The Daily MuckThough the CIA recently asserted that Bhutto was assassinated by al-Qaida, Dell Dailey, the State Department’s counterterrorism chief admits that “there’s gaps in intelligence,” because “we don’t have enough information about what’s going on there. Not on al-Qaida. Not on foreign fighters. Not on the Taliban.” Dailey said this makes him “uncomfortable,” especially since more than 40% of Pakistanis support or feel sympathetic to al-Qaida. (ABC’s “The Blotter”)
Already facing a variety of legal problems, Blackwater may soon be facing financial ones as well. The security company’s contract with the State Department runs out in May and with the ongoing investigations into the company’s activities in Iraq – and the possibility of indictments in the future – it’s possible that the contract will not be renewed. (Time)
Though one might consider suicide to be the ultimate bad side effect of any drug, for decades the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has paid scant attention to the psychiatric impact of medicines. The FDA has changed course and set new rules – perhaps the “most profound changes of the past 16 years” – but the agency’s new policies remain hidden from the public because FDA oversight of experimental drugs is conducted in secrecy. (New York Times)
A new Congressional Budget Office report, which projects huge deficits for 2008, states that “funding for U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and other activities in the war on terrorism expanded significantly in 2007.” Senate Budget Chairman Kent Conrad (D-ND) remarked that the war spending “keeps going up, up and away.” Since September 11, 2001 more than $691 billion has been spent on Iraq on Afghanistan. (CQ Politics, Reuters)
A GAO audit has found that a defense contractor worked 188,000 extra hours at a cost of $4.2 million to repair equipment that failed military inspection after it was supposed to have already been fixed. The audit does not name the contractor, but the Associated Press reports that it was ITT Federal Services International. (AP)
Representative Jeff Flake (R-AZ) hopes to repair the Republican party’s bad reputation on fiscal responsibility and shame Democrats by changing a rule in the House Republican Conference that would put a moratorium on earmarks. (The Hill)
Highway Watch, an anti-terrorism program started in 2004, is coming under criticism after an audit from the Homeland Security inspector general found “that over 10 months the program spent nearly $10 million on administration and marketing, even though it had only about 14 direct employees.” The program has been run by a lobbying group for trucking companies, the American Trucking Association, who received a no-bid contract in 2004. (The Politico)
It turns out that U.S. astronauts are not heading off into space while intoxicated. Though a report last year mentioned two unconfirmed stories of impaired astronauts taking to the air, a new survey shows no evidence of drunkenness among astronauts immediately before blast off. (New York Times)
As Rudy Giuliani’s presidential campaign continues to implode, the Los Angeles Times now asserts that “the man who titled his autobiography “Leadership” proved to be masterfully reactive to crisis but sketchier in preparing for the unknown.” September 11, the paper continues, was a “public- safety meltdown caused not only by the streaking suicide planes, but in part because of lapses that occurred on Giuliani’s watch.” (LA Times)
As a result of a ruling from an information tribunal, the British Foreign Office reportedly will release a draft of the British government’s dossier on Iraq’s (nonexistent) WMD. Maybe this will help the Senate Intelligence Committee with its long awaited “Phase II” review of whether the White House misled Americans in selling the Iraq war. (The View, Think Progress)
Two disgraced former Republican governors are in the news today. Former Governor John Rowland (R-CT) (resigned amid an impeachment probe and served time in federal prison) will begin a marketing job for the City of Waterbury, CT. Recall that that Waterbury’s Republican mayor Philip Giordano was sentenced to 37 years in prison in 2003. Meanwhile, former Illinois Governor George Ryan has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse his racketeering and fraud conviction. (USA Today, NBC 30, Boston Globe)
