Political Glance
The Homeland Security Department swept aside evaluations of government experts and named Mississippi — home to powerful U.S. lawmakers with sway over the agency — as a top location for a new $451 million, national laboratory to study some of the world's most virulent biological threats, according to internal documents obtained by The Associated Press.
The disclosure is the latest example of what critics assert is the Bush administration's politicizing of government decisions, such as efforts to steer science over global warming at the Environmental Protection Agency and hiring and firing practices at the Justice Department.
Some lawmakers already skeptical over the department's plans said (Homeland Security official, Undersecretary Jay) Cohen's intervention on behalf of Mississippi appears improper.
"It appears that the undersecretary responsible for this program may have corrupted the site selection process by putting his thumb on the scale in favor of a particular site and its contractor, in violation of his own rules and over the objections of his own advisers," said Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich. "This raises the question of whether DHS is interested in bioresearch or just shameless empire building."
In damning transcript, ex-CIA official says Cheney likely ordered letter linking Hussein to 9/11 attacks
The Justice Department investigation into the firings of nine U.S. attorneys has been extended to encompass allegations that senior White House officials played a role in providing false and misleading information to Congress, according to numerous sources involved in the inquiry.
Ron Suskind’s new book alleges that the White House ordered the CIA to forge a letter from the head of Iraqi intelligence to Saddam Hussein linking the dictator to the 9/11 terrorists. The American Conservative’s Philip Giraldi argues today that “an extremely reliable and well placed source in the intelligence community” told him Suskind’s overall claim “is correct,” but that it was Douglas Feith’s Office of Special Plans — not the CIA — that forged the letter:
The Department of Defense continued its controversial mandatory anthrax vaccinations program despite high ranking Bush administration officials acknowledging there were problems with the vaccine within months of the Bush administration taking office—well before the 9/11 attacks and the October 2001 anthrax letters.
