| |
News Center | Mason News | News Center |
| SEARCH: |  |
| TheSpringGarden Plants & trees, gardening products & equiptment, homedecor | SunglassesEyeglasses All stunning brand names sunglasses at the great prices | DIYHomeSupplies Do it yourself woodworking projects & home remodeling supplies | UnitedPlus Gift Ideas. Diecasts, Figurines, American Heroes, and much more |
| CarPartsAccessoriesEtc Search and shop for auto parts & accessories online. Simple & Convenient | Sewing Machines Top notch sewing machines, vacuums, and appliances. For home or commercial. | Patio & Landscape Ready for family BBQ party this summer? A Large selection of outdoor furnitures | FontsWorld Looking for those cool fonts? Here, variety of all around the world fonts. Free Download. |
| |||||||
| Army What's up with the Army? |
 |
| | LinkBack | Thread Tools | Display Modes |
12-10-2007, 02:43 PM
| ||||
| ||||
 The Pentagon Early Bird 10 Dec 2007 C U R R E N T N E W S E A R L Y B I R DDecember 10, 2007 placeRandomImg() Use of these news articles does not reflect official endorsement. Reproduction for private use or gain is subject to original copyright restrictions. Story numbers indicate order of appearance only. This is the single print version. Use the PRINT command in your browser to print the entire Early Bird as one document. (NOTE: This single file format is a long document and can use 50 or more pages of paper.) IRAQ
Los Angeles Times December 10, 2007 Pg. 1 Iraq Calmer, But More Divided The U.S. troop buildup has brought down violence, but that has failed to spark cooperation among politicians. If anything, the country appears more balkanized into ethnic and sectarian enclaves. By Ned Parker, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer BAGHDAD — The U.S. troop buildup in Iraq was meant to freeze the country's civil war so political leaders could rebuild their fractured nation. Ten months later, the country's bloodshed has dropped, but the military strategy has failed to reverse Iraq's disintegration into areas dominated by militias, tribes and parties, with a weak central government struggling to assert its influence. In the south, Shiite Muslim militias are at war over the lucrative oil resources in the Basra region. To the west, in Anbar province, Sunni Arab tribes that once fought U.S. forces now help police the streets and control the highways to Jordan and Syria. In the north, Arabs, Kurds and Turkmens are locked in a battle for the regions around Kirkuk and Mosul. In Baghdad, blast walls partition neighborhoods policed by Sunni paramilitary groups and Shiite militias. "Iraq is moving in the direction of a failed state, a highly decentralized situation -- totally unplanned, of course -- with competing centers of power run by warlords and militias," said Joost Hiltermann of the International Crisis Group. "The central government has no political control whatsoever beyond Baghdad, maybe not even beyond the Green Zone." The capital's Green Zone mirrors the chaos outside. Once the base of Saddam Hussein's dictatorial regime, it is now the seat of Iraq's fractured and dysfunctional representative government. The U.S. troop buildup was intended to help Iraq's national leaders overcome differences and give them space to pass compromise measures to end the country's sectarian war, but lawmakers remain divided and continue to harbor suspicions about each other's motives. In the summer, the country's Sunni Arab minority quit the coalition government, leaving Shiites and Kurds with a razor-thin majority in parliament. They appear unable to push forward any solution to the country's problems, whether a national oil law, a review of Iraq's new constitution or legislation defining the powers of provincial councils. All efforts to define relations between Baghdad and outlying regions are stalled. "The absence of government in a lot of areas has allowed others to move in, whether militias or others," said an American diplomat, who like others, spoke on condition of anonymity. He said that in the next year, the Iraqi government must step in and assert itself as the dominant force. "The No. 1 priority on the mind of the prime minister has got to be, 2008 is the year of services," he said. "It's difficult, but the window hasn't closed." With such a goal in mind, the Iraqi government has budgeted more than $19 billion for public sector investment for 2008, but official spending is beset by corruption and sectarianism. U.S. military officers regularly complain that the education, health and water ministries bypass Sunni neighborhoods in west Baghdad. Western analysts question whether a government made up of only Shiites and Kurds will be able to impose order on a country so splintered that even provinces with homogenous Shiite and Sunni populations are beset by conflict. The national government's dysfunction sets the stage for more violence as different groups vie for dominance in cities, provinces and regions. Although the bloodshed is not likely to reach the levels seen at the height of the civil war in 2006, analysts expect more strife. No quick solution "It is like a baby being born, struggling and shouting," said Sheik Fatih Kashif Ghitaa, the director of the Al-Thaqalayn Center for Strategic Studies, which advises the Iraqi government. Ghitaa predicted that the government would have to enact legislation such as that dealing with oil revenue and provincial powers by spring -- when the drawdown of U.S. combat brigades for the Baghdad security plan begins in earnest. Otherwise, the stalemate would just drag on. Even then, he warned, the passage of legislation would intensify the violence for at least a six-month period as winners sought to claim the spoils in the provinces. "We are going to see some problems between Shia and Shia and problems among Sunnis and Kurds, especially in Mosul," he said. Ramadi, capital of Anbar province, would also see an increase in violence as Sunni tribal groups maneuvered for power, he added. "This is the price of democracy." Prime Minister Nouri Maliki has sought to address the splintering of the country, particularly in the south, where most of Iraq's Shiite population lives. There, Maliki, who is with the Islamic Dawa Party, is working with the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, the leading Shiite party in the ruling coalition, to try to stabilize cities torn by militia infighting. "They agree on what needs to be done in the south," said an official from Maliki's office. "This is a test for the government on whether they can establish control in a very volatile area," the official said. Militias have reached an informal truce in Basra ahead of the expected transfer this month of security responsibility for the entire province from the British to the Baghdad government, but a Western advisor to the Iraqi government said Iraqi troops were still not up to the task. A major problem for locally recruited police and army units in Iraq is pressure from militias. "The issue you have in the army is that soldiers are recruited in regional areas and trained in those areas and employed in those areas. The expectation is they will probably stay in their home areas. If you have deployments in the south, the rank and file will be Shia, the west Sunni and the north Kurd. They will not be a rainbow mix of all groups," a Western official said. Anthony H. Cordesman of the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies said he doubted the national government could stabilize Iraq soon. "They don't have a strong central government at this point, and it's going to take years to create the instruments." In a recent report, Cordesman said a strong U.S. role was needed to ensure stability and dismissed the notion of the "soft partition" of Iraq into regional blocks advocated by U.S. senators in a nonbinding resolution this fall. Soft partition entails the creation of semiautonomous regions, based on the Kurdish model, that would receive funding from Baghdad but govern themselves. Cordesman blamed decisions by the United States for much of Iraq's current mess, including poor planning for the post-invasion period and, later, the administration's rush to national elections in January 2005, which Iraq's Sunnis boycotted. He warned that Iraq was at best midway through a turbulent metamorphosis. "It