Intelligence Services

The Bush administration, reversing itself on one of its most controversial counterintelligence measures, said Wednesday that it would no longer secretly eavesdrop on the international calls of terrorism suspects in this country without first getting a court order. The so-called Terrorist Surveillance Program was launched weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks and remained secret until it was exposed in news reports in late 2005, provoking a public outcry.

The Los Angeles area's new counter-terrorism center drew high marks Friday from FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, who toured the high-tech facility in Norwalk and pronounced it a model for federal and local cooperation. The Joint Regional Intelligence Center opened six months ago as a co-venture of the FBI, Los Angeles Police Department, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and other local law enforcement agencies as a hub for information gathering, analysis and sharing.

The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday rejected the Bush administration's claim that it had brought a controversial domestic spying program into compliance with the law, saying he wanted strict new rules requiring the government to obtain a separate warrant every time it places a wiretap on a U.S. resident. Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.

A tale of torture and imprisonment told by a man with a scratchy voice and a beard flowing to his waist has shaken the German Parliament and sparked an intelligence agency scandal that has engulfed Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier. The case of spies and leaked documents has pointed up the injustices that can arise in the fight against terrorism.

Former White House official I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby told a grand jury in 2004 that Vice President Dick Cheney was upset by an ambassador's public questioning of the Iraq war and that President Bush, Cheney and Libby were involved in a plan -- kept secret from other senior White House officials -- to leak previously classified intelligence to reporters to counter the criticism.

The Senate confirmed without dissent retired Navy Vice Adm. J. Michael McConnell as President Bush's top intelligence advisor. McConnell will succeed John D. Negroponte as the second U.S. director of national intelligence.

A Pentagon official who was a prime architect of Bush administration policies that led to the Iraq war presented policymakers with allegations of links between Iraq and Al Qaeda that did not accurately reflect the views of U.S. intelligence agencies, according to a Defense Department investigation disclosed Thursday by a senior Senate Democrat. The report concluded that the official's actions were inappropriate, Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) said.

A former top Pentagon official on Sunday defended as "good government" his office's prewar findings of a significant relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda, while a congressional Democrat suggested that his actions were not only inappropriate but possibly illegal. Douglas J. Feith, the former undersecretary of Defense for policy and a leading architect of the policies that led to the Iraq war, appeared on "Fox News Sunday" to explain his actions and those of his Office of Special Plans.

Navy Vice Adm. J. Michael McConnell was sworn in as the director of national intelligence, assuming the nation's most senior intelligence position from John D. Negroponte, who is now deputy secretary of State. McConnell will be responsible for briefing President Bush daily on intelligence matters. Bush, at the swearing-in ceremony at Bolling Air Force Base, said the new intelligence director knows that Al Qaeda is "determined to strike our nation again....

Although international concern is growing about Iran's nuclear program and its regional ambitions, diplomats here say most U.S. intelligence shared with the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency has proved inaccurate and none has led to significant discoveries inside Iran. The officials said the CIA and other Western spy services had provided sensitive information to the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency at least since 2002, when Iran's long-secret nuclear program was exposed.