Q: This began as a leak, yet no one was charged with leaking, is it finished?

Fitzgerald: It's not over. But the substantial work is concluded. Grand jury won't be continued. But we'll keep a grand jury open to consider other matters. In this case, the damage was done to all of us. Why was this info going out? Was the damage intended? I can't tell you Scooter's motives - it prevents us from finding out why this leak happened. Compromising national security information is a very serious mater, and the need to get to the bottom is extremely important - anyone who would go into a grand jury and lie and impede the investigation has committed a serious crime. If what we allege in the indictment is true, he is charged with a very very serious crime.

"But we do know, with absolute certainty, that he is using his procurement system to acquire the equipment he needs in order to enrich uranium to build a nuclear weapon."

"We know that he has the infrastructure, nuclear scientists to make a nuclear weapon. And we know that when the inspectors assessed this after the Gulf War, he was far, far closer to a crude nuclear device than anybody thought -- maybe six months from a crude nuclear device."

"The problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly he can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."

"Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons."

"If he declares he has none, then we will know that Saddam Hussein is once again misleading the world."

"I'm very concerned. When I made that presentation in February 2003, it was based on the best information that the Central Intelligence Agency made available to me. We studied it carefully; we looked at the sourcing in the case of the mobile trucks and trains. There was multiple sourcing for that. Unfortunately, that multiple sourcing over time has turned out to be not accurate. And so I'm deeply disappointed. But I'm also comfortable that at the time that I made the presentation, it reflected the collective judgment, the sound judgment of the intelligence community. But it turned out that the sourcing was inaccurate and wrong and in some cases, deliberately misleading. And for that, I am disappointed and I regret it"

"I wish I had not been involved in it," says Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, a longtime Powell adviser who served as his chief of staff from 2002 through 2005. "I look back on it, and I still say it was the lowest point in my life."

"(Powell) came through the door ... and he had in his hands a sheaf of papers, and he said, 'This is what I've got to present at the United Nations according to the White House, and you need to look at it," Wilkerson says in the program. "It was anything but an intelligence document. It was, as some people characterized it later, sort of a Chinese menu from which you could pick and choose."

On the French-controlled island of Reunion in the Indian Ocean, live dogs have been reportedly impaled on large fish hooks and left overnight in the ocean as shark bait. One consistent detail of the story was that a puppy that had somehow managed to free itself from the fishing line, was found alive in a creek bed, the hook still embedded in its upper lip.

Focus on the Family founder James Dobson will take to the airwaves Wednesday and Thursday to clarify what information he got from the White House or other sources about U.S. Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers.
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Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee have said they might call Dobson to testify at Miers' upcoming confirmation hearings because of his statements implying he has confidential information about the nominee.

Cheney's options -- worth $241,498 a year ago -- are now valued at more than $8 million. The former CEO of the oil and gas services juggernaut, Cheney has pledged to give proceeds to charity.

Cheney continues to receive (sic) a deferred salary from the company. According to financial disclosure forms, he was paid $205,298 in 2001; $162,392 in 2002; $178,437 in 2003; and $194,852 in 2004.

But here is the most notable problem I have with the comparison. Really, how would having these buses available to move out evacuees have improved the situation in New Orleans? All levels of government failed in the response to Katrina; federal, state, and local, but there is little debate as to who should have been running the show. A Cat 4 hurricane is a massive storm with the potential to unleash massive devastation (as we witnessed). States are not equipped to deal with such events, which is why they declare a State of Emergency. The federal government (DHS and more specifically FEMA) is responsible for coordinating all response/relief efforts. There was little in the way of supplies staged and waiting for the post-hurricane response (as we witnessed). There was no coordinated relief effort between state/local and federal officials (as we witnessed). Where were those buses to take evacuees, exactly? Maybe to another Superdome or Convention Center like facility? How would those buses have addressed the problems that occurred at the Convention Center or at the Superdome?

Which officially designated hurricane shelter was the one FEMA chief Mike Brown had no idea evacuees were at until 4 days after the storm had passed? Who appointed him? Who controls the congress that confirmed him? Under which administration did he serve? Are you kidding me? Republicans should be staying as far away from finger pointing here as possible.

Now my intent, in no way, is to imply that these buses shouldn't, or couldn't have been used. They absolutely should have been. But for systematic failures so far-reaching, this "bus issue" is relatively insignificant.

As for any budding Republican apologist who feels they would like to participate in the finger-pointing (blame-game), please see this.