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The Bush administration is preparing to release never-before-seen documents captured when U.S. forces liberated Baghdad that chronicle the extensive training of thousands of radical Islamic terrorists by Saddam Hussein's regime. "The secret training took place primarily at three camps in Samarra, Ramadi, and Salman Pak," reports the Weekly Standard's Stephen Hayes, who adds that the operations began two years before the 9/11 attacks and were "directed by elite Iraqi military units." The existence of these documents, and the nature of what they describe, has been confirmed to the Standard by eleven U.S. government officials, Hayes says. If true, the documents...

TUNIS (AFP) - UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and a leading US IT expert Nicholas Negroponte unveiled the bright green and yellow working prototype of a 100 dollar laptop aimed at millions of schoolchildren in poor countries. The robust wind-up laptop with low power consumption is meant to be the backbone of an educational project to distribute the Internet-connected computers at no cost to their future owners. "It holds the promise of major advances in economic and social development, but perhaps most important is the true meaning of one laptop per child," Annan told reporters at the World Summit...

CONFIRMATION POLITICS Although freshman Democratic Sen. Ken Salazar has removed his hold on the nomination, former White House Counsel C. Boyden Gray is still being blocked by Democrats for confirmation as U.S. ambassador to the European Union. The unidentified senator now imposing the hold is believed to be Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin, who did not return this column's call. The objection to Gray is a 2-year-old television ad by Gray's Committee for Justice accusing senators of blocking the confirmation of Judge William Pryor because he is Catholic. A footnote: Director of National Intelligence (DNI) John Negroponte last Tuesday wrote...

The U.S. Air Force is reviewing its space programs -- many of which are behind schedule and over budget -- with an eye to slowing down projects whose technologies are not yet mature, the Pentagon's top space official said on Tuesday. Air Force Undersecretary Ron Sega, a former astronaut and the Pentagon's executive agent for space, also urged greater cooperation by the intelligence and defense communities on satellites, noting their importance to fighting wars abroad, as well as responding to recent hurricanes in the Gulf region. But massive cost overruns and major schedule delays have plagued nearly every space program...

President Bush... ordered changes intended to break down old walls between foreign and domestic intelligence activities by creating a new national security division within the Federal Bureau of Investigation that will fall under the overall direction of John D. Negroponte, the new director of national intelligence. The directive by Mr. Bush is aimed at consolidating the power of Mr. Negroponte, whose authority over the F.B.I. had been ambiguous. It also sets in motion a major restructuring designed to dissolve the barriers that have often kept the Central Intelligence Agency and the F.B.I. at arm's length, and elevates intelligence operations to...

Iraq has changed dramatically in the year since my last visit. Earlier this month, I was honored to visit the Coalition leadership in Baghdad, as well as Iraqi Security Forces and U.S. Army and Marine combat units throughout the country. Thanks to an excellent personal security detail, I was able to cover a lot of ground quickly in the extremely violent and tricky environment presented by the ongoing insurgency and the extensive criminal activity faced by military forces, contractors, journalists, as well as the suffering Iraqi civilian population. One thing has not changed in Iraq -- our fighting forces on...

He had been director of the Central Intelligence Agency for just seven months when the onetime CIA spy had to cede much of his power to the new director of national intelligence, John Negroponte. But Porter Goss, 66, says he now has more time to run America's largest human intelligence agency. He sat down for his first interview with TIME's Timothy J. Burger. ..... IT SOUNDS LIKE YOU HAVE A PRETTY GOOD IDEA OF WHERE HE IS. WHERE? I have an excellent idea of where he is. What's the next question?

WASHINGTON - The new National Intelligence Director, John Negroponte, is not yet heeding a top recommendation of the Sept. 11 Commission to tear down barriers that divided U.S. spy agencies, one of the panel's Republican commissioners said Monday. As part of a panel discussion about the progress of intelligence changes, former Navy Secretary John Lehman said Negroponte has two other full-time jobs: serving as the president's chief intelligence adviser and managing the 15 U.S. intelligence agencies. "So far, it's still early days, but the job that we on the 9/11 Commission were most concerned about — we really didn't care...

Prime Minister of Egypt Ahmed Nazif and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw met separately with President Bush at the White House. A grenade thrown toward President Bush in the former Soviet republic of Georgia was live, but failed to explode because of a malfunction, the FBI said today. President's remarks at the RNC Presidential Gala last night. Enjoy your visit to Sanity Island!

Remember the last presidential election? Remember George W. Bush parading about with a newly released State Department “Patterns of Global Terrorism” report showing that global terrorism in 2003 was at its lowest point in 20 years? Ooops. After the election was over, the State Department revised its statistics. It turns out that the global incidence of terrorist attacks in 2003 was actually at its highest point in 20 years. Of course such an honest mistake is easy enough to understand. Highest. Lowest. They both end in “est.” You can see how they can easily be confused. Hiding a Record Breaking...

