The affair raised suggestions that the White House was endangering national security for the sake of discrediting an Iraq war critic.

Ms Plame's husband Joseph Wilson, a former diplomat, had been sent on a fact-finding mission to Niger to investigate claims that Saddam Hussein had attempted to obtain "yellow cake" uranium ore from the country for a nuclear weapons programme.

After his return he wrote an editorial in the New York Times casting doubt on the Niger claims, which had been alluded to as being confirmed by British intelligence officers in Mr Bush's 2003 state of the Union address.

The editorial infuriated vice president Dick Cheney, who scrawled handwritten notes on a copy of the newspaper: "Have they done this sort of thing before? Send an amb(assador) to answer a question? Do we ordinarily send people out pro bono to work for us? Or did his wife send him on a junket?"

Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald was called on to find out if officials in the White House had ordered the outing of Ms Plame in Novak's column so as to undermine the credibility of Mr Wilson's criticisms. After being frustrated in the initial investigation, Mr Fitzgerald has turned to finding out whether the officials were involved in a cover-up.

Novak, whose silence on his role in the affair and long-standing association with Mr Rove and other senior Republicans has made him a target of criticism since the scandal broke, today finally laid out his side of the story.

He confirmed that Mr Rove and former CIA public information officer Bill Harlow had been two of his three sources for the column, but refused to name the primary source for the article.

He said that he had named the individuals to the Fitzgerald inquiry after learning that investigators already knew the information, and that he was writing publicly about the issue now because the inquiry had confirmed he was no longer of interest.

"Joe Wilson's wife's role in instituting her husband's mission was revealed to me in the middle of a long interview with an official who I have previously said was not a political gunslinger. After the federal investigation was announced, he told me through a third party that the disclosure was inadvertent on his part," he wrote.

"Following my interview with the primary source, I sought out the second administration official and the CIA spokesman for confirmation.

"I learned Valerie Plame's name from Joe Wilson's entry in Who's Who in America.

"I considered his wife's role in initiating Wilson's mission, later confirmed by the Senate intelligence committee, to be a previously undisclosed part of an important news story. I reported it on that basis."

It was confirmed last month that Mr Rove would not be facing charges over the affair, although Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, Mr Cheney's former chief of staff, is still facing criminal charges.

Mr Bush last year promised to fire anybody in the government shown to have leaked Ms Plame's name, but Mr Rove's continued position as his deputy chief of staff suggests that the pledge did not apply to those who confirmed the agent's identity.

Halliburton officials have denied the allegations strenuously. Army officials yesterday defended the company's performance but also acknowledged that reliance on a single contractor left the government vulnerable. The Pentagon's new plan will split the work among three companies, to be chosen this fall, with a fourth firm hired to help monitor the performance of the other three. Halliburton will be eligible to bid on the work.

The decision on Halliburton comes as the U.S. contribution to Iraq's reconstruction begins to wane, reducing opportunities for U.S. companies after nearly four years of massive payouts to the private sector.

Of the more than $18 billion Congress allocated for reconstruction in late 2003, more than two-thirds has been spent and more than 90 percent has been contractually obligated, according to the inspector general's office overseeing reconstruction work. The rest of the money, which is collectively known as the Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Fund, needs to be obligated by the end of September.

Army spokesman Dave Foster said in a written response to questions that funding for 11 contracts covering various aspects of reconstruction -- including transportation, communications, water distribution and the electric grid -- will expire this fall. While the contractors will be allowed to finish any work previously requested, no new work can be ordered after September.

Among those contracts is another Halliburton deal, for up to $1.2 billion to restore oil services in southern Iraq. As with the others, it will not be extended.

"The Iraq reconstruction is winding down . . . so there is no need for new contracts to replace the existing," Foster said.

Instead, the Iraqi government will have to find its own contractors to do the work, which includes tackling a large number of projects left undone by the United States.

"This is the year of transition for Iraqi reconstruction. The U.S.-funded projects are being completed and transferred to Iraqi management and control," said James Mitchell, spokesman for the inspector general's office.

