The former Director of the Criminal Justice Center at the National Center for Policy Analysis, showed that the defendants conspired to create a false cover story of suicide hijackings in order to "blow the World Trade Center to kingdom come" with explosives-a shock-and-awe psy-op designed to coerce the American people into supporting a pre-planned "long war" in the Middle East, massive increases in military spending, and the rollback of Constitutional civil liberties.

Reynolds stated that everyone in the worldwide intelligence community knew that 9/11 was an inside job as soon as it happened, with the obvious stand-down of US air defenses, controlled demolition of the World Trade Center, and non-protection of the President in Florida being the biggest tip-offs. The head of the Russian equivalent of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the former head of the German intelligence service Andreas Von Bulow, former National Security Agency official Wayne Madsen, and former MI-6 agent David Schayler have all openly called 9/11 an inside job, while former CIA official Ray McGovern has confirmed this directly in private, and indirectly in public by way of his ringing endorsement of David Ray Griffin's work on 9/11.

Reynolds, who served as George W. Bush's Labor Department Chief Economist in 2001-2002, believes that a 9/11 truth victory is looming on the near-term horizon. He predicted that one or more of the 9/11 insiders will soon "give it up" and come forward with what they know, saying "Remember, you heard it here first." He said that most of those complicit in the attacks did not realize how over-the-top the plot was, due to the need-to-know compartmentalization of such covert operations, and that some semi-complicit individuals will probably be coming forward. Reynolds said that most of his email acquaintances are now worried that the 9/11 truth movement is going to win, triggering the greatest Constitutional crisis in U.S. history. For Reynolds, this is less a cause for worry than for rejoicing: "We need a Constitutional crisis!"

Reynolds argued that 9/11 truth is a matter of extreme urgency, since the perpetrators seem to be preparing another 9/11-style terror hoax as a pretext for attacking Iran with nuclear weapons. He said that exposing the 9/11 fraud is the best way to stop Cheney's plan to stage an unprovoked nuclear attack on Iran, and the military draft and Pinochet-style prison camps and death squads for dissenters that might accompany it.

Reynolds urged the audience to help educate the American public about the 9/11 inside job. Personal contact with family and friends, the internet, alternative Media, and public events like this are all good educational strategies, he said, adding that a demonstration of 100,000 9/11 truth supporters at Ground Zero next year would be hard for the Media to ignore.

Politicians and the Media will help expose the 9/11 inside job, he said, only after the growing grassroots movement reaches critical mass. The organizers of Reynolds' talk urged audience members to come to the upcoming international 9/11 truth conference in Chicago, 9/11: Revealing the Truth, Reclaiming Our Future, June 2nd-4th, 2006: http://911revealingthetruth.org

But for starters, let us consider the unenviable record of Porter Goss at the CIA. From the beginning of his tenure, Goss has been criticized for politicizing the agency. He brought a bunch of political hacks with him for staff, one of whom turns out to be the poker player called "Nine Fingers." And in the end, he was probably fired for not having politicized the agency sufficiently.

What is the point of politicizing an intelligence agency? So the CIA officials would get a report from some agent in Iraq saying, "Looks bad." The first thing they'd ask was, "Is this agent a Republican or a Democrat?"

Maybe there really are conservatives who believe everything in Iraq is hunky-dory and there's a giant media conspiracy to hide the joyous tidings. But as you may recall, the ever-nimble minds at Donny Rumsfeld's shop have already tried paying public relations people to invent good news about Iraq and then plant it in newspapers there -- it didn't work. In fact, it was so stupid it was humiliating. Fortunately, the Pentagon was once again able to investigate itself and determine it had done nothing illegal.

So now they're turning the CIA over to a general who not only ran the warrantless wiretap program but still can't figure out that it's unconstitutional. Why do I get the feeling this is W. and Karl again flipping the finger at some grown-up they don't like?

