Report from Washington Seven years ago, Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown was in a plane crash in Croatia. Four members of the medical team that examined his body stated publicly that they had observed a hole in Brown's skull that looked exactly like a bullet hole. The government, fully aware of the hole, elected not to have the body autopsied and announced that Brown had died of blunt trauma injuries suffered in the plane crash. The four career military whistleblowers, three of whom were experienced pathologists, saw their military careeers destroyed and nothing was done to investigate Brown's death.

Annals of Democracy Counting Votes In 1988 Ronnie Dugger wrote the definitive article on computerized vote fixing. Much of what we saw in Florida in 2000 was covered in his article, almost as though someone used it as a guide. It's never before been on the web since it predates the internet. But here it is, digitized.

Live Baghdad Web-Cams

Crude Vision In November 1983, U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz receives an intelligence report describing how Hussein's troops are resorting to "almost daily use of CW [chemical weapons]" against the Iranians. Reagan signs a secret order instructing his charges to do "whatever was necessary and legal" to prevent Iraq from losing the war. A month later, the president dispatches a special envoy to Baghdad on a secret mission. The envoy informs the Iraqi leader that Washington is ready for a resumption of full diplomatic relations, according to a recently declassified State Dept. report of the conversation, and that Washington would regard "any major reversal of Iraq's fortunes as a strategic defeat for the West." The envoy was Donald H. Rumsfeld, then the CEO of pharmaceutical giant Searle. The meeting is widely considered to be the trigger that ushered in a new era of U.S.-Iraq relations, one that opened the door to shipments of dual-use munitions, chemical, biological agents and other dubious technology transfers.

The Secret History of the Aqaba Pipeline What was Donald Rumsfeld doing in Baghdad in December 1983?