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ASHINGTON, June 7— A re-examination of years of terrorist plots and attacks around the world, including the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, suggests that American intelligence agencies profoundly underestimated Al Qaeda's reach and aspirations for more than a decade as it grew from obscurity into a global terrorist threat, lawmakers and investigators said this week.As Congressional investigators look back far beyond the series of signals missed before the Sept. 11 attacks, they are seeking answers to many questions about Al Qaeda that law enforcement and intelligence agencies still cannot answer themselves, officials said.In particular, they said, Congressional investigators are trying...

D’Amato has supposedly endorsed Bruce Blakeman for Senate, and has lately been selling his soul to get Conservative and Republican endorsements. Even the most amateur of political observers conclude that good old Al has been desperately seeking the Republican nomination for Blakeman, in order to ensure Gillibrand’s retention of her ill-gotten seat. Two pictures are worth a thousand words; and, remember, they are taken less than 18 months apart. On the left we have Blakeman’s formal announcement of his candidacy for U.S. Senate. And on the right, we have the Gillibrand announcement. Anyone who has already endorsed Bruce Blakeman may...

At the state level, governors like New York’s George Pataki and California’s Arnold Schwarzenegger pandered to government-employee unions and opened the spending spigots, to taxpayers’ ongoing horror. Other culprits include the state-level influence peddlers who seem more interested in cash than in free-market and conservative principles.New York ’s former U.S. senator Alfonse D’Amato is a perfect example of this breed. “Senator Pothole” personally discovered an obscure state senator, George Pataki, from Peekskill, N.Y. After being muscled through the state GOP convention, Pataki scored the party’s nomination and won the governorship in 1994. After some limited first-term tax cutting, Pataki’s spend-o-rama...

The appointment by New York Governor David Paterson of Congresswoman Kirsten Gillibrand to the vacant senate seat of Hillary Clinton raises serious questions surrounding the illegal dirty tricks employed to elect Gillibrand to Congress in the first place. In 2006 Governor George Pataki's Chief of Staff Zenia Mucha illegally obtained New York State Police records regarding a domestic dispute between then Congressman John Sweeney and his wife. The records were obtained by former State Police captain Daniel Wiese, who functioned as a dirty tricks operative for Pataki and later Governor Eliot Spitzer. Wiese was also the operative who pressured State...

A federal grand jury in Manhattan is investigating one of the largest internet poker sites serving US gamblers and could bring indictments against some of the world's best known professional players, according to people familiar with the case and a subpoena issued to a witness this week. The probe is aimed at Full Tilt Poker and individuals including Chris Ferguson and Howard Lederer, champion gamblers who are among those accused of controlling the company in a Los Angeles civil lawsuit filed last year. Online gambling is illegal in the US and according to the subpoena the investigation is examining whether...

DioGuardi Gets Hometown SupportBy Elizabeth Benjamin Former Westchester Rep. Joe DioGuardi has locked up the support of his hometown party organization as the jockeying for position among would-be GOP challengers to Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand intensifies, the DN's Glenn Blain reports. Westchester Republican Chairman Doug Colety said his committee will formally announce its endorsement of DioGuardi as early as next week. The decision was made at a committee meeting about a week ago. "We want to give him the hometown support and a very strong kickoff,” DioGuardi said. DioGuardi, who turns 70 this year, is a certified public accountant and...

Former Sen. Al D'Amato (R-NY) appeared on Neil Cavuto's TV show, and said that he'll likely be making an endorsement soon in the NY-23 special election -- and that he's leaning heavily towards backing Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman over moderate Republican Dede Scozzafava. "I will say to you that I am leaning heavily towards the Conservative," said D'Amato, citing Scozzafava's support for the Employee Free Choice Act as major point against her. D'Amato was first elected in 1980, defeating liberal Republican incumbent Sen. Jacob Javits in the GOP primary. He was re-elected in 1986 and 1992, and then defeated...

Former three-time U.S. Sen. Alfonse D’Amato is expecting his a baby with wife Katuria, 43. This will be his 6th child and he also has 14 grandchildren. Alfonso D’ Amato is going to be a daddy again at the ripe old age of 71. His wife, Katuria, who is 43 years old is expecting their second child together. The baby is due this October. Their first child together, Alfonso Marcello is only 14 months old.D’Amato has four children from a previous marriage along with 14 grandkids.The former senator said that this baby will make their family complete now. “Our little...

