Surveillance techniques have, for the most part, inched up in public approval, according to the telephone poll of 1,000 U.S. adults. In July, 70% of Americans said they favor "expanded camera surveillance on streets and in public places," up from 59% in June 2005 and 63% shortly after Sept. 11, 2001. Support for police monitoring of chat rooms and other online forums has also risen. In the latest poll, 62% of respondents said they favor such monitoring, up from 50% in February 2004 and 57% a year earlier.

While Americans are largely divided as to whether the government should be able to monitor cellphones and email to intercept communications, support rose to 52% in the latest poll, up substantially from 37% in June 2005.

However, nearly six in 10 respondents said these techniques should be done only with authorization by Congress, compared with 38% who wouldn't require Congressional approval.

The poll -- conducted July 21-24, 2006, before news of a terrorist plot to blow up trans-Atlantic flights from London -- also shows that public opinion of the Bush Administration's efforts at fighting terrorism is falling: 45% said it has done an excellent or pretty good job, down from 57% in June 2005 and 70% in February 2004. Nearly a third of Americans in the latest poll said the White House has done a poor job of fighting terrorism.

Judge Anna Diggs Taylor said the controversial practice of warrantless wiretapping known as the "Terrorist Surveillance Program" violated free speech rights, protections against unreasonable searches and the constitutional check on the power of the presidency.

The ruling marked a setback for the Bush administration, which had asked for the lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union to be thrown out, arguing that any court action on the case would jeopardize secrets in an ongoing war on terrorism.

"They gave me a feeling that I was Suspect No. 1," he said in a recent interview.

The veiled accusations and vehement denials would continue for nearly five years - despite official findings in 2001 that he had no terrorist links and in 2003 that authorities had violated his rights by colluding to keep him in custody.

Of the estimated 1,200 mostly Arab and Muslim men detained nationwide as potential suspects or witnesses in the Sept. 11 investigation, Benatta would earn a dubious distinction: Human rights groups say the former Algerian air force lieutenant was locked up the longest.

His journey through the American justice system concluded July 20 when a deal was finalized for his return to Canada. In the words of his lawyer, the idea was to "turn back the clock" to when he first crossed the border.

But time did not stand still for Benatta. The clock ran for 1,780 days. The man detained at 27 was now 32.

"I say to myself from time to time, maybe what happened ... it was some kind of dream," he said. "I never believed things like that could happen in the United States."

In a nation reeling from unthinkable horrors inflicted by an unconventional enemy, it could.

And it did.

___

Sporting a gray T-shirt and cargo shorts on a sizzling summer day, Benatta eased his muscular frame into a white plastic chair in the backyard of a Toronto halfway house for immigrant asylum-seekers. He sipped lemonade, then paused to taste freedom.

"You start to look around and take in everything - the wind in your face, the breeze - everything," he said.

The youngest of 10 children in a middle-class family, Benatta recalled always wanting to be military man like his father. But after he joined the air force, he grew disillusioned. Algerian soldiers, he said, were abusive toward civilians. And militant Muslims were out for blood.

"I was in harm's way in my country," he said.

In December 2000, Benatta entered a six-month training program for foreign air force engineers in Virginia, plotting from the start to desert and flee to Canada. In June 2001, the night before his scheduled flight back to Algeria, he stole out of a hotel. He lived briefly in New York before arriving Sept. 5 on Canada's doorstep.

A week later, Canadian authorities escorted him back over the Rainbow Bridge in Niagara Falls, where they turned him over to U.S. immigration officers. On Sept. 16, U.S. marshals took him into custody, put him on a small jet and flew him to a federal jail in Brooklyn that became a clearing house for detainees who were labeled "of interest" to the FBI following the Sept. 11 attacks.

One marshal's remark stuck in his head: "Where you're going, you won't need shoes anymore."

In Brooklyn, he was locked down - minus his shoes - 24 hours a day between FBI interrogations. When he continued to deny any involvement in the attacks, agents threatened to send him back to Algeria. As a deserter, he was certain he would be tortured.