Gen. Michael Hayden had mixed reviews as director of the National Security Agency -- he's evidently not a good manager, which makes him a perfect Bushie. But is he straightforward enough to have admitted that some warrantless spying has been done for political reasons? None of the usual Washington insiders seems to have a bead on this. Hayden would theoretically report to John Negroponte, Bush's supposed intelligence czar. Negroponte is widely considered worthless. His major achievement so far seems to be organizational charts and buying furniture.

You know me, no conspiracy theories here, but the Bush administration, which doesn't seem to be able to run much, set out to retool the CIA after 9/11 and the Iraq war. Problem is, everything that worked at the CIA -- that it warned about 9/11 and said the Iraq war was a bad idea -- was on the hit list. The Bushies wanted to eliminate the people who were right and promote those who were wrong. This is no way to shape up an intelligence agency, not to mention the White House spit fit over Joe Wilson's wife.

Next, we need to contemplate sincere, old-fashioned, non-ideological greed, theft and bribery. In the beginning, there was only Duke Cunningham, the high-living, fun-loving super-patriot congressman from San Diego. His yacht was called The Duke-Stir, and he had nice taste in 19th century French commodes. While we all are happy to see our elected representatives enjoying themselves in Washington, that's real people's money. Actually, the yacht and commode were paid for by defense contractor Brent Wilkes (keep an eye on that player). It was people's money that paid for the defense contracts Wilkes allegedly bribed public officials into landing for his clients.

The former inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security, Clark Kent Ervin -- that would be the DHS equivalent of a police department's internal affairs chief -- tried to blow the whistle on shady contracts at DHS and instead was thrown overboard himself. Folks, we'll never get government straightened out again if we don't keep the IGs strong and independent.

If the Bush administration continues to fall apart at this clip, I think we'll be grateful for incompetence as an excuse.

The 37,000-officer NYPD, the nation's largest, has increasingly turned to technology in a bid to preserve steep declines in reports of serious crime since the early 1990s. Earlier this month, it installed the first of hundreds of surveillance cameras expected to keep an eye on high-crime neighborhoods.

The crime center was launched last year based on the theory that real-time tips would "increase the likelihood that we can catch criminals before they strike again," Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.

Detectives once needed days or weeks to knock on doors, work the phones and analyze data, often sifting through paper records by hand as suspects roamed free. Now, officials say, they have instantaneous access to computerized records.

The database describing tattoos of convicted criminals is the tip of the high-tech iceberg at detectives' disposal. It contains 120 million city records of criminal complaints, warrants and 911 calls dating back 10 years. It also has 5 million state criminal and parole records and 35 billion property and other public records.

The center also uses satellite imaging and computerized mapping systems to identify geographic patterns of crimes, and to pinpoint possible addresses where suspects might flee - information relayed to investigators on the street via phone or wireless laptop computer.

"We begin working on a case before the detectives even arrive at a crime scene," said Deputy Chief Joseph D'Amico, the center's commanding officer.

On a recent day, detectives used the tattoo database to help hunt a robbery suspect whose description featured a "Mom" tattoo on his arm.

Flashed up on a giant wall of flat-screen monitors was a spreadsheet of 16 names, each followed by "arm" in one column, "Mom" in the next. The list would be narrowed down, in part by using other records to determine which of the men were already behind bars, the chief said.

In the case of the pizza restaurant robbery, a check of "Sugar" showed it was a tattoo mostly preferred by prostitutes. An exception was a known robber with a known address.

The suspect's mug shot was rushed out to investigators in the field. The restaurant manager confirmed he was the bandit. The man was soon in custody.

Case closed.

The RTCC also proved instrumental in February when patrolmen came across a flipped car in Queens. The driver had fled, leaving behind a fatally wounded passenger.

A check of the license plate came back with a name and a dubious upstate address. The center's computers crunched the name and produced another address in Brooklyn. When police showed up at the door, the driver answered, his clothes still caked in blood. Elapsed time: two hours.

The investigation was among more than 900 that the center has assisted so far this year, D'Amico said. The department expects that number to grow as old-school detectives adopt the new approach.

