By Aram Roston, NBC News Producer

Note: Feel free to discuss this blog post on Aram Roston's Newsvine column.

In the fall of 2003, NBC News broke the story of an American special forces general, in charge of a secretive Pentagon unit, who had made unusual and divisive remarks about religion and politics. The story caught fire around the world, as the outrage grew over a high-ranking uniformed officer, the Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, making comments that seemed to disparage Islam.

His name was Lt. General  William “Jerry” Boykin, and he was a legendary soldier who was a founding member of the Army’s storied Delta Force. He headed a task force hunting Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar and he had served in hotspots from Vietnam to Panama to Mogadishu. In his new memoir, "Never Surrender," the now retired general takes NBC News to task for that story. In particular, he calls me out for my role in the story. Lisa Myers was the correspondent for the story, which appeared on October 15, 2003 on the “NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw,” and I was one of the producers (and the only journalist to have interviewed Boykin at that time.)

By Jim Popkin, NBC News Senior Investigative Producer

The Justice Department made it official today and formally cleared former "person of interest" Dr. Steven Hatfill of any involvement in the deadly anthrax attacks of 2001.

The U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia sent a letter today to Hatfill's lawyer, Thomas Connolly, of Washington, D.C. It states: "We have concluded, based on lab access records, witness accounts, and other information, that Dr. Hatfill did not have access to the particular anthrax used in the attacks, and that he was not involved in the anthrax mailings."

The letter, by the U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C., Jeffrey Taylor, adds that the Justice Department believes that Dr. Bruce Ivins "acting alone, committed the anthrax mailings."

By Jim Miklaszewski, NBC News Chief Pentagon Correspondent

This week's conviction of Salim Hamdan and relatively minor charges and the light sentence he got from the military jury first appeared to be a huge setback for the Bush administration's military tribunals. But administration and Pentagon officials are quietly celebrating the results as if it were some stay of execution for the military tribunal process.

Hamdan, who insists he was only Osama Bin Laden's driver, was captured in the opening days of the war in Afghanstan with two shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles in his car. After wringing all the information they could get from Hamdan on al-Qaida and bin Laden through coercive interrogations, the military shipped him off to Guatnanamo Bay. And for the first time in nearly seven years in U.S. captivity, things appeared to be turning his way.

By Aram Roston, NBC News Producer

Harry Sargeant III is a top fundraiser for Sen. John McCain's presidential bid. As NBC News first reported, Sargeant was sued by a business partner over the lucrative profits from Pentagon contracts to ship oil to Iraq. It was a dispute that involved high profile characters, because the business partner happened to be the brother-in-law of the King of Jordan. The legal documents in the case were obtained by NBC News: the initial complaint from the brother-in-law, and the answer from Sargeant and his company.
 
The Pentagon contracts involved shipping oil through Jordan, and because of the way the bids were structured, Sargeant's company was one of the only ones that could bid, because it obtained a special letter from the government of Jordan.
 
Now the Washington Post has raised questions about how Sargeant raised more than $100,000 in political funds for different candidates from "a collection of ordinary people, several of whom professed little interest in the outcome of the election."

By Aram Roston, NBC News Producer

High oil prices mean a windfall in revenue for Iraq's government, but the Iraqis have failed to spend all that money properly on the country's infrastructure, according to new report by the Government Accountability Office. Indeed, the Iraq government headed by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had almost $30 billion in unspent funds in its coffers at the end of last year.

That is in spite of the billions spent on reconstruction by the U.S. The GAO report, released Tuesday, is the most up to date analysis so far of Iraq's oil wealth and spending. It is subtitled "Iraqi Revenues, Expenditures, and Surplus."

And the GAO says that 2008 will bring record revenue to Iraq, of up to $79.2 billion in oil revenue. But inspite of all the infrastructure problems, the GAO says that Iraq's government may have as much as $50 billion unspent at the end of the year.

By Jim Popkin, NBC News Senior Investigative Producer

In a chilling audiotape, a former therapist of anthrax-case suspect Dr. Bruce Ivins warns a Maryland judge that Ivins is a psychotic "revenge killer" who boasted of buying a gun and killing his co-workers.

The New York Times exclusively obtained the audiotape of a court hearing in which therapist Jean Duley told a judge that she feared for her life. She testifies that, at a July 9 group-therapy session, Ivins announced that he had bought a gun and a bulletproof vest and was plotting to kill his co-workers at the Fort Detrick Army research laboratory.

“He was going to go out in a blaze of glory, that he was going to take everybody out with him,” Duley said. The tape, released to the Times by the Maryland District Court in Frederick, is a recording of the recent hearing at which Duley successfully sought a restraining order against Dr. Ivins.

New York Times reporter Sarah Abruzzese obtained the tape Friday. The link to the 10-minute mp3 audiotape can be found on the left side of the page at: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/02/us/02scientist.html?hp#

Revenge killer:
“He is a revenge killer,” Ms. Duley told a Maryland District Court judge on the tape. “When he feels that he has been slighted, and especially towards women, he plots and actually tries to carry out revenge killings.”