The Early Bird 6 April 2007 Military News

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GATES/PACE BRIEFING
1. Defense Secretary Sees Encouraging Signs In Baghdad
(Washington Post)...Josh White
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said yesterday that he believes the military's operation to secure Baghdad is showing "positive" early signs but that he is reluctant to use "happy talk" to describe the situation in Iraq because it remains violent.
2. Troop 'Surge' Duration Unclear, Gates Says
(Los Angeles Times)...Peter Spiegel
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Thursday that it was unclear how long the current buildup of U.S. forces in Baghdad would last and that commanders would have to wait until midsummer to evaluate whether it was working.
3. Surge Is A Slow Slog, Says Gates
(New York Daily News)...Richard Sisk
Eight weeks into the Baghdad troop surge, Defense Secretary Robert Gates pointed to slow progress yesterday despite the rising U.S. and British death toll.
4. Gates: Withdrawal Timeline Will Lead To 'Dramatic Increase In Sectarian Violence'
(Washington Examiner)...Rowan Scarborough
The Pentagon raised the stakes Thursday in the debate over bills to fund the Iraq war, with Defense Secretary Robert Gates saying the legislation’s troop withdrawal timelines would lead to “a dramatic increase in sectarian violence.”
5. China Mum On Pace Query On Anti-Satellite System
(Washington Times)...Bill Gertz
China's senior military leaders refused to disclose any details about a recent test of a new anti-satellite weapon system or other aspects of a secret space-arms program, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told reporters yesterday.
IRAQ -- PREWAR INTELLIGENCE
6. Hussein's Prewar Ties To Al-Qaeda Discounted
(Washington Post)...R. Jeffrey Smith
Captured Iraqi documents and intelligence interrogations of Saddam Hussein and two former aides "all confirmed" that Hussein's regime was not directly cooperating with al-Qaeda before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, according to a declassified Defense Department report released yesterday.
7. Pentagon Probe Fills In Blanks On Iraq War Groundwork
(Los Angeles Times)...Peter Spiegel
A memo calling for progress on linking Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein marked the beginnings of Feith's project.
8. Hussein-Qaeda Link 'Inappropriate,' Report Says
(New York Times)...Bloomberg News
The Pentagon provided “inappropriate” analysis for its reports of a strong link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, a finding that was cited by the White House as a rationale for invading Iraq, a report by the Pentagon inspector general says.
IRAQ
9. Eight U.S., Four British Soldiers Die In Scattered Attacks In Iraq
(Washington Post)...Joshua Partlow
Eight U.S. soldiers have been killed in Iraq in shootings and bombings over the past three days, and four British soldiers and an interpreter died in an attack Thursday in the southern city of Basra, according to American and British officials.
10. 6 Americans And 4 Britons Are Killed In Attacks In Iraq
(New York Times)...Kirk Semple
Six American and four British soldiers were killed in separate attacks around Iraq, coalition officials said Thursday, while an American helicopter crashed south of Baghdad, wounding four soldiers.
11. Guard Brigades May Return To Iraq
(New York Times)...Associated Press
Several National Guard brigades are expected to be notified soon that they could be sent to Iraq around the first of 2008, a senior Defense Department official said Thursday. If their assignment to Iraq is ultimately approved by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, it would be the first time full Guard combat brigades were sent back to Iraq for a second tour.
12. 1,300 Heading To Iraq
(Baltimore Sun)...Matthew Dolan
The Maryland National Guard will send roughly 1,300 of its part-time soldiers to Iraq in the largest call-up of combat troops from the state since U.S. forces stormed the beaches at Normandy more than 60 years ago.
13. US Priority: Managing Captives In Iraq
(Christian Science Monitor)...Gordon Lubold
As the Baghdad security plan under Army Gen. David Petraeus moves forward, US and Iraqi forces are apprehending hundreds of insurgents, terrorists, and other criminals. Many of them are quickly being transferred to the Iraqis for detainment. There's just one problem: The Iraqi judicial system, which is responsible for processing such detainees, isn't yet up to the task.
ARMY
14. Why Our Army Is At The Breaking Point
(Time)...Mark Thompson
Exhausted troops. Worn out equipment. Reduced training. The lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan -- and how to undo the damage.
15. Book Details Army Drug Experiments
(USA Today)...Richard Willing
Army doctors gave soldier volunteers synthetic marijuana, LSD and two dozen other psychoactive drugs during experiments aimed at developing chemical weapons that could incapacitate enemy soldiers, a psychiatrist who performed the research says in a new memoir.
NAVY
16. Accuser Testifies In Assault Case
(Washington Post)...Associated Press
A Naval Academy midshipman had sex with a fellow student three times in a Washington hotel last year without her consent, the woman testified yesterday in the midshipman's court-martial.
NATIONAL GUARD/RESERVE
17. 'No Mission Is Ever The Same'
(Washington Post)...Philip Rucker
...Flying a helicopter in a war zone is a dangerous mission. And at 59, Johnson is among the oldest to have flown in Iraq. But Johnson says he doesn't think about the hazards.
18. U.S. Attorney Blames His Firing On Reserve Service
(Washington Times)...James W. Brosnan, Scripps Howard News Service
An independent government agency is investigating a complaint that President Bush illegally fired the U.S. attorney for New Mexico because the prosecutor spent too much time away from the office on Naval Reserve duty.
AFGHANISTAN
19. Dutch Soldiers Stress Restraint In Afghanistan
(New York Times)...C. J. Chivers
...Many American units have been conducting sweeps and raids. But here in Uruzgan Province, where the Taliban operate openly, a Dutch-led task force has mostly shunned combat. Its counterinsurgency tactics emphasize efforts to improve Afghan living conditions and self-governance, rather than hunting the Taliban’s fighters. Bloodshed is out.
20. Suicide Blast Kills 4 Near Parliament
(Los Angeles Times)...Times Wire Reports
A suicide bomber killed three civilians and a police officer near Afghanistan's parliament today in Kabul, police and witnesses said.
IRAN
21. No Diplomatic Change After Britons’ Release
(New York Times)...David E. Sanger
The Bush administration said Thursday that the release of 15 British sailors and marines held by Iran for two weeks created no new openings in dealing with Tehran, and it urged American allies to return their attention to enforcing new sanctions against Iran.
22. Rice Open To Bilateral Talks With Counterpart
(Washington Times)...Nicholas Kralev
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is willing to meet one on one with her Iranian counterpart at an international conference on Iraq, the State Department said yesterday.
23. Freed Britons Return Home As Calls For Probe Intensify
(Washington Post)...John Ward Anderson
The 15 British marines and sailors held captive by Iran for nearly two weeks returned home on Thursday as there were increasing calls for an investigation of the affair and confusion about whether their sudden release was part of a deal.
NORTH KOREA
24. National Security Aide To Go To N. Korea
(USA Today)...Unattributed
President Bush's top adviser on North Korea will accompany New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson on a rare trip to North Korea next week, U.S. officials said Thursday. Victor Cha, who specializes in Asian affairs for the National Security Council, will fly with Richardson to Pyongyang on a mission to claim the remains of U.S. servicemembers killed during the Korean War.
25. N. Korea Seeks Aid As Millions Face Famine
(Washington Times)...Robert J. Saiget, Agence France-Presse
Unable to feed millions of its people, North Korea has made an abrupt about-face and asked the World Food Program to increase its aid, an official with the U.N. agency said this week.
POLL
26. Partisan Press Perception
(Washington Times)...Jennifer Harper
News of the war in Iraq has its believers -- and its skeptics. Republicans continue to have strong confidence in the information they receive from the U.S. military on the situation, coupled with an overwhelming distrust of the mainstream press and its portrayal of the war in Iraq. Among Democrats, the sentiments are reversed.
BUSINESS
27. Lockheed's Presidential Helicopter Criticized
(Washington Post)...Unattributed
Bethesda-based Lockheed Martin is working to reduce the weight of the new VH-71 presidential helicopter to meet requirements, the Navy said. The Government Accountability Office said in a March 30 report that the aircraft exceeded the limit by 1,200 pounds, without giving the actual weight.
28. Ex-Navy Contractor Gets Year
(Washington Times)...Jerry Seper
A former U.S. Navy contractor was sentenced yesterday in federal court in Virginia to a year and a day in prison and ordered to pay $35,000 in fines and restitution for sabotaging a national security computer network at a Navy command center in Italy.
29. Checklist
(Washington Times)...Unattributed
Sen. John McCain, the Arizona Republican and presidential candidate already critical of military program cost overruns, wants details from the Air Force on a disputed $15 billion rescue-helicopter contract awarded to Boeing Co.
VETERANS
30. Improving Rate Of Vets' Survival Stresses System
(Miami Herald)...Erika Bolstad
It has become the overriding medical legacy of the Iraq War and the top mission of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs: mental health care.
MILITARY
31. Saying Thanks To Military Families
(USA Today)...Unattributed
Thanks USA awards scholarships to spouses and children of U.S. combat personnel.
32. Pat Tillman Fundraiser Expected To Draw A Crowd
(USA Today)...Unattributed
More than 10,000 runners from 50 states are expected to take part Saturday in the third annual Pat Tillman Run, a fundraiser for the foundation named for the late pro football player-turned-Army Ranger.
OPINION
33. Britain's Humiliation -- And Europe's
(Washington Post)...Charles Krauthammer
Iran has pulled off a tidy little success with its seizure and release of those 15 British sailors and marines: a pointed humiliation of Britain, with a bonus demonstration of Iran's intention to push back against coalition challenges to its assets in Iraq. All with total impunity.
34. Calming The Waters In The Gulf
(Washington Post)...David Ignatius
Here's an American acronym we ought to translate promptly into the Iranian language of Farsi: INCSEA. It's shorthand for a May 1972 agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union to prevent dangerous incidents at sea, and it's a model for how to begin reducing dangerous tensions with Iran.
35. Warrior Politics
(Atlantic Monthly)...Andrew J. Bacevich
The U.S. military is becoming more politically assertive. This is not a welcome development.
36. Bring On The Iraq Micromanagers
(Los Angeles Times)...Rosa Brooks
Why Congress has every right to pull strings and show leadership in executing the war.
37. Unmobilized For War
(Boston Globe)...Joseph Kearns Goodwin
America is not at war. To be sure, there are fierce battles in Afghanistan and Iraq where American soldiers are dying day after day. Yet, while our troops and their families have seen their lives altered in fundamental ways, the average American has been asked to sacrifice almost nothing.
CORRECTIONS
38. Corrections And Amplifications
(Wall Street Journal)...The Wall Street Journal
Army Lt. Fred Nicholson, who served in Iraq, is in the U.S. awaiting discharge from the Army because he doesn't have a college degree, which is now required of officers. The headline of a Politics & Economics article yesterday about his case incorrectly said the issue was keeping him out of Iraq. A summary box accompanying the article incorrectly said he already had been discharged.