"Some guys don't want to give up their typewriters for computers," he said. "I tell them this is the future. You can't fight it."

They also highlighted anew the confusion about the levees' status in the critical hours after the storm. Critics have questioned whether discovering breaches earlier could have speeded repair efforts, lessened flooding and saved lives.

At one point early that morning, Brown reported to an aide that he was "sitting in the chair, putting mousse in my hair" while waiting for media interviews to begin.

A few hours later, at 9:50 a.m., a FEMA staffer at the
National Hurricane Center sent department brass an alert from a local TV station report that "a levee breach occurred along the industrial canal" near the city's low-income Ninth Ward.

But at 12:09 p.m., Brown dismissed the report and suggested that the situation wasn't so bad. "I'm being told here water over not a breach," he said, referring to floodwaters which had overrun - but not broken - the levees.

The aide, Michael Lowder, replied: "Ok. You probably have better info there. Just wanted to pass you what we hear."

Brown did not immediately respond to messages left on his cell phone and e-mail Tuesday.

Since quitting FEMA on Sept. 12, Brown has sharply criticized the Bush administration for failing to respond quickly to reports about levee breaches. He has said previously he was convinced of a levee breach by 1 p.m. the day Katrina roared ashore.

The timing of the levees breach has been a key issue in exhaustive reviews of the government's failure to respond quickly to Katrina. The White House was alerted about breach reports by 6 p.m., but the administration confirmed the damage the next morning. In its February "lessons learned" report, the White House maintained that some uncertainty remains about the specific times of the breaches.

The 928 pages of documents, which were released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by the Washington-based government watchdog group, encompass all of Brown's e-mails over a 14-day period before and after Katrina hit.

Many of the e-mails obtained by the Center for Public Integrity were previously released by congressional panels investigating the government's response to the Katrina disaster. But several documents offered fresh details of missteps by the beleaguered agency, which the Senate
Homeland Security Committee has recently recommended be disbanded.

"These e-mails are part of the record of our investigation that led us to conclude that Michael Brown failed to lead FEMA to respond effectively to Hurricane Katrina and at the same time kept the Department of Homeland Security in the dark," said Jen Burita, spokeswoman for Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who chairs the panel.

Brown's own schedule was booked with media interviews in the days immediately before and after the storm. At 6:21 a.m. the day Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast, Brown was prepping for an interview and e-mailing with his then-deputy, Patrick Rhode.

"Yea, sitting in the chair, putting mousse in my hair," Brown e-mailed Rhode.

"Me too!" Rhode replied.

Brown was also juggling a meeting request from a lawmaker-turned-lobbyist, former Sen. Tim Hutchinson, R-Ark., the day Katrina hit.

"I am certain your (sic) are overwhelmed by the situation regarding Hurricane Katrina," Hutchinson wrote Brown on an e-mail received at 1:48 p.m. on Aug. 29. "I apologize for bothering you at this critical time and for going directly to you about this. ... I would yery (sic) much appreciate being able to bring the President of Blu-Med Response Systems, Gerritt Boyle, in to meet with you as soon as your schedule permits."

The documents do not indicate that Brown responded to Hutchinson's request. But at another point, Brown showed special attention to the Mississippi area when a powerful political figure called.

"Bill, sorry to ping you, but can you give me some ground info on trailers, etc. in MS? Have what you need? Are they getting them to you? Just a status report. Need to call (Mississippi Sen.) Trent Lott back and want some good Intel before doing so," Brown wrote in a Sept. 7 e-mail to one of his staff.

Nine minutes later, Brown received the update.

Some e-mails also offered a window into the power struggle between FEMA and the Homeland Security Department, its parent agency, as to who was in charge.

On Sept. 4, press aide Sharon Worthy wrote to Brown, referring to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, "CBS radio on Sec. Chertoff ... saying federal government in charge of New Orleans. Does mean he is or is it you?" Brown did not reply.

Other e-mails show Brown expressing frustration as he and FEMA came under public attack purportedly for not doing enough to help black New Orleans residents and neglecting abandoned pets.

