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Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley yesterday compared President Bush's proposed budget cuts to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, saying that Bush, like the al Qaeda hijackers who crashed planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, has launched an assault on America's cities. "These cuts, ladies and gentlemen, are sad. Irresponsible. They are also dishonest," O'Malley (D) told a packed news conference at the National Press Club, where mayors and area officials had gathered to decry Bush's plan to slash spending on community development programs by $2 billion. "Back on September 11, terrorists attacked our metropolitan cores, two of...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The FBI (news - web sites) does not have enough translators to handle a growing backlog of documents and intercepts in Arabic, Farsi, Urdu and Pashto, a federal audit said on Monday, confirming criticism by U.S. elected officials and experts. An unclassified summary of a July 2004 report by the U.S. Justice Department (news - web sites)'s inspector general said while the FBI has increased the number of translators of languages used in the Middle East, Pakistan and Afghanistan (news - web sites), it still cannot keep up with the backlog of material flowing into the system....

KABUL (Reuters) - More than 20,000 Afghans gathered in Kabul on Wednesday to remember Northern Alliance military commander Ahmad Shah Masood, slain by al Qaeda operatives two days before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. The ceremony at Kabul's National Stadium commemorated the third anniversary of Masood's assassination, and was held a day after campaigning began for Afghanistan (news - web sites)'s first ever presidential election on October 9. Masood, known as "the Lion of the Panjsher," was the military and political leader of the Northern Alliance, a coalition of factions that helped U.S.-led forces overthrow the...

what happened to the black box which was said to have been found from the airoplane, what was said on it. And the fbi said they found a passport of the terroist who flew the plane in the rubble, how is this possible the passprt would have been burnt if in fact it was placed there by someone. And what aboutall the telephone calls made by the people on board the planes, we should have atleast some information about what was said on the conversations. Why hasnt bin laden been caught, its been 3 years and not caught, it was...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Families who lost relatives in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks voiced outrage on Thursday at President Bush (news - web sites)'s first ads of his re-election campaign that use images of the devastated World Trade Center to portray him as the right leader for tumultuous times. "Families are enraged," said Bill Doyle, 57, of New York, who is active in several Sept. 11 family groups. "What I think is distasteful is that the president is trying to use 9/11 as a springboard for his re-election." "It's entirely wrong. He's had 3,500 deaths on his watch, including...

What will it take to win the second great battle of Iraq, the battle against terrorism on Iraqi soil? Thousands of additional Coalition troops and billions of dollars in donor aid will make it easier to hold the line, but I'm afraid it won't be enough, by itself, to ensure another Coalition triumph there in a year or two. We have to add a new element to the mix, and it's not another U.N. resolution. It's another "shock and awe" campaign, this one designed to convince Iraq's neighbors that when we say they must shut off the flow of foreign...

  Documents allege an area link to 9-11 terroristsSaudi met with Ann Arbor-area Muslim group Thursday, March 13, 2003BY STEVE PEPPLE Assistant Metro Editor Just before Sept. 11, 2001, a Saudi Arabian man met with a Muslim group in the Ann Arbor area, then traveled to Virginia, where he stayed in the same hotel as three terrorist hijackers who crashed a jet into the Pentagon, according to newly unsealed federal documents. The documents also allege that Web sites sponsored by the Ypsilanti Township-based Islamic Assembly of North America posted articles advocating terrorism in the months leading up to the...