Despite major increases in money and personnel, the FBI is still failing to translate many al-Qaida surveillance recordings in a timely manner and faces a giant backlog of untranslated material from terrorism and espionage investigations, a new Justice Department audit shows.

The report released Monday by Glenn A. Fine, the department's inspector general, found more than one-third of al-Qaida intercepts authorized by a secret federal court were not reviewed within 12 hours of collection, as required by FBI Director Robert Mueller.

Since Sept. 11, 2001, more than 123,000 hours of audio in languages associated with terrorists still had not been reviewed as of April 2004, the audit found. In addition, more than 370,000 hours of audio associated with counterintelligence had not been reviewed.

I am house bound. I leave when I have a very good reason to and a scheduled interview. I avoid going to people's homes and never walk in the streets. I can't go grocery shopping any more, can't eat in restaurants, can't strike a conversation with strangers, can't look for stories, can't drive in any thing but a full armored car, can't go to scenes of breaking news stories, can't be stuck in traffic, can't speak English outside, can't take a road trip, can't say I'm an American, can't linger at checkpoints, can't be curious about what people are saying, doing, feeling. And can't and can't. There has been one too many close calls, including a car bomb so near our house that it blew out all the windows. So now my most pressing concern every day is not to write a kick-ass story but to stay alive and make sure our Iraqi employees stay alive...

...A friend drove thru the Shiite slum of Sadr City yesterday. He said young men were openly placing improvised explosive devices into the ground. They melt a shallow hole into the asphalt, dig the explosive, cover it with dirt and put an old tire or plastic can over it to signal to the locals this is booby-trapped. He said on the main roads of Sadr City, there were a dozen landmines per every ten yards. His car snaked and swirled to avoid driving over them. Behind the walls sits an angry Iraqi ready to detonate them as soon as an American convoy gets near. This is in Shiite land, the population that was supposed to love America for liberating Iraq...

...America's last hope for a quick exit? The Iraqi police and National Guard units we are spending billions of dollars to train. The cops are being murdered by the dozens every day-over 700 to date -- and the insurgents are infiltrating their ranks. The problem is so serious that the U.S. military has allocated $6 million dollars to buy out 30,000 cops they just trained to get rid of them quietly.

   

   

On February 4, 2000, Russian aircraft attacked the Chechen village of Katyr Yurt. They used "vacuum bombs," which release petrol vapor and suck people's lungs out, and are banned under the Geneva Convention. The Russians bombed a convoy of survivors under a white flag. They murdered 363 men, women and children. It was one of countless, little-known acts of terrorism in Chechnya perpetrated by the Russian state, whose leader, Vladimir Putin, has the "complete solidarity" of Tony Blair.

Is President Bush a Girly Man? Mr. Bush wandered over during Mr. [Scot] Reid's [senior strategist to Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin] chat with the Prime Minister. Mr. Reid introduced himself and shook hands with Mr. Bush. The President chuckled. "Well, you got a pretty face," he told the surprised Mr. Reid. He wasn't done. "You got a pretty face," he said again. "You're a good-looking guy. Better looking than my Scott anyway."

...And now the other night she was in the crowd at the firehouse and Laura Bush started to talk about Iraq. "She said how high the morale was," Sue was saying on the phone yesterday. "Then she started to say what a wonderful job her husband was doing running the war. I was waiting for that."

Sue Niederer called out to Laura Bush, "When are yours going to serve?"

Sue thought that Laura Bush looked dumbfounded. She saw Laura Bush turning away.

"I thought they would send someone up to me and bring me back and let me tell her in private about how I felt, and many others, too. Not these people."

Of course they whisked her out of the place and arrested her for using free speech. But her words remain.

Some passengers also will receive expanded pat-downs when screeners consider it warranted. Currently, they concentrate mostly on arms and legs. Now, they'll be able to pat other areas if they look suspicious. TSA spokeswoman Yolanda Clark would not elaborate, citing security.

...France was responsible for some of the information later used by Britain and the United States to promote the case for war with Iraq.

Italian diplomats have claimed that, by disseminating bogus documents stating that Iraq was trying to buy low-grade "yellowcake" uranium from Niger, France was trying to "set up" Britain and America in the hope that when the mistake was revealed it would undermine the case for war, which it wanted to prevent.

...differences erupted publicly this week between North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies Turkey and the US over attacks on Turkey's ethnic cousins, the Turkmens in northern Iraq.

Talking to a Turkish TV channel, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul warned that if the US did not cease its attacks on Tal Afar, a Turkmen city at the junction of Turkey, Iraq and Syria, Ankara might withdraw its support to the US in Iraq.

