IRAQ

7. U.S. Weighs Falluja Pullback, Leaving Patrols To Iraq Troops
(New York Times)...John Kifner and Ian Fisher
...If it goes forward, the plan would mark a shift in the strategy to end weeks of violence that have cost many American and Iraqi lives as well as support for the war among ordinary Americans.

8. A Full Range Of Technology Is Applied To Bomb Falluja
(New York Times)...Eric Schmitt and Thom Shanker
The airstrikes in Falluja in the past three days by American warplanes and helicopter gunships have been the most intense aerial bombardment in Iraq since major combat ended nearly a year ago, military officials said Thursday.

9. 8 Troops Killed By Suicide Bomber; 2 Other Soldiers Die
(Los Angeles Times)...Patrick J. McDonnell
The number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq during the bloodiest month since the U.S. invasion last year continued to swell Thursday, when at least 10 more soldiers were reported dead — eight of them victims of a car bomb south of the capital.

10. Allegations Of Abuse Lead To Shakeup At Iraqi Prison
(Washington Post)...Sewell Chan and Jackie Spinner
The commander of the U.S. military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has been transferred to Iraq to oversee the treatment of 8,000 detainees as part of an investigation into alleged sexual and physical abuse at a U.S. Army-run prison outside Baghdad, officials said Thursday.

11. Iraq Prison Staff Seen As Issue
(Los Angeles Times)...a Times Staff Writer
A U.S.-run prison in Iraq, where American troops are under investigation in connection with abuse of Iraqi prisoners, used private contractors to interrogate detainees, the attorney for an accused soldier has charged.

NA
12. US Wants More British Troops Sent To Iraq
(London Times)...Michael Evans and Robert Thomson
BRITAIN was yesterday encouraged to send more troops to Iraq by Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, who admitted that coalition forces were “going through a tough time” in attempting to restore order.

13. 'Several Thousand' Foreign Fighters Slip Into Iraq
(Washington Times)...Rowan Scarborough
The U.S. military says "several thousand" foreign fighters are in Iraq, a number that has remained fairly constant in recent weeks as those killed or captured are replaced by terrorists from across the border.

14. Boat Bombings Herald New Style Of Fighting In Waters Off Iraq
(Norfolk Virginian-Pilot)...Dale Eisman
American commanders expect that the Arab terrorists or Iraqi insurgents behind Saturday’s unsuccessful suicide attacks on offshore Iraqi oil facilities will attempt more such boat bombings in the coming weeks, according to a senior defense official .

15. Book Names Iraqi In Alleged '99 Bid To Buy Uranium
(Washington Post)...Susan Schmidt
It was Saddam Hussein's information minister, Mohammed Saeed Sahhaf, often referred to in the Western press as "Baghdad Bob," who approached an official of the African nation of Niger in 1999 to discuss trade -- an overture the official saw as a possible effort to buy uranium.

DEFENSE DEPARTMENT

16. Pentagon To Try To Fix War Zone Voting Woes
(Washington Post)...Dan Keating
Plagued by a history of problems delivering mail, especially in wartime, the Pentagon will soon be unveiling a program to do a better job of getting ballots overseas and back so units deployed in combat zones and elsewhere can cast votes in the fall presidential election.

17. U.S. To Set Free 40 Gitmo Prisoners
(UPI.com)...Anwar Iqbal, United Press International
The United States has agreed to hand over 40 Pakistani prisoners detained at the Guantanamo Bay prison facility to Pakistan, diplomatic sources told United Press International Thursday.

ARMY

18. 'I Need To Go And Do This'
(Washington Post)...Joshua Partlow
...Yesterday, under a blue sky striated by the white contrails of jets, Stack was laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery. More than 100 people followed a horse-drawn caisson under the warm sun to his grave site. Stack was posthumously awarded the Silver Star, the military's third-highest honor for heroism in combat. He was the 58th soldier killed in Iraq to be buried at Arlington.