"I am tired, no, angered by charges of racism. You know that neither me nor anyone associated with me is a racist. Grrrr," Brown wrote in a Sept. 7 e-mail to Worthy, before adding lightheartedly, "How was that Sonic burger?"

State Farm's policies cover wind damage, but storm surge is considered flood water and is excluded from coverage.

The report, which Dallas-based HAAG Engineering Co. prepared for State Farm, is "patently biased" because it concludes that Katrina's storm surge arrived before its wind could do any damage, the lawsuit argues.

"State Farm nonetheless referred to this report as the 'Bible,' and expected and coerced all of its adjusters and engineers ... to reach conclusions consistent with the HAAG report," the lawsuit alleges.

State Farm spokesman Phil Supple said he couldn't immediately respond to the lawsuit's allegations because he hadn't reviewed it yet.

HAAG spokesman David Margulies dismissed the allegations as part of a "litigation strategy" and said the engineering firm "has a long history of providing unbiased information."

"The reports are based on what happened," he said. "Unfortunately, sometimes people don't like the experts' information, so they blame the experts."

Richard "Dickie" Scruggs, a high-profile lawyer who is suing four other insurance companies for denying claims after Katrina, filed the suit in federal court on behalf of 669 State Farm policyholders.

Scruggs claims many of the State Farm adjusters who inspected homes in Katrina's early aftermath told homeowners that wind damaged their houses hours before any water from the Mississippi Sound surged onto land.

But the insurer rejected their findings and fired, transferred or reassigned many of those adjusters, the lawsuit alleges.

Scruggs' suit also claims State Farm "extorted" engineering firms by refusing to pay them if their conclusions conflicted the HAAG report. In addition, the action accuses the insurer of hiding or shredding engineering reports that blamed damage on wind.

"State Farm intentionally suborned and encouraged the corruption of scientific investigation and accepted physical realities ... to achieve the desired result of blanket denials of coverage," his lawsuit states.

Scruggs, who represents nearly 3,000 homeowners on the coast, also has sued Allstate Insurance Co., Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. and United Services Automobile Association. Before Tuesday, however, fewer than a dozen of his clients were named as plaintiffs in those suits.

Last month, a federal judge dealt a blow to Scruggs' suit against Allstate when he ruled that the company's policy provisions excluding damage from Katrina's flood waters are "valid and enforceable."

This colocation is especially important for the first ships in the class as waterfront facilities, infrastructure, training and maintenance efficiencies are developed. San Diego was chosen as the initial homeport because of the Navy's increased emphasis on the Pacific theater based on the Quadrennial Defense Review.

"Homeporting the first four ships in San Diego will enable us to establish synergy between the ships and with local commands," said Vice Adm. Terry Etnyre, commander, Naval Surface Forces, based in Coronado, Calif. "With the Undersea Warfare Command here in San Diego and the Mine Warfare Command moving here soon, the undersea warfare and mine warfare mission packages will have direct coordination and representation locally."

LCS will carry some core capabilities such as self-defense and command and control, but its true war-fighting capability will come from its innovative and tailored mission modules. These ships will be configured for one mission package at a time, consisting of modules, manned aircraft, unmanned vehicles, off-board sensors, and mission-manning detachments. This will operate within open-systems architecture, giving it the capability to reconfigure mission modules and ship systems to tailor it for specific warfighting missions.

The Littoral Combat Ships are the first Navy vessels to separate capability from hull form and provide a robust, affordable, mission-focused warship designed to provide assured access for our joint forces. LCS will have the size, speed, endurance, and connectivity to deploy as a member of carrier strike groups, expeditionary strike groups or surface strike groups.

The innovative concepts in LCS do not end with its modularity. LCS will operate with a quarter of the crew normally assigned to ships this size through a combination of technology and process improvements for maintenance, logistics, training and administration.

The keel for the first Littoral Combat Ship, to be named USS Freedom (LCS 1), was laid June 3, 2005, and the second, to be named USS Independence (LCS 2), Jan. 19, 2006.

