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Associated Press Washington — U.S. President George W. Bush said Monday that his National Security Adviser "knows exactly what took place and will lay out the facts" when she testifies before the Sept. 11 commission. Condoleezza Rice's testimony on Thursday was assured only after Mr. Bush changed course last week under pressure and decided to allow her to appear publicly and under oath. She has testified in a private session in February. "She's a very smart, capable person who knows exactly what took place and will lay out the facts," he told reporters while on an economic and fund-raising trip...

Iraqi exile group fed news media false information By JONATHAN S. LANDAY and TISH WELLS Knight Ridder Newspapers WASHINGTON - The former Iraqi exile group that gave the Bush administration exaggerated and fabricated intelligence on Iraq also fed much of the same information to leading newspapers, news agencies and magazines in the United States, Britain and Australia. A June 26, 2002, letter from the Iraqi National Congress to the Senate Appropriations Committee listed 108 articles based on information provided by the INC's Information Collection Program, a U.S.-funded effort to collect intelligence in Iraq. The assertions in the articles reinforced President...

Pentagon Pays Iraq Group, Supplier of Incorrect Spy Data By DOUGLAS JEHL Published: March 11, 2004 WASHINGTON, March 10 — The Pentagon is paying $340,000 a month to the Iraqi political organization led by Ahmad Chalabi, a member of the interim Iraqi government who has close ties to the Bush administration, for "intelligence collection" about Iraq, according to Defense Department officials. The classified program, run by the Defense Intelligence Agency since summer 2002, continues a longstanding partnership between the Pentagon and the organization, the Iraqi National Congress, even as the group jockeys for power in a future government. Internal government...

U.S. didn't interview tipster on mobile labs Friday, March 05, 2004 By Walter Pincus, The Washington Post WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration's prewar assertion that Saddam Hussein had a fleet of mobile labs that could produce bioweapons rested largely on information from an Iraqi defector working with another government who was never interviewed by U.S. intelligence officers, according to current and former senior intelligence officials and congressional experts who have studied classified documents. In his presentation before the U.N. Security Council on Feb. 5, 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell said "firsthand descriptions" of the mobile bioweapons fleet had come...

No evidence found on pilot's fate By DREW BROWN and JOSEPH L. GALLOWAY Knight Ridder Newspapers WASHINGTON - Despite nearly a year of searching, the Navy has no new intelligence to resolve the fate of a Navy pilot who was shot down on the first night of the 1991 Persian Gulf War and is still missing, the Navy's top admiral said Tuesday. Lt. Cmdr. Michael Scott Speicher's FA-18 Hornet was shot down in western Iraq on Jan. 17, 1991. Speicher, 33, originally was listed as killed in action, but the Defense Department changed his status to "missing-captured" in January 2001,...

Hussein ties to al Qaeda appear faulty The administration's case on ties between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda relied on intelligence that was weaker than that on Iraq's illegal weapons programs. By WARREN P. STROBEL, JONATHAN S. LANDAY AND JOHN WALCOTT WASHINGTON - The Bush administration's assertion that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had ties to al Qaeda -- one of the administration's central arguments for a preemptive war -- appears to have been based on even less solid intelligence than the administration's claims that Iraq had hidden stocks of chemical and biological weapons. Nearly a year after U.S. and British...

The Atlantic Monthly | January/February 2004 Nation-Building 101 The chief threats to us and to world order come from weak, collapsed, or failed states. Learning how to fix such states—and building necessary political support at home—will be a defining issue for America in the century ahead by Francis Fukuyama "the United States has taken responsibility for the stability and political development of two Muslim countries—Afghanistan and Iraq. A lot now rides on our ability not just to win wars but to help create self-sustaining democratic political institutions and robust market-oriented economies, and not only in these two countries but throughout...

Pentagon still paying informants with faulty intelligence Up to $4 million set aside for former Iraqi opposition group By JONATHAN S. LANDAY, WARREN P. STROBEL and JOHN WALCOTT Knight Ridder Newspapers WASHINGTON — The Defense Department continues to pay millions for information from the former Iraqi opposition group that produced exaggerated intelligence that President Bush used to argue his case for war. The Pentagon has set aside between $3 million and $4 million this year for the Information Collection Program of the Iraqi National Congress, led by Ahmed Chalabi, said two senior U.S. officials and a U.S. Defense Department official....

A long day got longer as we headed north on the Point Reyes Peninsula. We all suffered from “scope-eye,” that strange affliction known to birders and photographers who spend inordinate amounts of time staring with one eye through a spotting scope or viewfinder. Afternoon birding can be slow, but we hoped a visit to Teal Pond would perk things up a bit. Maybe we would see Blue-winged Teal loafing at the water’s edge or Wilson’s Snipe probing the muddy shoreline....(snip) We instantly pulled off the paved road and fixed our eyes on this scene of utter chaos in the adjacent...

