WASHINGTON (CNN) — FBI and Internal Revenue Service agents searched the Alaska home of longtime Sen. Ted Stevens on Monday amid a corruption probe that already has snared two oil-company executives and a state lobbyist.

Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, had his home searched by the FBI and Internal Revenue Service on Monday.

Dave Heller, an FBI spokesman in Anchorage, Alaska, confirmed that agents entered Stevens’ home Monday afternoon, but he referred further comment to the Justice Department.

Neither the senator nor any family members were home at the time, Heller said.

Stevens, 83, the Senate’s senior Republican, has been under federal investigation for a 2000 renovation project more than doubling the size of his home in Girdwood, Alaska, near Anchorage, The Associated Press reported.

The project was overseen by Bill Allen, a contractor who has pleaded guilty to bribing Alaska state legislators.

Allen is founder of VECO Corp., an Alaska-based oil field services and engineering company that has reaped tens of millions of dollars in federal contracts.

A law enforcement official familiar with the case confirmed the raid on Stevens’ home was focused on records related to the ongoing VECO investigation, the AP said. Read the rest of this entry »

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AP) — A former police officer accused in the videotaped beating of a man in the French Quarter after Hurricane Katrina was acquitted Tuesday by a judge who heard the case without a jury.

An Associated Press videographer captured this scene of New Orleans police officers struggling to subdue Robert Davis about six weeks after Hurricane Katrina struck.

“I didn’t even find this a close call,” said District Judge Frank Marullo.

Robert Evangelist, 37, had been charged with beating Robert Davis, 66, during an arrest videotaped by an Associated Press Television News crew the night of October 8, 2005, about six weeks after Katrina.

Evangelist, who elected to have his case heard by Marullo without a jury, pleaded not guilty to second-degree battery and false imprisonment. Marullo acquitted him of both counts.

Marullo watched videotapes of the beating and its aftermath and he noted that Davis could be seen struggling on the tape for several minutes.

“This event could have ended at any time if the man had put his hands behind his back,” the judge said.

Read the rest of this entry »

U.S. troops on Sunday detained two suspected weapons smugglers who may be linked to Iran’s elite Quds force, the military said, as Washington presses allegations that Tehran is supporting violence in Iraq despite plans for new bilateral talks on the issue.

The suspects and a number of weapons were seized during a raid on a rural farm compound in eastern Iraq, near the Iranian border, according to a military statement.

“The suspects may be associated with a network of terrorists that have been smuggling explosively formed projectiles (EFPs), other weapons, personnel and money from Iran into Iraq,” the military said. EFPs are powerful, armor-piercing roadside bombs that have killed hundreds of U.S. soldiers in recent months.

The announcement came days after Washington said it was ready to hold direct talks with Iran on the deteriorating security situation in Iraq amid U.S. allegations that Tehran is supporting violent Shiite militias in the country.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Tuesday that no date had been set for the talks, but suggested that discussions were under way on setting a time for the meeting, which would be the first between the two arch-foes since late May when U.S. ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker met Iranian officials in Baghdad. Read the rest of this entry »

Reid said Thursday whoever was in charge of the invitations to a closed-door Iraq briefing “didn’t do a very good job.”

WASHINGTON (CNN) – Senate Democratic leaders complained Thursday that many of their members may have missed an important classified briefing at the Pentagon on Iraq because invitations were “blast faxed” to the publicly listed fax numbers in their Senate offices and many went unnoticed until it was too late to attend.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he doubted the foul up was “sinister” but said he thought the Bush administration was “just desperate to get their message out on Iraq and whoever put this together didn’t do a very good job.”

At issue are notifications for two back-to-back closed-circuit video conferences Thursday morning with Iraq commander Gen. David Petraeus and U.S. ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker to which lawmakers were bussed to the Pentagon to attend.

According to two administration sources, one at the White House and one at the Pentagon, faxes were sent to all 100 senators and a list of about 100 to 150 House members who sit on relevant committees – like Armed Services and Foreign Affairs.

But the sources couldn’t agree on who sent the faxes. The White House source said the Pentagon sent them. The Pentagon source said the White House did. Read the rest of this entry »

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republicans on Wednesday scuttled a Democratic proposal ordering troop withdrawals from Iraq in a showdown that capped an all-night debate on the war.

The 52-47 vote fell short of the 60 votes needed to cut off debate under Senate rules. It was a sound defeat for Democrats who say the U.S. military campaign, in its fifth year and requiring 158,000 troops, cannot tame the sectarian violence in Iraq.

The Democratic proposal, by Sens. Carl Levin, D-Michigan, and Jack Reed, D-Rhode Island, would have required Bush to start bringing home troops within 120 days and complete the pullout by April 30, 2008. Under the bill, an unspecified number of troops could remain behind to conduct a narrow set of missions: counterterrorism, protecting U.S. assets and training Iraqi security forces.

