Washington Post

"But ad rates are set by circulation figures: As circulation drops, so too will the amount papers can charge advertisers. / The result can be a vicious cycle. As advertising declines, newsrooms find it more difficult to afford overseas bureaus, extensive national operations and other editorial additions that help produce an authoritative daily report. As they cut back, they risk sending readers elsewhere for news, leading to further circulation declines and lower ad rates." [more]

"Tuesday's attack on civilians was just one of many, and anti-government rebel groups are growing more violent and numerous. From Bosnia to Sierra Leone, the world has a painful history of putting peacekeepers into situations where there is no peace to be kept. Darfur may be one more." [more]

"Nothing from the package has been spent on construction, health care, sanitation and water projects. More money has been spent on administration than all projects related to education, human rights, democracy and governance." [more]

Angry Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee called on Ashcroft to provide the document, saying leaked portions that have appeared in news reports suggest the Bush administration is reinterpreting U.S. law and the Geneva Conventions prohibiting torture. [more]

Friday, with 20 of its 23 members present, the Governing Council unanimously endorsed Allawi. There were no other candidates. [more]

Font, [his lawyer], told jurors the soldier believed that "because he had become a conscientious objector, he would not be required to serve in Iraq anymore." [more]

The US administrator in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, acknowledged Friday that mistakes had been made in the occupation of the country and invited former Iraqi army officers who served under ousted president Saddam Hussein to help establish a new national force. [more]

"The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff said Thursday that the deadly insurgency that flared this month is 'a symptom of the success that we're having here in Iraq' and an effort to undermine the country's transition to self-government." [more]

"The Sunni-Shiite divide, already narrower in Iraq than in some parts of the Muslim world, is by all accounts shrinking each day that Iraqis agree their most immediate problem is the occupation. Many here say that, whatever value there was in deposing Saddam Hussein, the Americans have exhausted their goodwill and fueled suspicions by staying too long and producing too little progress." [more]

"All the elements are in place for a series of Supreme Court rulings this spring that will define the power of the commander in chief during wartime — and bring an election-year climax to the national debate over civil liberties and public safety that has been simmering since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001." [more]

"Unlike the commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, which was established by a congressional resolution, the executive order creating the intelligence commission does not mention subpoena power or the authority to take testimony under oath or even hold public hearings." [more]

"The dispatch of soldiers to Iraq has jarred the national psyche. No Japanese soldier has fallen — or killed an enemy — since the surrender to the United States in 1945." [more]

"It's worth noting that the announcement came from an anonymous official, The Associated Press reported, a sign that the Pentagon wants its backpedaling to be done with as much secrecy as the American citizen gets inside the voting booth." [more]

" 'So much is being done in the name of New York, we are saying don't use our name to infringe on people's rights,' said Glenn C. Devitt, an organizer with the Bill of Rights Defense Committee." [more]

"After a series of lower-court rulings, the government convinced a federal appeals court in Richmond that the military — and not the courts — had the sole authority to wage war and that courts should defer to battlefield judgments. More than 100 law professors and other legal experts weighed in on Hamdi's side, arguing that no U.S. citizen can be held without a lawyer." [more]

"A consensus — based on false facts, outright lies and exaggerated fears — took over the nation ... More than 500 Americans and thousands of Iraqis have died for a mistake. Peace has not been brought to the Middle East and America is not only no safer than it was, it may well be in even greater danger. This was no mere failure of intelligence. This was a failure of character." [more]

"The decision to put the graphic five-minute, 38-second video on the Israeli Foreign Ministry Web site just hours after the Thursday morning explosion, which killed 11 people and the bomber, has unleashed an emotional public debate. Many Israelis are weary of a conflict that has turned buses, cafes and streets into targets and are increasingly frustrated with political leadership on both sides that has not stopped the violence." [more]

"The Pentagon plans to begin operation of a national missile defense system this summer, putting the first missile interceptors on alert weeks ahead of a previous autumn deadline." [more]

"Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, invoking emergency powers, has authorized the Army to grow temporarily by 30,000 troops above its congressionally approved limit of 482,000 to facilitate a restructuring of forces severely strained by operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and counterterrorism missions elsewhere." [more]

"Pentagon adviser Richard N. Perle, a strong advocate of war against Iraq, spoke last weekend at a charity event that U.S. officials say may have had ties to an alleged terrorist group seeking to topple the Iranian government and backed by Saddam Hussein." [more]

Top officials of the Navy prison at Guantanamo Bay told a military judge in Florida that the prison's Muslim chaplain, Army Capt. James Yee, would soon be charged with mutiny, sedition, espionage, spying and aiding the enemy — crimes that could lead to his execution. But authorities never charged him with any of those offenses. [more]

"A military defense lawyer for an Australian detainee expected to be the first man tried before a military tribunal denounced President Bush's rules for the special courts yesterday, saying they are skewed against defendants and could result in proceedings that resemble political trials in authoritarian Third World countries." [more]

"Sami Omar Hussayen, a doctoral candidate in computer science in a University of Idaho program sponsored by the National Security Agency, is accused of creating websites and an e-mail group that disseminated messages from him and two radical clerics in Saudi Arabia." [more]

"Investigators have found no support for the two main fears expressed in London and Washington before the war: that Iraq had a hidden arsenal of old weapons and built advanced programs for new ones." [more]

"Suicide attackers carried out four coordinated car bombings Saturday outside the bases of U.S.-led forces in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, killing six soldiers from Bulgaria and Thailand as well as seven Iraqis, according to military officials." [more]

"The number of U.S. service members killed and wounded in Iraq has more than doubled in the past four months compared with the four months preceding them, according to Pentagon statistics." [more]

"The United States has backed away from several of its more ambitious initiatives to transform Iraq's economy, political system and security forces as attacks on U.S. troops have escalated and the timetable for ending the civil occupation has accelerated." [more]

"A presidential advisory board has concluded that a questionable claim about Iraqi efforts to obtain nuclear materials resulted from a desperation to show an active nuclear-weapons program." [more]

"The split decision by a three-judge panel in San Francisco raised the possibility that all the approximately 660 prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay jail for alleged al Qaeda and Taliban fighters could also be given their first habeas corpus hearings in a U.S. court." [more]

"This is not the first time the administration has done some creative editing of government Web sites. After the insurrection in Iraq proved more stubborn than expected, the White House edited the original headline on its Web site of President Bush's May 1 speech, 'President Bush Announces Combat Operations in Iraq Have Ended,' to insert the word 'Major.' " [more]

"A federal appeals court ruled today that the Bush administration overstepped its authority by detaining Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen seized in Chicago ... [and] said the administration has no inherent constitutional power to sidestep the normal procedures required to imprison a U.S. citizen seized on American soil." [more]

"Any trial of Hussein would be a hugely complicated undertaking, especially for an Iraqi justice system that barely exists eight months after U.S. forces captured Baghdad. Human rights organizations raised questions today about the credibility of a still-unformed Iraqi tribunal that would operate with U.S. backing." [more]

"As soon as [the governor] resigned, the local representative of the U.S. occupation authority appointed a former Iraqi air force officer as acting governor. To the protesters, that was unacceptable. The new governor, they insisted, should be chosen not by an American but by Iraqis — through an election." [more]

"The Bush administration has authorized creation of an Iraqi intelligence service to spy on groups and individuals inside Iraq that are targeting U.S. troops and civilians working to form a new government." [more]

"During the past two months, more than 100 people have been killed in car bombings and other explosions targeting U.S. and allied forces, foreign diplomats and aid workers, and Iraqi security forces cooperating with the occupation authorities." [more]

"A flurry of terrorist attacks over the past several days, as well as the deaths of nine children Saturday in a U.S. air assault on a village where a lone Taliban terrorist was said to be hiding, have cast a jittery pall over preparations for an historic constitutional assembly scheduled to begin Wednesday." [more]

"The decision to demolish houses suspected of sheltering insurgents resembles a tactic long in use by Israeli occupation forces in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to punish the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. Like the Israelis, troops with the 4th Infantry have also flattened wide swaths on roadsides to inhibit the laying of bombs." [more]

"With no public evidence or open court hearing in Abu Ali's case, the degree to which he may have been involved in terrorism remains a mystery. Neither Saudi nor U.S. authorities will say publicly whether charges have been filed against him or tell his family what alleged acts led to his lengthy detention. His rights as a U.S. citizen offer him no legal protection while he is in Saudi custody. And U.S. law enforcement officials appear content to leave him where he is." [more]

Homeland Security spokesman Bill Strassberger and other officials said a new border-control effort set to begin Jan. 5 ... will play a similar role in monitoring visitors. The program will use photographs and fingerprints to log entries and exits at major U.S. airports and seaports." [more]

"The CIA's search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq has found no evidence that former president Saddam Hussein tried to transfer chemical or biological technology or weapons to terrorists, according to a military and intelligence expert." [more]

