The Saudi intelligence services have arrived at the conviction that the al-Qaeda leader is dead.

If this information were to be confirmed, it could end the precipitous drop in public approval for U.S. President George Bush, who is being badly manhandled in the polls two months before the next elections.

The information we reveal today comes from a secret service document classified as "Defense: Confidential," issued by the Directorate-General of External Security (DGSE). The French intelligence service passed the document to the President [Jacques Chirac], the Prime Minister [Dominique de Villepin], the Minister of Interior [Nicolas Sarkozy] and the Defense Minister [Michele Alliot] on Thursday, September 21st. We offer the contents to you in their entirety:

"According to a normally reliable source, the Saudi intelligence services are now of the conviction that Osama bin Laden is dead. Information gathered by the Saudis indicates that the al-Qaeda leader, while in Pakistan on August 23rd 2006, fell victim to a very serious case of typhoid, which induced a partial paralysis of his lower limbs. His geographic isolation, brought about by his state of permanent flight, rendered any kind of medical assistance impossible. On September 4th 2006, the Saudi services obtained the first pieces of information mentioning his death. They await further details before making an official announcement, specifically the exact location of his burial."

The information obtained by DGSE in the death of bin Laden was deemed sufficiently reliable to inform the highest French authorities. An initial report was composed and circulated on September 19th. It was entitled "Saudi Intelligence Services Seek to Confirm the Death of Osama bin Laden."

Before this newest disclosure, it had been over three years since American counterterrorism officials had received credible information on bin Laden's whereabouts. The last actionable intelligence on bin Laden came all the way back in April 2003, with the apprehension of another al-Qaeda leader, Walid Mohamed Ben Attash. At that point it was established that Attash had met with the Jihadi spiritual leader three months earlier, in the Afghan province of Khost.

Over recent months, American commando units in charge of hunting bin Laden have concentrated their efforts on the border area between Afghanistan and Pakistan, to the north of the tribal regions. That is to say, in the region that is not under the control of the Islamabad authorities and where the army itself never ventures. It must be said that Pakistani military officers recorded tremendous losses of men when they attempted to occupy the area in 2004 and 2005.

644 DEAD

Despite the vast resources deployed by the Americans to capture bin Laden, the search has remained in vain; and this despite the use of satellites, drones and sophisticated eavesdropping equipment. Thanks to the arrest of several members of the nebulous al-Qaeda, the American services know that bin Laden rarely leaves his hiding places. Apparently, he only comes out at night when the cloud-cover is thick. And thanks to his local troops, the Saudi millionaire has very good knowledge of the region, which offers an infinite number of hideouts.

Despite this impossible search, the American authorities never gave up. "It's our top priority" declared Vice President Dick Cheney on September 13th. While the Senate voted $200 million to reconstitute a special intelligence cell specifically dedicated to tracking down the man who dared challenge America in September 11, 2001; and whose organization claims responsibility for 16 other attacks, that are known to have caused 644 deaths and to wounded 2,700 throughout the world since September 2001. It is an organization that has become a brand, a label, and an ideological reference point. It is now a name under which thousands of the world's fanatics are prepared to pass on their way to becoming fully autonomous terrorists, such as those responsible for the July 7th 2005 attacks on London.

The news provoked a cascade of French and international reactions, not one of them leaning toward confirmation. French President Jacques Chirac stressed that the information "has not been confirmed in any way, shape or form," and demanded that the Minister of Defense launch an inquiry into the leaks that made the publication possible. Such leaks, as the Ministry of defense stated, could constitute "an offence subject to legal sanctions." Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy had a similar reaction, stating that he was not a recipient of the DGSE document.

In Washington, Ryad and Islamabad, authorities shared their doubts concerning the reliability of the information, with the Saudi government describing it as "pure speculation."

This "routine" document was passed on to the five usual recipients (President of the Republic, Matignon [Ministry of Defense], Foreign Affairs and Interior).

"On such a sensitive subject, the DGSE cannot afford to hold on to the information, even if it were only in regard to a single source that had informed the Saudi intelligence services," stressed a source close to the DGSE, which regrets such a revelation, since it is likely to complicate relations with Ryad.