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Washington Post
April 6, 2007
Pg. 16
Defense Secretary Sees Encouraging Signs In Baghdad
By Josh White, Washington Post Staff Writer
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said yesterday that he believes the military's operation to secure Baghdad is showing "positive" early signs but that he is reluctant to use "happy talk" to describe the situation in Iraq because it remains violent.
Gates told reporters at the Pentagon that it is still too early to tell whether the "surge" into Baghdad is working and said top commanders probably will not know until midsummer whether their efforts at clearing out Iraq's largest city are making significant progress.
Displaying a sense of caution, as he often has in his first months at the Pentagon's helm, Gates said predictions that the U.S. security plan would elicit a rise in large-scale bombings and other attacks to derail the effort have so far come true.
"I think that there is a great reluctance to engage in happy talk about this," Gates said. "It's a tough environment. . . . And I think we'll just have to wait several more months before we're in a position to make any real evaluation."
The defense secretary's comments come on the heels of upbeat messages from senior Republican members of Congress who have sought to show the war as moving in the right direction. Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), ranking minority member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said this week that there is "reason for cautious optimism" after he visited a Baghdad marketplace under heavy security.
McCain, who is campaigning for president and has long advocated sending more troops into Iraq, said that he never before has been able to walk the streets of Baghdad or drive from Baghdad International Airport along the notorious airport road -- a formerly deadly stretch that was made more secure over the past two years, before the troop buildup. Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), who joined McCain on the trip, echoed McCain's "cautious optimism."
Gates said he is unsure how long the troop increase in Baghdad is going to last but said it probably will be months and not years, depending on the situation on the ground and the level of violence. He warned that congressional efforts to set withdrawal deadlines could be disastrous for Iraq.
"I believe that if we were precipitously to withdraw from Baghdad at this point that there would be a dramatic increase in sectarian violence," Gates said, pointing to killings by death squads and targeted efforts to affect the surge.
Gates appeared at the news conference with Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and both said they also are preparing for increased fighting in Afghanistan. Taliban and other enemy forces have traditionally made a push each spring since the beginning of the war in 2002. U.S. commanders are hoping to push back with their own offensive this year.
Pace said the NATO commander in Afghanistan, Army Gen. Dan K. McNeill, has begun his offensive operations: "I do not want to get into the specifics of the operations, but it will unfold very clearly here in the next couple days what he has begun."
Pace also said that the deployments to two wars have put a strain on the armed services and have affected readiness for other potential conflicts, but that the United States has "enormous residual capacity" of more than 2.1 million troops not currently deployed. He said any additional wars would likely involve more "brute force" and could result in more casualties because precision equipment is committed to Iraq and Afghanistan.
"It would take longer then for the reserve forces to be remobilized and to get to the fight, but there is zero doubt about the outcome," Pace said. "It would simply take us longer than we would like, or than it would if we were not doing anything else, to defeat any potential enemy."

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Los Angeles Times
April 6, 2007
Troop 'Surge' Duration Unclear, Gates Says
Evaluation of the military buildup in Iraq won't take place till midsummer, he asserts.
By Peter Spiegel, Times Staff Writer
WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Thursday that it was unclear how long the current buildup of U.S. forces in Baghdad would last and that commanders would have to wait until midsummer to evaluate whether it was working.
Gates has said he hopes to end the deployment of 21,500 additional combat troops and thousands of support personnel by December. But in recent weeks, some senior officers, including the Army general in charge of day-to-day operations in Iraq, have suggested that the so-called surge may have to be extended into early next year. The recommendation is being debated by senior commanders.
At a Pentagon news conference, Gates did not directly address a suggestion by Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the operations commander, to maintain the higher troop levels. He said any decisions on troop numbers would depend on progress on the ground.
"The truth is, I think people don't know right now how long this will last," Gates said. "The thinking of those involved in the process was that it would be a period of months, not a period of years, or a year and a half or something like that."
The duration of the troop buildup has become an issue of increasing political rancor as congressional Democrats have attempted to force the Bush administration to begin a withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq. The White House and Congress are on a collision course over war funding and troop levels, with President Bush pledging to veto legislation requiring him to start bringing troops home.
The boost in troops ordered by Bush in January has increased burdens on an already stretched Army. Three major units are being deployed as part of the new plan without the standard yearlong stays at their home bases.
In January, Gates adjusted Pentagon deployment policies to allow for more frequent call-ups of the National Guard, a step intended to relieve some of the stress on active-duty Army units. But he acknowledged Thursday that even with the new policy, more combat brigades might be forced to serve extended deployments and others might find their "dwell time" at home shortened.
"I think we always anticipated … that there would be a transition time when there would be both extensions and violation of dwell policy, just because of the magnitude of the commitments that we have," Gates said, adding that it was "very possible" such hardships could last for another year or two.
Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said shortened home stays cut into training time, meaning that some units would be given only urgently needed training rather than the "full spectrum" of tactics normally provided.
"You end up with your troops who are well trained for the mission they're going to, but you do forfeit some of the kind of training you would like to do just to have a little bit more readiness in case something happens that you're not expecting," Pace said at the same news conference.
Other members of the Joint Chiefs have raised such concerns, including Gen. James T. Conway, commandant of the Marine Corps. Conway said he was concerned that Marines were increasingly unprepared for rapid landings and attacks common in the early days of a crisis, which has been their primary mission in the past.
Even shortened, the training schedules have hampered the Pentagon's ability to send troops to Iraq for the buildup as quickly as it would like, Gates said. Under the current schedule, all five Army brigades that are part of the new plan are to arrive no earlier than June.
Gates said war planners had attempted to accelerate the deployments. But the military's inability to move equipment to the region more quickly and the need to keep units on a regular training routine forced a slower schedule, he said.
"One of the principal reasons that it was not possible to accelerate it was that we want to make sure that every single one of those brigades is adequately trained before they actually enter Iraq," he said.

