Fears for press freedoms as US jails journalist

A big chill. That’s what advocates of press freedom in the US fear following the jailing of journalist Judith Miller, who covers national security at the New York Times. She refused to name a source in a scandal about a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operative that reaches into the bowels of the White House.
The scandal, the talk of Washington for the past two years, is shrouded in official secrecy and complicated by high-level political smear tactics and by Miller’s own history of relying on unnamed sources for major stories.
The leak of the undercover agent’s name – Valerie Plame – though it may originate with the Bush administration’s need to justify the Iraq war and is classified information, is unlikely to become another Watergate with a Deep Throat that topples a president. But the implications of Miller’s imprisonment, part of a broader trend of legal pressures on US journalists, are huge.
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Iran in Washington's cross hairs

For those in Washington who are eager to confront Iran, the surprise election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a godsend. Iran's new president is a perfect foil for neocons long eager to move ahead with scenarios for regime change in Tehran.
After a White House meeting on Monday, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said that his country, along with Great Britain, France and the United States, will be pressuring Iran on its nuclear program.
We're going to continue being tough and firm," he declared. "The message must stay very crystal clear, and it is."
For now, across the U.S. political spectrum, few want to raise the specter of military action against Iran. The Bush administration tries to tamp down any such speculation, preferring not to raise alarm at home or abroad. Democrats would much rather concentrate on skewering Bush's Iraq policy - and hardly want to seem soft on Iran. Meanwhile, at the grassroots, antiwar constituencies prefer to believe that, with troops bogged down in Iraq, the Pentagon is in no position to embark on a military venture in Iran.
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A Funny Declaration by John Simpson, The veteran

It is so funny that a veteran British journalist like John Simpson has claimed that he had an interview with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad back in 1979. He has said "he was a leading activist who took over the United States embassy in Tehran, holding American diplomats hostage for 444 days."
This statement is so humorous and nonsense for those Iranian who remember the crisis that they can only laugh at it. Furthermore the photo of the man who Americans say is Ahmadinejad, is so obviously not looking to him.
Meanwhile leaders of the takeover like Mr. Abdi and Mirdamadi said in Iran that Ahmadinejad was not part of their leadership group, and a spokesman for the president-elect denied that he played any role in the hostage-taking.
Several former American hostages also said they do not remember Ahmadinejad as being among their captors.