State Department officials traveling in Iraq use armored vehicles that are built with V-shaped hulls to better deflect bullets and bombs. Members of Congress favor another model, called the M1117, which can endure 12-pound explosives and .50-caliber armor-piercing rounds.

Unlike the Humvee, the Pentagon's vehicle of choice for American troops, the others were designed specifically to withstand bigger attacks in battlefields like Iraq with no safe zones. Last fall, for instance, a Rhino traveling the treacherous airport road in Baghdad endured a bomb that left a six-foot-wide crater. The passengers walked away unscathed. "I have no doubt should I have been in any other vehicle," wrote an Army captain, the lone military passenger, "the results would have been catastrophically different."

Yet more than two years into the war, efforts by United States military units to obtain large numbers of these stronger vehicles for soldiers have faltered - even as the Pentagon's program to armor Humvees continues to be plagued by delays, an examination by The New York Times has found.

Many of the problems stem from a 40-year-old procurement system that cannot acquire new equipment quickly enough to adapt to the changing demands of a modern insurgency, interviews and records show.

Among other setbacks, the M1117 lost its Pentagon money just before the invasion, and the manufacturer is now scrambling to fill rush orders from the military. The company making one of the V-shaped vehicles, the Cougar, said it had to lay off highly skilled welders last year as it waited for the contract to be completed. Even then it was paid only enough to fill half the order.

And the manufacturer of the Rhino could not get through the Army's testing regime because the company declined to have one of its $250,000 vehicles blown up. The company said it provided the Army with testing data that demonstrate the Rhino's viability, and is using the defense secretary's visit as a seal of approval in its contract pitches to the Defense Department.

Many officials in the military and government say the demands of war sometimes require the easing of procurement requirements like testing, and express frustration at the slow process for getting equipment.

"When you have troops in the field in a dynamic environment, where the tactics of the opposition are changing on a regular basis, you have to be nimble and quick," said Representative Rob Simmons, a Connecticut Republican on the Armed Services Committee. "If you're not nimble and quick and adaptable, people will die."

Nearly a decade ago, the Pentagon was warned by its own experts that superior vehicles would be needed to protect American troops. The Army's vehicle-program manager urged the Pentagon in 1996 to move beyond the Humvee, interviews and Army records show, saying it was built for the cold war. Its flat-bottomed chassis is 25 years old, never intended for combat, and the added armor at best protects only the front end from the heftier insurgent bombs, military officials concede.

But as the procurement system stumbled and the Defense Department resisted allocating money for more expensive vehicles, interviews and records show, the military ended up largely dependent on the Humvee - a vast majority of which did not yet have any armor - in both combat and noncombat operations in the war.

Today, commuting from post to post in Iraq is one of the deadliest duties for soldiers. At least 73 American military personnel were killed on the roads of Iraq in May and June as insurgent attacks spiked. In May alone, there were 700 bombings against American forces, the most since the invasion in March 2003. Late Thursday, a suicide car bomber killed five marines and a sailor in a convoy of mostly female marines who were returning to camp in Falluja. Thirteen others were injured. Officials said the vehicles most likely included a seven-ton truck.

Last winter, 135 convoys were attacked on the Baghdad airport road alone, and even the most fully armored Humvee is no longer safe from the increasingly powerful insurgency bombs.

Marine Corps generals last week disclosed in a footnote to their remarks to Congress that two of their best-armored Humvees were destroyed, while a Marine spokeswoman in Iraq said five marines riding in one such Humvee were killed this month in a roadside bomb attack.

Still, thousands of Humvees in Iraq do not have this much protection.

The Pentagon has repeatedly said that no vehicle leaves camp without armor. But according to military records and interviews with officials, about half of the Army's 20,000 Humvees have improvised shielding that typically leaves the underside unprotected, while only one in six Humvees used by the Marines is armored at the highest level of protection.

• elimination of the Healthy Communities Access Program, currently funded at $83 million, which helps communities offer health care to the uninsured.
  
