Cheerleading is big business today but did you know it all started in New Jersey, and many people you see on TV today are former cheerleaders?Paula Abdul, Terri Hatcher and Stacy Keibler are former pro-sports cheerleaders. Locals Kelly Ripa and Cheri Oteri cheered in high school, as did North Jersey's Meryl Streep.But presidents Dwight Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan and yes, George W. Bush, were also cheerleaders, along with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg!Cheerleading started in the 1880s at Princeton, where men cheered on the Tigers. It soon became an organized activity at the University of Minnesota.But it was all men leading the cheers. However, as more women went to college starting in the 1920s, they discovered colleges had no athletic activities for women.So women turned to cheerleading, took it away from the guys and made it the half-billion-dollar business it is today!To see nearly 50 people you know who started in cheerleading, click the slideshow above and to the right!

WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House says Iran is supplying militants in Iraq, and that's why the U.S. needs to pursue people suspected of putting "our people at risk."

The comments come as American military officials in Baghdad say five Iranians arrested in Iraq last week have been linked to an Iranian faction that funds and arms militants in Iraq.

National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley tells ABC's "This Week" that the U.S. needs to deal with what -- quote -- "Iran is doing inside Iraq."

Speaking on "Fox News Sunday," Vice President Cheney warned that "Iran is fishing in troubled waters inside Iraq.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Bush on Saturday challenged lawmakers skeptical of his new Iraq plan to propose their own strategy for stopping the violence in Baghdad.

"To oppose everything while proposing nothing is irresponsible," Bush said.

In a pitch to lawmakers and the American people, Bush said the United States will keep the onus on the Iraqi government to take charge of security and reach a political reconciliation. He countered Democrats and his fellow Republicans who argue that Bush is sending 21,500 more U.S. troops into Iraq on the same mission.

"We have a new strategy with a new mission: Helping secure the population, especially in Baghdad," Bush said in his weekly radio address. "Our plan puts Iraqis in the lead."

The president asked for patience from lawmakers who grilled Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, when they testified before Congress in defense of the president's new plan.

Democratic leaders in the House and Senate intend to hold votes within a few weeks on Bush's revised Iraq policy. The non-binding resolutions would be one way to show their opposition to any troop buildup and force Republicans to make a choice about whether they support the president's plan.

Rep. Tim Walz, D-Minn., said that he, along with most Democrats and an increasing number of Republicans, believe sending more troops compounds a bad situation. Walz, a veteran of the war in Afghanistan, said diplomatic and political solutions are needed, not more troops.

"Before moving forward with this escalation, we owe it to these troops, to their families, and to all Americans to ask the tough questions and demand honest answers about this policy," Walz said in the Democrats' Saturday radio address.

"Is there a clear strategy that the commanders on the ground believe will succeed?" Walz said. "What are the benchmarks for success, and how long does the president believe it will take to achieve them? Is this a policy that will contribute to the America's security in the larger war on terror, or distract from it?"

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has charged that what Democrats really want to do is cut off funding for the troops. Democrats deny that.

"Members of Congress have a right to express their views, and express them forcefully," Bush said. "But those who refuse to give this plan a chance to work have an obligation to offer an alternative that has a better chance for success. "

In his radio broadcast, Bush replayed the highlights of his Wednesday night address to the nation.

He said the 21,500 troops being sent to Baghdad and Anbar province, a base for al-Qaeda, have a changed mission.

"This time there will be adequate Iraqi and U.S. forces to hold the areas that have been cleared," Bush said.

Bush said Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has pledged that political sectarian interference with security operations will not be tolerated. "This time, Iraqi and American forces will have a green light to enter neighborhoods that are home to those fueling sectarian violence," he said.

The president also said the United States will hold the Iraqi government to its pledge to take responsibility for security in all of Iraq's provinces by November, pass legislation to share oil revenues among all Iraqis and spend $10 billion of its own money on reconstruction that will create new jobs.

"The Iraqi government knows that it must meet them, or lose the support of the Iraqi and the American people," Bush said.

• 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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