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Al-Zawahri tape No. 9

This is the 14th audio or video tape released this year by Ayman al-Zawahri or Osama bin Laden and the ninth by Zawahri. 

Senior U.S. intelligence and counterterrorism officials tell NBC News that while the production -- and even promotional -- apparatus has grown increasingly sophisticated, the main point of the messages remains the same as it has been for the past several years: Al-Qaida wants to show themselves as relevant within the jihadist movement by commenting on any major event in the Muslim world, whether it be a new French law outlawing head scarves or a war between Muslims and Israelis in Lebanon.

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TAKING STOCK

I found myself complaining today about my schedule -- this morning it was meetings, a studio photo shoot and a working lunch -- right up until I met Katie Wagner in the Nightly News studio. Katie was able to get up and walk the few paces from her wheelchair to the front of the NBC Nightly News desk to pose for a photo with me. Katie is here as a guest of NBC Universal Chairman and CEO Bob Wright, via the Make A Wish Foundation. Being here with us at NBC today was her wish. My meeting with Katie was followed by our afternoon editorial meeting, and the wrenching tales from our correspondents in Lebanon and Israel, detailing the suffering they have come across in their travels. All it took was a little perspective.

We'll begin tonight with the Middle East. Fletcher and Engel. Andrea Mitchell continues to shadow the secretary of state, Ann Curry continues to cover the human toll. Tonight we're releasing a new NBC News/Wall St. Journal poll, and it contains fascinating indicators as to the mood of the body politic and how much impact this Middle East violence has had. I've seen the numbers and here's a hint: the voters are in a foul mood. Tim Russert will be along to walk us through the new numbers.

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Not the real thing

James Taranto raised a question Tuesday in his blog on WSJ.com about whether Richard Engel had overlooked a story in Sidon, Lebanon.

According to Taranto, one of his readers noticed what looked like uncut sheets of U.S. $100 bills on the ground in Richard’s report that aired Monday on Nightly News. Taranto wondered if Engel had stumbled across a Hezbollah counterfeiting operation that had been blown to bits.

Richard explained over the phone from Tyre, Lebanon, Wednesday that the bills shown were not real bills but photocopies. He said the bills were not on currency quality paper and were too small to be passed off as real currency.

He also explained that, often times when people are dealing with a lot of cash, as they would be at a bank, they photocopy the currency as a form of record keeping and to check out that the serial numbers are correct -– to make sure that the dollars they got were real dollars.

You can watch Richard's report from Monday for yourself here.

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Philadelphia's political climate

Covering the White House, I talk a lot about issues like the war, or immigration, or the deficit impacting the president or his party. This week I had a chance to get outside Washington and talk to some voters for a piece I'm working on for Nightly News.

I've been studying our polls and wondering where and why Bush is losing Republican support. My producer Julie Holstein and I went to the Philadelphia suburbs where three Republican congressmen are trying to hold on to their seats in an area of upper income, socially moderate voters -- reliable Republican territory for years but a major battleground this fall. Pennsylvania is also the state with one of the most interesting Senate races in the country featuring Rick Santorum who trails badly in the polls in part because of his close association in voters minds with President Bush.

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Early Nightly

Brian is in New York today at his usual desk camera. A few of you have suggested names -- Pitstop Cam, Chat Cam, Promo Cam -- feel free to weigh in by clicking the "Discuss" button below. You can watch today's edition of "Early Nightly" by clicking the link to the right, where you'll always find it immediately below the advertisement. I'll still post daily when the new edition is live, but since we're not archiving each edition, it makes sense to have one standing link.

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FIGURING IT OUT

If you watch or read a lot of the coverage from the Middle East, you'll eventually run across a lot of good questions being asked by various analysts -- some of which defy easy answers. Last night, a Lebanese politician asked: Why did the Israelis blow up the jet fuel tanks at the Beirut airport if Hezbollah doesn't have any aircraft? Today, a left-leaning American political analyst asked if anyone is struck by the contradiction of the American flag proudly draped over those 40-or-so cartons of aid that arrived today in Beirut -- to be distributed to those who have been displaced by the American-made bombs dropped by American-made jets in an American-sanctioned bombing campaign? Still others routinely ask: Who will pay for the Marshall Plan that is going to be needed to rebuild 80 percent of Lebanon's highways and 95 percent of Lebanon's bridges... not to mention the buildings that have been reduced to dust? And here's another one: How does Israel begin to calculate the width of the "no-go" zone between it and Hezbollah to the north? Based on the range of the Katyushas... or perhaps a longer-range missile? All of these questions come as the coverage now takes on a harder edge, and as the conflict drags on. Required reading on the overall topic includes Tom Friedman's piece from this past weekend (requires TimesSelect subscription), and this week's Newsweek cover story (behind the scenes with the traveling White House), which reveals extraordinary access.

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Rice arrives in Rome

We've just landed in Rome, the next stop on the Condoleezza Rice World Tour. What does the secretary of state have to show so far for her diplomacy? Today, an agreement that Israel will permit aid deliveries at Beirut's airport, plus try to open a ground corridor for relief supplies. More importantly, from talking to the Rice team, a clear sense is emerging that they see the current conflict as a proxy war with Iran. It is Iran's hand that they see  encouraging Hezbollah to take steps it knew would provoke Israel into using force. Rice clearly thinks the future of Lebanon is at stake and with it the future of moderate governments in the Middle East. Key to a solution? Tomorrow's summit on how to create an international force. Who will contribute troops? Will they take charge of the ports? Which comes first, the troops or a cease-fire? A top official just told me on the plane, "Well, they can't fight their way in."

By the way, I'm writing this as our motorcade races from the airport in Rome... my head buried in my BlackBerry. How crazy is that?

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STORIES I'VE MISSED

I left New Orleans last week for an out-of-town trip. Each night I sat glued to the TV watching the situation in the Mideast unfold on Nightly News. But back home I was missing news as well. You see, on a normal day living here, it's impossible to pick up a paper, turn on the radio or just listen to folks gossip without hearing something that makes you shake your head in wonder or nod in understanding. Here are just a few of the stories that I missed and that you might be interested in hearing about as well:

New Orleans on guard 
New Orleans made front-page and network news a month ago when the National Guard was called in following a spike in murders that was capped by the shooting of five young men on June 17. Folks called it good for the battered city, but bad for its already tattered image. So what's happened?

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What I would have asked the president

Just back from the White House press conference with Nouri Al-Maliki and I'm struck by a couple of things: It was the Iraqi prime minister's first ever visit to the White House and yet the White House allowed just two questions from the American and Iraqi press. So many issues remained unaddressed. It would seem to me that the president would want a fuller airing of his views on a subject severely undermining his political status at home and U.S. policy abroad.

Here's what I would have asked: "Mr. President, you argued before the war that invading Iraq would bring stability to a vital region of the world and would create a new stage of Arab-Israeli peace. Yet today, sectarian violence in Iraq is killing 100 civilians a day in Baghdad; Democratic reform has produced Hamas and Hezbollah; U.S. policy has also created a defiant, resurgent Iran. Do you acknowledge fundamental misjudgments about the war and what do you do about them now?"

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'Early Nightly' -- Tuesday D.C edition

Brian was out of the office this morning, so Chief White House Correspondent David Gregory pinch hit 'Early Nightly' from Washington. Click to watch the video and find out what stories we're watching. David tells me he's also writing up some instant analysis of President Bush's just-concluded press conference with the Iraqi prime minister. I'll have that up shortly.

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