until at least Sunday night, as I strive to recover my rascibility (or as Mark Kleiman would not have it, my rascibleness).

If this frees up any of your time, please take a look at this post from Teresa connecting you with a list of things that soldiers in the field during the current unpleasantness need and are not getting, and if you can manage, please send them some.

We need to let them know we're thinking about them, and there's stuff they can really use.

If you still need stuff to do, Jeanne has a wonderful sidebar, not least because it runs alongside Jeanne's blog.

Have a lovely weekend, all.

The Pope has chastised a candidate who acted against Catholic doctrine. I confidently expect a flood of media thumbsucking to result from this. Also I am working on my letter to Santa as we speak. I'm all about the childlike innocence.

Pope John Paul II today called on President Bush to seek a rapid return of sovereignty to Iraq, deplored the abuse of Iraqi prisoners and urged a "fuller and deeper understanding between the United States of America and Europe."

In a meeting with Bush, who presented the pope with the presidential Medal of Freedom, the pontiff, who opposed the invasion of Iraq, spoke of "grave unrest" in Iraq and the Middle East.

"Mr. President, your visit to Rome takes place at a moment of great concern for the continuing situation of grave unrest in the Middle East, both in Iraq and in the Holy Land," he said.

"You are very familiar with the unequivocal position of the Holy See in this regard, expressed in numerous documents, through direct and indirect contacts, and in the many diplomatic efforts which have been made."

The president, who is actively courting the Catholic vote, has met twice before with the pontiff.

But this was their first meeting since the president began the war in Iraq. The White House requested the meeting and rearranged the president's schedule to make it possible, but ran the risk that the pope or his top advisers could publicly repeat the Vatican's previous objections to U.S. "unilateralism."

He did give Bush an attafearlessleader on the abortion thing, which I expect we most likely will be hearing about in the press.

Those wacky evil people in Iran are gaslighting us in the wake of our breaking of their code by talking about classified information Chalabi leaked to them in an encrypted cable they sent all the way back in 1995.

Let's see - that's after Bush 1 hired him and right before Clinton fired him.

Then, of course, Bush 2 hired him back.

Dang, them iranians are wily.

Ahmed Chalabi, the Iraqi politician suspected by U.S. authorities of having told Iran this spring that its secret communications code had been broken, was involved in an intercept episode nine years ago, according to senior administration officials.

Officials yesterday recounted an incident in early 1995 when Chalabi's name turned up in an encrypted Iranian cable reporting a purported CIA-backed plan to assassinate Saddam Hussein, then Iraq's president. The message was intercepted by U.S. intelligence and caused a major political stir in Washington.

Similarly, it was an intercept several weeks ago of another Iranian message -- this one from an agent in Baghdad to his superiors in Tehran saying Chalabi had told him that U.S. intelligence was able to read Iran's secret cables -- that has triggered a major counterintelligence probe and concern about Washington's future ability to monitor Iranian developments.

A U.S. law enforcement source said yesterday that FBI investigators, trying to determine the source of the leak, had interviewed at least one Defense Department employee in Baghdad and had administered a polygraph test. More tests were planned, some involving officials at the Pentagon, said the source who demanded anonymity because the investigation is secret. But several senior defense officials said yesterday that they knew of no one at the Pentagon who had yet been approached by investigators.

FBI spokeswoman Debbie Weierman said the investigation is still at its early stage. Noting that Chalabi is a British citizen, she said law enforcement officials are trying to determine "to what extent he is covered by U.S. law barring disclosure of U.S. classified information."

Chalabi, whose exile group -- the Iraqi National Congress -- has received more than $40 million in U.S. payments over the years, has denied that he disclosed secrets to Iran and demanded that the Bush administration investigate the source of the leak about the investigation of him.

The 1995 incident arose at a time when Chalabi was in northern Iraq, working with CIA backing against Hussein. The CIA case officer working with Chalabi at the time was Robert Baer.

Exactly who came up with the assassination idea is subject to some dispute. One U.S. official interviewed yesterday, who was familiar with the event, credited Baer with pushing the plan.

Baer has denied this. In his book "See No Evil: the True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism," published in 2001, he wrote that the plot to kill Hussein was phony, concocted by Chalabi in hopes of enticing Iranian support for his Iraqi opposition efforts.

