History > 2007 > USA > Terrorism (IV)

Dog Who Searched for WTC Survivors

Dies

July 26, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 2:17 a.m. ET
The New York Times

NEW YORK (AP) -- A black Labrador who became a national canine hero after burrowing through white-hot, smoking debris in search of survivors at the World Trade Center site died Wednesday after a battle with cancer.

Owner Mary Flood had Jake put to sleep Wednesday after a last stroll through the fields and a dip in the creek near their home in Oakley, Utah. He was in too much pain at the end, shaking with a 105-degree fever as he lay on the lawn.

No one can say whether the dog would have gotten sick if he hadn't been exposed to the smoky air at ground zero, but cancer in dogs Jake's age -- he was 12 -- is quite common.

Some rescue dog owners who worked at the World Trade Center site claim their animals have died because of their work at ground zero. But scientists who have spent years studying the health of Sept. 11 search-and-rescue have found no sign of major illness in the animals.

The results of an autopsy on Jake's cancer-riddled body will be part of a University of Pennsylvania medical study of Sept. 11 search-and-rescue dogs.

Flood had adopted Jake as a 10-month-old disabled puppy -- abandoned on a street with a broken leg and a dislocated hip.

''But against all odds he became a world-class rescue dog,'' said Flood, a member of Utah Task Force 1, one of eight federal search-and-rescue teams that desperately looked for human remains at ground zero.

Anguished New Yorkers honored the dogs.

On the evening of his team's arrival, Jake walked into a fancy Manhattan restaurant wearing his search-and-rescue vest and was promptly treated to a free steak dinner under a table.

Flood eventually trained Jake to become one of fewer than 200 U.S. government-certified rescue dogs -- a muscular animal on 24-hour call to tackle disasters such as building collapses, earthquakes, hurricanes and avalanches.

After Hurricane Katrina, Flood and Jake drove 30 hours from Utah to Mississippi, where they searched through the rubble of flooded homes in search of survivors.

In recent years, Jake helped train younger dogs and their handlers across the country. Jake showed other dogs how to track scents, even in the snow, and how to look up if the scent was in a tree.

He also did therapy work with children at a Utah camp for burn victims and at senior homes and hospitals.

''He was a great morale booster wherever he went,'' says Flood. ''He believed that his cup was always full, never half-full. He was always ready to work, eager to play -- and a master at helping himself to any unattended food items.''

Cynthia Otto of the University of Pennsylvania's School of Veterinary Medicine, who is researching the health of Sept. 11 dogs, expects Jake and the other animals being analyzed will serve as sentinels on possible long-term consequences stemming from 9/11.

Jake's ashes will be scattered ''in places that were important to him,'' says Flood, like his Utah training grounds, the rivers and hills near home where he swam and roamed.

Dog Who Searched for WTC Survivors Dies, NYT, 26.7.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Attacks-Rescue-Dog.html

Documents Contradict

Gonzales' Testimony

July 26, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 2:04 a.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Documents indicate eight congressional leaders were briefed about the Bush administration's terrorist surveillance program on the eve of its expiration in 2004, contradicting sworn Senate testimony this week by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

The documents underscore questions about Gonzales' credibility as senators consider whether a perjury investigation should be opened into conflicting accounts about the program and a dramatic March 2004 confrontation leading up to its potentially illegal reauthorization.

A Gonzales spokesman maintained Wednesday that the attorney general stands by his testimony.

At a heated Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday, Gonzales repeatedly testified that the issue at hand was not about the terrorist surveillance program, which allowed the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on suspects in the United States without receiving court approval.

Instead, Gonzales said, the emergency meetings on March 10, 2004, focused on an intelligence program that he would not describe.

Gonzales, who was then serving as counsel to Bush, testified that the White House Situation Room briefing sought to inform congressional leaders about the pending expiration of the unidentified program and Justice Department objections to renew it. Those objections were led by then-Deputy Attorney General Jim Comey, who questioned the program's legality.

''The dissent related to other intelligence activities,'' Gonzales testified at Tuesday's hearing. ''The dissent was not about the terrorist surveillance program.''

''Not the TSP?'' responded Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y. ''Come on. If you say it's about other, that implies not. Now say it or not.''

''It was not,'' Gonzales answered. ''It was about other intelligence activities.''

A four-page memo from the national intelligence director's office says the White House briefing with the eight lawmakers on March 10, 2004, was about the terror surveillance program, or TSP.

The memo, dated May 17, 2006, and addressed to then-House Speaker Dennis Hastert, details ''the classification of the dates, locations, and names of members of Congress who attended briefings on the Terrorist Surveillance Program,'' wrote then-Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte.

It shows that the briefing in March 2004 was attended by the Republican and Democratic House and Senate leaders and leading members of both chambers' intelligence committees, as Gonzales testified.

Schumer called the memo evidence that Gonzales was not truthful in his testimony.

''It seemed clear to just about everyone on the committee that the attorney general was deceiving us when he said the dissent was about other intelligence activities and this memo is even more evidence that helps confirm our suspicions,'' Schumer said.

Bush acknowledged the existence of the classified surveillance program in December 2005 after it was revealed by The New York Times. In January, it was put under the authority of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for judicial review before any wiretaps were to be approved.

Asked for comment on the documents Wednesday evening, Justice spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said Gonzales ''stands by his testimony.''

''The disagreement referenced by Jim Comey in March 2004 was not about the particular intelligence activity that has been publicly described by the president,'' Roehrkasse said. ''It was about other highly classified intelligence activities that have been briefed to the intelligence committees.''

The disagreement over whether to renew the program led to a dramatic, and highly controversial, confrontation between Gonzales and then-Attorney General John Ashcroft on the night of March 10, 2004.

After briefing the congressional leaders, Gonzales testified that he and then-White House chief of staff Andy Card headed to a Washington hospital room, where a sedated Ashcroft was recovering from surgery. Ashcroft had already turned over his powers as attorney general to Comey.

Comey was in the hospital room as well, and recounted to senators in his own sworn testimony in May that he ''thought I just witnessed an effort to take advantage of a very sick man, who did not have the powers of the attorney general because they had been transferred to me.''

Ultimately, Ashcroft sided with Comey, and Gonzales and Card left the hospital after a five- to six-minute conversation.

Gonzales denied that he and Card tried to pressure Ashcroft into approving the program over Comey's objections.

''We never had any intent to ask anything of him if we did not feel that he was competent,'' Gonzales told the Senate panel Tuesday. ''At the end of his description of the legal issues, he said, 'I'm not making this decision. The deputy attorney general is.' And so Andy Card and I thanked him. We told him that we would continue working with the deputy attorney general and we left.''

Democrats and Republicans alike expressed disbelief at Gonzales' version of events.

''There's a discrepancy here in sworn testimony,'' Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said after listening to Gonzales, raising the possibility of a perjury inquiry. ''We're going to have to ask who's telling the truth, who's not.''

Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, top Republican on the panel, also disregarded Gonzales' description. ''I do not find your testimony credible, candidly,'' he told the attorney general.

House and Senate lawmakers who attended the Situation Room briefing are divided on the accuracy of Gonzales' account of that meeting, which he said concluded by a ''consensus in the room from the congressional leadership is that we should continue the activities, at least for now, despite the objections of Mr. Comey.''

Three Democrats -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller and former Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle -- dispute Gonzales' testimony. Rockefeller called it ''untruthful,'' and Pelosi spokesman Brendan Daly said the speaker disagreed that it should be continued without Justice Department or FISA court oversight.

On the other hand, former GOP House Intelligence Chairman Porter Goss, ''does not recall anyone saying the project must be ended,' spokeswoman Jennifer Millerwise Dyck said. And former Senate Republican leader Bill Frist stopped short of confirming or denying the meeting's outcome.

''I recall being briefed with the others about the program and it was stated that Gonzales would visit with Ashcroft in the hospital and that our meeting was part of the administration's responsibility to discuss with the leadership of Congress,' Frist said in a statement.

Associated Press writer Katherine Shrader contributed to this report.

    Documents Contradict Gonzales' Testimony, NYT, 26.7.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Congress-Gonzales.html

9/11 Workers

Not Getting Enough Care,

Report Says

July 25, 2007
The New York Times
By ANTHONY DePALMA

Almost six years after the terrorist attack on New York, the federal government still does not have an adequate array of health programs for ground zero workers — or a reliable estimate of how much treating their illnesses will cost — according to a federal report released yesterday.

The report, produced by the Government Accountability Office, an arm of Congress, concluded that thousands of federal workers and responders who came to ground zero from other parts of the country do not have access to suitable health programs.

The report also said that an estimate of health care costs made late last year by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health was based on questionable assumptions, inconsistent data and instances of double billing. As a result, the report concluded, “It is unclear whether the overall estimate overstated or understated the costs of monitoring and treating responders.”

But officials at the institute, the federal agency that coordinates spending on the ground zero health programs, said the new report looked at outdated estimates, which they admitted were shaky.

New estimates by the institute, made public last week, considered recommendations by the Government Accountability Office and are based on the first few months of treatment costs reported by the Fire Department of New York and a consortium of regional health care institutions led by the Mount Sinai Medical Center.

An estimate for 9/11 health programs released late last year and analyzed by the accountability office put the annual cost of monitoring and treatment services, along with associated expenses, at $230 million to $283 million, depending on the number of workers who seek help.

The institute’s revised estimate last week put this year’s costs at $195 million. But it said the total figure for 2007 and 2008 could be between $428 million and $712 million if more workers register to participate in the programs and a greater percentage of them need medical or mental health treatment.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said that while the accountability office indicated that previous health program cost estimates have been imprecise, the report “leaves no doubt that substantial federal resources are needed for the foreseeable future.”

A government official who worked on the institute’s cost estimates acknowledged that the treatment program had been in existence for only a few months and that actual costs could turn out to be quite different. The official was not authorized to speak about the program and asked to be quoted anonymously.

Part of the problem in estimating costs is the piecemeal way in which the health programs have been created and financed. Beginning in October 2001, federal funds from a variety of sources established and later supported programs to screen and monitor thousands of people who worked at ground zero during the cleanup and recovery operation, which lasted about nine months after Sept. 11. The money went to the Fire Department, the Mount Sinai consortium and two mental health and counseling programs run for members of the New York Police Department.

Treatment money from the federal government became available only last year. Additional funds were approved this year and could be included in next year’s federal budget.