AIR FORCE

19. Air Force Chaplain Is Relieved Of Duties By Catholic Archbishop
(Philadelphia Inquirer)...Richard N. Ostling, Associated Press
The Rev. Thomas P. Doyle, an Air Force chaplain and an ardent champion of sex-abuse victims among America's Roman Catholic clergy, has been dismissed from his chaplain duties by his archbishop and is forbidden to lead public Masses.

CONGRESS

20. Wolfowitz Comes Up Short On Troop Deaths
(Los Angeles Times)...Esther Schrader
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, testifying Thursday before a congressional subcommittee, drastically underestimated the number of American soldiers killed in Iraq since the war began.

21. Fund For U.S. Operations In Iraq Proposed
(Los Angeles Times)...Reuters
Lawmakers are considering setting up a special reserve fund to pay for U.S. military operations in Iraq, which would avert the need for President Bush to formally request extra Iraq funds before the November election.

NA
22. Negroponte Wins Senate Panel Nod
(Washington Times)...Unattributed
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee yesterday approved President Bush's selection of John D. Negroponte, the ambassador to the United Nations, to be the first U.S. ambassador to Iraq after the planned June 30 transfer of sovereignty to a new Iraqi authority.

23. Peacekeeping Force Planned For Africa
(Washington Times)...Bill Gertz
The Pentagon and State Department are planning to set up a 75,000-member international peacekeeping force for Africa, senior Bush administration officials told Congress yesterday. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage disclosed the plan during a hearing of the House Appropriations subcommittee on foreign operations.

NA
24. Hunter Says He Will Press For Increase Of 39,000 Troops Over Next Three Years
(CQ Today)...John M. Donnelly
The House Armed Services Committee’s defense authorization bill for fiscal 2005 will mandate an increase of 39,000 soldiers and Marines over the next three years, the panel’s chairman said in an interview.

STATE DEPARTMENT

NA
25. Powell, During European Trip, Shows His Continuing Appeal
(Wall Street Journal)...Bob Davis
...Through a series of talks with European leaders of countries with troops in Iraq, he also did his best to prevent the U.S.-led coalition from buckling further after Spain pulled out its troops.

TERRORISM

NA
26. Report Says Terrorism Fell In 2003
(Wall Street Journal)...David S. Cloud
The number of international terrorist attacks fell to the lowest level on record last year, but the recent bombing in Madrid indicates that the U.S. and its allies haven't succeeded in stopping al Qaeda's ability to launch major operations.

27. Bremer Warned Bush Was Lax On Terrorism
(Los Angeles Times)...Associated Press
L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator in Iraq, said in a speech six months before the Sept. 11 attacks that the Bush administration was "paying no attention" to terrorism.

AFRICA

28. Why A Village Well Is A Weapon In The War On Terror
(New York Times)...Marc Lacey
...Not just in Siyu but throughout the Horn of Africa sick people line up by the hundreds for checkups by military doctors. Pastoralists bring their huge herds of cows and sheep and goats for deworming by military veterinarians. Parents cheer as military engineers refurbish their children's schools. Despite its Peace Corps-like approach, though, the Pentagon still has some hearts and minds to win in its periodic visits to the island.

NORTH KOREA

29. North Koreans Agree To Mid-Level Talks
(Washington Post)...Anthony Faiola and Edward Cody
North Korea agreed Thursday to attend a round of mid-level diplomatic talks starting May 12 aimed at dismantling its nuclear weapons program but bluntly stated that it must receive a "reward" for taking even the preliminary step of a nuclear freeze.

AMERICAS

NA
30. General Says More U.S. Troops Are Needed To Help Colombia
(Wall Street Journal (wsj.com))...Associated Press
...U.S. Army Gen. James Hill, the commander of U.S. military operations in Latin America, said Washington's ability to provide advice and training as Colombia carries out offensives against the insurgent groups has been hurt by Congress' stipulation that no more than 400 U.S. troops and 400 American contractors can be in this Andean country at one time.