To prove to the Iranians he had Washington's support to go after Hussein, Chalabi forged a letter on U.S. National Security Council stationery that asked him to contact the Iranian government for help, Baer wrote. The letter said Washington had dispatched to northern Iraq an "NSC team" headed by Robert Pope, a fictitious name.

In a meeting with Iranian intelligence officers, Chalabi left the letter on his desk while he took a phone call in another room, knowing the Iranians would read it, Baer wrote.

But wait! There's more!

Shortly after the intercept, Chalabi's militia forces and Kurdish fighters went ahead with an attempted coup, launching a three-city strike against Hussein's troops. But the offensive quickly foundered.

The White House, having warned Chalabi not to proceed because Iraqi intelligence had learned of the operation, declined to provide air power to help him. Hussein's troops crushed the attackers, leaving the CIA angry that it had funded such a fiasco and infuriating top officials in the Clinton administration.

Taken together, the intercept and the foiled revolt marked a turning point in the CIA's relationship with Chalabi, an official said. The events explain to a large extent why the CIA later cut Chalabi off from funding and refused to administer money appropriated for his organization in the late 1990s that was aimed at bringing about Hussein's fall. CIA authorities knew the funds were headed for Chalabi, and they would not work with him any further, the official said.

On the other hand, he is said to have a degree... in math.

I didn't think this would take off the way it has (I was betting on that nonsense about the plastic bracelets) but it's still rising steadily on Technorati, so as someone who probably sees more pre-teens daily than the rest of you (HM's school is across the street from a Junior High) let me just weigh in.

During a recent shopping trip to Nordstrom, 11-year-old Ella Gunderson became frustrated with all the low-cut hip-huggers and skintight tops.

So she wrote to the Seattle-based chain's executives.

"I see all of these girls who walk around with pants that show their belly button and underwear," she wrote. "Your clearks (sic) sugjest (sic) that there is only one look. If that is true, then girls are suppost (sic) to walk around half naked."

Nordstrom executives wrote back and promised Ella the company would try to provide a variety of fashions for youngsters.

The shy, bespectacled redhead has since become an instant media darling, appearing on national television over the past two weeks to promote modest fashions instead of the saucy looks popularized by the likes of Britney Spears.

Ella is on to something: A more modest look is in, some fashion experts say.

"We like to call this new girl Miss Modesty," said Gigi Solif Schanen, fashion editor at Seventeen magazine. "It's such a different feeling but still very pretty and feminine and sexy. It's just a little more covered up."

Shoppers are starting to see higher waistlines and lower hemlines, and tweeds, fitted blazers and layers are expected to be big this fall, Schanen said.

See, personally I accomplished this same goal by shopping the discount website at Lands End or Century 21 and showing the kid a lot of early Audrey Hepburn, but whatever. I stopped going to department stores when I saw the size 3T (roughly two year old) outfit with the clear vinyl windows strategically cut out of the shirt.

Anyway, here (as I see it) are the three major bad assumptions in this story.

1) Kids don't like hiphuggers because they're immodest.

Could be. Mostly, though, the kids around here don't wear them because they won't stay up, you need special shirts to go with them, and if you aren't completely emaciated you walk around with a fold of fat rolling over the top of your pants all day. This is why we were all so pleased when the early seventies ended. That time we got a flood of Jessica McLintock dresses when it was all over.

2) "Saucy looks" are popularized by Britney Spears.

Um, no. "Saucy looks" are popularized by garment executives and store buyers and magazine editors who don't know what actual children wear but guess that they must like hooker chic because they go to Britney concerts.

Don't know how to tell you this, guys and girls, but in this little urban slice of the actual world, the kids who listen to Britney listen to her on Radio Disney.

3) Higher waistlines and tailored clothes are coming back in because girls are looking for a "more modest look"

Higher waistlines and tailored clothes are coming in because the other stuff didn't sell to anyone who wasn't a pitiful trendoid or the the kitten-whipped parent of one.

Also they look better on most people.

Also it's far easier and less disturbing for a pre- or incompletely-pubescent child to get through the day without unpleasantness if their outfit doesn't say "Here, grab a handful."

Most kids know that. The rest seem to be finding it out.

