The Bush Administration, while publicly advocating diplomacy in order to stop Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon, has increased clandestine activities inside Iran and intensified planning for a possible major air attack. Current and former American military and intelligence officials said that Air Force planning groups are drawing up lists of targets, and teams of American combat troops have been ordered into Iran, under cover, to collect targeting data and to establish contact with anti-government ethnic-minority groups. The officials say that President Bush is determined to deny the Iranian regime the opportunity to begin a pilot program, planned for this spring, to enrich uranium.

A government consultant with close ties to the civilian leadership in the Pentagon said that Bush was “absolutely convinced that Iran is going to get the bomb” if it is not stopped. He said that the President believes that he must do “what no Democrat or Republican, if elected in the future, would have the courage to do,” and “that saving Iran is going to be his legacy.”

One former defense official, who still deals with sensitive issues for the Bush Administration, told me that the military planning was premised on a belief that “a sustained bombing campaign in Iran will humiliate the religious leadership and lead the public to rise up and overthrow the government.” He added, “I was shocked when I heard it, and asked myself, ‘What are they smoking?’ ”

Last month, in a paper given at a conference on Middle East security in Berlin, Colonel Sam Gardiner, a military analyst who taught at the National War College before retiring from the Air Force, in 1987, provided an estimate of what would be needed to destroy Iran’s nuclear program. Working from satellite photographs of the known facilities, Gardiner estimated that at least four hundred targets would have to be hit. He added:

I don’t think a U.S. military planner would want to stop there. Iran probably has two chemical-production plants. We would hit those. We would want to hit the medium-range ballistic missiles that have just recently been moved closer to Iraq. There are fourteen airfields with sheltered aircraft. . . . We’d want to get rid of that threat. We would want to hit the assets that could be used to threaten Gulf shipping. That means targeting the cruise-missile sites and the Iranian diesel submarines. . . . Some of the facilities may be too difficult to target even with penetrating weapons. The U.S. will have to use Special Operations units.

One of the military’s initial option plans, as presented to the White House by the Pentagon this winter, calls for the use of a bunker-buster tactical nuclear weapon, such as the B61-11, against underground nuclear sites. One target is Iran’s main centrifuge plant, at Natanz, nearly two hundred miles south of Tehran. Natanz, which is no longer under I.A.E.A. safeguards, reportedly has underground floor space to hold fifty thousand centrifuges, and laboratories and workspaces buried approximately seventy-five feet beneath the surface. That number of centrifuges could provide enough enriched uranium for about twenty nuclear warheads a year. (Iran has acknowledged that it initially kept the existence of its enrichment program hidden from I.A.E.A. inspectors, but claims that none of its current activity is barred by the Non-Proliferation Treaty.) The elimination of Natanz would be a major setback for Iran’s nuclear ambitions, but the conventional weapons in the American arsenal could not insure the destruction of facilities under seventy-five feet of earth and rock, especially if they are reinforced with concrete.

Air America Radio, the liberal talk radio network that features comedian Al Franken, announced late Wednesday that Danny Goldberg is giving up his role as CEO and will be replaced by an executive from a management consulting firm.

Goldberg, a longtime music industry executive, joined Air America as CEO in February of last year. He will remain with the company as vice chairman.

Jim Wiggett will become interim CEO while the company searches for a permanent replacement, the company said in a statement. Wiggett is president and CEO of the Jackson Hole Group, a management consulting firm in San Francisco.

Rob Glaser, the chairman of Piquant Ltd., the company that owns Air America, said in a statement that Goldberg's appointment "reflects Air America's desire to strengthen its outreach efforts to the progressive community .... These are areas where Danny brings unique skills and experience."

The statement did not go into further detail about Goldberg's departure from the CEO role. A spokeswoman for the company said Goldberg wanted to concentrate on Air America's programming and relations with members of the progressive political community.

While exiting day-to-day operations at Air America, Goldberg will continue in a minor, contractually-based role, working one day a week from home. Through the end of 2006, he'll be paid $400,000 on an annualized basis for his temporary role as "Vice-Chair".