Both the Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, which signed the latest renewal agreement and the main opposition Liberal Party backed the renewal of the agreement in a vote Monday night in the Canadian House of Commons, the main chamber of the Canadian parliament. The NORAD pact was approved by an overwhelming majority of 257 to 30 in the 308-seat parliament.

The new treaty was signed on April 29 in Ottawa by the Canadian Defense Minister Gordon O'Connor and U.S. Ambassador to Canada David Wilkins. It not only renews the venerable NORAD pact - a key U.S. military agreement through the decades of the Cold War, but significantly upgrades it.

NORAD was previously renewed every five years, but the new agreement eliminates this requirement by making it a permanent alliance. However, both countries still retain the right of periodic review and can drop out with a year's notice, the Globe and Mail newspaper in Toronto reported Tuesday.

That has drawn criticism from several quarters, even the politician who sponsored the law and has generally supported Sheriff Arpaio's position.

"That was not our intent," said the sponsor, State Representative Jonathan Paton, a Republican, who added that he would prefer to detain smuggled immigrants under trespassing laws, a move lawmakers are considering under a package of bills intended to crack down on illegal immigration.

Take a border state wrestling with the effects of a surge of illegal immigrants. Add Sheriff Arpaio and his unorthodox, well-chronicled brand of law enforcement - he forces male and female inmates to wear pink underwear, among other often-questioned tactics. And watch the sparks fly.

"I have compassion for the Mexican people, but if you come here illegally you are going to jail," said Sheriff Arpaio, an elected Republican, whose county is the fourth most populous in the country and among the fastest growing.

To avoid suggestions that deputies practice racial profiling, the sheriff has ordered them to find probable cause, usually a minor traffic infraction, before pulling over suspect vehicles.

Lawyers and advocates for the jailed immigrants, several of whom are challenging their arrests, take a different view.

"It's really an attempt to intimidate immigrants by threatening and imposing incarceration," said Victoria Lopez, executive director of the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project.

Peter Schey, a lawyer from Los Angeles hired by the Mexican consulate here to represent some of the detainees, said, "This sheriff is not the director of homeland security, but that is how he is acting."

Sheriff Arpaio sought and received an interpretation of the statute by County Attorney Andrew P. Thomas, who said the illegal immigrants could face charges that they conspired with smugglers.

Mr. Thomas, also a Republican, sent a letter on Tuesday to the State Department protesting what he considered Mexico's intrusion into Arizona affairs by retaining Mr. Schey and trying to challenge the law.

Representative Paton said he believed that Maricopa was the sole jurisdiction enforcing the law, with other law enforcement authorities telling him that they lacked the manpower to do so or questioned whether such actions would hold up in court.

Smuggling illegal immigrants is a federal crime. Arizona adopted its law last year out of frustration that Washington had not done enough to control illegal crossings. In recent years, central Arizona has emerged as a prime crossing point.

A majority of illegal immigrants caught by the Border Patrol are returned to their home countries - in the case of Mexicans, almost immediately - without charges.

In the eight weeks since the team of deputies formed, 146 people have been arrested, Sheriff Arpaio said, with 12 suspected of being smugglers. Four have pleaded guilty and under a deal with prosecutors received three years' probation. They will be referred to federal authorities for deportation.

Cases are pending against the remainder, with 48 seeking dismissal of the charges. A conviction under the state law could mean a two-and-a-half-year prison term.

Mr. Schey, executive director of the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law, an advocacy group, said nothing in the law authorized charging illegal immigrants with smuggling. In court papers, he suggested that the entire law was invalid because it "pre-empts" federal authority to regulate and enforce immigration law.

The deputies, meanwhile, continue their patrols. Normally, Deputy Chris Scott spends his days kicking in doors and barreling through houses, serving search warrants and performing the other high-energy tasks of a special weapons and tactics officer. But before dawn one morning this week, on "illegal immigrant interdiction" patrol, Deputy Scott saw a pickup with a broken tail light drift over the center line of a desolate road near Gila Bend. He flicked on the emergency lights of his unmarked sport utility vehicle and pulled over the pickup.