"That was all my thinking all of the time - they were signing my execution warrant," he said.

Prison guards, he said, dispensed humiliation in steady doses - rapping on his cell door every half hour to interrupt his sleep, stepping on his leg shackles hard enough to scar his ankles, locking him in an outdoor exercise cage despite freezing temperatures, conducting arbitrary strip searches.

The alleged abuses would have been bad enough. But as a judge eventually pointed out, something else was amiss: Benatta was never charged with a crime.

The FBI grillings stopped sometime in November 2001, when an internal report was prepared saying he was cleared. On paper, he was no longer a terror suspect.

No one bothered to tell him.

___

December turned to March with Benatta still under lockdown in Brooklyn, without any contact with the outside world. "Each day, with that kind of conditions, is like a year," he said.

Finally, in April, he received word that he would be transferred to Buffalo to face federal charges of carrying a phony ID when first detained. Benatta was denied bail while he fought the case. But for the first time he was allowed into the general population of federal defendants housed at an immigration detention center.

He also had access to the news, and was shocked by the images accompanying anniversary stories about the Sept. 11 attacks.

"It was the first time I'd really seen what happened," he said.

It wasn't until the second anniversary of the attacks that U.S. Magistrate H. Kenneth Schroeder Jr. found that Benatta's detainment for a deportation hearing was "a charade."

Though terrible, the Sept. 11 attacks "do not constitute an acceptable basis for abandoning our constitutional principles and rule of law by adopting an 'end justifies the means' philosophy," Schroeder wrote. Based on that decision, another judge tossed out the case on Oct. 3, 2003.

"That gave me so much hope," Benatta said. "For me, it's like (the judge) had so much nerves. He gave me some kind of hope in the judicial system all over again."

His hopes were dashed by an ensuing standoff: Benatta demanded asylum. Immigration authorities wanted him deported for overstaying his visa.

An immigration court first set bail at $25,000, then ruled he should stay behind bars indefinitely - a situation a United Nations human rights group decried as a "de facto prison sentence." Most asylum seekers are released pending the outcome of their cases.

It took another two years before a Manhattan attorney, Catherine M. Amirfar, found a solution: She persuaded Canadian authorities to let her client apply for asylum there without jailing him.

"Canada was willing to take him back and turn back the clock five years," she said. "Of course, Benemar will never get those five years back."

The last detainee was deported in his prison smock without an apology. He remembers cold stares when he ate his first meal at Wendy's and went to a mall to buy clothes.

Today, there's no more soul-numbing confinement. But he's still caught in waiting game, this time to see whether Canada will grant him asylum - a decision at least six months away. He also wonders if he can regain enough spirit to start a new life.

"Now I'm not the same person," he said. "When I came to the United States, I was optimistic. I had so much energy. That's not the case now."

The report's findings have been sent to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, which is investigating members of the unit involved in the killings, as well as higher-ranking officers in the Second Marine Division. No charges have been brought yet.

The report, based on an investigation by Maj. Gen. Eldon A. Bargewell of the Army, does not directly accuse marines of attempting a cover-up, but it does describe several suspicious incidents, according to the Defense Department officials.

It says that the logbook, which was meant to be a daily record of major incidents the marines' company encountered, had all the pages missing for Nov. 19, the day of the killings, and that those portions had not been found, the officials said.

No conclusions are drawn about who may have tampered with the log. But the report says that Staff Sgt. Frank D. Wuterich, the leader of the squad involved in the killings, was on duty at the unit's operations center, where the logbook was kept, shortly after the killings occurred, the officials said.

Neal A. Puckett, a lawyer for Sergeant Wuterich, was unavailable to comment.

Investigators were also initially told by Marine officers that videotape taken by the drone was not available, one of the officials said. The officials added that the marines produced the tape only after General Bargewell had completed his inquiry and they had been asked again to produce it by General Chiarelli.

