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- wapo.stTV comedian Stephen Colbert's tongue-in-cheek bid to form a “super PAC” may actually have serious implications.
- wapo.stNews Corp. bought MySpace for $580 million in 2005, but users fled the site for other social networks.
- The following excerpt is taken from the Kindle Single, “The Hunt for bin Laden,” which synthesizes more than 15 years of Washington Post coverage of Osama bin Laden into a single narrative. The story starts with the Langley CIA shooting in 1993 and ends w...hen Osama does, and it is built on reporting from Bob Woodward, Steve Coll, Dana Priest and two dozen other Post reporters. This excerpt is from 2006, as President George W. Bush responds to increased public pressure to find bin Laden. The full narrative will be available on amazon.com/kindlesingles fo
r $1.99 on June 30. “The story of hunting bin Laden is a story of increased sophistication in thinking,” said an intelligence official. Maybe bin Laden was in the mountains; maybe not. But that was the wrong question. Even al-Qaeda’s top guns didn’t know where bin Laden was, yet they still managed to get instructions from him. So the most important question wasn’t “Where is bin Laden?” but rather “How does he communicate?” From interrogations of captured terrorists, analysts determined that bin Laden got his orders out only once a month, by courier, and that led them to decide that, as the intelligence official said, “you have to know the network, the couriers and how that leads to the location.” At the White House, under pressure from mounting public skepticism about the hunt, Bush moved on a different track. He ordered up Operation Cannonball, directing the CIA to “flood the zone,” beefing up the number of officers on the hunt in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The CIA sharply increased the number of intelligence officers and assets devoted to the pursuit of bin Laden. The intelligence officers teamed with the military’s secretive Joint Special Operations Command and with more resources from the NSA and other intelligence agencies. The problem was that no one was certain where the “zone” was. “Here you’ve got a guy who’s gone off the net and is hiding in some of the most formidable terrain in one of the most remote parts of the world surrounded by people he trusts implicitly,” T. McCreary, spokesman for the National Counterterrorism Center, said at the time. “And he stays off the net and is probably not mobile. That’s an extremely difficult problem.” The full narrative will be available on amazon.com/kindlesingles fo r $1.99 on June 30. See More By: Washington Post - www.washingtonpost.comObama said he is willing to cut spending by $1 trillion, but he said Republicans must agree to allow taxes to rise on the wealthiest Americans.
- www.washingtonpost.comA federal appeals affirmed Wednesday that Congress can require Americans to have minimum insurance coverage.
- www.washingtonpost.comNeed help this Fourth of July with your backyard barbecue? Turn to the Food section’s experts on Facebook.
- www.washingtonpost.comPresident Obama will hold a press conference at 11:30 a.m. today. And the Fix will live-blog it.
- www.washingtonpost.comA Post reporter’s new book tells the story of the reluctant suicide bomber who attacked the CIA.
- www.washingtonpost.comAn hours-long firefight, which shattered any sense of security in the sprawling capital, came to an end only when NATO helicopters shot dead several insurgents at the landmark hotel.
- wapo.stAn unannounced Web search site from Google asks users what they love, then delivers a set of widgets and tools.
- wapo.stAnthony has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and could face the death penalty if convicted of that charge.
- wapo.stAsh from the approaching wildfire sparked a spot fire on property where scientists once conducted underground tests of radioactive explosives.
- wapo.stThe musician’s manager said they will ask the Bachmann campaign to stop using “American Girl.”