"The Supreme Court intervened for the first time in the war on terrorism, announcing today that it will review the legal status of the 660 suspected terrorists currently being held in near-total secrecy in a U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba." [more]

"Arar said his prison cell 'was like a grave, exactly like a grave. It had no light, it was 3 feet wide, it was 6 feet deep, it was 7 feet high ... It had a metal door. There was a small opening in the ceiling. There were cats and rats up there, and from time to time, the cats peed through the opening into the cell.' " [more]

"In tactical terms, yesterday's action was troubling but unlikely to result in major changes in how the U.S. military operates on the ground and in the skies over Iraq. But the latest round of attacks in Iraq, and especially yesterday's deaths — which amounted to the biggest single day of losses since last spring's conventional war — may prove more significant in strategic terms." [more]

"Despite prewar claims, it is now clear Iraq had no active program to build a nuclear weapon." [more]

"[Ebadi] criticized U.S. military intervention in Muslim countries. Asked about Iraq and Afghanistan, she said in English, 'In Iraq and Afghanistan — especially in Iraq — people do not have water and electricity. And it is very important for people. How can we talk about human rights and freedom?' " [more]

"Mansour and others associated with the Northern Alliance said the group has no intention of threatening violence against Karzai or of disrupting national elections, whenever they are held. But they said several recent moves by Karzai to weaken their power had made them 'rethink' their support for his government." [more]

"The Israeli attack on an alleged terrorist camp inside Syria yesterday helped punctuate a message the Bush administration has been sending to Syria for months — stop supporting terrorist organizations. But analysts said it could also lead to a widening of the Arab-Israeli conflict, thus threatening the administration's efforts to stabilize Iraq and foster peace between the Israelis and Palestinians." [more]

"Americans are a mystery to many Iraqis, and Baghdad was awash in stories that reflected Iraqi ambivalence toward their new overlords. In Mansour, almost everyone thought the Americans had dropped a tactical nuclear bomb on the Saa restaurant in the effort to get Hussein." [more]

"Retired Gen. Wesley K. Clark helped an Arkansas information company win a contract to assist development of an airline passenger screening system, one of the largest surveillance programs ever devised by the government." [more]

"The Justice Department is looking into an allegation that administration officials leaked the name of an undercover CIA officer to a journalist," with the intent of intimating others from speaking out about the intelligence scandal. [more]

"Leaders of the House intelligence committee have criticized the U.S. intelligence community for using largely outdated, 'circumstantial' and 'fragmentary' information with 'too many uncertainties' to conclude that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and ties to al Qaeda." [more]

"The Bush administration has decided to pursue a 16-year-old effort to deport two Palestinian activists who as students distributed magazines and raised funds for a group the government now considers a terrorist organization, despite several court rulings that the deportations are unconstitutional because the men were not involved in terrorist activity." [more]

"The master watch list will be tapped by thousands of federal law enforcement officers and many others ? from small-town cops making traffic stops to airport workers screening passengers to personnel managers checking on applicants for jobs at nuclear plants." [more]

"The order comes after months of concern inside and outside the Army that an over-reliance on Guard and Reserve forces by the Bush administration in the war on terrorism could adversely affect retention and recruiting. Some officials have expressed concern that this could break the Guard and Reserve system, which augments the active-duty force with critical engineering, military police, civil affairs and psychological operations specialists." [more]

"The death of [Ayatollah Mohammed Bakir Hakim], the most influential Iraqi cleric openly allied with the U.S.-led occupation, dealt a severe blow to U.S. efforts to build a representative postwar government ... [it] left a panorama of misery and devastation unparalleled since the fall of Hussein's government on April 9. The brick facades of shops were sheared away. Cars were flipped and hurled onto the sidewalk. Burned, mangled and dismembered bodies littered the street, trampled as others ran in confusion and panic for safety. " [more]

"Ashcroft has always been one of the Bush administration's most controversial figures ... but now the attorney general finds himself at odds with some fellow Republicans from Idaho to Capitol Hill who are troubled by the extent of his anti-terrorism tactics and angered by his unwillingness to compromise." [more]

"The size and scope of the government contracts awarded to Halliburton in connection with the war in Iraq are significantly greater than previously disclosed and demonstrate the U.S. military's increasing reliance on for-profit corporations to run its logistical operations." [more]

"The EPA inspector general said the agency was persuaded by the White House to omit cautionary language about the possible hazards from air pollutants such as asbestos, cadmium and lead after the World Trade Center towers fell. In addition, the report said the EPA omitted from early public statements guidance for the professional cleaning of indoor spaces, leading some people to return to their homes before they had been properly cleaned." [more]

"Classified spending next fiscal year will reach about $23.2 billion of the Pentagon's total request for procurement and research funding. When adjusted for inflation, that is the largest dollar figure since the peak reached during President Ronald Reagan's defense buildup 16 years ago." [more]

"The extraordinary move to recruit agents of former president Saddam Hussein's security services underscores a growing recognition among U.S. officials that American military forces — already stretched thin — cannot alone prevent attacks like the devastating truck bombing of the U.N. headquarters this past week." [more]

"Bush ... made the peaceful transformation of the Middle East the main justification for war in Iraq. With the failure to find forbidden weapons in Iraq, Bush and his aides have said the invasion of Iraq will allow it to become the linchpin of a stable and democratic Middle East. As a result, continued violence in Iraq and the Middle East would deprive the administration of another key justification for the war." [more]

"The description of active combat in Iraq was one of several statements Bush made in the interview that differed with earlier administration positions." [more]

"If the Bush administration had been wrong only about the Niger purchase, it would have indicated carelessness. But the references to nuclear weapons, taken as a whole, indicate dissatisfaction with the truth of the matter and a disregard for inconvenient facts." [more]

"The barrier will leave 300,000 Palestinians on the 'Israeli' side of the wall. Twenty thousand Palestinian residents of Jerusalem — Israelis in the eyes of Israeli law — live outside the fence, denied virtually all municipal and governmental services." [more]

"Recently, U.S. English [a group for which Schwarzenegger sits on the board of advisors] has come under the scrutiny of watchdog groups such as the Southern Poverty Law Center for its hiring of [James] Lubinskas in March. [He] has long ties to right-wing nationalist groups, such as American Friends of the British Nationalist Party. The Summer 2000 edition of the AFBNP newsletter describes a meeting in which Lubinskas shared a stage with former Louisiana Klansman David Duke." [more]

"[The US Treasury] has been contacting an undisclosed number of protesters who placed themselves in harm's way before the war, warning them that they face $10,000 fines for violating U.S. sanctions that forbade most travel to Iraq and commerce with Saddam Hussein's regime. If they don't pay, the human shields face up to 10 years in prison." [more]

"According to knowledgeable U.S. and overseas sources, experts from U.S. national laboratories reported in December to the Energy Department and U.S. intelligence analysts that Iraq was manufacturing copies of the [missle]. Not only [its] alloy, but also its dimensions, to the fraction of a millimeter, matched the disputed aluminum tubes." [more]

" 'I don't believe that anyone who's wearing a uniform in this country in a public forum should be critical of the chain of command. Period,' [one] general said." [more]

"The system enables investigators to find patterns and links among people and events faster than ever before, combining police records with commercially available collections of personal information about most American adults. It would let authorities, for instance, instantly find the name and address of every brown-haired owner of a red Ford pickup truck in a 20-mile radius of a suspicious event." [more]

"A legal advocacy group filed papers yesterday in federal court in Los Angeles challenging the constitutionality of the USA Patriot Act, the broad antiterrorism law that has come under increasing attacks in recent weeks in the courts and Congress. " [more]

"[National security adviser Condoleezza] Rice and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz are the leading candidates to replace [Secretary of State Colin] Powell, according to sources inside and outside the administration. Another dark horse is former House speaker Newt Gingrich." [more]

"Kandahar police also say they feel demoralized and targeted. In July alone, one district police chief was shot to death on his way home from work and another was killed along with five of his officers when a band of about 20 armed men stormed their compound, police officials said. This past week, five or six government officials were ambushed and killed along the same isolated road where a Red Cross water engineer was executed in late March." [more]

"The administration is not seeking a second resolution because it is satisfied with the financial and peacekeeping assistance it is getting from other countries willing to participate without a broader U.N. mandate." [more]

"A Bush aide outlined a long-term strategy in which the United States would spread its values through Iraq and the Middle East much as it transformed Europe in the second half of the 20th century. As outlined, the U.S. commitment to Iraq and the Middle East would be far more expansive than the administration had described to the public and the world before the Iraq war." [more]

"So far, the United States has discovered no undisputed physical evidence that Hussein had stocks of chemical or biological weapons or was reconstituting his nuclear weapons program." [more]