The G.A.O. found that the occupational health institute’s earlier estimates relied on workers’ compensation reimbursement rates. Those figures were adjusted to reflect the special treatment needs of ground zero workers, who have developed respiratory and digestive ailments.

But the estimates proved unreliable for a number of reasons, according to the G.A.O. report. The occupational health institute relied on “questionable assumptions” that were not based on sound data to revise the workers’ compensation rates, the G.A.O. report said. Estimates often included program changes, like more frequent monitoring visits, that had not yet been put into place. And the institute mistakenly counted indirect costs twice.

The report also criticized the on-again, off-again health program for federal employees. It said that nonfederal workers around the country do not have access to the same level of health care as those in the New York region, and it called for the creation of a national health plan for ground zero workers.

    9/11 Workers Not Getting Enough Care, Report Says, NYT, 25.7.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/25/nyregion/25report.html

President Links

Qaeda of Iraq to Qaeda of 9/11

July 25, 2007
The New York Times
By JIM RUTENBERG and MARK MAZZETTI

CHARLESTON, S.C., July 24 — President Bush sought anew on Tuesday to draw connections between the Iraqi group Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and the terrorist network responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks, and he sharply criticized those who contend that the groups are independent of each other.

At a time when Mr. Bush is trying to beat back calls for withdrawal from Iraq, the speech at Charleston Air Force Base reflected concern at the White House over criticism that he is focusing on the wrong terrorist threat.

Mr. Bush chose to speak in the city where Democrats held their nationally televised presidential debate on Monday, a forum at which the question was not whether to stay in Iraq but how to go about leaving.

“The facts are that Al Qaeda terrorists killed Americans on 9/11, they’re fighting us in Iraq and across the world and they are plotting to kill Americans here at home again,” Mr. Bush told a contingent of military personnel here. “Those who justify withdrawing our troops from Iraq by denying the threat of Al Qaeda in Iraq and its ties to Osama bin Laden ignore the clear consequences of such a retreat.”

Kevin Sullivan, the White House communications director, said the speech was devised as a “surge of facts” meant to rebut critics who say Mr. Bush is trying to rebuild support for the war by linking the Iraq group and the one led by Mr. bin Laden.

But Democratic lawmakers accused Mr. Bush of overstating those ties to provide a basis for continuing the American presence in Iraq. The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, said Mr. Bush was “trying to justify claims that have long ago been proven to be misleading.”

The Iraqi group is a homegrown Sunni Arab extremist group with some foreign operatives that has claimed a loose affiliation to Mr. bin Laden’s network, although the precise links are unclear.

In his speech, Mr. Bush did not try to debunk the fact — repeated by Mr. Reid — that Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia did not exist until after the United States invasion in 2003 and has flourished since.

His comments also reflected a subtle shift from his recent flat assertion that, “The same folks that are bombing innocent people in Iraq were the ones who attacked us in America on Sept. 11.”

The overall thrust of the speech was that the administration believes that Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia has enough connections to Mr. bin Laden’s group to be considered the same threat, that its ultimate goal is to strike America and that to think otherwise is “like watching a man walk into a bank with a mask and a gun and saying he’s probably just there to cash a check.”

Mr. Bush referred throughout his speech to what his aides said was newly declassified intelligence in his effort to link Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and the central Qaeda leadership that is believed to be operating from the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region. Although the aides said the intelligence was declassified, White House and intelligence officials declined to provide any detail on the reports Mr. Bush cited.

In stark terms, Mr. Bush laid out a case that Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia had taken its cues from the central Qaeda leadership, and that it had been led by foreigners who have sworn allegiance to Mr. bin Laden.

Mr. Bush acknowledged that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian founder of the Iraq group, at first was not part of Al Qaeda. But, he said, “our intelligence community reports he had long-standing relations with senior Al Qaeda leaders, that he had met with Osama bin Laden and his chief deputy, Zawahri,” referring to Ayman al-Zawahri.

Mr. Bush acknowledged differences between Mr. Zarqawi and Mr. Zawahri over strategy.

But he recounted Mr. Zarqawi’s pledge of allegiance to Mr. bin Laden in 2004 and promise to “follow his orders in jihad” and how Mr. bin Laden “instructed terrorists in Iraq to ‘listen to him and obey him.’ ”

Mr. Bush quoted from what aides said was a previously classified intelligence assessment, saying, “The Zarqawi-bin Laden merger gave Al Qaeda in Iraq quote, ‘prestige among potential recruits and financiers.’ ” He added, “The merger also gave Al Qaeda’s senior leadership ‘a foothold in Iraq to extend its geographic presence.’ ”

Officials agree that the membership of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia is mostly Iraqi but insist that it is foreign-led. Mr. Bush noted that Abu Ayyub al-Masri, an Egyptian, had led the group since United States forces killed Mr. Zarqawi in June 2006.

He listed several other foreigners in the Qaeda in Mesopotamia leadership structure, including a Syrian who he said was the Qaeda emir in Baghdad, a Saudi he said was its spiritual adviser, an Egyptian he said had met with Mr. bin Laden, and a Tunisian who helps manage the foreign fighters in Iraq.

Mr. Bush cited information of the foreign leadership structure gleaned from the recent capture of Khalid al-Mashadani, an Iraqi terrorist leader whom American officials say linked Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and Al Qaeda’s leaders in Pakistan.

Last week, the top American military spokesman in Iraq, Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner, said Mr. Mashadani funneled information from Mr. bin Laden’s network to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia about strategic direction and provided other guidance.

Yet General Bergner said at the time that he could not point to specific attacks in Iraq directed by Mr. bin Laden’s group.

Some administration officials have been more conservative in their assessments of any ability and desire that Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia might have to carry out attacks here.

“When you look at how they are arraying their capabilities, those capabilities are being focused on the conflict in Iraq at this time,” Edward M. Gistaro, one of the principal authors of a recent National Intelligence Estimate on terrorist threats to the United States, said last week.

Jim Rutenberg reported from Charleston, and Mark Mazzetti from Washington. Richard A. Oppel Jr. contributed reporting from Baghdad.

    President Links Qaeda of Iraq to Qaeda of 9/11, NYT, 25.7.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/25/washington/25prexy.html

Giuliani Sees

Progress Since Sept. 11,

but Criticizes Bush’s

Way of Pursuing Al Qaeda

July 20, 2007
The New York Times
By MARC SANTORA

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa, July 19 — Saying he still believes that the United States is safer than it was on Sept. 11, Rudolph W. Giuliani on Thursday nevertheless criticized the way the Bush Administration pursued Al Qaeda and suggested that the United States failed to put enough pressure on Pakistan to pursue terrorists.

In two interviews while campaigning in Iowa, Mr. Giuliani discussed the National Intelligence Estimate released Tuesday by the White House, which found that a hands-off approach by Pakistan’s president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, toward Pakistan’s tribal areas had set the stage for Al Qaeda’s resurgence.

“Did we not put enough pressure on Musharraf as we should have to clean up the Taliban and Al Qaeda?” asked Mr. Giuliani, who is seeking the Republican presidential nomination. “I think that is more a political judgment or a political mistake or a diplomatic mistake.”

“I think the goal has to be, we have to destroy Al Qaeda and the Taliban,” he said. “If the best way to do that is to push the Pakistan government to do that, then fine. If we have to do a little bit more, fine. The president has to make that determination. That is a delicate balance.”

He said he sympathized with General Musharraf as he tried to deal simultaneously with the threat of Islamic extremism and tribal chieftains who control areas along the border with Afghanistan.

“I think there is no question he is better than the alternative,” Mr. Giuliani said of the Pakistani leader.

Mr. Giuliani also said that fighting the war in Iraq did not have to preclude pursuing Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan. “It should not have been an either/or proposition,” he said, since the United States “should be capable of doing both things.”

“Neither one of these two wars — the one in Afghanstan/Pakistan or the one in Iraq — was nearly at the level of the planning we had done for the two wars we would have to fight at once,” he said. “We should have organized ourselves so that we could accomplish in Iraq what we had to accomplish without taking anything away from accomplishing in Afghanistan and Pakistan what we had to accomplish.”

In a wide-ranging discussion in a small room by the gymnasium at North Middle School in Sioux City, Mr. Giuliani consistently sought to justify the actions of the Bush administration, citing the new nature of the fight it had to confront and the need for urgent action to combat terrorism.

But, in contrast to the approach taken by the administration over the past five years, he also said the next president should work with Congress to formulate guidelines to govern the use of tools in fighting terrorism, like interrogation techniques, surveillance and detention policies.

Asked how that might apply to interrogation of terrorism suspects, Mr. Giuliani said Congress and the president should have an agreed-on set of standards. Torture, which he has said in the past includes the simulated drowning technique that had been approved by the Bush administration, would under no circumstances be allowed.

“Congress would have to give a little on maybe some of the more intense, harsher techniques that are necessary to get people to talk who don’t want to talk — short of torture,” he said, adding that in some extreme cases the president should decide the course of action. “There would be a little residual authority for a president and a C.I.A. director under a president’s authorization.”

Mr. Giuliani suggested a similar approach in dealing with domestic surveillance, noting that he believed in seeking court approval in nearly every case. But, he said, there needed to be leeway for the president, on rare occasions, to act on his own.

As a prosecutor, he said he had often had requests for wiretaps turned down by courts.

“I am real comfortable with that almost as a general rule,” Mr. Giuliani continued. “With the slight exception that a prosecutor and president are different and there may just be times where a president has to use his own judgment in order to protect the American people.”

When asked about the administration’s dismissive attitude toward the Geneva Conventions when it wrestled with how to deal with people captured in Afghanistan or other countries that were deemed “enemy combatants,” Mr. Giuliani said the president’s stance was justified.

    Giuliani Sees Progress Since Sept. 11, but Criticizes Bush’s Way of Pursuing Al Qaeda, NYT, 20.7.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/us/politics/20giuliani.html

An Eruption, and Fears of Worse

July 19, 2007
The New York Times
By CARA BUCKLEY
and PATRICK McGEEHAN

All thoughts seemed to converge on a single, dark point yesterday as the thick tower of smoke, chunks of asphalt and plumes of gravel raced skyward from a crater near 41st and Lexington, 12 stories into the sky.

“I look out of the window, I see all this smoke, and I think, ‘I’m a goner. We’re under attack,’ ” said James Ling, 21, an intern at an investment advisory firm on Lexington Avenue. He raced down 32 flights; once safely clear of the explosion — it had ripped a gaping hole in the street — he shakily lifted a cellphone to call his family to tell them he was all right.