• elimination of the $205 million budget for an Education Department grant program targeted at low-income and underachieving schools
  
• an 84% cut in training programs for doctors and nurses
  
• $806 million in cuts in the already limited funding for the Bush-mandated "No Child Left Behind" initiative
  
• 50% cut in grants to local community action agencies that help the poor
  
• 5% cut in Centers for Disease Control funding
  

June 13: 452,000 / 177,000
June 14: 231,000 / 87,000
June 15: 198,000 / 77,000
June 16: 202,000 / 79,000
June 17: 172,000 / 89,000
June 20: 194,000 / 92,000
June 21: 172,000 / 52,000
June 22: 148,000 / 39,000

Mr. Rove, the first thing that I would like to address is Afghanistan - the place that anyone with a true “understanding of 9/11” knows is a nation that actually has a connection to the 9/11 attacks. One month after 9/11, we invaded Afghanistan, took down the Taliban, and left without capturing Usama Bin Laden - the alleged perpetrator of the September 11th attacks. In the meantime, Afghanistan has carried out democratic elections, but continues to suffer from extreme violence and unrest. Poppy production (yes, Karl, the drug trade) is at an all time high, thus flooding the world market with heroin. And of course, the oil pipeline (a.k.a. the Caspian Sea pipeline) is better protected by U.S. troops who now have a “legitimate” excuse to be in that part of Afghanistan. Interesting isn't it Karl that the drug “rat line” parallels the oil pipeline. (Yet, with all those troops guarding that same sliver of land, can you please explain how those drugs keep getting through?)

Now Karl, a question for you, since you seem to be the nation's self-styled sensei with regard to 9/11: Is Usama Bin Laden still important? Lately, your coterie of friends seems to be giving out mixed messages. Recall that in the early days, Bin Laden was wanted “dead or alive.” Then when Bin Laden slipped through your fingertips in Tora Bora, you downgraded his importance. We were told that Bin Laden was a "desperate man on the run,” and a person that President Bush was not "too worried about". Yet, whenever I saw Bin Laden's videos, he looked much too comfortable to actually be a man on the run. He looked tan, rested, and calm. He certainly didn't look the way I wanted the murderer of almost 3,000 innocent people to look: unkempt, panicked, and cowering in a corner.

Karl, I mention Bin Laden because recently Director of the CIA, Porter Goss, has mentioned that he knows exactly where Bin Laden is located but that he cannot capture him for fear of offending sovereign nations. Which frankly, I find ironic because of Iraq--and let's just leave it at that. But, when you say that “moderation and restraint” don't work in fighting terrorists, maybe you should share those comments with Mr. Goss because he doesn't seem to be on the same page as you. Unless of course, Porter is holding out to announce that Bin Laden is in Iran. (Karl, I want Bin Laden brought to justice, but not if it means starting a war with Iran - a country that possesses nuclear weaponry. The idea of nuclear fallout in any quadrant of the world is just not an acceptable means to any ends, be it capturing Bin Laden, oil or drugs. But, Afghanistan and Bin Laden are old news. Iraq is the story of today. And of course, it appears that Iran will be the story of next month. But, I digress.)

More to the point, Karl when you say, “Conservatives saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and prepared for war,” what exactly did you do to prepare for your war? Did your preparations include: sound intelligence to warrant your actions; a reasonable entry and exit strategy coupled with a coherent plan to carry out that strategy; the proper training and equipment for the troops you were sending in to fight your war? Did you follow the advice of experts such as General Shinseki who correctly advised you about the troop levels needed to actually succeed in Iraq? No, you didn't.

[snip]

For the record Karl, does Iraq have any connection to the 9/11 attacks? Because, you and your friends with your collective “understanding of 9/11” seem to be contradicting yourselves about the Iraq-9/11 connection, too. First, we were told that we went to war with Iraq because it was linked to the 9/11 attacks. Then, your rationale was changed to "Iraq has WMD". Then you told us that we needed to invade Iraq because Saddam was a "bad man". And now it turns out that we are in Iraq to bring them "democracy."

[snip]

Karl, you say you “understand” 9/11. Then why did you and your friends so vehemently oppose the creation of a 9/11 Independent Commission? Once the commission was established, why did you refuse to properly fund the Commission by allotting it only a $3 million budget? Why did you refuse to allow access to documents and witnesses for the 9/11 Commissioners? Why did we have to fight so hard for an extension when the Commissioners told us that they needed more time due to your footdragging and stonewalling? Why didn't you want to cooperate so that all Americans could “understand” what happened on 9/11?

[snip]

To date, you have done practically nothing to secure our ports, nuclear power plants, and mass transportation systems. Imagine if the billions of dollars you spent in Iraq were spent more wisely on those things here at home. Imagine what sort of alternative energy resources (bio-diesel, wind power, solar power, and hybrid automobiles) could have been researched and funded in the past three years. Talk about regaining the respect and support of the world, that is the one way to do it.