CSPAN

John Negroponte won overwhelming approval by the Senate Thursday to become the nation's first national intelligence director, a job created last year to better coordinate the nation's spy agencies following the Sept. 11 attacks and other intelligence blunders. Negroponte, 65, has called this his "most challenging assignment" in more than 40 years of government service. The Senate voted 98-2 to give the former Iraq ambassador the job. He takes over an intelligence community that's been criticized in report after report for failures leading up to the attacks of Sept. 11, and for its prewar intelligence on Iraq.

c Intelligence chief nominee now faces vote by full Senate - Walter Pincus, Washington Post Friday, April 15, 2005 Washington -- Members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on Thursday approved the nominations of Ambassador John Negroponte as the nation's first director of national intelligence and Lt. Gen. Michael Hayden as deputy director and sent their names to the Senate for a vote. The closed-door vote means the former Iraq ambassador and longtime diplomat could be in his new job this month. Negroponte's nomination has generated little controversy in Congress. However, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and an intelligence panel...

THE WASHINGTON TIMES The career diplomat nominated to the new post of director of national intelligence told the Senate yesterday he would make reforming spy agencies a major priority. John D. Negroponte, an ambassador with more than 40 years of diplomatic experience, was questioned for about three hours by members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on past intelligence failures, including the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and poor estimates of Iraq's programs to develop weapons of mass destruction. "In the past four years, our homeland has been attacked, and we have miscalculated the arsenal, if not the intent,...

WASHINGTON - President Bush's nominee to be the nation's first intelligence director promised fundamental changes at the 15 agencies he'll oversee and said he would give policy-makers the "unvarnished truth" about threats. "Our intelligence effort has to generate better results. That's my mandate, plain and simple," John Negroponte, a veteran diplomat and former Iraq ambassador, told the Senate Intelligence Committee at his confirmation hearing Tuesday. Democrats, still chafed by the botched intelligence on Iraq, said they were skeptical he could be the independent arbiter of intelligence the nation needs and questioned whether he adequately reported human-rights abuses as ambassador to...

The day after the House voted to halt all aid to rebels fighting to overthrow the Sandinista government of Nicaragua, U.S. Ambassador to Honduras John D. Negroponte urged the president's national security adviser and the CIA director to hang tough. The thrust of the envoy's "back channel" July 1983 message to the men running the contra war against Nicaragua was contained in a single cryptic sentence: "Hondurans believe special project is as important as ever." "Special project" was code for the secret arming of contra rebels from bases in Honduras -- a cause championed by Negroponte, then a rising diplomatic...

Bush to Visit CIA After Director Goss Says He's Not Sure of His Future Role By Tom Raum Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House spoke supportively of CIA Director Porter Goss Thursday despite his suggestion that his job had "a huge amount of ambiguity in it" because of a law reorganizing the intelligence community. Goss and John D. Negroponte, Bush's nominee for a new national post with sweeping oversight responsibilities, "have a good working relationship. I think everybody understands the importance of the reforms we're working to put into place," presidential spokesman Scott McClellan said. President Bush,...

For Immediate ReleaseApril 2, 2005 President's Radio Address      Audio THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. Before I begin today, I would like to say a word about Pope John Paul II. His Holiness is a faithful servant of God and a champion of human dignity and freedom. He is an inspiration to us all. Laura and I join millions of Americans and so many around the world who are praying for the Holy Father. This week, the members of the independent commission looking into America's intelligence capabilities presented their report. I asked these men and women to give an unvarnished look...

WASHINGTON -- John Negroponte, President Bush's choice for intelligence chief, is a multimillionaire who promised last year to sell stock in companies that have business stakes in Iraq's reconstruction, according to his financial disclosure reports. It is unclear from two April reports, Negroponte's most recent filings, whether he followed through on sales of General Electric and other companies helping to rebuild Iraq, where he is U.S. ambassador. The White House did not immediately comment Monday. Less than two weeks ago, Bush asked Negroponte to take on the new job of national intelligence director, bringing together 15 independent intelligence agencies. That...

Human-rights activists say they will wage an assault on the nomination of John Negroponte as national intelligence director based on the former ambassador's service in Latin America in the 1980s. In this nomination fight, Negroponte will be accused, essentially, of being on the right side of history. Negroponte was ambassador to Honduras during the Reagan administration, at the forefront of a spectacularly successful fight to introduce and sustain Western political norms in the region. For this, his reputation has been smeared by left-wing nostalgics who can't get over their opposition to the Reagan policy, let alone admit that it worked....