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 The Pentagon Early Bird 10 March 2008 Use of these news items does not reflect official endorsement. Reproduction for private use or gain is subject to original copyright restrictions. Item 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.) Please scroll down to read Headlines then scroll further down to read the entire News Article. URL's will not link out.IRAQ
USA Today March 10, 2008 Pg. 1 Saddam-Era Spies At Work In Iraq Skilled in detecting Iranian activity By Jim Michaels, USA Today BAGHDAD — Iraq's government has been quietly bringing back into service Saddam-era intelligence agents who have experience spying on Iranians. The effort is aimed at improving Iraq's ability to gather intelligence about Iranian-supported networks operating in Iraq, said Dan Maguire, the top U.S. adviser on intelligence. Most Saddam-era intelligence agents fled after the U.S.-led invasion. Saddam Hussein's notorious security services were the dictator's primary means of repressing the population. The practice of hiring former intelligence agents seems to conflict with a new law designed to come to terms with people who worked in Saddam's ruling Baath Party. The "Accountability and Justice" law, passed this year, bans members of Saddam-era security services from government work because of their brutal reputation. In the past, Iraq's government hasn't consistently or fairly applied regulations regarding the hiring of former Baath Party members, said Habib Nassar of the International Center for Transitional Justice, a non-profit group that studies human rights abuses. It's not clear how the law will be applied. Spokesmen for the Iraqi government could not be reached for comment. The issue highlights the difficulty of striking a balance between hiring experienced people and making a clean break from the past. U.S. officials have approved of the practice of bringing back some former agents. Maguire said the hiring of former agents had "a lot of logic to it." He said he did not know how many agents would be affected by the ban on Baath Party members nor how many Saddam-era agents have been brought back. Iraq's Interior Ministry intelligence department has been seeking "former regime intelligence officers, primarily ones that worked against the Iranian target," Maguire said. Bringing agents back to work is fraught with risk, said Wayne White, a former deputy director of the State Department's Middle East intelligence office. Because their "business was human rights violations," White said, those "who functioned in that environment must be to some degree morally warped." Maguire said Iraq's government carefully vets any former Saddam-era intelligence agents before bringing them back into service. Most were lower-ranking Baath Party members, he said. "You don't want a guy who's got blood on his hands," Maguire said. Recruiting former agents is a "stopgap measure," said Robert Baer, a former CIA officer with experience in the region. "They don't have any experienced people." Iraq's intelligence apparatus has had experience in spying on Iran. The two countries have long been rivals and fought an eight-year war in the 1980s that left hundreds of thousands of people dead. The U.S. military views Iran as a major obstacle to stabilizing Iraq. Washington has accused Iran of supplying armor-piercing roadside bombs and other weapons to Shiite militias who attack American and Iraqi forces. Iran should stop training and financing militants, said Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, who was the No. 2 U.S. commander in Iraq for the past year. Iran has denied supporting militants. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080310586649.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_1470489_AEf PjkQAACQVR9WTKQkVeEpuuE0&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename= e20080310aaindex_concat.html&cred=V1c1j0SS9beSYhDr 8F96Lk4Cy_aed2pT9WeBMfm6oMC0H9bUJonYFcxrsJo6oibw#T OP">RETURN TO TOP USA Today March 10, 2008 Pg. 6 Iraqis Mesh Old, New Style Of Espionage Move from 'intimidation' to intelligence gathering tricky By Jim Michaels, USA Today BAGHDAD — U.S. efforts to assist Iraq in building intelligence capabilities have often clashed with Iraq's history of government secrecy and deep-rooted suspicions. Under Saddam Hussein, Iraq had at least five overlapping national intelligence agencies, some of which spied on one another. Security services interrogated, tortured and killed enemies of Saddam's regime and spied on citizens. "Their intelligence service … has always been a means of intimidation, not a means of collecting information," said Robert Baer, a former CIA officer who worked in the Middle East. The U.S. military is attempting to guide Iraq toward a modern intelligence service that gathers and analyzes data, said Dan Maguire, the top U.S. intelligence adviser to Iraq. Agents would have limited powers. In an effort to create a modern agency, the United States initially backed the Iraqi National Intelligence Service, modeling its structure on that of the CIA. It was even set up with CIA assistance, Maguire said. Iraq's prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, has viewed the organization as a CIA creation and has been wary of relying on it. Al-Maliki established a rival intelligence department under Shirwan al-Waili, the minister of state for national security affairs. "The tension was in … the prime minister feeling comfortable with a homegrown organization vs. one that he viewed … as a U.S.-grown organization," Maguire said. Al-Maliki's government also has taken action this year to remove Iraq's special forces, which number more than 3,000 elite troops, from Defense Ministry control. He has placed them under a newly formed counterterrorism command. That move has raised concerns among Iraqis that al-Maliki is trying to tighten control over the commandos and counterterrorism forces, which go after top insurgent and militia leaders. The Iraqi government is dominated by Shiite Arabs, while Saddam's former regime was dominated by Sunni Arabs. "This looks and smells very much like a Saddam-era structure, where the prime minister has his hand on the throttle and can use it as he sees fit," Maguire said. "If he decides he wants to go and hit Sunni targets with these guys, he's got a killing machine to go do that," Maguire said. "So there's a fear there." Maguire said, however, that there is enough "rigor" and "oversight" built into the target-vetting process to make such abuse difficult. For the past year, the U.S. military has focused on helping Iraq create intelligence departments in the ministries of Interior and Defense. Thousands of analysts and agents have been hired. Baer said it is difficult to overcome the culture of mistrust and paranoia that dominated Iraq's intelligence apparatus for decades. "How do you take that culture and turn it into an effective intelligence agency?" he asked. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080310586676.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_1470489_AEf PjkQAACQVR9WTKQkVeEpuuE0&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename= e20080310aaindex_concat.html&cred=V1c1j0SS9beSYhDr 8F96Lk4Cy_aed2pT9WeBMfm6oMC0H9bUJonYFcxrsJo6oibw#T OP">RETURN TO TOP Los Angeles Times March 10, 2008 Iran Fomenting Violence In Iraq, U.S. Says The military offers details of Tehran's role in continuing to train and equip militias and insurgents. By Borzou Daragahi, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer BAGHDAD — A high-ranking U.S. military officer Sunday described new details of allegations that Iran is meddling in Iraq, accusing the Islamic Republic of training Iraqi operatives to direct militants in their homeland. The latest accusations, made during a news conference here, were part of a renewed drumbeat of U.S. charges over Tehran's role in Iraq after a period of faint improvement in relations. Last week, after a visit to Baghdad by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno and Navy Adm. William J. Fallon accused his government of destabilizing Iraq. Iran, meanwhile, alleged that the U.S. had reneged on an agreement to hold a fourth round of joint talks with Iraqi officials about security in Iraq. Odierno, speaking at the Pentagon, had called Iran the greatest long-term threat to Iraq and accused it of trying to keep the Baghdad government weak for its own benefit. Fallon told the Senate Armed Services Committee that there was evidence that Iran continued to train and equip militants in Iraq. On Sunday in Baghdad, Rear Adm. Greg Smith, a spokesman for American forces in Iraq, fleshed out some of the details of those allegations. He said U.S. troops recently discovered a cache of weapons south of Baghdad with markings indicating they had been made recently