It seemed that everyone nearby was thinking the same thing: It was terrorists again.

In the instant before their thoughts formed, the first sensation that gripped everyone close to the blast was shock. The earth was shaking. A roar as loud of thunder filled the air and had no end. The earth was spewing upward. The avenue was thick with smoke.

The curious rumblings and billowing smoke near 41st and Lexington worried pedestrians, who flagged down a passing police officer, Robert Mirfield.

Officer Mirfield got out of his Suburban and was reaching back into it for his helmet when the explosion knocked him off his feet as shards of flying metal tore into his helmet and arm.

Heather Fink, a 17-year-old camp counselor, was in a miniature school bus on Lexington Avenue. The explosion caused the bus to leap up, before slamming back to the ground. Raul Vasquez, 18, was sweeping the floor inside the Pret à Manger sandwich shop at 41st and Lexington, when the explosion just a few feet outside the store’s glass windows knocked him off his feet.

Two blocks south, Antonio Gomez, 57, froze as his third-floor apartment on Lexington Avenue shook. “I thought the Chrysler Building was going to fall,” he said.

Amid the roar and the flying concrete, Lexington Avenue around 40th Street devolved into chaos. Hundreds ran, covering their mouths and noses with work shirts and hands. Men in mud-splattered oxford shirts and crisp dress pants emerged from the smoke, trembling.

Outside Grand Central Terminal, commuters went from standing still to turning and running as fast they could, screaming as they ran, their faces covered in brown debris. People tried to phone friends and family, but found that they could not; many cellphone networks were overloaded.

To many, the scene was sickeningly familiar.

“I thought it was another attack,” said Chris Crenshaw, the owner of Salon Seraglio, a hairdresser’s shop on the second floor of 343 Lexington Avenue. After the rumbling grew to a sustained roar, he ordered everyone out, he said.

“We didn’t even look back,” he said.

One of his clients, a woman, stood beside him and wept. “I thought it was another 9/11,” she said in a choked voice. She said she worked for American Airlines. “I’m a flight attendant,” she said.

They gazed at the plume of smoke, steam and dirt. The streets and sidewalks were coated with mud and littered with debris, including small chunks of concrete, the biggest the size of a fist. A flow of warm dirty water several inches thick sluiced through the gutters. Dark lava-like waves leapt from the crater itself.

About 20 feet away, a bus sat empty, its front door open, and its windshield and roof were blanketed with fast accumulating dirt. Only the frantic blinking of fire trucks pierced the billowing smoke.

“It seemed like a hailstorm, until glass and debris started hitting our windows,” said Leonard Fay, 67, an accountant who works nearby. He was covered in dirt and mud, and tried to catch his breath. “Everything got dark, and then I heard the glass breaking and we went down the stairwell. There was water streaming from everywhere, so we made a run for it. We just ran toward daylight.”

By 6:30 p.m., street entrances to the stores at Grand Central were all locked, and a luckless woman was locked in at the Banana Republic store. Four firefighters broke down the door to free her.

At a health club on the 31st floor of the Grand Hyatt hotel, people using treadmills and facing south said the explosion felt like a building coming down, as if a jet plane had hit it. Dan D’Ambrosio, a banker visiting from Los Angeles, held his black garment bag in his hand because he ran back to his hotel room, thinking he had to leave the city quickly.

“It sounded like a million Harley-Davidsons lighting up in front of my window,” said Kevin Baum, 28, who was sitting on a couch in his third-floor apartment at 337 Lexington Avenue, on the block where the explosion occurred.

Small signs of panic were everywhere. At 41st Street, a brown leather sandal and a black dress shoe lay abandoned on the asphalt. At the sidewalk, two canvas flip-flops were arrayed side by side, as if someone had jumped out of them and ran.

A yellow taxi, its rear windows blown out, possibly by debris or the force of the explosion, sat parked on Lexington Avenue, a door on the driver’s side eerily open. An empty M103 bus was parked not far from the geyser, its lights still on.

Isaac Schinazi, an actor, was in his lawyer’s office on the 12th floor of a building at 369 Lexington when he heard the roar. He looked out and saw the dirt and steam spitting up. Everyone in the building raced for the stairs, which quickly became clogged. They finally got out and ran, but some of them were hit by flying rocks.

Others were trapped in the building’s lobby, including Eurydice Kelley, 32, a lawyer who is in her ninth month of pregnancy. Emergency medical workers finally ushered her out, through the thick smoke and steam. “I was in the south tower for 9/11,” she said after emerging from the cloud of smoke, one hand on her stomach. “And I feared the worst.”

Phalanxes of police officers, wearing masks or pressing wet towels to their faces because of asbestos warnings, tried to push the crush of hundreds of onlookers to get back. People held up cameras and cellphones, snapping pictures, talking frantically.

At 6:49 police officers, their faces streaked in sweat and dirt, screamed at the crush of people to move farther back. There were fears that another explosion would follow.

Ester Mbwale, 29, who lives on Roosevelt Island and works at the Namibian Mission, remembers lying face down on the sidewalk after the explosion. A dozen people lay beside her, she said.

She lost her keys and handbag in the confusion, and later found herself wandering on Fifth Avenue, unsure of how she got there. A police officer bundled her into a car and took her to Bellevue Hospital Center, where she was treated and released.

As dusk fell, hundreds remained near the site, watching from behind police barricades; pieces of white bath towels were handed out so people could cover their mouths. Four helicopters hovered above. One woman had died and more than 30 people were being treated at hospitals, including Officer Mirfield, at Bellevue.

By 8 p.m., the huge plumes of steam and dirt had been reduced to gasps, and all that remained were small puffs rising from the gaping hole.

Rubble and piles of dirt filled the streets. Along 39th Street, crowds pushed against police lines, holding camera cellphones and video cameras aloft. Shopkeepers and salon workers started darting beneath yellow police tape stretched across Lexington Avenue, desperate to get to their shops.

Cooks and deliverymen from a Chinese restaurant huddled together, comparing snapshots on their cellphones. One woman tearfully begged a police officer to let her get to her apartment, on Lexington Avenue just south of 40th Street: her Shih Tzu was trapped inside. “Ma’am, he’ll be O.K.,” said the officer, not sounding entirely convinced.

    An Eruption, and Fears of Worse, NYT, 19.7.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/19/nyregion/19scene.html?hp

$1 Billion for Emergency Radios

July 18, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 12:26 p.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The government announced Wednesday it will distribute nearly $1 billion to states and cities to fix communications problems that still plague police and fire departments six years after the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

The biggest state recipients are California with $94 million, Texas with $65 million, and New York with $61 million.

In certain states, chunks will be specifically set aside for major cities: New York City will get $34.8 million and the Los Angeles/Long Beach area was awarded $22.3 million. Other cities getting specific amounts were: San Francisco Bay area, $14.5 million; Chicago, $16.2 million; Houston, $14.6 million; Jersey City-Newark, $17.5 million; and Washington, $11.9 million.

A total of $968 million for interoperable communications grants was announced Wednesday by the heads of the departments of Homeland Security and Commerce, after a review earlier this year found that of 75 major U.S. cities, only six received a top grade in emergency communications.

The money, said Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, will answer ''the urgent need for firefighters, police, and other first responders to be able to communicate effectively with one another.''

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the money should get the entire country up to a basic standard of effective emergency communication by 2009 -- but only if the local authorities coordinate with each other and avoid turf fights.

''That's not something the federal government can make people do,'' said Chertoff. ''We can put the tools on the table, but the training and the willpower to use the tools has to rest with state and local officials.''

Congress provided the money in a 2005 bill, seeking to address lingering radio problems exposed when hijacked airliners struck the World Trade Center in New York in 2001.

In that chaotic, fast-moving crisis, many firefighters could not hear important radio messages -- including orders to evacuate before the second World Trade Center tower collapsed. Police officers' radios generally worked better, but they had little effective communication with firefighters.

Such flaws were evident again in 2005 when Hurricane Katrina knocked out many local rescue workers' communications systems.

Since then, Chertoff and others have insisted that agencies need to end any so-called ''battle of the badge'' rivalries that historically exist between some departments, and, where needed, adopt new technology to handle a natural or man-made disaster.

''It's not necessarily the case that everybody's got to run out and buy new equipment,'' said Chertoff.

Rep. Peter King, an occasional critic of Homeland Security's grant decisions, said that in this case ''the department is moving in the right direction, but obviously New York still needs more.''

In January, homeland security officials found that more than 60 percent of the communities studied had the ability to talk to each other during a crisis, but only one in five showed ''seamless'' use of equipment needed to also communicate with state and federal authorities.

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On the Net:

List of award recipients and amounts: http://www.commerce.gov/s/groups/public/@doc/@os/@opa/
documents/content/prod 01--003188.pdf

Dept. of Homeland Security: http://www.dhs.gov

    $1 Billion for Emergency Radios, NYT, 18.7.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Emergency-Radios.html

‘Key Judgments’ on Terrorist Threat to U.S.

July 18, 2007
The New York Times

Following are the “key judgments” released by the White House yesterday from a July 2007 National Intelligence Estimate on “The Terrorist Threat to the U.S. Homeland.” The rest of the intelligence estimate remains classified. (Source: www.dni.gov ; emphasis in boldface is given to sections set apart by bullets in the original text.)

We judge the U.S. homeland will face a persistent and evolving terrorist threat over the next three years. The main threat comes from Islamic terrorist groups and cells, especially Al Qaeda, driven by their undiminished intent to attack the homeland and a continued effort by these terrorist groups to adapt and improve their capabilities.

We assess that greatly increased worldwide counterterrorism efforts over the past five years have constrained the ability of Al Qaeda to attack the U.S. homeland again and have led terrorist groups to perceive the homeland as a harder target to strike than on 9/11. These measures have helped disrupt known plots against the United States since 9/11.

We are concerned, however, that this level of international cooperation may wane as 9/11 becomes a more distant memory and perceptions of the threat diverge.

Al Qaeda is and will remain the most serious terrorist threat to the homeland, as its central leadership continues to plan high-impact plots, while pushing others in extremist Sunni communities to mimic its efforts and to supplement its capabilities.

We assess the group has protected or regenerated key elements of its homeland attack capability, including: a safe haven in the Pakistan Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), operational lieutenants, and its top leadership. Although we have discovered only a handful of individuals in the United States with ties to Al Qaeda senior leadership since 9/11, we judge that Al Qaeda will intensify its efforts to put operatives here.