UNITED NATIONS

31. U.S. Weighs U.N. Proposal For An Interim Iraqi Leader
(New York Times)...Steven R. Weisman
The Bush administration is considering a United Nations proposal to appoint Iraq's current planning minister, a Shiite, as prime minister when the American occupation is dissolved on June 30, administration officials said Thursday.

32. Brahimi Holds USA's Iraq Exit Strategy In His Hands
(USA Today)...Barbara Slavin
...The 70-year-old former Algerian foreign minister, who also oversaw Afghanistan's political transition, appears to have become, by default, the Bush administration's best hope for an orderly political exit from Iraq. With U.S. blessing, he will pick a prime minister and cabinet to replace a U.S.-appointed council June 30 and govern Iraq until elections early next year.

POLL

33. Most Believe Saddam Is Guilty Of Atrocities, Will Be Put To Death
(USA Today)...Steven Komarow
Iraqis expect Saddam Hussein to be put on trial this year, found guilty and sentenced to death for murdering Iraqi civilians, a new poll shows.

34. Poll Finds Optimism About What Lies Ahead
(USA Today)...Cesar G. Soriano and Steven Komarow
A new USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll shows Iraqis are optimistic about their future, despite deep, potentially dangerous divides among competing factions over the role of religion in government and autonomy for the Kurdish minority.

MEDIA

NA
35. Iraqi Television Viewers Get More Options
(Wall Street Journal)...Christopher Cooper
Asked recently how he would counter suggestions from pan-Arab broadcaster al-Jazeera that U.S. soldiers were targeting civilians in Iraq, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, coalition-forces spokesman, offered a terse reply: "Change the channel." The U.S. is hoping to give Iraqis more opportunities to do just that.

36. Some Stations To Block 'Nightline' War Tribute
(New York Times)...Bill Carter
Sinclair Broadcast Group, one of the largest owners of local television stations, will pre-empt tonight's edition of the ABC News program "Nightline," saying the program's plan to have Ted Koppel read aloud the names of every member of the armed forces killed in action in Iraq was motivated by an antiwar agenda and threatened to undermine American efforts there.

BUSINESS

37. Marines Lead Way In Approving C-130J For Use
(Atlanta Journal and Constitution)...Dave Hirschman
The Marines gave Lockheed Martin's C-130J Hercules a boost Thursday when it became the first U.S. military branch to approve the airplanes for operational use.

NA
38. Lockheed F/A-22 Begins Combat Testing, Air Force Says
(Bloomberg.com)...Tony Capaccio
Lockheed Martin Corp.'s F/A-22 Raptor fighter jet began four months of combat testing today, the final step before full production of planes worth at least $22.6 billion begins, after the Pentagon and Air Force gave approval.

More to come...

IRAQ

7. G.I.'s Are Accused Of Abusing Iraqi Captives
(New York Times)...James Risen
American soldiers at a prison outside Baghdad have been accused of forcing Iraqi prisoners into acts of sexual humiliation and other abuses in order to make them talk, according to officials and others familiar with the charges.

8. Photos Show U.S. Troops Apparently Abusing Iraqis
(Los Angeles Times)...Times staff and wire reports
U.S. military police stacked naked Iraqi prisoners in a human pyramid, and attached wires to one detainee to convince him he might be electrocuted, according to photographs obtained by CBS News that led to criminal charges against six American soldiers.

9. Cease-Fire Strategy Spurs Strikes On Iraqi Insurgents
(Washington Times)...Rowan Scarborough
The U.S. military is using the tenuous cease-fire in Fallujah to monitor insurgent movements and then strike with air power inside the city when provoked.

10. The Day Of The Generals, At Last
(New York Daily News)...Charles Krohn
The battle for Fallujah, now in its early stages, is different from other military operations in Iraq in one dramatic and overdue respect: The details are finally being left to the combat commanders on the scene.

