The National Security Archive has just released a Load of Files Electronic Briefing Book No. 253 Posted - August 20, 2008 under the title: 1998 Missile Strikes on Bin Laden May Have Backfired with a subtitle: Extensive 1999 Report on Al-Qaeda Threat Released by U.S. Dept of Energy, Taliban Told U.S. They Wanted to Bomb Washington

With backlinks to the PDF's and more links in the sidebar on the left.

Every week I read out of the way, oddly related stories that remind me what an abject barbecue republic America has become under young Mr. Bush's stewardship. Here are a few of the latest ones.

First up is an item that apparently only James Gordon Meek of the New York Daily News and MSNBC's Keith Olbermann cared enough about to report. On August 2 Meek wrote "In the immediate aftermath of the 2001 anthrax attacks, White House officials repeatedly pressed FBI Director Robert Mueller to prove it was a second-wave assault by Al Qaeda, but investigators ruled that out."

After New York Sun photo editor Robert Stevens died from anthrax exposure in October 2001, Mueller was "beaten up" during Bush's morning intelligence briefs for not manufacturing proof that bin Laden was behind the attack of the killer spores. Meek's source, a retired senior FBI official, said, "They really wanted to blame somebody in the Middle East."

By the time Bush was bullying Mueller to cook the evidence on the Anthrax scare, according to the ex-FBI man, the Bureau already knew that the anthrax concealed in mail to media figures and a U.S. Senator was a military strain of the bio-weapon. The ex-official said, "They couldn't go from box cutters one week to weapons-grade anthrax the next."

No, and they couldn't go from box cutters to city buster nuclear weapons very quickly either, but that didn't stop the administration from planting visions of mushroom clouds in our heads to justify their Iraq invasion.

You probably already knew this, but sometimes it's nice to get affirmation that yeah, you were right. A recently released study by the non-partisan Rand Corporation titled How Terrorist Groups End shows that young Mr. Bush's anti-terror strategy hasn't significantly undermined al Qaeda's capabilities.

As news goes, that's hardly shock or awe, is it?

On the 29th of July an extremely important think tank report, paid for by the government, came forth from the Rand Corporation, a favorite of the Pentagon on National Security matters.

I heard the report early that morning on a news blip on NPR and went over to the Rand Site and found the report. I then posted about it on a number of sites as well as sent it out, all with back links.

The title above comes from a new Rand Corporation Report

promoted -- cho

Following what has been going on in Iraq and trying to follow Afghanistan, with the little, until recently, we get about that theater, I've had a growing uneasy feeling.

I was going to post a followup to a recent post I had done referancing some disturbing news, but suspected, out of Afganistan. That post, a few days ago, followed the extremely sad news about the loss of the nine soldiers, fifteen injured, in a battle at a small fire base they held by Afgan insugents. This U.S. Abandons Site of Afghan Attack is a recent report on that and as the title says the American forces abandoned the base.

By now most every knows of the sad news, for the U.S. Military, of the 9 Americans Killed in the Afghan Attack, with 15 wounded as well as others at the firebase.

If so, looks like the 'boogeyman' will be letting our Troops follow it to the homeland:

Intelligence Officials: Dozens of Europeans Have Trained in Terror Camps in Pakistan
Officials Fear This May be the Beginnings of a New Breed of al-Qaeda-Affiliated Terrorism