Senior Administration

WASHINGTON -- The White House boosted chances for exhibition games between the Orioles and a Cuban all-star team last night by showing new flexibility on how the proceeds should be spent.Backing away from a previous American insistence that the money be used to benefit the Cuban people directly, a senior administration official said it could go for other charitable uses."Our strong preference is that it go directly to the Cuban people. But, that said, it might be possible to find some other good cause -- provided it doesn't go to the Castro government and that that can be ensured," the official said.

WASHINGTON -- After spending more than two years and tens of millions of dollars preparing missions, training commandos and gathering intelligence, the United States has dropped its secret plans to arrest Bosnia's two most wanted men accused of war crimes, senior administration officials say.Plans for clandestine missions to seize the men -- Radovan Karadzic and Gen. Ratko Mladic, the wartime political and military leaders of the Bosnian Serbs -- have been...

WASHINGTON -- In a major change in policy, the Clinton administration told its allies this weekend that it could sign a treaty banning anti-personnel land mines under a compromise that would allow it nine additional years before it begins to remove mines on the Korean peninsula, senior administration officials said yesterday.Until yesterday, the United States had said it could not sign any treaty that limited its ability to use anti-personnel mines to defend South Korea from an attack from the North.

WASHINGTON -- Secretary of State Warren Christopher, worried that his efforts to repair relations with Beijing could be threatened by the case of two U.S. military officers caught watching military exercises from the Chinese coast, has demanded an investigation into why the Pentagon sent the men on such a politically risky mission, senior administration officials said yesterday.As the two men detained last week were expelled from China and returned to their base in Hong Kong yesterday, officials said Mr. Christopher, who is traveling in Asia, complained in telephone calls to Washington that the operations carried out by the officials put in peril a carefully orchestrated effort to reopen a dialogue with the Chinese and win the quick release of Harry Wu, a U.S. citizen held on charges of stealing state secrets.

WASHINGTON -- The Clinton administration has repeatedly warned Moscow in recent months that unless it cancels a project to build nuclear reactors in Iran, the United States will drop plans for nuclear cooperation that Russia badly wants, senior administration officials said yesterday.Last week, Russian officials brushed aside these warnings and insisted that they would go ahead with the reactor project. But administration officials said they hoped the warnings, together with a growing campaign of pressure and inducements, would persuade Russia to announce plans to cancel the Iranian deal when President Clinton visits Moscow next month.

WASHINGTON -- Ending months of intense debate within the administration, President Clinton will propose making it easier for states to deny additional benefits to women who have children while already on welfare, senior administration officials say.The decision aligns Mr. Clinton with those inside and outside the administration who argue that government must intensify its efforts to discourage out-of-wedlock births, which now constitute roughly 30 percent...

WASHINGTON -- Syria and Israel have held private, high-level peace negotiations under U.S. sponsorship in Washington for the last six months in an effort to break their deadlock, senior U.S. and Middle East officials said yesterday.The face-to-face talks shifted to an even higher level last week, when the army chiefs of staff of both countries met for the first time in publicly announced meetings in Washington capped by a private, 40-minute session at the White House with President Clinton.

WASHINGTON -- In a telling moment of frustration, President Clinton lashed out this week at "Harry and Louise," characters in a TV ad campaign attacking the Clinton health reform plan.The exasperated president complained to an audience of senior citizens in New Jersey that the ads used actors and "never put any real people on there."If that sounded like whining, perhaps it was because Mr. Clinton and the White House seem at wit's end in trying to sell their health plan to unenthusiastic groups such as the elderly, who had been counted on for support.

WASHINGTON -- President Clinton is poised to accept a restrictive Pentagon plan that demands gays and lesbians in the armed services keep their sexual orientation secret, remain celibate and not so much as hold hands or dance even while off base and out of uniform, senior administration officials said yesterday.Although Mr. Clinton promised during the campaign to lift the military's 50-year-old ban on homosexuals, Pentagon officials acknowledge that the plan he is on the verge of adopting preserves the three main features of the current policy:* Military codes outlawing gay and lesbian sex acts that will remain on the books.

WASHINGTON -- President Clinton, resisting mounting pressure from Congress to bail out of Somalia, is poised to order 2,000 or more troops into Somalia -- and keep them there into next year to protect U.S. forces, administration officials confirmed late yesterday.Sources in the congressional leadership said last night that they had received assurances that the additional troops do not necessarily mean a new military offensive. In fact, the United States will step up its efforts at negotiation and construct a timetable for an orderly withdrawal.

