Hagel is calling it quits  —  WORLD-HERALD BUREAU, COPYRIGHT 2007 OMAHA WORLD-HERALD  —  WASHINGTON - Chuck Hagel will announce Monday that he is retiring from the U.S. Senate and will not run for president next year, people close to the Nebraska Republican said Friday.

Brooks: In His New Tape, Bin Laden Sounds Like He's Been 'Reading Lefty Blogs'  —  Last night on PBS' The NewsHour, New York Times columnist David Brooks compared 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden's latest video message to "lefty blogs," saying the al Qaeda head is like "one of these childish …

PLANNING FOR DEFEAT  —  How should we withdraw from Iraq? … An Iraqi whom I will call Ahmed lives in Saidiya, an area in south Baghdad where, in the nineteen-eighties, the regime of Saddam Hussein built large houses for well-connected Army officers, most of them Sunnis.

New Report Recommends Iraq Handover in 5 Years  —  Panel Also Calls for 50 Percent Troop Reduction Within 3 Years  —  In a report to be released Sunday, a panel of experts assembled by the U.S. Institute of Peace calls for a 50 percent reduction in U.S. forces in Iraq within three years …

Fugitive fundraiser Hsu 'freaked out' on train, witness says  —  (09-08) 04:00 PDT Chicago - —  Fugitive political fundraiser Norman Hsu was behaving erratically as he fled the Bay Area on Amtrak's California Zephyr, at one point stripping off his shirt and shoes, before paramedics …

Bush urges united support on Iraq  —  SYDNEY, Australia (AP) — President Bush, facing a critical juncture in the war, urged Democrats and Republicans on Saturday to unite and back the war strategy he'll lay out shortly for the next chapter of U.S. involvement in Iraq.

Giuliani: "For Me Every Day Is An Anniversary Of Sept. 11"  —  Basking in the lasting glow of his Sept. 11 leadership while campaigning in Pinellas County and Orlando on Friday, Giuliani stressed national security and electability, rather than the sort of hot-button social issues that are thought …

F.B.I. Data Mining Reached Beyond Initial Targets  —  The F.B.I. cast a much wider net in its terrorism investigations than it has previously acknowledged by relying on telecommunications companies to analyze phone-call and e-mail patterns of the associates of Americans who had come under suspicion …

Troop Buildup, Yielding Slight Gains, Fails to Meet U.S. Goals  —  Seven months after the American-led troop "surge" began, Baghdad has experienced modest security gains that have neither reversed the city's underlying sectarian dynamic nor created a unified and trusted national government.

The McCain Surge  —  It's bearing fruit in New Hampshire.  —  Concord, N.H.  —  Tempers flared as a horde of journalists jostled its way through the headquarters of Granite State Manufacturing last week.  "Where are you from?" demanded a cameraman with a shaved head toting an unwieldy television camera on his shoulder.

Bush Expected to Nominate Attorney General Next Week  —  Former Solicitor General Is Called a Leading Candidate  —  President Bush is expected to choose a replacement for Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales by the middle of next week, and former solicitor general Theodore B. Olson has emerged …

Jew-Hatred and Jihad  —  The Nazi roots of the 9/11 attack.  —  The idea of using suicide pilots to obliterate the skyscrapers of Manhattan originated in 1940s Berlin.  "In the latter stages of the war, I never saw Hitler so beside himself as when, as if in a delirium …

'The Law Required It'  —  Former Justice Department lawyer Jack Goldsmith explains why he fought the White House's aggressive legal maneuvers in the fight against terror.  —  Jack Goldsmith may not be a household name.  But he was a key player in the post-9/11 battle over how much power …