"The Saudi are likely to take it badly," the source added.

Mr Hoekstra told this story at a press conference on September 20th unveiling his committee's new report on al-Qaeda. His message was that America is at war, that the battleground is the whole planet, and that radical Islamist terrorists could strike anywhere. Al-Qaeda, he said, had "morphed into a decentralised entrepreneurial organisation" of exceptional speed and agility. He warned against the complacent view that America, unlike Britain, has no problem with home-grown Islamist radicals: American prisons and universities might well become a breeding ground for the ideology of terror.

The previous day, President George Bush delivered a similar message to a global audience. Addressing the UN General Assembly in New York, he said it was "clear that the world is engaged in a great ideological struggle" between "the enemies of humanity" and "moderate people who work for peace".

The same day, his deputy, Dick Cheney, told an audience of carmakers that the terrorists plan to seize control of a country in the Middle East, use it as a base from which to overthrow other governments and eventually set up "a totalitarian empire" stretching from Spain to Indonesia. He added that although the terrorists "cannot hope to beat us in a stand-up fight", they are "convinced they can break the will of the American people."

The common theme is no coincidence. Republican strategists think the best way to minimise their losses on November 7th is to talk non-stop about terrorism. If the latest Gallup/USA Today poll is to be believed, the plan is working. Mr Bush's approval rating has lifted to 44%, up from a trough of 31% in May. More important, likely voters were evenly divided (48%-48%) between those who favoured Republican candidates for Congress and those who favoured Democrats.

If accurate-a big if-this is awful news for the Democrats. Conventional wisdom in Washington says they will win control of the House of Representatives, where all seats are up for election. The Senate, where only a third of the seats are to be contested, will be tougher, but some Democrats think they have a chance. Their problem is that although they enjoy a comfortable lead among registered voters (51%-42% in the Gallup poll, for example), they do far less well among those who say they will probably vote. And only the votes of those who actually vote are counted.

Lower petrol prices have certainly boosted the Republicans. But the Gallup poll found specific evidence that Mr Bush's strategy of vowing again and again to catch or kill terrorists is helping his party. Gallup discovered that among registered voters who think terrorism is the most important issue, far more think Republicans would do a better job than Democrats in fighting it (68%-17%). Among those who said the war in Iraq was their top issue, it was the other way around: 60% thought Democrats would handle Iraq better, while only 23% said Republicans would. So if the Republicans can maximise the number of people thinking about terror on election day, maybe they can hang on to both arms of Congress.

Some news helps them: for example, the alleged British plot to blow up transatlantic airliners. And advertisements put out by pro-Republican pressure groups add unsubtle mood music. One from the Centre for Security Policy urges Americans to "Vote as if your life depends on it. Because it does." Another, from a group called Progress for America, states simply that "These people want to kill us."

Meanwhile, with only a few days left before Congress's pre-election recess, Mr Bush is struggling to persuade lawmakers to pass two laws he says he needs to fight terrorism. One concerns wire-tapping; the other is about how to deal with captured terrorist suspects. Mr Bush argues that the intelligence services should be allowed to eavesdrop on people in America suspected of terrorist links when they call their contacts abroad, without having to waste time obtaining a warrant. He also believes that the CIA should be allowed to use coercive techniques to extract information from captured terrorists. His critics retort that warrantless wire-tapping is an invasion of Americans' privacy, and that if you let spooks rough up suspects even a bit, it is a slippery slope to torture.

On September 20th the House intelligence committee considered a compromise that would allow warrantless snooping if the president believes an attack is "imminent". The new bill, which also allows for greater congressional oversight of such surveillance, could be voted on next week, but would need to be reconciled with whatever the Senate passes.

The question of what to do with top al-Qaeda detainees is more fraught. The CIA says it has gained life-saving intelligence from the harsh interrogation of people such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged architect of the attacks of September 11th 2001. It has reportedly agreed to stop waterboarding people. But it is unclear which subtleties it still plans to employ.