In addition, he'll receive $400,000 in deferred compensation covering 2005, $100,000 to cover 2006 travel and entertainment, plus ongoing clerical support. An initial share award representing 2% of the company will now become fully vested.

Whether Goldberg's departure comes in time to save Air America, I have no idea. A lot of it will depend on whether the board is smart enough to bring in someone who knows what they're doing and is willing to work closely with the people -- those who are still left -- who made Air America a success, rather than continue to be bamboozled by the people who excell at claiming to have made Air America a success.

AT&T provided National Security Agency eavesdroppers with full access to its customers' phone calls, and shunted its customers' internet traffic to data-mining equipment installed in a secret room in its San Francisco switching center, according to a former AT&T worker cooperating in the Electronic Frontier Foundation's lawsuit against the company.

Mark Klein, a retired AT&T communications technician, submitted an affidavit in support of the EFF's lawsuit this week. That class action lawsuit, filed in federal court in San Francisco last January, alleges that AT&T violated federal and state laws by surreptitiously allowing the government to monitor phone and internet communications of AT&T customers without warrants.

On Wednesday, the EFF asked the court to issue an injunction prohibiting AT&T from continuing the alleged wiretapping, and filed a number of documents under seal, including three AT&T documents that purportedly explain how the wiretapping system works.

According to a statement released by Klein's attorney, an NSA agent showed up at the San Francisco switching center in 2002 to interview a management-level technician for a special job. In January 2003, Klein observed a new room being built adjacent to the room housing AT&T's #4ESS switching equipment, which is responsible for routing long distance and international calls.

"I learned that the person whom the NSA interviewed for the secret job was the person working to install equipment in this room," Klein wrote. "The regular technician work force was not allowed in the room."

Klein's job eventually included connecting internet circuits to a splitting cabinet that led to the secret room. During the course of that work, he learned from a co-worker that similar cabinets were being installed in other cities, including Seattle, San Jose, Los Angeles and San Diego.

"While doing my job, I learned that fiber optic cables from the secret room were tapping into the Worldnet (AT&T's internet service) circuits by splitting off a portion of the light signal," Klein wrote.

The split circuits included traffic from peering links connecting to other internet backbone providers, meaning that AT&T was also diverting traffic routed from its network to or from other domestic and international providers, according to Klein's statement.

The secret room also included data-mining equipment called a Narus STA 6400, "known to be used particularly by government intelligence agencies because of its ability to sift through large amounts of data looking for preprogrammed targets," according to Klein's statement.

Narus, whose website touts AT&T as a client, sells software to help internet service providers and telecoms monitor and manage their networks, look for intrusions, and wiretap phone calls as mandated by federal law.

Klein said he came forward because he does not believe that the Bush administration is being truthful about the extent of its extrajudicial monitoring of Americans' communications.

Key players in the Bush administration think a military confrontation with Iran is unavoidable, leading to stepped up military planning for such a prospect, according to several experts and recently departed senior government officials.

Some of these observers stressed that military strikes against Iran are not imminent and speculated that the escalated war chatter could be a deliberate ploy to ratchet up diplomatic pressure on Tehran to abandon its nuclear ambitions. Still, they made clear, the tone in Washington has changed drastically.

"In recent months I have grown increasingly concerned that the administration has been giving thought to a heavy dose of air strikes against Iran's nuclear sector without giving enough weight to the possible ramifications of such action," said Wayne White, a former deputy director at the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research. White, who worked in the bureau's Office of Analysis for the Near East and South Asia, left government in early 2005 and is now an adjunct scholar at the Middle East Institute.

Several experts and former officials interviewed by the Forward pointed to Vice President Dick Cheney as one of the key figures who has concluded that the ongoing diplomatic efforts to bring Iran before the United Nations Security Council and eventually slap the Islamic regime with sanctions will come to naught, forcing Washington to resort to force to prevent Tehran from developing nuclear weapons.

Cheney's office responded that he was "supporting the administration's position" of seeking a diplomatic solution while keeping all options on the table.

