By Jim Popkin, NBC News Senior Investigative Producer

The Justice Department today announced it is charging accused international arms dealer Viktor Bout with conspiracy to kill Americans and terrorism-related charges.

Federal prosecutors in New York unsealed an indictment against Bout for allegedly conspiring to sell millions of dollars worth of weapons to the Colombian insurgent group the FARC, which the U.S. has designated as a foreign terrorist organization. The prosecutors allege that the weapons were to “be used to kill Americans in Colombia.”

By Jim Popkin, NBC News Senior Investigative Producer

The FBI does not have a pornographic home movie of actress Marilyn Monroe in its files and never did, FBI officials tell NBC News. Document analysts at the FBI have completed a manual search of FBI records and found no evidence of the film.

“The records show no indication we ever had such a film,” said David Hardy, who organized the search and is chief of the FBI Record/Information Dissemination Section. Hardy said six or seven FBI analysts spent a total of  “32 man hours” reading through paper documents at the FBI’s records center in Alexandria, Va., and did not find anything indicating that the FBI has or ever had a Marilyn Monroe sex film.

The FBI’s fruitless search casts doubt on claims by New York memorabilia dealer Keya Morgan, who told countless media organizations on April 14 that the FBI had obtained a copy of the sex film in the 1960s. Morgan told NBC News and other networks and newspapers that nine FBI agents and the late FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover himself had spent weeks poring over the film, trying to establish the identity of the man who supposedly engaged in a sex act with Monroe in the 15-minute black-and-white movie.

By Aram Roston, NBC News Producer

The Pentagon's Iraqi goal posts have apparently moved again. According to a federal report released today, the Pentagon has decided that Iraq needs a security force of up to 646,000 Iraqi troops to successfully battle the insurgency. That seems to be a dramatically larger number than previous estimates. In September 2007, the Pentagon estimated Iraq needed only 390,000 troops. And then as recently as March 2008, the Pentagon said only 580,000 Iraqi troops were needed. (U.S. policy has been to train Iraqi troops to fight the insurgency, so that American forces can ultimately leave.)

Boot camps for troubled teenagers are in the spotlight after a congressional panel looked at allegations of death or abuse at the camps. Watch the NBC News investigation here:

 

By Tim Sandler, NBC News Investigative Unit

As a child-abuse investigation continues at a polygamous compound in Texas, NBC News has learned who helped fund the controversial sect.

It was the U.S. Department of Defense.

Freedom of Information Act documents obtained by NBC News show that the Pentagon awarded contracts of at least $1.5 million to two Utah-based companies owned and operated by senior officials of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or FLDS. The contracts, issued from 1998 to 2006, were for aircraft parts and other military equipment.

The Pentagon contracts were awarded to Utah Tool & Die and Western Precision, Inc., which operated in Utah. The president of Western Precision was Wendell Nielsen, described in multiple media accounts as a senior official in the FLDS religious sect, whose West Texas compound was raided by police earlier this month as part of a wide-ranging child-abuse investigation. Neilsen disappeared with church leader Warren Jeffs after Jeffs was put on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list in 2003. Jeffs, the sect's "prophet," was convicted last year on two counts of rape as an accomplice.

By Lisa Myers, Rich Gardella and the NBC News Investigative Unit

The Government Accountability Office issued a report today revealing that undercover government investigators have been able to buy sensitive military goods online, including night-vision goggles, body armor and even plane and helicopter parts.

The report also mentioned another item GAO investigators were able to buy online from sellers on eBay -- infrared tabs worn on combat uniforms by U.S. troops. 

"Enemies," the report states, "could use [infrared] tabs to pose as a friendly fighter during night combat, creating confusion on the battlefield and putting troops at risk."

The GAO's findings match the surprising results of a recent NBC News investigation. NBC News discovered that combat uniforms and special equipment designed to protect U.S. troops in war zones are widely available for sale, potentially endangering U.S. soldiers' lives.

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