“We have to get us out of a middle of a civil war” said Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Delaware, who chairs the Foreign Relations Committee. Read the rest of this entry »

A Fort Bragg soldier is charged with knowingly infecting a teenage boy with human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV.Officers arrested Pfc. Johnny Lamar Dalton, 25, after a five-month-long investigation by Fort Bragg military police and the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office. Dalton is attached to the 82nd Airborne.

Dalton first met the unidentified boy, 17, in a gay online chatroom and then in person, said the boy’s mother.

In November, Dalton’s commander ordered him not to have sex without first telling partners of his illness, said a spokesperson for the 82nd Airborne. Dalton also signed a written order to that effect.

However, Dalton’s encounters with the boy, who was in high school, continued, said a military spokesperson.

In February, doctors conducting routine blood tests found that the teen was HIV positive.

“To him, it was like a death sentence,” said the boy’s mother, who said she was with her son when the doctors told them the results.

“It obviously didn’t mean anything for him (Dalton) to do it, because he knew he had it (HIV), and he willingly gave it to someone else,” said the victim’s mother, who said she keeps her identity hidden for fear of the stigma her family might suffer.

The boy, now 18, and his mother went to Fort Bragg military police and then to the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office.

“My son received it (HIV) unwillingly,” said the teen’s mother. “If you willingly and knowingly … and you purposefully do something, you should suffer the consequences.”

After five months of investigation, officers arrested Dalton, who is married and has children, and charged him with crimes against nature, assault and assault with a deadly weapon.

Both the boy’s mother and military investigators said they are worried that Dalton might have infected other people who have not come forward. The mother said she believes that the Army should have better control over soldiers known to have HIV or AIDS.

“Two families are now suffering because of an unfortunate set of circumstances, and all of us wish we could have prevented it,” said Tom Earnhardt, an 82nd Airborne spokesperson.

The teen, who is now 18, is otherwise healthy and is not on medication.

Dalton is being held on $50,000 bond with a preliminary court hearing set for August 2. In addition to criminal charges, he could also be kicked out of the Army.

For the victim’s mother, such charges do not erase the damage done to her son’s life.

“When someone basically shortens your life, whether it’s yours or your child’s, you feel cheated,” she said.

CAMP PENDLETON, California (AP) — A corporal testifying in a court-martial said Marines in his unit began routinely beating Iraqis after officers ordered them to “crank up the violence level.”

Cpl. Saul H. Lopezromo testified Saturday at the murder trial of Cpl. Trent D. Thomas.

“We were told to crank up the violence level,” said Lopezromo, testifying for the defense.

When a juror asked for further explanation, Lopezromo said: “We beat people, sir.”

Within weeks of allegedly being scolded, seven Marines and a Navy corpsman went out late one night to find and kill a suspected insurgent in the village of Hamdaniya near the Abu Ghraib prison. The Marines and corpsman were from 2nd Platoon, Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 5th Regiment.

Lopezromo said the suspected insurgent was known to his neighbors as the “prince of jihad,” and had been arrested several times and later released by the Iraqi legal system.

Unable to find him, the Marines and corpsman dragged another man from his house, fatally shot him, and then planted an AK-47 assault rifle near the body to make it appear he had been killed in a shootout, according to court testimony.

Four Marines and the corpsman, initially charged with murder in the April 2006 killing, have pleaded guilty to reduced charges and been given jail sentences ranging from 10 months to eight years. Thomas, 25, from St. Louis, Missouri, pleaded guilty but withdrew his plea and is the first defendant to go to court-martial.

Lopezromo, who was not part of the squad on its late-night mission, said he saw nothing wrong with what Thomas did.

“I don’t see it as an execution, sir,” he told the judge. “I see it as killing the enemy.”

He said Marines consider all Iraqi men part of the insurgency.

Lopezromo and two other Marines were charged in August with assaulting an Iraqi two weeks before the killing that led to charges against Thomas and the others. Charges against all three were later dropped.

Thomas’ attorneys have said he suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury from his combat duty in Falluja in 2004. They have argued that Thomas believed he was following a lawful order to get tougher with suspected insurgents.

Prosecution witnesses testified that Thomas shot the 52-year-old man at point-blank range after he had already been shot by other Marines and was lying on the ground.

Lopezromo said a procedure called “dead-checking” was routine. If Marines entered a house where a man was wounded, instead of checking to see whether he needed medical aid, they shot him to make sure he was dead, he testified.

“If somebody is worth shooting once, they’re worth shooting twice,” he said.

The jury is composed of three officers and six enlisted personnel, all of whom have served in Iraq. The trial was set to resume Monday.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) — Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki shrugged off U.S. doubts of his government’s military and political progress Saturday, saying Iraqi forces are capable and American troops can leave “anytime they want.”

