Khadr was only 15 years old when he allegedly trained with and fought alongside al Queda fighters in Afghanistan. His father, Ahmad Khadr, was a close associate of Osama bin Laden and other senior al Queda leaders. Omar Khadr is accused of planting mines to blow up US convoys and throwing a grenade that killed a US Green Beret. His charges were renewed last month. Earlier this week the US Supreme Court rejected his request to expedite his challenge of the 2006 Military Commissions Act.

Texas Ranger Sgt. Brian Burzynski speaks to members of a Joint Committee on the Operation and Management of the Texas Youth Commission Thursday, March 8, 2007, in Austin, Texas. Burzynski is one of the first law authorities to investigate allegations of sexual abuse at the West Texas State School.
   
Echoing the words of so many others, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said of U.S. troops: They don't have the luxury of passing the buck to somebody else. They step forward and they step up.

"I promised each one of those victims that I would do everything in my power to ensure that justice would not fail them, the Rangers would not fail them," Brian Burzynski told a legislative committee Thursday, his voice quivering. "I can only imagine what the students think about the Ranger who was unable to bring them justice."

Recent discussions of the agency's budget brought Burzynski's investigation to the Legislature's attention, and an internal investigation confirmed his findings and determined top officials knew of the abuse but did nothing to stop it.

This week, state leaders dispatched law enforcement officials to all 22 state youth facilities and the commission's headquarters to investigate as the sexual abuse scandal became public.

The Texas attorney general's office opened an investigation and aimed to bring the case before a grand jury by May. Lawmakers urged them to hurry.

The legislative committee Burzynski testified before, set up to look into the scandal, also gave the Texas Youth Commission Board of Directors a vote of no confidence during its first meeting Thursday after board members refused to resign.

"You're responsible for 5,000 children that are incarcerated and they're God's children," said state Rep. Jim McReynolds. "I read (investigation reports) last night 'til I wanted to vomit."

Lawmakers are trying to determine who knew that inmates had accused top officials of molesting them, when they knew about it and why they didn't stop the abuse and expose it.

During the often tear-filled testimony, members of the board claimed they didn't know about many of the allegations and didn't have time in their meetings to categorically address reports of abuse.

"I've never been involved in anything where you had to follow up on a case that was done by a Texas Ranger or by a police department or was turned over to a district attorney," said Board Chairman Donald Bethel. "We didn't know anything about that."

Bethel insisted that the board did the best it could with the information it had.

"I don't think anyone else would have done different than what this board did," Bethel said.

Sen. John Whitmire, a Houston Democrat who leads the committee, told the five board members they should all resign: "I think you ought to do the state and the young people of Texas a service by getting out of the way and letting someone else lead."

Investigators on Thursday converged on a halfway house in San Antonio after getting a tip that the superintendent had been shredding documents. Executive Director Ed Owens had previously ordered that no document be destroyed at any of the facilities.

"They conducted a search of her office, vehicle and residence with her consent and they seized state-issued computers as well as a shredder and its contents," said Ted Royer, a spokesman for Gov. Rick Perry. "She was immediately escorted off the facilities and Ed Owens has ordered that she be suspended immediately while this investigation moves forward."

Government prosecutors led by Patrick Fitzgerald spent nearly four years investigating the case, but never charged anyone with the leak. Libby will be the only one charged in the case, Fitzgerald said.

Libby's attorneys tried to use that during the trial to persuade jurors that, since nobody was charged in the case, Libby didn't fear prosecution for the leak and so he had no reason to lie. Juror Denis Collins summed up the dilemma that he and his associates faced behind closed doors.

"There was a frustration that we were trying someone for telling a lie apparently about an event that never became important enough to file charges anywhere else," he said Wednesday on ABC's "Good Morning America."

At the White House, press secretary Tony Snow brushed off questions about whether President Bush would entertain a pardon for Libby, saying the case remains under legal review. Snow also said Cheney's stature within the administration has not changed or waned as a result of the verdict.

Native American plaintiffs in the decade-old Indian Trust case have rejected a new $7 billion settlement proposal from the US government but the chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee nonetheless says he will hold a hearing later this month to provide administration officials, plaintiffs, and representatives from other interested parties an opportunity to testify publicly on the settlement offer. Byron Dorgan (D-ND) says the government is admitting liability, but Department of the Interior officials have disputed that interpretation. Native plaintiffs say that the offer does not go far enough, being "pennies on the dollar" in respect of the value of their claim, and that it goes too far in precluding further claims.