   

Here's some good advice for all the nasty nazi republicans out there. If you're going to kick a female demonstrator repeatedly when she's on the ground, don't do it on camera. I know I know - you're not going to jail because Soldiers of The Reich are immune from such things...but we should at least keep up the pretence of being law abiding. (Also - be sure that you don't have a stupid haircut. It makes you too easy to identify).

BRING BRING

LADY: Hello - Wagner and associates.

ME: I'd like to speak to Robert Wagner please.

LADY: May I ask who's calling?

ME: Dermot O'Connor. Webmaster of idleworm.com.

LADY: One moment please.

ONE MOMENT LATER

LADY: Robert is busy at the moment. Would you like to speak to ****?

ME: No - I need to speak to Robert.

LADY: May I ask what it's about?

ME: He sent me an email accusing me of being a bigot.

LADY: Oh. Just a moment.

ONE MOMENT LATER

LADY: You must have the wrong Robert Wagner.

ME: Maybe. The email was apparently sent from his email account. I'll forward it to him. If he did send it, I hope he'll be man enough to admit it.

LADY: OK. Goodbye.

ME: Bye.

bdsl.66.14.125.117.gte.net ([66.14.125.117] helo=Robert)

"Bomb the shit out of them."

"Send in the firing squad and take them all out. Time to show them that we will not tollerate islamic militants!"

"Napalm the 'celebrants'. Then we could be treated to film of animated flaming *holes."

"Honestly, I say you drop a daisy-cutter on both Fallujah and Mecca. All this nonsense would end in 24 hours."

"Just curious -- can I call them barbarous savages now?"

"I am starting to believe removing old Saddam was a bad move. He was the best, the nicest, the most rational, the most reliable, the most grateful of the lot."

"Time for - Fellatio - Fallujah to receive the Mother Of All Bombs don't you agree?"

"Although the people of Fallujah deserve the treatment that Nazi Germany showed villages of resistance fighters, I believe the US, as a civilized Judeo-Christain country, must maintain the moral high ground.
On the other hand, the lack of a firm response will only encourage more acts like this, increasing military, US civilian and maybe even Iraqi civilian casualties.
Since Muslims, while born human, seem to devolve into sub-human beasts, only seem to understand force, I think the US should organize the mother of all raids to arrest the "militants". Troops in APCs and tanks with gunship support to arrest all possible perpetrators, and all who resist should be neutralized with extreme prejudice. Perhaps a warning given first that woman and children should leave (although I know these sub-humanoids like to hide behind skirts), to attempt to minimize innocent casualties.
All men captured alive should be sent to camps for screening, any identified to have participated, should be tried as murderers and executed.If attacks in Fallujah continue, the whole city should be dispersed among Shia and Kurds in small numbers, and the city repopulated with more civilized people."

"We can't accept this behavior without giving an example."
Being inert will multiply the number of our enemies and of the appeasers."
Bomb the whole neighborhood, destroy every single house in a two miles range."
These are really animals."

"It's time to go Roman on Fallujah."

"We must treat savages savagly, gloves off. F__k curfews, I think a few indoctrination camps are in order.Every one of the people and children that participated in this are fallible. Round them up and move them into the desert."

"A curse of blood and torment on the ones who did this, and their familes. May eternal wrath and the lake of fire be their only home."

''"Civilians" be damned, that crowd needed a good strafing -- or cluster-bombing.*Somehow* we need to clampdown on these animals.Or turn loose the Kurds on 'em if we need some deniability.''

"There is a time for certain types of collective punishment. This is one of those times. This is bullshit."

"I'm sick of Fallujah. What are we waiting for? Turn the damn thing into a CRATER already! Damn Bush and his PC war."

"The real problem is that the towelheads simply do not understand - in their guts - the dynamic at work here. We have decided to provide them with democracy and civilization *in lieu of killing them*. If we ever come to the point where, as a culture, we decide they *cannot be civilized*, then only one avenue will remain.
Kaboom."

"Thousands crucified sounds about right. These people only seem to respect power and strength. They also have a perverse fascination with death and mutilation. Let's give them a spectacle they will soon not forget."

"Please, please, Mr. Bush, let the Marines go in there and level the place. You will never please the media and the left, so go in there and do the job right or you will lose it all!!"

"I think we may seriously have to consider using a small nuke on Fallujah. I'm saying that because so many Islamofascists already are on the verge of having the bomb, we may have to use ours to set an example, somewhere, WHILE WE STILL CAN."

"Kill em all and let God sort em out."