The report has been closely held within the Defense Department, and the officials who agreed to discuss it did so because they said they thought it should receive wider public attention. They agreed to speak only if their names were not published because they had not been authorized by superiors to discuss its contents.

The deaths occurred outside the town of Haditha after a three-vehicle convoy of marines was hit by a roadside bomb, killing a lance corporal. The squad then began going through houses nearby, killing Iraqis found inside in what defense lawyers have said was a justifiable use of lethal force by marines who believed they were under concerted attack by insurgents.

The Marine Corps issued a press release the next day saying that 15 of the civilian deaths had been caused by the bomb explosion. But several officers in the unit have said they knew even then that marines had killed all 24 of the dead Iraqis, 9 of whom were suspected insurgents.

Since then, the idea that any of the victims were insurgents has been challenged, both by Iraqi survivors and by some American military officials familiar with the case, noting that the victims included 10 women and children and an elderly man in a wheelchair. They have said that evidence suggests that the marines overreacted after the death of their fellow marine and shot the civilians in cold blood.

Marines have told investigators that at least one Iraqi who was shot was brandishing an AK-47 assault rifle. But no records were found that such a weapon was recovered at the scene and turned in to the unit's headquarters, as regulations require, the officials said.

Lt. Col. Sean Gibson, a Marine Corps spokesman, said: "The Marine Corps is committed to a full and thorough investigation of the events that occurred at Haditha on Nov. 19, and the actions that followed that may have contributed to any improper reporting. If allegations of wrongdoing are substantiated, the Marine Corps will pursue appropriate legal and administrative actions."

The decision about whether to take disciplinary action will be made by Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis, the commander of Marine Corps units in the Middle East, based on his review of both the Bargewell report and the results of the criminal investigation still under way.

In addition to faulting officers in the Second Marine Division for not aggressively investigating the Haditha killings, the Bargewell report said the commanders had created a climate that minimized the importance of Iraqi lives, particularly in Haditha, where insurgent attacks were rampant, the officials said.

"In their eyes, they didn't believe anyone was innocent," said one of the officials, describing the attitude of the marines in the unit toward Iraqis. "Either you were an active participant, or you were complicit."

Two days after the Haditha killings, Maj. Gen. Richard A. Huck, then the division commander, asked his staff for a briefing on what had happened, the officials said. General Huck later told investigators that he had ordered the briefing because he was concerned about the reports of civilian casualties, one of the officials said.

But the briefing provided to General Huck contained no mention of the civilian casualties, the investigators learned. Instead, according to one of the officials, it dealt almost entirely with the roadside bomb attack and other insurgent attacks on marines in Haditha throughout the day.

General Huck and other officers from the Second Marine Division have been ordered not to talk about the case, and a telephone call to the unit was referred to Colonel Gibson, the Marine spokesman. But some senior officers have previously defended their response to the killings, saying there was no reason to doubt the account provided by enlisted marines at the time, contending that civilian killings were an unfortunate but accidental byproduct of their pursuit of insurgents.

The involved marines' battalion commander, Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani, and their company commander, Capt. Lucas McConnell, told investigators that they had not reviewed the scene within the houses after the killings, despite the high number of civilian casualties, one of the officials said. Colonel Chessani was relieved of his command in April; Marine officials would not say whether the Haditha case was involved in the decision but said there were several reasons.

The video taken by the overhead drone was very limited, according to one of the officials. The aircraft was not flying over the site until after the bomb attack, so it only captured the aftermath. Even so, the video appears to contradict statements by marines about what occurred, the officials said.

In particular, it has raised doubts about a claim by enlisted marines that five Iraqis were shot as they were running away after the roadside bombing.

The officials said the video showed the bodies of the five Iraqis on the ground close to the car that they had been riding in, the officials said. In one case, the video appears to show one body stacked on top of another, which the officials said was inconsistent with the account that the men had been shot while fleeing.

At noon Thursday 160 brigade soldiers signed a request to take part in the demonstration that would call on the resignation of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz. However, their release was put off until Friday, preventing them from reaching the protest.

