or and an extremely nice person. Heartfelt sympathies go out to his family during this terrible time. Rosenbaum extensively covered the Watergate and Iran-contra scandals.

There are some uncomfortable aspects to this case. One is why it took 22 minutes for an ambulance to reach the crime scene in a quiet and crime-free part of northwest Washington. Emergency services gave their response a "Bravo" rating, meaning they considered Rosenbaum's injuries to be less than "Charlie" or "Delta," serious and life-threatening, respectively.

While this case on the surface, may, in fact, have been a case of a brutal robbery resulting in a fatality, it is worth mentioning that DC has, since 2000, been plagued with strange deaths of people involved in intelligence matters such as John Millis (suicide), John Kokal (suicide), Dr. Gus Weiss (suicide), as well as the very strange death of Marvin Bush's employee Bertha Champagne (freak accident). According to State Department and NSA sources respectively, there were no public reports on the suicide last year of a woman named Maureen who worked for the department's important Near East/Asia Press and Public Diplomacy branch and at least one suicide at NSA that prompted then-Director Michael Hayden to send a letter to all NSA employees regarding at least one suicide within the "NSA family….."

-….AND…..

On November 7, State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) Iraqi analyst John J. Kokal, 58, was found dead outside the State Department building. Washington police reported the case a suicide resulting from Kokal’s jumping from the roof of the headquarters building. Although the State Department reported that Kokal was not an analyst at INR, State Department insiders report that Kokal not only was a top Iraqi analyst but that he briefed Secretary of State Colin Powell on a regular basis. The Washington Post treated the story as a normal police incident.

On November 25, former National Security Council official Dr. Gus W. Weiss, a known critic of the Bush administration’s war in Iraq, was found dead outside a service entrance to Washington’s Watergate East residential building where he lived. Police ruled that Weiss had committed suicide by jumping from the roof of the Watergate building. Weiss was a former Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space policy under President Jimmy Carter and served on the Signals Intelligence Committee of President Carter’s Intelligence Board. Weiss also served as an adviser to the CIA and as a member of the Defense Science Board. Weiss was awarded the French Legion of Honor in 1975. In a manner reminiscent of The Washington Post’s handling of the suspicious automobile crushing death of Marvin Bush’s babysitter on September 29, the paper waited until December 7 to report Weiss’s suspicious death. In the case of Marvin Bush’s babysitter, Bertha Champagne, the Post did not report the incident until October 5.

The fact that both Kokal and Weiss were critics of the Bush administration’s Iraq policy should have resulted in much more media attention unless there is a blackout` on coverage of these suspicious deaths. One seasoned Washington intelligence expert said the possibility of official or semi-official “death squads” carrying out assassinations of Bush administration critics cannot be ruled out. “Remember that the Watergate scandal began with the discovery of a single tape, and that brought down an entire administration,” said the expert.

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