WASHINGTON - - General Motor Corp., long the titanic symbol of American might and lately a stark reminder of the nation's failings, plans to file for the largest industrial bankruptcy in U.S. history today. The move, part of a government-led restructuring, ends months of anxiety and uncertainty about the legendary automaker, which only a decade ago was the world's largest company. GM becomes another victim of the deep recession, formally succumbing to years of bad management, questionable quality, changing consumer tastes and a historic collapse of global auto sales.

WASHINGTON -President Barack Obama ordered his first major deployment of U.S. combat troops yesterday, sending 17,000 more soldiers and Marines to Afghanistan for what he described as an urgent bid to stabilize a deteriorating and neglected country. The deployment marks a sizable intensification of the war effort and a new commitment of U.S. resources to the Afghanistan campaign. In a statement announcing the troop increase, Obama directed veiled criticism at the Bush administration, noting that the request for the troops from Gen. David McKiernan, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, had been pending for months.

WASHINGTON - The U.S. military has used broad secret authority since 2004 to carry out nearly a dozen previously undisclosed attacks against al-Qaida and other militants in Syria, Pakistan and elsewhere, according to senior U.S. officials. These military raids, typically carried out by Special Operations forces, were authorized by a classified order that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld signed in spring 2004 at the direction of President Bush, the officials said. The secret order gave the military new authority to attack al-Qaida anywhere in the world, and a more sweeping mandate to conduct operations in countries not at war with the United States.

WASHINGTON - Despite his stated desire to close the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, President Bush has decided not to do so and never considered proposals drafted in the State Department and the Pentagon that outlined options for transferring the detainees elsewhere, according to senior administration officials. Bush's top advisers held a series of meetings at the White House this summer after a Supreme Court ruling in June cast doubt on the future of the detention center.

WASHINGTON -- Deeply concerned about the prospect of failure in Afghanistan, the Bush administration and NATO have begun three top-to-bottom reviews of the entire mission, from security and counterterrorism to political consolidation and economic development, according to U.S. and alliance officials. The reviews are an acknowledgment of the need for greater coordination in fighting the Taliban and al-Qaida, halting the rising opium production and trafficking that finance the insurgency, and helping the Kabul government extend its legitimacy and control.

WASHINGTON -- The White House postponed a meeting of the administration's top senior foreign and defense policy officials scheduled for today to debate the future of the terrorism detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but officials said the issue of whether to close the facility is likely to be discussed again. The Associated Press had reported earlier that the administration is nearing a decision to close the facility and move its terror suspects to military prisons elsewhere. Senior administration officials said yesterday that a consensus is building for a proposal to shut the center and transfer detainees to one or more Defense Department facilities, including the maximum-security military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., where they could face trial.

WASHINGTON -- President Bush has chosen Robert B. Zoellick, a former U.S. trade representative and deputy secretary of state, to replace Paul Wolfowitz as president of the World Bank, a senior administration official said yesterday. Wolfowitz announced his resignation this month after a bank investigating committee found that he had violated bank policies by involving himself in personnel decisions concerning a staff member with whom he was romantically involved. He said then that he would leave by the end of June.

BEIJING - The Bush administration appeared to show signs of new flexibility in talks with North Korea yesterday, with U.S. and North Korean diplomats meeting here at length to discuss the delicate question of how aid or energy assistance may be provided to the North as it begins the process of dismantling its nuclear arms program. Delegations from the two countries met alone here for the second straight day to discuss a proposal the administration put forward in June 2004 before North Korea walked away from talks.

WASHINGTON - Senior administration officials defended yesterday the White House review of Bernard B. Kerik's background before his nomination as secretary of homeland security. One official said that even "controversial" material uncovered in a weeklong review had not appeared to endanger Kerik's confirmation. In interviews, the officials denied that the White House review of Kerik's background had been rushed. Scott McClellan, President Bush's press secretary, said, "It was a very thorough vetting process" that "looked at all the issues relating to his public, financial and personal background."

In 2002, at a crucial juncture on the path to war, senior members of the Bush administration gave a series of speeches and interviews in which they asserted that Saddam Hussein was rebuilding his nuclear weapons program. In a speech to veterans that August, Vice President Dick Cheney said Hussein could have an atomic bomb "fairly soon." President Bush, addressing the United Nations the next month, said there was "little doubt" about Hussein's appetite for nuclear arms. The U.S. intelligence community had not yet concluded that Iraq was rebuilding its nuclear weapons program.