USA

"There is nobody left in Iraq that believes in Saddam Hussein," said Iraqi opposition leader Sharif Ali Bin Al-Hussein, after meeting via videoconference with the vacationing Vice President Cheney. Al-Hussein and representatives from other Iraqi opposition groups met with Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and Gen. Richard Myers over the weekend to discuss the Bush administration's stated goal of a regime change in Baghdad.

In related news, President Bush said from his Crawford, Texas, ranch that he is consulting with Congress and US allies about Iraq. Describing Hussein as "an enemy until proven otherwise," Bush said the Iraqi people would have to play an "important role" in overthrowing their current leader.

Security arrangements and reforms within the Palestinian Authority were the topic of Central Intelligence Agency Director George Tenet's meeting Saturday with Palestinian Interior Minister Abdelrazek al Yahiya in Langley, Va. Reports claimed that the CIA is working to adapt Tenet's 2001 Middle East security plan to handle new realities in the region, including the continued suicide bombings and a string of Israeli military incursions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

In an election-year attack reminiscent of President Clinton's 1992 campaign against Bush's father, Democratic Party chairman Terry McAuliffe accused the president of heading an "administration adrift." In what could be a preview of the Democratic Party's campaign strategy in the midterm election races, McAuliffe refrained from challenging Bush's handling of the counterterrorism war, but criticized the president on the economy and other domestic issues.

E-mails between Martha Stewart's stockbroker and his assistant suggest they knew about pending bad news affecting ImClone on the day Stewart sold stock in the biotech firm, and planned to contact her, Rep. James Greenwood (R) of Pennsylvania said Friday. Greenwood is chairman of a House panel that is investigating the sale. Stewart, who has denied any wrongdoing, is a friend of Samuel Waksal, ImClone's former chief executive. Waksal has been charged with insider trading, obstruction of justice, and bank fraud.

In southwestern Oregon, the nation's largest active wildfire grew to more than 334,000 acres, making it the state's worst in a century. Firefighters are working to save small towns on both sides of Oregon's border with California. The blaze is 25 percent contained.