Under Attorney General John Ashcroft, America is becoming an Orwellian state where people are locked up and no one can find out why -- least of all a compliant Congress. ...

These aren't the only things the Bush administration won't say. It won't say why it's holding individual detainees at Guantánamo Bay; it won't disclose the factual basis for its prosecution of Zacarias Moussaoui; and it won't say how many immigrants it has detained or deported in INS proceedings. It won't say how many of us are having our telephones tapped, our e-mail messages monitored or our library checkout records examined by federal agents. The administration's defenders say such secrecy is an unavoidable cost of the war on terror, but it's an orientation that predated Sept. 11 and that extends beyond the terror threat. The White House won't reveal who Vice President Dick Cheney consulted in concocting the administration's energy policy; it won't disclose what Miguel Estrada wrote while working for the solicitor general; it won't even release documents related to the pardons that former President Bill Clinton granted during his last days in office.

Abbas has since renounced violence and, in recent years, he has been clearly visible in the Gaza Strip after both Israel and the United States stopped chasing him.

U.S. Central Command in Qatar trumpeted the snaring of Abbas as "yet another victory in the global war on terrorism" and proof of links between Saddam and terrorism.

"We've said for a long time that Baghdad and Iraq and the regime that no longer exists have harbored terrorists, have provided a safe haven for terrorists and, in some cases, have facilitated the operations of terrorists," Brigadier General Vincent Brooks told a Qatar news briefing.

"I think the arrest of Mr. Abbas makes it very clear that was true," he said. "He was a terrorist, he remains a terrorist and he will be viewed as such."

...Washington dropped a warrant for his arrest several years ago