generally took half a decade to get anywhere from a situation like the one Iraq has today to that which approaches stability," he told The Times. "There is a reasonable prospect that you can move this toward a set of workable compromises if the United States continues to provide support and handle its military transition in a way that gives Iraqis enough time to not openly confront each other." Troops' concerns Mid-level U.S. officers in Iraq also worry about what comes next as the military draws down from current numbers of 160,000. Maj. Barry Daniels, the operations officer for the Army's 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, recalls how last year his soldiers had an impossible task of combating Shiite and Sunni extremists across west Baghdad's large Mansour district. The troop buildup enabled his men to focus on just one neighborhood, the Sunni insurgent stronghold of Amiriya. Now, at the end of his deployment, his men have forged an alliance with a Sunni paramilitary group that polices the district. "The big question for 2008 is what happens once all these surge battalions leave, because all your battle space is going to spread back out again," Daniels said. Across Baghdad and central Iraq, the relative calm is linked to the Americans' alliances with Sunni paramilitary groups and Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr's freeze on his Mahdi Army's operations, but no one knows whether the fighters on both sides are just biding their time until the U.S. military leaves and using this interim period to organize themselves. "This is an opportunity for the government of Iraq to reconcile at the national level," Daniels said. "I think if they do that you are not going to have a bunch of mini-warlords. I'm afraid if they don't, and the American people decide that they have had enough of it and we go home, you could have a full-blown civil war. That's my personal concern." Greater problems lie ahead in provinces such as Anbar, where the U.S. fought fierce battles against Sunni rebels in 2004 and which is now perhaps the United States' greatest success story. There, the Anbar Awakening Council, an alliance of tribes that turned against the insurgent group Al Qaeda in Iraq, has picked a feud with the main Sunni political bloc, the Iraqi Accordance Front. Council members accuse the Sunni parties on the provincial council of embezzling funds. "Do you know that the projects in Anbar are only ink on paper? They are paying the expenses and it is stolen by the provincial council," said Ali Hatem Sulaiman, a senior Anbar tribal leader, who has feuded with other Awakening Council leaders. "I am talking honestly in order to convey the reality. You want reality? This is the reality." The assassination of the council's first leader, Sheik Abdul-Sattar abu Risha, in September also hinted at turbulence beneath the surface. Although the attack was blamed on Al Qaeda in Iraq, the sheik's killers allegedly included members of his own security detail. Other developing hot spots in Iraq include the northern cities of Kirkuk and Mosul, in a strategically important region with large oil reserves. Both have been roiled by Sunni militant attacks since the summer, including two deadly car bombings that left hundreds dead. Mindful of the challenges, Western officials are pushing Maliki to reconcile Iraq's warring factions. "He has to show he is going to be the leader of all Iraqis. He is going to have to make some very hard, tough decisions here," Army Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the No. 2 U.S. commander in Iraq, told The Times last month. In private, Western officials continue to voice their long-held concern that Maliki is surrounded and isolated by a coterie of hard-line advisors from his religious Islamic Dawa Party. "What I fear is that there is a group of people close to the prime minister who feed him misinformation, whether knowingly or not, probably not, to give them the benefit of the doubt that spin him up," a Western advisor said. "He has to be shown this is the way or he is out." Times staff writers Raheem Salman, Wail Alhafith, Said Rifai, Saif Hameed and Saif Rasheed and special correspondents in Najaf, Kirkuk, Basra, Hillah, Mosul and Ramadi contributed to this report. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20071210566453.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_3767338_AEH PjkQAADRHR1134gquEhtUd34&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename= e20071210aaindex_concat.html&cred=Uc9PTCD1FDwXk4yE ocnmkBvNNCzBRG8gmRbUjd_aowmUTI22mLZsVarQbeytG7sG#T OP">RETURN TO TOP Christian Science Monitor December 10, 2007 Pg. 1 Baghdad Safer, But It's A Life Behind Walls Mini fortified 'green zones' are cropping up, improving security but leaving many residents feeling penned in. By Sam Dagher, Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor BAGHDAD -- Abu Nawas, Baghdad's storied riverbank thoroughfare, reopened amid much official fanfare two weeks ago. But three years since they last saw business, merchants on the street are facing a new challenge, say some local merchants: overwhelming security. Abu Nawas – once witness to frequent suicide car bombs and mortar attacks – now hums with activity of a different sort. The newly fortified area is patrolled by Humvees and guarded by US-funded private security companies that search every entering vehicle and scrupulously monitor shopkeepers and residents – and occasional intrepid visitors. For Hassan Abdullah, a cabinetmaker, that spells bad business. "It's worse than the Green Zone," he exclaims. No customers come in. He can't even deliver orders, he says. It's not just Abu Nawas that's starting to resemble a fortress. Walls like those around the ultrasecure Green Zone, where US officials and Iraqi dignitaries live and work, are rising around neighborhoods all over Baghdad – new "Green Zones" protected by US-paid Iraqi neighborhood guards. Creating civilian havens is a cornerstone of the US counterinsurgency campaign in Iraq. While many here are grateful for the newfound calm, they say the price is an increasingly segregated city that is starting to feel like a collective cage. In many cases, the US military is keeping tabs on male residents by collecting fingerprints and retinal scans. "One road in and one road out, that's it," says Ghazaliya resident Muhammad Rajab. "Iraq is a prison, and now I live in my own little prison," he adds wryly. Violence has fallen to its lowest level since February 2006, and attacks on US forces are down 55 percent since June, according to the US military. But the top US commander, Gen. David Petraeus, warned against complacency last week, a day after Baghdad saw its worst car bombing since September. Sunday, the police chief of Babil Province, a US ally, was killed. Two days after, suicide attacks against US-funded neighborhood guards in Diyala killed 26, and a shooting in Mosul killed two prominent US tribal allies. In Baghdad, the extent of the transformation is clear from driving along main arteries. Western areas – Adel, Ameriyah, Ghazaliya, and Jamiaa, until recently stomping grounds for Sunni insurgents and Al Qaeda-linked fighters, are ringed with concrete walls at least 12-feet high. The western highway is secured by numerous Iraqi Army checkpoints. Reminders of this zone's violent recent history are everywhere: a gutted flyover bridge, bullet-riddled homes, and graffiti that reads, "Down with Bin Laden and his miserable bunch." A battered sign reads: "Welcome to Baghdad." The landscape resembles that of other western and southern neighborhoods like Amel, Dora, and Saidiyah. The perimeter sometimes includes wire fences, favored spots to hang black funeral banners or white ones advertising holidays abroad. In northeast Baghdad and down the Canal Street expressway, miles of 6-foot-high walls ring neighborhoods like Jamila, Jazayer, and Ur on the edge of the predominantly Shiite slum of Sadr City. "Rafah crossing" is scrawled on a concrete wall near an Iraqi Army-manned entry point – a sarcastic reference to the border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip. "We are not free, our neighborhood is barricaded … and our officials are over there in the Green Zone," says Hazem Mahmoud, a retired Iraqi Army officer out on an afternoon stroll with his