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New York Daily News
April 6, 2007
Surge Is A Slow Slog, Says Gates
By Richard Sisk, Daily News Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON - Eight weeks into the Baghdad troop surge, Defense Secretary Robert Gates pointed to slow progress yesterday despite the rising U.S. and British death toll.
"The early signs are positive," said Gates, adding that an initial spike in violence had been expected by Gen. David Petraeus, the overall U.S. commander.
Gates spoke after the military reported that eight more U.S. troops were killed in and around the Iraqi capital in the last three days. Four British troops - including two women - and their Kuwaiti interpreter were killed in an ambush in the southern city of Basra.
For the first time in more than a month, a U.S. helicopter went down, but all nine aboard survived. Iraqi officials said anti-aircraft fire from a Sunni neighborhood downed the chopper south of Baghdad, but U.S. officials did not confirm the account.
The U.S. changed flying tactics to avoid ground fire after seven helicopters went down earlier this year, killing a total of 28 people.
At least 19 U.S. and six British troops have been killed in the first week this month, and at least 80 U.S. troops have been killed in each of the first three months of the year.
Gates said it would not be known until sometime this summer whether the surge of 21,500 troops into Baghdad ordered by President Bush was working.
"Everybody is being very careful," Gates said. "I think that there is a great reluctance to engage in happy talk about this. It's a tough environment."
The attack on British troops was the worst in four months, and it came as 15 British marines and sailors were released by Iran.

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Washington Examiner
April 6, 2007
Gates: Withdrawal Timeline Will Lead To 'Dramatic Increase In Sectarian Violence'
By Rowan Scarborough, The Examiner
WASHINGTON - The Pentagon raised the stakes Thursday in the debate over bills to fund the Iraq war, with Defense Secretary Robert Gates saying the legislation’s troop withdrawal timelines would lead to “a dramatic increase in sectarian violence.”
The Pentagon also released a letter from the four military service chiefs in which they urged lawmakers to approve an emergency war-spending bill or risk a less-ready armed forces.
If the bill does not become law this month, the chiefs of the Air Force, Army, Marines and Navy wrote, “the armed services will be forced to take increasingly disruptive measures in order to sustain combat operations. The impacts on readiness and quality of life could be profound.”
Gates, speaking to reporters at the Pentagon, said, “I believe if we were precipitously to withdraw from Baghdad at this point, that there would be a dramatic increase in sectarian violence.”
The defense chief said Gen. David Petraeus, the top commander in Iraq, will not know if an ongoing troop surge is working until the summer.
The comments come as President Bush and the Democratic-controlled Congress head for a showdown in how or whether to fund the Iraq war’s fifth year.
Democratic-sponsored House and Senate bills both contain timelines for American troops to leave Iraq next year. Bush has promised to veto such a bill.
Congress is in recess and has not yet reconciled the two bills so a final one can be sent to the president. Once Bush vetoes it, then a new debate kicks off over whether Democrats will send him a “clean bill” absent timelines.
Some Democrats advocate sending no bill at all, effectively cutting off funds, which would force Bush to order home the troops this year. Regardless, it seems unlikely at this point that a funding bill will be signed into law this month.
The four service chiefs warned in the letter that “spending restrictions will delay and disrupt our follow-on forces as they prepare for war, possibly compromising future readiness and strategic agility.”
Signing the letter were Gen. Peter Schoomaker, Army chief; Gen. T. Michael Moseley, Air Force chief; Adm. Michael Mullen, chief of naval operations; and Gen. James Conway, Marine commandant.

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Washington Times
April 6, 2007
Pg. 9
China Mum On Pace Query On Anti-Satellite System
By Bill Gertz, The Washington Times
China's senior military leaders refused to disclose any details about a recent test of a new anti-satellite weapon system or other aspects of a secret space-arms program, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told reporters yesterday.
Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace, who recently returned from a four-day visit to China, also said NATO forces have launched a spring offensive in Afghanistan against ousted Taliban militia.
On China's Jan. 11 test, Gen. Pace said he asked Chinese leaders during several meetings about the use of a missile to destroy a Chinese satellite in low-earth orbit.
"I was very direct with them. I told them that, you know, as we look at transparency, it was difficult for the world to understand what China was doing with their anti-satellite test," Gen. Pace said. "They had not announced it beforehand, they did not acknowledge it until significantly after they did it, and therefore, the world was confused about what the intent was and what their policies toward space activity were. They did not answer that question."
Gen. Pace said that on some issues, the Chinese military leaders were "very open," but "they were not open about that."
Pentagon officials said intelligence estimates indicate that China will have produced enough satellite interceptors by 2010 to destroy most U.S. low-earth orbit satellites. It was hoped that the Chinese would disclose to Gen. Pace more details about the anti-satellite weapons program, which also includes ground-based lasers and electronic jammers that -- if used against both military and civilian satellites -- would severely damage U.S. government and society.
Asked about the Chinese refusal to explain the anti-satellite program, Gen. Pace said, "Well, on that specific point, I don't know what their policy is and I don't know what their intent was, so I am still, as are others, confused."
Gen. Pace met with his Chinese counterpart, Gen. Liang Guanglie, chief of the Chinese general staff; Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing; and Defense Minister Cao Gangchuan.
He discussed Taiwan with Guo Boxiong, vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, the Communist Party entity that runs the military. Despite the silence on the anti-satellite test, Gen. Pace described the visit as "very productive" and said the Chinese "demonstrated their desire to increase" the transparency of their military activities.
On the spring military offensive in Afghanistan, Gen. Pace said "the NATO operations have begun."
"This is a NATO operation that, by name, started probably three or four weeks ago and will continue now for several months at various levels of intensity as various pockets of enemy are identified and taken under action," he said.
Gen. Pace declined to say how large the military offensive is because it would reveal to "our enemies what they might possibly avoid or not avoid."
Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who met reporters with Gen. Pace, said he has been worried that the level of violence in Afghanistan during springtime has increased "fairly steadily" in the past two or three years.
The NATO offensive is to make sure "that with our focus on Iraq, that we did not take our eye off the ball in Afghanistan, either." To bolster forces in Afghanistan, Mr. Gates said that he extended the mission of a U.S. brigade in the country and that other forces will be sent from Europe.
"This is part of a longer-term effort not just to defeat renewed Taliban attempts to stake out a position in southern and eastern Afghanistan in particular, but to help the Afghan government strengthen its capacity to help the Afghan people for economic development, for better governance, to get control of the narcotics problem," Mr. Gates said.
Mr. Gates said he met yesterday with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer to discuss Afghanistan and the need for NATO members to fulfill troop and equipment commitments and to improve coordination and cooperation.
Both Pentagon leaders said the plan to add five combat brigades to Baghdad for stability operations is on schedule to have most of the forces in place by June. Mr. Gates said any decision on troops withdrawals from Iraq would be made by Central Command leaders no earlier than this summer.