[snip]

Finally Karl, please “understand” that the reason we have not suffered a repeat attack on our homeland is because Bin Laden no longer needs to attack us. Those of us with a pure and comprehensive “understanding of 9/11” know that Bin Laden committed the 9/11 attacks so he could increase recruitment for al Qaeda and increase worldwide hatred of America. That didn't happen. Because after 9/11, the world united with Americans and al Qaeda's recruitment levels never increased.

It was only after your invasion of Iraq, that Bin Laden's goals were met. Because of your war in Iraq two things happened that helped Bin Laden and the terrorists: al Qaeda recruitment soared and the United States is now alienated from and hated by the rest of the world. In effect, what Bin Laden could not achieve by murdering my husband and 3,000 others on 9/11, you handed to him on a silver platter with your invasion of Iraq - a country that had nothing to do with 9/11.

Which leads me to my final questions for you Karl: What are your motives when it comes to 9/11 and are you really sure that you understand 9/11?

• It wasn't liberals who sent our troops needlessly into Iraq in the first place;
  
• It wasn't liberals who decided the troops didn't need body armor;
  vIt wasn't liberals who decided to subcontract out the war to private corporations, thus introducing an unacceptable level of unpredictability into military operations;
  
• It wasn't liberals who tortured prisoners at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay;
  
• It wasn't liberals who told the insurgency, "Bring 'em on."
  
• It wasn't liberals who failed to plan for the post-Saddam era;
  
• It wasn't liberals who botched the pre-war intelligence;
  
• It wasn't liberals who cut VA benefits so that returning soldiers don't have adequate care;
  
• It wasn't liberals who refused to mourn or even acknowledge the deaths of our soldiers;
  
• It wasn't liberals who went rushing into Iraq to try and "convert" Iraqis -- including Iraqi Christians -- to American evangelicalism;
  
• It wasn't liberals who made common cause with the international con man Ahmed Chalabi
  

Republican Party Chairman saKen Mehlman, speaking in Puerto Rico, said there was no need to apologize because "what Karl Rove said is true."

"If you look at what the dictionary says about throes, it can still be a violent period, the throes of a revolution," he said. "The point would be that the conflict will be intense, but it's intense because the terrorists understand that if we're successful at accomplishing our objective -- standing up a democracy in Iraq -- that that's a huge defeat for them.

"We will succeed in Iraq, just like we did in Afghanistan. We will stand up a new government under an Iraqi-drafted constitution. We will defeat that insurgency, and, in fact, it will be an enormous success story."

"...we've got a pretty good idea of the general area" where al Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden is hiding, but he said, "I don't have the street address."

Asked to identify the general area, Cheney demurred, saying he wouldn't talk about intelligence matters. Pressed on when bin Laden might be captured, he said, "What, do you expect me to say: Three weeks from next Tuesday?"

"I'm convinced eventually we'll get him,"
we've got a pretty good idea of the general area" where al Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden is hiding, but he said, "I don't have the street address."

Asked to identify the general area, Cheney demurred, saying he wouldn't talk about intelligence matters. Pressed on when bin Laden might be captured, he said, "What, do you expect me to say: Three weeks from next Tuesday?"

"I'm convinced eventually we'll get him."

"They're living in the tropics. They're well fed. They've got everything they could possibly want,"

• that Liberals didn't understand the savagery of the 9/11 attacks. This will come as news to all the registered Democrats and other progressives in New York City and environs who didn't know if they or their loved ones were going to survive the day and who inhaled human ashes on a daily basis even six months later.
  
• that it was not botched Bush policies or inadequate equipment, but Democrats who were putting our troops in Iraq in danger because of Dick Durbin's comments about torture at Guantanamo Bay
  
• 
  

The Defense Department yesterday began working with a private marketing firm to create a database of all U.S. college students as well as high-school students between ages 16 and 18, to help the military identify potential recruits in a time of dwindling enlistment.

The program is provoking a furor among privacy advocates. The new database will include an array of personal information including birth dates, Social Security numbers, e-mail addresses, grade-point averages, ethnicity and what subjects the students are studying.

The data will be managed by Wakefield, Mass.-based BeNow, one of many marketing firms that use computers to analyze data to target potential customers based on their personal profiles and habits.

"The purpose of the system ... is to provide a single central facility within the Department of Defense to compile, process and distribute files of individuals who meet age and minimum school requirements for military service," according to the official notice of the program.