Mr Hoekstra argues that CIA agents need to know what they can and can't do; current law is too vague. Others worry that any attempt to spell out what America thinks the Geneva Conventions mean will be seen as an attempt to re-write it. Lindsey Graham, one of three Republican senators blocking Mr Bush's proposals on the subject, predicts that other nations would see that as a licence to re-write the treaty to suit their own secret police, which "would be disaster". "We cannot have a great nation," he told CBS, "when we start re-defining who we are."

DEBKAfile's Exclusive intelligence and counter-terror sources disclose that the three teams were made up of intelligence officers and civilian officials on the staffs of the three rulers; their job is maintaining clandestine ties with underground and terrorist organizations.

After the NAM conference ended, the Iranian and Venezuelan teams moved their talks to Caracas where Ahmadinejad continued his talks with Chavez on Sept 17 and 18.

Interestingly, Iran's Islamic revolutionary leaders have maintained warm ties of cooperation and mutual assistance with Castro's Cuba since they came to power in Tehran in 1979. They admired his revolutionary zeal and consistent anti-US policies. Tehran also exploited Cuba's economic straits to deepen its penetration of the country with a view to setting up an Iranian base in Cuba for its continental operations.

But the relationship suffered ups and downs, especially when Castro declined to give Iranian agents a free hand for subversion and espionage against the United States. In 2003, the Cuban ruler was furious when Iranian diplomats, without asking for permission, installed in their homes in a farm on the outskirts of Havana jamming equipment against television programs bounced from the United States through satellite to Iran. They were trying to stop Iranian opposition-backed television broadcasters in Los Angeles calling on Iranians to rise up against the Islamic regime. Castro made the Iranian diplomats evacuate the farm and remove their gear.

Castro is too old a hand to be manipulated in matters of subversion and terrorism. Chavez in contrast is just as anti-American but also rated by Tehran an easier mark. Although he needs to be handled with kid gloves as head of an oil-exporting country, the Iranians have noted that the Venezuelan leader is also open to cooperation in the politics of oil.

On Sept. 18, he insisted that Ahmadinejad attend a ceremony celebrating the gushing of the 7th Aya Well of the Kuchouy Oil Field developed by a Venezuelan-Iranian partnership. This was to be a landmark on the road to a merger between the two oil industries. Tehran is not too happy about this partnership but is going along with small, symbolic steps while extracting from Caracas - and eventually it hopes from Havana - forward facilities for running Iranian clandestine agents in North and South America.

DEBKAfile's Iranian sources report that Ahmadinejad also talked persuasively to Chavez about making a show of deploying a few Iranian-made 2,000-km range Shahab-3 missiles - first in Venezuela then in Cuba - as a menace to the United States.

Chavez has not given Tehran his answer. But both he and Castro will think twice about granting this request, for fear of crossing one line too many for the Bush administration to swallow. However, Iranian ambitions to harm American know no limits.

The three-cornered meeting in Havana between the Ahmadinejad, Chavez and Raoul Castro at the beginning of the week reached a number of decisions in principle although they remain to be fleshed out with operational details. Castro was reluctant to make final decisions because he said his brother would soon be back at the helm.

They did agree that anything decided during the Iranian and Venezuelan presidents' Caracas talks would be put before the Cuban ruler. They also decided that their intelligence teams would meet again during the UN General Assembly session in New York later this week. After discovering this plan, Washington refused the Iranian president's "aides" - presented as journalists - entry visas to New York on Tuesday, Sept. 19.

The three-way talks have thus far yielded a solid decision for Iranian intelligence agents, some of them sabotage specialists, to be sent soon to Cuba and Venezuela. They will operate in the guise of road network and industrial development experts. Their real mission will be to conduct surveys on the practicability of using Cuba and Venezuela as bases for subversive activities against the United States and other parts of Latin America.

Iran is also busy creating similar bases in E. Africa, favoring Sudan and Somalia.