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Washington Post
April 6, 2007
Pg. 1
Hussein's Prewar Ties To Al-Qaeda Discounted
Pentagon Report Says Contacts Were Limited
By R. Jeffrey Smith, Washington Post Staff Writer
Captured Iraqi documents and intelligence interrogations of Saddam Hussein and two former aides "all confirmed" that Hussein's regime was not directly cooperating with al-Qaeda before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, according to a declassified Defense Department report released yesterday.
The declassified version of the report, by acting Inspector General Thomas F. Gimble, also contains new details about the intelligence community's prewar consensus that the Iraqi government and al-Qaeda figures had only limited contacts, and about its judgments that reports of deeper links were based on dubious or unconfirmed information. The report had been released in summary form in February.
The report's release came on the same day that Vice President Cheney, appearing on Rush Limbaugh's radio program, repeated his allegation that al-Qaeda was operating inside Iraq "before we ever launched" the war, under the direction of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the terrorist killed last June.
"This is al-Qaeda operating in Iraq," Cheney told Limbaugh's listeners about Zarqawi, who he said had "led the charge for Iraq." Cheney cited the alleged history to illustrate his argument that withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq would "play right into the hands of al-Qaeda."
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), who requested the report's declassification, said in a written statement that the complete text demonstrates more fully why the inspector general concluded that a key Pentagon office -- run by then-Undersecretary of Defense Douglas J. Feith -- had inappropriately written intelligence assessments before the March 2003 invasion alleging connections between al-Qaeda and Iraq that the U.S. intelligence consensus disputed.
The report, in a passage previously marked secret, said Feith's office had asserted in a briefing given to Cheney's chief of staff in September 2002 that the relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda was "mature" and "symbiotic," marked by shared interests and evidenced by cooperation across 10 categories, including training, financing and logistics.
Instead, the report said, the CIA had concluded in June 2002 that there were few substantiated contacts between al-Qaeda operatives and Iraqi officials and had said that it lacked evidence of a long-term relationship like the ones Iraq had forged with other terrorist groups.
"Overall, the reporting provides no conclusive signs of cooperation on specific terrorist operations," that CIA report said, adding that discussions on the issue were "necessarily speculative."
The CIA had separately concluded that reports of Iraqi training on weapons of mass destruction were "episodic, sketchy, or not corroborated in other channels," the inspector general's report said. It quoted an August 2002 CIA report describing the relationship as more closely resembling "two organizations trying to feel out or exploit each other" rather than cooperating operationally.
The CIA was not alone, the defense report emphasized. The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) had concluded that year that "available reporting is not firm enough to demonstrate an ongoing relationship" between the Iraqi regime and al-Qaeda, it said.
But the contrary conclusions reached by Feith's office -- and leaked to the conservative Weekly Standard magazine before the war -- were publicly praised by Cheney as the best source of information on the topic, a circumstance the Pentagon report cites in documenting the impact of what it described as "inappropriate" work.
Feith has vigorously defended his work, accusing Gimble of "giving bad advice based on incomplete fact-finding and poor logic," and charging that the acting inspector general has been "cheered on by the chairmen of the Senate intelligence and armed services committees." In January, Feith's successor at the Pentagon, Eric S. Edelman, wrote a 52-page rebuttal to the inspector general's report that disputed its analysis and its recommendations for Pentagon reform.
Cheney's public statements before and after the war about the risks posed by Iraq have closely tracked the briefing Feith's office presented to the vice president's then-chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. That includes the briefing's depiction of an alleged 2001 meeting in Prague between an Iraqi intelligence official and one of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers as one of eight "Known Iraq-Al Qaida Contacts."
The defense report states that at the time, "the intelligence community disagreed with the briefing's assessment that the alleged meeting constituted a 'known contact' " -- a circumstance that the report said was known to Feith's office. But his office had bluntly concluded in a July 2002 critique of a CIA report on Iraq's relationship with al-Qaeda that the CIA's interpretation of the facts it cited "ought to be ignored."
The briefing to Libby was also presented with slight variations to then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, then-CIA Director George J. Tenet and then-deputy national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley. It was prepared in part by someone whom the defense report described as a "junior Naval Reservist" intelligence analyst detailed to Feith's office from the DIA. The person is not named in the report, but Edelman wrote that she was requested by Feith's office.
The briefing, a copy of which was declassified and released yesterday by Levin, goes so far as to state that "Fragmentary reporting points to possible Iraqi involvement not only in 9/11 but also in previous al Qaida attacks." That idea was dismissed in 2004 by a presidential commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, noting that "no credible evidence" existed to support it.
When a senior intelligence analyst working for the government's counterterrorism task force obtained an early account of the conclusions by Feith's office -- titled "Iraq and al-Qaida: Making the Case" -- the analyst prepared a detailed rebuttal calling it of "no intelligence value" and taking issue with 15 of 26 key conclusions, the report states. The analyst's rebuttal was shared with intelligence officers on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but evidently not with others.
Edelman complained in his own account of the incident that a senior Joint Chiefs analyst -- in responding to a suggestion by the DIA analyst that the "Making the Case" account be widely circulated -- told its author that "putting it out there would be playing into the hands of people" such as then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, and belittled the author for trying to support "some agenda of people in the building."
But the inspector general's report, in a footnote, commented that it is "noteworthy . . . that post-war debriefs of Sadaam Hussein, [former Iraqi foreign minister] Tariq Aziz, [former Iraqi intelligence minister Mani al-Rashid] al Tikriti, and [senior al-Qaeda operative Ibn al-Shaykh] al-Libi, as well as document exploitation by DIA all confirmed that the Intelligence Community was correct: Iraq and al-Qaida did not cooperate in all categories" alleged by Feith's office.
From these sources, the report added, "the terms the Intelligence Community used to describe the relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida were validated, [namely] 'no conclusive signs,' and 'direct cooperation . . . has not been established.' "
Zarqawi, whom Cheney depicted yesterday as an agent of al-Qaeda in Iraq before the war, was not then an al-Qaeda member but was the leader of an unaffiliated terrorist group who occasionally associated with al-Qaeda adherents, according to several intelligence analysts. He publicly allied himself with al-Qaeda in early 2004, after the U.S. invasion.
Staff writer Dafna Linzer and staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.

