Military records that Sen. John Kerry posted on his Web site yesterday raise new questions about the actions he took to earn several prestigious war medals and whether he deserved them.

The Navy awarded Mr. Kerry three Purple Hearts, a Silver Star and a Bronze Star in just four months of commanding a gunboat along rivers in Vietnam. It's an extraordinary record, say many veterans, and one that raises questions on its face.

For example, those military records do not show Mr. Kerry ever missing a day of duty for injuries, there is conflict between some of the accounts and Mr. Kerry's presidential campaign still refuses to release some records.

"The idea that John Kerry would have put in for three Purple Hearts during only four months in country is just ridiculous," said Mel Howell from Evansville, Ind., a retired Navy officer who flew helicopters in Vietnam. "Most of us came away with all kinds of scratches like the ones Kerry got but never accepted Purple Hearts for them." . . .

Questions arise such as the conflicting descriptions in official records of the injuries Mr. Kerry sustained on March 13, 1969. It was the commendations he earned that day ? a Bronze Star and a third Purple Heart ? that let Mr. Kerry request a transfer out of Vietnam . . .

The Personnel Casualty Report from that day says Mr. Kerry "suffered shrapnel wounds in his left buttocks and contusions on his right forearm when a mine detonated close aboard" his boat.

But the citation for the Bronze Star that he was awarded for the same action described "his arm bleeding and in pain," saying nothing about arm bruises or shrapnel wounds anywhere.

"I don't want to say it's a lie, but it isn't true," said Charles Kaufman, a retired Air Force captain whose job once was to submit military award requests.

"His Bronze Star medal citation appears to be based on an injury he did not receive," said Mr. Kaufman, who now lives in Germany. "His arm was not bleeding. If the paperwork had said, 'Kerry had a bruised arm,' I wonder if he would have been given this medal for bravery?"
[...]
Yesterday, Mr. Kerry still refused to release medical records that more thoroughly describe the injuries. . . . The campaign won't release one document, called a "Sick Call Treatment Record," officials allowed the Associated Press to view it earlier this week. It said: "Shrapnel in left arm above elbow. Shrapnel removed and appl[ied] bacitracin dressing. Ret[urned] to duty."

"If it only required bacitracin and a Band-Aid, it sounds like a piece of hot shrapnel that was flying around and may not have even broken the skin," said Mr. Waller, adding that he'd never heard of a shrapnel injury that didn't require a tetanus shot and time off leading to a Purple Heart.

It was Mr. Kerry's first injury that already is the source of serious questions raised by his commanding officer at the time, Grant Hibbard.

Mr. Hibbard . . . Hibbard declined requests yesterday to be interviewed by The Washington Times, but he told the Boston Globe that Mr. Kerry's injuries were too minor to qualify for a Purple Heart.

"He had a little scratch on his forearm, and he was holding a piece of shrapnel."

It is an uncommon day when the nation's second-largest provider of voting systems concedes that its flagship products in California have significant security flaws and that it supplied hundreds of poorly designed electronic-voting devices that disenfranchised voters in the March presidential primary.

Diebold Election Services Inc. president Bob Urosevichadmitted this and more, and apologized "for any embarrassment."

"We were caught. We apologize for that," Urosevich said.

The tribunal that will try former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein has begun to take shape with the appointment of a 41-year-old US-trained Iraqi magistrate as head of the court.

Salem Chalabi, a graduate of Yale University, is the nephew of Ahmad Chalabi, a Shiite member of the US-appointed interim Governing Council known for his close links to the Pentagon and staunch opposition to Saddam's regime.

The council chose him last week to head the special court, Entifadh Qanbar, a spokesman for Ahmad Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress (INC) party, had said on Tuesday.

Bush is celebrating Earth Day by highlighting efforts to help wetlands at a Maine nature reserve in Wells. The government has estimated that wetlands overall are being lost at the rate of 100-thousand acres a year, despite pledges by successive administrations to develop policies to end the decline.

Bush is calling for at least one million acres of wetlands to be restored and created, one million acres to be improved, and one million acres to be protected over the next five years.

A U.S. contractor and her husband have been fired after her photograph of 20 flag-draped coffins of American troops going home from Iraq was published in violation of military rules.

