• Records legally obtained without a judge's approval or grand jury subpoena

• It is unusual for Pentagon, CIA to investigate domestic cases

• Move called part of a post-9/11 strategy to be aggressive in intelligence-gathering

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Pentagon and to a lesser extent the CIA have been using a little-known power to look at the banking and credit records of hundreds of Americans and others suspected of terrorism or espionage within the United States, according to a published report.

"It is our understanding that the intelligence community agencies make such requests on a limited basis," said Carl Kropf, a spokesman for the Office of the National Intelligence Director, which oversees all 16 spy agencies in the government.

The so-called national security letters permit the executive branch to seek records about people in terror and spy investigations without a judge's approval or grand jury subpoena. Government lawyers maintain the legal authority for such tactics is years old and was strengthened by the Patriot Act.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation, the lead agency on domestic counterterrorism and espionage, has issued thousands of national security letters since the attacks of September 11, 2001.

That has prompted criticism and court challenges from civil liberties advocates who claim they invade the privacy of Americans' lives, even though banks and other financial institutions typically turn over the financial records voluntarily.

The New York Times, in an article posted Saturday on the Internet, said the Pentagon and CIA also have been using their own versions of the letters to aid investigative work.

Congressional officials said members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees had been briefed on the Pentagon and CIA's use of the letters, the newspaper said.

The vast majority of national security letters are issued by the FBI, but in very rare circumstances they have been used by the CIA before and after 9/11, said a U.S. intelligence official who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of the issue's sensitivity.

The CIA has used these non-compulsory letters in espionage investigations and other circumstances, the official said.

"It is very uncommon for the agency to be issuing these letters," the official said. "The agency has the authority to do so, and it is absolutely lawful."

A government official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said one example of a case in which the letters were used was the 1994 case of CIA officer Aldrich Ames, who eventually was found to have been selling secrets to the Soviet Union.

Neither official commented about the extent of possible use by Defense Department agencies, but Pentagon officials defended their use to the Times, saying they were part of a post-September 11 strategy to use more aggressive intelligence-gathering techniques.

Kropf's remarks to the AP did not address specifics of the Times story, which said military intelligence officers have sent letters in up to 500 investigations.

"There's a strong tradition of not using our military for domestic law enforcement," said Elizabeth Rindskopf Parker, a former general counsel at both the National Security Agency and the CIA and dean at the McGeorge School of Law at the University of the Pacific told the Times. "They're moving into territory where historically they have not been authorized or presumed to be operating." LINK__CNN

JERUSALEM (AP) - U.S. raids that President Bush approved against Iranian targets in Iraq are part of broad efforts to confront Tehran's aggression, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Saturday.

"The United States is simply responding to Iranian activities that have been going on for a while now that threaten not just to destabilize the chance for Iraq to proceed to stability but also that endanger our forces," Rice said before meeting with Israel's foreign minister.

Bush approved the strategy several months ago, U.S. officials said, in response to what Washington claims is Iran's support for terrorists inside Iraq and the alleged funneling of bombs to anti-U.S. insurgents.

Echoing other Bush administration figures, Rice said the U.S. does not intend to cross the Iraq-Iran border to attack Iranians.

Five Iranians were detained by U.S.-led forces after a raid Thursday on an Iranian government liaison office in northern Iraq. The move further frayed relations between the two countries.

The United States accuses Iran of helping provide roadside bombs that have killed American troops in Iraq. Also, a bitter standoff already exists over Iran's nuclear program.

Rice told reporters that the Iranian office was not a diplomatic consulate, which would be protected by international treaty.

The State Department said Friday that U.S.-led forces entered an Iranian building in Kurdish-controlled Irbil because information linked it to Revolutionary Guards and other Iranian elements engaging in violent activities in Iraq.

State Department spokesman Tom Casey said there was no truth to reports that Iran was carrying out legitimate diplomatic activity at the site.

But Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, a Kurd, contended the Iranians were working in a liaison office that had government approval and was in the process of being approved as a consulate. In Iran, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said the U.S. raid constituted an intervention in Iranian-Iraqi affairs

JANUARY 11 2007

Bush War Plan Draws Fire on Capitol Hill

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush's plan to send more troops to Iraq ran into a wall of criticism on Capitol Hill on Thursday as administration officials drew confrontational, sometimes mocking challenges from both Democrats and Republicans.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in response that the administration might abandon the increase
if the Iraqi government doesn't do its part, but he provided no timetable. "I think most of us, in our minds, are thinking of it as a matter of months, not 18 months or two years," he told the House Armed Services Committee.

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President Bush lifted the drilling ban Tuesday for Alaska's Bristol Bay, clearing the way for the Interior Department to open the fish-rich waters to oil and natural gas development.

Alaska officials as well as local communities had asked for the ban to be lifted, but environmentalists have warned against drilling in the bay, which is also a major fishing area for salmon, crab and cod.

Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said one or two lease sales in about 5.6 million acres of Bristol Bay will be considered for leasing in the department's upcoming five-year 2007-12 lease plan.

Separately, Bush lifted a drilling moratorium in an area of the central Gulf of Mexico known as Lease Area 181, making that area available to drilling.

The Gulf waters acted upon by the president is a small part of a much larger 8.2 million acres that were approved for oil and gas development by Congress last month in one of its last acts before adjournment.

"There will be significant opportunities for study and public comment before any oil and gas development could take place in these areas," said Kempthorne.

The Bristol Bay waters were set aside for protection by Congress 1990, but the ban was lifted in 2003 at the request of Sen. Ted Stevens (news, bio, voting record), R-Alaska, who argued that the area's oil and natural gas could be developed while still protecting the fisheries.

But a separate presidential drilling ban was not to expire until 2012.

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