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Los Angeles Times
April 6, 2007
Pentagon Probe Fills In Blanks On Iraq War Groundwork
A memo calling for progress on linking Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein marked the beginnings of Feith's project.
By Peter Spiegel, Times Staff Writer
WASHINGTON — Just four months after the Sept. 11 attacks, then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz dashed off a memo to a senior Pentagon colleague, demanding action to identify connections between Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime and Al Qaeda.
"We don't seem to be making much progress pulling together intelligence on links between Iraq and Al Qaeda," Wolfowitz wrote in the Jan. 22, 2002, memo to Douglas J. Feith, the department's No. 3 official.
Using Pentagon jargon for the secretary of Defense, Donald H. Rumsfeld, he added: "We owe SecDef some analysis of this subject. Please give me a recommendation on how best to proceed. Appreciate the short turn-around."
Wolfowitz's memo, released Thursday, is included in a recently declassified report by the Pentagon's inspector general. The memo marked the beginnings of what would become a controversial yearlong Pentagon project supervised by Feith to convince the most senior members of the Bush administration that Hussein and Al Qaeda were linked — a conclusion that was hotly disputed by U.S. intelligence agencies at the time and has been discredited in the years since.
In excerpts released in February, Thomas F. Gimble, the acting inspector general of the Pentagon, criticized the project as an alternative intelligence assessment that was improper. However, Gimble said, the operation was not illegal or unauthorized, because Pentagon directives allowed Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz to assign the work.
Many of the activities of the intelligence unit Feith headed are now well-known. But the release of the full inspector general's report provides more detail about how a group of Pentagon officials and on-loan intelligence analysts were able to shunt aside contradictory reports and convince top administration officials that they had powerful evidence of connections between Hussein's regime and Al Qaeda. The 121-page report was released by Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and is posted on the senator's website, levin.senate.gov/.
Feith has said his project was an appropriate, rigorous effort to question assumptions made by U.S. intelligence agencies. On a website Feith set up in response to the inspector general's report, http:Douglas J. Feith , he states: "This IG report controversy is, in essence, a debate over whether the CIA should be protected against criticism by policy officials." (Emphasis is his.)
The current Defense secretary, Robert M. Gates, has disavowed Feith's work, saying in his confirmation hearings and in other public statements that he believes all intelligence analysis should be left to the CIA and other intelligence agencies, which are subject to congressional oversight.
Still, Feith's successor, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Eric S. Edelman, sent the inspector general a 52-page defense of Feith's project.
In the critique, released with the report, Edelman said that all the activities labeled as "inappropriate" were authorized by Wolfowitz or Rumsfeld, and that the inspector general's discouragement of such outside analysis would have a "dampening effect" on future efforts to challenge intelligence assessments.
"Bipartisan reports and studies by various commissions and congressional committees since the 9/11 attacks have stressed the need for vigorous debate, hard questions and alternative thinking of the sort that motivated the work reviewed in this project," Edelman said.
In making its case for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration cited evidence that Hussein was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction. An important secondary reason was the belief in connections between Iraq and Al Qaeda. Though the CIA has been criticized for erroneously gauging Iraq's weapons programs, its assessment of Iraq's ties to Al Qaeda proved more accurate.
The report highlights how much credence the Feith group gave to a purported meeting in April 2001 in Prague, Czech Republic, between Mohamed Atta — the lead Sept. 11 hijacker — and Ahmad Khalil Ibrahim Samir Ani, an Iraqi intelligence officer. Briefings that Feith's office gave to senior officials, including Rumsfeld and then-CIA Director George J. Tenet, listed such a meeting on a list of "known contacts" between Iraqis and the terrorist organization, according to the report.
The report of a meeting, based on a single source who was in contact with Czech intelligence, was widely questioned by U.S. intelligence agencies at the time and was never substantiated.
The Defense Intelligence Agency and the CIA each "published reports that disavowed any 'mature, symbiotic' cooperation between Iraq and Al Qaeda," the inspector general's report found. "The intelligence community was united in its assessment that the intelligence on the alleged meeting between Mohammed Atta and al-Ani was at least contradictory, but by no means a 'known contact.' "
The report also said Feith tailored his briefings to his audiences: There were at least three versions of the slides he used in different sessions with senior officials.
His Aug. 15, 2002, briefing for Tenet, for instance, omitted a slide titled "Fundamental Problems With How Intelligence Community Is Assessing Information," which was highly critical of the CIA.
The same slide was included, however, when Feith's office briefed I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, then the vice president's chief of staff, and Stephen Hadley, then deputy national security advisor.
The report said Feith's criticism of the CIA "undercuts the intelligence community," pointing to Vice President Dick Cheney's validation of the material as "your best source of information" on links between Iraq and Al Qaeda.

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New York Times
April 6, 2007
Pg. 8
Hussein-Qaeda Link 'Inappropriate,' Report Says
WASHINGTON, April 5 (Bloomberg) — The Pentagon provided “inappropriate” analysis for its reports of a strong link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, a finding that was cited by the White House as a rationale for invading Iraq, a report by the Pentagon inspector general says.
The declassified report said Defense Department officials “undercut” the intelligence community.
It specifically said that analysts reporting to Douglas Feith, who was the under secretary for policy, told Stephen J. Hadley, the deputy national security adviser at the time, and I. Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, that there were “fundamental problems with how the intelligence community is assessing information.”
The 121-page report, which had been summarized at a Congressional hearing in February by the acting inspector general, Thomas Gimble, was released Thursday by Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan and the chairman of the Armed Services Committee.
By coincidence, it appeared on the day Vice President Cheney again drew a link between the war and Al Qaeda, telling the radio host Rush Limbaugh that “to advocate withdrawal from Iraq at this point seems to me simply would play right into the hands of Al Qaeda.”
Mr. Gimble’s report drew a direct connection between a briefing at the White House on Sept. 16, 2002, and public comments Mr. Cheney made in the days leading to the war four years ago. The criticism of the intelligence community is one of several on a slide used in that briefing.
Inclusion of the slide, which was omitted from an earlier briefing with George Tenet, who was director of central intelligence, “clearly did not bolster support for the intelligence community,” Mr. Gimble wrote.
Mr. Levin, in a statement Thursday, said the analysis from Mr. Feith’s office “was not supported by available intelligence and was contrary to the consensus view of the intelligence community,” yet was “used by the administration to support its public arguments in its case for war.”
The slide used by the Pentagon analysts to brief the White House officials states the intelligence agencies assumed “that secularists and Islamists will not cooperate, even when they have common interests,” and there was “consistent underestimation of importance that would be attached by Iraq and Al Qaeda to hiding a relationship.”
The Pentagon, in written comments included in the report, strongly disputed that the White House briefing and the slide citing “Fundamental Problems” undercut the intelligence community.
“The intelligence community was fully aware of the work under review and commented on it several times,” the Pentagon said, adding that Mr. Tenet, at the suggestion of the defense secretary then, Donald H. Rumsfeld, “was personally briefed.”
Four days after that briefing at the White House, Mr. Cheney referred at fund-raiser to a “well-established pattern of cooperation between Iraq and terrorists.”
And on Dec. 2, he warned in a speech that Mr. Hussein’s government “had high-level contact with Al Qaeda going back a decade and has provided training to Al Qaeda terrorists.” His language mirrored that on a briefing chart titled “Summary of Known Iraq-Al-Qaeda Contacts — 1990-2002.”
Mr. Gimble noted that Mr. Cheney, in an interview in January 2004, praised a memo compiled by the Pentagon analysts that was cited in the conservative magazine Weekly Standard as “your best source of information” on the purported link.
The analysts’ appraisal of the intelligence community was in contrast to that of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in its 2004 report on prewar intelligence. That committee praised the C.I.A.’s approach to assessing a possible link between Mr. Hussein and Al Qaeda as a “methodical approach for assessing a possible Iraq/Al Qaeda relationship” that was “reasonable and objective,” Mr. Gimble wrote.
Mr. Levin also pointed out, “The report specifically states that ‘the C.I.A. and D.I.A. disavowed any “mature, symbiotic” relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda.’ ”
The Pentagon policy offices set up by Mr. Feith have been abolished, and he has left the Pentagon and is writing a book on the war. Mr. Gimble said the establishment of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence should prevent similar inappropriate conduct.