wife on Rubaie Street. A few miles from Jamila, down the Muhammad al-Qasim highway, massive 12-foot walls surround staunchly Sunni neighborhoods like Adhamiyah and Sulaikh. "Luke was here," is sprayed on the Adhamiyah wall, probably by a patrolling US soldier. Residents demonstrated against US plans to build the wall earlier this year, but a similar wall went up around Sulaikh about two weeks ago without much of a stir. "If our leaders are happy with it, you expect us, the poor people, to speak up," says Ahmed Abdullah, a Sulaikh resident. "We feel like prisoners in our own country." Passing through an entry point manned by two AK-47-toting teenage neighborhood guards, Faiza Faiq says: "Thank God the situation is better; we have peace of mind. But in the past 10 days, with these walls, you feel imprisoned a bit." Suddenly, US troops descend and take over the checkpoint. "It's policing during the day and soldiering at night," quips one US soldier, explaining that the Iraqi guards in Sulaikh are not fully trusted yet. Mr. Rajab, the Ghazaliya resident who endured a three-hour, cross-town trip that should take 30 minutes to visit a friend in Sulaikh, is thoroughly interrogated. The idea of protective zones is spreading to the city center. Large segments of the main market, Shorja, are ringed with blast walls and guarded entry points. In a bid to boost besieged Baghdadis, US and Iraqi military officials held a street party to mark the reopening of Abu Nawas, named for a 6th-century poet, following a $5 million US-funded renovation. US-paid private guards, seen on a recent visit, were manning a new checkpoint. US soldiers patrol the area. Scenes of ancient Babylon adorn protective walls; side streets are blocked. Cars are few, and the only customers at a street cafe are four undercover Iraqi security agents. "We need this; the Baghdad security plan is only 60 percent done," says one. At Akkad Gallery, two artists commiserate. "We must live in a situation that the world knows is occupation," says Ali Kamal. Bilal Baher says he misses Adhamiyah's famed sites, now off-limits. "The limits are encroaching on our souls," he says. The only ones having fun on Abu Nawas were boys playing soccer in the park, as the Green Zone loomed across the Tigris River. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20071210566548.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_3767338_AEH PjkQAADRHR1134gquEhtUd34&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename= e20071210aaindex_concat.html&cred=Uc9PTCD1FDwXk4yE ocnmkBvNNCzBRG8gmRbUjd_aowmUTI22mLZsVarQbeytG7sG#T OP">RETURN TO TOP Washington Post December 10, 2007 Pg. 13 Bomb Kills Iraqi Police Chief Praised By U.S. By Naseer Nouri and Sudarsan Raghavan, Washington Post Foreign Service BAGHDAD, Dec. 9 -- A roadside bomb killed the police chief of a mostly Shiite province south of Baghdad, hours after U.S. commanders praised him for his commitment to bringing stability to Iraq. The assassination of Maj. Gen. Qais al-Mamouri was the latest in a series of attacks against provincial leaders in unruly southern Iraq, where Shiite militias and other factions are engaged in a struggle for power and resources. The bomb attack Sunday, which struck Mamouri's convoy and also killed two of his bodyguards, occurred in Hilla, about 60 miles south of Baghdad. There had been six previous attempts on his life since he became police chief of Babil province. "We're very lucky to have in Babil province Major General Qais, who is a very good Iraqi police chief for all of that province," Col. Tom James, commander of the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, said before the assassination. "He is committed to securing Iraq for the people, for the population. He does not see anything through a sectarian lens. It's all about Iraqi law, and the people see that." Police imposed an indefinite curfew on Hilla. With people fearing arrests and clashes, streets emptied quickly as U.S. and Iraqi security forces deployed in the city and surrounding areas, police said. Stunned residents immediately blamed militia fighters for the attack. "The militias do not want Mamouri so they can bring in someone loyal to them," said Ali Hussein Muhammad, 35, a shop owner. Mamouri was widely admired and viewed as politically independent. He was known for cracking down on militias and had resisted pressure from religious and political groups to release detainees accused of various crimes. "I refused to accept any recruits connected to any parties or militias, so my security forces will stay clean and loyal to Iraq and Iraq only," Mamouri told The Washington Post in an interview last month. In August, governors of two southern provinces and a provincial police chief were killed. On Sunday, the head of the Nineveh Provincial Council survived an assassination attempt in the northern city of Mosul when a roadside bomb exploded near his car, authorities said. The assassination came as a U.S. military spokesman, Rear Adm. Greg Smith, told reporters that attacks across Iraq had fallen 60 percent during a 10-month U.S. security offensive. Elsewhere, a suicide car bomber targeting an Iraqi army checkpoint in the northern town of Baiji killed two soldiers and wounded seven, police said. And clashes broke out between Iraqi police and former Sunni insurgents who had turned their weapons against the group al-Qaeda in Iraq in Buhriz, two miles south of Baqubah, the capital of restive Diyala province. The tensions ignited when police attempted to arrest a former insurgent leader after they had arrested his driver on kidnapping charges. The clashes resulted in several deaths, according to police Maj. Ibrahim Muhammad. "This operation was a big mistake and will lead to instability to the area," he said. Special correspondent Saad Sarhan in Najaf and other Washington Post staff in Iraq contributed to this report. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20071210566562.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_3767338_AEH PjkQAADRHR1134gquEhtUd34&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename= e20071210aaindex_concat.html&cred=Uc9PTCD1FDwXk4yE ocnmkBvNNCzBRG8gmRbUjd_aowmUTI22mLZsVarQbeytG7sG#T OP">RETURN TO TOP New York Times December 10, 2007 Pg. 8 Bomb Kills An Iraqi Police Chief By Paul von Zielbauer BAGHDAD, Dec. 9 — Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain made an unannounced visit to southern Iraq on Sunday to address his nation’s troops as they prepared to hand over the region to Iraqi forces later this month. Britain plans to give up its remaining control over the oil-rich port city of Basra to Iraqi forces in mid-December, the last of four regions of southern Iraq it occupied after the 2003 invasion. The number of British troops in Iraq is scheduled to drop to 2,500 by the spring, from the current 4,500. Also Sunday, a roadside bomb blew up a convoy carrying the police chief of a predominantly Shiite province south of Baghdad, killing him and two of his bodyguards, Iraqi police officials said. Two other police officers were killed Sunday in a gunfight in Diyala Province, northeast of Baghdad, and the severed head of a local officer was discovered in Wasit Province, southeast of Baghdad, a day after the officer’s abduction, police officials said. The assassination of the police chief, Brig. Gen. Qais al-Mamori, who led the Iraqi police forces in Babil Province, was the latest of several attacks against provincial leaders in the mainly Shiite Arab region in recent months. General Mamori, who was 48, had become known for cracking down on militia leaders. He and the two bodyguards were killed as their police convoy rolled past a gas station in Hilla, the provincial capital, a local police official said. The leader of the provincial council’s security committee, Hassan Watwet, said an investigation into Sunday’s explosion was under way, The Associated Press reported. “The primary suspect is Al Qaeda, but we do not rule out the second suspect, the militias,” Mr. Watwet was quoted as saying, apparently referring to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the mostly homegrown insurgent group that the United States believes is foreign-led. Last summer, the governors of two other southern Iraqi provinces were killed — Muhammad Ali al-Hassani in Muthanna Province, and