Barely mentioning the reason for the stop - state law prohibits driving over the center line or with a broken light - he peppered the driver and five passengers with questions: "Licencias?" "You have identification?" "These guys work with you very long?"

After several backup deputies arrived, they determined that the men were not being smuggled, although some appeared to be here illegally and were turned over to the Border Patrol.

"I think word is getting out, and they are skirting around us," Deputy Scott said later as he cruised without finding much suspicious activity.

The Border Patrol has not taken a position on the state law or the efforts to enforce it, a spokesman, Jesus Rodriguez, said.

It may be easy to dismiss the sheriff as grandstanding, and he promises a television-friendly event on Wednesday to begin expanded posse patrols, but last November he won a fourth term. An editorial in The Arizona Republic that criticized the patrol as "knee jerk" also credited him with an "unerring ability to gauge public opinion."

A statewide poll of 380 voters from April 20 to 23 by Arizona State University and KAET-TV in Tempe showed broad support for more stringent border security, with 57 percent favoring building a fence there.

Opinion split over making it a serious crime to be here illegally, with 51 percent opposed to such a move and 48 percent opposed to making it a felony to help illegal immigrants. The poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus five percentage points.

Sheriff Arpaio's cellphone ringtone plays "My Way" by Frank Sinatra. "I have enough confidence with the Maricopa community," he said in his 19th-floor office here, the walls decorated with clippings of news coverage. "If not, that's the way the ball bounces."

"It's not a secret where the Minuteman volunteers are going to be," Mario Martinez said Monday.

"This ... simply makes two basic statements -- that we will not allow any lawlessness of any type, and that if an alien is encountered by a Minuteman or arrested by the Minuteman, then we will allow that government to interview the person."

Minuteman members were not so sanguine about the arrangement, however, saying that reporting their location to Mexican officials nullifies their effectiveness along the border and could endanger their lives.

"Now we know why it seemed like Mexican officials knew where we were all the time," said Chris Simcox, founder of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps. "It's unbelievable that our own government agency is sending intelligence to another country. They are sending intelligence to a nation where corruption runs rampant, and that could be getting into the hands of criminal cartels.

"They just basically endangered the lives of American people."

Officials with the Mexican consulate in Washington, D.C., could not be reached for comment Monday.

Martinez said reporting the location of immigrant apprehensions to consulate representatives is common practice if an illegal immigrant requests counsel or believes they have been mistreated.

"Once an illegal alien is apprehended, they can request counsel," he said. "We have to give their counsel the information about their apprehension, and that includes where they are apprehended, whether a Minuteman volunteer spotted them or a citizen."

Martinez said Mexico's official perception of the civilian groups is that they are vigilantes, a belief the Border Patrol hoped to allay by entering into the cooperative agreement.

One of the documents on the Web site, "Actions of the Mexican Government in Relation to the Activities of Vigilante Groups," states that Mexican consulate representatives stay in close contact with Border Patrol chiefs to ensure the safety of migrants trying to enter the U.S., those being detained and the actions of all "vigilantes" along the border.

"The Mexican consul in Presidio also contacted the chief of the Border Patrol in the Marfa Sector to solicit his cooperation in case they detect any activity of 'vigilantes,' and was told to immediately contact the consulate if there was," according to the document.

"Presidio" refers to Presidio County, Texas, which is in the Big Bend region and a gateway to northern Mexico.

The document also describes a meeting with San Diego Border Patrol sector chief Darryl Griffen.

"(Griffen) said that the Border Patrol will not permit any violence or any actions contrary to the law by the groups, and he is continuously aware of (the volunteer organizations') operations," according to the document. "Mr. Griffen reiterated to the undersecretary his promise to notify the General Consul right away when the vigilantes detain or participate in the detention of any undocumented Mexicans."

