GAO

Dozens of state and local intelligence fusion centers operating nationwide are having difficulties juggling the multiple information systems that provide them with data, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office. Forty-three fusion centers were operational as of September and another 15 are in development. They have been created since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks with a goal of advancing information-sharing among law enforcement authorities to improve domestic counterterrorism intelligence.

More American research labs are working with dangerous toxins such as Ebola, smallpox and avian flu in an effort to boost the nation's biodefense, but oversight is fragmented "and, for the most part, relies on self-policing," investigators said Thursday. That lack of accountability may make Americans less, rather than more, secure, six years after a mysterious plot involving anthrax sickened 22 people and killed five, testified Keith Rhodes, chief technologist for the Governmental Accountability Office.

The documents, released yesterday by the American Civil Liberties Union ahead of a lawsuit, total nearly 10,000 pages of courts martial summaries, transcripts and military reports about 22 incidents.

The killings include the drowning of a man soldiers pushed from a bridge into the Tigris river as punishment for breaking curfew, and the suffocation during interrogation of a former Iraqi general believed to be helping insurgents.