"With little public notice outside immigrant communities, the government is moving to deport the largest number of visitors from Middle Eastern and other Muslim countries in U.S. history." [more]

"Thousands of suspected Iraqi fighters were detained over the six-week period, many temporarily, in hundreds of U.S. military raids, most of them conducted in the dead of night. In the expansive region north of Baghdad patrolled by the 4th Infantry Division, more than 300 Iraqi fighters were killed in combat operation, the military officials said. Continuing casualties ... are the direct result of the intensified U.S. offensive." [more]

Funds "would go toward highway and school construction, other infrastructure initiatives, police training, beefed-up development of the Afghan national army, education projects and programs to help women enter the workforce." [more]

"John Brady Kiesling may have a promising future as a trivia question. But for one brief, undiplomatic moment, his resignation from the Foreign Service crystallized the opposition to the Iraq war." [more]

"With more than 60 percent of the Army's active-duty combat force deployed in Iraq, Army planners were forced to abandon six-month tours for most overseas deployments in favor of year-long assignments to sustain a force of that size. The last time the Army used year-long deployments was Vietnam, except for one peacekeeping rotation in the Balkans in 1995." [more]

"The information ... significantly alters the explanation previously offered by the White House. The CIA warned the White House early on that the charge, based on an allegation that Iraq sought 500 tons of uranium in Niger, relied on weak evidence." [more]

"For organizations that opposed the war, these are busy days. Not since hundreds of thousands of people across the country marched in antiwar rallies in the weeks before the U.S.-led invasion has the rationale for the preemptive war come under such fire." [more]

The report "shows the intelligence services were much more worried that Hussein might give weapons to al Qaeda terrorists if he were facing death or capture and his government was collapsing after a military attack by the United States." [more]

"The point is not that an apology is in order, though it plainly is. The point is that ... the vice president dismissed [contradictory] information out of hand and disparaged its source. He did not, however, refute it. Refutations plunge you into the realm of facts, where this administration is exquisitely uncomfortable." [more]

"U.S. officials are increasingly concerned that Iraqis loyal to former president Saddam Hussein may be organizing guerrilla operations against occupation forces and financing them with money set aside before the war, according to senior commanders and field officers here." [more]

" 'Sure, Bush is coming to visit our AIDS clinic — and he will be here for a whole four hours,' said Walfula Oguttu, editor-in-chief of Uganda's independent newspaper. 'But we all know it all has to do with fighting terrorism. His AIDS money is trying to buy Africa.' " [more]

"The administration that had 100 percent certainty that there were weapons of mass destruction has zero percent certainty as to where they are now. The White House and the president's defenders have reverted to their fall-back humanitarian position — that the removal of Hussein was justification enough for the war." [more]

"Military officials are worried that a barrage of non-fatal attacks — estimated by officials at more than a dozen a day in Baghdad — will sap troop morale and cause people to reevaluate official pronouncements that armed resistance to the U.S. occupation is small and militarily insignificant." [more]

"An investigation reveals that Pvt. Lynch — still in the hospital after 67 days — suffered bone-crushing injuries in a crash during the ambush." [more]

"The focus on Iraq has robbed domestic security of manpower, brainpower and money, [the counterterrorism adviser] said. The Iraq war created fissures in the United States' counterterrorism alliances, he said, and could breed a new generation of al Qaeda recruits. Many of his government colleagues, he said, thought Iraq was an 'ill-conceived and poorly executed strategy.' " [more]

"On Monday, officers recalled the assault as sophisticated and organised. 'They were definitely not some kids with pistols. It was well planned and well executed. They knew where we were in the building. They had done reconnaissance,' said Major George Pitt." [more]

"Bush spoke of Iraq's weapons program, rather than its weaponry, and referred to it in the past tense. Asked to clarify Bush's remarks, White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said Bush did not intend to make a distinction between weapons and weapons programs. 'The president, in saying programs, also applies that to weapons,' the spokesman said. Fleischer also said Bush believed Iraq had weapons when the war began." [more]

"The U.S. occupation authority has decided to handpick between 25 and 30 Iraqis to serve on an interim political council to advise U.S. officials on day-to-day governance issues rather than convene a large assembly where Iraqi delegates would debate the form and membership of their transitional administration, a senior U.S. official said today." [more]

"The report found that 54 of the 762 detainees were held for more than three months, despite objections from officials in the former Immigration and Naturalization Service that they should be released with 'reasonable dispatch.' " [more]

"Veteran senators from both parties, expressing some of the strongest congressional concern to date about the civil disorder in Iraq, appealed to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld yesterday to quickly bring the situation under control." [more]

"As Iraqi Shiite demands for a dominant role in Iraq's future mount, Bush administration officials say they underestimated the Shiites' organizational strength and are unprepared to prevent the rise of an anti-American, Islamic fundamentalist government in the country." [more]

"Last month, [Arcata] joined the rising chorus of municipalities to pass a resolution urging local law enforcement officials and others contacted by federal officials to refuse requests under the Patriot Act that they believe violate an individual's civil rights under the Constitution. Then, [it] became the first in the nation to pass an ordinance that outlaws voluntary compliance with the Patriot Act." [more]

"This looks like America's moment. History should give us pause." [more]

"This is nation-building, Republican-style, with huge contracts awarded in secret to politically connected companies." [more]

"Most Americans are satisfied with U.S. and British efforts to restore civil order in Iraq, and they now rank humanitarian needs as the top priority there." [more]

"The Pentagon said yesterday that it has no plans to determine how many Iraqi civilians may have been killed or injured or suffered property damage as a result of U.S. military operations in Iraq." [more]

"In the months leading up to the Iraq war, U.S. scholars repeatedly urged the Defense Department to protect Iraq's priceless archaeological heritage from looters, and warned specifically that the National Museum of Antiquities was the single most important site in the country." [more]

"Ten days into the invasion of Iraq, the political imperative of waging a short and decisive campaign is increasingly at odds with the military necessity of preparing for a protracted, more violent and costly war, according to senior military officials. Top Army officers in Iraq say they now believe that they effectively need to restart the war." [more]

"A shuddering sense of outrage at President Bush and the United States fell over the Arab world today as television networks and newspapers reported a U.S. air assault that Iraqi officials said killed 58 people at a vegetable market in Baghdad." [more]

"The Army's senior ground commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. William S. Wallace, said today that overextended supply lines and a combative adversary using unconventional tactics have stalled the U.S. drive toward Baghdad and increased the likelihood of a longer war than many strategists had anticipated." [more]

"As they prepare to head across the border, U.S. military commanders fear that Iraq will become consumed by "rolling civil strife" erupting all around advancing troops, confronting them with the dilemma of how and whether to intervene. Senior U.S. officers, basing their predictions on intelligence and past experience, said they fear thousands of Iraqis could die." [more]

"As the U.S. attack on Baghdad gets underway, the military strategy dubbed 'Shock and Awe' by Pentagon war planners is emerging as a lightning rod for criticism in the international online media." [more]

"Rumsfeld and Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the assault was not timed to coincide with the war with Iraq or meant to counter critics who say the Iraqi campaign will divert military attention from the war on terrorism." [more]

"Hundreds of Web sites — many cross-linked to sympathetic groups in a grassroots effort to drum up support — are urging Americans and people worldwide to take action." [more]

"A generation of Arabs wooed by the United States and persuaded by its principles has become among the most vociferous critics of America's world view. Within its ranks are affluent businessmen with ties to the West, U.S.-educated intellectuals and liberal activists. Their ire is directed not at U.S. culture, but at preparations for a war that they believe has left them voiceless, discredited and isolated in a landscape almost universally opposed to U.S. policy." [more]

"You are not going to decide whether there is war in Iraq or not," the diplomat said U.S. officials told him. "That decision is ours, and we have already made it. It is already final. The only question now is whether the council will go along with it or not." [more]

"The largest rallies were in London, Rome, Berlin and Paris — the heart of Western Europe — where the generally peaceful demonstrations illustrated the breadth of popular opposition to U.S. policies among traditional allies." [more]

"A sea of protesters poured through the frigid streets of midtown Manhattan today to protest a possible United States invasion of Iraq, as police hurriedly closed avenues to make way for the chanting, sign-waving, horn-tooting thousands." [more]

"Over the last several days, ANSWER's politics have created a rift within the leadership of the antiwar movement that demonstrates the difficulty in having such a small, radical group play a prominent role in organizing the peace effort." [more]

"The Bush administration faced broad opposition in the U.N. Security Council today to its quest for authorization for military action to remove Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and destroy any weapons of mass destruction." [more]

"Top federal officials yesterday issued their most pointed advice since Sept. 11, 2001, on precautions the public should take against terrorist attacks, warning that every home should be stocked with three days' worth of water and food in case of a strike with chemical, biological or radiological weapons." [more]