The system also gives the Pentagon the right, without notifying citizens, to share the data for several uses outside the military, including with law enforcement, state tax authorities and Congress.

"Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?" asked Joseph Welch in his famous confrontation with the pathologically cruel Joe McCarthy. "Have you left no sense of decency?"

More than a half-century later, I would ask the same question of Florida's governor, Jeb Bush.

In an abuse of power that has been widely denounced, and has even appalled many of his own supporters in the Republican Party, Governor Bush has tried to keep the Terri Schiavo circus alive by sending state prosecutors on a witch hunt against her husband, Michael.

The state attorney who has been pushed by the governor into pursuing this case told me yesterday he has seen nothing to indicate that a crime was committed. Nevertheless, the inquiry continues.

Governor Bush asked Bernie McCabe, the state attorney for Pinellas County, to "take a fresh look" at this already exhaustively investigated case to determine, among other things, whether Michael Schiavo had perhaps waited too long to call for help after discovering that his wife had collapsed early one morning 15 years ago.

Mr. McCabe did not seem particularly enthusiastic about his mission. "I wouldn't call it an investigation," he told me in a telephone conversation. The word "investigation," he said, "is a term of art in my business."

He then explained: "When I conduct an investigation, it would mean that I have a criminal predicate. In other words, that I have some indication that a crime has occurred. That's my job.

"In this circumstance, that does not exist at this time. So what I'm attempting to do is respond to the governor's request by conducting what I'm calling an 'inquiry' to see if I can resolve the issues he raised."

He chuckled at his use of the word inquiry. "It may be a distinction without a difference," he said.

In a little more than a week, Ann and Bill Byers lost both their sons. One died in combat in Iraq; the other was struck and killed by a pickup a few miles from home.

Sgt. Casey Byers, 22, a member of the 224th Engineer Battalion of the Iowa National Guard, died June 11 south of Ramadi when a bomb exploded under his armored Humvee.

Justin Byers, 19, who was scheduled to leave for Iraq himself this fall with an Army Reserve unit, was killed Monday night near here.

Even more devastating news came Wednesday, about an hour before Casey Byers' funeral began in Denison: Justin's death was ruled a suicide.

Crawford County Medical Examiner Dennis Crabb said Justin was upset about his brother's death and his own upcoming deployment.

Because of his brother's death in combat, however, Justin Byers would not have been required to accompany his unit to Iraq.

Evidence at the accident scene and the way Justin had been acting led investigators to conclude that he purposely stepped in front of the pickup, Crabb said.

increasingly, key Republicans do not see the same Iraq Bush sees, even if the GOP leadership remains lockstep behind the commander in chief. Over the weekend, Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska said in an interview with U.S. News & World Report that "the White House is completely disconnected from reality ... The reality is that we're losing in Iraq." On Sunday, Sen. John McCain was asked on NBC's "Meet the Press" whether Vice President Cheney's comments last week that Iraq is in the "last throes" of the insurgency were correct. "No," McCain tersely replied.

That frank sentiment comes on the heels of a well-publicized reversal from an early outspoken supporter of the war, Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C., who coined the term "freedom fries" to express his outrage with France. Perhaps more than many of his colleagues, Jones faces potential electoral fallout from the war in Iraq: He has three major military bases in his distinct at the eastern end of the state, and counts tens of thousands of veterans among his constituency.

Few Republicans seem prepared to follow Jones in a call for troop withdrawal. Yet their alternative is equally problematic. If Republicans maintain their support for President Bush, they will be hard-pressed to convince voters, as support for the war nears lows of 40 percent, that the war was worth the cost in lives as well as the hundreds of billions in U.S. tax dollars. And with a stalled domestic legislative agenda added to the mix, this could all add up to electoral trouble for Republicans.

"You are looking at a political problem right now," said the chief of staff of a Republican House member on the International Relations Committee, who spoke on background in order to be candid. "Iraq is conceivably a very big problem. It's one of the top three or four issues and it's not going well; the casualties are mounting and it is costing a lot of money, and the light at the end of the tunnel isn't there."

But the problems go beyond Iraq, the advisor said. "There has been no real good news in anything the Congress has done this year, and the polls are showing dissatisfaction with the president. And Republicans are starting to worry about their reelection."

Yet Democrats vocal against the war also remain in a tenuous political position. The party is trying to walk a fine line: voicing dissent on the policy while not appearing to politically capitalize on U.S. casualties. To do this, Democrats consistently reaffirm their support for U.S. soldiers as a qualification to any criticism of the war effort.