That office has repeatedly warned of a "reconstruction gap" between what the United States promised in rebuilding the country after the spring 2003 invasion and what it has delivered. For instance, a contract aimed at building 142 new health centers across Iraq instead produced 20 before the program ran out of money.

The heavy involvement of U.S. contractors in Iraq has been one of the defining features of the American presence there, with private companies called on for duties as varied as guarding supply convoys and analyzing intelligence.

No contractor has received more money as a result of the invasion of Iraq than Halliburton, whose former chief executive is Vice President Cheney.

The logistics work is performed through a subsidiary, Kellogg Brown & Root Services Inc. Last year, the Army paid the company more than $7 billion under the contract, according to a search of government contracting data by Eagle Eye Inc., a private consulting firm. The number this year is expected to be between $4 billion and $5 billion, according to Randy King, a program manager with the Army.

The company maintains that its billing disputes with Defense Department auditors have been resolved and that its work has received rave reviews from the military. "By all accounts, KBR's logistical achievements in support of the troops in Iraq, Kuwait and Afghanistan have been nothing short of amazing," said company spokeswoman Melissa Norcross in a statement.

King, the Army official, agreed yesterday. "Halliburton has done an outstanding job, under the circumstances," he said. He added that Pentagon leaders ultimately decided they did not want to have "all our eggs in one basket" because multiple contractors will give them better prices, more accountability and greater protection if one contractor fails to perform.

Halliburton initially won the contract in December 2001. At the time, the deal was relatively modest in size, but stubborn insurgencies in both Iraq and Afghanistan have stretched U.S. troops and kept Halliburton busy trying to meet their needs.

Known formally as the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program, or LOGCAP, the contract "has expanded beyond what anyone could have imagined," said Dov S. Zakheim, the Pentagon's comptroller from 2001 until 2004 and now a vice president at consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton Inc. "The KBR people themselves would point out that the challenges they had coming out of Iraq, over and above everything else they had to do, were taxing their systems. You're really asking too much of one firm to be able to manage all of this."

The original contract included one base year with nine option years. The Army says it will not pick up the next option year and instead plans to put out a new request for proposal by the end of the month. It expects to announce winners in November.

The bidding on the new contract is likely to attract some high-profile suitors, including weapons makers Lockheed Martin Corp. and Northrop Grumman Corp.

"These are huge contracts. They are among the biggest government services contracts that have ever been created," said Loren Thompson, chief operating officer of the Lexington Institute, a defense research organization in Arlington. "Most of the big, integrated defense contractors recognize that new sales of military hardware are going to be hard to come by in the years ahead. There's a general migration to services. And no contract on the horizon is bigger in services than LOGCAP. It's just too big to ignore."

Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), a frequent Halliburton critic, said he would like to see even more companies included as winners in order to increase competition as work arises. But he welcomed the move away from the exclusive contract with Halliburton as a good first step. "When you have a single contractor, that company has the government over a barrel," Waxman said. "One needs multiple contractors in order to have real price competition. Real competition saves the taxpayer money."

Certain prisoners held during the so-called war on terror have not previously been given the protections of the Geneva Conventions - international agreements governing the treatment of prisoners of war.

The memo was made public on Tuesday as congress began hearings on how to proceed with the trials of Guantanamo prisoners. The supreme court ruled two weeks ago that the military tribunals set up by the Bush administration to try foreign terrorism suspects were illegal.

The US has faced international criticism over how detainees at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq have been treated.

Military custody

The memo, dated July 7, stated that detainees held in US military custody across the world are covered by Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions of 1949.

The article prohibits violence against detainees, including mutilation, cruel treatment and torture, and "outrages upon personal dignity" including humiliating and degrading treatment". It also ensures care for the sick and wounded.

The administration said the admission was not a change in policy because the defence department already treated detainees humanely.

"It is not really a reversal of policy," said Tony Snow, the White House spokesman. "Humane treatment has always been the standard, and that is something that they followed at Guantanamo."

War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.