in Iran. He also alleged that Tehran had been recruiting Iraqis for training in Iran, citing statements by Iraqi detainees. "Groups and elements" including Iranians and militants attached to Lebanon's Hezbollah militia are training Iraqis in Iran to act as recruiters and trainers in Iraq, Smith said. "They're being trained as trainers to set up the teams inside Iraq," he said on the sidelines of the news conference. He said the U.S. gleaned the information from Iraqi detainees who had undergone such training late last year. He did not elaborate, but said that more details would be given in the coming weeks. "All told the same story," Smith said of the detainees. "Handlers trained by Hezbollah inside Iran came back here purposefully to support anti-coalition and anti-security elements." Security improved markedly in Iraq over the last six months of 2007, in part because of a dramatic decrease in activity by Shiite militias linked to Iran, which considers itself the patron of followers of the Shiite sect of Islam worldwide. But U.S. officials, without disclosing numbers, have told reporters of a slight uptick recently in reports of rocket and sophisticated roadside bomb attacks that they attribute to Iranian-backed militiamen. Observers say the Tehran government may be training and equipping a clandestine network of operatives in Iraq as a potential card to play against American forces in case Washington decides to attack Iranian nuclear facilities. The United States and Iran have been locked in a nearly three-decade Cold War. Washington accuses Tehran of supporting Islamic militants across the Middle East and pursuing nuclear weapons under the guise of a civilian energy program. A U.S. intelligence analysis report last December that concluded that Iran had ended a nuclear weapons program in 2003 undercut Bush administration hawks who might seek to confront Iran militarily. The United Nations Security Council last week approved a third set of sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program, measures sought by the U.S. and its allies. Iraqi officials hope that talks between the U.S. and Iran might ease tensions between Iraq's greatest strategic partner and its most pervasive neighbor. But the negotiations have faltered because of "technical issues," said Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki on Sunday, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency. Smith, responding to a reporter's question, rejected the characterization of the stalled talks as a dialogue between Washington and Tehran. "It's a dialogue between Iran and Iraq which the U.S. has been invited to attend," he said. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080310586648.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_1470489_AEf PjkQAACQVR9WTKQkVeEpuuE0&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename= e20080310aaindex_concat.html&cred=V1c1j0SS9beSYhDr 8F96Lk4Cy_aed2pT9WeBMfm6oMC0H9bUJonYFcxrsJo6oibw#T OP">RETURN TO TOP USA Today March 10, 2008 Pg. 6 Recent Violence Doesn't Signal Trend, Admiral Says By Associated Press BAGHDAD — A recent rash of deadly bombings does not represent a meaningful change from the decline in overall violence seen in Iraq in recent months, a U.S. military spokesman said Sunday. U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Gregory Smith said a wave of horrific attacks, including a bombing assault Thursday that killed 68 people in Baghdad, had to be put into context. You have to "look historically at what has happened over the last year to really put in perspective one week or two weeks' worth of activity inside Baghdad," Smith said. "I would not look at the last few weeks as an increase or trend" toward rising violence, he said. Violence around Iraq has dropped by about 60% in the past nine months, the result of an influx of thousands of U.S. troops and a decision by thousands of Sunnis to join forces with the United States. Another reason for improved security is a cease-fire called by anti-U.S. Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. On Sunday, the cleric called on his supporters to work on making his lethal and powerful Mahdi Army a charitable organization. "There is no contradiction for the Mahdi Army to be military and at the same time be educational and humanitarian," al-Sadr said in a leaflet handed out at his offices in the Shiite holy city of Najaf. The attack on Thursday took place in Baghdad's predominantly Shiite Karradah neighborhood, one of the capital's most vibrant commercial districts and a stronghold for the country's most powerful Shiite political party, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council. Despite that attack on Shiites, Smith noted, al-Sadr and the Mahdi Army continue to abide by their cease-fire, choosing the "path of political and non-violent ways." Al-Sadr has fallen from view in recent months to immerse himself in religious study. He has worked to turn the Mahdi Army toward supporting humanitarian work in Shiite-dominated areas such as Baghdad's Sadr City slum — named after the cleric's revered late father. One model may be Hezbollah, the militant group in Lebanon headed by Shiite cleric Hassan Nasrallah, which mixes militancy and charity. In February, al-Sadr renewed a six-month cease-fire with a call for his followers to take time to study. "It is a period for rehabilitation, reformation and rearrangement. So help me with your hard work and piousness," al-Sadr said in the leaflets handed out Sunday. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080310586711.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_1470489_AEf PjkQAACQVR9WTKQkVeEpuuE0&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename= e20080310aaindex_concat.html&cred=V1c1j0SS9beSYhDr 8F96Lk4Cy_aed2pT9WeBMfm6oMC0H9bUJonYFcxrsJo6oibw#T OP">RETURN TO TOP Philadelphia Inquirer March 10, 2008 Pentagon: Foul Water May Have Sickened Troops By Larry Margasak, Associated Press WASHINGTON - Dozens of U.S. troops in Iraq fell sick at bases using "unmonitored and potentially unsafe" water supplied by the military and a contractor once owned by Vice President Cheney's former company, the Pentagon's internal watchdog says. A report obtained by the Associated Press said soldiers experienced skin abscesses, cellulitis, skin infections, diarrhea and other illnesses after using discolored, smelly water for personal hygiene and laundry at five military sites in Iraq. The inspector general's report, which could be released as early as today, found water-quality problems between March 2004 and February 2006 at three sites run by contractor KBR Inc., and between January 2004 and December 2006 at two military-operated locations. It was impossible to link the dirty water definitively to all the illnesses, according to the report. But it said KBR's water quality "was not maintained in accordance with field water sanitary standards" and the military-run sites "were not performing all required quality control tests." The report said KBR took corrective steps and was providing adequate water quality by November 2006. But military units at the two sites they controlled were still failing to perform required quality control tests and maintain appropriate records by that time. "Therefore, water suppliers exposed U.S. forces to unmonitored and potentially unsafe water," at the military sites by late 2006, the report said. The problems did not extend to troops' drinking water, but rather to water used for washing, bathing, shaving and cleaning. The KBR sites were Camp Ar Ramadi, Camp Q-West and Camp Victory. Military sites were Logistics Support Area Anaconda and Camp Ali. In January 2006, interviews and internal company documents disclosed problems at Ar Ramadi and showed that KBR employees could not get the company to inform base residents. Halliburton Co., then KBR's parent company, disputed the allegations even though they were made by its own employees and documented in company e-mails. Halliburton is the oil-services conglomerate that Cheney once led. KBR, responding to the inspector general's report, said its water treatment "has met or exceeded all applicable military and contract standards." The company took exception to many of the inspector general's assertions. "KBR's commitment to the safety of all of its employees remains unwavering," the company said in a statement. The military has "taken the appropriate measures to correct the problem and ensure we provide the appropriate oversight of the system," said Navy Capt. James Graybeal of the U.S. Central Command, which oversees U.S. troops in the Middle East. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080310586683.