11. Marines In Fallujah Keep Enemy In Sight
(Philadelphia Inquirer)...Carol Rosenberg
Marines awaiting orders to launch a full-scale attack here are using a not-so-secret weapon that commanders consider more effective than a 500-pound bomb to winnow down enemy fighters: sniper teams that target anyone suspected of being an insurgent.

12. Admiral Concedes Impact Of Iraq Rebels
(Washington Times)...Agence France-Presse
The U.S. official heading the reconstruction of Iraq said yesterday that Iraqi insurgents were dictating the pace of the massive program to rebuild the country's infrastructure.

NA
13. Coalition’s Best Efforts Are Short-Circuited By Weather And Violence
(London Times)...James Hider and Stephen Farrell
THE United States-led coalition is losing a race against time to rebuild Iraq’s ailing infrastructure before the stifling summer heat sets in, with rising violence driving key foreign contractors and aid workers from the country, Iraqi officials said yesterday.

14. More Angry Than Ever At The U.S., The Iraqis Crave Security
(New York Times)...Ian Fisher
...But judging from interviews around Baghdad in recent days, most Iraqis seem to be waiting, uncertain and with less tolerance than before the violence of the last weeks. They want to see how much power they will actually receive in the transfer of some sovereignty on June 30; whether fighting will flare again in Falluja or, worse, in the holy Shiite Muslim city of Najaf; whether American soldiers can contain any new burst of fighting without killing innocent Iraqis. This last point seems the crucial one, capable of forcing even those sympathetic to American aims here into a choice between occupier and fellow Iraqi.

15. Why Iraq Governing Council Failed
(Christian Science Monitor)...Dan Murphy
With daily gun battles between Sunni insurgents and US Marines in Fallujah, and the tense standoff between US forces and militia loyal to Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in the southern city of Najaf, the United States was expected to turn to its appointed Governing Council to mediate a peaceful solution.

16. Chalabi Says No To U.N. Oversight
(Washington Times)...Sharon Behn
Iraq will not accept any government that is directed by the United Nations, a spokesman for Ahmed Chalabi, a senior member of the Iraqi Governing Council, said yesterday.

17. Iraqi Flag Modified After Complaints
(Los Angeles Times)...Associated Press
Iraqi leaders unveiled a modified national flag Wednesday after sharp criticism that a version presented earlier this week resembled Israel's banner, but they stressed it was only temporary.

DEFENSE DEPARTMENT

18. Iraq Cellular Project Leads To U.S. Inquiry
(Los Angeles Times)...T. Christian Miller
A senior Defense Department official is under investigation by the Pentagon inspector general for allegations that he attempted to alter a contract proposal in Iraq to benefit a mobile phone consortium that includes friends and colleagues, according to documents obtained by The Times and sources with direct knowledge of the process.

19. U.S. Forces Rush To Send Tanks To Iraq
(New York Times)...Eric Schmitt
The Army and Marine Corps are rushing dozens of 70-ton battle tanks and armored personnel carriers to Iraq to help meet the rising security threat to American troops, military officials said Wednesday.

20. More Armored Vehicles Being Sent To Troops In Iraq
(USA Today)...Tom Squitieri
...The heavier, tougher vehicles are meant to offer better protection against roadside bombs and ambushes, which have taken a heavy toll among U.S. troops. This month, at least 115 U.S. troops have died, nearly as many as the 138 who died during the "major combat" phase of the war in March and April a year ago. Many were killed in roadside attacks on their Humvees, essentially light trucks that often have little armor. The heavier vehicles are also intended for use in urban combat.

21. 3rd Study Concludes Soldiers At Greater Risk Of Gehrig's
(USA Today)...Rita Rubin
Men who served in the military were 60% more likely to develop Lou Gehrig's disease than men who didn't, a study said Wednesday.

ARMY

22. Call For More Troops Could Be Tough On Army
(Philadelphia Inquirer)...Robert Burns, Associated Press
The Army could have a tough time finding more combat troops if they are needed in Iraq. Of the service's 10 active-duty divisions, all or parts of nine are either already in Iraq to serve 12-month tours of duty, or have returned home in recent weeks after a year's duty.

