WASHINGTON

FORMER CIA HEAD PANS NATIONAL DIRECTOR IDEA George Tenet, the former director of central intelligence, yesterday criticized proposals to create a national intelligence director, saying the position would lack authority unless the director also is in charge of “leading men and women every day and taking risks.”

Mr. Tenet, who left the CIA in July after seven years of running the agency, offered his opinion to an audience of about 250 at a closed conference on homeland security and technology. At Mr. Tenet’s insistence, national media, including The Associated Press, were kept out. Allowed in were some reporters for trade publications that cover the government’s use of computers and the Internet.

Mr. Tenet said efforts to restructure intelligence-gathering have overlooked a more pressing issue – how to get threat information to state and local authorities.

“We have collected an enormous amount of data about how the enemy thinks, trains, and operates,” Mr. Tenet said, according to a Web report by Government Computer News. At the same time, he said, “We can’t just disseminate threat reports and scare the living bejesus out of everybody.”

Mr. Tenet acknowledged that American intelligence fell short before the attacks of September 11, 2001, and in the prewar assessments of Iraq’s weapons programs. But he took issue with a provision in legislation now before Congress, and endorsed by President Bush, that would create a separate director who would oversee intelligence.

“I don’t believe that you should separate the leader of American intelligence from a line agency,” Mr. Tenet said.

– Associated Press

SOUTH

SKULL FRAGMENT SHOWS EARLY SURGERY, AUTOPSY NORFOLK, Va. – A skull fragment found in a 400-year-old trash pit at Jamestown contains evidence of the earliest known surgery – and autopsy – in the English colonies in America, researchers say.

Circular cut marks indicate someone attempted to drill two holes in the skull to relieve pressure on the brain, the researchers said. The patient, a European man, died and was apparently autopsied.

Archaeologists found the 4-inch-by-4 3 /4-inch fragment this summer while digging in a bulwark trench on the site of James Fort. Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in North America, was founded in 1607 as a business venture.

The skull piece was discarded with trash, such as pottery shards, from no later than about 1610, said Bly Straube, senior curator of the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities.

“It was just being treated, I guess, like medical waste,” she said yesterday.

Douglas Owsley, forensic osteologist at the National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian Institution, and Ashley McKeown, forensic anthropologist at the University of Montana, determined that the fragment was part of the occipital bone from the back of the skull. Mr. Owsley thinks the man was hit in the back of the head with a stone ax and suffered a fractured skull. That would suggest the blow came from an Indian, Ms. Straube said. But Ms. Straube said it is also possible the man simply tripped and fell and hit his head on a rock. Researchers know the fragment came from a European man because of its shape and thickness and because it contained traces of lead, Ms. Straube said.

– Associated Press

‘JOKING’ EXAMINED IN ABU GHRAIB ABUSE CASE FORT BRAGG, N.C. – Lawyers for Private First Class Lynndie England moved yesterday to throw out statements she made when first questioned about Iraqi prisoner abuse, including that reservists were just “joking around, having some fun.”

The motion was one of five taken up by military judge Colonel Stephen Henley in a hearing in advance of Ms. England’s January 18 court-martial on abuse charges stemming from photos of her pointing and smiling at naked detainees at Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib Prison.

Paul Arthur, an Army special investigator, testified that Ms. England was aware of her rights, including to have a lawyer present, when she was interviewed for more than four hours early in the morning of January 14 – three months before the photos became public. Mr. Arthur testified that Ms. England was brought in for questioning – without a lawyer present – because investigators had obtained several pictures of her, including the now infamous shot of her holding a naked detainee by a leash. Yesterday’s hearing was Ms. England’s first court appearance since giving birth to a son in October.

– Associated Press

GOVERNOR BLOCKS EXECUTION OF WOMAN HUNTSVILLE, Texas – Governor Perry blocked the execution of a woman two hours before she was to go to her death yesterday so that her lawyers can conduct new tests on evidence in the 17-year-old murder case.

Frances Newton, 39, was convicted of killing her husband and two young children. She would have been the first black woman and the fourth female put to death in Texas since the Civil War. She denies any involvement in the slayings.

The governor granted her a four-month reprieve a day after the Texas parole board, in a rare step, recommended it. The board usually turns aside requests from condemned prisoners.

“I see no evidence of innocence,” Mr. Perry said in a statement. “However, I am granting the additional time to allow the courts the opportunity to order a retesting of gunpowder residue on the skirt the defendant wore at the time of the murders and of the gun used in the murders. Although this evidence was evaluated by the jury and appellate courts, new technology is available for testing gunpowder residue.”

Prosecutors said Newton’s claims contained nothing new.

“Obviously, our office did not think it was necessary to have a 120-day reprieve. But we will go forward with the case just as any other,” said Roe Wilson, a Harris County prosecutor.

– Associated Press