The class-action Indian trust litigation involves the alleged mismanagement by the US Department of the Interior of American Indian money - lease and sales revenues, permit fees and and interest - received and held for Native Americans by the US government over the last 120 years. In July, the Cobell plaintiffs said they might consider an $8 billion settlement, much lower than the $27.5 billion figure that the plaintiffs demanded for settlement in 2005.

The jury presiding over the perjury trial of former vice-presidential aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby returned a guilty verdict Tuesday after 10 days of deliberation in the case that began January 23. Libby faced perjury and obstruction of justice charges in connection with the investigation into the leak of the identity of former CIA operative Valerie Plame. He was found guilty on four of five counts.

US District Judge Reggie B. Walton dismissed a juror last week after finding she had been exposed to information about the CIA leak case over the previous weekend. Deliberations continued with just 11 jurors, despite the availability of two alternate jurors. Earlier this week, Walton refused to answer a jury question on the level of proof that would have to be met to find Libby guilty. The jury wanted to know whether in order to satisfy the requirement of proof beyond a reasonable doubt they had to find it would not be "humanly" possible" for Libby to completely forget conversations which witnesses had testified took place. Walton determined the question was too vague to be properly answered.

Libby's defense team rested February 15, one week after the prosecution finished presenting its evidence against Libby. Lawyers subsequently made their closing arguments February 20 in which the defense argued that Libby was a scapegoat for presidential aide Karl Rove's disclosures, while the prosecution argued in its final remarks that Libby was merely trying to a cover up a potentially illegal intelligence leak.

"We need a sustained focus here, and much more needs to be done," Rep. John Tierney said of a scandal enveloping Walter Reed. Charges of bureaucratic delays and poor treatment there have produced calls in Congress for quick reform.

Tierney said he is afraid "these problems go well beyond the walls of Walter Reed," adding that "as we send more and more troops into Iraq and Afghanistan, these problems are only going to get worse, not better."

The hearing brought an apology from the Army's top civilian. "We have let some soldiers down," said Peter Geren, undersecretary of the Army.

As Congress held its first hearing on the scandal at the medical center itself, Tierney, D-Mass., questioned whether problems at the facility are "just another horrific consequence" of inadequate planning that went into war in Iraq; a problem created by contracting out work there to private business, or some other cause.

"This is absolutely the wrong way to treat our troops, and serious reforms need to happen... immediately," he said.

Tierney chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee's national security panel, which held the hearing Monday in the hospital's auditorium. The list of Army officials, hospital staff and patients invited to speak includes the medical center's previous commander, Maj. Gen. George Weightman.

Geren, who will become acting Army secretary later this week, told the panel that the revelations of poor conditions at Walter Reed had hurt the Army. Defense Secretary Robert Gates forced Army Secretary Francis Harvey to resign last Friday.

"There's a vow that's part of the soldier's creed: I will never leave a fallen comrade," he said. "That's the -- on the battlefield, in a hospital, as an outpatient. That is the part of our soul of every soldier. And anytime that vow is broken, I can tell you it hurts the heart of the Army," Geren said.

The defense subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee also scheduled a hearing on Walter Reed for later in the day.

Outraged lawmakers on Sunday vowed quick action and called for an independent commission to examine poor conditions for soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In a letter Sunday to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., asked for an independent commission, possibly headed by former Secretary of State Colin Powell, to investigate all post-combat medical facilities and recommend changes.

"To think that men and women are serving their country in the most honorable and courageous way possible and all we give them is a dilapidated, rat-infested, run-down building to recover is a disgrace," Schumer wrote. "My fear is that Walter Reed is just the tip of the iceberg, and merely highlights the pervasive and systemic mistreatment of our service members."

President Bush last week ordered a comprehensive review of conditions at the nation's network of military and veteran hospitals. They have been overwhelmed by injured troops from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The White House said the president would name a bipartisan commission to assess whether the problems at Walter Reed exist at other facilities. Last week, Gates created an outside panel to review the situation at Walter Reed and the other major military hospital in the Washington area, the National Naval Medical Center at Bethesda, Md.

Gates also dismissed Harvey, who had fired Weightman and replaced him with Lt. Gen. Kevin Kiley, the Army's surgeon general and a former commander of Walter Reed. Gates said Harvey's response was not aggressive enough.

The Army announced that Maj. Gen. Eric B. Schoomaker will be the new commander of Walter Reed, which is in Washington. In addition, the Army took disciplinary action against several lower-level soldiers at Walter Reed.

The moves came in response to a series of Washington Post reports about substandard conditions and bureaucratic problems affecting the care of injured soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan to Walter Reed, one of the military's highest-profile and busiest medical facilities, and its outpatient facilities.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Sunday the scandal is emblematic of the Bush administration's "lack of accountability" and "overoptimism" about the war in Iraq.