Khalil Jalil Hamza, the governor of Qadisiya Province — in what appeared to be a power struggle among rival Shiite militias for control of the oil-rich region. The deaths of the two police officers in Diyala Province and the wounding of six other officers occurred during a battle with gunmen suspected of being insurgents, an Iraqi police official said. Police officials in Hilla and Baquba imposed curfews in their cities in efforts to prevent further outbreaks of violence. In Wasit Province, the police discovered the severed head of the driver for a provincial police force’s anticrime unit. The officer had been kidnapped Saturday by unknown gunmen, and his body has not yet been found. Iraq’s defense minister, Abdul-Kader Jassem al-Obeidi, said in a news conference on Sunday in Baghdad that Iraqi forces were planning an offensive against insurgents in Diyala Province, where Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia has tried to establish a foothold in recent months. On Sunday, Iraqi Army soldiers in Baquba shot and killed a would-be suicide bomber wearing an explosives-packed vest as he approached their post, an army official there said. Reporting was contributed by Mudhafer al-Husaini, Khalid al-Ansary, Anwar J. Ali and Ahmad Fadam from Baghdad, and an Iraqi employee of The New York Times from Hilla. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20071210566633.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_3767338_AEH PjkQAADRHR1134gquEhtUd34&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename= e20071210aaindex_concat.html&cred=Uc9PTCD1FDwXk4yE ocnmkBvNNCzBRG8gmRbUjd_aowmUTI22mLZsVarQbeytG7sG#T OP">RETURN TO TOP Washington Times December 10, 2007 Pg. 11 Britain To Cede Control Of Basra Brown visits, thanks troops By Prashant Rao, Agence France-Presse LONDON — Britain will hand over Basra province to Iraqi control within two weeks, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said during a surprise trip to southern Iraq yesterday, his Downing Street office said. Addressing troops in the southern Iraqi city, Mr. Brown said that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was recommending "a move to provincial Iraqi control within two weeks," a spokesman in London said. "I have just talked to Prime Minister Maliki, and he has asked me to pass on his thanks to you for what you have done to help rebuild the democracy of Iraq," Mr. Brown said, according to the spokesman. "It's because of all the operations we have done over the past few months that the security situation has not only improved, but he is now recommending a move to provincial Iraqi control within two weeks." Britain has about 5,500 troops in southern Iraq, and Mr. Brown said in October that troop numbers would be cut by more than half to 2,500 by early next year as Iraqis assume control of Basra province. "The prime minister came to address the troops," senior British military spokesman Maj. Mike Shearer told Agence France-Presse by telephone from Basra. "He was here for less than 2½ hours. He wanted to show his gratitude to the troops for the work they have done in preparing the Iraqis to take on the mantle of provincial control in Basra. "During the visit, he telephoned Prime Minister Maliki. They agreed Basra should be transferred to Iraqi provincial control within two weeks." No date has yet been fixed, Maj. Shearer said, adding that the transfer had long been set for mid-December. "We are still on schedule for that," he said. About 500 British troops handed over their base at the Saddam-era Basra Palace in September after Iraqi security forces took control of the city, and they are now all stationed on a base just outside Basra city. However, a parliamentary committee said last Monday that Britain had failed in its original aim of bringing security to southern Iraq and expressed concern about continued violence there and across the country. "The initial goal of U.K. forces in southeastern Iraq was to establish the security necessary for the development of representative political institutions and for economic reconstruction," the House of Commons defense committee said. "Although progress has been made, this goal remains unfulfilled." Last month, however, a British general said that violence had plummeted in Basra and Iraq's security forces were in full control, while cautioning that the handover was not without risk because violence had not dropped off entirely. In total, 173 British troops have been killed in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion of the country in March 2003, according to British Defense Ministry figures. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20071210566668.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_3767338_AEH PjkQAADRHR1134gquEhtUd34&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename= e20071210aaindex_concat.html&cred=Uc9PTCD1FDwXk4yE ocnmkBvNNCzBRG8gmRbUjd_aowmUTI22mLZsVarQbeytG7sG#T OP">RETURN TO TOP Boston Globe December 10, 2007 Iraq Slayings Of Women Linked To Extremism BAGHDAD - Religious vigilantes have killed at least 40 women this year in the southern Iraqi city of Basra because of how they dressed, their mutilated bodies found with notes warning against "violating Islamic teachings," the police chief said yesterday. Major General Jalil Khalaf blamed sectarian groups that he said were trying to impose a strict interpretation of Islam. "Those who are behind these atrocities are organized gangs who work under cover of religion, pretending to spread the instructions of Islam, but they are far from this religion," Khalaf said. --AP http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20071210566631.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_3767338_AEH PjkQAADRHR1134gquEhtUd34&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename= e20071210aaindex_concat.html&cred=Uc9PTCD1FDwXk4yE ocnmkBvNNCzBRG8gmRbUjd_aowmUTI22mLZsVarQbeytG7sG#T OP">RETURN TO TOP USA Today December 10, 2007 Pg. 11 Iraqi Official Urges U.S. To Talk With Iran Roadside bomb kills police chief in Shiite region By Associated Press BAGHDAD — An Iraqi government official said Sunday that the United States needs to take bolder steps to interact directly with Iran in order to improve security across the Middle East. Iraqi National Security Adviser Mouwafak al-Rubaie, attending a regional summit in the Bahrain capital of Manama, warned Washington that a strategy of aligning its Sunni Gulf allies against Iran would only exacerbate tensions in the region. It was a rebuke to Washington a day after Defense Secretary Robert Gates called on Persian Gulf countries to press Tehran to renounce its nuclear program. The United States has refused to hold talks with Iran until it suspends uranium enrichment, a process that can be used to produce fuel for nuclear energy or nuclear weapons. Iran insists its nuclear program is intended for energy. In a speech at the conference Saturday, Gates appealed to Persian Gulf nations to support penalties designed to force Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment. A U.S. intelligence report recently concluded that Iran has stopped its nuclear weapons program. On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told a closed meeting of his Security Cabinet that the report would not change Israel's view that Iran is still pursuing nuclear weapons, according to a participant in the session who spoke to the Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because the meeting was closed. Olmert said Israel would work with the International Atomic Energy Agency "to expose the Iranian plan." Also Sunday: •More than 200 Iraqi Christians packed a church in eastern Baghdad to see the first Iraqi cardinal. Under heavy guard, Cardinal Emmanuel III Delly, leader of the ancient Chaldean Church, celebrated Mass three weeks after Pope Benedict XVI elevated him to the top ranks of Roman Catholic hierarchy. The service, broadcast live on Iraqi state TV, was capped by a handshake from a Shiite imam — a symbolic show of unity between Iraq's majority Muslim sect and its tiny Christian community. •A roadside bomb struck a convoy carrying the police chief of Babil province, killing him and two bodyguards. Brig. Gen. Qais al-Maamouri, police chief of Babil's provincial capital of Hillah, was the latest in a series of assassinations against provincial leaders in the mainly Shiite region. He was politically independent, led crackdowns against militia fighters and resisted pressure from religious and political groups. •Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi said he supported an agreement for a long-term U.S. presence in Iraq. "There is no doubt that Iraq needs a strong and honest partner," he said. •British Prime Minister Gordon Brown flew into southern Iraq to rally troops and confirm that Iraqi forces will take command of the last region under British control within two weeks. Maj. Gen. Jalil Khalaf, Basra's police chief, said last week that his forces lack the means to provide security when British troops withdraw. He also said about 40 women have died in the city this year at the hands of religious vigilantes who accost women who are not wearing traditional dress and head scarves. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20071210566663.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_3767338_AEH PjkQAADRHR1134gquEhtUd34&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename= e20071210aaindex_concat.html&cred=Uc9PTCD1FDwXk4yE ocnmkBvNNCzBRG8gmRbUjd_aowmUTI22mLZsVarQbeytG7sG#T OP">RETURN TO TOP Miami Herald December 10, 2007 Cleric Assails U.S., But Violence Subsides Iraq awaits a Shiite cleric leader's next move as his militia maintains a fragile cease-fire. By Jamie Gumbrecht, McClatchy News Service After Friday prayers in Sadr City, 300 women in black shuffled slowly, quietly down a narrow street toward a billboard-sized photo of Muqtada al Sadr, the fiery young leader of their Shiite Muslim movement. Holding banners and flags, the women protested the U.S. presence in Iraq and the detentions of hundreds of Sadr's followers. ''Anything that comes from Sayed Muqtada is good for us,'' said Hannah al Rubaye, using the honorific title for descendents of the prophet Mohammed. ``After this step, we expect other orders from Sayed Muqtada. Patience has limits.'' Sadr issued a heated anti-American statement last week, but he instructed his increasingly restless followers not to react violently. Their demonstration was organized without his orders, and their silence quickly gave way to agitated shouts. Sadr himself has remained mostly silent since his 60,000-member Mahdi Army militia began a cease-fire three months ago. Sectarian violence and attacks on U.S. forces have dropped as a result, buttressing the case for the withdrawal of some U.S. troops from Iraq and encouraging some to believe that Iraq has had enough killing. Now Iraqis and Americans alike are awaiting Sadr's next move, which could alter both his hold on his own followers and his relations with rival Iraqi leaders and help to determine whether Iraq is seeing the ebbing of a violent storm or just the eye of it. With the United States recruiting and arming opposing Sunni volunteer groups, Sadr's passivity risks alienating his restive followers, the poor and underserved Shiites. Nevertheless, said Hazem al Araji, an aide to Sadr, the Mahdi Army cease-fire is likely to extend beyond the planned six months. While this would please U.S. commanders and many Iraqis, it would bolster Sadr only if his followers agree that they're likely to gain more by keeping their weapons in their closets. ''There is an entity in the Sadr trend that doesn't want the freeze,'' said Sheik Naza al Timini, a Sadr cleric in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, south of Baghdad. 'They said, `We have the right to use violence and force.' We always hope for good, and we hope that the decision of Sayed Muqtada will be for the best of Iraq, but after he gives his final decision about the future of the Mahdi Army, many, I believe, will change their ideology and choose to leave the Sadr trend.'' A breakdown of the cease-fire, either on Sadr's orders or by rebellious commanders, would likely bring a return to sectarian warfare and make it harder for the United States to reverse the surge of troops to Iraq. For now, Sadr is railing against the U.S. but advocating no action beyond praying in a mosque for two hours after sunset. ''Get out of our land,'' he wrote on Friday. ``We don't need you or your armies, the armies of darkness; not your airplanes, tanks, policies, meddling, democracy, fake freedom.'' ''I hope he will go on like this, not fighting, but trying to use political means against Americans or against the government,'' said Kurdish legislator Mahmoud Othman. McClatchy Baghdad Bureau Chief Leila Fadel and special correspondents Jenan Hussein, Qassim Zein and Yasar Ghani contributed. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20071210566667.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_3767338_AEH PjkQAADRHR1134gquEhtUd34&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename= e20071210aaindex_concat.html&cred=Uc9PTCD1FDwXk4yE ocnmkBvNNCzBRG8gmRbUjd_aowmUTI22mLZsVarQbeytG7sG#T OP">RETURN TO TOP Boston Globe December 10, 2007 Iraq Planning Crackdown In Province Northeast Of Baghdad By Lori Hinnant, Associated Press BAGHDAD - Iraq's defense minister promised yesterday to wage a new crackdown in a volatile province northeast of Baghdad where militants are trying to regroup after being routed from their urban stronghold there last summer. Suicide attacks have killed more than 20 people in the last three days in Diyala Province, a tribal patchwork of Sunni Arabs, Shi'ites, and Kurds that stretches from Baghdad to the border with Iran. Defense Minister Abdul-Qader al-Obeidi said preparations had begun for a fresh military operation in the provincial capital, Baqubah, about 35 miles from Baghdad. "If we succeed in controlling areas of Diyala close to Baghdad, the rate of incidents in Baghdad decreases by 95 percent," Obeidi told the Associated Press. Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain arrived in southern Iraq on a surprise visit to the southern city of Basra, signaling what London hopes will be the transition from a military mission in Iraq to one with a stronger economic component, aimed at reinvigorating a country torn apart by war and years of neglect under Saddam Hussein. "We have managed now to get Iraq into a far better position," Brown told British troops, who lined the staircases of an airport base to watch his evening arrival. "Not that violence has ended, but we are able to move to provincial Iraqi control and that's thanks to everything you have achieved." The British plan to hand over security responsibilities for the oil-rich area to the Iraqis within weeks. Violence has declined sharply in Iraq since June, when the influx of US troops to the capital and its surrounding areas began to gain momentum. Also credited with the decline were the freeze in activities by the Mahdi Army militia, led by the radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, and the decision by tens of thousands of Iraqis - most of them Sunni Arab - to join the fight against Al Qaeda. But it has been a constant challenge to subdue extremists in Diyala, which is the eastern gateway to Baghdad. More than two years ago, US forces thought they had turned the corner and American commanders handed over substantial control of the province to the Iraqi Army in August 2005. A year later, the Al Qaeda-backed Islamic State of Iraq declared Baqubah as its capital. This summer, US and Iraqi forces launched a new drive in Diyala, and the Americans have fostered groups of former militants who have switched sides in the fight against Al Qaeda. But any gains are hard-won: On Friday, a pair of suicide bombings less than 10 miles apart killed at least 23 people - more than half of them members of the anti-Al Qaeda groups. About 60 miles south of Baghdad, a roadside bomb struck the convoy carrying the police chief of Babil Province, killing him and two of his bodyguards, officials said. Brigadier General Qais al-Maamouri, the police chief of Babil's provincial capital of Hillah, was the latest in a series of assassinations against provincial leaders in the mainly Shi'ite region. Maamouri was politically independent and had a reputation for leading crackdowns against militia fighters and resisting pressure from religious and political groups to release favored members. Sunnis have been turning against Al Qaeda in significant numbers and signing up for US-backed security volunteer forces, which Rear Admiral Gregory Smith, a US military spokesman, said now number 72,000. That represents a sea change in attitudes among Sunnis, who spearheaded the insurgency against the United States and its allies in 2003 while many Shi'ite politicians worked with the Americans. But as Shi'ite militias drove thousands of Sunnis from Baghdad and other areas, many in the Sunni community have reached out to the Americans as protection against the rival sect. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20071210566551.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_3767338_AEH PjkQAADRHR1134gquEhtUd34&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename= e20071210aaindex_concat.html&cred=Uc9PTCD1FDwXk4yE ocnmkBvNNCzBRG8gmRbUjd_aowmUTI22mLZsVarQbeytG7sG#T OP">RETURN TO TOP Washington Post December 10, 2007 Pg. 17 Fine Print Iraq's 'Battlefield Of The Mind' By Walter Pincus Marine Maj. Gen. Douglas M. Stone, commanding general of detainee operations in Iraq, is fighting what he has called "the battlefield of the mind." He has instituted extensive screening of incoming prisoners and has made available about 30 training and education courses, including religion and civics, to the 25,188 prisoners under his control. At a news conference last week, he said that once a person is in custody at his facilities, Camp Cropper near Baghdad and Camp Bucca in southern Iraq, "we spend a lot of time learning about them now, studying their motivations . . . why they're fighting, who they fight for -- more so than we've ever known before." At Cropper and Bucca, he said, there is "an assessment phase, and we take 72 hours and then we work really hard on categorizations." Based on those assessments, which include having imams evaluate prisoners on their religious beliefs, a decision is made about where to house them in the detention facility. As Stone was describing his program, the Multi-National Force-Iraq Joint Contracting Command was advertising for 12 contract intelligence analysts to work for Stone at Cropper and Bucca for six to 18 months, beginning in March. Their jobs will be mainly to "conduct in-processing assessment of new detainees coming into the theater internment facilities," according to the statement of work. They will screen the circumstances of each detainee's capture and any sworn statements or intelligence about the person contained in an accompanying packet. After that, the work statement says, the contracted analysts will "determine what category a detainee is assigned to based on age, religion, threat level and insurgent group affiliation." They will also decide "where to place the detainee in the segregation plan." Stone said the compounds are not organized by geographical areas, so most prisoners "don't really know each other." Because extremists are "generally the guys that know each other . . . and they come in to set up kind of a gang court," people from the same areas are spread out across the prison. The courses they take, almost all of which are voluntary, include basic education, vocational training and religion. The religion course, run by one of 43 imams working on the program, lasts four days. The civics course, which each detainee must take before he is released, covers "why you should try to get an education -- why you should try to have a job," Stone said. Other courses touch "on how you control anger, the oath of peace, the sacredness of life and property and references back to the Koran," he added. The demand for classes has "stripped" the 150 teachers he has available. "I don't change people," Stone said. "Those people or God changes them, not me, but we do set in motion the ability to have that change take place." Stone sees the overall program as working with detainees so that "they cannot conduct an insurgency inside the wire." He added that he hopes that detainees "someday maybe even work with us and, of course, by telling us who the bad guys are." One result already seen, he said, is that moderates in the prisons are identifying extremists, thus facilitating their segregation from the rest of the population. At Camp Bucca, about 1,000 extremists were identified and pulled from among the 21,000 prisoners, and "that made a big difference," he said. Another task for the contract employees is to "track and analyze activity" within each detention compound to enhance force protection, as well as work with counterintelligence agents in vetting informants inside the prison population. A must for prospective contract employees is a "secret" security clearance. According to the statement of work, they should at a minimum "have an Associate's Degree though a Bachelor's degree is desired." Individuals with at least four years of analytical intelligence experience are "Highly desired." Prospects must be in good physical shape and "capable of working 12 hour days, seven days per week, walking two miles minimum per day, climbing stairs, and wearing body armor and a helmet for extended periods of time," according to the work statement. National security and intelligence reporter Walter Pincus pores over the speeches, reports, transcripts and other documents that flood Washington and every week uncovers the fine print that rarely makes headlines -- but should. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20071210566425.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_3767338_AEH PjkQAADRHR1134gquEhtUd34&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename= e20071210aaindex_concat.html&cred=Uc9PTCD1FDwXk4yE ocnmkBvNNCzBRG8gmRbUjd_aowmUTI22mLZsVarQbeytG7sG#T OP">RETURN TO TOP Chicago Tribune December 9, 2007 Refugees Unsure What Awaits In Iraq As money and options run out, thousands are returning home. But to what conditions? By Liz Sly, Tribune foreign correspondent BAGHDAD--As a pale winter dawn broke over Baghdad, dozens of Iraqis blearily unloaded huge suitcases from the bus that had carried them overnight across the once-perilous deserts of Anbar province, reversing a journey they had taken months or years before to escape the violence plaguing Iraq. They are returning to an uncertain future in a still unstable city. "According to what we saw on TV, Baghdad is safe now," said Amjad Talal, 30, as he waited with his wife, twin sons and luggage for a ride to Baghdad al-Jadid, a neighborhood from which the minority Sunni community has largely been purged. Talal is a Sunni, and he didn't look at all sure about going home, but he said he had run out of money after 14 months of living as a refugee, and had little choice. "It is a worry," he said. "But what can we do?" Spurred in part by reports that security in Baghdad has improved, and by an Iraqi government eager to show progress by encouraging refugees to return, thousands of the estimated 2.4 million Iraqis who fled the violence are starting to make the journey home. The government is promising $800 to families that return to Baghdad and is offering free bus rides from Damascus, Syria, where the majority of refugees reside. A government-sponsored ad on state television depicts an exiled family being welcomed by happy neighbors as they arrive back at their neatly locked Baghdad home. But aid agencies warn that the reality awaiting many refugees may be very different. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees said Friday it is "not promoting" returns to Iraq. "Many areas are still considered unsafe, and conditions are not conducive for return," the agency said. Most of those who fled lived in areas that still have not been entirely pacified. Others were minorities in areas that have now turned wholly Sunni or wholly Shiite, and it is unclear whether they will be welcomed by neighbors who are likely different from the ones they had before. In many instances, those who return will be unable to go home at all, because their houses have been occupied by others, who had in turn fled violence elsewhere in the city. According to the refugee commission, only a third of one busload of recently returned refugees were able to return to their homes; the rest joined the ranks of the internally displaced in Baghdad. Among those arriving from Damascus on a recent morning was Umm Fahed, 24, and her infant son. A Sunni, she was twice forced to move by Shiite militias, first from her own troubled neighborhood of Ghazaliyah in western Baghdad, and then, a year ago, from her parents' home in the once-mixed Waziriyah district in eastern Baghdad. Given a week's notice to leave the country or die, she fled to Damascus. Both houses are now occupied by Shiite families. "Forget it. I can't go home," said Fahed, who is staying with an uncle in the Haifa Street area of Baghdad. On the morning after she arrived, U.S. soldiers stormed the apartment, breaking down the door. "They terrified us," she said. "It still doesn't feel safe. There are still incidents." Exactly how many Iraqis are coming back isn't clear. Iraq's Ministry of Migration cites the return of 40,000 Iraqis since mid-September, mostly from Syria, as evidence of the improved situation in Baghdad. An estimate released Monday by the Iraqi Red Crescent Society put the number between 25,000 and 28,000, with around 20,000 of those returning to Baghdad. Either way, the numbers make up a tiny fraction of the 2.4 million believed to have fled. "It's a flow, not a flood," according to the UN's special envoy to Iraq, Staffan de Mistura. UN officials say the returns are largely driven by stringent new visa requirements imposed by Syria to halt the flow of refugees into the country, and by economic pressures on the refugees, many of whom fled in a hurry months or years ago and are now running out of money. In a survey of a group of returning Iraqis, the refugee commission found that 14 percent cited improved safety as their chief motivation to return. The majority said they were more concerned about money and their visa status in Syria. "They did not feel safe to go back but they had no other solution," said Sybella Wilkes, spokeswoman for the UNHCR in Damascus, who interviewed a group of returning refugees last week. "They had run out of savings, and their visas had expired, and they were returning rather than live in this uncertainty with nothing to live on." The UN and the government announced plans Tuesday to offer care packages and financial assistance to 30,000 returnees. Though the UN is not recommending that refugees return, "there is undoubtedly an improved situation," Mistura said. The Iraqi government acknowledges that it lacks the capacity to cope with a larger influx. According to Iraq's Minister for Migration, Abdul Samad Sultan, nearly 1.4 million of the estimated 2.2 million people who fled to Jordan or Syria are from Baghdad. An additional 1.4 million people are estimated to have been displaced from their homes within Baghdad -- meaning that nearly half the city's population has been forced from their homes. Should large numbers of refugees start trying to reclaim their property, there are fears a new round of bloodletting could begin. "We are concerned at the possibility of swelling the ranks of the internally displaced without having in place a mechanism for resolving property disputes," said Bill Frelick, refugee policy director for Human Rights Watch in New York. "These are issues that take time, and they can't be worked out with the levels of violence we're still seeing in Iraq." http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20071210566661.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_3767338_AEH PjkQAADRHR1134gquEhtUd34&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename= e20071210aaindex_concat.html&cred=Uc9PTCD1FDwXk4yE ocnmkBvNNCzBRG8gmRbUjd_aowmUTI22mLZsVarQbeytG7sG#T OP">RETURN TO TOP Los Angeles Times December 10, 2007 Iraqi Exchange Looks Ahead Amid wartime ups and downs, the bourse puts its hopes in an electronic upgrade. By Waleed Ibrahim and Alaa Shahine, Reuters BAGHDAD — One old investor used binoculars to watch stock prices. Others yelled out instructions to brokers who scribbled down prices on a white board. Outside, barbed wire sealed the street leading to the two-story building surrounded by high blast walls. Armed guards carefully frisked visitors. It was a quiet day at the Iraq Stock Exchange in Baghdad, where prices have yet to recover fully from heavy losses they took after almost two years of sectarian bloodshed made trips to the bourse a risky venture. Taha Ahmed Abdul-Salam, the exchange's chief executive, said he hoped things would improve soon thanks to an electronic system set for launch early in 2008 to speed up transactions and make it easier for foreigners to trade Iraqi shares. Like so many other buildings, the stock exchange was stripped bare by looters of its furniture and equipment soon after the U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003. The market reopened in mid-2004 and share prices soared, even while attacks wrought havoc on Iraq's streets and power shortages and long queues for gasoline disrupted everyday life. But trading was suspended for several months in 2006 after the bombing of a major Shiite Muslim shrine in Samarra in February that year sparked a dramatic rise in violence. When trading resumed, share prices plunged. The year 2006 "was the most difficult year for us," said Lubna Anwar, one of about 10 female brokers at the trading floor. "We used to go to the exchange knowing that we could be targeted by a bomb or an explosion." The security crackdown, or "surge," on Al Qaeda and Shiite militants launched in February, which included the deployment of 30,000 more U.S. troops, contributed to sharp drops in attacks and helped some shares trim their losses, broker Muqdad Jassem said. Anwar, an accounting graduate from the University of Baghdad and a broker since 1992, said she and many other dealers attended training courses in neighboring Jordan on how to use the new electronic trading system, which will be supported by the Nordic and Baltic stock exchange company OMX. "It was easy," Anwar said. "Only old brokers with no computer background faced problems in learning." Brokers said they hoped the system would attract more foreign investment and boost trade volumes. "Foreign investors . . . are increasing bit by bit," Abdul-Salam said. Jassem said finalizing a transaction by a foreign investor could take as long as a week under present rules, which, among other things, require the investor to send a passport copy ratified by an Iraqi diplomatic mission. Brokers said foreigners trade Iraqi banking shares, the most active sector. Industrial and agricultural stocks are mired by low trading volume. Some investors said shares they had bought for as much as 60 dinars were now trading at 3 dinars. "Selling now means a big loss," said Mahmoud Ahmed, a 45-year-old investor, as he stood alone in a corner, his arms folded against his chest. "Do not believe anybody who says there is movement in the market." Karim Kamal, head of equity research at the National Bank of Kuwait, said going electronic was unlikely to spur foreigners to buy more Iraqi shares. "Mainstream investors would tend to wait [to make sure] the current lull in violence is not temporary before even beginning to examine the economic situation," he said. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20071210566637.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_3767338_AEH PjkQAADRHR1134gquEhtUd34&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename= e20071210aaindex_concat.html&cred=Uc9PTCD1FDwXk4yE ocnmkBvNNCzBRG8gmRbUjd_aowmUTI22mLZsVarQbeytG7sG#T OP">RETURN TO TOP Philadelphia Inquirer December 10, 2007 Pg. 1 From A Pentagon Desk To The Front Lines By Steve Goldstein, Inquirer Washington Bureau WASHINGTON - As the convoy of Toyota Land Cruisers and Ford Ranger trucks bumped along the cratered road carved through the mountains west of Kabul, Marine Col. Paul McHale imagined the history of the fabled route through the Khyber Pass. McHale was riding with Afghanistan's interior minister, who also was thinking of history - the years of rampant corruption at Torkum Gate, where trucks and foot traffic seek entry from Pakistan. When they arrived at the heavily fenced border checkpoint, the minister met with police officials, while McHale spotted some familiar uniforms and sought out a Marine second lieutenant. After hearing of the officer's experiences on the frontier, McHale, 57, was pumped. "I was jealous as hell," he said later. "I realized I'd trade any job I've ever had to be that young lieutenant." Anything, he thought, to remain in Afghanistan. "You couldn't find a better enemy