Cursor's Media Patrol - 02/16/06

With Attorney General Alberto Gonzales 'Withholding Plame Emails' -- citing "executive privilege" and "national security concerns" -- a Cheney claim of "power to declassify" secrets reportedly "could set up a criminal defense" for his former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, in the CIA leak case.

12 hours of tape recordings obtained by ABC News, in which Saddam Hussein reportedly speaks of how he "warned the United States it could be hit by a terrorist attack ... but not from Iraq," will evidently be released to the public this weekend.

Fifteen months after retaking Samarra, American troops still are battling insurgents in daily skirmishes, and Knight Ridder quotes one U.S. officer as saying that "It's apocalyptic out there."

As he bids 'Farewell to Ground Zero,' Jonathan Schell argues that the Bush administration's project for "a profound transformation of the American state ... had even less to do with 9/11 than did the Iraq War."