"The general who commanded U.S. forces in the 1991 Gulf War says he hasn't seen enough evidence to convince him that his old comrades Dick Cheney, Colin Powell and Paul Wolfowitz are correct in moving toward a new war now." [more]

"The U.S. government fumbled repeated opportunities to stop many of the men responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks from entering the country, missing fraudulent passports and other warning signs that should have attracted greater scrutiny." [more]

"Seven in 10 Americans would give U.N. weapons inspectors months more to pursue their arms search in Iraq, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll that found growing doubts about an attack on Iraqi President Saddam Hussein." [more]

Concerned by reports that hundreds of immigrants across the country have not registered for fear of deportation, the INS announced the deadlines had been extended. Immigration lawyers predict little impact on the number of registrants. [more]

"Arrests came after a youth and student march merged with another demonstration near the park across from the White House. In the days leading up to the demonstrations, some activists said that they planned to go to the White House to carry out acts of civil disobedience to show their opposition to a war with Iraq." [more]

"Three top Bush administration officials said today they would welcome exile for Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, and one, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, signaled the United States might allow Hussein to escape war crimes prosecution if he voluntarily steps down." [more]

"Tens of thousands of antiwar demonstrators converged on Washington yesterday, making a thunderous presence in the bitter cold and assembling in the shadow of the Capitol dome to oppose a U.S. military strike against Iraq." [more]

"Many of those involved in the rallies say numbers are important because they're often used — rightly or wrongly — to convey the strength of a political movement. Because organizers often see their movements as being at odds with the government's way of thinking, they don't trust public officials to do the counting." [more]

"Temperatures, which didn't break 24 degrees during the day, didn't seem to affect the march much. But as protesters began to move along their route toward the Washington Navy Yard, rally organizers broke into the speeches with warnings about the weather." [more]

"Thousands of foreign visitors from predominantly Muslim countries will be given a second chance to register with U.S. immigration authorities because the turnout for earlier deadlines was dampened by widespread fear and confusion about the program, officials said yesterday." [more]

"Students took the event seriously, holding meetings with [their principal], attending a training session on nonviolent protest and working with police on a march route." [more]

"Since a clumsy start last month — when at least 200 Iranian visitors were arrested in Los Angeles alone — the program has turned into a mounting public relations problem for the Bush administration." [more]

"Both the efficacy of the procedure — what will the INS learn and how will the information be used? — and the wisdom of treating law-abiding and largely pro-American foreigners like criminals are debatable, particularly since the precedents are not good." [more]

"Almost everyone I know assumes that it's the president's call. The war hawks assume it, the latter-day peaceniks assume it, Congress itself assumes it. Which probably means that it is, at least in practical terms, a fact." [more]

"Concerns ranged from a sense of hurt pride that they would be required to register to fear that registration might result in arrest — a complaint that led to a recent lawsuit by a group of Iranian men in Los Angeles." [more]

"Two prominent members of the Congressional Black Caucus have voiced support for a nationwide military draft, saying that children of the rich should serve alongside less privileged Americans in the war on terrorism." [more]

"According to the Journal, numerous memos cited an unspecified project that would greatly help the terrorist organization. One memo, apparently written by bin Laden's senior strategist, described how the project's success 'may well be a way out of the bottleneck and transfer our activities to the stage of multinationals and [bring] joint profit.' " [more]

"Those who refuse to cooperate inside this secret CIA interrogation center are sometimes kept standing or kneeling for hours, in black hoods or spray-painted goggles, according to intelligence specialists familiar with CIA interrogation methods. At times they are held in awkward, painful positions and deprived of sleep with a 24-hour bombardment of lights — subject to what are known as 'stress and duress' techniques." [more]

"Hundreds of Middle Eastern, Iranian and other men and teenagers were arrested this week after registering with federal immigration officers, and their supporters today charged that the detentions were not catching terrorists but harassing immigrants." [more]

"D.C. police announced yesterday that they will put up temporary surveillance cameras next month during anti-war rallies and during an antiabortion demonstration." [more]

"The dispute ... promises to be the last major issue in the Pentagon's consideration of that plan, as more signs point toward forces being ready to launch a wide-ranging, highly synchronized ground and air attack in six to eight weeks. Psychological operations, such as leafleting and broadcasting into Iraq, have been stepped up lately, and there is talk at the Pentagon of large-scale troop movements or mobilizations being announced soon after the holidays." [more]

"The withdrawal came as a surprising and disappointing setback for the White House, where officials had been convinced that Kissinger's name would bring credibility to an enterprise they had once resisted." [more]

"Suspicion about U.S. motives in Iraq coupled with the widely held beliefs that the United States routinely ignores the interests of other nations and doesn't do enough to help solve global problems have battered the nation's image around the world." [more]

"The impatience in Washington and Baghdad over the pace and character of the inspections did not appear serious enough for the Bush administration or the government of President Saddam Hussein to walk away from the process. But it dramatized the intense political pressure facing the U.N. inspectors, whose work has become what amounts to a tripwire for possible U.S. military action to destroy Hussein's three-decade rule." [more]

"The Bush administration is developing a parallel legal system in which terrorism suspects — U.S. citizens and noncitizens alike — may be investigated, jailed, interrogated, tried and punished without legal protections guaranteed by the ordinary system, lawyers inside and outside the government say." [more]

"Although it is difficult to predict how much Americans would pay for a new war with Iraq, one fact seems indisputable: It will be many times more than the cost of the last war, if only because other countries are much more reluctant to share the burden." [more]

"A struggle of immense proportions and immeasurable importance is underway for the soul of Islam. It is a mighty contest that pits a humane, tolerant and progressive faith against a hangman's vision of a punitive god and a humankind defined by prohibitions. And we have not even noticed." [more]

"All three were surprised to find that Israeli papers print much fuller accounts of Israeli wrongs and Palestinian reprisals than those here. Peace groups there flourish and stage nonviolent protests. A large majority, there as well as here, favors separate states for Israel and Palestine. This sentiment is not reflected in the surveys of the present election campaign. The yearning for peace does not show up at all." [more]

"Authorities have arrested and jailed at least 44 people as potential grand jury witnesses in the 14 months of the nationwide terrorism investigation, but nearly half have never been called to testify before a grand jury, according to defense lawyers and others involved in the cases." [more]

"There are a few other places where criminal sharia is applied regionally, such as in parts of Pakistan. And now there's Nigeria, where Muslims in 12 of the country's 36 states find themselves facing sentences that differ greatly from the sentences handed out to the country's non-Muslims. Theft? That's amputation of the right hand." [more]

"Some members of Congress have said they favor creating a domestic security agency and it is likely legislative proposals will be offered during the next Congress. 'We're either going to create a working, effective, substantial domestic intelligence unit in the FBI or create a new agency,' said Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.), ranking member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence." [more]

"Violent confrontations between police and student protesters over the last two days have left at least two college students dead of gunshot wounds, dozens more seriously injured and several policemen wounded." [more]

Frustrated by obstacles in the civilian prosecution of Zacarias Moussaoui, the Bush administration is looking at changing course and attempting to bring the accused al Qaeda terrorist before a military tribunal, government officials said yesterday. [more]

"A crowd of about 400,000 protesters from across Europe marched here today against a presumptive war on Iraq and plenty of other things as well — globalization, cultivation of genetically modified foods, commercial control of the Internet, copyright laws, Israel's policies toward the Palestinians and liberalization of employee layoff rules." [more]

"A Bush administration intelligence review has concluded that four nations — including Iraq and North Korea — possess covert stocks of the smallpox pathogen, according to two officials who received classified briefings, [though] an authoritative official said there is 'no reason' to believe bin Laden succeeded in obtaining the smallpox pathogen." [more]

"A missile fired by a U.S. Predator drone over Yemen Sunday killed six suspected al Qaeda terrorists in a vehicle about 100 miles east of the nation's capital, the first time the United States has used the unmanned weapon outside Afghanistan, sources familiar with the action said yesterday." [more]

"The North Atlantic Treaty Organization appears set to embrace a radically new military posture and strategy that would profoundly alter the shape and mission of the world's most significant military alliance, according to NATO officials here and government officials in a half-dozen European capitals." [more]

"Several speakers referred to Vietnam era protests, and organizers were eager to compare the current movement with the one that peaked with a rally of between 250,000 and 500,000 people in Washington in 1969. The last large-scale peace protest in Washington was in 1991, when about 75,000 demonstrated during the height of the Persian Gulf War. Unlike those protests, yesterday's rally was different in that it preceded war, and many interpreted that as an indication of a potentially powerful movement." [more]

"Hundreds of protesters gathered near the Vietnam Veterans Memorial for the start of what organizers pledged would be a loud, angry but nonviolent protest against war with Iraq." [more]

"The British authorities have arrested an Islamic cleric whom authorities have alleged is an important figure in the European operations of the Al Qaeda terrorist network, according to members of the Muslim community here." [more]

