CIA Said Instability Seemed 'Irreversible'  —  Early on the morning of Nov. 13, 2006, members of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group gathered around a dark wooden conference table in the windowless Roosevelt Room of the White House.  —  For more than an hour, they listened to President Bush give …

A Bush Aide's Long Road From The White House  —  On a snowy evening in December 1998, Sara M. Taylor, the daughter of a former pipe fitter at a John Deere plant in Iowa, came to a meeting at the Capital Hilton.  Washington had grown dark and quiet, and the hotel restaurant was empty …

U.S. Warns Of Stronger Al-Qaeda  —  Administration Report Cites Havens in Pakistan  —  Six years after the Bush administration declared war on al-Qaeda, the terrorist network is gaining strength and has established a safe haven in remote tribal areas of western Pakistan for training and planning attacks …

McCain Call Raises an Ethics Question  —  About 3 p.m. Tuesday, Senator John McCain ducked off the Senate floor, entered the Republican cloakroom and took out his mobile phone.  Just hours after accepting the resignation of his two top campaign aides, he was making a conference call …

Initial Benchmark Assessment Report  —  This report to Congress is submitted consistent with Section 1314 of the U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans' Care, Katrina Recovery, and Iraq Accountability Appropriations Act, 2007 (Public Law 110-28) (the "Act").  It includes an assessment …

Rep. Bob Allen arrested on sex charge  —  TITUSVILLE - State Rep. Bob Allen was arrested Wednesday afternoon at a local park after offering to perform a sex act on an undercover officer in exchange for $20, police said.  —  Allen, R-Merritt Island, was booked into the Brevard County jail …

A Nuclear Ruse Uncovers Holes in U.S. Security  —  Undercover Congressional investigators set up a bogus company and obtained a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in March that would have allowed them to buy the radioactive materials needed for a so-called dirty bomb.

Wishful Thinking on Iraq  —  IT SEEMS like just weeks ago, because it was, that Congress approved funding for the war in Iraq and instructed Gen. David H. Petraeus to report back on the war's progress in September.  Now, for reasons having more to do with American politics than with Iraqi reality, September isn't soon enough.

Huckabee: Filmmaker Moore an example of health care problems  —  LITTLE ROCK (AP) — The producer of Michael Moore's documentary on the nation's health-care system, "Sicko," suggests that Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee's criticism of the filmmaker may be motivated more by his need …

Terror plot violated profession, religion  —  CHICAGO // The enormity of what happened in London and Glasgow, Scotland, dawned upon me slowly.  First there were the two high-end cars filled with explosive materials, parked in the middle of London, that mercifully did not explode.

'A dead Iraqi is just another dead Iraqi... You know, so what?'  —  Interviews with US veterans show for the first time the pattern of brutality in Iraq  —  It is an axiom of American political life that the actions of the US military are beyond criticism.  Democrats and Republicans praise the men and women in uniform at every turn.

Pants helped boost literacy, say historians  —  The role of pants in the spread of western culture has been wrongly sidelined, according to medieval historians, who are starting to rank the underwear factor alongside the invention of printing.  —  Rags from discarded pants and knickers led …

Farewell to a Lady  —  "My mother," Lynda Bird Johnson once told me, "thinks well of everybody.  She's even sure the Devil's been maligned.  Just got a bad press."  —  I got to know the First Lady during the time her daughter worked for me when I was editor of McCalls.