Iraq Report Rattles Races  —  Twist Hits Lieberman Before Speech On War  —  A conclusion by American intelligence agencies that the U.S. invasion of Iraq spawned a new generation of Islamic radicalism threw Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman a curve on the eve of a major campaign speech he intends to deliver today on the war.

U.N. Force Is Treading Lightly on Lebanese Soil  —  Italian soldiers in Lebanon say that for now, they cannot even set up a checkpoint.  Instead, they alert the Lebanese Army of any suspicious cars.  —  One month after a United Nations Security Council resolution ended a 34-day war between Israel …

'Iraq Is Not in Chaos'  —  Last Wednesday, Newsweek-Washington Post's Lally Weymouth interviewed Iraqi President Jalal Talabani in New York.  Excerpts:  —  Q. What happened in your meeting with President Bush?  —  A. We told him our progress in trade, the economy, training the army …

McCain Names Practices Detainee Bill Would Bar  —  Senator Says 3 Interrogation Methods Are Among the 'Extreme Measures' the Plan Would Outlaw  —  A Republican senator who played a leading role in drafting new rules for U.S. interrogations of terrorism suspects said yesterday that he believes …

Army Warns Rumsfeld It's Billions Short  —  An extraordinary action by the chief of staff sends a message: The Pentagon must increase the budget or reduce commitments in Iraq and elsewhere.  —  WASHINGTON — The Army's top officer withheld a required 2008 budget plan from Pentagon leaders …

Millions of Seniors Facing Medicare 'Doughnut Hole'  —  Millions of older Americans are confronting a temporary break in their Medicare drug coverage this month that will require them to pay the full cost of their prescriptions or face the painful prospect of going without.

Retired Officers to Criticize Rumsfeld  —  Retired military officers to criticize Rumsfeld at Democratic panel's hearing on Iraq war  —  (AP) Retired military officers on Monday are expected to bluntly accuse Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld of bungling the war in Iraq …

In Tiny Courts of New York, Abuses of Law and Power  —  Some of the courtrooms are not even courtrooms: tiny offices or basement rooms without a judge's bench or jury box.  Sometimes the public is not admitted, witnesses are not sworn to tell the truth, and there is no word-for-word record of the proceedings.

Chris Wallace, Caught Off Balance?  —  Fox News anchor Chris Wallace said that he was stunned when Bill Clinton accused him of a "conservative hit job" after he challenged the former president on his record in fighting terrorism.  —  "I thought it was a fair, balanced and not especially …

The Rise of Jihadistan  —  Five years after the Afghan invasion, the Taliban are fighting back hard, carving out a sanctuary where they—and Al Qaeda's leaders—can operate freely.  —  You don't have to drive very far from Kabul these days to find the Taliban.

POLITICS: How Wrong Was Josh Marshall?  —  Plenty Wrong.  —  Now that it has been revealed that the main source for Bob Novak's column "outing" Valerie Plame Wilson as a CIA employee was Richard Armitage, Colin Powell's right-hand man at the State Department and (like Novak) no fan of the Iraq War …

Who wanted to "cut and run" from Somalia?  —  My post this morning on Salon concerns the accusation voiced this weekend by Chris Wallace in his Fox News interview with President Clinton (a favorite accusation of neoconservatives) that Clinton "emboldened" Al Qaeda when he withdrew American troops …

Congress Is Winding Down, but Much Is Left Undone  —  A Congress derided as do-nothing has a week to do something, and the prospects are cloudy.  —  Procrastination, power struggles and partisanship have left Congress with substantial work to finish before breaking for the elections.

Getting A Line On Lamont  —  Democratic Senate candidate Ned Lamont is having trouble moving from the small stage of a primary campaign with its appeal to partisans to the main stage of the general election, which requires the attention of the state's 2.1 million voters.

A Modified MSNBC?  —  There has been speculation for months about MSNBC's future as a 24-hour cable news channel—or, maybe more to the point, its lack thereof.  But one indication may have come last July, when the 10-year-old network launched a newsmagazine, MSNBC Investigates.

Free Trade at the Fore of Races  —  As wages stagnate, it's a hot issue in states like New York, Ohio and Michigan, where candidates debate the impact on workers.  —  WASHINGTON — Jack Davis remembers the night he left the Republican Party over free trade: Nov. 17, 2003 …

Women's rights campaigner shot dead in Afghanistan  —  A senior women's affairs official who has criticised the Taleban's treatment of women was shot dead outside her home in southern Afghanistan today.  —  Safia Ama Jan was getting into a car outside her house in the city of Kandahar when two gunmen on motorcycles opened fire.