"With its leaders in hiding and its finances and communications slashed by the war on terrorism, al Qaeda is resorting to more indiscriminate attacks against 'soft' targets. But officials warn that while the strategy may be a sign of weakness, the simplicity of these attacks might make them more difficult to predict and prevent." [more]

"Several foreign diplomats said they suspected it was the work of the Jemaah Islamiah, an Islamic militant network in Southeast Asia that intelligence officials say is linked to al Qaeda." [more]

Possible Qaeda attacks include "what is believed to be a terrorist bombing Oct. 6 on a French oil tanker near Yemen, the shooting death of a Marine in Kuwait on Oct. 8, the bombing death of an Army Special Forces soldier Oct. 2 in the Philippines and other recent attacks against French and German targets in the Middle East." [more]

"Peace groups believe they can still avert a war by convincing politicians that the majority of Americans oppose unilateral action against Iraq. Most polls find that a majority of Americans believe the United Nations should be allowed to try diplomacy first." [more]

"The heads of more than 60 Christian organizations issued a statement opposing a preemptive war on both moral and practical grounds. They included leaders of Bush's and Blair's own denominations — the United Methodist Church and the Church of England, respectively — as well as other major Protestant groups, Catholic men's and women's orders, humanitarian agencies and seminaries." [more]

"The decision to send the Army and Marine teams follows other steps by the Bush administration in recent weeks also pointing toward heightened preparations for war, including a gradual buildup of military equipment in the Gulf region, training exercises by U.S. troops likely to take part in an invasion and accelerated maintenance of aircraft carriers that could be sent from U.S. ports." [more]

"In key ways, the congressional resolution gives Bush even more leeway than his father received after Iraq overran Kuwait and targeted Saudi Arabia's oil facilities in August 1990. The resolution adopted by Congress the following January required the president to inform Congress that diplomacy had failed before he waged war. The current resolution allows Bush to wage war as long as he informs Congress within 48 hours after the onset of military action." [more]

" 'Our liberal base wants us to stand up and challenge Bush on the war,' said Donna Brazile, who runs the Democratic National Committee's Voting Rights Institute. She said loyal Democrats in low-income areas and black neighborhoods, along with many women and liberal suburbanites, are bitterly complaining that 'no one is talking to us, no one is addressing our issues' on the economy and preparation for war." [more]

"Iraq's fragmented society and blood-soaked political history should make anyone wary of predicting the swift creation of a viable democracy there. The U.S. establishment does not seem to appreciate how deeply entrenched are sectarian, tribal and ethnic loyalties and how complex would be the job of reconnecting Iraqi communities, estranged from one another by decades of divisive official policies." [more]

"President Bush yesterday rejected congressional efforts to limit his options to confront Iraq, part of what is shaping up as a successful though contentious campaign to win unfettered power from lawmakers to strike Saddam Hussein." [more]

Mary Cheh, a law professor at George Washington University, argued that if the same police tactics had been used "against the Million Man March, or the Million Mom March ... people would have been quite irate." [more]

"Here in the capital of the new Europe, officials are expressing emotions ranging from concern to alarm to anger as they contemplate the growing gap between themselves and the Bush administration." [more]

"Dozens of congressional Democrats are frustrated with their leadership for rushing to embrace President Bush's Iraqi war resolution and fostering an impression the party overwhelmingly backs a unilateral strike against Saddam Hussein." [more]

"Federal health officials will issue detailed guidelines today for vaccinating the entire U.S. population against smallpox within five days of an outbreak of the dreaded disease." [more]

"A new study by the Army's Center of Military History has found that the U.S. military would have to commit 300,000 peacekeeping troops in Afghanistan and 100,000 in Iraq if it were to occupy and reconstruct those nations on the scale that occurred in Japan and Germany after World War II." [more]

"The U.S. intelligence community received a surprising number of credible reports of a likely terrorist attack prior to Sept. 11, including some threats to domestic targets, according to a congressional report to be unveiled today." [more]

"Russia and the United States clashed openly on Tuesday about whether to hold Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's feet to the fire in a new U.N. Security Council resolution before weapons inspectors return." [more]

"The Pentagon is preparing to consolidate control of most of the global war on terrorism under the U.S. Special Operations Command, according to government sources, signaling an intensified but more covert approach to the next phase in the battle against al Qaeda and other international terrorist groups." [more]

"It's pretty straightforward," said former CIA director R. James Woolsey, who has been one of the leading advocates of forcing Hussein from power. "France and Russia have oil companies and interests in Iraq. They should be told that if they are of assistance in moving Iraq toward decent government, we'll do the best we can to ensure that the new government and American companies work closely with them." [more]

"I have always thought there is a plausible case for going to war against Iraq. But the more I hear from the administration — the more it exaggerates its case and turns a potential threat against the region into an imminent one against Peoria, Ill. — the more I have to wonder if such a case exists." [more]

"What is the purpose of poking an American finger in the eye of just about every country in the world? What does the administration hope to gain by emphasizing unilateral options, from declaring war without Congress to telling other nations to sign up or get out of the way? Does such bullying ever pay off in politics, domestic or international? In a democracy, voters want to participate. In a community of nations, governments want to participate. The issue isn't whether or not to fight terrorism -- a new poll of Europeans and American released last week showed strong support for military action against terrorists. But the same poll showed equally strong sentiment that any such action should be taken in concert with allies, and with the support of the United Nations." [more]

"German authorities have found no al Qaeda terror links to a Turkish man and his American fiancee arrested for plotting an attack on U.S. military bases in Germany on the Sept. 11 anniversary, the Interior Ministry said Saturday." [more]

"President Hamid Karzai narrowly escaped an assassination attempt in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar this evening, just three hours after a powerful car bomb exploded on a crowded street in this capital city, killing at least a dozen people and injuring scores more." [more]

"Although it is not clear how much gold has been moved, U.S. and European officials said the quantity was significant and was an important indicator that the al Qaeda network and members of Afghanistan's deposed Taliban militia still had access to large financial reserves." [more]

"Half of all Americans say the First Amendment 'goes too far' in the rights it guarantees -- a 10 percentage point increase in barely a year and more than double the proportion that offered a similarly negative view just two years ago, according to a survey by the First Amendment Center." [more]

"Without seeking formal approval from either Congress or the courts, the Bush administration has taken steps to establish military trials for foreign terror suspects, designated two U.S. citizens as 'enemy combatants' who may be held indefinitely without charge and ordered secret deportation hearings for suspected terrorists." [more]

"It's time that the Justice Department got the message. In the wake of the attacks, authorities rounded up large numbers of Arabs and Muslims whose immigration status had been revealed as deficient in the context of the terrorism probe. Many of these people surely had nothing to do with terrorism ... It is hard to imagine that those few detainees who are actually al Qaeda operatives need open proceedings to make their capture known." [more]

"If we go to war, we will be the initiators of aggression. It would be a mistake, however, to take this as fresh cause for doubt about the link between democracy and peace. We ought instead to view this imminent possibility as an occasion for raising hard questions about whether, in the critical matter of waging war, we still function as a genuine democracy." [more]

"The secretive federal court that approves spying on terror suspects in the United States has refused to give the Justice Department broad new powers, saying the government had misused the law and misled the court dozens of times, according to an extraordinary legal ruling released yesterday." [more]

"The move follows months of criticism from European governments and human rights advocates that individuals whose assets were ordered frozen by the Security Council were deprived of the means to meet their daily living expenses or to hire lawyers to help them challenge the charges." [more]

"Justice Department officials have decided to scale back the controversial Operation TIPS program before it even begins, saying yesterday that they no longer plan to ask thousands of mail carriers, utility workers and others with access to private homes to report suspected terrorist activity." [more]

"A briefing given last month to a top Pentagon advisory board described Saudi Arabia as an enemy of the United States, and recommended that U.S. officials give it an ultimatum to stop backing terrorism or face seizure of its oil fields and its financial assets invested in the United States." [more]

"Concerned that Southeast Asia's Muslim-majority nations provide fertile ground for the growth of terrorist organizations, the administration has been eager to establish closer security and intelligence ties, particularly with Malaysia and Indonesia. Yet the United States also has criticized both countries for repressing political dissent and abusing human rights." [more]

" 'The central reality is uncertainty, and the defectors' stories only reinforce that,' Sen. Bob Graham said in an interview after a recent tour of the Middle East, where he discussed Iraq with regional leaders. 'None of the people we met claimed to have conclusive knowledge of the status of Iraq's weapons program,' said Graham, chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence." [more]

"Despite President Bush's repeated bellicose statements about Iraq, many senior U.S. military officers contend that President Saddam Hussein poses no immediate threat and that the United States should continue its policy of containment rather than invade Iraq to force a change of leadership in Baghdad." [more]