In his treatise the General goes on to define the "damned" war profiteers of his day: the DuPont family, the steel companies, the leather companies, the t-shirt manufacturers, etc. The profits for these companies increased at a minimum tenfold in the WWI years and in retrospect even seem like healthy profits in 2006 dollars. He also complains about the 6000 buckboards for the colonels, thousands of saddles for the Cavalry, and hundreds of airplane engines that were never used in the war. The waste of money and the waste of life in war are horrendous and inherently immoral - always!

The criminal tradition of the enormous profiteering that went on in WWI and all the other wars is going on today in the war crime of Iraq. The Halliburtons, Bechtels, Blackwater Securities, KBRs, Standard Oils are raking in the billions at a clip that would make Barbary Coast pirate ship captains' heads spin. The no-bid profiteers are cronies and/or former companies of the vice president and most of the Bush regime. I don't know how the blood-monied devils can look at their own children or grandchildren and not be ashamed and appalled that their insatiable greed killed someone else's flesh and blood!

Napoleon once said: "All men are enamored of decorations ... they are positively enamored of them."

Casey was in the paramilitary Boy Scouts founded by Lord Baden-Powell, who was a militarist. I am not knocking the Boy Scouts, because Casey was an Eagle Scout and he gained a lot of positive skills in the Scouts. But he was also taught how to be a good soldier: To pledge to do his duty to God and Country. Does that include marching reluctantly off to a war which one knows is wrong? Does that include putting "the mission" first, above even one's own family and life, no matter how disordered and corrupt the mission is? Boy Scouts earn decorations for their paramilitary uniforms and I know I sewed dozens on Casey's sash (I always complained that sewing should be their first mandatory badge earned so the Scout could do it himself). Then Casey "graduated" to soldier and started earning his "Man Scout" badges. I was handed his Bronze Star and Purple Heart at his funeral like I should be a proud mom being pinned with his Eagle Scout badge. The Man Scout Badges, General Butler explains, were instituted so the military wouldn't have to pay the soldiers more money. How many Man Scout badges can make up for the needless, senseless and avoidable murder of your oldest child? There are not enough in the entire world.

In war correspondent Christopher Hedges' book, War Is the Force That Gives Us Meaning, he writes:

The disillusionment comes later. Each generation again responds to war as innocents. Each generation discovers its own disillusionment - often at a terrible price.

The terrible price is that, once again, we forget that the war machine loves to greedily consume our children for the terrible profits that they so willingly and cheerfully reap. Hence the phrase: "Laughing all the way to the bank." How does it feel that the vultures are laughing at how gullible we are to so naively cough up our young? Previous generations of mothers have watched presidents and other cheerleaders for war and mayhem drag us into war after war and we mothers are unwilling and unknowing accomplices in our children's murders. War will finally have to stop when we mothers (and fathers and spouses, etc.) stop allowing our leaders to march our children off to wars that are to feed the ravenous war monster: This hideous war monster counts on us families forgetting that the last war for revenue was fought against phantom enemies that can't be confined within borders. Whether the wars are covert or overt they are always being waged with our babies' blood.

Tragically, I don't know anyone, war supporter or not, who raised his or her children to be a war criminal. I would hope that there are few people in our country who have hoped against hope that one day that their son would grow up to rape Iraqi girls and kill innocent Iraqis in cold blood. The Mahmoudiya and Haditha incidents are horrible atrocities but, unfortunately, are not isolated incidents in the Iraq war crime. War breeds atrocities. I wish to God, and everything that anybody holds holy, that Mahmoudiya and Haditha were isolated incidents, but we know that they are not. When the neo-cons despicably spit out the blather that we need to "stay the course," I wonder what that means? Rape and murder? That is a horrible course. I think we should change it now.

To be honest with ourselves and our children, instead of the flags and Man Scout badges that our soldiers decorate their uniforms with, they should have their suits covered with corporate logos like NASCAR drivers. A Halliburton patch here and an Exxon patch there. I also believe, like General Butler said: during times of war, CEOs of war profiteers should only be allowed to earn as much as a common soldier.

Sounds fair to me, and I believe war would end if the war profiteers, politicians and generals were required to send their own children to fight for their ill-gotten gains before they sent ours.