Iran, meanwhile, has also taken several public steps to suggest that it is preparing for a confrontation. Iranian officials recently announced with great fanfare that the military had tested several new weapons, including three new missiles and two new torpedoes, during maneuvers in the Persian Gulf. After Tehran successfully tested its second new torpedo, General Mohammad Ebrahim Dehghani told Iranian state television Monday that the weapon is powerful enough to "break a heavy warship" in two. The torpedo was tested in the Straits of Hormuz, a vital corridor for oil supplies.

A day earlier, Iran announced it had tested a high-speed missile, the Fajr-3, that allegedly can avoid radar and hit several targets simultaneously. General Hossein Kargar, said Monday that the purpose of the maneuvers was to prepare for an attack by the United States.

Bush administration officials repeatedly have stated that a diplomatic solution to the international crisis over Iran's nuclear program would be preferable, although they would not rule out a military option. Last week, the U.N. Security Council adopted a non-binding statement urging Iran to abandon its uranium enrichment activities. Tehran has rejected the demand, repeating its claim that the sole aim of the country's nuclear program is to generate electricity.

According to Laurent Murawiec, a senior fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute, the Bush administration's contingency plans were being upgraded "because the diplomatic solution has lost credibility." Murawiec said that while he feared several years ago that some officials in Washington seemed to be relying on Israel to take out Iran's nuclear facilities, "I don't fear this anymore."

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales left open the possibility yesterday that President Bush could order warrantless wiretaps on telephone calls occurring solely within the United States -- a move that would dramatically expand the reach of a controversial National Security Agency surveillance program.

In response to a question from Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) during an appearance before the House Judiciary Committee, Gonzales suggested that the administration could decide it was legal to listen in on a domestic call without supervision if it were related to al-Qaeda.

"I'm not going to rule it out," Gonzales said.

Vice President Dick Cheney's former top aide told prosecutors President Bush authorized the leak of sensitive intelligence information about Iraq, according to court papers filed by prosecutors in the CIA leak case.

Before his indictment, I. Lewis Libby testified to the grand jury investigating the CIA leak that Cheney told him to pass on information and that it was Bush who authorized the disclosure, the court papers say. According to the documents, the authorization led to the July 8, 2003, conversation between Libby and New York Times reporter Judith Miller.

There was no indication in the filing that either Bush or Cheney authorized Libby to disclose Valerie Plame's CIA identity.

But the disclosure in documents filed Wednesday means that the president and the vice president put Libby in play as a secret provider of information to reporters about prewar intelligence on Iraq.

The authorization came as the Bush administration faced mounting criticism about its failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the main reason the president and his aides had given for justifying the invasion of Iraq.

Libby's participation in a critical conversation with Miller on July 8, 2003 "occurred only after the vice president advised defendant that the president specifically had authorized defendant to disclose certain information in the National Intelligence Estimate," the papers by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald stated. The filing did not specify the "certain information."

GlaxoSmithKline Plc's experimental vaccine against a virus that causes cervical cancer protected women for as many as four and a half years, according to a company-sponsored study published in the Lancet.

The Cervarix vaccine produced and maintained high levels of antibodies against HPV-16 and HPV-18, the most common types of the virus associated with cervical cancer, according to a study of 776 women by Dr. Diane Harper of the Dartmouth Medical School in New Hampshire.

London-based Glaxo, Europe's biggest drugmaker, is conducting studies to win regulatory approval for a vaccine that fights the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus, or HPV. HPV has been shown to be the cause of cervical cancer, the second- most common cancer in the world and the most common cause of cancer death in the developing world.

Exactly how the vaccine is used will be largely determined by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), a panel of experts assembled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. The panel issues widely followed guidelines, including recommendations for childhood vaccines that become the basis for vaccination requirements set by public schools.

Officials of both companies noted that research indicates the best age to vaccinate would be just before puberty to make sure children are protected before they become sexually active. The vaccine would probably be targeted primarily at girls but could also be used on boys to limit the spread of the virus.

"I would like to see it that if you don't have your HPV vaccine, you can't start high school," said Juan Carlos Felix of the University of Southern California, who leads the National Cervical Cancer Coalition's medical advisory panel.