At the Havana NAM conference the Iranian president and Sudan's Omar Bashir were seen deep in conversation. Tehran believes that the Sudanese ruler will come round now to accepting expanded military and intelligence collaboration between the two countries, whereas in 2003, he threw Iranian agents out of Sudan together with all their development specialists. Bashir is now seeking support for his Darfur policy which aims to remove pro-Western military elements from Sudan.

Iran is on the way to harnessing two more countries to its clandestine anti-US campaign: Somalia and Yemen. In Mogadishu, the Islamic Courts movement headed by Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys is strengthening its grip on Somalia. Like Iran's Islamic rulers, this group also preaches jihad and martyrdom (suicide attacks) for the sake of Islam.

The Somali movement therefore provides fertile ground for recruiting terrorists for suicide missions on behalf of Iran and al Qaeda alike as part of their subversion and terror campaigns across the African continent.

Mogadishu's new rulers, whose number includes a group of middle-ranking al Qaeda commanders, are busy training an army to support their regime. Al Qaeda and Iranian Revolutionary Guards instructors are building up a corps of suiciders to attacks US embassies and Israeli targets across the continent.

The Yemeni ruler, Abdallah Salah, and his army chiefs are opposed to giving Iranian agents free rein in their country, but in the last two years, Tehran is paying Shiite extremist groups in Yemen to bring the regime under increasing pressure by acts of murder and sabotage.

Iran's Islamic rulers believe they are in real danger of an American air attack on their nuclear installations some time in November or December this year. They are therefore pushing hard for new allies in Latin America, Africa and Arabia and points of vantage for hitting back at the United States and its centers of influence on three continents as an effective deterrent to an American attack.

As ordinary people without any connection to terrorist organizations are swept up into George Bush's war, there are three specific cases that should be carefully watched as especially troubling bellwethers. They are emblematic of how much ground has already been ceded to Bush's attack on our liberties, and as it happens, the latest developments will be unfolding this month even as the fifth anniversary of the "attack on our freedoms" is commemorated.

The first case involves an American citizen being detained in Iraq by the U.S. military. His name is Shawqi Ahmad Omar. A hearing was held on September 11, 2006, in the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to determine whether U.S. courts may even hear his petition. His attorneys contend that because Omar is held by U.S. forces, a U.S. court may rule on the legality of his detention. The Justice Department, representing U.S. military authorities, argued that a U.S. court can't decide the fate of an individual held overseas under what they claim is the authority of multinational forces-despite their admission that Omar is held by the U.S.

The Justice Department was appealing a district court ruling that prohibited the U.S. from transferring Omar into Iraqi custody and permitted the court to further hear the case on its merits, which the government argued was beyond its jurisdiction.

In some ways, the Omar case echoes two cases already ruled on by the Supreme Court: the Hamdi case, which involved a U.S. citizen held as an enemy combatant in a military brig in the U.S. without access to attorneys or courts, and the Rasul case, which questioned the authority of the U.S. government to detain non-citizens at Guantanamo, also without access to their attorneys or to courts. The Supreme Court held in Rasul that Guantanamo detainees may challenge their detentions in U.S. courts, even though they are not citizens and Guantanamo is not U.S. territory, because detainees were nonetheless exclusively in U.S. control. In the Hamdi case, the High Court held that an enemy combatant may challenge his detention by military authorities.

Despite the Hamdi and Rasul decisions-and despite another recent Supreme Court decision that ruled the Geneva Conventions and international laws of war apply to the war on terror-the U.S. government continues to argue that U.S. individuals it detains outside U.S. territory are outside the jurisdiction of U.S. courts, that it may refuse them access to their attorneys, interrogate them, even beat and torture them, and then transfer them out of U.S. control, as they please.

The Omar cases raises the same questions all over again that were raised and should have been settled by the Hamdi, Rasul, and Hamdan (the case that ruled that detainees must be treated in accordance with the law and the Geneva conventions) cases. Yet Justice Department tactics in the Omar case raise yet another question of the legitimacy of the Bush administration's approach to terrorism. There is evidence that Omar was subjected to electroshock and severe physical beatings. Does the administration want to turn Omar over to Iraqi authorities in order to avoid the consequences of their treatment of him?