Bonus: Most kids, based on the admittedly limited sample of roughly a thousand city kids a day I see when I go pick mine up, wear jeans and tshirts.

Don't let it interrupt your trend reporting. I'm just saying.

Admiral Turner states the obvious and (will wonders never cease) the Times quotes it.

But minutes later, Mr. Bush reappeared on the sun-drenched White House lawn, stunning listeners with the news of Mr. Tenet's resignation, which the president said would be effective in mid-July. Until then, Mr. Bush said, the C.I.A.'s deputy director, John McLaughlin, will be acting director.

The president praised Mr. Tenet's qualities as a public servant, saying: "He's strong. He's resolute. He's served his nation as the director for seven years. He has been a strong and able leader at the agency. He's been a, he's been a strong leader in the war on terror, and I will miss him."

Then Mr. Bush walked away, declining to take questions or offer any insight into what Mr. Tenet's personal reasons might be.

The official announcement was unconvincing to a former C.I.A. chief, Stansfield Turner, who held the post under President Jimmy Carter.

Mr. Turner said the resignation is "too significant a move at too important a time" to be inspired by nothing more than personal considerations.

"I think he's being pushed out," Mr. Turner said in an interview on C.N.N. "The president feels he has to have someone to blame."

Mr. Turner went on, "I don't think he would pull the plug on President Bush in the midst of an election cycle without being asked by President Bush to do that."

Mr. Tenet, 51, stepped down as Washington is awaiting the release of a report by an independent commission that has been studying the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the response to them. Washington is also awaiting a report from the Senate Intelligence Committee on Iraq's supposed possession of weapons of mass destruction.

Named to the C.I.A. post by President Bill Clinton, Mr. Tenet proved himself to be a survivor by lasting as long as he did under Mr. Clinton's Republican successor.

Does this mean that the Times has left the corner of that other heavily-connected gentleman who wants to make Tenet the fall guy? Or, for that matter, that heavily-connected lady?

A girl can dream, anyway.

Halliburton? Never heard of them. I've been noticing these millions of dollars just appearing in my checking account and I keep meaning to ask Lynne about them...

It was there, as I sat in the tub, that my mother noticed an unmistakable component to the layers of grime I was covered in: My mouth was ringed by the bright-red stain of juice recently quaffed. And to that ring there clung, again unmistakably, a profusion of cookie crumbs.

Though it may not reflect well on my mother, I must tell you that at this point she chose to indulge in a form of entrapment. [Had I possessed the foresight to engage an attorney in such matters, this whole mess could have been avoided. Sadly, the idea of hiring legal representation in these cases didn't occur to me until I was well into the first grade.]

"So," my mother asked, ever so slowly and gently. "How was nursery school today?" I immediately launched into tales of good times and personal triumphs. She was softening me up, the minx.

"Uh-huh," she remarked with the kind of infinite gentleness that should've tipped me off right away. "And were you given juice and cookies today?"

"No," I replied, almost reflexively. "Just juice. No cookies." Already the thought of the sweet snack that would follow my ablutions was filling my brain.

"Then," asked my mother, seizing the moment. "What are these!?" And she pointed to my face, one index finger even touching my muzzle and rolling the incriminating crumbs around my lips so that their presence could not be denied.

To my credit, I didn't miss a beat. Trapped, caught in a lie, I attempted to brazen it out. I looked straight at her, my eyes already brimming with tears but still defiant, and I asserted boldly:

"Those are juice crumbs!"

Tenet resigns.

More at Corrente.

Anyway, Senator Secession is doing his bit to give the Democrats back The Big House as soon as possible

Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) proved he has not lost his knack for inflammatory rhetoric when he defended "really rough" treatment of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. soldiers, including the use of dogs against a prisoner "unless the dog ate him."

Lott, who lost his job as Senate majority leader in late 2002 after speaking favorably of the late Strom Thurmond's segregationist campaign for the White House in 1948, wandered into the danger zone again when asked about the prisoner-abuse controversy by WAPT-TV in Jackson, Miss.

Lott condemned what he described as "physical perversion" of prisoners but defended tactics such as sleep deprivation and the use of dogs as sometimes necessary to "save some American troops' lives or a unity that could be in danger."

