Compare and contrast:
Then:

Russert: You did were allowed to leave eight months before your term expired. Was there a reason?
President Bush: Right. Well, I was going to Harvard Business School and worked it out with the military.

Now:

President Bush: It’s essential that I explain this properly to the parents of those who lost their lives.
Saddam Hussein was dangerous, and I�m not gonna leave him in power and trust a madman. He’s a dangerous man. He had the ability to make weapons at the very minimum.
For the parents of the soldiers who have fallen who are listening, David Kay, the weapons inspector, came back and said, “In many ways Iraq was more dangerous than we thought.” It’s we are in a war against these terrorists who will bring great harm to America, and I’ve asked these young ones to sacrifice for that.

Do you think there are a few reservists driving around Baghdad these days who might want to work out a deal to go to B-school rather worrying if they are going to get a leg blown off during the next eight months?
The great ones always lead by example.

As I posted on earlier, federal prosecutors have issued subpoenas for records concerning anti-war activists who gathered at a meeting at Drake University. Some under investigation believe it may stem from an incident where a demonstrator was charged with a misdemeanor assault against a peace officer.
A judge has issued a gag order forbidding Drake University officials from discussing the subpoenas. But the Catholic Peace Ministry director Brian Terrell, one of those subpoenaed, has issued the following press release:

Yesterday, February 3, Detective Jeff Warford of the Polk County Sheriff’s Office-FBI-Joint Terrorism Task Force came to Catholic Peace Ministry’s office here in Des Moines with a subpoena for me to testify before a Federal Grand Jury next Tuesday, February 10. Mr. Warford also served papers on Elton Davis at the Catholic Worker House and Patti McKee, who was coordinator of Iowa Peace Network until last month. The Grand Jury process is shrouded in secrecy. We do not know who or what the object of this investigation may be, beyond “possible violations of federal criminal law in the Southern District of Iowa.”
The proceeding will be behind closed doors. We may not have an attorney present. We have the right to plead the Fifth Amendment, refusing the answer questions that might incriminate us. The government, then, can offer us immunity from prosecution, in which case we will obliged to answer under threat of contempt of court and could be imprisoned for the length of the Grand Jury session, 18 months, should we continue to refuse to answer. This immunity would be limited to our own testimony and anything any of us say could be used against the others.
Whatever is going on, this is definitely an escalation on the part of the government’s war on dissent and clamp down on civil liberties. The fact that anything that we three and the peacemaking communities we represent could possibly attract the notice of a “Terrorism Task Force” is reprehensible. Please spread the word, express concerns you have with Federal and Polk County authorities. Keep us in mind and prayer.
Brian Terrell
Executive Director
Catholic Peace Ministry

Well said:

Hans Blix — who pleaded for more time to search Iraq for nuclear, chemical and biological weapons before a U.S.-led invasion in March — said the West had a right to expect more from their leaders.
“The intention was to dramatize it (the intelligence) just as the vendors of some merchandise are trying to exaggerate the importance of what they have,” Blix told BBC television.
. . .
“From politicians, our leaders in the Western world, I think we expect more than that, a bit more sincerity,” Blix said.

Expect more? From the master of low expectations? Why change now?

“Terrorist bid to build bombs in mid-flight“

Islamic militants have conducted dry runs of a devastating new style of bombing on aircraft flying to Europe, intelligence sources believe.
The tactics, which aim to evade aviation security systems by placing only components of explosive devices on passenger jets, allowing militants to assemble them in the air, have been tried out on planes flying between the Middle East, North Africa and Western Europe, security sources say.
Concerns that militants might assemble a bomb or another weapon on board were a key factor in the series of recent cancellations of transatlantic flights. Last weekend British Airways stopped flights from London to Washington and Miami for fear of an attack and Air France also cancelled scheduled flights.
. . .
Officials in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere are believed to have warned that at least 12 dry runs may have been completed and to have said that the terrorists are aiming to try out their plans on flights around the Mediterranean and the Middle East before attempting to bomb a transatlantic route, where security precautions are now very tight. Militants know that individual components are far easier to smuggle through airport security than an assembled bomb.

A suicide bombing is a straightforward plot. But what about the reports of pilots and targeting cities such as Las Vegas? Intelligence analysts speculate a bomb could be used in a hijacking attempt:

The US government’s Transportation Security Administration issued an urgent memo detailing new threats to aviation and warning that terrorists in teams of five might be planning suicide missions to hijack commercial airliners, possibly using common items carried by travellers, such as cameras, modified as weapons. The CIA said that a high level of threat was based on information from several incarcerated high-ranking militants.
An FBI bulletin last November was more specific. It warned that ‘terrorists are considering the use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) assembled on board to hijack an aircraft or, alternatively, destroy it over heavily populated areas in the event of passenger or crew resistance.
Components of IEDs can be smuggled on to an aircraft, concealed in either clothing or personal carry-on items such as shampoo and medicine bottles, and assembled on board.

The FBI is making list, checking it twice:

The National Lawyers Guild will move to quash an FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force subpoena issued on Wednesday, February 4, 2004. The subpoena asks Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, to produce all records relating to a November 15, 2003 antiwar conference at Drake University called bad news for First Amendment protections everywhere.

“This is exactly what people feared would happen,” said Brian Terrell of the peace ministry, one of those subpoenaed. “The civil liberties of everyone in this country are in danger. How we handle that here in Iowa is very important on how things are going to happen in this country from now on.”