Caught in the Web. Car bombers, suicide attackers, and kidnappers in Iraq were exceptionally busy, killing dozens to protest the country’s impending election,New York Timesand a video showed two Iraqis being beheaded for delivering food and supplies to an American base in Ramadi.CNNThe interim government announced that to minimize insurgent attacks, curfews would be extended, traffic restricted, national borders sealed for three days, and the locations of polling stations would be kept secret until the night before the vote.BBCThe Iraqi government arrested an ally of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi who was responsible for more than thirty car bombs since the invasion.BBCAl-Zarqawi …

Mahmoud Abbas was elected president of the Palestinian Authority. He dedicated his victory to “the soul of the brother martyr Yasir Arafat and to our people.”New York TimesEarlier in the week, Abbas called Israel the “Zionist Enemy” at an election rally,The Indian Expressthen announced he would pursue peace talks with it.ReutersIsrael shut the border at Gaza,Xinhuathen offered Abbas personal security in Jerusalem, which he refused.Azcentral.comKofi Annan visited the site of the South Asia tsunami disaster and said, “I have never seen such utter destruction.”CBS NewsColin Powell toured Indonesia and called it “amazing” and “heartbreaking.”ABC NewsHe also said providing disaster relief …

Weighing the soul, 1875. A suicide bomber set off a bomb at a mess tent on a U.S. base in Mosul, killing 22 and wounding 69. Among the dead were 13 American soldiers and four employees and subcontractors of Halliburton. A spokeswoman for Halliburton called for a full investigation into the attack. South of Kirkuk, insurgents set an oil well on fire,AP and south of Baghdad, an explosives-rigged gas tanker blew up, killing at least eight.AP Families returned to the bombed-out city of Falluja and found little clean water.APAPDonald Rumsfeld made a surprise trip to Mosul on Christmas Eve.New York …

Martin Luther controlled by the Devil, 1875. The interim Iraqi government officially notified the International Atomic Energy Agency that 380 tons of extremely powerful HMX and RDX explosives that American forces simply failed to secure have disappeared from a former military facility called Al Qaqaa. The explosives can be used to destroy buildings, arm missile warheads, and detonate nuclear devices, and it was generally conceded that the Al Qaqaa cache, which was under seal by the IAEA prior to the U.S. invasion, is the most likely source of the explosives used in the extremely effective roadside and suicide bombs that …

A burning plain. The United Nations Security Council passed another resolution asking the Sudanese government to prevent its proxies from slaughtering people in Darfur (China, Algeria, Pakistan, and Russia abstained). The resolution, which for the first time formally invokes the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, says that the council will “consider” sanctions if the genocide continues.New York TimesChaos continued to rule Iraq; there were many attacks by insurgents, including several large suicide bombings, hostages were beheaded, and many civilians, including women and children, were killed in American airstrikes.New York TimesIraqi prime minister Iyad …

Chechen militants took more than 1,000 children and adults hostage at a school in southern Russia, though the Russian government lied at first and claimed that there were only 354 hostages; at least 338 died, half of whom were children, when security forces stormed the school.Washington Post, ReutersA suicide bomber blew herself up in a Moscow subway station, killing at least 10 people.Associated PressPalestinian suicide bombers blew up two buses in Beersheba, killing 16 and wounding at least 80.Associated PressIraqi insurgents blew up another oil pipeline, and aAssociated Presscar bomb killed seven American marines and three Iraqi soldiers near Falluja.ReutersTwelve …

Caught in the Web. Governor James McGreevey of New Jersey announced that he is a “gay American” and resigned. “I am here today because, shamefully, I engaged in an adult consensual affair with another man, which violates my bonds of matrimony,” he said. “It was wrong. It was foolish. It was inexcusable.”Men’s News DailyThe California Supreme Court nullified gay marriages in that state, andSan Francisco Chroniclethere was a scandal in Australiancattle circles over udder doping.Associated PressPhilippine president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo told her countrymen to stop kissing her, andAssociated Pressfour people were arrested in the Philippines for killing, cooking, and eating …

The 9/11 commission released its report and catalogued the many failures of intelligence and law enforcement that permitted Al Qaeda to carry out the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon; the commission concluded that “we are not safe.”New York TimesRepublicans were trying to blame it all on Bill Clinton.New York TimesFrench authorities evacuated the Eiffel Tower but failed to find a bomb.New York TimesLinda Ronstadt was booed off the stage at the Aladdin casino in Las Vegas after she dedicated “Desperado” to Michael Moore; the casino’s management removed Ronstadt from the building and refused to let her …

The Senate Intelligence Committee released a scathing report on the CIA’s unfounded, unjustified, and unreasonable claims about Iraq’s purported weapons of mass destruction; the report was oddly silent, however, about the Bush Administration’s well-documented and apparently successful campaign to intimidate the CIA into coming up with justifications for the President’s fraudulent case for the invasion.New York TimesSenator Trent Lott was outraged by the CIA’s “totally ridiculous, uncalled for, and counterproductive” redactions of the report and called for an independent commission to oversee the classification of government information.New York TimesJapan’s defense ministry said that it will issue its annual defense whitepaper …

