John Ashcroft’s April 1, Testimony. Attorney General John Ashcroft’s April 1 testimony before Congress includes disclosure that over 18,000 subpoenas and search warrants have been issued since Sept. 11 and over 1,000 FISA court survillance applications were made in 2002, including 170 emergency FISAs. This is more than 3 times the total number of emergency FISAs obtained in the 23 years prior to September 11th. Read the whole thing. [TalkLeft: The Politics of Crime]
NY Times: “An armored force of 50 American tanks and other vehicles wheeled suddenly into the center of Baghdad today, taking the cityâs defenders by surprise and triggering a rolling firefight along boulevards lined with some people waving and others shooting.” [Scripting News]
Was Peter Arnett Right, or Irresponsible?. Was Peter Arnett Right, or Irresponsible? To the Editor:. [New York Times: Opinion]
Major CentCom announcement expected shortly….
Speaking With the Enemy. Journalists might recognize a motivation in Peter Arnett’s acceptance of an interview with state-controlled Iraqi TV, but they should not excuse it. By Walter Cronkite. [New York Times: Opinion]
Top Iraqi Commander in Basra Is Captured by British Troops. A general from Saddam Hussein’s army has been captured in southern Iraq and is being pressed to provide strategic information, British officers said today. By The Associated Press. [New York Times: NYT HomePage]
NYT. Second market attack in two days in Baghdad. I am more than a little skeptical about these “attacks.” Here’s why. The latest attack occured in a crowded Baghdad marketplace during the day. The vast majority of our attacks on Baghdad have and continue to be at night. Also, nearly 70% of US air attacks made during the same time period that these marketplace attacks were made were on the Republican Guard divisions well outside the city. As a result, the potential that US air strikes caused the damage is extremely low (particularly when contrasted to the high degree of accuracy attained when we were dumping almost all of our munitions on Baghdad). I don’t even think this was Iraqi anti-aircraft fire gone astray. It is rather a calculated measure to inflame Arab streets by Saddam. He is staging these explosions and it is working given the “Fox” news quality of Al Jazeera reporting. [John Robb’s Radio Weblog]