"Hey, nothing wrong with holding a dog up there, unless the dog ate him, scared him with a dog," Lott said. When WAPT news anchorman Brad McMullan noted that a prisoner died at Abu Ghraib, apparently after a beating, Lott responded, "This is not Sunday school; this is interrogation; this is rough stuff."

Some of the prisoners "should not have been prisoners in the first place, probably should have been killed," he added.

The 20-minute interview, which covered a number of subjects, was taped May 24 and aired May 26. Susan Irby, Lott's communications director, said Lott got an "incredibly positive" response to his remarks. McMullan said the station "got a lot of feedback," both positive and negative.

Irby defended Lott's remarks about the dogs, saying there has been no conclusive evidence that they attacked anyone. She said he mainly wanted to convey the message that the "safety of our soldiers is our overriding priority."

Except that, you know, most of the prisoners were innocent and the dogs did bite them.

Except for that, well, it's still pretty damn stupid.

In other news relating to supporting of the troops: the Pentagon slaps a bandaid on their colossal screwup by redefining "condition of servitude"

Army officials announced yesterday that thousands of active-duty and reserve soldiers who are nearing the end of their volunteer service commitments could be forced to serve an entire tour overseas if their units are chosen for deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan.

The order applies to all Army soldiers who are deployed in the future and means that many troops could face extended terms in the military after their formal contracts expire. The Army had previously issued such orders on a unit-by-unit basis, as troops deployed. Now, all soldiers are on notice that if their units are called into the fight, they will go -- and stay.

Soldiers will be notified 90 days before their units are to deploy, and by policy, all soldiers must then serve with their units until 90 days after they return. If a soldier's scheduled service end date falls within that window, he or she will be forced to serve the entire tour.

Army officials said the move promotes cohesion by preventing Army divisions from being depleted shortly before they go into battle. But military experts and lawmakers said the decision indicates that the Army is being stretched thin by multiple operations, with some calling the program a draft in disguise.

The Post, of course, describes people who object to this cute trick as critics of the Army.

Also, turns out our soldiers are getting raped. A lot. By our soldiers.

Let's see: we pipe in Rush "rape is a fraternity prank" Limbaugh to these soldiers, we won't let them access the news on the internet and we make excuses for abusing and humiliating Iraqis.

However could these soldiers have decided that the laws don't apply to them?

Silly blog readers. Of course it isn't that the soldiers just have to look around them and watch the treatment rape victims get from the Military to see that their bosses don't much care whether they rape someone or not (something their bosses no doubt figured out for themselves while they were at the service academies, which are having their own rape scandal).

The Report Blames Poor Oversight and Training.

Allegations of sexual assault in the U.S. Army have climbed steadily over the past five years, and the problem has been abetted by weak prevention efforts, slow investigations, inadequate field reporting and poor managerial oversight, according to internal Army data and a new report from an Army task force.

The May 27 report, sparked by complaints from women's groups and female lawmakers about an apparent increase in reported assaults against U.S. servicewomen in Iraq and Afghanistan, states that the Army lacks "an overarching policy" for dealing with the problem, and that as a result it "does not have a clear picture of the sexual assault issue."

The report also states that the Army lacks a "comprehensive, progressive . . . program to train solders and leaders in the prevention of and response to sexual assault." It said commanders within the region covered by the military's Central Command have not always reported sexual offenses to Army investigators, even when they took action against those involved.

The Army's internal report echoes conclusions drawn in earlier, military-wide assessments. Data released separately by the Army Criminal Investigative Division made it clear that the number of sexual assault cases reported to the division increased each year from 1999 to 2003.

The numbers, released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by The Washington Post, are the first year-to-year servicewide tallies on sexual assault cases provided to the public since 1998. They indicate that Army efforts to ameliorate the problem over the past five years have had little to no impact.

According to the data, the total number of reported cases of sexual assault involving Army personnel increased by 19 percent from 1999 to 2002 -- from 658 to 783, with annual increases ranging from 2 percent to 13 percent. During the same period, the number of reported rapes increased by 25 percent -- from 356 to 445, according to the data. The number of Army personnel on active duty, including reservists, rose during this period by less than 6 percent.

