Infinite Unknown

Salam Adhoob, former investigator for Iraq’s Commission on Public Integrity, at the Democratic Policy Committee hearing on waste and fraud in Iraq. (By Susan Walsh — Associated Press)

A former Iraqi official estimated yesterday that more than $13 billion meant for reconstruction projects in Iraq was wasted or stolen through elaborate fraud schemes.

Salam Adhoob, a former chief investigator for Iraq’s Commission on Public Integrity, told the Senate Democratic Policy Committee, an arm of the Democratic caucus, that an Iraqi auditing bureau “could not properly account for” the money.

While many of the projects audited “were not needed — and many were never built,” he said, “this very real fact remains: Billions of American dollars that paid for these projects are now gone.”

He said a report that went to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and other top Iraqi officials was never published because “nobody cares” about investigating such cases. Many investigators, he said, feared for their safety because 32 of his co-workers have been murdered.

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Tags: Al-Qaeda, Al-Qaida, Congress, contractor, corporations, corruption, FBI, fraud, Government, Iraq, Politics, taxpayers, U.S.

Pakistan will not tolerate any infringement of its territory in the name of the war on terror, president Asif Ali Zardari said today in a clear warning to US forces who in recent months have increasingly crossed the border to kill Taliban and al-Qaeda terrorists.

Mr Zardari was making his first major address since being elected president earlier this month. He also pledged that Pakistan would fight terrorists based on its soil, and he promised that his own powers would be cut back.

In recent weeks unmanned Predator drones and even special forces have staged a number of attacks across the border from Afghanistan on terrorist targets, a sign of growing US frustration at the training camps and sanctuaries which have been out of their reach and, for the most part, untroubled by Pakistan’s own military.

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Tags: Al-Qaeda, Al-Qaida, Government, Military, Pakistan, Politics, Taliban, terrorism, terrorists, U.S.

The Pakistani President, Prime Minister and military chief of staff were due to attend a banquet at the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, where bombers killed at least 53 people, but a last-minute change of venue saved them.

The disclosure that the leadership of the country was the likely target of the attack on Saturday came as militants kidnapped Afghanistan’s top diplomat in the country and British Airways suspended all flights to and from Pakistan because of security concerns.

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Tags: Al-Qaeda, Al-Qaida, Government, Military, Pakistan, Politics, Taliban, terrorism, terrorists

Yemen News Agency, via Reuters: Smoke rose near the U.S. Embassy in Sana, Yemen, on Wednesday after armed militants detonated a car bomb at its gates.

BEIRUT, Lebanon - Heavily armed militants opened fire on the United States Embassy in Sana, Yemen, on Wednesday and detonated a car bomb at its gates, in an attack that left at least 16 people dead including six of the attackers, Yemeni officials said.

No Americans were killed or wounded in the blast or when guards began to return fire, said a Yemeni official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter.

Yemeni security officials and witnesses said the death toll was at least 16, including four bystanders, one of them an Indian woman. The other dead were six attackers and six security guards, the Yemeni officials said, speaking in return for anonymity because they were not authorized to brief reporters.

Yemen’s official Saba news agency also reported that 16 people were killed.

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Tags: Al-Qaeda, Al-Qaida, terrorism, terrorists, U.S., Yemen

A GOP congressional leader who was wavering on giving President Bush authority to wage war in late 2002 said Vice President Cheney misled him by saying that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had direct personal ties to al-Qaeda terrorists and was making rapid progress toward a suitcase nuclear weapon.

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Tags: Al-Qaeda, Al-Qaida, CIA, Condoleezza Rice, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, FBI, George Bush, George Tenet, Government, Guantánamo, Iraq, John Ashcroft, Justice Department, Karl Rove, Military, Politics, Saddam Hussein, Surveillance, War, warrantless wiretapping program

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) - Pakistan’s military has ordered its forces to open fire if U.S. troops launch another air or ground raid across the Afghan border, an army spokesman said Tuesday.