"Khatami's angry response revealed the possibility that, with its bellicose and intolerant words, the Bush administration may well achieve what 20 years of diplomacy has failed to bring about: an alliance between the beleaguered Tehran and Baghdad. Such an alliance would portend further instability in a region that contains two-thirds of the world's proven oil reserves ó and frustrate the United States' aim to be the unchallenged foreign power in the region." [more]

"Karzai and his allies describe the secret service — once again controlled by Fahim — as a vast, corrupt and highly politicized apparatus that operates outside the president's authority. According to a source close to Karzai, the agency has 30,000 employees and its departments are run by ethnic Tajiks from the Northern Alliance who answer only to Fahim." [more]

"U.S. Customs agents have arrested a Jordanian-born man who was allegedly carrying $12 million in false cashier's checks, alarming counterterrorism officials who said the suspect may have been trained in al Qaeda terrorist camps in Afghanistan." [more]

"We are now faced with a unique moment to reach out to this generation and build a future with them. That is perhaps the surest thing America can do to help provide a secure future for Israel and hope for the Palestinian people. To do this, the United States must avoid policies that isolate us in the world community. We face both opportunity and risk, but there is no other option." [more]

"The men who pray inside an old storefront known here as Taqwa mosque insist they pose no threat. 'We ain't no terrorists, we don't make bombs,' Abdul-Hakim bellowed on the sidewalk out front this week. 'The FBI is fishing.' " [more]

"The Bush administration begins a new round of high-level Middle East diplomacy this week at odds with virtually all of its partners in the peace process, including Arab and European allies who are hoping for an evolution in U.S. policy away from the hard lines enunciated in President Bush's most recent speech on the subject." [more]

"The trial was conducted by Pakistan's special anti-terrorist courts, which were set up several years ago to speed up prosecutions by requiring cases to be heard and concluded within a limited period. The convictions from these special courts usually are overturned during the appeals process, where the superior courts hold open trials and examine the prosecution's case more intensely." [more]

"Americans should not be subjecting themselves to law enforcement scrutiny merely by having cable lines installed, mail delivered or meters read. Police cannot routinely enter people's houses without either permission or a warrant. They should not be using utility workers to conduct surveillance they could not lawfully conduct themselves." [more]

"Afghanistan's Pashtuns, the country's dominant ethnic group, say they are beginning to lose faith in President Hamid Karzai and to fear that the U.S. military campaign here is working against them." [more]

"U.S. officials have concluded after 10 months of war that the combat mission of U.S. conventional military troops in Afghanistan is largely over and that whatever fighting remains is likely to be carried out by small numbers of Special Forces troops and CIA operatives." [more]

"Saying 'stronger measures' and 'further explanations' were needed to prevent the U.S.-led effort to hunt down al Qaeda and Taliban fugives from killing civilians, Foreign Minister Abdullah said: 'This situation has to come to an end. Mistakes can take place ... but our people should be assured every measure has been taken to avoid such incidents.' " [more]

"The fresh questioning of the war on terrorism is also a phenomenon of the Democratic left. But if I have learned anything in four decades of covering politics, it is to pay heed when you hear the same questions — in almost the same phrases — popping up in different parts of the country." [more]

"The departure of retired Army Gen. Wayne A. Downing, who also has been an outspoken hawk in administration debates about how to deal with Saddam Hussein, raised questions among security experts about both the administration's plans to improve homeland security through a massive government reorganization and the direction of its policy on Iraq." [more]

The ruling "preserves [a] government effort to secretly detain foreigners." [more]

"An Israeli tank opened fire on a crowded market in the West Bank city of Jenin today, killing four Palestinians as hundreds gathered to shop in the mistaken belief that an around-the-clock curfew had been suspended. The dead included a 6-year-old girl, two brothers ages 6 and 13, and a 60-year-old man, hospital officials and Palestinian reporters in Jenin said." [more]

"As Palestinian suicide attacks on Israel have intensified in recent weeks, so has Arab criticism of bloody attacks on civilian targets. On June 19, a group of 54 Palestinian intellectuals and public figures called on the organizers of the suicide attacks to cease their operations. The "urgent appeal" followed public criticism of suicide attacks in the Lebanese, Egyptian, and Palestinian press." [more]

"U.S. authorities will not press for extending the operation beyond its scheduled expiration. [This] represents a substantial scaling back of an operation that, when announced late last year, was hailed by the Bush administration as an important new front in the war on terrorism. The focus on helping Philippine forces crush the ragtag militant Muslim group Abu Sayyaf has proven more of a sideshow to the worldwide counterterrorism campaign. It has been marked by a botched effort to rescue two American missionaries held hostage by Abu Sayyaf and the failure to eliminate the rebels." [more]

"Prisoners declared enemy combatants do not have the right to a lawyer and the American judiciary cannot second-guess the military's classification of such detainees, the Justice Department argued yesterday in a brief to an appeals court." [more]

"The debriefing is an extraordinary example of the way Sept. 11 has redefined U.S. engagement with regimes it once vilified. Syria remains on a State Department list of regimes that sponsor terrorism." [more]

"President Bush early this year signed an intelligence order directing the CIA to undertake a comprehensive, covert program to topple Saddam Hussein, including authority to use lethal force to capture the Iraqi president, according to informed sources." [more]

"The transformation of a chubby Catholic boy named Jose Padilla into an Islamic terrorist suspected of plotting to unleash a 'dirty bomb' on an American city is the mystery of the moment. No one could explain why a Puerto Rican kid who spent much of his adolescence in juvenile hall ended up researching radiological dispersion devices and learning how to wire explosives in Afghanistan and Pakistan." [more]

The policy, "without abandoning containment and deterrence, will for the first time add 'preemption' and 'defensive intervention' as formal options for striking at hostile nations or groups that appear determined to use weapons of mass destruction against the United States." [more]

"There was little doubt in the White House that the creation of a Cabinet department would have to be done in secret. How secret? Near-total. No Cabinet secretary was directly consulted about a plan that would strip 170,000 employees and $37 billion in funding from existing departments." [more]

Rather than operating a clearinghouse for intelligence information, officials of the proposed new Cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security would be responsible for making key decisions about how to respond." [more]

"In their Tank sessions, the chiefs focused on two specific concerns about the conduct of any offensive. One was that Hussein, if faced with losing power and likely being killed, would no longer feel the constraints that during the Persian Gulf War apparently kept him from using his stores of chemical and biological weapons. The other was the danger of becoming bogged down in bloody block-by-block urban warfare in Baghdad that could kill thousands of U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians." [more]

"The aura of invincibility that President Bush has enjoyed since Sept. 11 received a sharp jolt with the revelation that he had been told that Osama bin Laden's followers might try to hijack American airplanes." [more]

"Pakistani police this morning unearthed what appeared to be the remains of Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal correspondent kidnapped in January and shown dead in a videotape delivered almost a month later." [more]

"A draft letter to [the] House Judiciary Committee Chairman ... formally requesting hearings on the Bush administration's knowledge prior to Sept. 11 of possible terror attacks." [more]

"White House spokesman Ari Fleischer confirmed that Bush had been told about the possibility of hijackings but he declined to say what had been revealed during his intelligence briefings." [more]

"John Walker Lindh's attorneys yesterday asked that most of the charges against the California man captured with Taliban soldiers be dismissed because they violate Lindh's First Amendment right to associate with any cause, no matter how unpopular." [more]

"The campaign now fights a scattered, hit-and-run enemy that travels more easily and furtively than its pursuer." [more]

"The Bush administration notified congressional leaders in August of 'an increased level of threats on domestic targets by al Qaeda' but said nothing about hijackings, Capitol Hill sources said today." [more]

"The effort by Nuaimi and his colleagues may be the most potent legal undertaking so far to challenge the government's detention of the 384 captives in Cuba and Hamdi, who is held in the brig at the Norfolk Naval Station." [more]

"[S]peaking privately, Pakistani officials disclosed the military leaders concluded that no operation would be launched in the volatile border region ó known as the Tribal Areas ó without more specific intelligence that the Pakistani government deemed credible. Even then, they decided, U.S. military involvement in the area should be kept to a minimum. A small number of U.S. Special Forces are already operating along the Pakistani side of the border, and covert U.S. patrols have crossed into Pakistan from Afghanistan." [more]

"The arrest of Agus Dwikarna, a commander of the Laskar Jundullah militia, has provided intelligence officials with important new evidence about connections between Southeast Asian radical groups, particularly those in Indonesia, and al Qaeda, sources said." [more]

"The Bush administration, which has pressed for overhauling the 11-year-old sanctions policy since it took office last year, contends the new rules will eliminate any legitimate claim by Hussein that United Nations sanctions are responsible for suffering and starvation." [more]

"Factional fighting among rival militia leaders erupted across eastern Afghanistan today for the first time since January, killing and injuring dozens of people and complicating efforts by the U.S.-led military coalition to hunt down residual al Qaeda and Taliban fighters near the Pakistani border." [more]