Parenthetically, a note to R. Jeffrey Smith, who produced this interesting article: "the problem" was not abetted by the Army's institutional mismanagement of criminal assault against their own. The rapists were abetted by the Army's institutional mismanagement of criminal assault against their own.

There is, I'd like to think, a difference.

Is it Friday and I missed it?
As it turns out, it may have been not in his best long-term interest for Chalabi to try for the it's all Tenet's fault defense

The CIA will investigate whether former Iraqi exile Ahmad Chalabi leaked U.S. secrets and the FBI is seeking to learn who may have passed him sensitive information on Iran's spy service, U.S. officials and lawmakers said on Wednesday.

The government officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Chalabi was alleged to have told Iran that the United States had broken secret communication codes used by Tehran's spy service.

On Capitol Hill, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice told U.S. lawmakers that CIA Director George Tenet would be conducting an inquiry. She did not elaborate, lawmakers said after the closed briefing.

The FBI is conducting an intelligence investigation to determine who provided classified information to Chalabi and whether that person was authorized to provide the information, a source familiar with the investigation said.

The allegation was that Chalabi told the Baghdad station chief of Iran's ministry of intelligence and security that the United States was reading the communications traffic of the Iranian spy service.

The New York Times reported the allegations against Chalabi, reporting on Wednesday that the Bush administration had asked it and other news organizations to delay publication of the specifics, citing national security concerns.

But the administration withdrew the request on Tuesday, The Times said.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan, traveling with President Bush in Colorado, declined to comment.

"We are not going to get into anything that would be related to intelligence matters," he said.

Hey, why start now, right?

Meanwhile, Our Fearless Leader barely remembers meeting that guy Laura picked up somewhere and took to the State of the Union

Scott McClellan, the president's press secretary, refused on Wednesday to address White House connections to Chalabi, telling reporters aboard Air Force One en route to Colorado Springs, Colo., "I'm not going to get into commenting on anything related to intelligence matters."

McClellan went on, however, to downplay the administration's relationship with the head of the Iraqi National Congress who sat with Laura Bush in January when the president delivered his State of the Union address.

The government's involvement with Chalabi, McClellan said, goes "back to the '90s, and predate(s) this administration." Chalabi, he pointedly noted, wasn't the only Iraqi exile with White House connections. He added that the administration has "had relations with a number of groups previously that were intent on seeing Saddam Hussein's regime removed from power."

White House aides think potential problems stemming from administration ties to Chalabi are under control, but there is some concern the situation could effect the president's re-election chances. The FBI and other agencies are investigating reports that Chalabi or his followers advised Iran - once described by Bush as being a part of the "axis of evil" - that Washington had managed to crack some of the secret codes it used to transmit sensitive information.

Chalabi denies the claim. He maintained strong ties with elements within the Bush administration and reportedly provided information establishing that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction - one of the primary reasons cited by Bush when he decided to go to war with Iraq last year. In a presentation to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York on Jan. 23, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said Iraqi defectors were providing the Pentagon and other intelligence agencies with information on Saddam's secret weapons program.

Several agencies, particularly the CIA and the State Department, dismissed much of the data provided by Chalabi as unreliable. Weapons of mass destruction have not been uncovered, save for a single bomb containing sarin. But until last month, Chalabi's group, the Iraq National Congress, held a $335,000-per-month contract with the Defense Intelligence Agency that processed the provided information.

Chalabi pushed for the presidency of a newly constituted Iraqi government that is scheduled to accept sovereignty from the United States on June 30. When it became obvious that he was no longer favored by Washington, Chalabi became critical of U.S. involvement.

Bush maintains he was never close to Chalabi.

"My meetings with him were very brief," Bush said. "I mean, I think I met with him at the State of the Union and just kind of working through the rope line, and he might have come up with a group of leaders. But I haven't had any extensive conversations with him."

Bush said he doesn't recall any of his advisers saying that Chalabi was providing vital information.

National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said Chalabi performed "a lot of good work on behalf of his country when he was in exile." She acknowledged the administration and Chalabi had a relationship, adding that "it has not been an easy relationship of late."

"But Iraq is a complicated place and we're going to continue to work with whomever we need to in that complicated place," she said.

Three thousand americans dead? Three years, one goose egg. Twenty-two Saudis? It has come to our attention that the funding terror thing isn't working out for us.

