Politics

MIAMI — U.S. Immigration officers began fingerprinting and photographing tens of thousands of visitors arriving from certain other countries Monday, in what federal authorities described as a sophisticated new security measure to monitor who enters the country and how long they stay.
Citizens of 27 countries, including Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore and most European nations, are exempt from the program if they are visiting as tourists for fewer than 90 days.

Wow, is this extreme. We can’t do better on the intelligence end, to prevent this from being necessary?

Matt Drudge spins the statement as “Dean not ready to pronounce Osama bin Laden guilty.” Read the actual article for yourself and decide whether Drudge’s strange smear interpretation is justified.

For the first time, the chairman of the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks is saying publicly that 9/11 could have and should have been prevented, reports CBS News Correspondent Randall Pinkston.
“This is a very, very important part of history and we’ve got to tell it right,” said Thomas Kean.
“As you read the report, you’re going to have a pretty clear idea what wasn’t done and what should have been done,” he said. “This was not something that had to happen.”
Appointed by the Bush administration, Kean, a former Republican governor of New Jersey, is now pointing fingers inside the administration and laying blame.
“There are people that, if I was doing the job, would certainly not be in the position they were in at that time because they failed. They simply failed,” Kean said.

Sadaam Hussein was captured. Cool. I’m surprised they took him alive. Because now they have to put him on trial… and that will be interesting. I wonder how they’ll do it. It will have to be an international court.

From the Washington Post:

The expenditure of U.S. dollars will reflect the fact that U.S. troops and other troops risk their life . . . ,” Bush said. “It’s very simple. Our people risk their lives. Coalition — friendly coalition folks risk their lives. And therefore, the contracting is going to reflect that. And that’s what the U.S. taxpayers expect.