23. 82nd Could Use A Break
(Fayetteville (NC) Observer)...Kevin Maurer
The commanding general of the 82nd Airborne Division said Wednesday that his soldiers need a break.

NA
24. Tillman Posthumously Honored By Army
(USA Today)...Greg Boeck
Army Ranger Pat Tillman, the former Arizona Cardinal safety who was killed in combat last Thursday in Afghanistan, has been posthumously promoted to the rank of corporal and awarded the Purple Heart and Meritorious Service Medal, the military announced Wednesday. No announcement on time, date or site has been made for a public memorial scheduled next week in San Jose, Calif.

WHITE HOUSE

25. Bush Vows To Win In Fallujah
(Washington Times)...Bill Sammon
President Bush yesterday said U.S. troops will use whatever force is needed to quell uprisings in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, where American warplanes continued to pound insurgents.

CONGRESS

26. Employee Misuse Of Credit Cards Cited
(Washington Post)...Christopher Lee
Federal employees wielding government credit cards have improperly charged diamond rings, karaoke machines, a mounted deer head, cars, laptop computers, access to Internet porn and gambling, and other goods and services, agency investigators said yesterday.

27. Wilson: Consider R&D In Base Closings
(National Journal's CongressDailyAM)...Amy Klamper
Rep. Heather Wilson, R-N.M., introduced a bill Wednesday that would require the Pentagon to consider the military value of research, development and testing facilities in the next round of base closings.

More to come...

IRAQ

7. U.S. Pummels Rebel Positions As Fierce Clash Shakes Falluja
(New York Times)...John F. Burns
Fierce fighting between United States marines and Iraqi insurgents erupted in Falluja on Tuesday night, with an AC-130 gunship, tanks and machine guns blasting rebel positions in the district where American troops attacked a mosque on Monday and toppled the minaret.

8. The Siege Of Falluja, A Test In A Tinderbox
(New York Times)...Eric Schmitt
The siege in Falluja is a case study in mistaken assumptions, dashed hopes, rivalry between the Army and the Marine Corps, and a tragedy that became a trigger, Pentagon officials, senior officers and independent military analysts said Tuesday.

9. Winning Fallujah Risks Losing Iraq
(USA Today)...Dave Moniz and Tom Squitieri
Nearly 14 months into a war that the Pentagon predicted would end quickly for occupying forces, the U.S. military faces what could be its most important series of battles since the 1968 Tet Offensive in Vietnam, when insurgents lost badly to U.S. troops but attacked so aggressively and so widely that they changed the course of the war.

10. Iraqi Forces Get Crash Course For Patrols In Fallujah
(Washington Post)...Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Four Iraqi policemen in bright blue shirts, shadowed by four U.S. Marines in full desert camouflage, swept behind an abandoned grain warehouse in a perfect diamond formation, their rifles trained at doors, windows and other likely places for insurgents to open fire.

11. Lack Of Heavy Armor Constrains Urban Options In Iraq
(Newhouse.com)...David Wood, Newhouse News Service
A shortage of armored combat vehicles in Iraq is pressing U.S. forces into a cruel dilemma: either advance stealthily on foot, or hold up at a city's outskirts and use artillery, mortars and airstrikes.

12. Insurgents In Iraq Show Signs Of Acting As A Network
(Christian Science Monitor)...Ann Scott Tyson
Far from limited to a small group of "dead-enders" and Saddam "thugs" as Pentagon officials claim, the armed opposition to the US occupation in Iraq has reached the point where some experts say it threatens to become a full-fledged nationalist insurgency.

DEFENSE DEPARTMENT

13. More Armor Urged For U.S. Forces In Iraq
(Washington Post)...Josh White
As insurgents continue to use improvised bombs to attack U.S. military vehicles in Iraq, officials are growing increasingly concerned that the lack of heavy armored vehicles is putting U.S. forces at risk.

