appeared to be victims of human trafficking. They live in huts they built with tarps and pieces of carpet, and said they had no access to food or water," noted McClatchy. In August, a Washington law firm sued KBR for allegedly engaging in the human trafficking of Nepali workers who were sent to Iraq.

ADMINISTRATION -- WHITE HOUSE DECIDES AGAINST HANGING 'IMPEACH BUSH' ORNAMENT: When First Lady Laura Bush asked members of Congress to pick local artists to decorate the White House Christmas tree, Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA) turned to a local arts organization who assigned the task to Deborah Lawrence. The Seattle-based artist said, "I was at first nauseated, then realized it was an opportunity to highlight Jim McDermott because he's a hero of mine." So Lawrence, who frequently combines politics and satire in her work, covered a nine-inch ball "with swirly red and white stripes -- and, in tiny glued-on text, salutes the Democratic congressman's support for a resolution to impeach President Bush." But unfortunately for Lawrence, Sally McDonough, a spokeswoman for Laura Bush, reported yesterday afternoon that the ornament would not be displayed. "It's inappropriate and it's not being hung. ... We reviewed the ornament along with all the [other] ornaments, and Mrs. Bush deemed it inappropriate for the holiday tree," McDonough said. Lawrence responded, "Oh, dear. This doesn't really surprise me. But it's disappointing that I won't get to see it on the tree." While Lawrence's ornament was deemed "inappropriate" for public display on the tree, Lawrence was still allowed to attend "the White House reception for the artists yesterday ('They let us in') but didn't get a chance to chat with the hostess."