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_1470489_AEf PjkQAACQVR9WTKQkVeEpuuE0&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename= e20080310aaindex_concat.html&cred=V1c1j0SS9beSYhDr 8F96Lk4Cy_aed2pT9WeBMfm6oMC0H9bUJonYFcxrsJo6oibw#T OP">RETURN TO TOP Los Angeles Times March 10, 2008 Fixing Iraq, And A Refinery Helping restore a 1930s oil facility will take local planning and teamwork. By Tony Perry, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer HAQLANIYA, IRAQ -- — The ragged oil refinery in a barren corner of Anbar province looks more like something out of a post-apocalyptic Mel Gibson movie than the centerpiece of an ambitious energy project. The plant, known as K-3, was built by the British in the 1930s, allowed to slip into disrepair for three decades under Saddam Hussein, then bombed by the Americans in 1991 and 2003. Now repairing the refinery and increasing its capacity could be the easy part. The more difficult job, according to U.S.-led coalition forces, is getting the layers of the Iraqi government to cooperate. On top of that, the coalition must help Iraqi officials transform the centralized planning adopted under the Hussein regime that stifled local initiative. "The whole mind-set has to change. That's proving to be the longest pole in the tent," said Canadian Brig. Gen. Nicolas Matern, a counterterrorism specialist. It is a common concern throughout Iraq, where dozens of reconstruction projects, funded in large part by the U.S., are underway. Without Iraqi buy-in, many projects are doomed to flop, officials concede. "It's an easy task to trash a country," said British Lt. Gen. William Rollo, second in command to U.S. Army Gen. David H. Petraeus. "It's bloody difficult to rebuild it." Despite its wrecked appearance, K-3, located in the desert about 100 miles northwest of Baghdad, is still functional. It shut down three years ago because of squabbling among Iraqi officials. The workforce remained on the payroll, with many living on site. With the world's second-largest oil reserves, Iraq is looking at an economic future that's inextricably linked to questions of how to extract the substance from the earth, how to exploit demand and how to divide the profit and other benefits, such as electricity. Oil is also one of the most volatile political disputes among Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish factions. If K-3 can be revived, perhaps with the help of U.S. contractors, it could provide energy and income for Anbar and decrease the sense of alienation many feel toward the central government in Baghdad. That alienation is worrisome, they said, because it might provide openings for insurgents seeking to regain control along the Euphrates River corridor. Some of the power lines streaming from the massive, Soviet bloc-built Haditha Dam toward Baghdad have been destroyed. The chief suspects are Sunni Muslim tribal sheiks who are angry that resources flow from their region to Shiite-dominated Baghdad with little in return. On paper, the project looks straightforward: Bring crude oil from the Kurdish region in the north by rail or truck to K-3. Refine it into kerosene (for heating oil), naphtha(for road building) or diesel fuel. Then get the product to a diesel-run power plant at Tahadi or to markets in Syria and Jordan. A tanker-truck facility and a rail-loading platform are within a few hundred yards of K-3. The rail lines will need repair as will roads and bridges to accommodate 60-ton tanker trucks. But in a bit of staffing serendipity, two reserve officers from the 3rd Battalion, 23rd Marine Regiment assigned to the area just happen to be oil industry specialists. Capt. Matt Mayo, an energy consultant, and Maj. Gordon Hilbun, a Royal Dutch Shell executive, have been assigned to the K-3 project. As a technical matter, they said, upgrading K-3 shouldn't be much more difficult than restarting U.S. refineries hit by Hurricane Katrina. The Marines brought a variety of Iraqi officials to the area recently to view K-3, the truck facility and the rail station. Among them were an Oil Ministry official who had not been in the area for 15 years, a transportation official who only recently emerged from hiding in Syria and Anbar Gov. Mamoun Rasheed. Rasheed was buoyant. "Yes, it's going to happen," he said. "I want the factory to be running seven days a week, 24 hours a day." On one point, he was insistent: "We need more security." In recent weeks, an insurgent attack near the Baiji oil refinery, 125 miles north of Baghdad, killed more than 25 people, and a mysterious fire struck the oil facility at Basra, the country's southern port city. There were other concerns. One of the foremen at the truck facility told U.S. Marine Brig. Gen. Martin Post that his workers needed strong clothes and thick boots. Post turned to an aide and told him to make a list. "We're going to finish this project together," Post told the foreman, Abpalwhab Ruef Samarey. "I hope my god keeps you safe," Samarey replied. After the daylong tour, the Marines provided a chow hall dinner for two dozen Iraqi officials. Quietly, the Marines left the room and let the Iraqis discuss the project. Rasheed, a linebacker-sized man with a similarly outsized personality, fired off orders. "Don't tell me you have 12 trucks unless you've counted them yourself," he bellowed at a transportation official. Officials have learned to be wary of displays of enthusiasm that can wane when difficulties arise. "We need to live this project every day," Matern said. In the post-combat phase of the U.S. mission in Iraq, Marines have had to also learn patience. The meetings that led to the gathering of Iraqi officials were drawn out and detailed. "These people need our help," said Marine Lt. Col. David Bellon, commander of the 3-23. "And this beats the hell out of fighting them." http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080310586750.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_1470489_AEf PjkQAACQVR9WTKQkVeEpuuE0&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename= e20080310aaindex_concat.html&cred=V1c1j0SS9beSYhDr 8F96Lk4Cy_aed2pT9WeBMfm6oMC0H9bUJonYFcxrsJo6oibw#T OP">RETURN TO TOP Philadelphia Inquirer March 10, 2008 Pg. 1 Reports Say Wars' Costs Are Climbing By Charles J. Hanley, Associated Press The flow of blood may be ebbing, but the flood of money into the Iraq war is steadily rising, new analyses show. In 2008, its sixth year, the war will cost approximately $12 billion a month, triple the "burn" rate of its earliest years, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz and coauthor Linda J. Bilmes write in a new book. Beyond 2008, working with "best-case" and "realistic-moderate" scenarios, they project that the Iraq and Afghan wars, including long-term U.S. military occupations of those countries, will cost the U.S. budget between $1.7 trillion and $2.7 trillion - or more - by 2017. Interest on money borrowed to pay those costs could add $816 billion to that bottom line, they say. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has done its own projections and comes in lower, forecasting a cumulative cost by 2017 of $1.2 trillion to $1.7 trillion for the two wars, with Iraq generally accounting for three-quarters of the costs. Variations in such estimates stem from the sliding scales of assumptions, scenarios and budget items that are counted. But whatever the estimate, the cost will be huge, the auditors of the Government Accountability Office say. In a Jan. 30 report to Congress, the GAO said the United States would commit "significant" future resources to the wars, "requiring decision makers to consider difficult trade-offs as the nation faces an increasing long-range fiscal challenge." These numbers do not include the war's cost to the rest of the world. In Iraq, the 2003 U.S.