They wanted to protest not only the army's moves in Lebanon but the decisions of their commanders, whom they accuse of sending them needlessly to their death.

"They sent us into a village they knew 15 Hezbollah fighters were holed up in at mid-day, we were like sitting ducks, it was total insanity. Two of our comrades were killed because of that. We are being used as though we were in the Chinese army, where it doesn't matter how many are killed," he said.

A few dozen demonstrators arrived at Rabin Square Thursday to take part in the protest that had been organized on Internet sites.

They called for Olmert's resignation and blasted halting the war before its goals were achieved.

Ariella Miller, one of the protest's initiators, said she was not acting on behalf of any political body. "We are family people who used the Internet to form a group. When we went to war they promised us to bring back the soldiers and restore Israel's deterrent force."

Washington knows that the general did not concede much by choice. With elections for the next parliament due in 2007, General Musharraf is desperately building a political base in the country to get a re-election from the new parliament for the next term or to get a change in the constitution to a presidential democracy to be able to shed the uniform and also to retain the political and executive powers as president. If he succeeds in this plan, this will go in favour of Washington. But Washington sees some serious problems, which would derail Musharraf's bid to remain the most powerful man in Pakistan. This may lead Washington to settle General Musharraf's issue the way it dealt with General Zia. The following factors show that assassinating Musharraf might become one of the best options for the United States in the present circumstances.

General Musharraf has not outlived his utility for Washington as yet. However, it is not possible for General Musharraf to remain the army chief forever. The best way Washington believes its interest could be served is to make General Musharraf's autocratic rule look more democratic. For that, instead of crafting new webs and making another leader to fully submit, Washington would like to see Musharraf become another Hosnie Mubarak in Islamabad. Washington now wants him to shed his uniform and become a civilian president in the present setup.

The dilemma before Washington, however, is that no civilian ruler can use the military in the service of the United States as effectively as General Musharraf is doing as the military chief. At the same time, the U.S. efforts to create an alternate political leadership in the country to increase pressure on Musharraf also seem to be getting nowhere.

General Musharraf's present political allies are more of a liability than asset for him now. The main political allies, the Pakistan Muslim League (PML Quid-e-Azam group), are most corrupt, inefficient and ineffective, with no hope of securing required seats in the next elections. There is also serious internal dissent within the PML (Q).

General Musharraf's other ally, Mutahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), is also considered a corrupt, blackmailing, sub-nationalist-minded, mafia-styled gang, which is fully exploiting the weaknesses of the general. MQM is the most unreliable, even treacherous, political ally for him.
<> Musharraf propped up the religious alliance of Muthahida majlis-e-Amal (MMA) and then used it for constitutional changes in his favour. Musharraf reneged on public promises to MMA to relinquish the post of chief of army staff as part of the process of restoring democracy in Pakistan. Islamabad's suspension from commonwealth was lifted on the condition that General Musharraf would give up his military uniform by the end of 2004 as a proof of his commitment to democratic reform. Now the religious alliance is sensing his weaknesses and is gearing up its barrage against him.

There is a very strong perception within the religious parties that the MQM was behind the Karachi blast in April 2006. Scores of people, including prominent MMA leader Haji Hanif Billo, were killed when a bomb went off at a religious gathering in Karachi. Since then, the government has contemplated no action against the MQM, a factor that will agitate more public anger.

Former prime ministers Nawaz, Sharif and Benazir are now flexing their muscles to challenge him in the coming days. There are talks of joint efforts to remove Musharraf and even the MQM is signaling that it is willing to join such a campaign. If Benazir and Nawaz decided to return before the elections, even their arrest would make them political heroes, creating more embarrassment for the general.