The U.S. Air Force Academy failed to accommodate minority beliefs but there is no overt religious discrimination at the college, an Air Force report on the religious climate at the institution said on Wednesday.
The report was prompted by allegations that the prestigious academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado, which produces junior officers for the Air Force, promotes evangelical Christianity and a climate of intolerance toward other religious beliefs.

"There was a lack of awareness on the part of some faculty and staff, and perhaps cadets in positions of authority, as to what constitutes appropriate expressions of faith, particularly in this setting: in superior-subordinate relationships in a government institution," Air Force Lt. Gen. Roger Brady, who headed the report, told a Pentagon briefing.

The U.S. Constitution mandates a separation of church and state.

A team from Yale Divinity School said in April it found evangelical Christian proselytizing commonplace at the academy, which has about 4,400 students, and cited "stridently evangelical themes" by staff. The team described a campus chaplain telling cadets they would "burn in the fires of hell" if they were not born-again Christians.

The Air Force report said that it found "the root of this problem is not overt religious discrimination." Brady said problems were neither pervasive nor institutionalized, and that faculty and staff who acted inappropriately did not do so with malice.

Marine Corps units fighting in some of the most dangerous terrain in Iraq don't have enough weapons, communications gear, or properly outfitted vehicles, according to an investigation by the Marine Corps' inspector general provided to Congress yesterday.

The report, obtained by the Globe, says the estimated 30,000 Marines in Iraq need twice as many heavy machine guns, more fully protected armored vehicles, and more communications equipment to operate in a region the size of Utah.

The Marine Corps leadership has ''understated" the amount and types of ground equipment it needs, according to the investigation, concluding that all of its fighting units in Iraq ''require ground equipment that exceeds" their current supplies, ''particularly in mobility, engineering, communications, and heavy weapons."

Complaints of equipment shortages in Iraq, including lack of adequate vehicle armor, have plagued the Pentagon for months, but most of the reported shortages have been found in the Army, which makes up the bulk of the American occupation force.

The analysis of the Marines' battle readiness, however, shows that the Corps is lacking key equipment needed to stabilize Al Anbar province in western Iraq. The province is where some of the bloodiest fighting has occurred in recent months between American-led coalition forces and Iraqi insurgents aided by foreign fighters who have slipped across the border.

...neither the "lie of convenience" nor the "lie of ignorance" were demonstrably the reasons why Bush invaded Iraq.

So why then did George W. Bush lie us into invading and occupying Iraq?

We know that Bush wanted to massively cut taxes on his corporate sponsors and people, like himself, with substantial inherited fortunes. He wanted to weaken government protections of the environment, children, the poor, the elderly, the ozone layer, and our nation's forests. He wanted his oil-rig and mining-interest friends to have more access to public lands.

We know he wanted to undo Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal by stripping the American workplace (particularly government and schools) of unions, rolling back "socialist" unemployment and Social Security programs, and eliminating SEC and tort restraints on predatory corporate behavior. He'd even campaigned on this platform - particularly Social Security privatization - back in 1978 when he unsuccessfully ran for Congress from Texas.

We know he wanted to increase the police power of the federal government, gut the First and Fourth Amendments, and thus create a "safe and orderly nation" of people under constant surveillance, who never question those in power.

We know he wanted to give billions of our tax dollars to churches he approved of, and bring their leaders into the halls of government. He wanted to pass laws incorporating religious dogma about when human life begins, what is appropriate sexuality, and free churches to use tax-exempt dollars to influence politics.

It was an ambitious agenda. In order to bring about this neoconservative paradise, Bush knew he'd need considerable political capital. And that kind of capital didn't come from his being selected as President by the Supreme Court.

Such political capital - such raw political power - would only come, he believed, by his becoming a "war president."

Bush wasn't the first to realize how war strengthened a president in power, although the Founders saw it as a danger rather than an opportunity.

On April 20, 1795, James Madison wrote, "Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes. And armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few."

Reflecting on war's impact on the Executive Branch of government, Madison continued his letter about the dangerous and intoxicating power of war for a president.

"In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive [President] is extended," he wrote. "Its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war...and in the degeneracy of manners and morals, engendered by both.

"No nation," he concluded, "could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."

But freedom wasn't the goal of George W. Bush or his neoconservative Republican colleagues. It was political power. And they were willing to lie us into a war to achieve it.

