If that is what it means, then I cannot support our troops. I cannot wish them well if their purpose is conquer other people, and plunder the wealth of other countries that have done us no harm. That would require me to endorse crimes against humanity conducted under the guise of national security and patriotism. I cannot do that-I will not. It is simply wrong.

Neither should we, as we so often do, confuse supporting our troops with supporting the president, or wrongful and immoral policies of corrupt government. The president and his ilk do not support our troops or he would not use them as pawns; he would take care of them when they come home broken and torn with psychic scars. He does not care about them-they are only a means to an end.

No, the best way to support our troops is to take a principled stand; to hold the moral high ground-to bring them home alive and whole. A government must not be allowed to require any of its citizens to engage in immoral or criminal behavior on its behalf. When a government behaves like a crime syndicate it does not mean that the people should follow its example-they must provide a better alternative, and refuse their allegiance to it.

So if the failure to support a government's wrongful policies makes me a terrorist-so be it. If speaking truth to power makes one a terrorist-sign me up; move me to top of the NSA and FBI lists of suspects. Send forth the assassins with their rifles. If exposing the lies and corruption that attends power makes me a terrorist-I will proudly wear the crown and bear the cost. I will cheerfully take my place alongside other terrorists with names like Thoreau, Debs, King, Gandhi, Einstein, Zinn, and Christ.

Charles Sullivan is a photographer and free-lance writer residing in the hinterland of West Virginia. He welcomes your comments at csullivan@phreego.com

Major General Paul Eaton summarized Rumsfeld's dismal performance this way:

"Rumsfeld has shown himself incompetent strategically, operationally and tactically, and is far more than anyone else responsible for what has happened to our important mission in Iraq".

Keep in mind that Eaton is a conservative Republican and a firm believer in America's preemptive war in Iraq. His comments simply reflect his ability to objectively judge performance and to assign blame where blame belongs. In this case, the person who is most responsible for the bungled policy in Iraq is Don Rumsfeld.

Fellow Lt. General Gregory Newbold was equally critical of Rumsfeld and said, "The decision to invade Iraq was done with a casualness and a swagger that are the special province of those who have never had to execute these missions---or bury the results."

Newbold is right; they don't "bury the results" at the American Enterprise Institute, or at the Pentagon, or at the many smoke-filled, bastions where American plutocrats like Rumsfeld lark about, but in small-town America; Bakersfield, Winooski, Devils Lake, where parents and young widows choke back the tears for the men who lost their lives in Rumsfeld's folly. That's who pays the bill for Rumsfeld's arrogance.

Rumsfeld's failures are legion, but they do not compare to the disgrace he has heaped on the United States through his authorization of the cruel and inhuman treatment of prisoners in American custody. There is a clear record of official memoranda which lead straight to the office of the Secretary of Defense connecting Rumsfeld to a regime of torture and abuse directed at men who have never been charged with a crime and who are the unwitting victims of a terrorist witch-hunt.

Rumsfeld's involvement in these crimes puts him well-outside our fundamental traditions and beliefs as Americans. His conduct is an assault of the basic principles which we hold most dear and which are written into our founding documents.

"We hold these truths to be self evident..."

It is impossible to grasp how someone can be raised in America, matriculate at American universities, participate in the American political system, and spend the bulk of his life breathing in the same American customs and mores as the rest of us, and yet, be so completely divorced from the most essential values of the culture.

Rumsfeld is like a man who has passed through his entire life impervious to his surroundings and to the nations' prevailing ethos. He is, quite simply, the most un-American character to ever serve in high-office.

So, it is surprising, then, that the amoral Rumsfeld, whose litany of failures in Iraq and Afghanistan follow him like the plumage on a peacock, would decide to take aim at his many critics in a speech delivered to the American Legion on Thursday. It just shows that there are really no limits to the obtuseness of the men who currently hold power in America.

"Once again, we face similar challenges in efforts to confront the rising threat of a new type of fascism," Rumsfeld opined. "But some seem not to have learned history's lessons. Can we truly afford to believe that, somehow or someway, vicious extremists could be appeased?"