The entire governance and economy is in a big mess. Musharraf relied on Shaukat Aziz, who has miserably failed on all counts. Inflation is wrecking the life of the common man - the vote bank in any elections. That vote bank is not impressed with Shaukat Aziz blowing smoke in their face with economic jargon. For a common man, for example, it is enough to know that the sugar crisis is still haunting the country. The prices have almost doubled in recent months to record levels. Still, there are no imports and all the national demands are being met in abundant supply from local stocks. The price hike gave windfall profits of billions of rupees to a few select sugar cartel mafias within a few months. The much-vaunted National Accountability Bureau was forced to drop the probe immediately after it started. The common man knows that corruption is at an all-time high within the state machinery. Abuse of power and authority are daily headlines. Police and the judiciary system remain most corrupt as well.

Thus, General Musharraf and Washington are now left with extremely limited, difficult and almost impossible options.

1. Even if the military is still behind him, it is highly unlikely that he may decide to confront the Americans, forget about democracy, stop taking international pressures, and take absolute power in his own hands once again as he had when he took power in October 1999. It does not seem possible that Musharraf would once more abolish the assemblies, defer the constitution, draft his own constitution, and declare a presidential system or even martial law. In the past, he formed a team of so-considered honest, selfless and efficient professionals to rectify the damages done in the past few years and tried to bring back control in the economy, security, governance, judiciary and social welfare of the country. He has clearly failed. Of course, the suffering masses are not interested in democracy or martial law. They want security, dignity, cheap food and energy, as well as economic development. It does not matter to them who delivers this. Nevertheless, it will be a huge task to fool them twice with the same mantra. On the part of General Musharraf, it would amount to saying, "I am redoing the eight-year experiment."

2. Another option is renegotiating with the Americans. It is not a problem for him to bend backwards even more. He would send Pakistani forces to Iraq, recognize Israel, commit more troops to Miranshah, take responsibility for finishing off the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Madrassas in Pakistan, and allow more unrestricted access to the United States into Pakistan's security and intelligence, as well as nuke apparatus. Nevertheless, for sustaining all this he has to remain the chief of armed forces. With these measures, he can immediately become the blue-eyed boy of the Americans once again and there will be no further chatter in Washington about democracy. But Musharraf will have a revolt on hand in the home front and perhaps even a rebellion in the army.

3. The third option is to contest elections with whatever support base the general has so far and keep Benazir, Nawaz and Sharif out of the electoral process to weaken their collective nuisance. Some heavy-duty management will be required to "arrange" the required results and to neutralize the MMA and PPP/Nawaz factor. The general has done this with the help of ISI before and can do the same again. Consequently, MQM will continue to exploit the situation and basically nothing will improve in the country in terms of economy and governance or law and order; likewise, the same team of suspects will reappear to exploit him even further for the next four years. Things can get mismanaged if Nawaz and Benazir decided to come back before the elections and launch a street protest calling their court cases politically motivated. The MMA would also join them and a bit of "hidden hand" support could start an unexpected but very real inferno. Even if everything goes well, the general will have to give up his position as the military chief. Losing his military position will make the general lose all attractiveness to Washington, which is mainly concerned with sustaining Pakistan's occupation with the Pakistani armed forces and using the Pakistani army in the interest of the United States.

4. The fourth option is that the general reads the writing on the wall and decides to quit, handing over power to the next army chief who would promise the elections or would decide to stay in power depending upon what he wants to do. Musharraf will have to leave the country with his family and may settle in some friendly or neutral country like Turkey or a country in Europe. This option suits Washington, but General Musharraf is addicted to power to an extent that it is highly unlikely that he will hang his boots up so easily.

5. The last option is assassination. He may be assassinated either by his army men, any local resistance groups, Baluchistan Liberation army assassins, or someone sent by the Americans to blame "religious extremists" and pave the way for another general to take over and continue Pakistan's occupation for another decade or so. Being in charge of the general's personal security in many ways, it is only the Americans who can successfully carry out the assassination operation against him. His departure in a violent manner will serve many of the U.S.'s objectives.

In the next few weeks or months, events would basically unfold in one of the many options discussed above. Right now, both Musharraf and Washington are confused and have not clearly decided on any of the options.