Writer Russ Baker noted in October, 2004, that Mickey Herskowitz, the man Bush had originally hired to write his autobiography ("A Charge To Keep: My Journey To The White House"), told Baker that George Bush was planning his Iraq invasion - to seize and hold political power for himself and the Republican Party - during his first presidential election campaign.

"He was thinking about invading Iraq in 1999," Herskowitz told Baker. "It was on his mind. He [Bush] said to me: 'One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief.' And he said, 'My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it.' He said, 'If I have a chance to invade, if I had that much capital, I'm not going to waste it. I'm going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I'm going to have a successful presidency."

An NBC News analysis of hundreds of foreign fighters who died in Iraq over the last two years reveals that a majority came from the same country as most of the 9/11 hijackers — Saudi Arabia.

Among the suicide bombers was Ahmed al-Ghamdi, a one-time medical student and son of a Saudi diplomat. In December 2004, he climbed into a truck in Mosul and blew himself up.

On an Internet video, another Saudi says goodbye to his mother, then drives an ambulance full of explosives into a building.

They are among more than 400 militants from 21 countries whose deaths were celebrated on Islamic Web sites over the last two years.

"By far the nationality that comes up over and over again is Saudi Arabia," says Evan Kohlmann, an NBC News terrorism expert.

The NBC News analysis of Web site postings found that 55 percent of foreign insurgents came from Saudi Arabia, 13 percent from Syria, 9 percent from North Africa and 3 percent from Europe.

The notion that the president led the country into war through indirection or dishonesty is not the most damaging criticism of the administration. The worst possibility is that the president and his advisers believed their own propaganda. They did not prepare the American people for an arduous struggle because they honestly didn't expect one.

How else to explain the fact that the president and his lieutenants consistently played down the costs of the endeavor, the number of troops required, the difficulties of overcoming tensions among the Sunnis, the Shiites and the Kurds? Were they lying? The more logical explanation is that they didn't know what they were talking about.

Because the White House failed to prepare Americans for what was to come, the administration now faces a backlash. Over the weekend Bush said that the terrorists in Iraq were seeking to "weaken our nation's resolve." But the rising impatience about which Bush complains is a direct result of the administration's blithe dismissal of those who warned just how tough the going could get.

Nearly six in 10 Americans oppose the war in Iraq and a growing number of them are dissatisfied with the war on terrorism, according to a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll released Monday.

Only 39 percent of those polled said they favored the war in Iraq -- down from 47 percent in March -- and 59 percent were opposed.

The poll showed that approval for the Bush administration's war on terrorism also has declined, with 10 percent of respondents saying they were very satisfied with the way things were going in the war on terrorism, down from 19 percent in a February poll.

Forty-seven percent of respondents said they were "not satisfied" with the war on terrorism -- up from 35 percent in February -- and 42 percent were "somewhat satisfied," compared to 45 percent in the earlier poll.

Even so, only 4 percent said they considered a terrorist attack in the United States over the next few weeks "very likely" -- down from 10 percent in February.

Thirty-one percent considered an attack somewhat likely and 63 percent said one was not likely, compared to 38 percent and 51 percent, respectively, in a December poll.

Fewer than four in 10 Americans said they were at least somewhat worried about becoming a victim of terror.

Sixteen illegal immigrants gained access last year to one of the most sensitive weapons sites in the country, according to a report issued Monday by the Department of Energy's inspector general.

The inspector general's investigation found the illegal immigrants were construction workers on jobs at the Y-12 National Security Complex near Knoxville, Tennessee.

The workers used "false documents" and "gained access to the ... site on multiple occasions," the report said.

The report details how the workers, apparently using fake green cards, were able to obtain access badges.

"This situation represented a potentially serious access control and security problem," the report said.

As I said in this space two weeks ago, if Bill Clinton was impeached for lying about having sex with an intern, then George Bush needs to be impeached for the deliberate lies he and his cabal told to start a war that has now taken the lives of more than 1,700 young American men and women and countless Iraqi citizens, plus threatens to bankrupt the country.


One of our "Sound Off" callers insisted last week that only "Bush haters" would say such things.

Another took to task the Wisconsin Democratic Party, which passed a resolution calling for the president's impeachment at its convention a week ago, for being "foolish and shortsighted."

"They bathe themselves in the lies, falsehoods and accusations against the Bush administration, unable to accept their losses, which will continue as far as we can see into the future," the caller insisted.