"Arab society and Islam is truely EVIL. It is time for an all out war on the Middle East."

"Level Fallujah. Do a Dresden on that town and let it be an example to everyone else."

"Round up the savages and shoot every 2nd man until they get the message."

"Time to nuke Fallujah into a nice, shiny plate of glass. . ."

"Wipe Falluja off the face of the earth. There are no innocents there anymore -- they are either murderers, or are abetting the murderers by sheltering them amongst themselves."

"Seriously - totally and completely destroy every building, or structure, including clotheslines. pave it over. Let EVERYONE know that "multiculturalism" only applies to civilized people."

"I call for *death squads*.
Paramilitary forces, teaching places like this a lesson, with no official connection to the U.S., thus enabling the latter to maintain plausible deniability."

"carpet bomb Fallujah is the best suggestion yet."

"...turn the town into an oil slick"

"Islam is a cancer - and it's heading straight to the "lymph nodes" of the world to bring it down, yet everyone is denying its danger."

"these people deserved a Saddam."

"Kill 'em all"

"Nuke 'em"

"Don't spare the women and children"

"Jdam time!"

"Raze Fallujah"

"Muhammad is the first Anti-Christ!"

"Kill everything that moves in that village, burn down all the buildings, salt the earth."

"Enough is fucking enough. We've nuked people for less savagery than this, and it's time the Islamic world learned that we are not to be trifled with."

   

Early one morning this week, when the police have yet to set up too many checkpoints, Abu Mujahed will strap a mortar underneath a car, drive to a friend's in central Baghdad and bury the weapon in his garden. In the evening he will return with the rest of his group, sleep for a few hours and then take the weapon from its hiding place. He will calculate the range using the American military's own maps and satellite pictures - bought in a bazaar - and fire a few rounds at a military base or the US Embassy or at the Iraqi Prime Minister's office. Then Abu Mujahed will shower, change and, by 10am, be at his desk in one of the major ministries.

COL. SAM GARDINER: ... Ray mentioned some of the numbers in terms of attacks per month. But if you look at, for example, the number of attacks per day, last October it was around 20.

At the hand-off, it was 35. This month it was 87 -- numbers of attacks on the oil pipeline -- January and February, less than five; June, 16; August, 20; September, high already. The numbers aren't good. The numbers show that the insurgency is getting worse. We seem to have turned the corner, and it's getting worse.

It's not only that U.S. casualty figures keep climbing. American counterinsurgency experts are noticing some disturbing trends in those statistics. The Defense Department counted 87 attacks per day on U.S. forces in August—the worst monthly average since Bush's flight-suited visit to the USS Abraham Lincoln in May 2003. Preliminary analysis of the July and August numbers also suggests that U.S. troops are being attacked across a wider area of Iraq than ever before. And the number of gunshot casualties apparently took a huge jump in August. Until then, explosive devices and shrapnel were the primary cause of combat injuries, typical of a "phase two" insurgency, where sudden ambushes are the rule. (Phase one is the recruitment phase, with most actions confined to sabotage. That's how things started in Iraq.) Bullet wounds would mean the insurgents are standing and fighting—a step up to phase three.

At least 7 car bombs shook the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, and guerrillas pounded the Green Zone and the area around it with at least 12 mortar strikes. Mortar shells were also launched at Abu Ghuraib prison and driver tried to get a truckbomb through its gates, but was killed by Marines. The US military and Iraqi National Guards fought a running battle in Haifa Street. The Baghdad fighting took some 37 lives.

Usama Bin Laden is wanted in connection with the August 7, 1998, bombings of the United States Embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya. These attacks killed over 200 people. In addition, Bin Laden is a suspect in other terrorist attacks throughout the world.

   

There is something unsettling about a man who never touches alcohol, goes to bed at 9 p.m., holds Bible-study meetings every morning and who is unable to eat a pretzel without nearly dying. Then there is his command of English. At one point Bush was on the giant screen before us, explaining that his wife Laura believed children should be encouraged to read. ‘She wants America to be the most literate nation for every child,’ he said, the gears of his brain audibly crunching.

Arnie closed his remarks with an anecdote about a wounded soldier he met in Iraq. According to Schwarzenegger, this chap was in a very bad way, full of holes, leg gone, etc.

‘He said he vos going to ket a new leg and zen he vos going to ket some therapy, and zen he vos going to go out again and fight with his buddies ...And you know what he said to me ...he said, “Arnie, I’LL BE BACK!”’ (Widespread epilepsy, Holy Trinity Brompton-style convulsions, followed by rhythmic chanting of USA, USA, USA.)