-led invasion - with its devastating air bombardments - and the looting and arson that followed, severely damaged electricity and other utilities, the oil industry, countless factories, hospitals, schools and other underpinnings of an economy. No one has tried to calculate the economic damage to Iraq, said spokesman Niels Buenemann of the International Monetary Fund, which closely tracks national economies. But millions of Iraqis have been left without jobs, and hundreds of thousands of professionals, managers and other middle-class citizens have fled the country. In their book, The Three Trillion Dollar War, Stiglitz, of Columbia University, and Bilmes, of Harvard, write that the two wars will have cost the U.S. budget $845 billion in 2007 dollars by next Sept. 30, the end of fiscal year 2008, assuming Congress fully funds Bush administration requests. That counts not just military operations, but embassy costs, reconstruction and other war-related expenses. That total far surpasses the $670 billion in 2007 dollars the Congressional Research Service says was the U.S. price tag for the 12-year Vietnam War. Although American military and Iraqi civilian casualties have declined in recent months, spending has shot up. A fully funded 2008 war budget will be 155 percent higher than 2004's, the CBO reports. The reasons are numerous: the "surge" of additional U.S. units into Iraq; rising fuel costs; fattened bonuses to attract re-enlistments; and particularly the need to "reset," that is, repair or replace worn-out, destroyed or damaged military equipment. Almost $17 billion is appropriated this year for advanced armored vehicles to protect troops against roadside bombs. Looking ahead, both the CBO and Stiglitz and Bilmes propose two scenarios, one in which U.S. troop levels in Iraq and Afghanistan drop sharply and early - to 30,000 by late 2009 for the CBO, and to 55,000 by 2012 for Stiglitz-Bilmes - and a second in which the drawdown is more gradual. Significantly, the two studies view different time frames, the CBO calculating possible costs over the next 10 years, while Stiglitz and Bilmes also include costs incurred during that period but paid for later, such as equipment replaced in post-2017 budgets. This factor figures most in the category of veterans' medical care and disability payments, where the CBO foresees $9 billion to $13 billion in costs by 2017. Stiglitz and Bilmes, meanwhile, project $422 billion to $717 billion in costs over the lifetime of soldiers who by 2017 are wounded or otherwise mentally or physically disabled by the wars. "The CBO is only looking 10 years out on everything," Bilmes said in an interview. For its part, a CBO critique suggested that Bilmes and Stiglitz might be overstating the expense of treating veterans' brain injuries, a costly category. Their book already figures in the stay-or-leave debate over Iraq. When Stiglitz testified on Feb. 28 before the congressional Joint Economic Committee, the ranking Republican, New Jersey's Rep. Jim Saxton, complained that such projections were too imprecise to help determine relative costs and benefits of the Iraq war. Saxton said a rapid U.S. pullout could lead to full-scale civil war and Iranian domination of Iraq, "enormous costs" that he said should be weighed in any calculation. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080310586756.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_1470489_AEf PjkQAACQVR9WTKQkVeEpuuE0&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename= e20080310aaindex_concat.html&cred=V1c1j0SS9beSYhDr 8F96Lk4Cy_aed2pT9WeBMfm6oMC0H9bUJonYFcxrsJo6oibw#T OP">RETURN TO TOP San Diego Union-Tribune March 10, 2008 Al-Sadr Sees Broader Role For Militia By Associated Press Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr called on his supporters yesterday to work on transforming his lethal Mahdi army into a charitable group. “There is no contradiction for the Mahdi army to be military and at the same time be educational and humanitarian,” the cleric said in a leaflet handed out yesterday at his offices in Najaf. Last month, he renewed his six-month cease-fire. Al-Sadr has fallen from view in recent months to immerse himself in religious study. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080310586600.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_1470489_AEf PjkQAACQVR9WTKQkVeEpuuE0&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename= e20080310aaindex_concat.html&cred=V1c1j0SS9beSYhDr 8F96Lk4Cy_aed2pT9WeBMfm6oMC0H9bUJonYFcxrsJo6oibw#T OP">RETURN TO TOP New York Times March 10, 2008 Pg. 8 Toddler Returns To Iraq After Life-Saving Surgery By Erica Goode HADITHA, Iraq — She is an amazingly lucky girl in a country where bad luck is everywhere. But 2-year-old Amenah al-Bayati is not aware of her good fortune. She is still ignorant of how ruthlessly death stalks her country. She was not yet born when, in 2005, American marines killed 24 civilians, including five children, after their convoy hit a roadside bomb in this farming town on the Euphrates. She was too young to understand the politics that briefly landed her father in jail, suspected of ties to the insurgency. So she does not know how exceptional her luck was last fall when a Marine company decided to do everything it could to save her life, sending her to the United States in January for surgery to repair a congenital heart defect that was cutting off her oxygen supply. Last Friday, Amenah returned home to Iraq. She and her mother, who had accompanied her to the United States, met her father in Baghdad, flew with the marines to Al Asad Air Base in Anbar Province, and then on to Haditha on an MV-22 Osprey aircraft. In pink boots and orange tights, the toddler allowed her older brother and sisters to fuss over her, clung to her mother’s legs and peered shyly at the marines, who gathered with family members to celebrate her return over dinner in the brightly lighted courtyard of the heavily guarded house. “I am so happy, so very happy,” said Amenah’s father, Alaa Thabit Fatah. “Americans are human beings and they do mistakes,” but they also do good things, he said. The homecoming was a public relations coup for the Marine Corps, which has been eager to show that its efforts to win over Iraqis in Anbar Province were succeeding. The firefights and bombings that were once frequent in Haditha have quieted, the Marines say, and relations with the town’s residents have improved, allowing them to build friendships and help children like Amenah. But the celebration dinner was also the culmination of an extraordinary effort to get Amenah medical care unavailable in Iraq, a project that required months of logistical planning, including special visas, money for airfare, military planes, security, an interpreter and medical escorts. “It was a crisis,” said Maj. Kevin Jarrard, the company commander, who led the effort. “She would have died pretty quickly if we had not been able to move her.” It was chance that brought Amenah to Major Jarrard’s attention. Last fall, marines from the Third Battalion, 23rd Marines, were on routine patrol when they visited Amenah’s family and noticed that her hands and feet turned blue when she moved around the house. When Major Jarrard was told of the child’s illness, he asked the battalion surgeon, Capt. John Nadeau, to see her. Captain Nadeau, a Navy reservist, is a cardiologist and professor at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. “It was pretty obvious that something was wrong,” Major Jarrard recalled. Captain Nadeau recognized the signs of a congenital heart problem and suspected that Amenah had a disorder in which a hole in the heart obstructs blood flow to the lungs. Doctors say the disorder can be corrected surgically with low risk. But without sophisticated tests, he could not be sure of the diagnosis. Still, he knew the child needed treatment. He e-mailed a colleague, Dr. Karla Christian, an associate professor of cardiology at Vanderbilt, who agreed to perform the surgery free. She persuaded Vanderbilt University Medical Center to pick up the other costs. That left the problem of getting Amenah to the United States. Major Jarrard discovered that Amenah’s father had once been detained for several months. “My first thought was the little girl can’t help who her daddy was,” he said, adding that the two men have since grown close. “Perhaps he was involved in the insurgency, perhaps he wasn’t,” Major Jarrard said. “It’s difficult to tell from the reports we have. But as far as I’m concerned, he’s my friend.” With the help of Homeland Security and the State Department, Major Jarrard got special humanitarian visas for Amenah and her mother, Mata Muhammad Bandar. But family members objected to a woman traveling alone to the United States with her child. Finally, a tribal leader in Haditha, Sheik Said Hadi Said, persuaded the family to let them go. Major Jarrard and his company raised $28,000 for transportation costs, much of it from his hometown, Gainesville, Ga. Amenah and her mother were driven to Iraq’s border with Jordan, accompanied by a translator and paramedics. Once Amenah arrived at the medical school in Nashville, Dr. Christian discovered that the girl had a far more complicated disorder than suspected: the heart’s chambers were misconnected and one chamber was too small to function fully. “She had about four different things wrong with her heart, all of them very uncommon,” Dr. Christian said. In a three-hour operation on Feb. 11, she and her team divided the large vein that carries blood from the upper body, the superior vena cava, and sewed it to the pulmonary artery, taking nonoxygenated blood and sending it straight to the lungs, bypassing the heart. Amenah recovered quickly, leaving the hospital four days later. She will be able to live a virtually normal life, Dr. Christian said. “She could play soccer, she could get an education,” she said. “She probably won’t be a competitive athlete but she could live a long, full life.” As Amenah’s family mingled Friday evening with the marines, Captain Nadeau said Amenah was not the only young child in Haditha with a serious illness. Two more children with congenital heart defects have already come to his attention, he said, adding that sending every critically ill child to the United States was obviously not the answer. Iraq, he said, has excellent doctors, and desperately needs the tools and medications to care for its own. Still, Captain Nadeau said: “When I look at the money that is wasted here, you know, it’s only money. And look at this little girl.” http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080310586591.