As a result, we judge that the United States currently is in a heightened threat environment.

We assess that Al Qaeda will continue to enhance its capabilities to attack the homeland through greater cooperation with regional terrorist groups. Of note, we assess that Al Qaeda will probably seek to leverage the contacts and capabilities of Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), its most visible and capable affiliate and the only one known to have expressed a desire to attack the homeland.

In addition, we assess that its association with AQI helps Al Qaeda to energize the broader Sunni extremist community, raise resources, and to recruit and indoctrinate operatives, including for homeland attacks.

We assess that Al Qaeda’s homeland plotting is likely to continue to focus on prominent political, economic, and infrastructure targets with the goal of producing mass casualties, visually dramatic destruction, significant economic aftershocks, and/or fear among the U.S. population. The group is proficient with conventional small arms and improvised explosive devices, and is innovative in creating new capabilities and overcoming security obstacles.

We assess that Al Qaeda will continue to try to acquire and employ chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear material in attacks and would not hesitate to use them if it develops what it deems is sufficient capability.

We assess Lebanese Hezbollah, which has conducted anti-U.S. attacks outside the United States in the past, may be more likely to consider attacking the homeland over the next three years if it perceives the United States as posing a direct threat to the group or Iran.

We assess that the spread of radical — especially Salafi — Internet sites, increasingly aggressive anti-U.S. rhetoric and actions, and the growing number of radical, self-generating cells in Western countries indicate that the radical and violent segment of the West’s Muslim population is expanding, including in the United States. The arrest and prosecution by U.S. law enforcement of a small number of violent Islamic extremists inside the United States — who are becoming more connected ideologically, virtually, and/or in a physical sense to the global extremist movement — points to the possibility that others may become sufficiently radicalized that they will view the use of violence here as legitimate.

We assess that this internal Muslim terrorist threat is not likely to be as severe as it is in Europe, however.

We assess that other, non-Muslim terrorist groups — often referred to as “single-issue” groups by the F.B.I. — probably will conduct attacks over the next three years given their violent histories, but we assess this violence is likely to be on a small scale.

The ability to detect broader and more diverse terrorist plotting in this environment will challenge current U.S. defensive efforts and the tools we use to detect and disrupt plots. It will also require greater understanding of how suspect activities at the local level relate to strategic threat information and how best to identify indicators of terrorist activity in the midst of legitimate interactions.

    ‘Key Judgments’ on Terrorist Threat to U.S., NYT, 18.7.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/18/washington/18itext.html

Bush Aides See Failure

in Fight With Al Qaeda in Pakistan

July 18, 2007
The New York Times
By MARK MAZZETTI and DAVID E. SANGER

WASHINGTON, July 17 — President Bush’s top counterterrorism advisers acknowledged Tuesday that the strategy for fighting Osama bin Laden’s leadership of Al Qaeda in Pakistan had failed, as the White House released a grim new intelligence assessment that has forced the administration to consider more aggressive measures inside Pakistan.

The intelligence report, the most formal assessment since the Sept. 11 attacks about the terrorist threat facing the United States, concludes that the United States is losing ground on a number of fronts in the fight against Al Qaeda, and describes the terrorist organization as having significantly strengthened over the past two years.

In identifying the main reasons for Al Qaeda’s resurgence, intelligence officials and White House aides pointed the finger squarely at a hands-off approach toward the tribal areas by Pakistan’s president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who last year brokered a cease-fire with tribal leaders in an effort to drain support for Islamic extremism in the region.

“It hasn’t worked for Pakistan,” said Frances Fragos Townsend, who heads the Homeland Security Council at the White House. “It hasn’t worked for the United States.”

While Bush administration officials had reluctantly endorsed the cease-fire as part of their effort to prop up the Pakistani leader, they expressed relief on Tuesday that General Musharraf may have to abandon that approach, because the accord seems to have unraveled.

But American officials make little secret of their skepticism that General Musharraf has the capability to be effective in the mountainous territory along the Afghan border, where his troops have been bloodied before by a mix of Qaeda leaders and tribes that view the territory as their own, not part of Pakistan.

“We’ve seen in the past that he’s sent people in and they get wiped out,” said one senior official involved in the internal debate. “You can tell from the language today that we take the threat from the tribal areas incredibly seriously. It has to be dealt with. If he can deal with it, amen. But if he can’t, he’s got to build and borrow the capability.”

The bleak intelligence assessment was made public in the middle of a bitter Congressional debate about the future of American policy in Iraq. White House officials said it bolstered the Bush administration’s argument that Iraq was the “central front” in the war on terror, because that was where Qaeda operatives were directly attacking American forces.

The report nevertheless left the White House fending off accusations that it had been distracted by the war in Iraq and that the deals it had made with President Musharraf had resulted in lost time and lost ground.

While the assessment described the Qaeda branch in Iraq as the “most visible and capable affiliate” of the terror organization, intelligence officials noted that the operatives in Iraq remained focused on attacking targets inside that country’s borders, not those on American or European soil.

In weighing how to deal with the Qaeda threat in Pakistan, American officials have been meeting in recent weeks to discuss what some said was emerging as an aggressive new strategy, one that would include both public and covert elements. They said there was growing concern that pinprick attacks on Qaeda targets were not enough, but also said some new American measures might have to remain secret to avoid embarrassing General Musharraf.

Ms. Townsend declined to describe what may be alternative strategies for dealing with the Qaeda threat in Pakistan, but acknowledged frustration that Al Qaeda had succeeding in rebuilding its infrastructure and its links to affiliates, while keeping Mr. bin Laden and his top lieutenants alive for nearly six years since the Sept. 11 attacks.

The intelligence report, known as a National Intelligence Estimate, represents the consensus view of all 16 agencies that make up the American intelligence community. The report concluded that the United States would face a “persistent and evolving terrorist threat over the next three years.”

That judgment was not based on any specific intelligence about an impending attack on American soil, government officials said. Only two pages of “key judgments” from the report were made public; the rest of the document remained classified.

Besides the discussion of Al Qaeda, the report cited the possibility that the militant Lebanese group Hezbollah, a Shiite organization, might be more inclined to strike at the United States should the group come to believe that the United States posed a direct threat either to the group or the government of Iran, its primary benefactor.

At the White House, Ms. Townsend found herself in the uncomfortable position of explaining why American military action was focused in Iraq when the report concluded that main threat of terror attacks that could be carried out in the United States emanated from the tribal areas of Pakistan.

She argued that it was Mr. bin Laden, as well as the White House, who regarded “Iraq as the central front in the war on terror.”

Richard A. Boucher, the assistant secretary of state, acknowledged that Al Qaeda had prospered during the cease-fire between the tribal leaders and General Musharraf last September, a period in which “they were able to operate, meet, plan, recruit, and obtain financing in more comfort in the tribal areas than previously.”

But Mr. Boucher also described General Musharraf as America’s best bet, and several administration officials on Tuesday cited his recent aggressive actions against Islamic militants at a mosque in Islamabad.

The growing Qaeda threat in Pakistan has prompted repeated trips to Islamabad by senior administration officials to lean on officials there and calls by lawmakers to make American aid to Pakistan contingent on a sustained counterterrorism effort by General Musharraf’s government.

Some members of Congress argue that concern for the stability of General Musharraf’s government had for too long dominated the White House strategy for dealing with Pakistan, thwarting American counterterrorism efforts.

“We have to change policy,” said Representative Mike Rogers of Michigan, a Republican member of the House Intelligence Committee who has long advocated a more aggressive American intelligence campaign in Pakistan.

In an interview on Tuesday, the New York Police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, called the report a “realistic and sobering assessment,” but said it had not caused officials in New York to take any specific steps to tighten security in the city.

“There is no surprise here for us,” he said. “Would we rather it be another way? Yes. But this is the world, as it is, and this is what we are guarding against.”

Al Baker contributed reporting from New York.

    Bush Aides See Failure in Fight With Al Qaeda in Pakistan, NYT, 18.7.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/18/washington/18intel.html?hp

Report Says

al - Qaida Seeks to Attack U.S.

July 17, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 10:35 a.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The terrorist network Al-Qaida will likely leverage its contacts and capabilities in Iraq to mount an attack on U.S. soil, according to a new National Intelligence Estimate on threats to the United States.

The declassified key findings, to be released publicly on Tuesday, were obtained in advance by The Associated Press.

The report lays out a range of dangers -- from al-Qaida to Lebanese Hezbollah to non-Muslim radical groups -- that pose a ''persistent and evolving threat'' to the country over the next three years. As expected, however, the findings focus most of their attention on the gravest terror problem: Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network.

The report makes clear that al-Qaida in Iraq, which has not yet posed a direct threat to U.S. soil, could become a problem here.

''Of note,'' the analysts said, ''we assess that al-Qaida will probably seek to leverage the contacts and capabilities of al-Qaida in Iraq (AQI), its most visible and capable affiliate and the only one known to have expressed a desire to attack the homeland.''

The analysts also found that al-Qaida's association with its Iraqi affiliate helps the group to energize the broader Sunni Muslim extremist community, raise resources and recruit and indoctrinate operatives -- ''including for homeland attacks.''

National Intelligence Estimates are the most authoritative written judgments of the 16 spy agencies across the breadth of the U.S. government. These agencies reflect the consensus long-term thinking of top intelligence analysts. Portions of the documents are occasionally declassified for public release.

The White House brushed off critics who allege the administration released the intelligence estimate at the same time the Senate is debating Iraq. White House press secretary Tony Snow pushed back at the critics Tuesday, saying they are ''engaged in a little selective hearing themselves to shape the story in their own political ways.''

''We don't keep it on the shelf and say `Let's look for a convenient time,''' Snow said.

''We're trying to remind people is that this is a real threat. This is not an attempt to divert. As a matter of fact ... we would much rather -- one of the things we'd like to do is call attention to the successes in the field'' in Iraq, he said.

The new report echoed statements made by senior intelligence officials over the last year, including the assessment of spy agencies that the country is in a ''heightened threat environment.'' It also provided new details on their thinking and concerns.

For instance, the report says that worldwide counterterrorism efforts since 2001 have constrained al-Qaida's ability to attack the U.S. again and convinced terror groups that U.S. soil is a tougher target.

But, the report quickly adds, analysts are concerned ''that this level of international cooperation may wane as 9/11 becomes a more distant memory and perceptions of the threat diverge.''