"Arrests are the first tangible sign of U.S. pressure on Georgia to crack down on what the Bush administration says are terrorists with al Qaeda connections in the Pankisi Gorge, about 30 miles from Georgia's northern border with Chechnya. To urge Georgia on, the United States has promised $64 million to train and equip about 1,500 Georgian soldiers." [more]

" 'The orders were to shoot at each house,' recalled the sergeant, a member of a heavy weapons company in the Yoav regiment of the army's Fifth Brigade, a reserve unit that did the bulk of the fighting in Jenin. 'The words on the radio were to "Put a bullet in each window." ' " [more]

"Covert U.S. military units have been conducting reconnaissance operations in Pakistan in recent weeks and participated in attacks on suspected al Qaeda hide-outs there, opening a new front in a shadowy war being waged by the United States along the mountainous Afghan-Pakistan border." [more]

"The U.S. war on terrorism has reached into this corner of the Caribbean, [Venezuela,] focusing on a long-resident ethnic community as a potential refuge for terrorists." [more]

"With many of its best interrogators and speakers of Middle Eastern dialects dispatched to Afghanistan, the military has been forced to rely on some underqualified officers whoare overmatched by captives trained in methods of evasion, according to people familiar with the interrogations. In a few cases, young questioners in uniform were conducting some of their first interrogations." [more]

"Eager to make their presence felt and their voices heard in the nation's capital as never before, Arab and Muslim families marched and chanted for an end to U.S. military aid to Israel, overwhelming the messages of those with other causes in a peaceful day of downtown rallies and marches." [more]

"District police officials said the crowds were larger than they had anticipated, and put their numbers at about 75,000. Organizers of a Palestinian-rights rally at the Ellipse south of the White House said the gathering was the largest demonstration for Palestine in U.S. history." [more]

"The official White House transcript made no mention of the hecklers or Bush's false starts. The opposition sees a Soviet-style move to airbrush infelicitous phrases. 'These transcripts are done for near-term history as well as long-term history and it's a real problem if they start rewriting them,' said Joe Lockhart, a former press secretary for President Bill Clinton. 'The White House is rewriting history.' " [more]

""The hawks' nightmare is that inspectors will be admitted, will not be terribly vigorous and not find anything," said a former U.S. official. "Economic sanctions would be eased, and the U.S. will be unable to act."" [more]

"The indefinite detention of American citizens with no charge and no public legal justification is unacceptable." [more]

"A confluence of events ó part happenstance, part strategy ó- led several activist groups to link their plans, their people and their marches. Now, violence in the Middle East ó and U.S. support of Israel ó has moved to the forefront, yet still comfortably tucked under the anti-oppression umbrella." [more]

Bush "now must reckon with the prospect that the Middle East conflict will force a delay in, or substantial changes to, the next phase of the war on terrorism ó apparently aimed at Iraq ó that they have been planning for months." [more]

"The linkage of Iraq, Iran and North Korea made no sense to [Europeans], and subsequent assurances that Bush had no immediate intention to take military action against the last two simply heightened fears that he planned to bomb or invade Iraq." [more]

"As the United States tries to mediate a truce in the Middle East, Israeli military planners are preparing for a major assault on Palestinian cities, towns and refugee camps that would be broader and deeper than the offensive undertaken earlier this month, according to Israeli officials." [more]

"During the visit of Afghan leader Hamid Karzai to Washington this winter, he appealed to the Bush administration to approve a substantial enlargement of the force so it could enforce order across the country. Foreign diplomats and some members of the administration, especially in the State Department, had also pressed for more peacekeepers fearing that resurgent tensions between rival Afghan warlords could undermine Karzai's authority and sabotage efforts to establish a new central government." [more]

"A new report in the New Yorker magazine suggests that Iraqi intelligence has been in close touch with top officials in Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda group for years, and that the two organizations jointly run a terrorist organization that operates in the Kurdish area of northern Iraq." [more]

"The U.S. military and its allies are planning new attacks on several pockets of al Qaeda and Taliban fighters believed to be hiding in southern and eastern Afghanistan, the U.S. commander of ground operations in the war said today." [more]

"Vice President Cheney's campaign to reinvigorate the anti-Iraq coalition ran into more resistance today when he arrived in Saudi Arabia, perhaps the most crucial stop of his 11-country Middle East trip, for talks with the kingdom's influential leaders." [more]

"Since Sept. 11, the U.S. government has secretly transported dozens of people suspected of links to terrorists to countries other than the United States, bypassing extradition procedures and legal formalities, according to Western diplomats and intelligence sources. The suspects have been taken to countries, including Egypt and Jordan, whose intelligence services have close ties to the CIA and where they can be subjected to interrogation tactics — including torture and threats to families — that are illegal in the United States, the sources said." [more]

"Framed by the flags of scores of nations that have supported Bush's initial strikes against terror, Bush began a public campaign to persuade . . . nations ó many of them skeptical or hostile to the idea ó to stay with him as he moves forward with plans to replace the regime of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein." [more]

"Additional Afghan fighters were called in after U.S. commanders realized they had significantly underestimated the size and firepower of the al Qaeda fighting force holed up in the Arma mountain range at Shahikot." [more]

"After five months during which some of the Bush administration's most willing international partners griped about being left on the sidelines of the Afghan war, at least seven U.S. allies are contributing troops to this week's U.S. offensive in eastern Afghanistan, elevating their profile in a war managed by the Pentagon." [more]

"The Justice Department is removing hundreds of Pakistani detainees from the United States at a 'hectic' pace and U.S. officials have told the Pakistani government that most of those arrested immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks will be returned home by the end of next month, a Pakistani official said today." [more]

Neighborhood Watch programs across the country were recently handed a new directive from Attorney General John D. Ashcroft: patrol for terrorists. [more]

" 'We will not create a safer world with bombs or brigades alone,' [World Bank president James D.] Wolfensohn said in a speech at the Woodrow Wilson International Center. While poverty does not itself lead to violence, it 'can provide a breeding ground for the ideas and actions of those who promote conflict and terror,' he said. [more]

"Retreating quickly from Zurmat by convoy, the journalists were first pursued by gunmen and then approached on the road by a man who appeared to throw a grenade at one of the vehicles. An explosion seriously wounded a Canadian journalist, who was later evacuated from a U.S. military outpost.
" 'We've had a lot of casualties,' one U.S. soldier said at the base, where the American troops appeared particularly on edge tonight. 'It's not safe here,' another said." [more]

"Backed by American bombing, hundreds of U.S. ground troops and their Afghan allies battled al Qaeda fighters in the rugged mountains near here today, Pentagon officials said. Afghan leaders and soldiers said the offensive suffered a setback on Saturday when an opening ground assault was stalled by heavy resistance." [more]

"Alarmed by growing hints of al Qaeda's progress toward obtaining a nuclear or radiological weapon, the Bush administration has deployed hundreds of sophisticated sensors since November to U.S. borders, overseas facilities and choke points around Washington. It has placed the Delta Force, the nation's elite commando unit, on a new standby alert to seize control of nuclear materials that the sensors may detect." [more]

"President Bush has dispatched a shadow government of about 100 senior civilian managers to live and work secretly outside Washington, activating for the first time long-standing plans to ensure survival of federal rule after catastrophic attack on the nation's capital." [more]

"A hunger strike yesterday by almost two-thirds of the 300 al Qaeda and Taliban detainees at the U.S. Navy base in Cuba, called to protest two guards' removal of a makeshift turban from a captive's head, prompted a rapid about-face by U.S. military officials, who told the inmates they could indeed wear such a headdress." [more]

"Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), in an interview Thursday, made clear he has many questions for the administration -- and some frustration over the way the Bush team is ignoring Congress as it charts its policy. He said the administration has "no clear message" about the war at this point. "There is nobody I know you can go to in this administration [who can say] this is the plan," he said." [more]

"Recent intelligence reports indicate that Osama bin Laden survived the U.S. bombing assault on his hideouts in Afghanistan and could still be somewhere in the lawless, mountainous region that straddles the Afghan-Pakistan border, officials said yesterday." [more]

"Hamid Karzai, 44, unelected chairman of Afghanistan's fractious interim government, seems like a man in control, but two months into his tenure he is governing largely by illusion." [more]

"Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's admission last week that the United States mistakenly killed 16 people in the village of Hazar Kadam on the night of Jan. 23 is confused and inadequate." [more]

"Tensions within the walls of Muslim day schools are in many ways emblematic of the U.S. Muslim community's political concerns, fears, biases and hopes, all brought into sharp focus since the events of Sept. 11." [more]

The war in Afghanistan and Pentagon efforts to bolster security at home will cost a projected $30 billion this year, far more than Congress has provided, according to Defense Department documents obtained by The Associated Press. [more]