If I were that caller, I wouldn't bet a lot on those assumptions, for it's becoming clear that Americans are beginning to realize what an utter disaster this administration has been for their country. The president's approval ratings are at historic lows - well below 50 percent - and even the war he bamboozled Congress and the people to approve is being questioned by not a minority any more, but the majority of the American people.

What the opinion polls show is that many more than just "Bush haters" have seen enough.

The recent disclosures of secret memos of meetings involving British Prime Minister Tony Blair's staff have underlined just how cynical and deceitful the people entrusted to lead the United States were in fabricating intelligence to get this war under way. It has become clear that they never had any intention of letting the United Nations try to settle the dispute. It seems clear now that they had made up their minds nearly a year before that Saddam Hussein was to be forcibly deposed.

Yet Bush and his lieutenants kept telling the American people that war would be waged only as a last resort.

As Rep. John Conyers, a Michigan Democrat, said last week, "The veracity of those statements has - to put it mildly - come into question."

Because the administration refuses to answer questions about the so-called Downing Street memo and others that have surfaced since and because Bush's party controls all of Congress, Conyers had to resort to a "public forum" to gather testimony on the issue.

In a matter of a few days, more than a half million Americans signed petitions backing Conyers in urging the president to explain the memos. So far, Bush has dismissed it all as "falsehoods" and refused to comment further.

But the people want answers. Even those who don't hate Bush don't like being lied to.

Lying presidents need to be impeached. That's what the Republicans in Congress told us only a few years ago.

So let's get on with it.

Republican Congressman Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania, vice chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and a member of the Homeland Security Committee, told CNN's Wolf Blitzer on Sunday that he "knows for sure" that bin Laden has been "in and out of Iran, where Ayatollah Khomenei has been protecting him with his Revolutionary Guard."

Oddly enough, the storyline starts to sound more and more familiar from there: Apparrently Weldon's take doesn't jive with a high-level assessment at the CIA. As Blitzer pointed out during the interview, Weldon's information on bin Laden and Iran is based on a sole secret source known as "Ali," who claims to have information regarding the location of bin Laden, future terrorist threats and Iran's nuclear weapons program -- and who has been tagged as bunk by at least one knowledgeable member of the agency. CIA Officer Bill Murray told The New York Times on June 9 that he met with "Ali" when he was stationed in Paris: "He's never given us any information that was the slightest bit credible," Murray said. "This guy was a waste of my time and resources."

That assessment didn't do anything to dissuade Weldon about a connection between the al-Qaida mastermind and Iran. From the "Late Edition" transcript:

BLITZER: How can you be so confident of that when the CIA says they're not confident of that? They dismiss it.

WELDON: Two years ago, the CIA was totally dismissing that bin Laden would be in Iran. But if you look at the recent comments coming out of both the CIA and some of our military generals in theater, they're now acknowledging the same thing that I've been saying -- that in fact, he's been in and out of Iran. No one can prove it exactly until we capture him. But you asked my opinion. My opinion is he's been in and out of Iran several times over the past several years.

The chief of the credit-card processing company whose computer system was penetrated by data thieves, exposing 40 million cardholders to a risk of fraud, acknowledged yesterday that the company should not have been retaining consumer records lost to the thieves.

The official, John Perry, chief executive of CardSystems Solutions, indicated that the records known to have been stolen covered roughly 200,000 of the 40 million compromised credit-card accounts, from Visa, MasterCard and other card issuers. He said the data was in a file being stored for "research purposes" to determine why certain transactions had gone unauthorized or uncompleted.

"We should not have been doing that," Perry said.

Under rules established by Visa and MasterCard, processors are not allowed to retain cardholder information including names, account numbers, expiration dates and security codes after a transaction is handled.

"CardSystems provides services and is supposed to pass that information on to the banks and not keep it," said Joshua Peirez, a MasterCard senior vice president who has been involved with the investigation. "They were keeping it."

The security breach was reported Friday when MasterCard International said a lapse at CardSystems had allowed the installation of a rogue computer program that could extract data from the system, potentially compromising 40 million accounts of various credit cards.

MasterCard said Saturday that 68,000 of its own account numbers were especially at risk because they were in a file found to have actually been "exported from the system." CardSystems said yesterday that the file also contained data from other cards in proportion to the volume of business it handles from each company. That would translate to about 100,000 Visa accounts and about 30,000 others.