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Washington Post
April 6, 2007
Pg. 15
Eight U.S., Four British Soldiers Die In Scattered Attacks In Iraq
By Joshua Partlow, Washington Post Foreign Service
BAGHDAD, April 5 -- Eight U.S. soldiers have been killed in Iraq in shootings and bombings over the past three days, and four British soldiers and an interpreter died in an attack Thursday in the southern city of Basra, according to American and British officials.
Also Thursday, a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter carrying nine people made a hard landing south of Baghdad. Four of the passengers were injured, including two treated for minor smoke inhalation, said Lt. Col. Josslyn Aberle, a U.S. military spokeswoman in Iraq. An investigation had not determined whether the Black Hawk had been shot at or experienced other difficulties, she said.
The U.S. military deaths, from roadside bombs and small-arms fire, were scattered in and around Baghdad. One U.S. soldier was shot to death Tuesday while patrolling in eastern Baghdad, parts of which are strongholds for Shiite militiamen. Another soldier was killed and a third was wounded that day in small-arms fire while on foot patrol in the southern outskirts of Baghdad.
Four soldiers were killed and four others were wounded Wednesday in two roadside bomb attacks, one in Baghdad and one on the northern outskirts of the city, the military said. Another soldier died from gunfire while on a reconnaissance patrol in eastern Baghdad.
An eighth soldier was killed and two were injured when a roadside bomb exploded near their vehicle in Diyala province, north of Baghdad.
The rate at which U.S. service members are dying in Iraq has remained fairly constant in recent months, even with heightened security measures imposed by the Baghdad security plan and an influx of thousands of troops to the capital. At least 80 U.S. troops were killed in each of the first three months of this year, while 18 Americans were killed in the first four days of April, according to Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, an independent Web site.
The British soldiers killed Thursday were traveling in a Warrior infantry vehicle at 2:20 a.m. in a rural area west of Basra, in southern Iraq, when their patrol was hit by a roadside bomb, rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire, said Lt. Col. Kevin Stratford-Wright, a British military spokesman. The unit had fought off an earlier attack, probably killing at least one gunman, he said.
Five of the eight people in the vehicle were killed in the bombing, he said, and one was seriously injured. British authorities were trying to determine the nationality of the slain interpreter.
Two other British soldiers were shot to death earlier this week, raising to 140 the number of British soldiers who have died in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion.
"Clearly we're all very upset and grieving four of our soldiers," Stratford-Wright said. "But whatever we might feel and grieve as individuals, we just have to get on with the job we have been given."
The night mission was a routine patrol intended to disrupt the activity of the Shiite militiamen who "plague our existence and indeed the existence of the Basra residents," Stratford-Wright said. "We're constantly after these people."
In the restive province of Anbar in western Iraq, U.S.-led troops killed three civilians -- a child, a man and a woman -- while responding to an attack in the violent provincial capital of Ramadi late Tuesday night, said 1st Lt. Shawn Mercer, a U.S. military spokesman.
After U.S. troops came under fire, American aircraft attacked five buildings with "precision guided munitions," he said. In addition to the three deaths, one person identified as an "enemy fighter" was wounded and captured, Mercer said.
Across Baghdad, police found the bodies of 10 people. All were handcuffed and had been shot in the head and the chest, according to Brig. Sultan Salman Sultan of the Interior Ministry.
Also Thursday, the body of Khamail Khalaf, an Iraqi journalist for Radio Free Iraq, was found in western Baghdad, according to a statement from her employer, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Khalaf, who disappeared Tuesday, had been shot in the head, officials said. The mother of three girls had worked for Radio Free Iraq since 2004, reporting on social and cultural life in the country, the statement said.
At least 97 journalists have been killed in Iraq since the start of the war; 76 were Iraqi citizens, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Other Washington Post staff in Iraq contributed to this report.

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New York Times
April 6, 2007
Pg. 12
6 Americans And 4 Britons Are Killed In Attacks In Iraq
By Kirk Semple
BAGHDAD, April 5 — Six American and four British soldiers were killed in separate attacks around Iraq, coalition officials said Thursday, while an American helicopter crashed south of Baghdad, wounding four soldiers.
Four of the Americans died Wednesday and four were wounded when their vehicles were hit by roadside bombs in southern Baghdad and north of the city, the American military command said.
Two soldiers were killed Tuesday and one was wounded in attacks by small-arms fire in eastern and southern Baghdad, the military said.
At least 18 American service members have been killed this month, according to Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, an independent Web site that monitors military and civilian casualties.
The British soldiers were killed, with a civilian interpreter, when they were ambushed Thursday during a patrol mission outside Basra in southern Iraq, the British military said.
A British spokesman, Lt. Col. Kevin Stratford-Wright, said the unit repelled an insurgent attack, hitting at least one of the gunmen before driving away, Agence France-Presse reported. Later, the unit was hit west of Basra by a roadside bomb, followed by small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades, Colonel Stratford-Wright told Agence France-Presse.
All five of the victims died in the roadside bombing, he said.
The attack was the deadliest for British forces in Iraq since last November, when four soldiers were killed when their patrol boat was blown up in the Shatt al Arab waterway near Basra.
In the four years since the American-led invasion in March 2003, at least 140 British soldiers have been killed in Iraq, Iraq Coalition Casualty Count said.
The American military did not divulge the cause of the helicopter crash, which occurred Thursday south of Baghdad. The helicopter was carrying nine people, all of whom were safely evacuated, military officials said.
Reuters quoted witnesses as saying that they heard heavy gunfire before the crash, suggesting that the helicopter had been shot down.
At least nine other helicopters, including two operated by private security companies, have crashed in Iraq since Jan. 20, several brought down by insurgents, the American military reported.
Other violence occurred around Iraq on Thursday. In Baghdad, a car bomber blew himself up outside a government security office in Jamaa, a western neighborhood, killing one civilian and wounding three, an Interior Ministry official said. The blast damaged the nearby headquarters of Baghdad Television, which is owned by the Iraqi Islamic Party, a Sunni Arab organization, the police said.
Mortar shells fell in Shurta, a neighborhood in western Baghdad, killing two people and wounding five, and another mortar shell exploded in Shaab, a northern neighborhood, also killing two and wounding five, the Interior Ministry official said. A bomb planted on a major road in the Adil neighborhood of western Baghdad killed two police officers and wounded six others, he added.
A bomb exploded on a road in Binouk, an eastern neighborhood, killing a civilian and wounding two, the ministry official said, and a guard at Mustansriya University was killed and four were wounded in a shootout with gunmen who tried to kidnap a student.
A sniper in Amil, a southwestern neighborhood, killed a man and a child, the ministry official said, and gunmen opened fire on civilians in the Saidiya district, killing one and wounding another. At least 11 bodies were found around the city, the official said.
Iraqi-American security stations in three Baghdad neighborhoods were attacked in what may have been a coordinated offensive, American military commanders said. A car bomb exploded outside a station in Khadra while mortar shells hit stations in Sadr City and Mansour, the commanders said.
In Mosul, officials at the city morgue said 10 Iraqi Army soldiers were killed in an attack against a military post in Zinzala, a village about 20 miles west of the city. Also in Mosul, the Iraqi Red Crescent has opened a camp for families that fled the recent sectarian bloodshed in Tal Afar, an official of the organization said.
In the Tal Afar attacks, a suicide truck bombing killed 152 people and wounded 347 in a Shiite neighborhood, triggering a rampage of sectarian vengeance by Shiite gunmen, including police officers, who killed at least 47 people, most of them Sunni Arabs, the authorities said.
About 1,300 people, most of them women and children, have sought shelter in the camp, east of Mosul, since it opened two days ago, said the official, Dr. Wadhah Ahmed. Most are Sunni Arab and Turkmen refugees who fear a resurgence in attacks by Shiite militias, he said.
The American military command said Thursday that Iraqi security forces had detained two men suspected of involvement in the Tal Afar truck bombing. They were detained Tuesday in a house northwest of the city, the military said.
On a road east of Kut, in southern Iraq, police found the bodies of two women, both teachers from Diyala, who were kidnapped during a recent bank robbery in Baquba, the police said. The thieves took about $11,500, the police said.
Ahmad Fadam and Ashley Gilbertson contributed reporting from Baghdad, and Iraqi employees of The New York Times from Basra, Kut and Mosul.