Our nation forgot the lessons of Vietnam, where not one person over the rank of Lieutenant was even tried for war crimes. It is incumbent upon this generation of war victims to make sure that this unspeakable episode does not repeat itself. The people responsible for sending our children to this war crime should not get off scot-free. BushCo should be the ones sent to federal prison for crimes against humanity and crimes against peace.

Holding our leaders accountable for unnecessary war and killing innocent people? It's a new concept, but I think one that just might work. Let's try it this time. But more important, don't let your babies grow up to be soldiers.

Microsoft is one of many companies collecting and aggregating data in new ways so sophisticated that many customers may not even realize they're being watched.

These businesses are using new software tools that can record every move a person makes online and combine that information with other data. Brick-and-mortar stores, afraid of being left behind, are ramping up data collection and processing efforts, too, says JupiterResearch analyst Patti Freeman Evans.

The result: Corporate America is creating increasingly detailed portraits of each consumer, whether they're aware of it or not.

Companies say they can be trusted to do so responsibly. Yahoo, for instance, has a strict ban on selling data from its customer registration lists. And Microsoft says it won't purchase an individual's income history - just the average income from his or her ZIP code. "We're making sure there's a very bright line in the sand," says spokesman Joe Doran.

Some consumers aren't reassured. Salt Lake City lighting designer Jody Good, 54, goes to great lengths to control his personal information, including signing up for some services with false names and keeping unusually tight security settings on his PC. "I'm trying to preserve my privacy," he says.

Privacy advocates are worried, too. "Think about it: A handful of powerful entities know a tremendous amount of information about you," says Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy. "Today they manipulate you into what kind of soap to buy, tomorrow it might be who you should pray for or who you should vote for."

Targeting behavior

Internet firms are at the vanguard of the trend through a technique called behavioral targeting.

It works like this: Anyone who has registered to use any of Yahoo's free online services can be sure the tech company is paying close attention to everything they do within its network. It will notice, for instance, who uses Yahoo search to find information on SUVs. Why? It wants to sell targeted ads to SUV makers and auto loan brokers that will appear, say, on Yahoo Finance the next time that person checks his or her stocks.

Online retailers target, too, usually by placing a small data file called a cookie on a customer's computer. The cookie keeps track of where you go each time you are on the site. Hewlett-Packard's online store uses cookies to remind customers of items viewed in previous visits - no matter how much time has elapsed between them.

Targeting isn't new. In 2000, online advertiser DoubleClick ignited a public uproar when it announced plans to cross-reference anonymous Web-surfing data with personal data collected by offline data broker Abacus Direct. Congress held hearings, and DoubleClick backed off.

But, as online advertising soars, "We're hitting the tipping point," says Bill Gossman, CEO of Revenue Science.

Merrill Lynch estimates the online ad market will grow 29% this year topping $16 billion. Researcher eMarketer estimates advertisers will spend about $1.2 billion on targeted online advertising this year and more than $2 billion by 2008.

A phalanx of online marketing specialists, including Tacoda, Revenue Science, AlmondNet, advertising.com, DrivePM and Did-it, are pushing it. They're hustling to form overlapping alliances with major media website publishers.

"Targeting has certainly become a large part of what advertisers are interested in," says Yahoo spokeswoman Nissa Anklesaria.

Targeting advocates herald the win-win-win. Publishers can charge more for relevant ads that spur sales and decrease annoyances. Microsoft says it can help a Dinners-To-Go franchisee zero in on working moms, age 30 to 40, in a given neighborhood, with ads designed to reach them before 10 a.m., when they are likely to be planning the evening meal. "Instead of carpet bombing, it's more of a shotgun approach where you're hoping to hit the targeted customer," say Doran.

But there's one big holdout: search giant Google. Although the company scans customers' Google e-mail accounts in order to send them text ads, it hasn't yet embraced more proactive targeting.

"We're treading very carefully in this space because we put user trust foremost," says Google product manager Richard Holden.

Rewarding loyalty

Brick-and-mortar companies are working hard to create similarly rich data sources. Although they can't track a customer's every move, they can create basic profiles of them using loyalty cards.

Loyalty cards are typically given to customers in exchange for personal information. In return, customers get coupon-like discounts when they present their card.