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_1470489_AEf PjkQAACQVR9WTKQkVeEpuuE0&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename= e20080310aaindex_concat.html&cred=V1c1j0SS9beSYhDr 8F96Lk4Cy_aed2pT9WeBMfm6oMC0H9bUJonYFcxrsJo6oibw#T OP">RETURN TO TOP New York Times March 10, 2008 Pg. 1 In Tanker Bid, It Was Boeing Vs. Bold Ideas By David Herszenhorn and Jeff Bailey WASHINGTON — Just hours before the Air Force announced the winner of a $35 billion contract to build aerial refueling aircraft on Feb. 29, an Airbus plane lumbered off the runway in Getafe, Spain, and climbed to 27,000 feet to rendezvous with a Portuguese F-16 fighter. Then, in the skies south of Madrid, the two aircraft edged closer and closer, until they were joined by a 50-foot boom hanging off the back of the big Airbus plane. For the first time, the boom pumped fuel into another plane, 2,000 gallons in all during several connections. The technology to pass fuel from one plane to another may not be rocket science — in fact, aerial fuel booms have been in use for more than 50 years — but it helped Airbus’s parent and its partner, Northrop Grumman, establish their technical bona fides. Eager to enter the American defense market, the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company, the owner of Airbus, made several bold plays, perhaps none more dramatic than building the $100 million state-of-the-art refueling boom on spec. As a result, Boeing, the pride of American aerospace, was outmaneuvered on its home turf for a contract that could grow to $100 billion, becoming one of the largest military purchases in history. Boeing received a detailed briefing from the Pentagon on Friday about why its bid fell short. Now it must decide by Wednesday whether to file a formal appeal. The company and its allies in Washington have already made a number of arguments. Among them are that too many American jobs are being lost overseas, and that sensitive military contracts should not be in the hands of a foreign company. The debate about the impact on American jobs is a murky one, because large manufacturing projects typically involve operations in many parts of the world, regardless of which company has a contract. If Boeing tries to reverse the decision, it could find itself in a difficult position, accused of further delaying critically needed equipment in a time of war. Boeing could also be forced to revisit the corruption scandal in 2004 that derailed a $20 billion deal for the company to lease refueling tankers to the Air Force. Two Boeing executives went to jail as a result, and the chief executive stepped down. The parent of Airbus, known as EADS, and Northrop Grumman proposed a tanker made from a refitted A330 jetliner that could carry more fuel than the rival proposal, a modified Boeing 767. It also offered more flexibility for carrying cargo, transporting troops, airlifting refugees and delivering humanitarian aid. Boeing, the heavy favorite to win the contract, having built earlier tankers, promised a new boom but did not build a prototype. One analyst who followed the contest said that Boeing, based in Chicago, seemed arrogant and offered a plan that Air Force officials thought would deliver only 19 tankers by 2013 compared with 49 by the Airbus team. “The Boeing team was not responsive and often was not even polite,” said Loren B. Thompson, a defense analyst at the Lexington Institute in Arlington, Va., based on conversations he said he had with defense officials. “Somehow that all eluded senior management,” Mr. Thompson said. “They were not even aware there was a problem.” William Barksdale, a Boeing spokesman who attended the Air Force debriefing on Friday, said Boeing asked “whether we were hard to get along with.” He said Air Force officials had no complaints in that area. On Capitol Hill, the blow to Boeing has set off a protectionist furor among many lawmakers. And on the campaign trail, the Democratic candidates for president, Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, suggest that the Boeing loss reflects other Bush administration policies that have resulted in jobs moving offshore. But the hot rhetoric could sound overly nationalistic, and even hypocritical, once the real implications for jobs and national security become clear. Boeing, for example, would have made many of its own tanker parts overseas, and some experts say that claims of job losses to a foreign company seem exaggerated. For now, though, the pro-Boeing, pro-America talk is showing no signs of letting up. “We really have to wake up the country,” said Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington State, where Boeing is a significant employer. “We are at risk of losing a major part of our aerospace industry to the Europeans forever.” Representative Todd Tiahrt, Republican of Kansas, said: “It’s outsourcing our national security. An American tanker should be built by an American company with American workers.” Boeing would have done some of its tanker assembly in Kansas. Some officials have even suggested that it would have been better to revise the tainted lease deal than to let Airbus compete. Defense industry analysts, however, say that the Airbus deal in many ways does make sense and that fears of lost military secrets are misplaced. “We’re not talking about missile defense issues,” said Jon B. Kutler, chief executive of Admiralty Partners, a firm that invests in defense companies. “This is as plain vanilla as a major contract gets.” The Airbus and Boeing aircraft are both global products — Boeing has said roughly 85 percent of its tanker components would be American-made, the Airbus group about 60 percent — making the impact on jobs unclear. Boeing said its bid would create or support 44,000 American jobs. The Airbus team’s figure was 25,000 jobs in 49 states. Both numbers are impossible to verify. Industry analysts point out that, employment claims aside, the manufacturers have a profit motive in building the planes with as few workers as possible. In fact, no layoffs are expected at the Boeing plant in Everett, Wash., where the 767 is assembled, as a result of losing the contract. On the contrary, the company is hiring workers because of a $255 billion backlog for jetliners. Airbus, too, has a huge backlog. But while politicians continue to make election-year speeches about protecting jobs, industry analysts say a more useful debate might be over whether there was too much consolidation of American defense manufacturers in the 1990s when military spending slowed, leaving the government with limited domestic options. With the award to the Airbus group, Mr. Kutler, the defense company investor, said: “The Defense Department is sending a message: on major contracts, don’t be assuming we have no other options. It’s a global marketplace.” Another crucial question is how such big contracts will be awarded in the future given the indications that many American officials seem to favor competition, but only if American companies win. “If Cessna wants to start building bigger airplanes, I am happy to see that happen,” said Senator Murray, of Washington. “I don’t disagree with the concept of more competition, but there is a second bigger question and that is military capability and losing military capability.” Experts warned that excluding foreign competitors could prompt other countries to take similar steps against American defense manufacturers and that choosing inferior domestic products would only put military service members at risk. That tendency, acted on in other countries, has already created what one analyst, Richard Aboulafia of the Teal Group, called “a hideous mix of higher costs and reduced combat effectiveness.” Boeing and its allies in Congress have raised a number of objections that they say could justify reversing the Air Force decision, including whether the bid evaluators properly considered subsidies that Airbus may receive from European governments, or even the fact that Boeing pays higher health care costs because much of Europe has national health insurance. In a statement after Friday’s briefing, Mark McGraw, a Boeing vice president in charge of the tanker program, said that the company would “give serious consideration to filing a protest.” He added: “What is clear now is that reports claiming that the Airbus offering won by a wide margin could not be more inaccurate.” If the company appeals, it would be to the Government Accountability Office, which would then have 100 days to issue a ruling. The Air Force, meanwhile, insists that it chose the better plane. Sue C. Payton, the assistant secretary of the Air Force, at a contentious hearing before the Defense Appropriations subcommittee last week, said: “Northrop Grumman brought their A game.” Northrop is based in Los Angeles. Ms. Payton also disagreed with assertions that the Air Force had tipped the scales for Airbus. She said officials had carefully followed procurement rules and an array of laws, including the Buy American Act, which she noted calls for certain countries, including Western European allies, to be treated as if they were the United States. “Let me say I view Northrop Grumman as an American company,” she said. “I view General Electric, who has jobs from this in Ohio and North Carolina, as an American company. I view the folks in Mobile, Alabama, and Melbourne, Florida, as Americans. But that did not enter into my decision here.” “You said we want a fair and open competition under the laws,” she told the panel. “I complied with those laws.” General Electric is to make the engines and Northrop Grumman expects to hire hundreds of engineers in Melbourne for the Airbus group’s tanker, which will be assembled in Mobile, Ala. The victory on the Air Force contract could mark the arrival of Airbus as a major builder of tankers after decades of dominance by Boeing, which manufactured the only widely used boom. The Boeing spokesman, Mr. Barksdale, said his company could easily pull together the new boom it promised the Air Force. “It’s not a huge leap of technology,” he said. “It would not be a huge deal.” But to Northrop Grumman and EADS, building the boom on spec presented a chance to demonstrate their competitive hunger. “They had to start from scratch,” said Tim Gann, a retired Air Force tanker pilot and group commander who now works for the Airbus group, EADS North America. “Up until we developed our boom, only Boeing had a boom. Boeing wasn’t going to sell us the boom.” http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080310586665.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_1470489_AEf PjkQAACQVR9WTKQkVeEpuuE0&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename= e20080310aaindex_concat.html&cred=V1c1j0SS9beSYhDr 8F96Lk4Cy_aed2pT9WeBMfm6oMC0H9bUJonYFcxrsJo6oibw#T OP">RETURN TO TOP Los Angeles Times March 10, 2008 Pg. 1 Strategic Moves For Pentagon Contract Northrop-Airbus won a big air tanker deal by helping shape criteria. By Peter Pae, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer In a high-stakes rivalry pitting two of the world's largest defense contractors, Century City-based Northrop Grumman Corp. gambled and won. The word came down Feb. 29 from the Air Force that a $40-billion contract for aerial refueling tankers would go to Northrop and its partner, Airbus, a unit of Netherlands-based European Aeronautic Defense & Space Co. Shut out was rival Boeing Co., which thought it had a winner. It was a decision likened to last month's stunning Super Bowl loss by the heavily favored New England Patriots, with the favorite losing a cliffhanger. The contract is expected to be the last new major Pentagon purchase for at least a decade, and Boeing has been mulling over whether to challenge the decision. The reasons behind the military's decision are only starting to emerge, but experts point to little-noticed moves by Northrop that may have given the edge to its tanker, which will be able to carry more fuel and troops than the plane offered by Boeing. In a highly risky move, Northrop threatened at one point to pull out of the competition if the Air Force didn't change the way the aircraft would be evaluated. The demand paid off. "Boeing allowed Northrop to skillfully shape the criteria for selecting the winning plane," said Loren B. Thompson, a defense policy analyst who closely followed the tanker competition. "In particular they allowed Northrop to shape a scenario that made its larger plane more appealing." The Air Force wants to buy 179 planes -- to be called the KC-45A -- that can be used to refuel fighters, bombers and transport planes in the air. They also will be used to carry cargo and passengers. The new planes will replace KC-135 tankers that were built in the late 1950s and early '60s. How Northrop upset Boeing is expected to be at the heart of a broader inquiry by Congress this spring as "buy America" proponents argue that major U.S. military contracts should not lead to jobs being sent overseas. The Northrop-Airbus proposal calls for converting new Airbus 330 passenger jets, currently built in Toulouse, France, into tankers. Northrop said the planes for the Air Force would be assembled in Mobile, Ala. The contract announcement surprised Boeing and its supporters, who thought the Air Force had long favored its tanker candidate, a modified version of the 767 jetliner. But experts who followed the competition said a closer look at three key moves by the Northrop-Airbus consortium may help explain how it won. Even before the competition began, the company cobbled together a small cadre of military strategists who determined that Northrop's tanker made more sense for the Pentagon's shift of strategic focus from Europe to the Middle East and the Pacific. The larger tankers could fly longer distances and stay "in station" to refuel U.S. fighters and bombers for a longer period, crucial requirements for missions in the vast expanse of the Pacific region. They pointed to a key study showing that there were only 15 airfields for every 1 million square miles in Asia, compared with nearly 40 in the Middle East and 55 in Western Europe. That issue countered Boeing's argument that the Pentagon needed a smaller tanker that could fly out of more bases. Because of the great distances that would need to be traversed, the new tankers could also be used to carry cargo and troops, a requirement the Air Force initially balked at but eventually was persuaded to add. The new requirements would be crucial in the evaluation -- the Northrop-Airbus tanker could carry about 90 more passengers and 13 more cargo pallets than Boeing's smaller offering. Second, Northrop executives made sure there would be no language in the Air Force's competition documents that would hinder their bid and undermine "a fair and open competition." Among the issues was language that would have asked the competitors how government subsidies would help pay for the design and development of the tanker, part of a lingering World Trade Organization dispute between the U.S. and the European Union. Some lawmakers had vowed to ban the Pentagon from doing business with a company involved in the WTO case, effectively eliminating Northrop because its partner, Airbus, was at the center of the trade dispute. Last, Northrop tried a long shot, throwing what one Pentagon official described as a Hail Mary pass, when it threatened to withdraw its bid if the Pentagon didn't include a way to score the tankers' divergent capabilities above and beyond the minimum requirement that they carry at least 50 passengers and six cargo pallets. The move put the Air Force in a political pinch because without a competitor, it would have incurred the wrath of Sen. John McCain, a presidential contender and the chief critic of earlier Air Force plans to lease a fleet of tankers from Boeing. The lease deal resulted in a procurement scandal and prison sentences for two Boeing executives. Some Democrats now blame the Arizona Republican for Boeing's loss. With the scoring system, the Air Force found it could conduct a military operation with nearly two dozen fewer planes if it chose the Northrop-Airbus tankers rather than Boeing's. "When this competition began, a larger plane seemed a liability," Thompson said. "By the end, it became an asset." A Boeing spokesman said its executives Friday "spent several hours with Air Force leaders, listening and probing, all in an effort to better understand the reasoning behind their decisions." But Mark McGraw, Boeing's program manager for the tanker bid, said that he "left the room with significant concerns" and that the Chicago-based aviation giant was considering challenging the decision. The company has 10 days from the day of the briefing to file a protest. As perplexed Boeing executives weighed their next move, outcries over the contract continued unabated in Congress. "We are at risk of losing a major part of our aerospace industry to the Europeans forever," Sen. Patty Murray -- a Democrat from Washington state, where the Boeing tanker would have been built -- said on the Senate floor Thursday. "What makes this so disturbing is that we're outsourcing those jobs to a company that has spent years blatantly working to dismantle the American aerospace industry." http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080310586736.