Some of the same personnel who worked in the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans (OSP), which reviewed intelligence for evidence allegedly linking Saddam to the al Qaeda terrorist group and weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs before the Iraq invasion, have reportedly been working on a similar effort regarding Syria. David Wurmser, a neoconservative who has long advocated destabilizing Damascus through Lebanon and Iraq, joined Cheney's staff as his Mideast adviser last September. An administration ally, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, also suggested this week that Iraq's alleged WMD stockpiles were transported to Syria before the war.

McVeigh, the argument ran, had some help from Nichols and another friend from army days, Michael Fortier, but essentially he carried out the bombing alone. No accomplices, no broader network of conspirators, nothing. Case closed, as far as the government was concerned.
Now imagine the scene all over again, this time with extra details supplied by eyewitnesses interviewed in the immediate aftermath of the bombing and by the investigative work of a handful of journalists, lawyers and academics who have spent the past six years going over every detail of the calamity to try to wheedle out its mysteries.
McVeigh was found in just 48 hours, largely thanks to the fact he had been pulled over on the freeway for a missing back licence plate and remanded in police custody for possession of an illegal concealed weapon.

The Army is so strained that it has pulled up more than 100,000 reservists for long stretches, doubled the length of deployments for regular military and ordered tens of thousands of soldiers to remain in the service involuntarily. With some commanders in Iraq complaining publicly that they are short the soldiers they need, more than two dozen House Democrats have backed a bill to add about 82,000 troops ? 40,000 soldiers, 27,000 airmen and 15,000 Marines ? to the congressionally approved limit of 482,000.
This week, in an unexpected move that military officials say will relieve some of the stress on the force, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld invoked emergency orders authorizing the Army to grow temporarily by 30,000 troops.
Base pay, bonuses, special pay and allowances for things like food and on-base housing ? plus the advantage troops receive because some allowances are not subject to federal income tax ? typically make up only 43% of a service member's total compensation.
The other 57% is made up of subsidized goods and services that can be used immediately, such as medical care, groceries and child care, along with the accrued cost of retirement pensions, healthcare for retirees and veterans benefits.
Benefits aside, members of the military average $43,000 a year in pay

Americans believe that they are free until they encounter the ?justice? system, at which time they learn that they are as helpless as medieval serfs.

? KABUL, Afghanistan -- The Afghan president said a recent U.S. airstrike killed 10 civilians, including women and children, contradicting American military reports that claimed the casualties were Taliban militants. Meanwhile, the U.S. military said a blast at an arms dump that killed eight soldiers appeared to have been an accident. President Hamid Karzai said an Interior Ministry report had found that the Jan. 17 airstrike on a village killed 10 civilians. U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty said a review of the report was underway.

In all, some 107 U.S. soldiers have died 37 of them in combat during Operation Enduring Freedom that began in Afghanistan in late 2001.