The orders, which come in response to a highly unusual Sept. 3 ground attack by U.S. commandos, are certain to heighten tensions between Washington and a key ally against terrorism. Although the ground attack was rare, there have been repeated reports of U.S. drone aircraft striking militant targets, most recently on Sept. 12.

Pakistani officials warn that stepped-up cross-border raids will accomplish little while fueling violent religious extremism in nuclear-armed Pakistan. Some complain that the country is a scapegoat for the failure to stabilize Afghanistan.

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Tags: Afghanistan, Al-Qaeda, Al-Qaida, Military, Pakistan, Pentagon, Politics, U.S.

Security officials say soldiers were trying to enter South Waziristan by helicopter

Pakistani soldiers near the Afghan border. Photograph: Matiullah Achakzai/EPA

Pakistani troops opened fire on US soldiers trying to enter the country’s lawless tribal area today, according to reports, marking a dangerous further deterioration in relations between the two anti-terror allies.

Details of the incident, in South Waziristan, are unclear. According to local security officials and tribesmen, however, two US helicopters breached Pakistani airspace in the early hours but were forced to retreat when they came under fire.

The US forces were likely to have been on a hit-and-withdraw mission against suspected militants in the area, similar to the first documented US ground raid into the tribal territory earlier this month, when choppers flew in commandos. That enraged the Pakistani army and public.

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Tags: Afghanistan, Al-Qaeda, Al-Qaida, CIA, George Bush, Government, Military, Pakistan, Politics, U.N., U.S., War, war on terror

KEY corps commanders of Pakistan’s 600,000-strong army issued orders last night to retaliate against “invading” US forces that enter the country to attack militant targets.

The move has plunged relations between Islamabad and Washington into deep crisis over how to deal with al-Qa’ida and the Taliban

What amounts to a dramatic order to “kill the invaders”, as one senior officer put it last night, was disclosed after the commanders - who control the army’s deployments at divisional level - met at their headquarters in the garrison city of Rawalpindi under the chairmanship of army chief and former ISI spy agency boss Ashfaq Kayani.

Leading English-language newspaper The News warned in an editorial that the US determination to attack targets inside Pakistan was likely to be “the best recruiting sergeant that the extremists ever had”, with even “moderates” outraged by it.

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Tags: Afghanistan, Al-Qaeda, Al-Qaida, George Bush, Military, NATO, Osama Bin Laden, Pakistan, Politics, soldiers, Taliban, U.S., War

WASHINGTON - The Justice Department made public on Friday a plan to expand the tools the Federal Bureau of Investigation can use to investigate suspicions of terrorism inside the United States, even without any direct evidence of wrongdoing.

Justice Department officials said the plan, which is likely to be completed by the end of the month despite criticism from civil rights advocates, is intended to allow F.B.I. agents to be more aggressive and pre-emptive in assessing possible threats to national security.

It would allow an agent, for instance, to pursue an anonymous tip about terrorism by conducting an undercover interview or watching someone in a public place. Such steps are now prohibited unless there is more specific evidence of wrongdoing.

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Tags: ACLU, Al-Qaeda, Al-Qaida, FBI, Government, Justice Department, New World Order, Police State, Politics, U.S.

WASHINGTON - President Bush secretly approved orders in July that for the first time allow American Special Operations forces to carry out ground assaults inside Pakistan without the prior approval of the Pakistani government, according to senior American officials.

The classified orders signal a watershed for the Bush administration after nearly seven years of trying to work with Pakistan to combat the Taliban and Al Qaeda, and after months of high-level stalemate about how to challenge the militants’ increasingly secure base in Pakistan’s tribal areas.

American officials say that they will notify Pakistan when they conduct limited ground attacks like the Special Operations raid last Wednesday in a Pakistani village near the Afghanistan border, but that they will not ask for its permission.

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Tags: Afghanistan, Al-Qaeda, Al-Qaida, CIA, George Bush, Government, Pakistan, Pentagon, Politics, Taliban, U.S., War