The documents specifically named the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps and its patrols, which began monitoring Arizona's southern border in April 2005, as well as Friends of the Border Patrol, a Chino-based nonprofit.

TJ Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, a union representing more than 10,000 Border Patrol agents, said agents have complained for years about the Mexican consulate's influence over the agency.

"It worries me (that the Mexican government) seems to be unduly influencing our enforcement policies. That's not a legitimate role for any foreign nation," Bonner said, though he added, "It doesn't surprise me."

Border Patrol agents interviewed by the Daily Bulletin said they have been asked to report to sector headquarters the location of all civilian volunteer groups, but to not file the groups' names in reports if they spot illegal immigrants.

"Last year an internal memo notified all agents not to give credit to Minuteman volunteers or others who call in sightings of illegal aliens," said one agent, who spoke on the condition he not be identified. "We were told to list it as a citizen call and leave it at that. Many times, we were told not to go out to Minuteman calls."

The document also mentions locations of field operations of Friends of the Border Patrol, which patrolled the San Diego sector from June to November 2005. Mexican officials had access to the exact location of the group founded by Andy Ramirez, which ran its patrols from the Rough Acre Ranch, a private property in McCain Valley.

Ramirez said that for safety reasons, he disclosed the location of his ranch patrol only to San Diego Border Patrol and law enforcement officials. The group did not apprehend or spot any undocumented migrants in that area.

"We did not release this information ... to the media or anyone else," Ramirez said. "We didn't want to publicize that information. But there it is, right on the Mexican government's Web site, and our government gave it to them."

The first signs of what lay ahead came in the run-up to the 2000 presidential elections, when telegrams from the British embassy in Washington started to report an attitude of suspicion towards the Blair government on the part of those likely to fill senior positions in an incoming Bush administration. People such as Dick Cheney and Richard Perle were expressing scepticism about Labour's reliability, citing the presence at senior level of ministers who had supported nuclear disarmament and criticised US foreign policy in the cold war.

There was little reason to suppose these telegrams had made any impact until a relatively small incident at Labour's annual conference. Like all cabinet ministers, Cook was commissioned to write a "pre-manifesto" paper, setting out Labour's provisional second-term agenda and illustrating how the government intended to build on its achievements. One proposal was to appoint a special envoy to campaign for global abolition of the death penalty. Switching Britain's position to support abolitionism was one of Cook's early foreign-policy decisions, and he thought that a special envoy would be an uncontroversial, but useful, way of promoting the government's policy.

Blair had other ideas. On the day the proposal become public, Jonathan Powell and other Downing Street officials warned Cook that it was unacceptable and must never be mentioned again. The reason? The only one given was that a special envoy would inevitably indulge in "finger wagging" at America, one of the biggest users of capital punishment, and therefore strain diplomatic relations with Washington. Under no circumstances would the prime minister countenance this, especially under a Republican administration. The Foreign Office could continue to support abolition of the death penalty, but not in any particularly active sense.

Cook was aware of his vulnerability, especially after the Florida chads ended up hanging in the wrong direction. He sought to replicate the strong relationship he had enjoyed with Madeleine Albright by cultivating her successor, Colin Powell. Indeed, the two men established a relationship of mutual respect even before Bush was sworn in. But in a foretaste of Powell's own marginalisation, this cut little ice. As Cook revealed in his diaries, the neoconservatives never dropped their hostility to him and eventually got their wish.

The treatment of Straw seems uncannily reminiscent, but the issue of Iran is of a different order of seriousness to anything Cook was grappling with five years ago. There is a pressing need for Blair to tell Bush what Attlee had the guts to tell Truman in the Korean war: that a decision to breach the nuclear threshold would encourage proliferation and make America an outcast from the community of civilised nations. He may think it clever strategy to put pressure on Tehran by keeping all options open, but the Iranians are not the only ones who need deterring.

Once again, Blair seems willing to put the wishes of the US government before those of the British people. That should be reason enough for wanting him out of office as soon as possible.

· David Clark was special adviser to Robin Cook from 1997 to 2001.