One interesting nugget came out of the briefing with senior intelligence officials which did not make air for time reasons.  That is often the case on these stories; so much information, not enough time. I, frankly, don’t know how the network people do it, but that IS another story…

We were told that Israel’s decision to strike the Syrian Al-Kibar nuclear reactor in September 2007 was made on its own.  “No green light was given by the U.S. … no one asked for permission and none was given.”

According to senior intelligence officials, Israel saw the Syrian facility “as an existential threat.”

As for North Korea’s motivation, senior intelligence officials said it was cash-driven, not an effort to get nuclear fuel.

While senior intelligence officials were forceful in their conclusions it was a nuclear reactor, it will take time for outside analysts to digest the material and there is certain to be questions raised in the coming days by some foreign nations who may fear similar treatment.  Do you believe the evidence? Especially after WMD? There is clearly more pressure on the intel community to make their case as strongly and as openly as possible now.

Check out this letter that was sent by CIA Director Mike Hayden to CIA employees re: North Korea and Syria.  See the bold sections:

At our town hall meeting in January, I praised the outstanding work of our officers in tackling a very sensitive counter-proliferation issue, one that I could not identify at the time because it was highly compartmented.  As of today, some aspects have been declassified and will be publicly released this afternoon, so I can share with you the highlights of this extraordinary story.

Last spring, we acquired information confirming that a building in eastern Syria was a covert nuclear reactor using North Korean technology.  We had suspected the two nations were cooperating on nuclear technology as early as 2001, and although imagery had revealed the existence of the building, it lacked features associated with a nuclear installation.  The new information included photographs of the interior and exterior that offered our first unambiguous indication that the building was a nuclear reactor.  Moreover, the reactor would have been capable of producing plutonium for nuclear weapons, was not configured to produce electricity, and was ill-suited for research.

On the morning of 6 September 2007, the reactor was destroyed as it was nearing completion, but before it had been operated or charged with uranium fuel.  Syrian efforts to dismantle the ruined building and remove every trace of the incriminating equipment-largely conducted at night or under tarpaulins for concealment-further underscored Damascus less than benign intent for the facility. A video presentation summarizes our analysis of the Syrian reactor project and North Korean involvement in greater detail.

Our team effort on the Al Kibar reactor is a case study in rigorous analytic tradecraft, skillful human and technical collection, and close collaboration with our Community colleagues and liaison partners.  Our officers put in long hours on this issue for many months, and their hard work paid off by directly advancing our nations security and that of our allies.  To everyone who contributed to this success, my congratulations on a job well done.  

QUESTION: Do you think the pictures are the “Smoking Gun?”

 Britney Spears hasn’t given the paparazzi much to photograph in recent weeks. The pop star has been out of the spotlight and on the road to recovery. But Saturday, Spears was on another road – California’s 101 freeway – and had an “Oops, I Did it Again” moment.

The driving-challenged Spears was involved in another minor traffic incident. This time, she apparently rear-ended another vehicle in stop-and-go traffic. www.CelebTV.com got exclusive video of Spears being questioned by police.

This comes after previous traffic accidents, including a parking lot hit-and-run captured by the paparazzi last year, followed by a citation for driving without a valid California license. In 2006, Spears was famously photographed driving with son Sean Preston on her lap, rather than in a car seat.

The good news this time, the California Highway Patrol told crews on the scene that no one was injured, and no vehicles were damaged. CelebTV says Spears reportedly was given a sobriety test on the scene, and passed. The crash is just a minor speed bump for Spears, as she continues to get her life back on track.

Interesting behind-the-scenes note: Fans are always happy to see Spears, even when she’s being questioned by police at an accident site. www.Celebtv.com captured fans screaming, “Britney!” and “Britney, Britney is that you?” out their car windows at the pop star.

Click on “comments’ below to tell us what you think of this story, and tune in to America’s Newsroom at 9:20amET to see the footage.

From day one of the manhunt, Onslow County, NC authorities assured me the question was not “if,” but “when,” Marine Cpl. Cesar Laurean would be arrested. And that seems to have been the attitude of their Mexican counterparts.

Their optimism appears to have been justified last night, when police in the rural Mexican township of Tacambaro arrested the prime suspect in the December murder of pregnant Marine Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach.

I’m doing live shots from the Atlanta bureau while my colleagues, correspondent Marianne Silber and producer Brooks Blanton travel to Jacksonville, NC, where Onslow County authorities have scheduled a 2 PM news conference.

