A “very damning” report by the Defense Department’s inspector general depicts a Pentagon that purposely manipulated intelligence in an effort to link Saddam Hussein to al-Qaida in the runup to the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

At the center of the prewar intelligence controversy was the work of a small number of Pentagon officials from Douglas Feith’s office and the office of Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz who reviewed CIA intelligence analyses and put together their own report.

British officials say police have cracked the murder-by-poison case of former spy Alexander Litvinenko, including the discovery of a “hot” teapot at London’s Millennium Hotel with an off-the-charts reading for Polonium-210, the radioactive material used in the killing.

The official says investigators have concluded, based on forensic evidence and intelligence reports, that the murder was a “state-sponsored” assassination orchestrated by Russian security services.

The Pentagon has been using a little-known power to get banking and credit records of hundreds of Americans and others suspected of terrorism or espionage in the United States, The New York Times said on its Web site on Saturday.

Citing intelligence officials who spoke on condition of anonymity, the newspaper said the investigations, part of an expansion by the military into domestic intelligence gathering, also included CIA issuance of what are called national security letters to get access to financial records from U.S. companies.

A lengthy Senate investigation has debunked charges by a Republican congressman that military analysts identified Mohamed Atta and other Sept. 11 hijackers before the attacks, according to a committee aide familiar with the report.

The 43-year-old Litvinenko, who fiercely criticized Putin’s government, told police he believed he was poisoned while investigating the October slaying of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, another critic of Putin.