than the Taliban," McHale continued. "I can't imagine an enemy more worthy of dying. "If I was 22 years old, I'd enlist in the Marines and ask for Afghanistan," he said. "It is a place where a young warrior can make a real difference fighting for a noble cause." McHale was once again such a warrior. Riding in heavily armed convoys through some of the most dangerous territory on Earth, he was teaching Afghan soldiers how to better counter an implacable Taliban foe. But McHale was only moonlighting as a Marine. In his day job, he is assistant secretary of defense in charge of homeland defense, a senior Pentagon post that puts him in command of about 400 uniformed military, civilians and contractors and a budget of $20 billion. Despite his retirement from the Marine reserves in 2006, he grabbed hold of one final chance to go to war, signing up for a tour of duty in Afghanistan that thrust him to the front line of the global war on terrorism. McHale fretted that his Pentagon profile made him a high-value Taliban target, and heightened the danger to those around him. But he could not resist. His six months in Afghanistan was a huge leap from Capitol Hill, where he served three terms as a Democratic House member from Bethlehem, Pa., and from the security of his ornate office on the Pentagon's D Ring. What McHale brought home from time on the battlefield was a gritty, sweat-stained understanding of the conflict no other senior civilian at the Pentagon can match. In a recent interview, McHale said that the war in Afghanistan should be "judged on its own merits." At a time when the U.S. role in Iraq inflames many Americans, McHale urges that the United States intensify its focus on a nation where the fight against terrorism isn't burdened by the mistakes and civil discord as it has been in Iraq. McHale insists that the "noble cause" in Afghanistan is winnable and is a fight embraced by most Afghans. "The challenge in Afghanistan . . . ought not to be merged with the quite different and distinct challenges in Iraq," he said. "The Afghan people have a growing sense of unity. The Afghan people share an overwhelming commitment to freedom and democracy. In Afghanistan, sectarian violence is almost nonexistent." McHale's assessment is fraught with a sense of urgency. Visiting Kabul last week, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates was told by U.S. military and intelligence officials that al-Qaeda might be increasing its activities in the country. McHale described Marines as a perfect fit for Afghanistan, with its rugged terrain and the need for small units to be integrated into the local populace. At his core, McHale - a compact man whose face is etched with weather-worn lines - is a leatherneck. "You walked into his office and you knew it belonged to someone in the military," said Geoff Plague, who worked for McHale throughout his congressional career. A Marine sword hung on the wall of his congressional office, and even now, McHale often speaks of being buried in his dress blues. Pete McCloskey, a former California congressman and Marine whom McHale met as a college student, inspired him to enlist and, later, to seek public office. As a citizen-soldier, McHale viewed elective office as an "honorable" alternative to military duty, though he often said that, given the choice between being either a Marine or a congressman, he'd choose the uniform. So close friends were not surprised that McHale reverted to military mode when he urged President Clinton to resign during the Lewinsky scandal, and when he later voted for three of four articles of impeachment against the president. "Clinton was the commander in chief and, as a military man, resigning was what Paul thought he should do," recalled James Wiltraut, who served as McHale's senior adviser. McHale enlisted in the Marine Corps after graduating from Lehigh University in 1972, and spent two years on active duty. After law school at Georgetown, McHale practiced law for five years in Bethlehem, then won election to the state House of Representatives in 1982, where he served five terms. In 1991, he resigned his seat after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, and, as a Marine reservist, volunteered for active duty and served as an infantry officer in the first Iraq war. Returning home after two years, McHale decided to go back to public office. He won a U.S. House of Representatives seat from the Allentown-Bethlehem area. But during his third term, he decided it would be his last after his young son, Luke, told McHale as he left home for Washington one day: "You've been gone my whole life." He resumed his law practice, but several years later he came under consideration for a newly created job as assistant secretary for homeland defense. According to former staff members, McHale had contact with high-ranking Pentagon officials through his work on the House Armed Services Committee and his cofounding of a National Guard and Reserve Caucus in the House. Several generals recommended him for the post, and their advocacy - and McHale's military service - was enough to win the appointment in February 2003 from then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who normally was not inclined to reward Democrats. This is the job he was willing to trade with the lieutenant he encountered in the Afghan mountains. From a Pentagon office in an area damaged by the Sept. 11, 2001, attack, McHale supervises the homeland defense activities of the Department of Defense and coordinates with military allies throughout North, Central and South America. Recently, back from Afghanistan, McHale supervised military assistance in fighting the California wildfires and participated in a three-city mock terrorist drill involving a radioactive "dirty" bomb. In August 2006, McHale formally retired from the Marines, and was feted with a "sunset" ceremony in Washington. Yet McHale knew then that he was not actually letting go. During a family kayaking trip earlier that summer, McHale decided he would apply for one more combat tour. In September he was searching a Marine Corps Web site for a post that he might fill and found one in Afghanistan, where he could replace another reserve colonel. His superiors in the Marine Corps agreed to his request. "Then I discussed it with the secretary of defense," McHale said, and he received permission to take a leave from his position as assistant secretary. Afghanistan was a good choice, he thought, because of that nation's role in what history calls the "Great Game" - the battle for a geopolitical keystone - and its new significance. "I was inclined toward Afghanistan because I had read about and admired their warrior spirit," said McHale, who speaks passionately in a painfully earnest manner, peppered with frequent historic and literary references. On McHale's desk sit copies of The Federalist, Lincoln's Speeches and Writings, and de Tocqueville's Democracy in America. He is a well-read, thoughtful individual who seems almost apolitical in his views. Although he often speaks to civic groups, McHale is wary of the news media after receiving some painful criticism, terming him a political opportunist, when he left the Pennsylvania legislature to fight in the Gulf War. When he returned to active duty in December 2006, he turned away all requests for interviews. His job in Afghanistan was to advise Afghan Interior Minister Zarar Ahmad Moqbil, head of the Afghan national police force. When he wasn't traveling around the country with Zarar, McHale commuted by convoy from a room in a military camp in Kabul to an office four blocks away. In the six years since the United States drove out the Taliban, its mission has evolved from conventional warfare to combat support for the fledgling national army and police force of the government led by President Hamid Karzai. A resurgent Taliban has been attacking district police headquarters in the south. "The Taliban's goal is to kill police officers and other municipal officials in these headquarters and undercut the presence and local strength of the Karzai government," McHale said. For him, this is ground zero for the war on terrorism - trying to defend a relatively new democracy against terrorist attacks. The Afghan police force is undermanned in large part due to a culture of corruption that c |