The assassination option carries the most weight. We know from experience that leaders in the Muslim world who associated themselves with Washington unconditionally are doomed. The Shah of Iran, General Zia and Saddam Hussein are prominent examples. General Musharraf may continue to rule by force and power, but would not have any grassroots support and hence would remain on shaky ground within his own country.

Washington is now giving General Musharraf a very tough time. He is not finding the courage to stand up to Washington or to face the nation. He has gone silent these days and is not defending U.S. actions, nor is he making supportive statements about the U.S. strategy in the Muslim world. He was under the misconception that Washington would appreciate his concessions, which it was obtaining from the general through blackmail, as his favors. This, however, was not the case. Washington didn't appreciate the "sincerity" and "sacrifice" of the entrapped general. Now, the disillusioned general is annoyed and offended by the American rebuffs to his demands and is feeling ditched and betrayed. That is a sick feeling for a man who had put all his eggs in one big American basket and is now left alone and abandoned to be replaced with another strongman, who could keep himself in uniform for a longer period than the burnt out General Musharraf. A more docile and cooperative political leadership would be the last option considered in Washington.

General Musharraf is in the middle of nowhere at the moment. His only option is to come out clean on his relations with the Americans and to give voice to what he has been hiding from his people and the whole world. He might be portrayed as insane as a result, but to save Pakistan and the world from the scourge of a greater war, he must tell the truth and the whole story of his entrapment to grab the initiative back and restore the confidence of his nation in his words and deeds. Unless General Musharraf restores the confidence of his people in his policies at home by telling the whole truth about the way the ISI was used in 9/11 and how Pakistan has been blackmailed, he is doomed.

Fifty percent approved of Bush's handling of terrorist threats, compared to 47 percent in June. The poll was largely conducted after the alleged airline bombing plot was revealed on August 10.

"The severity of the president's image problem is reflected in the fact that while many Americans (49 percent) feel the level of US involvement in resolving the Lebanon crisis has been appropriate, far fewer (36 percent) say they approve of Bush's handling of the issue," Pew said.

Meanwhile, the alleged airline bombing plot did not have a high impact on Americans' concerns about another terrorist attack.

A quarter of people surveyed by Pew expressed "high concern" about an attack against the United States, up from 17 percent in 2004.

The small rise in US public concern is similar to the one seen after the public transportation bombings in London in 2005 and Madrid in 2004, Pew said.

The poll was conducted between August 9-13 among 1,506 people. It has a plus or minus four percentage point margin of error.

It warned that an attack on Iran would have disastrous consequences for the region and for US forces in Iraq, further inflaming Muslim hatred and violence.

Among the signers were retired general Joseph Hoar, a former commander of US forces in the Middle East, and Morton Halperin, a former State Department director of policy planning.

Halperin accused the Bush administration of stifling debate on Middle East policy "by accusing anybody that disagrees with it of being disloyal or somehow helping the terrorists."

"This administration by refusing to talk to the Syrians, to the Iranians, to the North Koreans has in my view jeopardized our national security," he said in a teleconference with reporters.

The letter comes on top of a chorus of recent criticism by other former officials, Democrats and Republicans, of the administration's Middle East strategy.

Last week, former US ambassador to the United Nations Richard Holbrooke called for more active Middle East diplomacy and talks with Iran and Syria in a opinion piece published by the Washington Post.

Warning of merging crises in Lebanon and Iraq, he emphasized the need to prevent "a chain reaction (that) could spread quickly almost anywhere between Cairo and Mumbai."

"The only beneficiaries of this chaos are Iran, Hezbollah, Al-Qaeda and the Iraqi Shiite leader Moqtada al-Sadr, who last week held the largest anti-American, anti-
Israel demonstration in the world in the very heart of Baghdad, even as 6,000 additional U.S. troops were rushing into the city to 'prevent' a civil war that has already begun," he said.

"This combination of combustible elements poses the greatest threat to global stability since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, history's only nuclear superpower confrontation," he said.