Among the report's other findings:

--Al-Qaida is likely to continue to focus on high-profile political, economic and infrastructure targets to cause mass casualties, visually dramatic destruction, economic aftershocks and fear. ''The group is proficient with conventional small arms and improvised explosive devices and is innovative in creating new capabilities and overcoming security obstacles.''

--The group has been able to restore key capabilities it would need to launch an attack on U.S. soil: a safe haven in Pakistan's tribal areas, operational lieutenants and senior leaders. U.S. officials have warned publicly that a deal between the Pakistani government and tribal leaders allowed al-Qaida to plot and train more freely in parts of western Pakistan for the last 10 months.

--The group will continue to seek weapons of mass destruction -- chemical, biological or nuclear material -- and ''would not hesitate to use them.''

--Lebanese Hezbollah, a Shiite Muslim extremist group that has conducted anti-American attacks overseas, may be more likely to consider attacking here, especially if it believes the United States is directly threatening the group or its main sponsor, Iran.

--Non-Muslim terrorist groups probably will attack here in the next several years, although on a smaller scale. The judgments don't name any specific groups, but the FBI often warns of violent environmental groups, such as Earth Liberation Front, and others.

The publicly disclosed judgments, laid out over two pages, are part of a longer document, which remains classified. It was approved by the heads of all 16 intelligence agencies on June 21.

In the last week, reports on this document and another threat assessment on al-Qaida's resurgence have renewed the debate in Washington about whether the Bush administration is on the right course in its war on terror, particularly in Iraq.

The White House has used the reports as evidence that the country must continue to go after al-Qaida in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. But critics say the evolving threat is evidence of a policy gone wrong.

The debate -- and the underlying global problem -- will not go away soon.

The high-level estimate notes that the spread of radical ideas, especially on the Internet, growing anti-U.S. rhetoric and increasing numbers of radical cells throughout Western countries indicate the violent segments of the Muslim populations is expanding.

''The arrest and prosecution by U.S. law enforcement of a small number of violent Islamic extremists inside the United States ... points to the possibility that others may become sufficiently radicalized that they will view the use of violence here as legitimate,'' the estimate said. ''We assess that this internal Muslim terrorist threat is not likely to be as severe as it is in Europe, however.''

    Report Says al - Qaida Seeks to Attack U.S., NYT, 17.7.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-US-Terror-Threat.html

Sick 9 / 11 Workers Sue $1B Insurance Fund

July 17, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 9:43 a.m. ET
The New York Times

NEW YORK (AP) -- Ailing ground zero workers are going to court to demand that the company overseeing a $1 billion Sept. 11 insurance fund uses it to pay for their health care.

Attorneys for the workers argue that federal officials meant for the money in the WTC Captive Insurance Co. to be used as compensation for sick workers.

The workers have already filed a class-action lawsuit claiming the toxic dust from the World Trade Center site gave them serious, possibly fatal diseases. The latest action, expected to be filed Tuesday, seeks compensation from the company in charge of money appropriated by Congress to deal with Sept. 11 health-related claims.

City officials have long said that the money must first be used to litigate claims before it goes to workers. But attorneys filing the lawsuit in Manhattan's state Supreme Court argue that the money was created to reimburse ailing workers -- not fight them in court.

''She hasn't paid a penny to one of my 10,000 people,'' David Worby, an attorney representing the workers, said of the company's CEO, Christine LaSala. ''It was their mandate.''

Congress directed the Federal Emergency Management Agency in 2003 to appropriate up to $1 billion ''to establish a captive insurance company or other appropriate insurance mechanism for claims arising from debris removal, which may include claims made by city employees.''

In the prepared claim, the attorneys argue that Congress and other federal officials never stated ''that a captive insurance company be established solely to defend the city of New York and its contractors from all rescue, recovery and debris removal related claims, at all costs.''

The company has spent more than $75 million on legal fees and other expenses, the attorneys say.

Roy Winnick, a spokesman for WTC Captive, said he could not comment on the claim until the lawsuit was filed.

More than 100 of the plaintiffs in Worby's lawsuit have died of respiratory diseases and cancers since the post-Sept. 11 cleanup. Last year, the largest study of ground zero workers determined about 70 percent suffer respiratory disease years after the cleanup.

Bloomberg and other city officials have estimated the cost of caring for the workers who are sick or who could become sick at $393 million a year and urged the federal government to pay for their treatment and monitoring.

    Sick 9 / 11 Workers Sue $1B Insurance Fund, NYT, 17.7.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Attacks-Health.html

Bin Laden Praises Martyrdom in New Video

July 15, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 7:21 a.m. ET
The New York Times

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) -- A new al-Qaida videotape posted Sunday on a militant Web site featured a short, undated clip of a weary-looking Osama bin Laden praising martyrdom.

The bin Laden clip, which lasted less than a minute, was part of a 40-minute video featuring purported al-Qaida fighters in Afghanistan paying tribute to fellow militants who have been killed in the country.

Bin Laden glorified those who die in the name of jihad, or holy war, saying even the Prophet Muhammad ''had been wishing to be a martyr.''

''The happy (man) is the one that God has chosen him to be a martyr,'' added bin Laden, who was shown outdoors wearing army fatigues and looking tired.

The authenticity of the video could not be verified, but it appeared on a Web site commonly used by Islamic militants and carried the logo of as-Sahab, al-Qaida's media production wing. It was not immediately clear when the video of bin Laden was filmed.

Bin Laden was last heard from in a July 1, 2006 audio tape in which he voiced support for the new leader of al-Qaida in Iraq and warned nations not to send troops to fight a hardline Islamic regime that had recently seized power in Somalia.

Sunday's video, dedicated to Muslims who have left their homes to fight jihad, included a series of animated scenes showing green fields overlaid with Arabic names written in gold, representing Arab fighters who had died in Afghanistan.

Following one such sequence, the self-proclaimed leader of al-Qaida in Afghanistan appeared praising his fellow fighters.

''Your hero sons, courageous knights have left to the land of Afghanistan ... the land of jihad and martyrdom, answering the call for the sake of God to kick out the occupier who has desecrated the pure soil of Afghanistan,'' said Mustafa Abu al-Yazeed.

In another clip, a man identified as Mujahid Haidarah al-Hawn was shown sitting in front of a tree with an AK-47 paying tribute to a Syrian fighter, Osama al-Hamawi, who died in an air raid in Afghanistan.

''I lived with him for four years,'' said al-Hawn, who wore a black scarf to cover his face. ''He used to be my emir (commander) . . . He was a brother with extreme modesty.''

A photo of al-Hamawi's face, apparently taken after his death, was broadcast, showing bruises around his eye and a red gash on his forehead.

A bearded man identified as Abu Yahia al-Libi, a Libyan al-Qaida operative in Afghanistan, appeared in the video wearing a black turban, saying the Muslim world was ''offering the best of its men and sacrificing the good of its sons ... to protect its ideology.''

Al-Libi escaped U.S. custody in 2005 and is believed to be behind a suicide bombing that killed 23 people outside the main U.S. base in Afghanistan during a February visit by Vice President Dick Cheney.

Several other al-Qaida operatives from various countries who had apparently committed suicide attacks in Afghanistan were shown reading statements lashing out at the West before their deaths.

The video also contained a series of clips with militants wearing traditional Afghan dress and carrying rifles and RPG launchers through the mountains. Militants could also be seen exercising in training camps.

At the end of the broadcast, images of the Sept. 11 attacks were shown, and a voice could be heard saying, ''In a few days, the crusaders' landmarks were flattened.''

    Bin Laden Praises Martyrdom in New Video, NYT, 15.7.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Al-Qaida-Video.html

Feds Work to Raise Terror Readiness

July 14, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 1:02 p.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- National security officials worry about a possible attack against the United States in the months ahead even though the government's leading terrorism experts have not found concrete information about an imminent strike.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff spoke this past week of his ''gut feeling'' that the nation faces an increased risk of attack this summer.

President Bush's instincts point in the same direction. ''My head also tells me that al-Qaida's a serious threat to our homeland,'' he said at a news conference Thursday. ''And we've got to continue making sure we've got good intelligence, good response mechanisms in place.''

As early as this coming week, the administration is expected to release an unclassified version of a new National Intelligence Estimate -- spy agencies' most authoritative type of appraisal -- on al-Qaida's resurgence and the group's renewed efforts to sneak operatives into the United States.

A look at what the government says it is most worried about and what it is doing to thwart potential attacks:

TRANSPORTATION

Chertoff is asking people to be on watch for suspicious behavior or activities in transit systems or other public places. ''When you see something, say something,'' he often says. That means picking up the phone to alert local authorities or federal law enforcement about anything out of the ordinary, such as a suspicious person, package or vehicle.

Just before the July 4 holiday, the Transportation Security Administration dispatched VIPR teams (Visible Intermodal Protection and Response) to airports and mass transit systems in Washington, Baltimore, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Houston, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

They include canine teams, agency officers trained in behavior observation, additional air marshals, surface transportation security inspectors and local police.

Federal air marshals already had bolstered their presence on domestic and international flights since last August, when international authorities foiled a plot to blow up about 10 U.S.-bound jetliners coming from London. That stepped-up presence continues today.

The department also sent out bulletins to state and local officials about routine steps they can take and new precautions after the largely botched car-bomb plot in Britain late last month.

Any more precautions expected this summer? ''It can change at a moment's notice,'' said Chertoff's spokesman, Russ Knocke.

TREASURY

The Treasury Department is keeping close watch for fresh clues on sources of financing for terrorist groups. Yet counterterrorism officials say that attacks do not have to be expensive. The Sept. 11 Commission estimated the 2001 attacks cost $400,000 to $500,000.

''By exploiting financial intelligence, the Treasury can map terrorist networks and reveal who is sending money to al-Qaida, Hezbollah and like-minded terrorist groups,'' department spokeswoman Molly Millerwise said. ''These efforts allow us to detect and disrupt the flow of finances to terrorists, making it harder and riskier for them to store and move money.''

The Sept. 11 strikes in New York and Washington hit the country's financial nerve center and symbol of capitalism. Since then, regulations have been tightened to better guard the financial system against abuse from terrorist financiers and others.

ENVIRONMENTAL AGENCIES

These agencies report a high level of vigilance but few if any specific changes because of the latest worries.

With 4,000 law enforcement officers, the Interior Department says it is keeping busy. It is charged with protecting one of every five U.S. acres. ''We ask our employees always to be vigilant,'' spokeswoman Tina Kreisher said.