At the ACIP meeting last week, panel members heard presentations about the pros and cons of vaccinating girls at various ages. A survey of 294 pediatricians presented at the meeting found that more than half were worried that parents of female patients might refuse the vaccine, and 11 percent of the doctors said they thought vaccinating against a sexually transmitted disease "may encourage risky sexual behavior in my adolescent patients."

Conservative groups say they welcome the vaccine as an important public health tool but oppose making it mandatory.

"Some people have raised the issue of whether this vaccine may be sending an overall message to teen-agers that, 'We expect you to be sexually active,' " said Reginald Finger, a doctor trained in public health who served as a medical analyst for Focus on the Family before being appointed to the ACIP in 2003.

"There are people who sense that it could cause people to feel like sexual behaviors are safer if they are vaccinated and may lead to more sexual behavior because they feel safe," said Finger, emphasizing he does not endorse that position and is withholding judgment until the issue comes before the vaccine policy panel for a formal recommendation.

[snip]

"I've talked to some who have said, 'This is going to sabotage our abstinence message,' " said Gene Rudd, associate executive director of the Christian Medical and Dental Associations. But Rudd said most people change their minds once they learn more, adding he would probably want his children immunized. Rudd, however, draws the line at making the vaccine mandatory.

Cancer-causing benzene has been found in soft drinks at levels above the limit considered safe for drinking water, the Food and Drug Administration acknowledged Wednesday.

Even so, the FDA still believes there are no safety concerns about benzene in soft drinks, or sodas, said Laura Tarantino, the agency's director of food additive safety.

"We haven't changed our view that right now, there is not a safety concern, not a public health concern," she said. "But what we need to do is understand how benzene forms and to ensure the industry is doing everything to avoid those circumstances."

The admission contradicted statements last week, when officials said FDA found insignificant levels of benzene.

In fact, a different study found benzene at four times the tap water limit, on average, in 19 of 24 samples of diet soda.

Brian J. Doyle, DOB 4/7/50, the Deputy Press Secretary for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Office of Public Affairs in Washington, D.C., was arrested this evening at his residence in Silver Springs, Maryland, on 23 Polk County charges related to the use of a computer to seduce a child and transmitting harmful materials to a minor. Doyle's arrest is the result of a joint investigation by the Polk County Sheriff s Office, working with Florida’s 10th Judicial Circuit State Attorney Jerry Hill s office, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Inspector General s Office.

The Investigation
On March 12, 2006, Doyle contacted a 14-year-old girl whose profile was posted on the Internet, and initiated a sexually explicit conversation with her. The girl was actually an undercover Polk County Sheriff s Computer Crimes detective. Doyle knew that the girl was 14 years old, and he told her who he was and that he worked for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. During future online chats, Doyle gave the undercover detective posing as a 14-year-old girl his office phone number and his government-issued cell phone number, so that they could have telephone conversations, in addition to their online chatting. Doyle used the Internet to send hard-core pornographic movie clips to the girl and used the AOL Instant Messenger chat service to have explicit sexual conversations with her. The investigation revealed that the phone numbers given to the detective were in fact Doyle s, and that the AOL account used was registered to Doyle. Doyle also sent photos of himself to the detective, which were not sexually explicit but did serve to further positively identify him.

The Conversations
On many occasions, Doyle instructed the victim, whom he believed to be a 14-year-old girl, to perform a sexual act while thinking of him, and described explicit and perverse sexual acts he wished to have with her, in addition to sending her numerous obscene .mpg files (digital movies). He also had sexually explicit telephone conversations with a detective posing as a child on his office line and cell phone. He attempted to seduce the girl during their online chats, encouraging her to purchase a web cam so that she could send graphic images of herself to him, and promised her that he would likewise send nude photos of himself. Many of the conversations he initiated with the victim are too extraordinary and graphic for public release.

The first data to document the effect of President Bush's tax cuts for investment income show that they have significantly lowered the tax burden on the richest Americans, reducing taxes on incomes of more than $10 million by an average of about $500,000.

An analysis of Internal Revenue Service data by The New York Times found that the benefit of the lower taxes on investments was far more concentrated on the very wealthiest Americans than the benefits of Mr. Bush's two previous tax cuts: on wages and other noninvestment income.