That the administration continues to disregard Supreme Court rulings is deeply troubling, but that's not the end of it, of course.

There is the case of New York defense attorney Lynne Stewart, convicted of having provided "material support" to terrorists merely for having made a press statement on behalf of her convicted terrorist client. This statement put her in violation of special Bureau of Prison regulations that apply only to prisoners convicted of terrorism (or are otherwise viewed as a continuing danger) and their attorneys-which is very likely unconstitutional but has not yet been tested in court. The regulations place troubling restrictions on the attorney's ability to represent her client.

True to form, the government continues to argue that a 30-year sentence for Stewart would serve as a "deterrent" to all those who would violate Bureau of Prison regulations. Stewart's conviction is unprecedented; no attorney has ever been brought up on criminal charges for having violated such administrative rules. Her defense committee states:

Lynne's case is among the worst examples of the terrible state of civil liberties in the U.S. today. That a proud and courageous attorney, who did nothing more than valiantly defend her client, could suffer so grave an injustice is a sure sign that we are in for even more troubled times.

On September 25, Stewart will argue that her own trial was fundamentally tainted by unlawful NSA spying on her strategy sessions with her attorneys. Not a month after that-on October 15, close to the fifth anniversary of the enactment of the now-infamous USA PATRIOT Act -Stewart's sentencing hearing takes place. Given the hundreds of letters attesting to her long record of service to the justice system and community, as well as her present battle with breast cancer, Stewart has asked for a zero-term sentence with probation or home custody.

It's hard to understand how prosecuting someone like Lynne Stewart protects us from terrorism. Indeed, her conviction tolls the bell of liberty for all by threatening the integrity of the entire defense bar nationwide. Defense attorneys can no longer zealously represent their clients where the innocent violation of a regulation can lead to 20 years in jail.

The last example of the disastrous approach of the Bush administration to tackling the real threats of international terrorism is the case of Dr. Rafil Dhafir, an Iraqi-born U.S. citizen who is guilty of nothing more than having sent money to help Iraqis suffering under the sanctions in place against Iraq prior to our 2003 invasion. The government argued that the case had nothing to do with 9/11 or terrorism, but their tactics belie this claim.

While no terrorism or 9/11-related charges were ever brought against Dhafir, he was called a terrorist in press conferences by Attorney General John Ashcroft and New York governor Pataki and his name was included on a government list of terrorists cited by President Bush. Further, the prosecutors themselves, in a seminar given at Syracuse University last year, discussed the Dhafir case in the context of 9/11 terrorist cases, telling the audience the case was "under-prosecuted."

Dhafir supporters point out the fundamental unfairness of the fact that while the government asked the court to mandate that neither the defense nor the prosecution be allowed to raise the issue of terrorism during the trial, it demanded-and got-an increased sentence as a "national security threat" for Dhafir's violation of the sanctions.

The sanctions prohibited U.S. persons or organizations from sending funds to Iraq without a license. But the trouble was that the legitimate channels were corrupt and monies sent through those channels often did not make it to the people most in need. Dhafir sent monies through his own private channels to make sure they were received by those who most needed them. There was never any question at trial that the monies were used to fund terrorism or anything other than humanitarian assistance to those in need.

Nonetheless, Dhafir was convicted in 2005 and is serving a 20-plus year sentence. Katherine Hughes, who watched the entire 17-week trial as an ACLU court-watcher, writes :

Dhafir is undoubtedly paying the price of breaking the genocidal policy of U.S. sanctions against Iraq. However, the government was unwilling to prosecute him for this without the attendant obfuscation and cover provided by the laundry list of charges that he faced. A clear message is being sent that humanitarian acts like this will not be tolerated and will be punished accordingly.

These three cases show a very disturbing trend in Bush administration prosecutions: a war on ordinary people, people, in fact, attempting to do good-not a war on terrorism.

To convey his seriousness, Schoomaker reportedly withheld the army's scheduled budget request last month in what the Times called an "unprecedented ... protest" against previous rejections by the White House of funding increases.