"I lost my job and they let my husband go as well," Tami Silicio, who loaded U.S. military cargo at Kuwait International Airport for a U.S. company, told Reuters in an e-mail response to questions.

The Pentagon tightly restricts publication of photographs of coffins with the remains of U.S. troops and has forbidden journalists from taking pictures at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, the first stop for the bodies of troops being sent home.

Security bosses let thousands of al Qaida members into the UK during the 1990s, former spy David Shayler has claimed.

The renegade ex-MI5 agent, who was jailed for selling top secret documents to a newspaper, also claimed some of the terrorists were granted British citizenship . . .

He based his claims on information from French security service officials, who Shayler said, warned their British counterparts that al Qaida terrorists were trying to get into the country. . . .

Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), a Vietnam War veteran and an influential member of the Foreign Relations Committee, wants the United States to consider reviving the draft as part of a broader effort to ensure that all Americans "bear some responsibility" and "pay some price" in defending the nation's interests.

At a committee hearing Tuesday and in subsequent interviews, Hagel said he is not advocating reinstatement of the draft, although he added that he is "not so sure that isn't a bad idea."

His main interest, he said, is to make sure that some kind of mandatory national service is considered [for] fighting wars of the future.
[...]
Legislation has been introduced in both chambers to revive the draft, which was ended in 1973 as the Vietnam War wound down and subsequently was replaced by an all-volunteer army. The bills are sponsored by Sen. Ernest F. Hollings (D-S.C.) and Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.).
[...]
Hagel said. . . the country is "making commitments for future years that we cannot fulfill" in fighting terrorism and trying to rid the world of weapons of mass destruction. Already 40 percent of the ground troops in Iraq come from the National Guard and reserves, and recruitment and retention will be a problem, he said.

Moreover, he said, all Americans should be asked to "share the sacrifice" of protecting their country. "It's unfair to ask only a few people to bear the burden of fighting and dying," he said.

Also, a mandatory national service requirement for civilian as well as military work could help meet many needs at home at the same time that it is providing personnel for the armed forces, Hagel said.

Political Conversation: Condi’s Slip
A pressing issue of dinner-party etiquette is vexing Washington, according to a story now making the D.C. rounds: How should you react when your guest, in this case national-security adviser Condoleezza Rice, makes a poignant faux pas? At a recent dinner party hosted by New York Times D.C. bureau chief Philip Taubman and his wife, Times reporter Felicity Barringer, and attended by Arthur Sulzberger Jr., Maureen Dowd, Steven Weisman, and Elisabeth Bumiller, Rice was reportedly overheard saying, “As I was telling my husb—” and then stopping herself abruptly, before saying, “As I was telling President Bush.” Jaws dropped, but a guest says the slip by the unmarried politician, who spends weekends with the president and his wife, seemed more psychologically telling than incriminating. Nobody thinks Bush and Rice are actually an item. A National Security Council spokesman laughed and said, “No comment.” [via c0balt]

MR. RUSSERT: Before we go, you and George Bush were both members of Skull & Bones, the secret society at Yale. The rule is, if someone mentions Skull & Bones, you walk out of the room. If you're both in a...

SEN. KERRY: You trying to get rid of me here?

MR. RUSSERT: You're both in a presidential debate and the moderator says "Skull & Bones," you both leave the podiums?

SEN. KERRY: I doubt it.

MR. RUSSERT: You'll hang in there.

SEN. KERRY: I think you'll see both of us have our two--you know I'd love to have a debate with the president [blah blah blah blah blah blah]

MR. RUSSERT: Senator John Kerry, thank you for your views.

SEN. KERRY: Thank you.

Mr. RUSSERT: And we'll be right back.

A Secret Service document written shortly after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing described security video footage of the attack and witness testimony that suggested Timothy McVeigh may have had accomplices at the scene.

"Security video tapes from the area show the truck detonation 3 minutes and 6 seconds after the suspects exited the truck," the Secret Service reported six days after the attack on a log of agents' activities and evidence in the Oklahoma investigation.
[...]
significant evidence kept secret for nine years
[...]
Secret Service spokesman Charles Bopp declined to discuss the video footage . . .