[snip]

The analysis found the following:

¶Among taxpayers with incomes greater than $10 million, the amount by which their investment tax bill was reduced averaged about $500,000 in 2003, and total tax savings, which included the two Bush tax cuts on compensation, nearly doubled, to slightly more than $1 million.

¶These taxpayers, whose average income was $26 million, paid about the same share of their income in income taxes as those making $200,000 to $500,000 because of the lowered rates on investment income.

¶Americans with annual incomes of $1 million or more, about one-tenth of 1 percent all taxpayers, reaped 43 percent of all the savings on investment taxes in 2003. The savings for these taxpayers averaged about $41,400 each. By comparison, these same Americans received less than 10 percent of the savings from the other Bush tax cuts, which applied primarily to wages, though that share is expected to grow in coming years.

¶The savings from the investment tax cuts are expected to be larger in subsequent years because of gains in the stock market.

The Times showed the new numbers to people on various sides of the debate over tax cuts. Stephen J. Entin, president of the Institute for Research on the Economics of Taxation, a Washington organization, and other supporters of the cuts said they did not go far enough because the more money the wealthiest had to invest, the more would go to investments that produce jobs. For investment income, Mr. Entin said, "the proper tax rate would be zero."

Opponents say the cuts are too generous to those who already have plenty. Representative Charles B. Rangel of New York, the senior Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, said after seeing the new figures that "these tax cuts are beyond irresponsible" when "we're in a war; we haven't fixed Social Security or Medicare; we've got record deficits."

The first official recognition that the Iraq war motivated the four London suicide bombers has been made by the government in a major report into the 7 July attacks.
Despite attempts by Downing Street to play down suggestions that the conflict has made Britain a target for terrorists, the Home Office inquiry into the deadliest terror attack on British soil has conceded that the bombers were inspired by UK foreign policy, principally the decision to invade Iraq.

The government's 'narrative', compiled by a senior civil servant using intelligence from the police and security services, was announced by the Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, last December following calls for a public inquiry into the attacks.

The narrative will be published in the next few weeks, possibly alongside the findings of a critical report into the London bombings by the Commons intelligence and security committee.

Initial drafts of the government's account into the bombings, which have been revealed to The Observer, state that Iraq was a key 'contributory factor'. The references to Britain's involvement in Iraq are contained in a section examining what inspired the 'radicalisation' of the four British suicide bombers, Sidique Khan, Hasib Hussain, Shehzad Tanweer and Germaine Lindsay.

The findings will prove highly embarrassing to Tony Blair, who has maintained that the decision to go to war against Iraq would make Britain safer. On the third anniversary of the conflict last month, the Prime Minister defended Britain's involvement in Iraq, arguing that only an interventionist stance could confront terrorism.

The narrative largely details the movements of the four bombers from the point when they picked up explosives in a rucksack from a 'bomb factory' in Leeds to the time when the devices were detonated on the morning of 7 July.

Alongside Iraq, other 'motivating factors' for the bombers, three of whom came from west Yorkshire and one from Buckinghamshire, are identified. These include economic deprivation, social exclusion and a disaffection with society in general, as well as community elders. A videotape of Mohammed Sidique Khan was released after the attacks, in which he makes an apparent reference to Iraq, accusing 'Western citizens' of electing governments that committed crimes against humanity. Osama bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, also appeared on the tape, repeating his claim that Blair's decision to go to war in Iraq was responsible for the outrage.

ATLANTA (Reuters) - In a sleazy hotel room, "Brittany," then aged 16 and drugged into oblivion, waited for the men to arrive. Her pimps sent as many as 17 clients an evening through the door.

A "john" could even pre-book the pretty young blonde for $1,000 a night, sometimes flying in and then flying out from a nearby airport.

None of this happened in Bangkok or Costa Rica, places that have become synonymous with sex tourism and underage sex.

It took place in Atlanta, the buckle of the U.S. Bible Belt, where the world's busiest passenger airport provides a cheaper, more convenient and safer underage sex destination for men seeking girls as young as 10.