February 26, 2009, 4:00 a.m. RINO Fixers Are Part of the GOP’s ProblemAl D'Amato and Warren Tompkins wreak havoc, north and south. By Deroy Murdock As Republicans crawl from the wreckage of the once-mighty GOP, it is important to identify exactly who helped drive the party into a ravine. At the federal level, spendthrift former president George W. Bush and equally irresponsible pork-barrelers like Rep. Don “Bridge to Nowhere� Young made a mockery of the party’s fiscal-conservative credo. At the state level, governors like New York’s George Pataki and California’s Arnold Schwarzenegger pandered to government-employee unions and opened the...

ORLANDO, Fla. — Senator John McCain of Arizona scooped up $1 million for his presidential campaign on Tuesday night in the center of Rudolph W. Giuliani’s political turf, the St. Regis Hotel in Midtown Manhattan, and announced the support of former Senator Alfonse M. D’Amato and a swath of the New York Republican establishment.

In his autobiography, Alfonse M. D’Amato, the former senator from New York, wrote with what may have been unintended irony that the day two decades ago on which he and Rudolph W. Giuliani donned undercover disguises to expose drug dealing was “the high point of our alliance.” Now, the on-again, off-again, on-again relationship of Mr. D’Amato and Mr. Giuliani has taken another twist. Not only has Mr. D’Amato been prepping Fred D. Thompson, the former television actor and senator from Tennessee, for next Tuesday’s Republican presidential debate, in mock encounters he has also been playing the role of Mr. Giuliani.

NEW YORK -- Former Sen. Alfonse D'Amato is looking forward to a few big milestones - his anniversary, his 70th birthday and a baby. "If you had told me this prior to getting married, I would have said you're out of your mind," D'Amato joked Friday as he confirmed his wife, attorney Katuria D'Amato, 41, is due in February. The D'Amatos celebrate their third anniversary next week; his birthday is Aug. 1. "We're tremendously blessed. God has given us this wonderful news and we're very excited about it," D'Amato said. The baby business isn't exactly new to D'Amato, who lost...

June 26, 2007 -- Former Sen. Alfonse D'Amato has selected a team of prominent Republicans - including outgoing MTA Chairman Peter Kalikow - to lead Fred Thompson's presidential effort in New York, The Post learned yesterday. Kalikow, a major developer, will be responsible for fund-raising in the city's super-affluent real-estate community while Syracuse-area businessman and former state GOP boss Patrick Barrett will raise funds upstate, D'Amato said. D'Amato, who will head up Thompson's New York campaign and serve as an adviser to his national effort, said he expects the former U.S. senator from Tennessee to officially declare his candidacy "in...

On Tuesday’s “Inside City Hall,” former GOP Senator Alfonse D'Amato announced he is backing former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson for the Republican presidential nominee. Speaking as part of NY1's weekly "Wise Guy's" roundtable, D’Amato said the Law and Order star and fellow Republican is the man to lead the country. "I think he can provide America with the kind of leadership that the people desperately need, and that this country needs,” said D’Amato. “And you know if America doesn't have a leader that the world can look up to, the world is in trouble." While Thompson has yet to officially...

Sen. Alfonse D’Amato, right, U.S. Attorney Rudolph Giuliani, center, and Benjamin Baer, chairman of the U.S Parole Commission, pose in undercover clothes in this July 9, 1986 file photo, after D’Amato bought what he later told a news conference were vials of crack on a New York City street. D’Amato, dressed in a fatigue cap and Eisenhower jacket, made the buy with an agent of the US Drug Enforcement Agency. Long before he became mayor of New York or the Republican front-runner for the presidency, Giuliani made a name for himself as a crime-busting federal prosecutor in Manhattan. During a...

Former GOP Senator Al D’Amato said Republicans will "race to the center” in 2008 to make up for losses in the 2006 elections, and Sen. John McCain will be the man to lead them there. D’Amato, appearing Thursday on Fox News Channel, said the Republican Party was hurt in the elections by the "morass” in Iraq and the ineffectiveness of a GOP-controlled Congress to pass meaningful legislation. He also said President Bush was damaged by the appearance that he didn’t do enough to help Hurricane Katrina victims, with the image of Bush "flying over” New Orleans in a helicopter viewed...