Adam Housley was recently in Mexico for an unrelated assignment. But he’s been able to gain some interesting details on this story from his law enforcement contacts there. Be sure to read his blog below.

(AP) Cesar Laurean in handcuffs after his capture in Mexico.

BREAKING NEWS!
Friday, April 11

5:12 pm: We went to the town where Cesar was living for the past several weeks in San Juan de Viña, Municipio de Tacambaro, in the State of Michoacan, and we talked to several residents who knew him.

They said he lived in a house in the mountains, and would come down almost every day to the Internet cafe, he would sometimes work there for cash also.

As he walked down the hill he would talk to people along the way, saying hello and making small talk. But he mostly kept to himself. We went to the house where he lived. It was a two-room wooden house. It still had food, a notebook where he kept a diary of his daily exercises, and smashed cardboard boxes he used as a bed.

He also talked with Claudia Rauda Botello a 18 year-old-girl that talks regularly with  Cesar and he told her that his uncle sent him to live up in the mountains and he lived alone there.

4:21 pm: The Mexican Attorney General’s office tells FOX News that one of the Mexican ministries is currently holding a private hearing and interrogation of Cesar Laurean in Mexico City.

The hearing is still in session as of 3:30pm ET. The hearing is part of the normal process, but it’s happening much quicker than usual.

2:08 pm: I just spoke to our contacts in Mexico and got some new info.

First Jorge went to the village where Laurean was hiding out. According to many villagers, no one knew he was a fugitive. He was living at a small farm surrounded by Alvocado and fruit trees. The house on the property was small and he apparently had mostly been living alone.

According to villagers he told them his uncle had put him up at the small farm and had him also doing odd jobs in and around the big city of Morelia.

Laurean frequented a small Internet cafe and also was frequently visited by an older women the villagers assumed was his mother.

Inside the small farm house was a workout plan written in English on a piece of paper and posted on the wall. It said stuff like, Mondays push ups etc.

People in the small village, while suspicious, are very surprised this guy was wanted in the U.S … for murder.

_____________________________________________________________

Thursday, April 10

11:30 pm: EXCLUSIVE INFO AND DETAILS: THIS INFO JUST IN FROM A PRODUCER I WORK WITH IN MEXICO … JORGE. HE WAS AT THE PRESS CONFERENCE.

Marine Cpl. Cesar Laurean was arrested at approximately 7:00 pm in San Juan de Vina, Municipio de Tacambaro, in the State of Michoacan. Jorge took down this quote …

“Strong cooperation between Mexican and U.S. authorities increasingly ensures that those who commit crimes in either country will ultimately face capture and prosecution no matter where they might try to hide.” Also Jorge tells me that Laurean spoke very slowly, unnatural when asked questions. He was wearing jeans and a shirt and looked like he was in a bit of a trance. Keep Reading …

“You must have a glamorous job,” quipped cameraman Mal James to me on Friday night as we were breaking down after Pope Benedict’s Way of the Cross at the Colosseum.

It was pouring rain, freezing, and there we were, rolling up cables and packing up lights. No, not exactly glamorous. It is an interesting job, I have to admit, but a lot of times the conditions can be pretty miserable.

Today it was more of the same. We did a first live shot just as the Pope was giving his Easter greetings, at 7 a.m. Eastern, or noon Rome time. Mal, producer Mario Biasetti and I were huddled under a tent, but it wasn’t much protection, either for us or the equipment. There was plenty of thunder and lightning, and loads of rain and enough wind to get us all wet and miserable. Glamorous indeed. After the live shot we just high-tailed it into the office.

Despite the weather, there were still tens of thousands of people in St. Peter’s Square for the Mass and Blessing today. If you’ve come all the way from the United States or from Latin America — as many of the pilgrims have — a little or even a lot of rain is not going to stop you from going to see the Pope. Not exactly the weather for an Easter Egg hunt, but you don’t make a pilgrimage to Rome for that.

Finally, the Pope gave us a little bit of news overnight. Italy’s best known Muslim, an Egyptian-born journalist named Magdi Allam, was baptized at the Easter Vigil in St. Peter’s Basilica.

I have a feeling the powers that be at the Vatican didn’t think too much about what the repercussions of this could be. Allam, an outspoken critic of Muslim extremists, and a vocal supporter of Israel, writes for the Milan daily Corriere della Sera. He was a controversial figure to begin with, and this will only add to his notoriety. As some Muslims here pointed out, Allam could have easily been baptized quietly in a small parish near his home, and not made a big deal of it. But he, and apparently the Vatican, decided otherwise. All this high-profile attention, including two full pages of stories about the conversion in his own newspaper, will only anger Muslims even more. And it’s all happening just when relations between the Vatican and Muslims looked like they were getting better. So much for that. It’s really a kind of in-your-face move, on the part of both Allam and the Vatican, and I’m sure we haven’t heard the end of it.