"Men fly in, are met by pimps, have sex with a 14-year-old for lunch, and get home in time for dinner with the family," said Sanford Jones, the chief juvenile judge of Fulton County, Georgia.

A new federal law passed in 2003 ensures that American sex tourists landing on foreign soil and hiring prostitutes under the age of 18 can get 30 years in prison.

But in Georgia, punishment for pimping or soliciting sex with a girl under 18 is only five to 20 years, according to Deborah Espy, the Deputy District Attorney of Fulton County.

"Men are coming to Atlanta to have sex with a child," said LaKendra Baker, project manager for the Center to End Adolescent Sexual Exploitation (CEASE).

Half of the street-level prostitutes in Atlanta are believed to be under 18, according to experts.

Others are booked through Internet sex sites and from social sites like Black Planet, where girls innocently post profiles, said Baker.

Just in March, police arrested a Canadian man meeting a 14-year-old girl he found through the Internet, said Cathey Steinberg, executive director of the Juvenile Justice Fund, which funds treatment for abused girls and prevention.

Another man drove from North Georgia, with a bag containing a teddy bear, a love note and condoms, snorting methamphetamine on the way.

He expected a 13-year-old girl, but instead found Heather Lackey, a corporal with the Peachtree City Police Department.

"People are stunned that Atlanta's the No. 1 sex center in the country," said Steinberg.

WALLACE: Well, Senator, let me explore that comparison with you if I can. Did President Nixon brief members of Congress more than a dozen times before and during Watergate?

FEINGOLD: Certainly not, and that's not the point. In fact, President Bush broke the law when he did not brief the entire Intelligence Committee...

WALLACE: But wait, wait, wait. That's not — but Senator, I mean the fact is, President Bush briefed the congressional leaders, both House and Senate, Republican and Democrat, also the leaders of the Intelligence Committee, Republican and Democrat, both House and Senate, more than a dozen times before and during this NSA wiretap program. Isn't that a big difference?

FEINGOLD: Chris, Chris, where I come from here in Wisconsin, if you break the law and you go tell people you're breaking the law, that doesn't make it OK. If you're breaking the law, you're breaking the law. In this case, the president does not have a legal leg to stand on.

And we have this problem of one-party rule in our system of government right now, where the Republicans in the House and the Senate are not standing up like some Republicans did during Watergate and saying, look, we need to stand together and say that the president needs to return to the law. We all support wiretapping terrorists. But the what the president is doing here is a frightful assault on our system of government, and he has to be called on it.

I could have proposed something more severe. A censure resolution is, in my view, a modest way to acknowledge the illegality and cause the president to return to the law.

WALLACE: Let me explore that Watergate comparison a little bit more. Has President Bush created an enemies list? Has he used the federal government to punish his political opponents? Has he authorized break-ins of his political enemies?

FEINGOLD: Well, again, Chris, this is not a criticism of the president as some sort of criminal law, day-to-day problem, like President Nixon had. This is really a much bigger deal. As George Will has said, this was the very reason for the revolution that we had in this country, is that we did not want a monarchical president. So I think these days, we look at the Nixon impeachment and the Clinton impeachment, we forget what the real reason for high crimes and misdemeanors was, to make sure that the president doesn't cause himself to be involved in personal misconduct, but that he doesn't try to achieve a power that is like King George III. So this is actually, even though in terms of the president's personal conduct not as serious, much more dangerous to our system of government, to our republic, and frankly, Chris, it weakens us in the fight against terrorism, to have a president who's thumbing his nose at the laws of this country. It isn't good for us.

WALLACE: Senator, I want to go back to the briefing of congressional leaders, because, as I say, he did brief congressional leaders of both parties more than a dozen times. It has been reported that when he set up the program, before he had actually started it, that the White House suggested perhaps there should be some legal changes made to the program, and the congressional leaders said no, because if so, the program will be late (ph). In that sense, aren't the congressional leaders complicit in the lawbreaking?