NA
14. Rumsfeld: Contingency Planning To Extend Troops In Iraq
(Wall Street Journal (wsj.com))...Alex Keto, Dow Jones Newswires
U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Tuesday the Pentagon is doing contingency planning to extend further the tours of duty of some soldiers in Iraq but emphasized he has received no request from the military commanders in Iraq to take action.

15. Why US Troops Have New Shoulder Pads
(Christian Science Monitor)...Scott Peterson
A new combat trauma registry that tracks casualty patterns in Iraq may spur development of new gear.

MISSILE DEFENSE

16. General Says Missile Defense Could Be Ready Soon
(Washington Post)...Bradley Graham
The general in charge of the Pentagon's missile defense programs said yesterday that upcoming flight tests are likely to have little bearing on plans to field a national antimissile system later this year.

17. Missile Defense Against N. Korea Being Readied
(Washington Times)...John J. Lumpkin, Associated Press
The chief of the military's missile defense programs said yesterday that he expects to protect all of the United States from a North Korean attack by the end of the year, but said failures in two upcoming tests could mean "big problems" for the program.

ARMY

18. Experimental Smallpox Vaccine Protects Monkeys From Dying
(Washington Post)...David Brown
Researchers at the U. S. Army laboratories at Fort Detrick in Frederick reported a major advance yesterday in the search for a safer smallpox vaccine.

19. Missing Army Copter Is Found Near River
(Los Angeles Times)...Times Wire Reports
An Army Black Hawk helicopter that vanished during a training flight was found on the banks of the Great Pee Dee River after it was spotted by a trucker.

20. Ski Resorts' Howitzers Called To Duty
(Philadelphia Inquirer)...Martin Griffith, Associated Press
The U.S. military is demanding the return of five howitzers that two Sierra Nevada ski resorts use to prevent avalanches, saying it needs the guns for the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

NATIONAL GUARD/RESERVE

21. Soldier Sisters Choose Not To Rejoin Army Units In Iraq
(USA Today)...Debbie Howlett
The two Wisconsin sisters of a female soldier killed this month in Baghdad said Tuesday that they will not rejoin their Army National Guard units in Iraq.

CONGRESS

NA
22. Kyl Says Democrats May Offer Amendments To Stifle Missile Defense
(Inside Missile Defense)...Jeremy Feiler
Republican Policy Committee Chairman Jon Kyl (R-AZ) this week warned mounting Democratic opposition to missile defense development efforts is likely to surface as Congress considers next year’s defense authorization and appropriations bills.

NA
23. Senate Panel to Review Use of Humvees in Iraq After Warning
(Bloomberg.com)...Tony Capaccio
The Senate Armed Services Committee will review the deployment of AM General Corp.'s Humvee vehicles in Iraq after a top Army general warned that they are not as effective as General Dynamics Corp.'s Stryker transports, panel head Senator John Warner said.

NA
24. Armed Services Committee Ponders Its Latest Approach To Base Closings
(National Journal's CongressDailyAM)...Amy Klamper
As the time for the FY05 defense authorization markup approaches, the House Armed Services Committee is mulling its approach to the Pentagon's upcoming round of base closings and realignments.

NA
25. Comptroller Nominee Promises Review Of Leasing Panel
(Defense Daily)...Sharon Weinberger
The administration’s nominee to become the Pentagon’s chief financial officer promised a Senate panel that, if confirmed, she would review the procedures the Defense Department uses for major leases.

MIDEAST

26. U.S. Airs Critical Views Of Arab TV
(Los Angeles Times)...Paul Richter
Stepping up the Bush administration's campaign to counter what it considers incendiary coverage of Iraq, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell met Tuesday with Qatar's foreign minister for "intense discussions" about the government-funded Al Jazeera satellite TV station.

27. Damascus Hit By A Bombing And A Gunfight
(New York Times)...Susan Sachs
Heavily armed assailants detonated a bomb near a cluster of foreign embassies in Damascus, the Syrian capital, on Tuesday, setting off an intense gun battle with state security forces that maintain exceptionally tight control over the society.