And this week, several retired senior military leaders told Senate Democrats that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld should go, arguing that he had mishandled the war in Iraq. The former soldiers claimed that Rumsfeld had ignored advice for more troops, failed to make a post-invasion plan or equip troops properly, and hid information from the public.

The news of Schoomaker's action, which is almost certain to intensify the debate over what to do in Iraq just seven weeks before the November 7 mid-term congressional elections, comes just days after the New York Times reported that the army was considering activating substantially more National Guard troops or reservists.

Such a decision, which would run counter to previous Bush administration pledges to limit overseas deployments for the Guard, would pose serious political risks for the Republicans if it were made before the elections.

Unlike career soldiers, the National Guard consists mainly of "citizen-soldiers" with families and jobs and deep roots in local communities. When the Pentagon last called up substantial numbers of Guard units for service in Iraq and Afghanistan in late 2003 and 2004, the move elicited a strong backlash in communities across the country.

With the Iraq war even less popular now than it was then, any major new call-up is likely to trigger renewed protests, particularly in light of the growing sense both among the national-security elites and the general population that the Bush administration's decision to invade Iraq was a major mistake and that the war is unwinnable.

Recent opinion polls have shown that the US public has become increasingly pessimistic about the war's outcome and its impact on the larger "global war on terror".

This month, for example, a New York Times/CBS (Columbia Broadcasting System) poll found that nearly two-thirds of respondents believed the war in Iraq was going either "somewhat" (28%) or "very" badly (33%).

For most of the past year, a majority of respondents in various polls have said they believed the decision to go to war in Iraq was a mistake and that it had made the US less, rather than more, safe from terrorism.

The fact that a similar conclusion was reportedly reached by the 16 agencies, including the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), that make up the US intelligence community in April in a rare National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) is likely to add to the public's pessimism.

The NIE, some of the contents of which were leaked to the New York Times and the Washington Post over the weekend, found that the Iraq war had invigorated Islamic radicalism worldwide and aggravated the terrorist threat faced by the US and other countries.

While the director of national intelligence, John Negroponte, insisted on Sunday that the newspaper accounts of the report's conclusions were partial and selective, they nonetheless backed up what a number of former senior intelligence analysts - most recently, the retired head of the CIA's Political Islam Strategic Analysis Program, Emile Nakhleh - have been saying individually for much of the past year.

While Democratic lawmakers called on Monday for the Bush administration immediately to declassify the NIE, "Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States", so that the public could decide for itself, it is certain to intensify the debate about whether to begin withdrawing from Iraq or whether to "stay the course" there despite the growing sectarian violence and the wear and tear on US ground forces.

For most of the past year, the administration and senior military commanders have expressed hope that they could reduce US forces in Iraq from the approximately 140,000 troops who were there last December to help protect the parliamentary elections by as many as 30,000 by the end of this year.

But with the rise in sectarian violence, particularly in Baghdad, that followed the bombing of a major Shi'ite shrine in Samarra, Washington has been forced to abandon those hopes. Last week, the senior US Middle East commander, General John Abizaid, made it official when he told reporters in Washington that he needed at least 140,000 troops in Iraq through next spring.

Even this number of troops, however, has not proved sufficient to curb the violence in Baghdad, while a recent report from the senior Marine Corps intelligence officer in al-Anbar province, which comprises about one-third of Iraq's total territory, warned that the 30,000 US troops deployed there could not defeat the Sunni insurgency without the addition of at least 13,000 personnel and substantially more economic assistance.

Adding to the burden on the army and the marines, the resurgence of the Taliban has forced Washington to cancel plans to reduce forces in Afghanistan from 19,000 earlier this year to about 16,000 by autumn.

Instead, Washington currently has more than 20,000 troops deployed there amid signs that more may be needed if the North Atlantic Treaty Organization fails to provide more troops of its own or if, in light of the retreat of Pakistani forces from neighboring Waziristan, the Taliban mount an even bigger offensive from across the border next spring after the snows melt.

