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WASHINGTON (AP) - Officials weighing whether to dispense smallpox vaccine to the nation were presented with the possibility Saturday that the virus might be a more effective terrorist weapon than they thought. U.S. researcher Alan Zelicoff, drawing on long-secret Soviet documents, reported on an isolated 1971 outbreak that he said appeared to have been caused by smallpox that was tested as a weapon and carried miles through the air. If that was in fact the cause of the outbreak that killed three people, it suggests that a disease known to spread mainly in close quarters also has the potential to...

ASHINGTON, June 7— A re-examination of years of terrorist plots and attacks around the world, including the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, suggests that American intelligence agencies profoundly underestimated Al Qaeda's reach and aspirations for more than a decade as it grew from obscurity into a global terrorist threat, lawmakers and investigators said this week.As Congressional investigators look back far beyond the series of signals missed before the Sept. 11 attacks, they are seeking answers to many questions about Al Qaeda that law enforcement and intelligence agencies still cannot answer themselves, officials said.In particular, they said, Congressional investigators are trying...

IF YOU DESTROY it, they will come. I don’t mean to be overly glib, but that’s what I keep thinking about the site where the World Trade Center used to be. In the movie “Field of Dreams” Ray Kinsella, played by Kevin Costner, clears much of his Iowa cornfield to build a baseball field. The presumably divine voice in his head keeps telling him, “If you build it, they will come.” The “they” are untold numbers of Americans from all walks of life. “People will come, Ray,” explains James Earl Jones’ character at the end of the film. “They’ll come...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. Oil, not drugs, is the focus of a $98m aid package to fund an army brigade to protect a pipeline from sabotage by guerrillas The Cano Limon oil pipeline is buried 6ft underground, but its route through the rolling Colombian prairie is clearly marked by a swath of oil slicks and scorched earth - the result of incessant bomb attacks by leftwing rebels. Since it was completed in 1985, the pipeline has been holed so many times that locals call it "the flute". Some 2.9 million barrels of crude oil have...

Colombian Rebels Plan Strike in U.S. BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) - A Colombian guerrilla leader has spoken of a plan to attack U.S. interests both here and in the United States in a tape recording that Colombian security sources confirmed on Monday was the voice of the military commander of the Marxist FARC rebels. Security sources provided Reuters with a copy of the tape which they said contained a message broadcast by Jorge Briceno -- alias ``Mono Jojoy'' -- to his top lieutenants some time during the past month. ``To combat them wherever they may be, until we get to ...

FLORENCIA, Colombia (AP) - Colombian warplanes began bombing a vast rebel territory Thursday and amassing troops nearby, following the president's decision to cancel peace talks and reclaim the region from leftist guerrillas, the military reported. President Andres Pastrana formally ended Colombia's three-year peace process Wednesday night, just hours after guerrillas hijacked a domestic airliner and kidnapped a senator on the flight. Pastrana set a midnight deadline for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, to abandon the zone in southern Colombia that he gave to the rebel group in 1998. Troops in camouflage uniforms tightly guarded a highway ...

<p>You might think a CBS special called "9/11," offering the public a first look at on-site video footage of the attacks on the World Trade Center, would be prized as a chance to better grasp the full realities of that day--and perhaps even remind ourselves of the enormity of the terrorist threat we still face.</p>

Bottom Lines From Sen. Lott? • Sen. Trent Lott, whose impolitic remarks at Strom Thurmond's 100th-birthday celebration cost him his leadership role, may still be suffering from foot-in-mouth disease. In the Washingtonian's February issue, National Editor Kim Eisler -- whom Lott rejected last year as a possible co-author of his memoirs -- quotes the Mississippi Republican as referring to former Carter administration official and journalist Hodding Carter III as "Hodding the Turd" and calling Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) "butt ugly." (Lott was referring, Eisler reports, to the way Clinton looked in 1974, but he "allowed as how she looks...

Last night I was informed that our poll was attacked by terrorist. Not the kind of terrorist you hear about everyday but the kind at Free Republic.com. Freeping is a way of manipulating a poll to reflect an outcome which is not neccesarily the opinion of our visitors. The polling system was ... damaged and before I remove it I want everyone to see what happened. Free Republic at this time has LRP World News Listed at the top of one of their web pages for a need of major freeping. In fact a quick search on google will show...