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"In August 1998, the detainee traveled to Pakistan with a member of Iraqi Intelligence for the purpose of blowing up the Pakistan, United States and British embassies with chemical mortars."  U.S. government "Summary of Evidence" for an Iraqi member of al Qaeda detained at Guantanamo Bay, CubaFOR MANY, the debate over the former Iraqi regime's ties to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network ended a year ago with the release of the 9/11 Commission report. Media outlets seized on a carefully worded summary that the commission had found no evidence "indicating that Iraq cooperated with al Qaeda in developing or...

A Republican congressman from North Carolina told CNN on Wednesday that the "evidence is clear" that Iraq was involved in the terrorist attacks against the United States on September 11, 2001. "Saddam Hussein and people like him were very much involved in 9/11," Rep. Robin Hayes said. Told no investigation had ever found evidence to link Saddam and 9/11, Hayes responded, "I'm sorry, but you must have looked in the wrong places." Hayes, the vice chairman of the House subcommittee on terrorism, said legislators have access to evidence others do not. -SNIP-President Bush said in September 2003 that "We've had...

Karl Rove is under fire from Democrats who have demanded he apologize or resign for the his comments at a New York State Conservative Party dinner on Wednesday. Here is some of what Rove said: LET me now say a few words about the state of liberalism. Perhaps the place to begin is with this stinging indictment: "Liberalism is at greater risk now than at any time in recent American history. The risk is of political marginality, even irrelevance . . . [L]iberalism risks getting defined, as conservatism once was, entirely in negative terms." These are not the words of...

IT WAS ONLY 7:15 a.m. on October 26, 2003, and Paul Wolfowitz was already thinking about Saddam Hussein. The deputy secretary of defense had been awake for just over an hour when he and two civilian Pentagon advisers walked into a large office for a briefing on electricity.Wolfowitz wasn't happy. The office was in one of Saddam's opulent palaces. Six months after the fall of Baghdad, there were still three-story busts of the former Iraqi leader perched atop the four corners of the massive structure. Virtually all of the images of the deposed dictator throughout Iraq had been defaced or...

Story and photo by Tawny Archibald Campbell/The Bayonet FORT BENNING, Ga. (TRADOC News Service, Feb. 25, 2005) - There was a time when 29-year-old Windrell Hayes thought he had it all. He had a beautiful wife, a college education and a career with the National Football League. After being released from the New York Jets in October 2001 and spending the following spring with the Green Bay Packers, Hayes realized he wasn’t all that happy with his life. He didn’t enjoy playing professional football, and he wasn’t having fun. “I got into football because my brother played, and I was...

She wants to know why Homeland Security has not used money to help prevent textile smuggling. Charlotte, NC -- Members of North Carolina's congressional delegation are demanding answers from the Homeland Security Department about why money appropriated by Congress to fight textile smuggling has not been used to hire new customs inspectors. "It is my understanding from reports by the textile industry that not one single new agent has been hired as a result of these actions," Sen. Elizabeth Dole, R-N.C., said in a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. Rep. Robin Hayes, R-N.C., wrote a letter in December...

SAMIR VINCENT WAS VISITING BAGHDAD when Saddam Hussein ordered the invasion of Kuwait on August 2, 1990. He had not lived in his native Iraq for some three decades, having left in 1958 for the United States and a track-and-field career that would later land him in the Boston College Athletic Hall of Fame. Maybe Vincent's presence in Iraq was simply bad timing.Although Americans were not exactly hostages in the tense days after the invasion, they were not free to leave Iraq. So when Vincent, a naturalized citizen, and Illinois businessman Michael Saba managed to escape by taking a taxicab...

Both major political parties were influenced by the Grant era corruption and sought to nominate candidates who could win the public trust. The Democrats turned to Samuel J. Tilden, who had established an enviable record as the reform-minded governor of New York. Tilden was on record as favoring the removal of the remaining federal occupation soldiers from the South, a position regarded favorably by his supporters in that region. The Republicans passed over the frontrunner, James G. Blaine, because of his participation in some questionable dealings. The nomination was eventually given to the respected governor of Ohio, Rutherford B. Hayes....

After their tiny plane crashed deep in the jungles of southern Colombia, three American civilians on a mission to search for cocaine labs, drug planes and, occasionally, guerrilla units were taken hostage by Marxist rebels. A year later, the men's families say the captives have been all but forgotten. Some say that is the way American officials and the men's employers want it to be. The three Americans — Marc Gonsalves, Keith Stansell and Thomas Howes — worked cloaked in secrecy for two subsidiaries of Northrop Grumman, the huge military contractor, in an arrangement used increasingly by the United States...

LITTLE ROCK, Ark., Nov. 19 - With its sleek horizontal form hovering at the edge of the Arkansas River, the new William J. Clinton Presidential Center has been called by promoters a "bridge to the 21st century," a trite allusion to one of the former president's favorite themes. Locals snicker that it looks like an enormous double-wide trailer. Actually, its best elements fall somewhere between those two extremes. Designed by James Polshek and Richard Olcott of the New York-based firm Polshek Partnership, the library has moments of genuine architectural power. Its sleek cantilevered form thrusts out aggressively toward the river,...