Last month, William F. Weld, a candidate for governor of New York, set state Republican politics astir by telling of an encounter with Senator Alfonse M. D'Amato that cast his fellow Republican in a bad light and offered an explanation for their simmering feud. Mr. Weld said that in 1996, when he was governor of Massachusetts and running for the Senate, he received a $750,000 check from Mr. D'Amato that was delivered with an expletive-filled warning. Mr. D'Amato vigorously denied the encounter, calling it "a bunch of baloney" and asserting that he had never even spoken to Mr. Weld in...

When Al D'Amato and Bill Buckley are quoted on the same day saying nice things about Madame Evita Rotten Klintoon, the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. It sounds like a bit of preplanning for another Clinton Administration. I have a very sick feeling that the fix may already be in.

For the last few months, William F. Weld's bid to become governor of New York has had a sharp thorn in its side: the outspoken opposition of the onetime kingmaker of state Republican politics, former Senator Alfonse M. D'Amato, who has said that Mr. Weld is "without any real experience" in New York. Yesterday, Mr. Weld struck back in force, telling how their feud dated at least to a 1996 encounter in which Mr. D'Amato gave him $750,000 in donations for his Senate campaign that year against John Kerry of Massachusetts. The donations, according to Mr. Weld, came with an...

GOP Gubernatorial hopeful Bill Weld came under a blistering attack last night from ex-Sen. Alfonse D'Amato, who argued the former Massachusetts governor has "a lot of explaining to do" about a simmering scandal at a Kentucky school. D'Amato went after Weld in an interview on the cable news station New York 1, saying, "he wouldn't be my choice at all" in New York's Republican gubernatorial primary this year. D'Amato conceded that part of his dislike for Weld stemmed from the prosecution of his brother Armand by the federal Justice Department, for which Weld had been a top official before getting...

August 22, 2005 -- ALBANY — Someone secretly recorded private telephone calls to Gov. Pataki, his wife, Libby, then-Sen. Alfonse D'Amato and others — capturing sensitive personal and political conversations, tapes obtained by The Post reveal. The existence of the mystery tapes demonstrates there was a major security breach involving the governor and some of his most important associates. It is illegal in New York to record a conversation between two people if neither one is aware of it. The extraordinary tapes include lengthy discussions of patronage hiring, obscenity-laced tirades, Mrs. Pataki's extensive complaints about her schedule as first lady,...

Note to Republican presidential primary candidates: Don't underestimate George Pataki. There was a time when the pundits said he couldn't win a freshman's run for mayor of Peekskill. They also said that about him when he ran for the Assembly and then the State Senate. In each instance this quiet, thoughtful man proved himself an astute politician who could read his constituents far better than the pollsters and the political analysts. Not only did he run and win but he was able to position himself in such a way that an expanding circle of voters genuinely welcomed him as a...

January 17, 2005 -- FORMER Sen. Alfonse D'Amato, the man who got George Pa taki elected governor 10 years ago, has opened the door to endorsing Eliot Spitzer for governor next year. D'Amato, in comments sure to stun Republicans throughout New York, called Democrat Spitzer "a great attorney general" who has done "a terrific job" cracking down on Wall Street abuses. "He did what the Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Attorney's Office should have been doing: cracking down on abuses," D'Amato, the former head of the Senate Banking Committee, told The Post.

...Even though the Democrats will probably nominate two of the most controversial people in American politics, Hillary Clinton for senator and Attorney General Eliot Spitzer for governor, they will probably face no serious challenge. Hillary and Spitzer got lucky. The two Republicans who might have given them fits — Rudy Giuliani and George Pataki — both have their eyes on the presidency and neither wants to go through a bruising, no-win battle in New York two years before making the big play for the White House. Pataki knows he is living on borrowed time. When 500,000 whites left New York...

While national Democratic leaders have been busy pummeling President Bush, New York's senior senator, Charles E. Schumer, a Democrat, spent part of a campaign debate on Sunday aligning himself with the president, saying he voted with Mr. Bush "to extend the child income tax credit,'' and that he "voted with the president for authorization to go into Iraq." With those comments, Mr. Schumer underscored a strategic reality as he seeks re-election: He is not just content to win a second term in the United States Senate, but he is looking to win big. And to do that, he must attract...