FEINGOLD: Well, of course they're limited in terms of what they can say about it, because of the rules in terms of the members of the gang of eight of the Intelligence Committee people. And I want to remind you that the president broke the statute from 1947 by not fully informing the entire Intelligence Committees. So he didn't even achieve the legal basis there. That's not the main point, but to somehow suggest that the president of the United States gets off the hook because he briefed a few members who couldn't talk about it is to miss the point.

The point is that the president is making bogus arguments about somehow when we authorized the Afghanistan invasion, we agreed to this. You know, that's — that's been laughed at in the halls of Congress. It's a very sad moment when the president can't admit, look — he can say he did it with good faith, he can say he was trying to do the right thing, but he has to admit he went too far here, and he can do what he needs to do under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. We all support that, we just need him to return to the idea of the law and not really create a very divisive situation in our country that weakens us in the fight against terrorism internationally.

WALLACE: Senator, let's talk about what's at the basis of all this, which is the NSA warrantless wiretap program that the president authorized. Have you been briefed on the program?

FEINGOLD: I have been briefed to some degree, but certainly not completely. I am on the Senate Intelligence Committee, and we got somewhat more information than other senators get, but then the full briefing is only being given to a sub-portion of the Intelligence Committee, and that's one of the reasons I decided it was time for the censure resolution, because it became clear that there was not going to be the kind of investigation that had to happen to find out exactly what this program is all about.

WALLACE: Do you know how the NSA decides whom to wiretap? Do you have any evidence that the civil liberties of any innocent Americans have been violated?

FEINGOLD: I know some things about it, but I'm not able to talk about it. What I can tell you is this: Is that I am absolutely convinced, after five hearings, three in the Judiciary Committee, two in the Intelligence Committee, that there is no legal basis for this. I may not know all the details, but it's clear from everything we've heard that you can't sort of create a new law or a new statute or a new constitutional provision.

The president has admitted publicly that he did this outside of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. They have basically been laughed out of the room when they say that the Afghanistan invasion resolution allows this. And all we have left is this idea that somehow the president has inherent power to make up whatever laws he wants. And you know what? That would be the opposite of our system of government.

So we know what we need to know to know that this conduct is illegal, but there's much more to be known about the program, and I think at least all members of the Intelligence Committee, and hopefully more members of Congress, would be carefully briefed on this, because how are we supposed to insert legislation that the president might want here or senators might want if we don't know what this program precisely is.

"He has served our nation with integrity and honor," said Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, who succeeded DeLay in his leadership post earlier this year.

Asked if he had done anything illegal or immoral in public office, DeLay replied curtly, "No." Asked if he'd done anything immoral, he said with a laugh, "We're all sinners." Asked what he would do differently, he said, "Nothing."

As tensions increase between the United States and Iran, U.S. intelligence and terrorism experts say they believe Iran would respond to U.S. military strikes on its nuclear sites by deploying its intelligence operatives and Hezbollah teams to carry out terrorist attacks worldwide.

Iran would mount attacks against U.S. targets inside Iraq, where Iranian intelligence agents are already plentiful, predicted these experts. There is also a growing consensus that Iran's agents would target civilians in the United States, Europe and elsewhere, they said.

U.S. officials would not discuss what evidence they have indicating Iran would undertake terrorist action, but the matter "is consuming a lot of time" throughout the U.S. intelligence apparatus, one senior official said. "It's a huge issue," another said.

KBR lands $385 million contract

Houston Business Journal - January 24, 2006

KBR announced today that the Department of Homeland Security's U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement division has awarded KBR a $385 million five-year contract to support ICE facilities in the event of an emergency.

KBR also held the previous ICE contract from 2000 through 2005.

The contract will be executed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Fort Worth District.

The contract provides for establishing temporary detention and processing capabilities to augment existing ICE Detention and Removal Operations program facilities in the event of an emergency influx of immigrants into the United States, or to support the rapid development of new programs.

The contingency support contract provides for planning and, if required, initiation of specific engineering, construction and logistics support tasks to establish, operate and maintain one or more expansion facilities.

KBR may also provide migrant detention support to other U.S. government organizations in the event of an immigration emergency, as well as the development of a plan to react to a national emergency, such as a natural disaster.

The Germans also watched the trains go by and refused to believe it was anything untoward.