Rumsfeld's words are aimed at the 61% of Americans who no longer believe that the war in Iraq is "worth it". He dismisses them as "appeasers". Of course, at one time many of these same people supported the war and didn't care about the moral or legal issues as long as America prevailed. So, in fact, many of these "appeasers" actually changed their minds due to Rumsfeld's staggering incompetence in managing the conflict. The Sec-Def must examine his own performance to truly understand why public support has eroded so dramatically.

Tom Friedman summarized Rumsfeld's strategy as the "Rumsfeld Doctrine" that is, deploying "just enough troops to lose." And, as we have already shown, Rumsfeld has failed in every phase of the occupation without exception.

It is pointless to dispute Rumsfeld's allegations that his critics are "appeasers" or "fascist" sympathizers. It's just a silly attempt to set up a straw man and then knock him down. Rumsfeld is a master at shifting attention from his own wretched performance and dumping the blame on someone else. In this case, he attacks not only those who have lost faith in the war but, also, takes a few swipes at his old nemesis "the media".

The media has played a central role in sustaining support for the war; keeping anti-war critics out of their studios and off the air. They've limited their Iraq coverage to scenes of Arab's killing Arabs rather that the daily digest of American bombing-raids, decimated Iraqi cities and an entire nation reduced to anarchy. Still, in Rumsfeld's mind, any information that leaches through the fissures in the media façade and doesn't promote the blinkered goal of American corporate-hegemony, is tantamount to treason.

"Those who know the truth need to speak out against these kinds of (media) myths and distortions that are being told about our country and our troops," Rumsfeld moaned. "The struggle we are in is too important to have the luxury of returning to that old mentality of "Blame America First."'


Rumsfeld's words were immediately followed by an announcement from the Pentagon that they would tender a "$20 million public relations contract that calls for extensive monitoring of US and Middle Eastern media in an effort to promote more positive coverage from Iraq." (Wa Post)

Again, we see how utterly disconnected from reality Rumsfeld truly is. Rather than try to grasp the real issues involved, he cynically applies his energy to "attacking the messenger" or "perception management" strategies. These are the signs of someone who is completely incapable of personal accountability and who seriously believes that everyone else is to blame for his own failures.

No one is "manipulating the media" to oppose the war, quite the contrary. The corporate media has been a vital cog in the Pentagon's information stratagem and is probably the most successful part of the war effort. They have maintained an astonishing level of public support for a war that has yet to provide any moral or legal justification or any recognizable "metric" for achieving victory. It simply goes on day by day grinding out more carnage while reducing the "cradle of civilization" into a pile of smoldering wreckage.

The Pentagon's own report provided the most scathing account of America's failed crusade. The report admitted that, "Sectarian violence is spreading in Iraq and the security problems have become more complex than anytime since the invasion in 2003...The illegal militias have become more entrenched, especially in Baghdad neighborhoods where they are seen as providers of both security and basic social services." (NY Times)

In other words, everything has gotten worse and there are no tangible signs of improvement.

Is the Pentagon part of the "Blame America First" crowd too? Is the High-Command trying to "manipulate the media and demoralize public opinion" as Rumsfeld claims? ( Note: Bush disputed the Pentagon's findings the very next day giving his cheery predictions precedent over the dismal facts from the Big Brass)

Opposition to the war is now emerging from all segments of society and continues to grow despite the optimistic accounts of progress in the media. America was defeated in Iraq when the first bombs were dropped on Baghdad in March 2003. It's been downhill ever since. After 4 years of the most pitiless warfare against a civilian population, the magnitude of that defeat has only increased.

Donald Rumsfeld is mistaken when he says that antiwar Americans suffer from "moral confusion." Moral confusion is a condition of men who deliberately inflict pain on other human beings in violation of the most fundamental standards of human decency. In fact, those activities far exceed mere confusion and indicate a state of total moral decay. Such people are not fit to make even the most elementary ethical judgemnts, let alone to decide on the important issues of war and peace.

Support for the war is on a steady downward trajectory. That decline in support will not be altered by the delusional accusations of a man who, more than any other, is responsible for the shame and degradation that conflict has brought on our country.

That man is Don Rumsfeld.

Within a month, Batiste, 32, and six of his compatriots were arrested and charged with conspiracy to aid a terrorist organization and bomb a federal building. On June 23, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales held a news conference to announce the destruction of a terrorist cell inside the United States, hailing "our commitment to preventing terrorism through energetic law enforcement efforts aimed at detecting and thwarting terrorist acts."