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New York Times
April 6, 2007
Pg. 12
Guard Brigades May Return To Iraq
WASHINGTON, April 5 (AP) — Several National Guard brigades are expected to be notified soon that they could be sent to Iraq around the first of 2008, a senior Defense Department official said Thursday. If their assignment to Iraq is ultimately approved by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, it would be the first time full Guard combat brigades were sent back to Iraq for a second tour.

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Baltimore Sun
April 6, 2007
1,300 Heading To Iraq
Call-up affects nearly 20% of Md. guardsmen
By Matthew Dolan, Sun reporter
The Maryland National Guard will send roughly 1,300 of its part-time soldiers to Iraq in the largest call-up of combat troops from the state since U.S. forces stormed the beaches at Normandy more than 60 years ago.
The mobilization order - issued one week ago and confirmed by Guard officials yesterday - roughly quadruples the number of guardsmen from the state who will be deployed overseas.
"In this day and age as a member of the Guard and the fact that I haven't been deployed overseas in a long time, I knew it was going to be my turn soon," said 1st Lt. Rick Roth, 36, who will leave his wife and two children in Baltimore County for training next month before shipping over to Iraq sometime this summer.
The state has about 7,000 members of the Army and Air National Guard; some have been called on for multiple deployments for homeland security missions as well as for wars abroad since Sept. 11, 2001.
Yesterday's announcement means almost 20 percent of the state's guardsmen will be out of the country starting this summer.
"It's certainly a sizable number, but it won't degrade our capability to perform the mission at home," said Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown, who served in Iraq as an Army reservist before his election in November.
The deploying soldiers will serve in Iraq for about a year but are not part of the buildup ordered by President Bush in January for about 21,500 additional troops, according to Army Capt. Randy Short, a spokesman for the Maryland brigade.
"We're replacing other units, but we're not quite sure which ones yet," Short said.
Also unclear, he said, is the exact location the Maryland soldiers expect to land. The possibilities for their mission range from administrative and command and control duties to security patrols and guarding checkpoints side-by-side with Iraqi forces, he said.
Experts on the nation's part-time military force said the substantial size of the Maryland call-up would not harm the state's ability to mobilize guardsmen for local needs, including responding to natural disasters or terrorist threats. But some believe the National Guard continues to struggle with how it manages the citizen-soldiers sent into a war now entering its fifth year.
Christine E. Wormuth, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Guard officials still labor over incorporating activated soldiers into the military's pay system. Finding enough equipment for the non-deployed troops left at home has also been a challenge, she said.
"From that standpoint, there is a question about the readiness of those units," she said. "There is some reason to be concerned."
On the plus side, Wormuth, who has testified before the Commission on the National Guard and Reserves, said the Pentagon has made progress in gaining the support of those who employ guardsmen called to active duty.
"One big change has been that the new policy restricts their deployments to a year," she said, adding that before the change, the military leaders had slowly pushed up the average deployment for part-time soldiers to 18 months.
The Maryland contingent will be drawn from the 58th Infantry Brigade Combat Team. Units include the headquarters staff of the 58th stationed in Pikesville; the 1st Battalion, 175th Infantry Regiment headquartered in Dundalk; and the 1st Squadron, 158th Cavalry Regiment based in Annapolis.
In total, about half of the brigade's force will go. In addition to the Maryland guardsmen, the force will be supplemented with guardsmen from California and New Mexico.
Last night, the Associated Press reported that several National Guard brigades are expected to be notified soon that they could be sent to Iraq about the first of next year, according to a senior Defense Department official.
Maj. Gen. Bruce F. Tuxill, Maryland's adjutant general, said in a statement yesterday: "We are deeply indebted to these citizen-soldiers and their families for their sacrifices in the defense of our nation and state. They are well-trained, well-equipped, well-led, and I have every confidence in their ability to perform their mission."
The first soldiers mobilized under the order expect to report to Fort Dix, N.J., next month for processing and additional training before deployment to Iraq, officials said.
Yesterday's announcement came as little surprise to the affected troops. In February, the brigade had received an "activation alert," a strong indication that a mobilization order was on its way, according to Short, the Maryland brigade's spokesman.
Not all of the troops are leaving at once. The last group will train in New Jersey in early June before shipping out, Short said.
"We were wondering when we were going to go, so I think now, there is some relief," Short said.
Part-time soldiers and airmen from Maryland are deployed around the world, serving in intelligence missions in Iraq, as Special Forces in Afghanistan and working in detainee security in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. There are currently about 380 members of the Maryland National Guard deployed.
In May 2006, 130 members of the Olney-based Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 115th Infantry Regiment, returned from a year of combat operations near Baghdad and in western Iraq. It was the first combat deployment for the Guard unit since the Normandy invasion in World War II.
On Bush' orders, 120 soldiers from Maryland were sent to Arizona last summer to aid the homeland security effort to shore up the nation's border with Mexico.
Since the Sept. 11 attacks, more than 5,200 members of the Maryland National Guard have been mobilized and deployed.
Their mission has not been without human cost. Command Sgt. Maj. Roger Haller, 49, a senior enlisted soldier with the Maryland Guard who begged to be sent overseas after the terrorist attacks, died in a Black Hawk helicopter crash north of Baghdad in January.
Roth, who has been a member of the Guard for 13 years and a veteran of a deployment to Bosnia in 1996, has already started seeking out advice from Maryland guardsmen who served in Iraq earlier.
"I've been talking to them about everything from tactical stuff right down to whether I should get an iPod," he said.

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Christian Science Monitor
April 6, 2007
Pg. 2
US Priority: Managing Captives In Iraq
By Gordon Lubold, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
WASHINGTON -- As the Baghdad security plan under Army Gen. David Petraeus moves forward, US and Iraqi forces are apprehending hundreds of insurgents, terrorists, and other criminals. Many of them are quickly being transferred to the Iraqis for detainment. There's just one problem: The Iraqi judicial system, which is responsible for processing such detainees, isn't yet up to the task. This is forcing the Americans to build more detention facilities to hold all the detainees - and bring in more US military police to guard them.
The Iraqi judicial system has been hobbled by the four years of war, as well as the loss of judges and lawyers who either fled the country or were murdered. As a result, the judicial system simply doesn't have the capacity to process many of the new detainees.
This is posing a key challenge as American and Iraqi forces try to bring stability to some of Iraq's most dangerous neighborhoods. Thus US forces are beefing up their facilities, and also helping the Iraqis build their own detention centers. In addition, on Monday, the Pentagon formally announced the deployment to Iraq of more than 2,000 additional US military police, who will join the roughly 3,000 MPs already there.
Defense officials see the US moves as a sign that General Petraeus is confident he'll clean up the streets - using the right amount of resources, with the aim of avoiding another detention fiasco like Abu Ghraib.
Nabbing criminals, insurgents, and others, and holding them for as long as it takes, is "very sound operational planning," says Mike Newton, a law professor at Vanderbilt University and a retired Army lieutenant colonel who has been to Iraq four times as a legal consultant.
"If you have military forces on the ground as part of a surge, that helps, but if you do that and you know there are bad guys in the neighborhood, they'll just wait you out," Mr. Newton says. "You've got to pick them up."
But indeed, this means building the capacity to hold some detainees until the Iraqi judicial system - for centuries, the pride of Iraq - can be restored to its former glory. For the past several years, the United States itself has held about 13,000 individuals captive and now holds about 18,000 captives. But as the Baghdad security plan also known as Fard Al Kanoon moves forward, Petraeus is planning for the possibility of holding as many as 40,000 captives. Most are being held at two facilities, one at Camp Cropper in Baghdad and another at Camp Bucca, south of the city.
American commands will hold many of those detainees indefinitely to collect intelligence about local networks and terrorist or insurgent activity, providing regular reviews of their cases to assess the security risks they would pose if put back on the street. Many others will be transferred to the Iraqis, where they would become the subjects of the Central Criminal Court of Iraq.
Meanwhile, the Iraqis are opening a new police academy soon in Anbar Province that will train as many as 1,000 police officers each month - twice as many as now, according to Marine Maj. Gen. Walter Gaskin, commanding general of Multinational Force West. That will help remove dangerous elements from the streets and make the Iraqis in the area feel safer, General Gaskin said during a video teleconference with reporters in the Pentagon March 30.
But the increasing ability of the Iraqi police force to make more arrests and detentions can be a double-edged sword, he said. "Having all of these policemen now, working within the rule of law and being able to round up those that are criminal actors, in addition to those who are insurgents and are against the Iraqi government, the Anbari government, has increased the numbers that we have detained," Gaskin said. "And that in itself is good news, but it also creates a problem for us with the total number of detainees that we will see."
The tasks will require thousands of American military police, who can also be used in different ways as the mission requires, says Army Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, a spokesman for Multi-National Force Iraq.
But there is another reason for having as many as 5,000 American military police in Iraq during the overall buildup of US forces there: avoid another Abu Ghraib prison controversy, in which several American military guards - some of whom were not specifically trained to guard detention facilities - did the wrong thing.
"We'll make sure that we've got the right skill sets," says Colonel Garver, and "the right leadership" watching over detainee operations. "A big concern to everyone is that we don't have that again."