One of the most contentious debates has been between, on one side, government officials who believe that information about hazardous chemical sites should be kept away from potential terrorists and, on the other side, environmentalists and other groups that contend the public should have this information to address any health concerns. Another debate has been between Defense Department officials, who want to make sure their research isn't used to create weapons, and scientists, who say that new limitations on information-sharing may stifle innovation. [more]

Bush administration rhetoric has fueled speculation that a military move against Iraq could be imminent. But the military reality is that it could take up to a year before the United States is ready to launch a coordinated assault likely to achieve the administration's goals of destroying Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capability and replacing Hussein's regime. [more]

"The startling accusation about Thursday night's fatal attack on Abdul Rahman, the air transport and tourism minister, at Kabul International Airport cast serious doubt on the stability and unity of Hamid Karzai's national government. Installed seven weeks ago, the new administration is a fragile coalition made up mostly of backers of the former king, Mohammed Zahir Shah, and leaders of the Northern Alliance, an amalgam of groups from northern Afghanistan whose troops helped oust the Taliban in November." [more]

"[F]ears have prompted an escalating campaign by U.S. diplomatic, military and law enforcement officials to increase cooperation with Yemen's government, which has mobilized troops to crack down on suspected militants since Sept. 11 and has announced plans to expel more than 100 foreigners for questionable activities." [more]

"A Washington Post reporter who reached the remote scene of the attack was held at gunpoint by U.S. soldiers and prevented from entering the site. The soldiers also barred access to the nearby village where Ahmad and the two other [alleged civilian casualties] had lived." [more]

"President Bush reversed himself yesterday and declared that captured combatants who fought for Afghanistan's Taliban regime will be formally covered by the Geneva Conventions. But the president refused to confer that status on detainees who are members of the al Qaeda terrorist network." [more]

"A parade of European security officials expressed alarm today about what they considered an aggressive, go-it-alone stance staked out by President Bush in his State of the Union address last week, especially his warning that the United States was prepared to take preemptive action against Iraq or other countries that provide terrorists with nuclear, chemical or biological weapons." [more]

"Since September, the Bush administration has followed a policy of concealment in [Oulai's] case and in those of hundreds of other foreigners similarly detained in the terrorism investigation." [more]

"While Afghanistan's interim administration and its U.S.-promoted leader, Hamid Karzai, build a central government in Kabul, most of Afghanistan has fallen under the sway of Pentagon-backed militia commanders, such as Dostum, who have acknowledged the Kabul administration but run their zones with wide autonomy." [more]

"The U.S. bombs that blasted this clump of mud-brick homes a few hours before dawn on Dec. 29, killing dozens of civilians, were aimed at Taliban and al Qaeda leaders who survivors deny were ever here, and an arms cache they say they never saw. What remains in view is the tattered evidence of a little world blown apart." [more]

"The Berlin Wall fell not because capitalism triumphed but because communism failed. I am not sure the United States realizes this. We may tell ourselves that capitalism is the only game in town, yet in 80 percent of the world, capitalism is not yet a reality." [more]

"For a brief moment, it looked as though the crime perpetrated by Osama bin Laden would persuade President Bush to rethink the defiant unilateralism his campaign had proposed as the leitmotif for American foreign policy. But the Afghan triumph seems only to encourage the simplicities of the Republican right. Its talk grows harsher and appears to scorn, even more deeply than a year ago, the complexities of global crises, not to mention the prudent generosity of outlook demanded of the sole surviving Great Power." [more]

"Something must be wrong with the way the United States exercises its power. Too many people, in too many countries, see U.S. foreign policy as lacking universal principles that resonate with the rest of the world. It seems to them that an America projecting its power in pursuit of its own interests will only end up destabilizing a globalizing world." [more]

"America [has] harnessed, even cultivated, terrorism in the struggle against movements it saw as Soviet proxies. Yes, I do mean 'terrorism,' which Washington supports when it backs groups for whom the preferred method of operation is destroying the infrastructure of civilian life." [more]

"The United Nations said it had an unconfirmed but reliable report that the airstrike on the village of Niazi Kala, in Paktia province about 100 miles south of Kabul, had left 52 civilians dead. A spokeswoman in Kabul said that U.N. special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi was 'very concerned' and would raise the issue with Afghanistan's interim government and with U.S. officials." [more]

"The American Bar Association is urging Attorney General John D. Ashcroft to rescind his order allowing the monitoring of conversations between lawyers and clients suspected of terrorism, claiming the directive is a violation of constitutional safeguards and is counterproductive." [more]

"In the most overt U.S. military campaign against al Qaeda outside Afghanistan, Special Forces officers have visited the southern Philippines in recent weeks to assess efforts to target the rebels. By next month, at least 100 Special Forces soldiers are slated to travel here to train Philippine troops in counterterrorism. U.S. and Philippine officials say some U.S. advisers, who will carry weapons for self-defense, will coach Philippine soldiers pursuing the Abu Sayyaf on Basilan island." [more]

"American troops will be sent into Afghanistan's abandoned al-Qaida cave complex to press the search for Osama bin Laden, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld said Friday.
"He declined to say how many." [more]

"Powell sought to quiet speculation that the Iraqi government would be an early target in the U.S. anti-terrorism campaign. He said that Hussein's military is far stronger than the ill-equipped Taliban forces and that the Iraqi opposition is not comparible to Afghanistan's Northern Alliance." [more]

"A confident American public strongly supports extending the anti-terrorism war to Iraq and other countries, and most believe there can be no victory without the demise of both Osama bin Laden and Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, according to a new Washington Post–ABC News poll." [more]

"Several dozen Arab fighters captured by Pakistani forces after fleeing across the border from Afghanistan overpowered their guards today and set off a gun battle in which 13 people were killed and some of the Arabs escaped, Pakistani authorities said." [more]

A series of "long shots and near misses" characterized a covert war on terrorism "that most Americans did not yet know their country was fighting. Clinton's war was marked by caution against an enemy that the president and his advisers knew to be ruthless and bold." [more]

"The high-tech IDs, the latest in 'smart cards,' were designed for tracking personnel across the globe and running more secure and efficient military operations. But now they are models for something that was unthinkable before Sept. 11: national identification cards for all U.S. citizens." [more]

"The U.S. military has sent Special Operations sniper and "snatch and grab" teams to the Tora Bora area of eastern Afghanistan to assist in killing or capturing Osama bin Laden and other senior leaders of the Qaida network, according to senior defense officials." [more]

"For some leaders of major U.S. Muslim organizations who have been criticized for failing to condemn bin Laden, the tape was enough to get them on record. For other Muslims in the United States who were more suspicious of the nation's eagerness to justify the war in Afghanistan, no number of independent, nongovernment translations would be enough to convince them." [more]

"Given the litigious nature of the United States, it should be no surprise that the American military has more lawyers than all other countries combined. Legal advisers are integral to planning and operations at all levels, reviewing targets and rules of engagement. Even at the White House level, constraints on civilian damage, either implicit or explicit, are articulated by legal counsel. Specific rules of engagement are further developed in the Pentagon by the Defense Department civilian leadership and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, with legal input, of course." [more]

As air strikes continue on the Tora Bora caves, some Afghan leaders say the U.S. resisted a surrender because the terms would have allowed bin Laden and others to give themselves up to the United Nations. [more]

"People in the Senate office where a letter containing anthrax spores was opened in October may have been exposed to concentrations of the bacteria that were tens, and possibly hundreds, of times higher than the normally fatal dose. If that is the case, then immediate antibiotic treatment probably saved their lives — and will be imperative for other targets of mail-borne anthrax attacks." [more]

"Dozens of captives loyal to Osama bin Laden [are] said to be fighting to the death.
Hundreds of the prisoners had been killed a day earlier in fighting and U.S. airstrikes after they pulled weapons from their tunics and attacked their outnumbered guards, according to the Pentagon and the northern alliance.
Two witnesses and an alliance commander claimed at least one American soldier had been killed ... [and] five U.S. troops were injured by an errant American bomb that landed near the prison compound." [more]

The author reflects on the new patriotism, and the words of President Roosevelt defending the "Four Freedoms." [more]

"While Iraq has been mentioned most frequently as a possible target for U.S. forces in the next phase of the campaign, government agencies are debating possible actions in several other nations that the administration believes harbor terrorist organizations. The countries include not only Iraq, but also Indonesia and the Philippines." [more]

"Under great secrecy, Middle Eastern men are being detained on a scale not seen since World War II." [more]

"Sharon's interest in Rice, who is 46 and single, was first reported Friday by Israel's mass-circulation newspaper Yedioth Aharonoth. According to the article, Sharon told journalists and executives of Israel's Channel 2 News last Tuesday, 'I have to confess, it was hard for me to concentrate in the conversation with Condoleezza Rice because she has very nice legs.'" [more]