But court records released since then suggest that what Gonzales described as a "deadly plot" was virtually the pipe dream of a few men with almost no ability to pull it off on their own. The suspects have raised questions in court about the FBI informants' role in keeping the plan alive.

The plot featured self-proclaimed militant religious leaders who referred to themselves as kings, talked of establishing their own nation inside the United States, called their headquarters an embassy and discussed plans to train their recruits to use bows and arrows. One of their quixotic notions was to blow up Chicago's Sears Tower.

Batiste's father, a Christian preacher and former contractor who lives in Louisiana, told the news media after the indictment that his son was "not in his right mind" and needed psychiatric treatment.

Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, separating serious terrorist plotters from delusional dreamers has proved one of the FBI's most challenging tasks. The effort is complicated by the bureau's frequent use of informants who sometimes play active roles in the plotting.

U.S. law enforcement officials say they do not have the luxury of waiting for a terrorist plot to mature before they break it up. A delay, they say, could mean that a member of the plot they had not discovered might be able to pull off an attack.

At the news conference, Gonzales acknowledged that Batiste was nowhere near carrying out a terrorist act.

"Our philosophy here is that we try to identify plots in the earliest stages possible, because we don't know what we don't know about a terrorist plot," he said. It is dangerous to evaluate in advance that "this is a really dangerous group; this is not a dangerous group," he added.

But lawyers for the defendants have raised questions about where a government sting ends and entrapment begins. Not only did government informants provide money and a meeting place for Batiste and his followers, but they also gave them video cameras for conducting surveillance, as well as cellphones, and suggested that their first target be a Miami FBI office, court records show.

At the hearing, Batiste's attorney, John Wylie, showed that the FBI's investigation found no evidence that his client had met with any real terrorist, received e-mails or wire transfers from the Middle East, possessed any al-Qaeda literature, or had even a picture of bin Laden.

Asked for a response, a Justice Department spokesman referred a reporter to Gonzales's remarks about the case.

Court documents and testimony at hearings describe how the plot unfolded. Last October, Batiste allegedly contacted a Middle Eastern-born Miami resident who was about to travel to Yemen. The man dealt in fresh produce; Batiste was unaware that he was also a paid informant for the FBI.

The man -- known only as CW1 in court documents -- told his FBI handlers that Batiste had spoken of forming an army to wage jihad and overthrow the federal government. He said Batiste was "willing to work with al Qaeda to accomplish the mission and wanted to travel with [the informant] overseas to make appropriate connections," according to court documents.

The FBI would eventually pay the informant, who had previous arrests for assault and marijuana possession, $10,500 for his services in the Batiste investigation and reimburse him $8,815 for his expenses.

Over the next few weeks, the informant stayed in touch with Batiste and spent a night at the "embassy" where the group was headquartered. He reported seeing guns, karate practice and fighting drills that involved machetes.

By mid-November, the FBI decided to take a more active role. Agents introduced a more experienced Middle Eastern-born informant, CW2, to play the role of a potential financier to prevent Batiste from seeking money elsewhere. CW2, according to court papers, had worked for the FBI for six years and provided information that led to the arrests of two individuals on "terrorist-related charges."

But CW2 soon also took a key role in the plotting, suggesting targets and supplying videotaping equipment, according to the court papers. His reward was $17,000 the FBI paid for his services, and approval of his petition for political asylum in the United States.

At their initial meeting, the second informant said he was there to "evaluate" Batiste's operation and asked what help he needed to carry out his "mission." Batiste drew up a list that included "uniforms, boots, automatic hand pistols, communications equipment like Nextel cell phones, an SUV truck, black in color," according to court documents. Two days later, he asked for more equipment, including a "mini .223 Bushmaster" rifle.

Three days before Christmas, Batiste and CW2 met again, and Batiste talked for the first time about destroying Chicago's Sears Tower, a landmark in a city where he once worked as a FedEx delivery driver and still had associates. Batiste said he would take advantage of the ensuing chaos to liberate Muslims from a nearby jail. They would form an army powerful enough to force the U.S. government to recognize the "Sovereign Moors" -- an offshoot of a religious group, the Moorish Science Temple, to which Batiste claimed allegiance -- as an independent nation.