Holbrooke, a Democrat, also called for sending more US troops to Afghanistan while redeploying some US troops in Iraq to the Kurdish zones in the north, then proceed with a phased drawdown of the remaining force.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice earlier this month brushed off critics of the administration policies as short-sighted.

Richard Haas, a former State Department official, found irony in the government use of the word "opportunity" to describe the crisis in the Middle East, and Richard Armitage, a former deputy secretary of state, said Washington's irrational fear of talks was a sign of weakness.

But Rice has continued to defend Washington's refusal to hold high level talks with Syria about Lebanon, and says the crisis in the region is evidence of the emergence of a "new Middle East."

"The problem isn't talking to Syria, the problem is that Syria doesn't act when people talk to them," she said.

Yesterday's guest, John Hagee was vehement but Rosenberg was practically foaming at the mouth. And he was good. R-e-a-l good. He no doubt scared the bejesus out of Fox's already terrified audience but he also found time to bash the "liberal media," wimpy, soft-on-terror Democrats and, with Fox's help, draw a link between Iran, Syria and Venezuela.

The pretense for Rosenberg's appearance was to discuss an exhibit now showing in Iran featuring cartoons mocking the Holocaust. As happens so frequently on Fox, that topic was quickly dispensed with and Cavuto and Rosenberg got down to business.

Rosenberg said the cartoons "the Danes and others have done to mock Mohammed were wrong," but,

"The Iranians are trying to not just mock, but deny a Holocaust while simultaneously preparing to launch another. The President of Iran is talking about genocide, wiping Israel, and frankly, the United States off the map so this is part of the propaganda campaign they are waging to rile up radical Muslims into a holocaust against Israel and ultimately against the United States.

This is a regime in Iran that is trying to bring about a new holocaust. Ahmadinejad is the new Hitler. Too many Americans, particularly on the left, don't see that. They don't see the threat. Ahmadinejad is saying to people in Iran that the end of the world is rapidly approaching and that it's his mission to bring it about by destroying Israel and then the United States and that's the threat.

At this point in the segment Fox went to a split screen showing video of Ahmadinejad hugging Venezuela's President, Hugo Chavez, and video of Ahmadinejad standing next to Bashar Al-Assad, the President of Syria.

Rosenberg continued:

He is building the arsenal and the alliances to destroy Israel and to wipe out the United States and that's what so dangerous. People don't appreciate, yet, particularly in the media, Mike Wallace for sure, don't appreciate, don't understand the evil that is rising in Iran and that's what I'm trying to write about in novels. That's what I'm trying to talk about is the religious, end of the world apocalyptic mindset that Ahmadinejad has. You can't negotiate with someone, ultimately, who believes it's his mission to end the world.

Comment: The hypocrisy in what Rosenberg says is mind-boggling. Speaking on the Bush News Channel, he talks about Ahmadinejad and the "propaganda campaign" he's waging to "rile up radical Muslims" while Fox does the same. He says Ahmadinejad is "saying to people in Iran that the end of the world is rapidly approaching," yet Rosenberg too believes (or hopes for) that. He talks about the "evil that is rising in Iran," yet he fails to see the evil that is rising in the United States, aimed mostly (right now, anyway) at Iran, Syria, and Venezuela and the extraordinary role Fox News plays in spreading that evil.

In the end though, the most frightening aspect of Rosenberg's appearance is knowing that he has boasted of being invited to the White House, Capitol Hill, and the CIA to discuss the Rapture and the Middle East.

District Attorney Mary Lacy refused to say whether authorities have evidence linking Karr to JonBenet's death at her Boulder home on Dec. 26, 1996.

"We should all heed the poignant advice of John Ramsey," said Lacy, quoting the girl's father. "Do not jump to conclusions, do not rush to judgment, do not speculate. Let the justice system take its course."

Lt. Gen. Suwat Tumrongsiskul of the Thai immigration police changed some details Friday of the account he had given of what Karr told investigators. In a telephone interview Thursday with The Associated Press, Suwat quoted Karr as saying he had sexually assaulted the girl and given her drugs. He also told reporters before a news conference Thursday that Karr had claimed to have picked up JonBenet at her school.

