Since last fall, Air Force Gen. Kevin Chilton, commander of U.S. Strategic Command, has been stumping for the so-called Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) Program, which would develop new nuclear warheads to swap into the U.S. arsenal. In a sit-down with Wall Street Journal editors last November, Chilton held aloft a prop to make his case: "I remember what these things were for. I bet you don't. It's a vacuum tube. My father used to take these out of the television set in the 1950s and 1960s down to the local supermarket to test them and replace them."

The George Bush administration's decision to open direct contacts with Iran is to be welcomed, but precisely because it marks such a break with previous U.S. policy, it also carries a great danger.

This is that hard-liners in the American and Israeli governments will treat this Western proposal as a last chance for the Iranians, to be followed by an attack if Tehran fails to accept it.

An extraordinary rendition may be defined as the extrajudicial transfer of an individual to a country where there is reasonable probability he will be tortured. In our research we have counted 67 known cases of extraordinary rendition by the United States since 1995. While the details are often incomplete, they help paint a more complete picture of this secretive and controversial Central Intelligence Agency program.