Safeway helped kick off the loyalty-card era in 1998, and was soon followed by rivals such as Albertsons and Kroger. Many programs are run behind the scenes by a little-known Florida firm called Catalina Marketing.

Catalina collects loyalty and bulk sales data from more than 20,000 stores, then uses it to create pictures of shoppers over time, says CEO L. Dick Buell. The picture gets clearer the more data stores collect. For example, Catalina can help retailers determine that someone lives in an upscale area, buys diapers, and may be interested in high-end baby food.

The data Catalina receives do not contain personal information. Records are identified by an ID number only. But retailers hang on to personal information and can reattach it to records once getting them back from Catalina.

That worries privacy advocates, because loyalty cards - fairly rare a few years ago - are spreading fast. Most large grocery chains except Wal-Mart have them. And they're moving beyond grocery stores, to outlets such as Barnes & Noble bookstores, CVS drugstores, and Exxon and Mobil gas stations.

Mining for data

The flood of new information is helping spawn a sister industry: data-mining software. These powerful programs sort through massive databases, looking for patterns that would take a human years to spot. Sales of data-crunching software have jumped more than 30% since 2000 and are expected to keep growing, says tech analyst Dan Vesset with researcher IDC.

"Most large companies are doing it in one area or another," says tech analyst Gareth Herschel with researcher Gartner.

In its most basic form, data mining is simple. A grocery store might put the peanut butter next to the jelly one week, and move it to a different aisle the following week. The store can then run data-mining software on the two weeks' sales receipts to learn which setup sold more peanut butter.

Technology always improving

But far more sophisticated and complex types of mining are emerging. Silicon Valley firm Sigma Dynamics has launched software that can analyze data on the fly, even if it's not stored in neat columns and rows. For example, it can read the typed notes of a customer service agent, compare them with a database of stored records, and see if any phrases match. Then it can instantly pop up a window offering a solution to the customer's problem.

Entrepreneur Jeff Jonas has created software that starts by examining the record of a known entity - usually a person. It then compares that record to thousands of others, looking for patterns that might signify a relationship. Jonas designed the software for Las Vegas casinos, which wanted to better know who their customers were - in part to keep out cheats. The software could identify relationships that might otherwise go unnoticed, such as the fact that a cheater and a casino employee were roommates.

The Central Intelligence Agency realized that the software could have other applications. Its venture capital arm, In-Q-Tel, funded Jonas' small company in 2001. IBM bought it in 2005 and now sells the program to businesses, including retailers and financial institutions.

Other companies are working to make data mining - traditionally a high-tech discipline of statisticians and programmers - accessible to average workers. One such firm, San Francisco data-mining software maker KXEN, says there's a huge demand. Data-mining technology "has been used for a long time, but only by a very small number of people," says President Ken Bendix. Although companies have long had useful data, the information was rarely used to its full potential, he says. Now that's starting to change.

But the growth in data mining creates a problem, says Stanford University professor Hector Garcia-Molina. "How can you provide that kind of useful information without violating the privacy of individuals?" he asks. Garcia-Molina is working on computer science tools that will keep databases from extracting too much personal information while slicing and dicing. The work, still in its experimental phase, "is not easy," he admits.

IBM's Jonas proposes a lower-tech solution - better disclosure. Most companies do have privacy policies today, but they're generally vague, he says. "I would like to do business with companies who are using my data the way I expect them to," he says. "I want to avoid surprise."

Jeff Barnum, a 45-year-old real estate consultant from Cincinnati, agrees. He avoids filling out many forms and frequently deletes cookies from his PC, yet is willing to share his information with companies he trusts.

Barnum says his clients do the same. When visiting an open house, many people give him false names and other information. But once they get to know him, "They'll tell me anything," he says, laughing.

Ramsey says there also has been a sharp increase in the number of robberies and armed assaults during the past month in the district.

Under the emergency, police commanders can adjust officers' work schedules to increase police presence in high-crime areas.

Hours after police declared the crime emergency, six tourists were robbed at gunpoint in two separate incidents near the Washington Monument. Police say one of the robbed women was also sexually assaulted.