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Time
April 16, 2007
Cover story
Why Our Army Is At The Breaking Point
Exhausted troops. Worn out equipment. Reduced training. The lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan -- and how to undo the damage
By Mark Thompson
For most Americans, the Iraq war is both distant and never ending. For Private Matthew Zeimer, it was neither. Shortly after midnight on Feb. 2, Zeimer had his first taste of combat as he scrambled to the roof of the 3rd Infantry Division's Combat Outpost Grant in central Ramadi. Under cover of darkness, Sunni insurgents were attacking his new post from nearby buildings. Amid the smoke, noise and confusion, a blast suddenly ripped through the 3-ft. concrete wall shielding Zeimer and a fellow soldier, killing them both. Zeimer had been in Iraq for a week. He had been at his first combat post for two hours.
If Zeimer's combat career was brief, so was his training. He enlisted last June at age 17, three weeks after graduating from Dawson County High School in eastern Montana. After finishing nine weeks of basic training and additional preparation in infantry tactics in Oklahoma, he arrived at Fort Stewart, Ga., in early December. But Zeimer had missed the intense four-week pre-Iraq training—a taste of what troops will face in combat—that his 1st Brigade comrades got at their home post in October. Instead, Zeimer and about 140 other members of the 4,000-strong brigade got a cut-rate, 10-day course on weapon use, first aid and Iraqi culture. That's the same length as the course that teaches soldiers assigned to generals' household staffs the finer points of table service.
The Army and the White House insist the abbreviated training was adequate. "They can get desert training elsewhere," spokesman Tony Snow said Feb. 28, "like in Iraq." But outside military experts and Zeimer's mother disagree. The Army's rush to carry out President George W. Bush's order to send thousands of additional troops more quickly to Iraq is forcing two of the five new brigades bound for the war to skip standard training at Fort Irwin, Calif. These soldiers aren't getting the benefit of participating in war games on the wide Mojave Desert, where gun-jamming sand and faux insurgents closely resemble conditions in Iraq. "Given the new policy of having troops among the Iraqis," says Lawrence Korb, a former Pentagon personnel chief, "they should be giving our young soldiers more training, not less." Zeimer's mother was unaware of the gap in her son's training until TIME told her about it on April 2. Two days later the Army disclosed that Zeimer may have been killed by friendly fire. "They're shipping more and more young kids over there who don't know what they're getting into," Janet Seymour said quietly after learning what her son had missed. "They've never seen war other than on the TV."
The truncated training—the rush to get underprepared troops to the war zone—"is absolutely unacceptable," says Representative John Murtha, the Pennsylvania Democrat and opponent of the war who chairs the House Appropriations defense subcommittee. A decorated Marine veteran of Vietnam, Murtha is experiencing a sense of déjà vu. "The readiness of the Army's ground forces is as bad as it was right after Vietnam," Murtha tells TIME. Even Colin Powell—a retired Army general, onetime Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and Bush's first Secretary of State—acknowledges that after spending nearly six years fighting a small war in Afghanistan and four years waging a medium-size war in Iraq, the service whose uniform he wore for 35 years is on the ropes. "The active Army," Powell said in December, "is about broken."
Bush warned that if Democrats in Congress did not pass a bill to fund the war on his terms, "the price of that failure will be paid by our troops and their loved ones." But they are already paying a price for decisions he has made, and the larger costs are likely to be borne for at least a generation. This is not only a matter of the U.S.'s ability to defend itself at home and protect its interests overseas, vital though those missions are. The Army is the heart of the U.S. military, practicing what democracies sometimes manage only to preach. All soldiers are created equal; race and class defer to rank and merit. Except for the stars, the general wears the uniform of the private in combat. The Army is the public institution that sets the pace for others to follow, makes the stakes higher, the demands greater. Its rewards are paid in glory and blood.
A volunteer Army reflects the most central and sacred vow that citizens make to one another: soldiers protect and defend the country; in return, the country promises to give them the tools they need to complete their mission and honor their service, whatever the outcome. It was Bush, on the eve of the 2000 election, who promised "to all of our men and women in uniform and to their parents and to their families, help is on the way." Besides putting Powell at State, the President reinforced his Administration with two former Defense Secretaries: Vice President Dick Cheney and, in the job for a second time, Donald Rumsfeld.
So it is no small irony that today's U.S. Army finds itself under the greatest strain in a generation. The Pentagon made that clear April 2 when it announced that two Army units will soon return to Iraq without even a year at home, compared with the two years units have traditionally enjoyed. One is headed back after 47 days short of a year, the other 81. "This is the first time we've had a voluntary Army on an extended deployment," says Andrew Krepinevich, a retired Army officer who advises his old service. "A lot of canaries are dropping dead in the mine."
The main consequences of a tightly stretched Army is that men and women are being sent into combat with less training, shorter breaks and disintegrating equipment. When those stories get out, they make it harder to retain soldiers and recruit them in the first place. "For us, it's just another series of never-ending deployments, and for many, including me, there is only one answer to that—show me the door out," wrote an officer in a private e-mail to Congressman Steve Rothman of New Jersey.
Army equipment is wearing out even faster than Army troops. Gear and weapons are usually left in the war zone to be used by newly arriving troops. That grinds the equipment into scrap up to 10 times as fast as in peacetime. The lack of guns and armor back home has a boomerang effect: many of the troops training in the U.S. are not familiar with what they'll have to depend on once they arrive in Iraq.
Today half the Army's 43 combat brigades are deployed overseas, with the remainder recovering from their latest deployment or preparing for the next one. For the first time in decades, the Army's "ready brigade"—a unit of the famed 82nd Airborne Division primed to parachute into a hot spot anywhere in the world within 72 hours—is a luxury the U.S. Army cannot afford. All its forces are already dedicated to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Repeated combat tours have "a huge impact on families," General Peter Schoomaker, the Army chief of staff, told Congress in February. Those deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan more than once—170,000 so far—have a 50% increase in acute combat stress over those who have been deployed only once. And that stress is what contributes to post-traumatic stress disorder, according to an Army study. "Their wives are saying, I know you're proud of what you're doing, but we've got to get out of here," says Barry McCaffrey, a retired four-star general.
New Defense Secretary Robert Gates concedes there are readiness problems. He told Congress March 29 that next year's proposed $625 billion defense budget—the highest, adjusted for inflation, since World War II—wil