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_1470489_AEf PjkQAACQVR9WTKQkVeEpuuE0&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename= e20080310aaindex_concat.html&cred=V1c1j0SS9beSYhDr 8F96Lk4Cy_aed2pT9WeBMfm6oMC0H9bUJonYFcxrsJo6oibw#T OP">RETURN TO TOP Seattle Post-Intelligencer March 10, 2008 Tanker Deal Adds To Airbus' Challenges Falling U.S. dollar overshadows win By Andrea Rothman, Bloomberg News Two years ago, Airbus sent 1,000 workers from Germany to Toulouse, France, to help build the A380 superjumbo because local employees couldn't read the manuals, which were printed in German. They're still there. The manuals show why the euphoria over a $35 billion U.S. Air Force tanker contract may be fleeting for investors in European Aeronautic Defense and Space Co., Airbus' parent. EADS is still struggling to manage a company made up of former rivals from France, Germany, the U.K. and Spain. The aircraft maker hasn't solved currency, program-management and work force-integration issues that sliced 41 percent off its share price in the past two years. The Boeing Co., which EADS beat for the tanker deal, gained 10 percent in the period. "The tanker contract isn't transformational," said Nick Cunningham, an analyst at Evolution Securities in London who has covered the aviation industry for 22 years. "Look at the scale of the challenges they face." EADS won the Air Force contract with Los Angeles-based Northrop Grumman Corp., which will supply military equipment. The European company, with headquarters in Paris and Munich, has gained 6.2 percent since the deal was announced Feb. 29. The shares slumped after rising 9.2 percent March 3 in Paris. Airbus, which accounts for two-thirds of EADS revenue, has said it will report its second consecutive annual loss this week after a two-year delay on the A380 led to cost overruns of $6.8 billion. EADS expects to break even before interest and taxes following charges of $2.13 billion on another delayed program, the A400M military transport. Still, the dollar's plunge against the euro is EADS' biggest challenge, said Zafar Khan, an analyst at SG Securities in London who has a "hold" rating on the company. The dollar is the currency for commercial aircraft purchases worldwide, so its decline cuts revenue at EADS, which pays most of its bills in euros. While the company has been protected by hedging contracts purchased before the dollar's slide, those will run out by the end of the decade. The U.S. currency has fallen 43 percent against the euro in the past six years. Every 10 percent drop in the dollar costs Airbus 1 billion euros in revenue, Chief Executive Tom Enders said in a March 2 interview. The dollar isn't EADS' only concern. The A380 was delayed because incompatible design software at the company's French and German units led to problems in connecting the 300 miles of wiring in each plane. To speed up assembly, Airbus shipped unfinished sections of the aircraft to France, where workers couldn't read manuals for processes that were supposed to be carried out in Germany, Enders said. While the superjumbo is back on track, the A400M is also late. The six- to 12-month delay predicted by the company may turn out to be longer. Francois Lureau, head of France's military procurement agency, told journalists on Feb. 26 that he didn't expect the first test flight until October -- three months after CEO Louis Gallois promised. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080310586668.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_1470489_AEf PjkQAACQVR9WTKQkVeEpuuE0&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename= e20080310aaindex_concat.html&cred=V1c1j0SS9beSYhDr 8F96Lk4Cy_aed2pT9WeBMfm6oMC0H9bUJonYFcxrsJo6oibw#T OP">RETURN TO TOP Federal Times March 10, 2008 Pg. 4 Pentagon's Plans To Use More Alternative Fuels Hit Turbulence By Tim Kauffman A little-noticed provision in a new law could cause big problems for the Defense Department and other agencies trying to use more alternative fuels. An energy bill signed into law in December prohibits agencies from contracting for alternative or synthetic fuels whose creation and use would emit more greenhouse gases than conventional gasoline. The provision -- embedded in the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act -- was added by House leaders as a check against Air Force plans to develop jet fuel derived from liquefied coal. Some estimates claim fuel from liquefied coal produces nearly twice the greenhouse gas emissions of conventional fuel. But many officials now fear the measure could curb their use of other alternative fuels. "It relates to any alternative fuel, including ethanol, biodiesel, tar sands, coal shale, coal-to-liquids, you name it," said William Anderson, assistant Air Force secretary for installations, environment and logistics. The Defense Department is the largest federal purchaser of fuels, accounting for nearly all of the $12.6 billion that the government spent on fuel, oil and lubricants last year. NASA and the State Department also are big fuel consumers. Leaders of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee sent a letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates in January asking how the Pentagon will comply with the provision. As of last week, the department hadn't responded, a committee spokeswoman said. The law prompted an appeal from Canada to exempt tar sands-derived oil from the law's coverage. Canada is the largest supplier of crude oil to the United States, and roughly half of Canadian oil is derived from tar sands, which are a mixture of sand or clay, water and naturally occurring heavy crude oil. "There is little fuel on the U.S. market that is 100 percent petroleum extracted only by conventional methodology," Michael Wilson, Canada's ambassador to the U.S., wrote last month in a letter to Gates, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman. "Oil sands-derived petroleum represents approximately 5 percent of U.S. supply, and it's not segregated from other petroleum." Paul Bollinger, special assistant to Anderson, agrees and says he's unsure how the Air Force will be able to avoid purchasing fuels derived from tar sands. "The problem is, sometimes the oil sands get mixed in before they cross the border, then it gets mixed again with other imported and domestic oil, then it's sent to the refmeries for production of fuel. We buy fuel, we don't buy oil," Bollinger said. Refineries won't disclose the location or type of oil they use because they consider such information proprietary, he said. The provision also could derail the Air Force's efforts to generate a new source of jet fuel, which accounts for more than half of all fuel consumed by the Pentagon. The Air Force won't be able to purchase coal-to-liquid fuel for use in its planes until it can show that the production and use of the fuel don't create more greenhouse gas than traditional petroleum, Bollinger said. "Industry experts producing this fuel say they can meet the standard, but there is no standard. Until we get a standard, we can't buy the fuel," he said. The Environmental Protection Agency is studying the issue on behalf of the Air Force, but it is not expected to reach any findings for a year or longer, Bollinger said. The Air Force is in the third year of purchasing coal-to-liquid fuel for testing purposes. It expects to buy about 300,000 gallons this year, up from the 281,000 gallons purchased last year from Shell in Malaysia, Anderson said. The provision against buying alternative fuel with high greenhouse gas emissions excludes fuel purchased by federal agencies for research or testing, so the Air Force can continue its studies into liquefied coal as a possible fuel alternative. The EPA study could determine whether the greenhouse gasses created from liquefying coal can be captured, stored or used for other purposes, thus mitigating their harmful environmental impacts. The Air Force's goal is to certify a synthetic fuel blend for its fleet by early 2011. It hopes to meet half of its fuel demand in the continental United States with synthetic fuels by 2016 -- that would equate to 400 million gallons a year. Ethanol and other biofuels generally are thought to be less harmful to the environment than traditional gasoline. However, studies published last month in the journal Science found that producing fuels made from plant or animal substances can release far more carbon into the atmosphere than what is saved by burning the cleaner fuels. Rain forests in Indonesia, Brazil and other