On Quoting bin Laden

Iran Watch

Meanwhile, the rhetoric against Iran continues to get hotter.

Barry Schweid writes for the Associated Press: "President Bush said Tuesday a nuclear-armed Iran would blackmail the free world and raise a mortal threat to the American people."

John D. McKinnon writes in the Wall Street Journal (subscription required): "As the five-year anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks approaches, the Bush administration is spotlighting an explicit terror threat: the danger that Iran could someday supply terrorists with nuclear weapons."

Counterterrorism Report

Karen DeYoung writes in The Washington Post: "A new counterterrorism strategy released yesterday by the White House describes al-Qaeda as a significantly degraded organization, but outlines potent threats from smaller networks and individuals motivated by al-Qaeda ideology, a lack of freedom and 'twisted' propaganda about U.S. policy in the Middle East.

" The National Strategy for Combating Terrorism reflects the intelligence community's latest analysis of the evolving nature of the threats from widely dispersed Islamic extremists who are often isolated and linked by little more than the Internet. It describes President Bush's 'freedom agenda' of promoting democracy as the leading long-term weapon against them."

After Hamdan

R. Jeffrey Smith writes in The Washington Post: "Key Republican senators have drafted a legislative plan for special military trials of suspected terrorists that diverges from a recent Bush administration plan by granting defendants rights that the White House has sought to proscribe, government officials said yesterday.

"Under the lawmakers' plan, any future military trials of the nearly 200 eligible U.S. detainees held in military prisons at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and other locations around the world would be governed by a law that explicitly ensures that defendants have the right to know the evidence against them. . . .

"The final version of the administration's legislative draft is slated to be released today after a speech on the subject by President Bush. It is expected to retain provisions that allow military prosecutors to introduce evidence collected during coercive interrogations that fall short of torture and evidence obtained through hearsay."

Elizabeth Wilner, Mark Murray and Huma Zaidi write for NBC News: "The audience for the speech will consist of key Cabinet members, September 11 families, first responders, former Administration officials, conservative opinion leaders, and think-tank members."

Charlie Savage wrote in the Boston Globe last weekend about the White House allowing only limited input on the issue from military lawyers, a group that has long been a thorn in the side of Vice President Cheney.

Julian E. Barnes writes in the Los Angeles Times: "Bowing to critics of its tough interrogation policies, the Pentagon is issuing a new Army field manual that provides Geneva Convention protections for all detainees and eliminates a secret list of interrogation tactics. . . .

"After the abuse of detainees at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison came to light in 2004, some Defense Department lawyers pushed to incorporate the protections of Common Article 3 into the field manual. But senior political appointees argued that doing so would tie the hands of U.S. troops."