The details about CardSystems' handling of the data raised new questions about the effectiveness and enforcement of the standards established by the card companies for data protection and storage.

To protect cardholders, Visa and MasterCard have long established policies for the merchants and processors that handle transactions on their payment network. They spent millions of dollars to upgrade their own computer systems with sophisticated fraud-detection software. Over the last two years, they have sent out teams to processor and merchant sites to conduct compliance campaigns.

But one kink in this chain -- one processor that fails to comply -- can put untold numbers of cardholders at risk of fraud.

"The standards themselves are very effectively written," said Tom Arnold, a partner at Payment Software Co., a consulting company that advises and provides security assessments for merchants and processors. "The challenge in the industry can be when people don't fully comply or try to cut corners."

CIA Director Porter Goss says he has an "excellent idea" where Osama bin Laden is hiding, but that the al Qaeda chief will not be caught until weak links in the war on terrorism are strengthened.

Marine Pfc. Jeremy Tod, 19, called home with news that his superiors were urging him and fellow Marines to buy special military equipment, including flak jackets with armor plating, to enhance the prospects of their survival. The message was that such purchases were to be made by Marines with their own money.

"He said they strongly suggested he get this equipment because when they get to Iraq they will wish they had," Tod said. Total estimated cost: $600.

It has become clearer than ever that Americans do not want to fight George W. Bush's tragically misguided war in Iraq.

You can still find plenty of folks arguing that we have to stay the course, or even raise the stakes by sending more troops to the war zone. But from the very start of this war the loudest of the flag-waving hawks were those who were safely beyond military age themselves and were unwilling to send their own children off to fight.

It's easy to be macho when you have nothing at risk. The hawks want the war to be fought with other people's children, while their own children go safely off to college, or to the mall. The number of influential American officials who have children in uniform in Iraq is minuscule.

Most Americans want no part of Mr. Bush's war, which is why Army recruiters are failing so miserably at meeting their monthly enlistment quotas. Desperate, the Army is lowering its standards, shortening tours, increasing bonuses and violating its own recruitment regulations and ethical guidelines.

Americans do not want to fight this war.

[snip]

Last week's New York Times/CBS News Poll found that the mounting casualties and continuing turmoil in Iraq have made Americans increasingly pessimistic about the war. A majority said the U.S. should have stayed out of Iraq and only 37 percent approved of the president's handling of the war.

What hasn't changed is the fact that the vast majority of the parents who support the war do not want their children to fight it. A woman in the affluent New York suburb of Ridgewood, N.J., who has a daughter in high school and a younger son, said: "I would not want my children to go. If there wasn't a war it would be different. I support the war and I think we need to be there. But it's not going well. It's becoming like Vietnam. It's a very bad situation. But we can't leave."

I don't know how you win a war that your country doesn't want to fight. We sent too few troops into Iraq in the first place and the number of warm bodies available for Iraq and other military missions going forward is dwindling alarmingly. The Bush crowd may be bellicose, but for most Americans the biggest contribution to the war effort is a bumper sticker that says "support our troops," and maybe a belligerent call to a talk radio station.

The home-front "warriors" who find it so easy to give the thumbs up to war endanger the truly valorous men and women who are actually willing to put on a uniform, pick up a weapon and place their lives on the line.

"The reason this possible case of wrongdoing in the highest office in our land, over the most important decision we as a people can make, hurts me is precisely because my family and I love this nation, have prospered under her freedoms, treasure her values, have done what we can to engender that tradition, and I'm highly motivated to preserve her unique heritage for the future generations. That's all one hell of a lot more important to me than Bush's reputation or a political party; or your feelings."

A thirst for knowing what really happened. No political motive. Tying up loose ends. (By the way: it is a fact that "Gandelman" is an Italian name..)

CYA. Nothing else panned out to support the case against Schiavo's husband and in terms of political polls and due to the autospsy report Frist, the two Bush brothers, Tom DeLay and Randall Terry and company came out of it with a troubling odor.There is a need to get something on Michael Schiavo ASAP.

A further attempt to show social conservatives that Jeb Bush is on their side and will leave no stone unturned to look into this case.

A sign that JB plans to run for President after all in 2008 or, at the very least, is laying the groundwork to cement his bond with religious right voters and run in 2012.

Political revenge. The Bush brothers and GOPers in Congress who clamored for the tube to be connected in this case have taken a hit in terms of poll numbers and credibility. This is looking for "payback" — any kind of payback.