D'Amato ties knot in ritzy L.I. fashion Former Sen. Alfonse D'Amato and his bride, attorney Katuria Smith, tied the knot yesterday and then celebrated at a black-tie reception teeming with powerbrokers. D'Amato, 66, and Smith, 38, exchanged vows at Sacred Heart Church - the Island Park, L.I., house of worship where the Republican lobbyist once served as an altar boy - and then partied at Oheka Castle in Huntington with 450 of their nearest and dearest. Guests included Gov. Pataki, Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Arlen Specter, former Mayor Ed Koch, Delaware Democrat Sen. Joseph Biden and D'Amato's four children from his...

Former Republican Sen. Alfonse D'Amato is giving "aid and comfort" to the enemy by suggesting Vice President Dick Cheney be dumped from this year's GOP ticket, an outspoken former congressman said Thursday. "It is difficult for me to understand why Senator D'Amato would issue his press release coming just days before the start of the Democratic convention," said former Staten Island Borough President Guy Molinari. "Surely, the Democrats will be using his statement to attack the credibility of the Bush-Cheney ticket." The four-day Democratic National Convention opens in Boston on July 26. "It is sad that a man of his...

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - President Bush should consider dumping Vice President Dick Cheney from the Republican ticket this year, an influential former GOP senator said Wednesday. Alfonse D'Amato said Bush should consider putting Secretary of State Colin Powell or Sen. John McCain of Arizona on the GOP ticket. There was no immediate comment from the Bush-Cheney campaign. Bush has long maintained he wants Cheney to be his running mate. The D'Amato advice came one day after Bush's Democratic challenger, Sen. John Kerry, announced he had selected Sen. John Edwards to be his running mate. "Let me note that Vice President...

Ex-GOP Senator Suggests Bush Dump Cheney ALBANY, N.Y. - President Bush (news - web sites) should consider dumping Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites) from the Republican ticket this year, an influential former GOP senator said Wednesday. Alfonse D'Amato said Bush should consider putting Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) or Sen. John McCain of Arizona on the GOP ticket. . . .

ALBANY — President Bush should consider dumping Vice President Dick Cheney from the Republican ticket this year, an influential former GOP senator said Wednesday. Alfonse D’Amato said Bush should consider putting Secretary of State Colin Powell or Sen. John McCain of Arizona on the GOP ticket. There was no immediate comment from the Bush-Cheney campaign. Bush has long maintained he wants Cheney to be his running mate. The D’Amato advice came one day after Bush’s Democratic challenger, Sen. John Kerry, announced he had selected Sen. John Edwards to be his running mate. “Let me note that Vice President Cheney is...

Does terrorism work? That is the big question in the wake of the brutal bombings in Madrid earlier this month. The terrorists chose a date - March 11 - bound to draw parallels to Sept. 11. They struck at the most innocent and vulnerable of targets: unarmed people on their way to work or school. And, by bombing crowded commuter trains, they assured maximum casualties. The blood markings of al- Qaida are all over this twisted, cowardly act. And, by the results of the Spanish elections, the terrorists won the day. They can only be emboldened by Spain's appeasement, just...

                                    U.S. Senate                                 Committee on Armed Services,                                Washington, DC, October 9, 1998.       The President,       The White House, Washington, DC.           Dear Mr. President: We are writing to express our concern        over recent developments in Iraq.           Last February, the Senate was working on a resolution        supporting military action if diplomacy did not succeed in        convincing Saddam Hussein to comply with the United Nations        Security Council resolutions concerning the disclosure and        destruction of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. This        effort was discontinued when the Iraqi government reaffirmed        its...

CENTRAL ISLIP, N.Y. -- Long Island's federal courthouse was named in honor of former Sen. Alfonse D'Amato at a ceremony that brought out friends, family and a fistful of old political enemies. Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Charles Schumer and Joseph Biden, all Democrats, were present Monday to celebrate D'Amato's 18 years in the Senate as New York's pugnacious Republican representative. The former first lady and then-President Clinton were once the focus of a Senate committee investigation headed by D'Amato that looked into the Whitewater land deal. "I have to confess that if a few years ago someone had in the...