A week later, when he met with CW2 again, Batiste asked for more firearms, radios, binoculars, bulletproof vests, SUVs and $50,000 in cash. He also invited the informant to join him on a trip to Chicago to meet his "two top generals" and look at the Sears Tower. But the trip never took place.

By the beginning of January, CW2 had offered Batiste a rent-free warehouse large enough for training. In reality, the FBI wanted a new meeting spot because it could not carry out surveillance at the "embassy," which was located in a high-crime area where agents would be easily spotted. At the same time, however, Batiste began to mistrust CW2 because of his numerous questions and ended direct contact with him for a while.

In mid-January, the first informant contacted Batiste's closest associate in the group to report that approval for the plan had come from al-Qaeda operatives in Yemen. When bin Laden issued a public statement saying that al-Qaeda would soon strike in the United States, the informant passed word to Batiste that it was a reference to the missions he was planning.

CW2 soon informed Batiste that an explosives expert in Europe -- actually a Scotland Yard agent -- was ready to come and help.

On Feb. 19, Batiste met with CW2 in a videotaped session at the informant's Miami apartment, where he "outlined his plan to wage jihad in the United States," according to court records. Batiste said he would conduct a "full ground war" and "kill all the devils we can," beginning with "taking down the Sears Tower in Chicago and attacking a prison to free Muslim Brothers who are incarcerated."

When Batiste grew impatient for money early in March, CW2 placated him by formally swearing him into al-Qaeda. In a ceremony recorded by the FBI, the informant read an English translation of the al-Qaeda loyalty oath, "welcomed Batiste to al Qaeda and declared that al Qaeda and the Moors were officially united," according to court papers. The informant and Batiste also selected a two-story warehouse as their new headquarters and training site.

On March 15, the FBI wired the warehouse for sound and video. The next night, before a secret camera, CW2 administered an English translation of the al-Qaeda oath to six members of Batiste's group, four of whom called themselves "prince" and two who were addressed as "brother."

The men also face charges of conspiring to aid a terrorist group.

Acting on instructions from the FBI, CW2 told the group that his al-Qaeda bosses were planning to attack FBI buildings in Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and Miami. He asked that Batiste and his group assist by providing video of the Miami FBI building, "which would be sent back to al Qaeda overseas," according to court papers. He also gave Batiste a video camera.

In late March, driving a van provided by the informant, Batiste and two associates videotaped and photographed the FBI building, as CW2 had requested. They also taped the federal courthouse and detention center, and the Miami police headquarters.

CW2 later expressed interest in meeting Batiste's Chicago associates and said al-Qaeda would pay to have them come to Miami. Batiste called Charles James Stewart, also known as Sultan Khan Bey, and his wife in Chicago, where Stewart leads his own branch of the Moorish Science Temple. With $3,500 in FBI money, Batiste paid for them to come to Miami.

Court papers show that Stewart is a convicted rapist with a long arrest record for other serious crimes. On April 11, with FBI cameras rolling, Stewart and Batiste sat in the Miami warehouse and discussed opening a shop to sell marijuana and drug pipes. They smoked marijuana as they talked, and Stewart revealed his plan to build a Moorish nation of 10,000 people.

Stewart wanted to make his wife, whom he called Queen Zakiyaah, an ambassador of the Moorish nation so she could not be detained by U.S. authorities. He said Moorish soldiers would wear green uniforms and become expert with bows and arrows. They would undergo night training that included jumping from a bridge into water 20 feet below.

But within days, Stewart and Batiste began to have differences over control of the organization and its mission. On April 17, the conflict broke into the open and Stewart tried Batiste under Moorish law on charges of treason and insubordination. He questioned "his relationship and association with the Arabian or Nigerian mafia," a reference to the second FBI informant.

Two days later, Stewart, now running what was left of Batiste's group, was arrested by Miami police after he fired a shot at one of Batiste's supporters.

On May 5, after a local hearing on the shooting, federal weapons charges were lodged against Stewart. Federal agents asked whether he knew of any plots against the United States, and Stewart began talking about Batiste's mission as one that was "starting to get serious," a phrase later cited in court by prosecutors. Stewart became a witness against Batiste and the others.

The defendants have signaled that they will contest the government's actions. At a July 5 detention hearing, Nathan Clark, an attorney for one member of the group, told U.S. Magistrate Judge Ted E. Bandstra that the ceremony at which the defendants took the al-Qaeda oath was "induced by the government themselves in an effort to set these people up."

