The Pentagon’s inspector general is investigating claims that an office run by US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s former policy chief engaged in illegal intelligence activities before the start of the Iraq war.

The recent terrorist attacks in London and Egypt appear to be the work of al-Qaida, US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said yesterday.

THE US Capitol building and White House were evacuated yesterday after a small plane entered the restricted airspace over Washington.

THE key US assertions leading to the 2003 invasion of Iraq – that Saddam Hussein had chemical and biological weapons and was working to make nuclear weapons – were wrong and based on false or overstated CIA analyses, according to a scathing Senate Intelligence Committee report released yesterday.

THE US Army general who first investigated prisoner abuse in an Iraqi prison told the US Congress yesterday, the mistreatment resulted from faulty leadership, a “lack of discipline, no training whatsoever and no supervision.”

Americans are expecting more shocking photographs and searing public debate as the Bush administration works to calm the storm over US soldiers’ abuse of Iraqi prisoners.

The outgoing chief US weapons inspector says his inability to find illicit arms in Iraq raises serious questions about American intelligence-gathering.

INTELLIGENCE officials in Washington warned lawmakers a week ago to expect a terrorist attack in Saudi Arabia, it was reported yesterday.

QUESTIONS over the legitimacy of going to war are also being raised across the Atlantic, with US President George W Bush heavily criticised for making false claims about Iraq seeking to buy uranium from an African state.

CIA Director George Tenet gave Congress and the White House the accountability they demanded, declaring that the blame for President George W Bush’s false allegation about an Iraqi nuclear deal rested squarely with him and his agency.

US officials in Iraq have solid evidence of weapons of mass destruction programmes and details probably will be released soon, two leading Senate Republicans said today after returning from the country.

FBI agents were arriving in Saudi Arabia today amid a row between Washington and the kingdom over security at the residential compounds attacked on Monday night by suspected al-Qaida suicide bombers.

Saddam Hussein was inside the compound destroyed by cruise missiles in the attempted “decapitation strike”, US intelligence officials believe.

In the blood-stained history of terrorism there has never been a day as horrifying as September 11, 2001.