Rescue crews in Mesquite, Texas are still looking for 14-year-old boy who was swept away when the flooding hit North Texas yesterday. About 4-6 inches fell over the area in short order, causing a couple hundred people in Lancaster area to evacuate. The swollen creek that flooded the area has now receded and most of the street flooding across the region is gone now.

DFW International Airport is another story. Hundreds of people had to camp out at the airport overnight. This morning, the gates opened at 4am as the airport tried to work through the backlog. Yesterday, the airport clocked winds in excess of 100 miles an hour, spotted two funnel clouds and lightning strikes too numberous to count. More than 500 flights were cancelled and 100 more diverted. Today, the airlines are adding extra flights to pick up the slack but it should take the better part of the day for the situation to sort itself out.

By Courtney Kealy of the Baghdad Bureau

Walking through the streets of the peaceful town of Haditha in Anbar province while your democratic presidential runners spar over the issue of Iraq back at home? Priceless.

Could money have bought better pictures? Probably not.

Of course, Senator McCain’s aides have been at pains to say this is no campaign stop. It’s a previously planned trip as part of the Senate Armed Services Committee. He’s here to speak with General David Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker about their congressional hearing next month. He also met with Prime Minister Maliki to urge him to press the Iraqi government to move faster on political reconciliation.

The General and the Ambassador didn’t appear in pictures alongside the Senator. General Petraeus is well know to be apolitical and wouldn’t want to be seen in a presidential campaign ad. But the Senator did have the choice head -of -State- seat session with Iraqi Prime minister Maliki. Ahead of Vice President Cheney’s meeting, McCain was seated at the right hand of Maliki, in an ornate chair with wide armrests with the rest of the congressional delegation sittting one by one alongside the wall.

Senator McCain has been quite outspoken on his views about Iraq. It is his eighth visit here. He says he still sees Al Qaeda as a threat and worries that they may try to stage more attacks closer to the November election. He will continue on to Jordan, Israel, France and the UK where he will meet British Prime Minister Gordon Brown for the first time.

Managing to get trips in to Baghdad, Haditha and Mousl is a nifty hat trick for the Senator. Baghdad has seen a recent uptick in violence and Mosul is the new frontline against Al Qaeda … and, it is still quite dangerous to travel to.

BREAKING WEATHER NEWS!

3:35 ET: Here’s some photos from the scene! (Click on the thumbnail to see the larger version)

3:25 ET: We are in the Quick Response Vehicle, which will hopefully allow us to do a Studio B live shot.

Airport cancellations are at 40 to 50 percent at DFW Intl. American Airlines in cancelling about 70-75 percent of its flights here. There is a HUGE line of people stuck here. Photos to come shortly!

2:26 ET: The Dallas bureau crew is launching toward DFW International airport where there are reports of flight delays and cancellations.

Keep Reading …

For days I have been blogging about my rock n’ roll experience of being on tour with Iron Maiden.

Just a day after returning to New York, I was back in the newsroom working away on a Barack Obama story when my producer Ellen, said “we’ve got to roll, there’s been a crane collapse a few blocks from here … and it’s bad.”

When we got to the scene, this is what we found. A 130-foot tall section of construction crane leaning up against a high rise brick apartment complex. You can see the building construction crews were working on, on the left hand side, when it fell over.

But this wasn’t the worst of it!

Just beyond this building on the right, one block south, was a four story townhouse, that had four residential units, and a bar on the ground floor, Fubar. The cab of the crane shot off like a rocket and flattened the building in a matter of seconds. Four construction workers died, and when I last left, two more had been found. There is still a missing 28- year-old woman who was here in New York visiting her friend for the St. Patrick’s Day festivities. I can’t imagine what the victims families must be going through right now. It is all just so awful.

Witnesses, who lived on some of the top floors of the first building hit, say they could see construction workers hanging on for their lives as they plummeted to their death. If you look closely at this next picture, you can see where the townhouse once stood.

The gray building to the left, had a big chunk torn off in the incident, creating what I’ve been calling a “doll house” effect. It looks like a grand scale dollhouse, and if you were a giant, you could reach in and move the beds around, and move the pictures off someones wall.

Keep Reading …