"What we see is this entire organization, by the government's own admission, falling apart. . . . Nobody really believes that these people are capable of doing anything," he said.

In the end, Bandstra ruled that the seven would have to remain in jail because the allegations were "disturbing." But he added that "the plans appear to be beyond the present ability of these defendants" and said he expected their attorneys to argue the government's actions at trial.

"It's pretty clear that we didn't do a good enough job educating the public," said Robert Lanier, a coast guard spokesman. The coast guard is also considering holding public hearings.

The Ohio Department of Natural Resources and other environmental groups voiced concern over the plan and its possible impact on boaters and wildlife.

Commercial fishermen would have a hard time moving their nets for the drills and recreational anglers and boaters could accidentally wander into the range, the department's Steve Holland wrote in a letter to the coast guard.

The zones are all more than eight kilometres offshore and drills would only be conducted a few days every year, Lanier said. Exercises would use machine-guns mounted on cutters and small boats.

During live-fire operations a small boat would patrol as a safety lookout. Any wayward boats would be escorted from the zone and firing would stop until the area was cleared, Lanier said.

The state DNR also wanted assurances the areas would not be used between April 15 and Nov. 1 in order to protect aquatic species and boaters.

"We're talking hundreds and hundreds of boats," said David Kelch of Ohio State University's Sea Grant office in Lorain County.

"The one (proposed zone) off Cleveland, that is another prime area for fishing."

Lead and other metals from the ammunition could taint the water, said Kristy Meyer of the Ohio Environmental Council. The council is also worried noises from rounds firing will disrupt the reproduction of migratory birds.

Lanier acknowledged the munitions contain some lead but said it would not harm the ecosystem.

Despite the objections, some groups are confident an agreement can be ironed out.

With the right scheduling and good communication, zones can be safely implemented, said Ken Alvey, president of the Lake Erie Marine Trades Association.

"There's plenty of lake out there," Alvey said.

The State Department was providing "corrective information" in response to misinformation in the media and on the Internet, said Joanne Moore, a department spokeswoman.

The information in the rebuttal was not new, she added, but drawn from public sources.

In a similar vein, the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology posted a "fact sheet" on its Web site on Wednesday in question-and-answer format responding to alternative theories about the fire and the collapse.

NIST, which carried out a three-year investigation, concluded the towers collapsed after being hit by separate, fuel-laden aircraft flown by hijackers.

The resulting fire, which reached temperatures as high as 1,000 degrees C (1,800 degrees F), led to an inward bowing of perimeter columns and subsequent collapses, NIST found in 43 volumes that comprise a final report issued last October.

In putting out its answers to 14 questions about the World Trade Center, NIST, an arm of the Commerce Department, said its findings did not support the "pancake theory" of collapse premised on a progressive failure of floor systems consistent with a controlled demolition.

"NIST is a group of government scientists whose leaders are Bush appointees, and therefore their report is not likely to veer from the political story," said Kevin Ryan, an editor of the online Journal of 9/11 studies.

Ryan says he was a former site manager of a division of Underwriters Laboratories, an independent, not-for-profit product-safety testing and certification organization.

"The more information we learn about this investigation, the more concerned we become," he said.

A US military spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Keir-Kevin Curry, said Saturday: "Coalition forces transferred operations of Abu Ghraib on September 1 to the Iraqi ministry of justice, effectively ending detainee operations."

Dabaqh said detainees at the prison had suffered human rights violations "during the former regime and also under the US forces" and that Iraq will decide what to do with the facility in the future.

Abu Ghraib, on the western outskirts of Baghdad, was already dreaded under Saddam Hussein's regime as a centre for torture. It gained further notoriety when it was revealed that US forces had abused Iraqi detainees there in 2003.



Earlier this year, the US military had said it did not anticipate Iraqi authorities using the facility as a prison.

On Saturday, a separate statement from the US military said a team of US marines will remain at the prison for a short duration helping Iraqi soldiers take over the security of the facility.

Nearly 4,500 prisoners were held in Abu Ghraib at the start of this year, but more than 2,000 were released under Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's national reconciliation plan, which he announced in June.

Curry said the rest of the detainees were "transferred to Camp Cropper in Baghdad last month, after completing an expansion and extensive renovations meant to provide increased security and improved detainee care and custody".