Vol. 20, No. 3 February 9, 2004 Backtracking on al-Qaeda Ties by Thomas R. Eddlem Colin Powell’s admission that the Bush administration had no "concrete evidence" of an Iraq–al-Qaeda terrorist connection is a full reversal of his earlier statement to the UN. "We know that Iraq and al Qaeda have had high-level contacts that go back a decade. Some al Qaeda leaders who fled Afghanistan went to Iraq. These include one very senior al Qaeda leader who received medical treatment in Baghdad this year, and who has been associated with planning for chemical and biological attacks. We’ve learned that Iraq...

US weapons hunter won't return to Iraq: report David Kay, the chief United States weapons hunter in Iraq, has told the CIA he will not return to his post, a US government source said today. "He has told the DCI (Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet) that he doesn't want to go back, they have been trying to get him to stay," the source told Reuters on condition of anonymity. It was unclear whether the CIA had had any success in persuading Mr Kay, who came back to the United States for the Christmas holidays, to stay on the job,...

I believe in conspiracies John Laughland says the real nutters are those who believe in al-Qa’eda and weapons of mass destruction Believing in conspiracy theories is rather like having been to a grammar school: both are rather socially awkward to admit. Although I once sat next to a sister-in-law of the Duke of Norfolk who agreed that you can’t believe everything you read in the newspapers, conspiracy theories are generally considered a rather repellent form of intellectual low-life, and their theorists rightfully the object of scorn and snobbery. Writing in the Daily Mail last week, the columnist Melanie Phillips even...

Hollinger scandal engulfs great and the good By Stephanie Kirchgaessner in New York Published: January 5 2004 4:00 | Last Updated: January 5 2004 4:00 This week, a cast of political and business luminaries will find themselves in the Hollinger hot seat, after the unsealing of a law suit filed by an investor that contains new information about how the newspaper publisher's independent directors allegedly routinely approved millions of dollars in payments to executives and other related party transactions. The lawsuit, filed by Connecticut-based Cardinal Capital, paints a picture of a group of highly respected former politicians, including former Illinois...

Monday December 22, 3:02 PM US Republicans signal readiness to resume Iraq weapons probe US Senate Republicans have signaled their readiness to resume a probe into pre-war charges that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, which was halted more than six weeks ago amid bitter partisan bickering. "I think we will have, hopefully, some public hearings by February," announced Pat Roberts, chairman of the US Senate intelligence committee, appearing on CBS's "Face the Nation" program. "We will get those questions out." US President George W. Bush and other top administration officials had accused Iraq of secretly producing chemical and biological...

Boeing's Pentagon link in limelight By Joshua Chaffin in Washington Published: December 7 2003 21:58 | Last Updated: December 7 2003 21:58 Boeing has formed ties with half a dozen members of the Defence Policy Board, an influential civilian group that advises the Pentagon. The relationships range from Boeing's hiring board members as paid consultants to pouring tens of millions of dollars into their investment funds. Such moves highlight the aerospace company's efforts to become entrenched in Washington's defence establishment as its emphasis has shifted in recent years from commercial aviation to military contracting. They have come to light amid...

Sun hits the chicken ship By MARTIN WALLACE and ROSS HINDLEY COWARDLY French sailors are enjoying a holiday on the Thames — while our brave boys and girls risk their lives to topple Saddam. Crew of the coastal patrol vessel FS Flamant are unashamedly flying a Tricolour while moored in central London. So The Sun steamed into action yesterday by blitzing them with white feathers — the coward’s symbol. We hired a 38ft yacht for our daring assault on the 150ft ship, which is moored next to Tower Bridge. First, we hoisted up the Red Ensign flag as we...

    Four-winged dinosaur makes feathers fly   19:00 22 January 03 Jeff Hecht   Long flight feathers adorn the hind legs of Microraptor gui (Image: Xing Xu) A stunning set of six fossils discovered in China could rewrite our understanding of how and why birds first took to the sky. The fossils clearly show a small dinosaur that had flight feathers covering its legs, as well as tail and arms, forming an extra pair of wings never before seen by palaeontologists. News of the find comes just days after scientists published work showing that baby partridges flap their tiny wings to...

Technology: Researchers develop computer processor made from chicken feathers Copyright © 2002 AP Online NEWARK, Del. (July 24, 2002 3:52 p.m. EDT) - Everyone's familiar with the computer mouse. But the computer chicken? Researchers in the University of Delaware's ACRES program - Affordable Composites from Renewable Sources - have developed a computer processor made from chicken feathers. The head of the program, chemical engineering professor Richard Wool, said researchers looked to chicken feathers because they have shafts that are hollow but strong, and made mostly of air, a great conductor of electricity. The chicken-feather chip is made from soybean...