These commitments have taken a huge, unanticipated toll on US land forces, not just in manpower, but in equipment and money as well.

Before the war in Iraq, the Pentagon's political appointees confidently predicted that the Middle Eastern country's oil production would very quickly pay for the invasion's financial costs and that Washington could draw down US forces to as few as 30,000 by the end of 2003.

In fact, about $400 billion - almost all of it for military operations - has been appropriated for both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars since September 2001, and current operations there are running at about $9 billion a month.

The US Army, which has some 500,000 active-duty soldiers, has been allocated $98 billion this year, and the White House has cleared it to receive $114 billion for 2008. But Schoomaker has reportedly asked for $139 billion, including at least $13 billion to repair equipment. "There's no sense in us submitting a budget that we can't execute, a broken budget," he warned recently in a speech in Washington.

In addition to strains on both the land forces and their equipment, senior military leaders are also worried about attrition among mid-ranking officers, in particular, and the quality and cost of new recruits.

The military has greatly intensified its recruitment efforts, relaxed its age and education requirements for enlistment, and offered unprecedented bonuses and benefits packages - worth thousands of dollars - to enlistees and active-duty soldiers who re-enlist.

It has also increased enlistments by individuals with "serious criminal misconduct" in their records and eased requirements of non-citizens - of which there are currently about 40,000 in the US armed services - and made them eligible to citizenship after only one day of active-duty service.

Republicans, on the other hand, want to portray Democrats as soft on terrorism in hopes of hanging on to both houses of the U.S. Congress in November elections.

Cheney cited Reid for suggesting the United States should not have invaded Iraq in 2003 even if it meant leaving Saddam Hussein in power and for opposing the Patriot Act, controversial laws passed with the goal of fighting terrorism. He criticized Dean for saying the capture of Saddam had not made America safer.

"As we make our case to the voters in this election season, it's vital to keep issues of national security at the top of the agenda," Cheney said.

Cheney in particular attacked Democrats for turning their backs on Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, now running as an independent after losing his state's Democratic primary in August to anti-war candidate Ned Lamont.

Lieberman has firmly backed the Iraq war while criticizing the president's handling of it.

Mr Blair will add: "This defined New Labour."

According to snatches of the speech released ahead of delivery, Mr Blair will stress that the party needs to continue to be "fearless in pursuit of the right answers" and insist that "the core vote of this party is not the heartlands or the inner city or any sectional interest or lobby.

"Our core vote is the country."

Mandelson says Brown-Blair breach can be healed

As Mr Blair prepared to deliver his final party conference speech as leader, Peter Mandelson, the European commissioner for trade who was instrumental in the formation of the New Labour "project", brushed aside claims that Mr Brown could not defeat Mr Cameron in an election.

"I do think he is a winner," said Mr Mandelson, who served in the cabinet during New Labour's first term as minister without portfolio, trade and industry secretary and Northern Ireland secretary, resigning twice over separate controversies.

"He has got a very solid body of beliefs," Mr Mandelson told Radio 4's Today programme this morning. "There is nothing surface or superficial about Gordon Brown. He has real depth and I think people want to see that in their nation's leader."

The two men have endured a decade-long feud after Mr Mandelson, until that point a supporter of Mr Brown, backed Mr Blair for the leadership in 1994.

"A very deep breach opened up," Mr Mandelson said, "one, let's hope, [that] can now be closed with the passage of time.

"Gordon thought he could and should have been leader in 1994. He believed he should have succeeded John Smith and he has never fully reconciled himself to not doing so."

But, when pressed, Mr Mandelson refused to explicitly back Mr Brown for the leadership.

"I want the next leader to be as successful as the last and, were it to be Gordon Brown, I think he would be," was as far as he would go.

Straw praises 'man of character'

Jack Straw today insisted that Mr Blair will not become a "back-seat driver" to his successor. The leader of the Commons told Guardian Unlimited: "I'm absolutely certain he won't [attempt to interfere]. He's a man of character."

Mararet Thatcher famously undermined John Major's administration by saying she would continue to influence events not by "pulling the levers" but by being "a very good back-seat driver".