The officers have bolstered security along borders, at sites such as the Statue of Liberty, the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall and the Washington Monument, and at national assets such as Bureau of Reclamation dams and the roads that lead to them.

The Environmental Protection Agency is the lead for hazardous materials response and works closely with industry. Under a government mandate, chemical makers are taking stock of chlorine, anhydrous ammonia (the basic ingredient for most nitrogen fertilizers) and other ''chemicals of concern'' that could -- if stolen -- cause damage by release or explosion.

ENERGY AND NUCLEAR

Nuclear power plants long have been viewed as a top target of terrorists and have tightened security since Sept. 11. But the latest concerns have not led to significant changes or alerts. ''We are paying close attention to what the intelligence community is reporting and will act accordingly,'' Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman Eliot Brenner said.

At the Energy Department, which oversees the government's nuclear weapons facilities, including its national research labs, security requirements have been revamped since 2001, especially in the protection of nuclear materials.

Thousands of miles of oil and natural gas pipelines as well as refineries also have been regarded as potential terrorist targets. But with no specific threat, the industry's response to the latest concerns has been simply to remain cautious.

AGRICULTURE

The Agriculture Department is most concerned about devastating animal or plant diseases that could be introduced intentionally into the United States. These include avian influenza and others that could move from animals to humans.

The department has worked with farmers and shippers to educate them on prevention against tampering, asking them to make sure supplies are locked, for example, and asking truckers never to leave shipments unattended.

The department also is working with veterinarians to make sure they are knowledgeable about exotic diseases that may appear in animals.

Other concerns include the misuse of agricultural pesticides and the entry of suspicious people through U.S. border farms, which often are expansive and largely unprotected.

FOOD AND DRUG

The Food and Drug Administration is helping foster the development and acquisition of vaccines, diagnostic tests and drugs that can be used against attacks including anthrax, botulism, radiological agents, smallpox and plague.

In a declared emergency, the FDA can authorize the use of unapproved medical products to diagnose, treat or prevent illnesses due to biological, chemical, radiological or nuclear attack. The agency has the authority to investigate the suspected tampering of the products it regulates -- a list that includes drugs, vaccines, blood, medical devices and food.

With the FBI and the Agriculture and Homeland Security departments, the FDA has begun assessing various foods -- from a list of roughly 30 -- to determine their vulnerability to attack at various points in the production process. In 2005-06, for instance, the FDA visited yogurt, baby food, bagged salad and other producers.

The FDA considers foods processed in large batch sizes, or ingredients subsequently mixed with large amounts of product, the most vulnerable to terrorism.

DEFENSE

There has been no overall change in protection measures for domestic military installations. Individual commanders have authority to increase inspections or patrols when necessary. Checks of traffic going into some Washington-area bases have gotten more rigorous this summer, for example.

Basic security at military installations has been at the next-to-lowest level for more than four years. Protective measures added in recent years include entry barriers, road closures, surveillance cameras and armed guards, and programs to encourage service members and their families to report signs of possible terrorist planning.

Military bases are acknowledged to be vulnerable, particularly those close to urban areas and civilian roadways. Naval bases have the added problem of securing waterfronts and surrounding waterways.

Associated Press writers Jeannine Aversa, John Heilprin, H. Josef Hebert, Mary Clare Jalonick, Andrew Bridges and Lolita C. Baldor contributed to this report.

    Feds Work to Raise Terror Readiness, NYT, 14.7.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Government-on-Alert.html

al - Qaida Works to Plant U.S. Operatives

July 13, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 6:52 a.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Al-Qaida is stepping up its efforts to sneak terror operatives into the United States and has acquired most of the capabilities it needs to strike here, according to a new U.S. intelligence assessment, The Associated Press has learned.

The draft National Intelligence Estimate is expected to paint an ever-more-worrisome portrait of al-Qaida's ability to use its base along the Pakistan-Afghan border to launch and inspire attacks against the United States over the next several years.

Yet, the government's top analysts concluded that U.S. soil has become a harder target for the extremist network, thanks to worldwide counterterror efforts since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Among the key findings of the classified estimate, which is still in draft form and must be approved by all 16 U.S. spy agencies:

-- The U.S. will face ''a persistent and evolving terrorist threat'' within its borders over the next three years. The main danger comes from Islamic terrorist groups, especially al-Qaida, and is ''driven by the undiminished intent to attack the homeland and a continued effort by terrorist groups to adapt and improve their capabilities.''

-- Al-Qaida is probably still pursuing chemical, biological or nuclear weapons and would use them if its operatives developed sufficient capability.

-- The terror group has been able to restore three of the four key tools it would need to launch an attack on U.S. soil: a safe haven in Pakistan's tribal areas, operational lieutenants and senior leaders. It could not immediately be learned what the missing fourth element is.

-- The group will bolster its efforts to position operatives inside U.S. borders. In public statements, U.S. officials have expressed concern about the ease with which people can enter the United States through Europe because of a program that allows most Europeans to enter without visas.

The document also discusses increasing concern about individuals already inside the United States who are adopting an extremist brand of Islam.

On a positive note, analysts concluded that increased international efforts over the past five years ''have constrained the ability of al-Qaida to attack the U.S. homeland again and have led terrorist groups to perceive the homeland as a harder target to strike than on 9/11.''

Those measures helped disrupt known plots against the United States, the analysts found.

National Intelligence Estimates are the most authoritative written judgments that reflect the consensus long-term thinking of senior intelligence analysts.

Government officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the report has not been finalized, described it as an expansive look at potential threats within the United States and said it required the cooperation of a number of national security agencies, including the CIA, FBI, Homeland Security Department and National Counterterrorism Center.

National security officials met at the White House on Thursday about the intelligence estimate and related counterterrorism issues. The tentative plan is to release a declassified version of the report and brief Congress on Tuesday, one government official said.

Ross Feinstein, spokesman for National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell, declined to discuss the document's specific contents. But he said it would be consistent with statements made by senior government officials at congressional hearings and elsewhere.

The estimate echoes the findings of another analysis prepared by the National Counterterrorism Center earlier this year and disclosed publicly on Wednesday. That report -- titled ''Al-Qaida better positioned to strike the West'' -- found the terrorist group is ''considerably operationally stronger than a year ago'' and has ''regrouped to an extent not seen since 2001,'' a counterterrorism official familiar with the reports findings told the AP.

On Thursday, news of the counterterrorism center's threat assessment renewed the political debate about the nature of the al-Qaida threat and whether U.S. actions -- in Iraq in particular -- have made the U.S. safer from terrorism.

At a news conference Thursday, President Bush acknowledged al-Qaida's continuing threat to the United States and used the new report as evidence his administration's policies are on the right course.

''The same folks that are bombing innocent people in Iraq were the ones who attacked us in America on Sept. 11,'' he said. ''That's why what happens in Iraq matters to security here at home.''

Yet Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., said Iraq has distracted the United States. He said the U.S. should have finished off al-Qaida in 2002 and 2003 along the Afghan-Pakistan border.

Instead, ''President Bush chose to invade Iraq, thereby diverting our military and intelligence resources away from the real war on terrorism,'' Rockefeller said. ''Threats to the United States homeland are not emanating from Iraq. They are coming from al-Qaida leadership.''

Rockefeller, who voted in favor of toppling Saddam Hussein, called for the U.S. to end its involvement in what he called the Iraqi civil war.

In recent weeks, senior national security officials have been increasingly worried about an al-Qaida attack in the United States.

Appearing on a half-dozen morning TV shows Thursday, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff laid out a list of factors contributing to his ''gut feeling'' that the nation faces a higher risk of attack this summer: al-Qaida's increased freedom to train in South Asia, a flurry of public statements from the network's leadership, a history of summertime attacks, a broader range of attacks in North Africa and Europe and homegrown terrorism increasing in Europe.

''Europe could become a platform for an attack against this country,'' Chertoff told CNN, although he and others continue to say they know of no specific, credible information pointing to an attack here.

National security officials are frustrated by an agreement last year between Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and tribal leaders in western Pakistan, which gave tribes near the Afghan border greater autonomy and has led to increased al-Qaida activity in the region.

Nevertheless, Bush administration officials still view Musharraf as a partner.

Speaking to a congressional hearing, Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher said that Pakistan under Musharraf has captured more al-Qaida operatives than any other country and that several major Taliban leaders were captured or killed this year.

''There is a considerable al-Qaida presence at the border, but they are under pressure,'' Boucher told a House national security subcommittee.

Rep. Jim Cooper, D-Tenn., was skeptical, saying al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and other terrorist leaders apparently feel safe there. ''Is this a Motel 6 for terrorists?'' he asked.

Associated Press writers Matthew Lee, Lara Jakes Jordan and Barry Schweid contributed to this report.

    al - Qaida Works to Plant U.S. Operatives, NYT, 13.7.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-US-Terror-Threat.html

Sept. 11 Damages Trials Set for Fall

July 13, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 4:47 a.m. ET
The New York Times

The New NEW YORK (AP) -- Thousands of Sept. 11 victims' families have turned to a victims' fund established by Congress, rather than seeking compensation in court.

But with 41 cases still lingering in a federal court, a judge has set trials to determine potential damages to begin in the week before the sixth anniversary of the 2001 attacks.

''Time heals, but time also works against us,'' U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein said.

In a bid to speed compensation, Hellerstein has taken the unusual step of scheduling the damages portion of the cases -- usually the second phase of a trial -- before a jury even determines who can be held liable.

He said in a written order sent to lawyers in the case last week that he believed the unusual process would ''hasten the resolution of these and many other cases and thus be a significant step in mending the wounds left open by the terrorist-related aircraft crashes of Sept. 11, 2001.''

The judge said that with the permission of lawyers and the parties, he met with a few of the surviving relatives. He said many told him they desired answers, truth, justice, closure and vindication of their claims, while others wanted to settle them.

He said he believed some families thought they could honor important values only through the trial process, while others have been unable to settle because of the disparity between what they and the defendants believe their claims were worth.

''This latter group, in particular, will benefit from damages trials that will suggest a range of values that a jury is likely to award in similar cases, enabling the parties to bridge their differences of valuation,'' the judge said.

He said he believed the damages portion of the cases could occur before blame is affixed because acts committed by airlines and their security contractors, alleged to be negligent, are not related to the amount of compensatory damages that victims might recover.

