The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Florida Most state officials believe new rules on power plants will increase pollution

The Price of Loyalty: The Bush Files

d a t e l i n e: "MARK DAVIS: Well, when you analyse much of the so-called intelligence that was being relied upon by George Bush and Tony Blair, much of that information seems to have been sourced from your organisation, or that of your predecessors. In your opinion, was that information misused for the purposes of war?

HANS BLIX: Yes. In many cases it was."

Cheney's Staff Focus of Probe - Insight on the News - National: "Federal law-enforcement officials said that they have developed hard evidence of possible criminal misconduct by two employees of Vice President Dick Cheney's office related to the unlawful exposure of a CIA officer's identity last year. The investigation, which is continuing, could lead to indictments, a Justice Department official said."

Yahoo! News - Speech of CIA Director George Tenet: "Let me be clear: Analysts differed on several important aspects of these programs and those debates were spelled out in the estimate. They never said there was an imminent threat."

Scalia Was Cheney Hunt Trip Guest; Ethics Concern Grows : "Both Perry [who runs the Perry Flying Center at the Harry P. Williams Airport] and [St. Mary Parish Sheriff David] Naquin said there were orders prohibiting photographs of those who exited the planes and climbed into the motorcade. But two days later, Cheney returned to the airport without Scalia, and photographs were allowed. Perry and Naquin said the vice president happily posed with them for photos at the Patterson airport."

KR Washington Bureau | 02/02/2004 | Iraq intelligence efforts led by Cheney magnified errors, officials say: "Senior officials on Monday revealed new details of how Cheney's office pressed Secretary of State Colin Powell to use large amounts of disputed intelligence in a February 2003 presentation to the United Nations Security Council laying out the U.S. case for an invasion.

A senior administration official said that during a three-day pre-speech review, Powell rejected more than half of a 45-page assessment on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction compiled by Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby, and based on materials assembled by pro-invasion hard-liners in the Pentagon and the White House.

Powell also jettisoned 75 percent of a separate report on al-Qaida, said the official.

Still, he said, Libby continued pressing Powell unsuccessfully right up until a few minutes before the speech to include dubious information purportedly linking Saddam to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. "

Ricin Partially Shuts Senate (washingtonpost.com): "An FBI official said the intern noticed clumpy dust on a small mail-sorting machine he had been using. The machine was in a 10-by-15-foot mailroom attached to Frist's office. 'All you have is dust,' said the official, describing why it would be difficult to trace. 'How long has it been there? Did somebody walk in and dump it?'"

Reprint of article removed from washingtonpost.com : "an intern in Frist's office was using a mail opening machine that slices letters open. He left the mail opening area for about three hours yesterday to attend a class, Mihalko said, and when he returned discovered a powdery substance in the area near the machine. "

Remember the armed guard on the Judiciary Committee's computer? They still there?

FBI says ricin also mailed to White House in Nov. Mihalko said that an intern in Frist's office was using a mail opening machine that slices letters open. He left the mail opening area for about three hours yesterday to attend a class, Mihalko said, and when he returned discovered a powdery substance in the area near the machine.

Argument: "My belief is that right up to the publication of the dossier there was a unified view amongst not only my own staff but all the DIS experts that on the basis of the intelligence available to them the assessment that Iraq possessed a CW or BW capability should be carefully caveated"

News: "The intelligence official whose revelations stunned the Hutton inquiry has suggested that not a single defence intelligence expert backed Tony Blair's most contentious claims on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction."

Khan denied confessing transfer of nuke tech: MMA : HindustanTimes.com

Guardian | Bush accused of undermining investigation

Remarks by the President to the Press Pool: Ask a question, lose your job.

"Q I'm wondering what you think of John Kerry, sir?
THE PRESIDENT: You're supposed to be thinking about what it means to start your own business, like these people here have done. "

Daily Yomiuri On-LineU.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage on Monday hailed Japan's dispatch of Self-Defense Forces personnel to Iraq to help reconstruct the country as a sign of Japan's growing global leadership.

Speaking at the Japan National Press Club in Hibiya, Tokyo, Armitage praised Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's "remarkable vision" in making the decision. Koizumi "set a new benchmark, not just in the dispatch...but also in redefining Japan's role in the world," he said. ...

Concern both in and outside Japan over Japan's greater role in international affairs are "ghosts of the past," he said, adding, "I see that debate within Japan about changing the Constitution is now picking up speed without changing the unique character of this country."

Cigarette makers forced to put smoking disease images on packets - www.smh.com.au: "Fourteen pictures, including photographs of lung disease, tongue cancers and a dissected brain, would be prominent on the front and backs of [Australian] packets....The parliamentary secretary for health, Trish Worth, said the size of the packet warnings had yet to be decided, with the option of half the front and back or 30 per cent of the front and 90 per cent of the back.

Ms Worth said after similar health warnings were introduced in Canada, the number of smokers fell by 3 per cent. 'We would hope for that, or even better,' she said."

How to Lose Your Job in Talk Radio

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Pilots call for evaluation of US intelligence: "The British Airline Pilots' Association (Balpa) is calling on the UK government to evaluate fully the 'strength and validity' of the security information [from US intelligence services] that has led to disruption for hundreds of holidaymakers.

Terrorism specialist Simon Reeve, author of the book on al-Qaida, The New Jackals, said the pilots' union was right to be sceptical about the quality of the intelligence that has prompted the cancellations. He told the Press Association: 'I think some of the evidence, some of the intelligence surrounding these threats is tenuous to say the least. "

Yahoo! News - Bush to Order Probe of Iraq Intelligence ... places call to Lord Hutton.

Netcraft: www.sco.com is a weapon of mass destruction Geek humor.

Asia Times - Asia's most trusted news source: "pundits agree that Kucinich, along with Dean, have made the mainstream candidates' support of the war resolution an issue; Kerry and Edwards have struggled to explain away their support for the resolutions authorizing the Iraq war....other candidates have been forced to craft plans to increase international involvement in the occupation.

So Kucinich can take some credit for altering the face of the nomination process, and he does raise some important points. He also favors abolishing the World Trade Organization and withdrawing from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). These stands push the mainstream candidates to explain and define their own positions in specific terms with concrete programs....

Outsider candidates keep the process fresh, challenging mainstream candidates to refine their stances; they turn on voters who otherwise might not be interested in the process, and they challenge their political parties to maintain their relevance to the shifting tastes of the electorate."