ON SUNDAY'S Meet The Press Tim Russert asked his guest, Michael Scheuer, to respond to questions concerning his first book from 2002, Through Our Enemies' Eyes. In it, as I pointed out in an earlier article, Scheuer cites numerous pieces of evidence that substantiate the Bush administration's claim that Saddam's Iraq had a relationship with al Qaeda. However, in his recent media appearances, Scheuer now gives the impression that there is no evidence that there was a relationship. Tim Russert asked Scheuer about this apparent contradiction; his response left much to be desired. Scheuer's response does, however, illustrate one of...

The Kerry campaign's extraordinary response to the newly released tape from al Qaeda's leader.IN THEIR FORMAL STATEMENTS reacting to the new videotape from Osama bin Laden, both President Bush and John Kerry were statesmanlike. Each man called for Americans to unite against terror and vowed to defeat bin Laden and al Qaeda.The Bush campaign wisely avoided going political. But the Kerry campaign--in comments from a top adviser and the candidate himself--did not.Kerry gave what appear to be his first extemporaneous comments about the tape in a previously scheduled satellite interview with Kathy Mykleby, a veteran anchor with WISN TV in...

...Kennedy did only slightly better in 1960, scoring 49.8% against Nixon. His plurality was one of the smallest in U.S. history..... This election was significant in that it marked the occasion when TV played a major, perhaps determining, part. Roosevelt had already demonstrated the importance of radio when his skill at the media, honed in his "Fireside Chats" as president, helped to secure his landslide re-election in 1936. In 1960, the media (overwhelmingly pro-Democrat) judged Kennedy an outright winner in the TV debates. It was said that his team persuaded the studio to turn up the lights so that Nixon...

Sheen Stumps for Real-Life Politician NewsMax Wires Monday, Sept. 27, 2004 KANNAPOLIS, N.C. – Actor Martin Sheen did some real-life politicking for a congressional candidate who used to work on his television series "The West Wing." Sheen, who portrays fictional president Josiah Bartlett on the series, attended private fund-raisers Saturday in Charlotte and Richmond County for 8th District congressional candidate Beth Troutman, who worked four years in Los Angeles as assistant to the executive producer of "The West Wing." He finished the day at a party at the Raleigh home of former Ambassador Jeanette Hyde. He made his only public...

Kerry campaign:"There was no terrorism in Iraq before we went to war."CIA Analysis, January 2003: Iraqi Support for Terrorism, (p.   314 of Senate Intel Report):"Iraq has a long history of supporting terrorism."Kerry campaign:"There was no terrorism in Iraq before we went to war."CIA Analysis, January 2003--Iraqi Support for Terrorism, (p. 314 of Senate Intel Report):"Iraq continues to be a safehaven, transit point, or operational node for groups and individuals who direct violence against the United States, Israel and other allies."Kerry campaign:"There was no terrorism in Iraq before we went to war."Bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee Report (p. 315):"The CIA...

Green BayJOHN KERRY may have lost Wisconsin last Wednesday. Lambeau Field is arguably the most historic sporting venue in the United States. Opposing players long for the opportunity to play there. It's the Mecca of American football. Every American male over the age of 4 can finish the description of the field made famous by the pseudo-thunderous voice of ESPN's Chris Berman: "The Frooooooozen Tunnnnnnnndra of . . . "Lambert Field? That's what John Kerry called it during a stop last week in Green Bay. Lambert Field.We go now to Scott Stanzel, spokesman for the Bush campaign. "What can you...

BostonTHE DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION will culminate tonight in Boston with John Kerry's acceptance speech and a nine-minute mini-documentary that chronicles his life. The short film, produced by documentarian James Moll, will include film that Kerry shot during his time in Vietnam. The footage has long been the subject of controversy, with some members of Kerry's unit alleging that the future senator captured the images with his political career in mind. Those allegations will be featured in a forthcoming book, called Unfit for Command, that has raced up the Amazon.com bestseller list--from #1,318 to #2 in one day--after being prominently featured...

The VP candidate once called Saddam Hussein's Iraq an "imminent threat." What will he say tonight?According to previews of John Edwards's much-anticipated speech tonight, the junior senator from North Carolina will attempt to establish his foreign policy bona fides. At the center of the address, naturally, will be Iraq. The issue will be a tricky one for Edwards. Along with Senator Joseph Lieberman, Edwards was an unapologetic defender of the war throughout the Democratic primaries, even as John Kerry began his efforts to distance himself from his support of the war-efforts that culminated in Kerry's embrace of the "antiwar" label....

Did al Qaeda and Iraq have a "collaborative relationship"?THE FINAL REPORT from the 9/11 Commission is scheduled to be released this Thursday. It will be a dense thicket of chronology, narrative, analysis, and proposals for reform. But one issue is likely to be prominent in the news coverage. In fact, it already has been. "9/11 Report Is Said to Dismiss Iraq-Qaeda Alliance." That was the headline over a July 12 New York Times report. We hope the Times is mistaken. It doesn't have a great track record on the issue, insisting (erroneously) that the commission's staff statement last month found...

Carl Levin distorts and exaggerates intelligence on the Iraq-al Qaeda connection. The Bush administration was careful with its words, the Michigan senator is not.DOES SENATOR CARL LEVIN believe in preemption?The Michigan Democrat, one of the fiercest partisan critics of the Bush administration and the war in Iraq, held a bizarre press conference Thursday to criticize the Senate Intelligence Committee's not-yet-released report on prewar intelligence. Levin faulted the exhaustive document for failing to include a critique of the Bush administration for its alleged "exaggeration" of the connection between the former Iraqi regime an al Qaeda.No one in the Congress has had...