AFGHANISTAN

28. Afghanistan: Taliban Attack In Center Of Country
(New York Times)...Carlotta Gall
Forty Taliban fighters attacked district offices near Kandahar, killing three people. It was the first such attack on a centrally located town, a reminder of the continuing threat the Taliban pose to stability. The district chief, Niaz Mohammad Sarhadi, said there was no doubt the Taliban were responsible for the attack. The attackers left a Chinese-made Kalashnikov of the kind used by the police in Pakistan, said Saadullah Mashuzai, the police chief.

29. Government Executes Notorious Murderer
(Los Angeles Times)...Times Wire Reports
Afghanistan has executed Abdullah Shah, a notorious commander convicted of murdering dozens of people, including four of his wives, in the first use of the death penalty since the Taliban fell, officials said.

EUROPE

30. Spain Has Withdrawn Peacekeepers From Iraq, Prime Minister Says
(International Herald Tribune)...Associated Press
Spain has completed the withdrawal of its peacekeeping troops from Iraq, Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said Tuesday.

31. Georgia Eyes Troop Rise To Protect U.N. Officials
(Washington Times)...David R. Sands
Georgia is actively considering a major increase in its troop deployment in Iraq to protect U.N. officials working on the country's political transition, Georgian Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania said in an interview yesterday. The Georgian offer comes at a welcome time for the strapped U.S.-led mission in Iraq, which faces renewed violence and the imminent pullout of troops by Spain and other members of the international coalition.

NUCLEAR WEAPONS

32. U.S. Sees Nuclear Network Threat
(Washington Times)...Edith M. Lederer, Associated Press
Several countries in addition to Iran and North Korea may be trying to develop nuclear weapons, and Washington is pursuing the customers of an underground Pakistani network, Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton said yesterday.

MEDIA

33. 'Nightline' To Read Off Iraq War Dead
(New York Times)...Bill Carter
In a conscious echo of a famous, Vietnam War-era issue of Life magazine, the ABC News program "Nightline" will broadcast Friday night the names and faces of every soldier killed by hostile fire since the start of the war in Iraq.

34. Al Iraqiya Offers Alternative View
(Washington Times)...Rowan Scarborough
...The mix of C-SPAN-style public affairs and cable TV news appears to be catching on. The State Department did a survey last month, asking Iraqis which source they go to first for news. Al Iraqiya beat its two chief competitors. It garnered 40 percent of respondents, compared with 29 percent for Al Arabiya TV in the United Arab Emirates and 11 percent for Al Jazeera.

BUSINESS

NA
35. Scrutiny Of Boeing May Delay Lift Of Air Force Ban
(Wall Street Journal)...Andy Pasztor and Jonathan Karp
Recent developments in a criminal investigation into Boeing Co.'s ethical lapses appear to be giving the Air Force second thoughts about quickly reinstating the company's eligibility to compete for billions of dollars of military rocket launches.

36. GAO Cites Cost Risks In Undefined Iraq Contracts
(Washington Post)...Mary Pat Flaherty and Jackie Spinner
...The draft concludes that federal agencies "generally complied" with the laws and regulations governing no-bid or limited-bid contracts -- an issue that has drawn congressional attention. But the GAO reviewers do note shortcomings in the tasks ordered under various existing contracts.

37. Poor Security 'Threatens To Reduce Power Supply Targets'
(London Financial Times)...James Drummond
Targets for the restoration of Iraq's power supply will have to be downgraded soon unless there is an improvement in poor security that has forced all but a handful of foreign energy contractors to withdraw from the country, Raad al-Haris, deputy minister for electricity, told the Financial Times yesterday.

OPINION

38. Old Dangers Loom In Current Iraq Conflict
(USA Today)...Editorial
The military victory was quick and decisive. As they entered Baghdad, foreign commanders told Iraqis they had been liberated, not conquered. But the honeymoon soon soured. Plans to give Iraqis representative rule foundered as factions banded together in a bloody uprising.