On Friday, Suwat confirmed to the AP his account of the sexual assault. But asked Friday if Karr gave the girl drugs, Suwat said the suspect described the encounter with JonBenet Ramsey as "a blur."

"It may have been drugs, or it may have been something else because (Karr said) it was a blur, blur," Suwat said.

Suwat also said Friday that his statement about the girl being picked from school was based on a documentary he had seen and not the interrogation.

JonBenet's autopsy report found no evidence of drugs, saying her death was caused by strangulation after a beating that included a fractured skull. While it describes vaginal injuries, it makes no conclusions about whether she was raped. Investigators later concluded there was no semen on JonBenet's body.

Karr's ex-wife, Lara Knutson, told reporters she cannot defend him, then insisted he was with her in Alabama that Christmas.

"She cannot think of a Christmas while they were together when he was away from the family on Christmas day or immediately thereafter," said her attorney, Michael Rains, though he added she could not specifically recall Christmas 1996.

Authorities have not said whether Karr could have written the ransom note demanding $118,000 found in the Ramsey home. And the professor who swapped four years' worth of e-mails with Karr and brought him to the attention of prosecutors in May refused to characterize the suspect either as killer or kook.

"I don't know that he's guilty," said Michael Tracey, who teaches journalism at the University of Colorado. "Obviously, I went to the district attorney for a reason, but let him have his day in court and let JonBenet have her day in court and let's see how it plays out."

Any previous relationship between Karr and the Ramseys remained a mystery, though both have ties to suburban Atlanta.

Karr's background includes an arrest in Petaluma, Calif., in 2001 on five misdemeanor counts of possession of child pornography, to which he pleaded not guilty.

He began teaching at Bangkok Christian College, an elite private school with about 5,500 male students in 12 grades, in early June, school officials said. He worked there for about two weeks before being dismissed.

"He was qualified to be a teacher. He had a diploma and has experience in teaching in Bangkok for some time," said Banchong Chompowong, assistant director of the English immersion program at Bangkok Christian. "John Karr came to us with a good resume and with credentials, but then we allowed him a trial (period) with students, we found he was too strict."

Banchong said Karr gave the students "time outs" and another teacher said he had a reputation for yelling at students.

Karr was arrested at a Bangkok apartment Wednesday. Hours later, Thai authorities sat him before a room of journalists, where he admitted: "I was with JonBenet when she died. Her death was an accident."

"I am so very sorry for what happened to JonBenet," Karr told the AP.

Suwat said Karr wants to return to the United States to fight the case. He said U.S. authorities were preparing documents and plane tickets for the return journey. The departure could take place at any time, he said.

Thai police said Karr told them the slaying was second-degree murder. One expert suggested his confession was geared to spare him a first-degree murder charge.

"He seemed convinced that what he said would make him guilty of a lesser crime," said Sharon Davies, a former prosecutor at the Ohio State University law school.

Legal experts said DNA evidence will likely be key: DNA was found beneath JonBenet's fingernails and inside her underwear, and authorities have never said whether it matches anyone in an
FBI database.

Karr was given a mouth-swab DNA test in Bangkok, according to a law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation. The results of that test were not known. Karr will be given another DNA test when he returns to the United States in the next several days, the official said.

Asked if authorities could tell whether Karr had firsthand knowledge of the murder or had just picked up information from news accounts, Lin Wood, the Ramseys' longtime attorney, said: "There is information about the murder that has never been publicly disclosed." He did not elaborate.

Wood said he believes there is more to the case than correspondence.

"I feel like there must be something more here than some e-mail confession," the attorney said.

Karr's description of the case as an accident also rang false to experts.

"It's hard to imagine a more intentional, deliberate murder," said Craig Silverman, a former Denver prosecutor, referring to JonBenet's skull fracture and strangulation. "This has always been a case of deliberate murder."