At a news conference Saturday, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said his government needs “time and effort” to enact the political reforms that Washington seeks.

One of his top aides, meanwhile, accused the United States of embarrassing the Iraqi government by violating human rights and treating his country like an “experiment in a U.S. lab.”

Al-Maliki sought to display confidence at a time when pressure is mounting in Congress for a speedy withdrawal of U.S. forces. On Thursday, the House passed a measure calling for the United States to withdraw its troops by spring, hours after the White House reported mixed progress by the Iraqi government toward meeting 18 benchmarks.

During a news conference, al-Maliki shrugged off the progress report, saying that difficulty in enacting the reforms was “natural” given Iraq’s turmoil.

“We are not talking about a government in a stable political environment, but one in the shadow of huge challenges,” al-Maliki said. “So when we talk about the presence of some negative points in the political process, that’s fairly natural.”

Al-Maliki said his government needs “time and effort” to enact the political reforms that Washington seeks — “particularly since the political process is facing security, economic and services pressures, as well as regional and international interference.”

But he said that if necessary, Iraqi police and soldiers could fill the void left by the departure of coalition forces.

“We say in full confidence that we are able, God willing, to take the responsibility completely in running the security file if the international forces withdraw at anytime they want,” he said.

One of al-Maliki’s close advisers, Shiite lawmaker Hassan al-Suneid, bristled over the American pressure, telling The Associated Press that “the situation looks as if it is an experiment in an American laboratory [judging] whether we succeed or fail.”

He sharply criticized the U.S. military, saying it was committing human rights violations and embarrassing the Iraqi government through such tactics as building a wall around Baghdad’s Sunni neighborhood of Azamiyah and launching repeated raids on suspected Shiite militiamen in the capital’s slum of Sadr City.

He also criticized U.S. overtures to Sunni groups in Anbar and Diyala provinces, encouraging former insurgents to join the fight against al Qaeda in Iraq. “These are gangs of killers,” he said.

In addition, he said that al-Maliki has problems with the top U.S. commander, Gen. David Petraeus, who he said works along a “purely American vision.”

“There are disagreements that the strategy that Petraeus is following might succeed in confronting al Qaeda in the early period but it will leave Iraq an armed nation, an armed society and militias,” al-Suneid said.

Al-Suneid’s comments were a rare show of frustration toward the Americans from within al-Maliki’s inner circle as the prime minister struggles to overcome deep divisions among Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish members of his coalition and enact the U.S.-drawn list of benchmarks.

But the U.S. focus on the benchmarks has rankled the deep sense of Iraqi pride, even among those who share the goals set forth by the Americans.

U.S. forces have been waging intensified security crackdowns in Baghdad and areas to the north and south for nearly a month. The goal is to bring calm to the capital while al-Maliki enacts the political reforms, intended to give Sunni Arabs a greater role in the government and political process, lessening support for the insurgency.

But the benchmarks have been blocked by divisions among Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish leaders. In August, the parliament is taking a one-month vacation — a shorter break than the usual two months, but still enough to anger some in Congress who say lawmakers should push through reforms while American soldiers are dying.

Two more American soldiers were killed Saturday in bombings in the Baghdad area, the U.S. military reported. One of the bombs used was an explosively formed penetrator — high-tech devices that the U.S. military believes are smuggled from Iran. The Iranians deny the charge.

In other violence, a car bomb leveled a two-story apartment building, and a suicide bomber plowed his explosives-packed vehicle into a line of cars at a gas station. The two attacks killed at least eight people, police said.

Also Saturday, the U.S. military said it captured an alleged high-level al Qaeda in Iraq cell leader at Baghdad’s international airport. The suspect, believed to have organized mortar and roadside bomb attacks in the capital and nearby area, surrendered “without a struggle,” the military said in a statement.

It did not give details on the suspect or say whether he was traveling in or out of the country when seized.

The Reuters news agency said one of its Iraqi translators was shot to death in Baghdad on Wednesday along with two of his brothers, apparent victims of sectarian death squads. He was the third employee of the news agency killed in Baghdad this week.

An Iraqi reporter for The New York Times, Khalid W. Hassan, was killed by gunmen Friday as he drove to work in southern Baghdad.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — The House of Representatives voted 223-201 Thursday to require most U.S. troops to leave Iraq by April 1, 2008.

President Bush with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. She was part of a successful effort to pass a House bill that pulls troops out of Iraq.

President Bush vetoed a war-spending bill with a similar withdrawal date in May and has threatened to spike any new effort to set a timetable for a U.S. pullout. His Republican allies in the House said the new measure has no chance of passage.

But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, said Thursday’s mixed report on the progress of the war shows it’s time for American troops to come home.

“President Bush continues to urge patience, but what is needed — and what the American people are demanding — is a new direction,” she said. Read the rest of this entry »