Compensatory damages are usually calculated by deciding how much financial harm to the victim or his family resulted from the event that caused the harm.

Andrew Maloney, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said he agreed with the judge that ''this might break the logjam.''

He said it was unusual to have a trial on damages before it is decided who might be forced to pay them, but he added that it has happened before in airline disaster cases.

He said it was unlikely that the start of up to six trials around the time of the Sept. 11 anniversary would cause jurors to be biased.

''We're not trying to pander to them, asking for sympathy. We're asking for what they think is justice,'' he said, though he acknowledged the role emotions can play: ''We think you don't have to exercise sympathy, but you don't want to be a robot, either.''

Lawyers for several defendants, including airlines sued in the attacks, did not immediately return telephone messages seeking comment Thursday.

The September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, which Congress set up after the attacks, has paid $6 billion to 2,880 families of those who died, representing 97 percent of the families, the judge said. The fund also has dispensed more than $1 billion to 2,680 injured victims.

    Sept. 11 Damages Trials Set for Fall, NYT, 13.7.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Sept-11-Lawsuits.html

Al - Qaida Has Rebuilt, U.S. Intel Warns

July 12, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 6:30 a.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A new threat assessment from U.S. counterterrorism analysts says that al-Qaida has used its safe haven along the Afghan-Pakistan border to restore its operating capabilities to a level unseen since the months before Sept. 11, 2001.

A counterterrorism official familiar with a five-page summary of the document -- titled ''Al-Qaida better positioned to strike the West'' -- called it a stark appraisal. The analysis will be part of a broader meeting at the White House on Thursday about an upcoming National Intelligence Estimate.

The official and others spoke to The Associated Press on condition they not be identified because the report remains classified.

The findings suggests that the network that launched the most devastating terror attack on U.S. soil has been able to regroup despite nearly six years of bombings, war and other tactics aimed at dismantling it.

The threat assessment focuses on the terror group's safe haven in Pakistan and makes a range of observations about the threat posed to the United States and its allies, officials said.

Counterterrorism officials have been increasingly concerned about al-Qaida's recent operations. This week, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said he had a ''gut feeling'' that the United States faced a heightened risk of attack this summer.

Still, numerous government officials say they know of no specific, credible threat of a new attack on U.S. soil.

Al-Qaida is ''considerably operationally stronger than a year ago'' and has ''regrouped to an extent not seen since 2001,'' the counterterrorism official said, paraphrasing the report's conclusions. ''They are showing greater and greater ability to plan attacks in Europe and the United States.''

The group also has created ''the most robust training program since 2001, with an interest in using European operatives,'' the official quoted the report as saying.

At the same time, this official said, the report speaks of ''significant gaps in intelligence'' so U.S. authorities may be ignorant of potential or planned attacks.

John Kringen, who heads the CIA's analysis directorate, echoed the concerns about al-Qaida's resurgence during testimony and conversations with reporters at a House Armed Services Committee hearing on Wednesday.

''They seem to be fairly well settled into the safe haven and the ungoverned spaces of Pakistan,'' Kringen testified. ''We see more training. We see more money. We see more communications. We see that activity rising.''

The threat assessment comes as the 16 U.S. intelligence agencies prepare a National Intelligence Estimate focusing on threats to the United States. A senior intelligence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity while the high-level analysis was being completed, said the document has been in the works for roughly two years.

Kringen and aides to National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell would not comment on the details of that analysis.

''Preparation of the estimate is not a response to any specific threat,'' McConnell's spokesman Ross Feinstein said, adding that it probably will be ready for distribution this summer.

Kringen said he wouldn't attach a summer time frame to the concern. In studying the threat, he said he begins with the premise that al-Qaida would consider attacking the U.S. a ''home run hit'' and that the easiest way to get into the United States would be through Europe.

Several European countries -- among them Britain, Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands -- are highlighted in the threat assessment partly because they have arrangements with the Pakistani government that allow their citizens easier access to Pakistan than others, according to the counterterrorism official.

This is more troubling because all four are part of the U.S. visa waiver program, and their citizens can enter the United States without additional security scrutiny, the official said.

The Bush administration has repeatedly cited al-Qaida as a key justification for continuing the fight in Iraq.

''The No. 1 enemy in Iraq is al-Qaida,'' White House press secretary Tony Snow said Wednesday. ''Al-Qaida continues to be the chief organizer of mayhem within Iraq.''

The findings could bolster the president's hand at a moment when support on Capitol Hill for the war is eroding and the administration is struggling to defend its decision for a military buildup in Iraq.

The threat assessment says that al-Qaida stepped up efforts to ''improve its core operational capability'' in late 2004 but did not succeed until December of 2006 after the Pakistani government signed a peace agreement with tribal leaders that effectively removed government military presence from the northwest frontier with Afghanistan.

The agreement allows Taliban and al-Qaida operatives to move across the border with impunity and establish and run training centers, the report says, according to the official.

It also says that al-Qaida is particularly interested in building up the numbers in its middle ranks, or operational positions, so there is not as great a lag in attacks when such people are killed.

''Being No. 3 in al-Qaida is a bad job. We regularly get to the No. 3 person,'' Tom Fingar, the top U.S. intelligence analyst, told the House panel.

The report also notes that al-Qaida has increased its public statements, although analysts stressed that those video and audio messages aren't reliable indicators of the actions the group may take.

------

Associated Press Writer Deb Riechmann contributed to this report.

------

On the Net:

Office of the Director of National Intelligence: http://www.dni.gov/

CIA: http://www.cia.gov/

    Al - Qaida Has Rebuilt, U.S. Intel Warns, NYT, 12.7.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-US-Terror-Threat.html

U.S. Heightens Security for 4th of July

July 4, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 11:04 a.m. ET
The New York Times

NEW YORK (AP) -- Independence Day celebrations were planned Wednesday across the United States on a day that will include thousands of immigrants becoming citizens and heightened security following attempted car bombings in Britain.

In Washington, D.C., security was increased on the National Mall as organizers sought to reassure visitors.

Hundreds of emergency responders from about 20 law enforcement agencies were on duty, authorities said. A police helicopter was to monitor crowds from above, and officers were urged to be on alert for vehicles that looked suspicious, for instance with protruding wires or an unusual smell.

As with past July 4 festivities since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the mall was fenced off and visitors will be required to pass through security checkpoints.

Independence Day festivities in Washington include a parade on Constitution Avenue, a concert by the National Symphony Orchestra on the West Lawn of the Capitol and a 20-minute fireworks show.

In New York, the Fourth of July fireworks display billed as the country's biggest introduces a pyrotechnic novelty: exploding shells aimed at the water, not the sky.

The so-called nautical shells are supposed to explode on the surface of the East River, remaining illuminated for a few seconds before fading out, said Robin Hall, executive producer of the Macy's Fourth of July display.

Dry weather conditions have curtailed the use of fireworks in several areas around the country, including parts of Colorado and Washington state.

Before the fireworks begin, thousands of immigrants are expected to be sworn in as new American citizens during special ceremonies across the country.

At Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, officials plan to pronounce citizenship on 1,000 people at a ''Dreams Come True'' ceremony near Cinderella's castle. Singers Gloria Estefan and Lee Greenwood are expected to make appearances.

In Boston, some immigrants planned to take their oath on the USS Constitution, the Navy's oldest commissioned warship.

Although July 4th citizenship ceremonies are an annual event, officials have seen a surge in applications this year as the naturalization process has been streamlined and applicants race to beat fee increases, said Marie Sebrechts, a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services spokeswoman.

There were more than 110,000 naturalization applications filed in April, nearly double the 66,039 applications filed in April 2006, according to federal statistics.

More than 4,000 people in all are expected to take their citizenship oaths this week, the government said.

Associated Press writer Moises Mendoza in Phoenix contributed to this report.

    U.S. Heightens Security for 4th of July, NYT, 4.7.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-4th-of-July.html

Search for Sept. 11 Remains to Continue

July 4, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 10:34 a.m. ET
The New York Times

NEW YORK (AP) -- A goal to end the search for human remains at the World Trade Center site by the fall is not realistic, and the effort will continue ''for the foreseeable future,'' a city official said Tuesday.

The city medical examiner's office will maintain a presence at the site indefinitely while construction continues in case excavations unearth more human remains, Deputy Mayor Ed Skyler said in a memo to Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

The hope to finish searching by this fall ''is no longer attainable,'' he added.

''Our experience over the last nine months and the ongoing rebuilding of the World Trade Center site and surrounding area suggest that search operations will continue in one form or another for the foreseeable future,'' Skyler said.

Construction and the remains search have continued to unearth debris from the fallen twin towers under nearby roads and possibly in ground where families gather each year to mark the Sept. 11 anniversary, Skyler wrote.

Hundreds of human bones, ranging from fragments to full arm and leg bones, have been found since October and continue to be recovered daily in an intensive city-led search for remains missed in the cleanup right after the 2001 terrorist attacks.

City officials have searched manholes, rooftops, sewer lines, a service road at ground zero and under a state highway, sometimes finding steel and debris from the destroyed towers mixed in with the remains.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the lower Manhattan site's owner, recently found material that ''could be trade center debris'' under a road in front of the World Financial Center, the skyscrapers west of ground zero, Skyler wrote. The agency was digging in the area to build an underground tunnel as part of a transit hub.

State and city officials have dug up hundreds of cubic yards of material in front of the buildings to search for human remains, Skyler wrote.

Thousands of family members have gathered every Sept. 11 in front of the World Financial Center to read the names of the nearly 2,800 victims killed in New York.

The Port Authority also found trade center debris while digging test pits to prepare for more construction on the southern end of the 16-acre site, and the city is digging up a block of the road to search for remains there, Skyler said.

Construction is under way on a 1,776-foot skyscraper, a Sept. 11 memorial and a transit hub. Four more office towers and a performing arts center are planned. The last office tower is scheduled to be finished by 2013.

The search since October has yielded 677 pieces of human bones in and around ground zero; an additional 785 have been found in the past two years in a vacant skyscraper damaged on Sept. 11, 2001.

None of the bones recovered in the past two years has been matched to the more than 1,100 Sept. 11 victims whose remains have never been positively identified. The medical examiner's office is retesting remains to obtain stronger DNA profiles to lead to identifications. The remains of nine victims have been identified in recent months.