   

   

At the moment, Sadr and the Mahdi-ettes are withdrawing, and Bush's PR guys are claiming Sadr's going into politics to play nice. You have to wonder if they really believe that. I hope not; I hope they're not really that dumb.

Any guerrilla war has lulls, slowdowns, little coffee breaks that last a week, a month, sometimes years. It doesn't mean the war's over. The VC used to go home when it was time to harvest the rice crop; every time they did, the Saigon PR office would declare that the insurgency was beaten. Sadr and his boys are going to work us the way you work a can lid: back and forth, over and over, sheer metal fatigue. They've got a whole new crop of martyrs to worship, and all they have to do is wait for another policy mistake to outrage all their followers. One thing you can be sure of, if you're an Iraqi Shiite: outrages are like buses, there'll always be another one coming along. When it arrives, they'll get on board, fight us again, lose again, win the propaganda battle again, and come back a little stronger, with more of the Shi'ite poor on their side. After a half dozen lost battles, they'll be so strong we'll be glad to catch the last chopper out of Najaf and let'em martyr each other, instead of paying hundreds of billions of my tax money to be their Santa-Claus bogeyman.

   

   

The most animated ones are wearing fogeyish clothes: bow-ties and blazers. I approach the most handsome and ask him why he is a Republican. "Uh, because I believe in freedom. I like Bush. He's strong." These three sentences take him several minutes. I ask around; he's typical. I ask them what books have influenced their political thought. They look at me as though I am insane...

...Is this it? Is the Republican Party just a power-worshipping cult? I decide to seek out some less wealthy, more grassroots Republicans. I hear there are special performances of the big musicals, so I head for Broadway. Outside Phantom of the Opera, I find protesters waving banners saying, "The Phantom Dies at the End, You Republican Assholes".

There is an obese man on stage asking: "Why do we need other countries? We have Las Vegas. Just go there and you'll find the Paris, the Casablanca, the Berlin ..." I have never been to a comedy show before where punchlines were greeted with choruses of "Amen". The Republicans particularly love any gag about killing Muslims and/or left-wingers. A comedian called Jeff Wayne says: "There's a huge bounty on Osama's head - it's like, $25m - so I shot 10 guys who look like him. Unfortunately, I was in a 7/11 in Minnesota." The audience cheered. "Shall I go on with the Muslim-bashing?" the comic asked. "More! More!" they cried, but he shifted the subject. "You know those tree-sitters? The hippies who sit in trees so they can't be cut down? Well, in my town a woman fell 150ft to her death last week doing that. Good. Now we can chop the tree down. I suggest we make a casket for that dumb bitch."

   

...the wearing of bullet-proof vests means that many of these would have been deaths in earlier combats such as Vietnam. The vests have reduced deaths but greatly increased total incapacitation wounds such as brain injuries and limb loss. (Note that Pentagon has been trying to "spin" the number of wounded by only reporting "hostile" wounded since 1 April 2004).

If you assume that the 6987 wounded cannot return to fight and nor can the 4416 reported non-battle injury evacuations, the US loses 21.47 soldiers per day to injury (and 36 per day in most recent month) on top of the 1.9 average deaths per day (total 23.37 per day equals 8530 per year that this continues, more if rates escalate as they are currently). Too many years at this rate and the US military is severely depleted, not to mention the increased vet costs and resultant family impact back home.

Note also that most recent deaths have not been in Najaf, implying there is a largely unreported but much more effective uprising elsewhere in Iraq (Al-Anbar district seems to be where most deaths are still occuring).

   

When Dr Thomas Butler noticed vials of plague bacteria were missing from his Texas university lab, he did the right thing and informed the FBI - only to find himself the prime suspect in a bio-terrorism investigation. Now he's in jail

"Rather than demonstrating the importance of strict care in the handling of research materials," wrote the Nobel prizewinners, "the determination to convict Dr Butler and put him in jail sends a strong message to the scientific community. It says: this 62-year-old man, who voluntarily reported missing material and cooperated with federal investigators, is now being repaid with a ruined career and a personal cost from which he and his family will never recover." It also says that the next time a scientist misplaces 30 vials of a dangerous pathogen, they're hardly likely to call the FBI.

"Mr. Kerry's biggest supporter, Sen. Max Cleland, claims to have lost two legs and an arm in Vietnam. But he still has one arm! How did that happen? One word: Cowardice. When duty called, he was unwilling to give his last limb. Is that the type of selfishness you want hanging out in the White House? We think not. Vote for the man who would be willing to give America his right frontal lobe. Vote Bush."