The military said around 13,000 security detainees remain in the custody of coalition forces across Iraq, most of them in Camp Bucca, in the south of the country, apart from Camp Cropper and Fort Suse in the north.

International human rights activists had expressed concern over Abu Ghraib, saying Iraq's dangerous security situation prevented them from visiting the facility to check on detainee conditions.

Curry said the detainees in Abu Ghraib or other such detention centres run by US authorities are people "who are detained because they pose a security threat to the government of Iraq, the people of Iraq or coalition forces."

Abu Ghraib became infamous in 2003 when pictures of abuse at the prison, including some showing bloodied and naked prisoners smeared with excrement or forced to perform sexual acts, stoked anti-US sentiment across the world.

A number of low-ranking US soldiers -- controversially described by Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld as only "a few bad apples" -- faced courts martial over the abuse.

Specialist Charles Graner and his girlfriend of the time, Private Lynndie England, became the public face of the abuse scandal.

Graner was said to have been the ringleader of the humiliating mistreatment and was jailed for 10 years.

England, who was pictured holding a naked prisoner at the end of a dog leash, was sentenced to three years in jail and given a dishonorable discharge.

The prison commander at the time, Janis Karpinski, was the most senior officer to be reprimanded. She was demoted from brigadier general to colonel but faced no charges.

Karpinski published a book in 2005 in which she said abuses were perpetrated by contract employees trained in
Afghanistan and at the Guantanamo detention camp in Cuba and that her demotion was political retribution by the
Pentagon.

Staff Sgt. Raymond L. Girouard, Spc. William B. Hunsaker, Pfc. Corey R. Clagett and Spc. Juston R. Graber have claimed they were ordered to "kill all military age males" during the raid on the island. According to statements from some of the soldiers, they were told the target was an al-Qaida training camp.

Hunsaker told investigators that he and Clagett were attacked by the three men, who were being handcuffed, and shot them in self-defense. Clagett said he was hit in the face, and Hunsaker claimed he was stabbed during the attack.

Prosecutors argue the soldiers conspired to kill the men and then altered the scene to fit their story. They contend Girouard stabbed Hunsaker as part of the killing plot.

Clagett, Girouard and Hunsaker also are accused of threatening to kill another soldier who witnessed the slayings. Girouard, the most senior soldier charged, faces several additional charges, including sexual harassment and carrying a personal weapon on duty.

Paul Bergrin, Clagett's civilian attorney, said he was surprised that Daniel recommended the case be taken to trial at all.

"I'm extremely disappointed and disheartened," Bergrin said Saturday. "They are being used as pawns in the war on terror. They followed the rules of engagement. They were confronted with violence by a known al-Qaida training camp member."

Other lawyers in the case, several of whom are deployed to Iraq, did not immediately respond to e-mail requests for comment.

The soldiers are expected to be tried at Fort Campbell. They have been jailed in Kuwait since their arrests this year.

The U.S. military has not executed a soldier since the 1960 hanging of a soldier convicted rape and attempted murder.

Under the program, called Project Strikeback, the Education Department, which collects information from 14 million applications for federal student aid each year, received names from the FBI and checked them against its student aid database, and then forwarded information to the FBI.

The agencies said the program had been closed, but neither of them would say whether any investigations had resulted, The New York Times reported.

The program was created 10 days after the September 11 attacks, according a USA Today report citing documents from the Education Department's Office of the Inspector General, which investigates cases of fraud, waste, and abuse in federal education programs, including student loans.

The issue was first reported on Thursday by a graduate student, Laura McGann, at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, as part of a reporting project which focused on national security and civil liberties.

Information collected on federal financial aid applications includes names, addresses, Social Security numbers, incomes and, for some students, information on parents' incomes and educational backgrounds. Generally, only United States citizens and permanent residents are eligible to apply for federal student financial aid.

John Miller, assistant director of the FBI, said in a statement that "during the September 11 investigation and continually since, much of the intelligence has indicated that terrorists have exploited programs involving student visas and financial aid. In some student loan frauds, identity theft has been a factor."

He said the Education Department was asked to "run names of subjects already material to counterterrorism investigations" to look for evidence of student loan fraud or identity theft, and that was not a sweeping program, in that it had involved only a few hundred names.