    Search for Sept. 11 Remains to Continue, NYT, 4.7.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Attacks-Remains.html

Legislation Could Be

Path to Closing Guantánamo

July 3, 2007
The New York Times
By THOM SHANKER and DAVID JOHNSTON

WASHINGTON, July 2 — Seeking a legal path to shutting down the Guantánamo detention facility, senior advisers to President Bush are exploring whether the White House and Congress can agree to legislation that would permit the long-term detention of foreign terrorism suspects on American soil, Pentagon and administration officials say.

The idea of creating a new legal category for some foreign terrorism detainees, which is still in its early stages, faces daunting political, legal and constitutional difficulties. But it is gaining support among some White House and national security officials as the most promising course to allow the president to close the site at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, that has generated intense criticism at home and abroad.

Essentially, the administration would propose legislation that would result in dividing the estimated 375 Guantánamo detainees into three legal categories. The one that would call for legislative action would include detainees like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the September 2001 attacks, and others whose trials would risk exposing intelligence operations. This group, estimated at two dozen to 50, would be placed indefinitely in military brigs on American soil.

A second group would also be moved to the United States, most likely to face trial in military courts, but perhaps with more legal guarantees than in the current military tribunal system.

The third, and largest, group would consist of detainees to be released to their home countries.

The emerging proposal was described by administration officials who insisted on anonymity because the idea has not been approved by the White House. In fact, divisions are forming among the president’s senior advisers and aides over the evolving plan, with support for a legislative remedy coming from Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

But the concept of closing Guantánamo faces stiff opposition from those close to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and Vice President Dick Cheney, who are said to argue that moving the detainees to the United States would invite crippling legal challenges and undermine the broader counterterrorism effort while, in the end, doing little to quiet international criticism of American detention policies.

Some officials who oppose closing Guantánamo have warned that moving terrorism suspects caught on the battlefield into proceedings that more closely mirror traditional criminal trials would undermine a central pillar of the administration’s strategy in its campaign against terrorism, cast as an offensive military campaign on a global battlefield.

One person close to the administration who is familiar with the thinking of those opposed to closing Guantánamo said “the people who are standing firm on this issue have either left” — like former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld — “or their bureaucratic influence has substantially waned, like Gonzales and Cheney.” Those urging the closing of Guantánamo, like Stephen J. Hadley, the national security adviser, “are ascendant,” this person said.

Even so, the Bush administration, struggling to preserve support in Congress for the war in Iraq, may be eager for a legislative compromise on the detention center to ease criticism from leading lawmakers of both parties and offer an end to legal scrutiny, which has gone to the Supreme Court.

On Friday, the Supreme Court unexpectedly reversed course and announced that it would review the constitutionality of the system now in place to deal with the most dangerous detainees — military tribunals to try them for war crimes.

At the heart of the discussion within the administration is the concept of legislation that would set out a way to process, classify and incarcerate terrorist leaders and enemy combatants who are regarded as significant, continuing threats.

The most senior administration official to describe the concept publicly is Mr. Gates, who said, “I think that the biggest challenge is finding a statutory basis for holding prisoners who should never be released and who may or may not be able to be put on trial.”

Mr. Gates said the challenge to finding a legislative or administrative solution was “the nature of the information that is against them, if it involves sensitive intelligence sources or something like that.” But, he noted in comments on Friday, “people are working harder on the problem” in the administration.

Prof. Neal K. Katyal of Georgetown University Law Center said that in the wake of the Supreme Court’s announcement on Friday, it might be an opportune time to explore a new legal approach to detaining terrorism suspects inside the United States, perhaps a special national security court with different standards of proof than those of criminal courts.

“Is it possible to draft something that gives less than the full-blown rights of a criminal trial for those facing detention and for that process to survive a Supreme Court review?” he asked. “I think it is.”

Professor Katyal, an opponent of the administration’s detention policies, said nonetheless that “it’s not realistic to think that all people can be tried in an ordinary criminal court.”

Administration officials acknowledged that it was particularly difficult to figure out how to deal with detainees viewed as too dangerous to repatriate and, likewise, pose too great a risk to be offered legal protections granted others brought to American soil under current laws. These are the detainees that would fall into a new legal category envisioned under the possible legislation.

“Detainees that come to the United States could have the full panoply of U.S. constitutional protections, which means you’d have to have a judicial hearing on them in a certain amount of time,” said J. Alan Liotta, principal director for the Office of Detainee Affairs at the Pentagon.

Among these rights would be an assessment of the process of arrest and chain of custody of evidence. But many detainees were captured in combat situations across the Middle East that did not allow the sort of formal collection of evidence required by trials in the United States.

Mr. Liotta’s comments came in an invitation-only conference call with online journalists on June 26; a transcript of the discussion is posted on a Defense Department Web site.

“If you couldn’t have that judicial hearing in a certain amount of time, they could be released,” he added.

While acknowledging that the Guantánamo detention center had tainted the nation’s reputation, he also warned that simply closing it and moving the terrorism suspects to military brigs in the United States would not ease the controversy.

“I think a very real argument could be made that, as long as you’re not changing the basic legal construct of how we’re holding them and why we believe we’re entitled to hold them,” Mr. Liotta said, “no matter where you put them,” the controversy will continue.

Neil A. Lewis and Sheryl Gay Stolberg contributed reporting.

    Legislation Could Be Path to Closing Guantánamo, NYT, 3.7.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/03/washington/03gitmo.html

Chertoff: US Should Remain Vigilant

July 2, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 11:30 a.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The United States remains safe after the attack at a Scottish airport and two foiled car bombs in London, and there is no plan to raise the terror alert level, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Monday.

''We are safe, but we are safe because we continue to pay attention and we continue to add security measures,'' Chertoff said as the Fourth of July holiday approaches.

The homeland security chief noted that it appears no suicide bombers were involved in the incidents over the past several days in Great Britain and said that sends the message that would-be terrorists have a wide variety of ways to attack.

''If you look back at all the plots, you've seen a wide variety of techniques,'' he said on CBS's ''The Early Show.'' But Chertoff said authorities in the United States must prepare for a wide variety of threats, even though the suicide attacks often are the most spectacular.

He also said the country needs to be especially vigilant about how and under what circumstances the threat increases.

''I think we've been saying for some period of time that we need to be looking not only at homegrown terrorism, but that international terrorism might come to the United States through Europe,'' Chertoff said.

The United States' terrorism alert for airports is at orange, the second highest level, and yellow, the midlevel stage of the alert status, for the rest of the country as a whole. Red is the highest alert level.

Chertoff said the decision was made to leave the terror alert where it is for now, ''based on what we've seen so far.''

A U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity while the investigations were ongoing, said Sunday that American authorities were running the names of the suspects in Britain through their databases to look for links to the United States.

Those checks would include watch lists such as the no-fly list; any clue that the suspects had shared an address with people in the U.S.; intelligence indicating the suspects made calls into the U.S.; and other similar types of investigative work.

It was not immediately clear if counterterrorism agencies had any hits or connections.

Appearing Monday morning on ABC's ''Good Morning America,'' Chertoff reiterated that ''we do not have any specific credible information about an attack directed against the United States.''

Chertoff also said that although U.S. authorities have not increased the alert level beyond orange, ''we have taken some steps to implement pre-existing plans to increase security at our airports and our mass transit and other transportation centers.''

''That's partly a reflection of what happened over the last few days,'' he told ABC. ''It's partly a recognition of the fact that during the heavy travel, there will be crowds and we want to be prudent and take some extra precautions. But there is no specific threat that we're aware of at this point.''

U.S. airports and mass transit systems are tightening security ahead of the Fourth of July holiday and more air marshals will travel on overseas flights.

''We will be doing operations at various rail locations and other mass transit locations in cooperation with local authorities. Again, not because of a specific piece of credible threat information, but because we are going into a holiday season. There will be a larger number of people traveling,'' Chertoff said.

From Kennebunkport, Maine, where he is hosting Russian President Vladimir Putin for a visit, President Bush said Sunday that he was grateful for the new British government's ''strong response'' to terrorist threats in London and Scotland.

''It just goes to show the war against these extremists goes on,'' Bush said. ''You never know where they may try to strike, and I appreciate the very strong response that the Gordon Brown government's given to the attempts by these people.''

    Chertoff: US Should Remain Vigilant, NYT, 2.7.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-US-Britain-Terrorism.html

U.S. Increases

Use of Marshals on Some Flights

as a Precaution

July 2, 2007
The New York Times
By ERIC LIPTON

WASHINGTON, July 1 — The United States is putting extra air marshals on overseas flights, particularly to and from Britain, Homeland Security officials said Sunday, in one of several security measures taken in response to Saturday’s attack at an airport in Scotland.

Already, federal officials, working with local and state police, had moved to tighten security at domestic airports, mass transit systems and rail stations in the United States, steps that include extra bomb-detection canine teams.

The enhanced security is taking place even though Michael Chertoff, the homeland security secretary, and other top agency officials repeated Sunday that there was no credible evidence of an imminent terrorist threat to the United States.

But with the approaching Independence Day holiday, they said the additional security measures were warranted, even if only to create a visible deterrence to anyone contemplating an attack.

“We have amped it way up to send a message that we are ready to move,” Kip Hawley, who runs the Transportation Security Administration, said in an interview on Sunday.

Investigators over the weekend were also running the names of British suspects through law enforcement databases in the United States, a federal official said, to see if any of them had visited the country recently or shared an address or made telephone calls to anyone living in the United States. So far, no such link has been established, the official said.

“This is not related to a known plot in the U.S.,” said the official, who asked not to be identified because the investigation was still under way.

Since last August, when the authorities interrupted what they described as a plot to blow up planes headed to the United States from London, the domestic aviation system has remained at heightened alert, including a ban on all but small containers of liquids in carry-on bags and an increase in air marshals on overseas flights.

But as of this weekend, additional undercover air marshals will be on flights by United States-based airlines to and from Europe, Mr. Hawley said, and particularly on flights that go through Glasgow Airport, where the attack occurred Saturday.

Also, at selected airports nationwide, security officers who normally worked in plain clothes or in areas not visible to the public will be out in front of airports, in garages and lobbies, in addition to the traditional checkpoints, he said.

The events in Britain, Mr. Chertoff said in television interviews on Sunday, demonstrate how Europe is a base of operations for extremists. That is in part why, he said, the United States is pushing to use personal data collected by airlines to search for possible terrorists before planes bound for the United States take off.

U.S. Increases Use of Marshals on Some Flights as a Precaution, NYT, 2.7.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/02/washington/02homeland.html