Other documents obtained by AP show the Secret Service in late 1995 gave prosecutors several computer disks of enhanced digital photographs of the Murrah building, intelligence files on several subjects in the investigation and a file detailing an internal affairs inquiry concerning an agent who reconstructed key phone evidence against McVeigh. . . .

Lawyers for Nichols say they have never been given the security video, photo disks or internal investigative file referenced in the documents.
[...]
The only video prosecutors introduced at trial showed the Ryder truck without any visible passengers as it passed a security camera inside a high-rise apartment building a block away from the Murrah building.

But the Secret Service log reported on April 24 and April 25, 1995, that there was security footage showing the Ryder truck pulling up to the Murrah building. The log does not say where such video came from or who possessed it.

A log entry on April 25 states that the security footage allowed agents to determine the time that elapsed between suspects leaving the truck and the explosion.
[...]
"A witness to the explosion named Grossman claimed to have seen a pale yellow Mercury car with a Ryder truck behind it pulling up to the federal building," the log said. The witness "further claimed to have seen a woman on the corner waving to the truck." . . .

"It is speculated that the woman was signaling the truck when a slot became available."

Defenbaugh said the FBI had talked to several witnesses suggesting two people had left the truck
[...]
a woman working in Murrah's Social Security (news - web sites) office who was rescued from the rubble and a driver outside the building both reported to the FBI seeing two men leave the truck, according to government documents.
[...]

The United States is bracing for possible terrorist attacks before the November presidential election, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said Sunday.

The opportunity for terrorists to try to influence the election, as was the case last month in Spain, appears to be an opportunity that would "be too good to pass up for them," Rice said.

Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, promised President Bush the Saudis would cut oil prices before November to ensure the U.S. economy is strong on election day, journalist Bob Woodward said in a television interview Sunday.

[..]

Questioned about his assertion at a time when oil prices are nearing a 13-year high, Woodward responded:

"They're high. And they could go down very quickly. That's the Saudi pledge. Certainly over the summer or as we get closer to the election they could increase production several million barrels a day and the price would drop significantly."

For the first time in its nearly 25 years, C-SPAN is considering a delay on its phone lines to avoid an unacceptable comment slipping out during call-in shows.

"We're actually having some serious problems in the last month that worry us," says Brian Lamb, president and CEO of the network of three public affairs channels supported by the cable TV industry. "And if it doesn't stop, we're going to have to get a delay."

"Blood, Money & Power: How LBJ Killed JFK," my book on the assassination, centers on 68 exhibits showing a lifetime conspiracy between Lyndon B. Johnson and Ed Clark (the "secret boss of Texas)," a 1961 murder case with LBJ an unindicted co-conspirator, and the fingerprint match for Mac Wallace, one of three assassins. With a deep look into the sordid facts from LBJ's inner sanctum, we analyze the crime scene and conclude with a jury argument connecting the facts, leaving the reader to decide.

Most Americans have decided. The latest Gallup Poll shows only 11 percent believe in lone nuts.
[...]
Last November, Nigel Turner presented "The Guilty Men" on the History Channel, featuring 11 witnesses and researchers showing LBJ's involvement.
Jack Valenti and Bill Moyers, representing the LBJ interests, tried to cancel the series.
The History Channel refused, pointing out that the facts were "overwhelmingly researched," that free speech was to be protected, and that Valenti could prepare a response. Censorship failed.

The series, part of Turner's award-winning documentary, "The Men Who Killed Kennedy," proved a best-seller. In January, Valenti tried again, this time bringing far more pressure. The History Channel gave in, naming three historians to review the series.

My book was not mentioned; however, since I appear in "The Guilty Men," I offered full cooperation to the review panel even though one member had already stated LBJ had nothing to do with the assassination.

We have received no response.
Recently we learned the History Channel has pulled "The Guilty Men" and will not sell it again.

There is no longer a reason for the review panel. What we should see is blocked. This ridiculous censorship says we are getting closer to what happened in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963.

April 8

April 15 part one

April 15 part two

Ever since first opposing the commission's formation, the Bush administration has clashed with the 10-member bipartisan panel over a range of access issues, including aviation records and presidential intelligence briefings.

May 18-19, 2004
Emergency Response
New York City

The 9-11 Plot
New York City

June 8-9, 2004 National Crisis Management
Washington, DC