Useful information may be found here, however ideologically contaminated by the purveyors, for those inclined to take polls, as well as electoral politics, seriously.

Electoral Battleground

"The Other Prisoners"

Luke Harding, London Guardian

Most of the coverage of abuse at Abu Ghraib has focused on male detainees. But what of the five women held in the jail, and the scores elsewhere in Iraq?

The scandal at Abu Ghraib prison was first exposed not by a digital photograph but by a letter. In December 2003, a woman prisoner inside the jail west of Baghdad managed to smuggle out a note. Its contents were so shocking that, at first, Amal Kadham Swadi and the other Iraqi women lawyers who had been trying to gain access to the US jail found them hard to believe.

Material Given to Congress in 2002 Is Now Classified

Eric LIichtblau, The New York Times

WASHINGTON, May 19 — The Justice Department has taken the unusual step of retroactively classifying information it gave to Congress nearly two years ago regarding a former F.B.I. translator who charged that the bureau had missed critical terrorist warnings, officials said Wednesday.

Law enforcement officials say the secrecy surrounding the translator, Sibel Edmonds, is essential to protecting information that could reveal intelligence-gathering operations. But some members of Congress and Congressional aides said they were troubled by the move, which comes as critics have accused the Bush administration of excessive secrecy.

Chalabi Aide is Suspected Iranian Spy

Knut Royce, Newsday

WASHINGTON — The Defense Intelligence Agency has concluded that a
U.S.-funded arm of Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress has been
used for years by Iranian intelligence to pass disinformation to the
United States and to collect highly sensitive American secrets,
according to intelligence sources.

"Iranian intelligence has been manipulating the United States through
Chalabi by furnishing through his Information Collection Program
information to provoke the United States into getting rid of Saddam
Hussein," said an intelligence source Friday who was briefed on the
Defense Intelligence Agency's conclusions, which were based on a
review of thousands of internal documents.