L. Paul Bremer, the American proconsul in Iraq, in one of his final acts before handing over “sovereignty” to Iraq’s new interim government, decreed that American forces will remain immune from prosecution by Iraqi courts for crimes against Iraqi citizens or destruction of property. It was noted that a similar grant of immunity in Iran in the 1960s had unfortunate consequences. “Our honor has been trampled underfoot; the dignity of Iran has been destroyed,” said the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1964. He said that the order “reduced the Iranian people to a level lower than that of an American dog.”Washington …

President George W. Bush traveled to France to attend a ceremony commemorating the D-Day invasion and attempted to play down his dispute with President Jacques Chirac over the invasion of Iraq; Bush told French journalists that he was never angry with the French or with Chirac for his refusal to endorse the war, and he even invited Chirac to visit the ranch down in Crawford, Texas. “If he wants to come and see cows, he’s welcome to come out here and see some cows,” Bush said, apparently unaware that Chirac, a former agriculture minister, is a cattle expert.New York TimesGeorge …

Caught in the Web, 1860. President George W. Bush, apparently worried that John Kerry was beating him in recent opinion polls, appeared on a Sunday morning talk show. Bush defended his decision to conquerIraq, and although he admitted that his stated reason for invading was false, he also suggested that weapons of mass destruction might still be found. The president said that he had total confidence in the CIA but suggested that he had been misled by incorrect intelligence. “Saddam Hussein was dangerous with weapons. Saddam Hussein was dangerous with the ability to make weapons,” Bush said. “I believe it …

Five military lawyers who represent detainees at Guant�namo Bay, Cuba, filed a brief with the Supreme Court arguing that President Bush has exceeded his constitutional authority in setting up military tribunals for their clients and the other detainees. “Under this monarchical regime,” they wrote, “those who fall into the black hole may not contest the jurisdiction, competency or even the constitutionality of the military tribunals.”New York TimesOne hundred seventy-five members of the Britishparliament, including five former law lords, also filed a brief attacking the administration’s detainment policy. “The exercise of executive power without the possibility of judicial review,” they wrote, …

A bovine idyll. Mad cow disease was discovered in the United States for the first time, in a Holstein cow that was too sick to walk but was nonetheless slaughtered and sold for meat. The mad Holstein’s brain and spinal column were sent to a rendering plant somewhere, possibly to be turned into dog or chicken food; there was no word on whether the cow’s blood was processed to be fed to young calves as a milk supplement. Secretary of Agriculture Ann Venemen, a former lobbyist for the beef industry, insisted that even meat from a mad cow is safe …

A federal appeals court ordered President Bush to release Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen who was arrested last year in Chicago and has been held since then as an enemy combatant. The court ruled that “the president, acting alone, possesses no inherent constitutional authority to detain American citizens seized within the United States, away from the zone of combat, as enemy combatants.”New York TimesA class-action lawsuit was filed against the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security accusing the agencies of illegally using a national crime database to enforce civil immigration laws.New York TimesFederal investigators found videotapes of guards …

Congress approved a major Medicare bill that permits the elderly to buy prescription drug coverage; few citizens were able to understand the plan, though the health-care industry appeared to be well pleased by it. The legislation was endorsed by AARP, which nowadays makes a great deal of money selling health-care products to its members, and consumer advocates denounced it as “a classic election-year giveaway.” Some experts predicted a revolt among the elderly once the plan takes effect in 2006 and the true costs of reform become clear.New York TimesGovernor Arnold Schwarzenegger of California proposed cutbacks in therapy for the mentally …

Iraqi guerrillas hiding in a grove of date palms shot down an American military helicopter near Fallujah; 16 died and 20 were wounded. Most of the soldiers were leaving Iraq on furlough. Two civilian contractors and one U.S. soldier were killed the same day by roadside bombs. “In a long war,” said Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, “we are going to have tragic days. But they’re necessary.”Associated PressTrent Lott suggested that more U.S. troops be moved to the area around Tikrit. “Honestly, it’s a little tougher than I thought it was going to be,” he said. “If we have to, we …

Attorney General John Ashcroft mocked librarians for their opposition to provisions of the USA Patriot Act that permit federal agents to seize citizens’ library records; Ashcroft said that the librarians were indulging in “baseless hysteria” and wondered why the FBI would care “how far you have gotten on the latest Tom Clancy novel.” He did not make clear why the government needs access to library records, however,New York Timesand later said that no requests for such records had yet been made.New York TimesMembers of the House and Senate appropriations committees agreed to kill funding for the Pentagon’s Terrorist Information Awareness …