Bastards.

Saudi Arabia announced today that it is dissolving a large Muslim charity, which the United States has accused of helping to fund the al Qaeda terrorist network, and transferring its funds into a new national entity that will be the sole vehicle for Saudi charitable donations for international causes.

The announcement at the Saudi Embassy in Washington came as the U.S. Treasury Department disclosed that the U.S. and Saudi governments have designated five additional branches of the al-Haramain Islamic Foundation as supporters of al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations, making the branches subject to international sanctions including the freezing of their assets.

The Treasury Department also announced that it was designating the former leader of al-Haramain, Aqil Abdulaziz Aqil, as an al Qaeda supporter. The Saudi government did not join in this move, saying it was still investigating Aqil, although it has frozen his assets in Saudi Arabia.

In a press conference at the Saudi Embassy, Adel Jubeir, the foreign affairs adviser to Crown Prince Abdullah, said the consolidation of charitable fundraising in the kingdom and the distribution of those funds abroad showed Saudi Arabia's commitment to ensuring that such donations are not used to support terrorism.

"We are determined to crush this evil from our midst," Jubeir said. He said the actions of al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia "have grown more desperate," and that "as they grow more desperate, our resolve grows stronger." He added, "Our leaders are committed to fighting terrorism no matter how long it takes."

Jubeir's comments followed a violent hostage-taking by suspected al Qaeda members that left 22 people dead in the oil center of Khobar over the weekend.

The Christian Science Monitor, which has a long history of being extremely cautious about taking sides in what is supposed to be a news source (imagine that) just posted an op ed piece cutting Our Fearless Leader's rationales for war and his speech about them into itty bitty little chunks.

We went to war in Iraq to destroy its weapons of mass destruction. But it turned out there were no such weapons. In his speech at the Army War College last week, President Bush ignored the weapons issue, as well as his oft-expressed desire to depose Saddam Hussein.

In the current version, we went to war to defend our security. Without the weapons of mass destruction, where was the threat to our security? Have we created a new threat in the effort to stamp out a nonexistent one?

What is wrong with this war is that it violates the principles that the Pentagon drew up for foreign interventions after the Vietnam War.

The most important of these principles was the requirement for clarity - of objectives and of an exit strategy, as well as of planning, cost, and allies. All of these were in the context of upholding American values. Once we start compromising on these values, on our standards of personal and national conduct, we start becoming more like the enemy and less like our former selves.

...Bush sneers that reliance on the UN means we wouldn't act if other countries objected. Nonsense. It means that if other countries object, we will negotiate. It means we would rather have others with us than against us.

By tarnishing the world reputation of the US, the war on terror has seriously reduced American influence. It will take a long time to bring it back. One way to do so would be to follow the prescription of John Quincy Adams who was secretary of State (1817-1825) and president (1825-1829):

"Whenever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will be America's heart.... But she does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own."

That noise you're hearing is the silence of Scalia and the rest of the original intent dead end kid's choir.

Also maybe cicadas.

House Speaker in Exile Pelosi kicks the party in power around like a dented can in the course of congratulating shiny-new Rep. Herseth (D-SD and our second straight pickup).

I like that in a House Speaker in Exile.

The good news is, I went to abebooks.com last night and picked up three books of vintage crochet patterns from the thirties and forties and fifties (including one which is, I could not possibly make this up, inspired by Cecil B DeMille's Greatest Show on Earth. Pictures of Betty Hutton and Dorothy Lamour are, I am told, included.

The other news is that the Mandy Moore remake of Respect [!] is apparently in heavy rotation on Radio Disney.

I understand she's also remade Anticipation.

sob.

So, looks like Cheney arranged government contracts for a company with which he has a (highly irregular - he didn't hold his job long enough to qualify for his pension but they gave it to him anyway) financial relationship

Shortly before the Pentagon awarded a division of oil services contactor Halliburton Co. a sole-source contract to help restore Iraqi oil fields last year, an Army Corps of Engineers official wrote an e-mail saying the award had been "coordinated" with the office of Vice President Cheney, Halliburton's former chief executive.

The March 5, 2003, e-mail, disclosed over the weekend by Time magazine, noted that Douglas Feith, a senior Pentagon official, had signed off on the deal "contingent on informing WH [the White House] tomorrow."