Mr Blair has already created some concern among Brownites by instigating four cabinet level policy working groups which will report back after he has left office.

This has been seen by supporters of Mr Brown as an attempt to shackle his successor.

PR disaster

Mr Blair will also need to pay some tribute to his chancellor, after the public relations disaster of what his wife, Cherie, did or did not say about Mr Brown's speech yesterday.

Mr Brown yesterday told the conference he regretted that his disagreements with Mr Blair had distracted the party and the government.

A reporter from the Bloomberg news agency said that Mrs Blair had said: "Well, that's a lie," as she listened to Mr Brown praise the prime minister and the pair's relationship while walking through an exhibition centre adjoining the conference hall.

Mrs Blair told reporters last night: "Honestly, guys, I hate to spoil your story, but I didn't say it and I don't believe it either."

A separate report today claimed that Mrs Blair had dismissed Mr Brown's speech as "rubbish" with a wave of her hand as she passed the Communication Workers' Union's stand, advising union officials to support the education secretary, Alan Johnson, instead.

Downing Street dismissed the story in the London Evening Standard newspaper as "yet more complete rubbish".

Kevin Slocombe, the CWU's head of communications, said Mrs Blair had not even been near the stand when Mr Brown was speaking, only visiting it two hours beforehand.

The future for Blair

Mr Blair will speak at around 2.30pm, following appearances from the foreign secretary, Margaret Beckett, and the defence secretary, Des Browne. Still relatively young for a leading politician at 53, it is unclear what Mr Blair will do after leaving office, although his agent has suggested he will stay on as MP for Sedgefield until the next election.

Speaking to the Times, John Reid, the home secretary, urged his party colleagues not to squabble or attempt to oust Mr Blair.

He said: "Far from helping Labour win a victory at the next election, Tony Blair's loss will be a disadvantage."

Top Republicans yesterday leapt to the administration's defence, insisting that the US had no option but to stay in Iraq. "Either we're going to be fighting this battle, this war, overseas or its going to be right here in this country," said Bill Frist, the Senate majority leader.

But the findings could scarcely have come at a more delicate time, weeks before mid-term congressional elections in which Mr Bush's claim to have made the country safer will be a central theme. They also contradict Mr Bush's recent assertions, on the fifth anniversary of the 11 September attacks, that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein had been vital to win the "war on terror". Instead the document, the gist of which appeared in The New York Times and The Washington Post yesterday, makes clear that if Iraq has turned into the "central front" in that war, as the President insists, that front is largely of the administration's making.

The conflict, in which almost 2,700 US troops and nearly 50,000 Iraqis have died, has helped inspire a spread of radical Islamic ideology around the globe, it says. While al-Q'aida itself may have been weakened since 2001, the terrorist movement had mutated into a new breed of "self-generating" groups inspired by Osama bin Laden, but with no direct structural links to his organisation.

The report warns that militants who had taken part in the anti-US fight in Iraq could go back to their own countries "exacerbating domestic conflicts or fomenting radical ideologies".

The conclusions are contained in a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), which reflects the considered and collective wisdom of the CIA and 15 other agencies. Precise details of the report, entitled Trends in Global Terrorism, Implications for the United States, remain top-secret.

In a statement, Senator Edward Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat and opponent of the Iraq war , declared that the NIE should "put the final nail in the coffin for President Bush's phony argument about the Iraq war".

Prime Minister Tony Blair had his say when he mounted an emotional defence of his foreign policy at the Labour party conference last night. When questioned on the war on terror, he said: "Getting rid of Saddam and getting rid of the Taliban from Afghanistan are things I happen to be proud of."

Former president Bill Clinton also stepped into the argument over the weekend, attacking his successor for focusing on Iraq to the detriment of Afghanistan, where the 9/11 attacks were planned. Mr Bush has vowed to step up the hunt for Bin Laden, thought to be in hiding in the frontier region of Afghanistan and Pakistan. US officials have also discounted reports that the al-Qa'ida leader died in Pakistan on 23 August of typhoid fever.