countries increasingly are being cleared for growing crops for biofuel, and the destruction of those forests produces greenhouse gas emissions that last for hundreds of years, the studies found. However, an April analysis from EPA found that the production, distribution and combustion of ethanol and other biofuels offset greenhouse gas emissions that would otherwise occur from gasoline by as much as 91 percent. "There are a lot of studies in dispute with each other on the topic of whether biofuels help or hurt our ability to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the transportation sector," said Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., who chairs the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. "At the basis of those disputes are differences in fundamental assumptions and in the technical data that are being used in the analysis." To clarify the issue, the committee has asked the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering to complete a comprehensive study on the pros and cons of existing alternative fuel and electricity options. The study began in earnest this month, Bingaman said last week at the Air Force Energy Forum in Arlington, Va. "I am hoping that it will help keep Congress from being whip-sawed by competing and inconsistent claims from proponents and opponents of specific advanced energy technologies," he said. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080310586617.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_1470489_AEf PjkQAACQVR9WTKQkVeEpuuE0&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename= e20080310aaindex_concat.html&cred=V1c1j0SS9beSYhDr 8F96Lk4Cy_aed2pT9WeBMfm6oMC0H9bUJonYFcxrsJo6oibw#T OP">RETURN TO TOP Houston Chronicle March 10, 2008 Pg. 1 Lake Jackson Teen Awarded Silver Star For Gallantry In Afghanistan Proud grandmother says she 'just did what she was trained to do' By Renée C. Lee, Houston Chronicle Dodging insurgent gunfire, a 19-year-old Lake Jackson soldier used her body to shield five injured comrades after a roadside bomb struck her convoy in Afghanistan last spring. That act of bravery has earned her the Silver Star. Army Spc. Monica Lin Brown is only the second woman since World War II to receive the medal, one of the nation's highest military awards given for gallantry in combat. ''She just did what she was trained to do," her 74-year-old grandmother, Katy Brown, said from her Lake Jackson home on Sunday. Monica Brown, a medic, was part of a four-vehicle convoy patrolling near Jani Kheil in the eastern province of Paktia when a bomb struck one of the Humvees on April 25, military officials said. After the explosion, she braved insurgent gunfire and mortars to reach five wounded soldiers. She shielded them as she administered aid and helped drag them to safety, the military said. "I did not really think about anything except for getting the guys to a safer location and getting them taken care of and getting them out of there," Monica Brown told The Associated Press on Saturday from a U.S. base in the province of Khowst. Katy Brown said her granddaughter graduated from Brazos River Charter School in Morgan at 15. She joined the Army with her brother, Justin Brown, in November 2006 to get a college education, Katy Brown said. She said she is not surprised by her granddaughter's heroics. ''She's just a strong, strong young woman, and she's very caring," Katy Brown said. Monica Brown told her grandmother she didn't have time to be scared. She just jumped into action and ''made medics out of those infantry men," Katy Brown said. Monica Brown, of the 4th Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, said ammunition going off inside the burning Humvee was sending shrapnel in all directions. She said they were sitting in a dangerous spot. "So, we dragged them for 100 or 200 meters, got them away from the Humvee a little bit," she said. "I was in a kind of a robot-mode, did not think about much but getting the guys taken care of." Might leave in April Monica Brown knew all five wounded soldiers. She said they eventually moved the wounded about 500 yards away and treated them on site before putting them on a helicopter for evacuation. She is expected to leave Afghanistan on April 15, but Katy Brown didn't know when her granddaughter would arrive home or where she would receive the medal. Mary Moreno, founder of Military Moms in Lake Jackson, said Monica Brown deserves the medal because she is a giving person. ''When she came home last April, she was an inspiration to all of us," Moreno said. "She became one of us and said, 'What can I do?' " Made care packages Monica Brown helped the group pack care packages for soldiers, Moreno said. She also helped them tie yellow ribbons on trees along Oyster Creek Drive in Lake Jackson in honor of the soldiers, she said. ''She is just an amazing young woman who is very down to earth and full of life," Moreno said. The military said Brown's "bravery, unselfish actions and medical aid rendered under fire saved the lives of her comrades and represents the finest traditions of heroism in combat." Sgt. Leigh Ann Hester, of Nashville, Tenn., received the Silver Star in 2005 for gallantry during an insurgent ambush on a convoy in Iraq. Two men from Hester's unit, the 617th Military Police Company of Richmond, Ky., also received the Silver Star for their roles in the same action. The Associated Press contributed to this report. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080310586755.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_1470489_AEf PjkQAACQVR9WTKQkVeEpuuE0&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename= e20080310aaindex_concat.html&cred=V1c1j0SS9beSYhDr 8F96Lk4Cy_aed2pT9WeBMfm6oMC0H9bUJonYFcxrsJo6oibw#T OP">RETURN TO TOP San Diego Union-Tribune March 10, 2008 Marine Gets 27 Months For Killing Another In Iraq CAMP PENDLETON -- A Camp Pendleton Marine has been sentenced to 27 months behind bars and given a bad-conduct discharge for fatally shooting a fellow Marine while deployed in Iraq. Cpl. Douglas Sullivan, 23, acknowledged he failed to check whether another Marine's rifle was loaded before he lifted it to his shoulder, flipped off the safety, aimed at the back of Lance Cpl. Kristopher Cody Warren's head and pulled the trigger. The foreman of the military jury deciding the case read Sullivan's punishment in a crowded Camp Pendleton courtroom Thursday. Warren, a native of northwest Georgia who went by his middle name, was 19. He was part of the 14th Marine Regiment reserve unit based in Chattanooga, Tenn. Sullivan, of Hamilton, Mass., pleaded guilty Tuesday to involuntary manslaughter. He told the court that he didn't know why he violated the Marines' gun safety rules. --AP http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080310586641.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_1470489_AEf PjkQAACQVR9WTKQkVeEpuuE0&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename= e20080310aaindex_concat.html&cred=V1c1j0SS9beSYhDr 8F96Lk4Cy_aed2pT9WeBMfm6oMC0H9bUJonYFcxrsJo6oibw#T OP">RETURN TO TOP New York Daily News March 10, 2008 Marines Give City Teachers Crash Course By Erin Einhorn, Daily News Staff Writer WHEN 42 LOCAL TEACHERS set off on an all-expenses-paid trip to South Carolina next month, they’ll enjoy free airfare, fine hotel accommodations — and target practice with an M-16. It’s teacher boot camp, part of a Marine recruiting program that sends nearly 2,000 high school educators a year to San Diego or Parris Island, S.C., to “see how we make Marines,” said Captain Don Caetano, a program coordinator. The teachers, counselors and other people whom the Marines call “influencers” fire rifles, scale walls and talk with recruits in hopes they’ll be better equipped to advise students considering enlistment. “There seems to be a lot of misconception of the Marine Corps from TV or the movies or pop culture,” Caetano said. “What we want to do is take you down there and ... give you the unvarnished truth about what we do.” Yolanda Saldaña, a parent coordinator at Brooklyn’s W.E.B Dubois High School who attended the program last year, was “very skeptical” when high-ranking Marines gave speeches about the rewards of serving in Iraq. She said, however, that when she talked with young women who had recently enlisted, she came away with a new appreciation for what the Marines can do for young people. “They had a belief in what they were doing,” she said. “It changed my mind about the whole thing. It was real.” While in the past she would never have encouraged a student to consider the military, now she has a more open mind. “I still have not gone and said, ‘Hey, everybody should go be a Marine, but in those four days, I learned something. I gained a new understanding of what they do, and I owe it to my kids to be informed about everyth |