"We anticipate no issues since action has been coordinated w VP's office," it continued.

Three days later, Halliburton subsidiary KBR was granted the contract, which was worth as much as $7 billion, according to information on the Army Corps of Engineers Web site. The first job under the contract was putting out oil fires. It was later expanded to include shipping fuel to Iraq, which led to Pentagon auditor charges that KBR had overbilled the government.

Yesterday, officials in Cheney's office and at the Pentagon played down the significance of the note, saying the word "coordinate" referred only to the public announcement of a deal that had been quietly in the works for months to prepare for the possibility that diplomatic efforts to avoid war in Iraq might fail. The United States began hostilities March 20.

"Vice President Cheney and his staff have had no involvement whatsoever in government contracting decisions since he left private business to run for vice president," said Cheney spokesman Kevin Kellems. Cheney was chief executive of Halliburton from 1995 to 2000.

Chief Pentagon spokesman Lawrence T. DiRita said the vice president's office took part in interagency discussions about the possible need for such a contract, starting in the fall of 2002. But DiRita said Cheney's office had no role in the decision to grant the award. He described the use of the word "coordinate" in the e-mail as a "catch-all phrase" that signified "it's time for this contract to be executed."

The author of the e-mail about the contract was blacked out of the document, first obtained through a lawsuit by Judicial Watch, a nonprofit watchdog group in the District.

This must be so exciting for Judicial Watch. After all those years chasing phantasms down holes during the Clinton administration, they finally got 'em a scandal.

I patiently await the tens of millions of dollars worth of highly-publicized hearings.

So Chalabi knew we had broken the Iranian code and he told them. According to an intercepted cable, the american who told him was drunk.

Ahmad Chalabi, the Iraqi leader and former ally of the Bush administration, disclosed to an Iranian official that the United States had broken the secret communications code of Iran's intelligence service, betraying one of Washington's most valuable sources of information about Iran, according to United States intelligence officials.

The general charge that Mr. Chalabi provided Iran with critical American intelligence secrets was widely reported last month after the Bush administration cut off financial aid to Mr. Chalabi's organization, the Iraqi National Congress, and American and Iraqi security forces raided his Baghdad headquarters.

The Bush administration, citing national security concerns, asked The New York Times and other news organizations not to publish details of the case. The Times agreed to hold off publication of some specific information that top intelligence officials said would compromise a vital, continuing intelligence operation. The administration withdrew its request on Tuesday, saying information about the code-breaking was starting to appear in news accounts.

Mr. Chalabi and his aides have said he knew of no secret information related to Iran and therefore could not have communicated any intelligence to Tehran.

American officials said that about six weeks ago, Mr. Chalabi told the Baghdad station chief of Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security that the United States was reading the communications traffic of the Iranian spy service, one of the most sophisticated in the Middle East.

According to American officials, the Iranian official in Baghdad, possibly not believing Mr. Chalabi's account, sent a cable to Tehran detailing his conversation with Mr. Chalabi, using the broken code. That encrypted cable, intercepted and read by the United States, tipped off American officials to the fact that Mr. Chalabi had betrayed the code-breaking operation, the American officials said.

American officials reported that in the cable to Tehran, the Iranian official recounted how Mr. Chalabi had said that one of "them" Ñ a reference to an American Ñ had revealed the code-breaking operation, the officials said. The Iranian reported that Mr. Chalabi said the American was drunk.

If you've got a few moments, read up on what the allies were willing to do to keep it secret when we (probably the Poles) broke the Enigma code in WW2.

Then, if you want to see how really obsessive the intelligence services are about this stuff, read about Alan Turing, the man who ran the Enigma codebreaking operation in Bletchley Park in England (and who also came up with the Turing test, the only known method for identifying commenters from the Free Republic). After the war, he lost his security clearance because he was gay. Not a sloppy drunk, not a political social climber, not a preening idiot from a right wing think tank who plunged our country into war because it would be so cool. Gay.

Of course, the kids in charge now were warned about Chalabi, but he was useful to them - although not as useful as they appear to have been to him.

What the hell do these idiots think they're playing at? Any self-respecting Stratego league would have cleaned house a long time ago.