39. Stay The Political Course
(USA Today)...Ahmad Chalabi
President Bush is the most popular political figure in Iraq today. The Iraqi people are grateful for liberation and are hopeful that it will lead to a better future.

NA
40. Former General Sees 'Staying the Course' In Iraq As Untenable
(Wall Street Journal)...John Harwood
The time to worry is when Washington politicians on all sides agree. So when John Kerry echoes President Bush in arguing that the United States "can't cut and run" from Iraq, maybe it's time to listen to someone who says we must.

41. Trusting Iraqis?
(New York Times)...Nicholas D. Kristof
...Yet rushing out would be a mistake. If we give up on Iraq, it will collapse into civil war, leaving Iraqis worse off than they were under Saddam and turning the country with the world's second-largest oil reserves into a failed state that spawns terrorists.

42. Conscription Is The Wrong Prescription
(Los Angeles Times)...Michael O'Hanlon
As casualties have mounted in Iraq, and frequent call-ups of National Guard and reserve troops have placed unusual strains on the nation's citizen-soldiers, there has been a push to reinstate military conscription. Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Ernest F. Hollings (D-S.C.) have introduced a bill that would restore the draft. And one of Congress' most respected military veterans, Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), has called for a national debate on the idea.

43. Defensive Diplomacy
(OpinionJournal.com)...Brendan Miniter
Colin Powell may enjoy the media and United Nations' affection, but the quiet truth is that Donald Rumsfeld is building some of America's most meaningful coalitions. Far from separating the U.S. from the "international community," under his leadership the Pentagon's approach in Iraq and around the world is cultivating allies. That's one reason why even as Spain, Honduras and the Dominican Republic plan to pull their troops out of Iraq, other allies--such as Australia, England and Georgia--are talking about sending more troops in.

44. Colin In The Cross-Fire
(New York Times)...William Safire
...First, Colin and Rummy came at just about every defense and foreign issue with a different mind-set. This augured permanent policy tussling — "creative tension" — at the top of the new leadership. Second, these two old pros genuinely enjoyed sparring intellectually with each other. That portended a personal civility to ameliorate the usual State-Defense institutional hostility. Third, the taciturn Condi Rice was not yet in their power league or did not trust the social-occasion rules. That's the way policy formation in Bush's first term is playing out.

NA
45. 'They Fight To Let Justice Arise' -- (Letter)
(Wall Street Journal)...Sen. Dianne Feinstein
I extend my very heartfelt sympathy to Mr. Griffin and his family, on the death of their 20-year-old son, Spc. Kyle Andrew Griffin, last May in Iraq. A parent having to endure the death of a child is one of the saddest experiences I can imagine.

EDITORIAL

NA
46. War And The Supreme Court
(Wall Street Journal)...Editorial
As the Supreme Court weighs the rights of the captured al Qaeda fighters whose cases will be heard today, we hope it won't forget the rights of the rest of us. Namely, Americans have the right to be protected against enemy attack.

IRAQ

7. Waiting For Change In Najaf, Preparing To Force It In Falluja
(New York Times)...Thom Shanker
When American commanders on the outskirts of Najaf and Falluja peer into the two troubled Iraqi cities, they see very different problems. Each place has its own culture, each harbors a different enemy, and each offers its own potential allies to help calm a volatile situation.

8. In The Besieged City, The Marines Look Ahead Uneasily To Joint Patrols With Iraqis
(New York Times)...John Kifner
As Iraqi insurgents and marines fought a pitched battle here for several hours on Monday, marine officers said they felt a sense of grim foreboding about the prospect of joint patrols with Iraqis in the city.

9. U.S. To Change Tactics After Gulf Attacks
(Washington Post)...Josh White and Bradley Graham
A pair of nearly concurrent suicide bombing attacks on oil terminals in the Persian Gulf on Saturday -- the first waterborne assaults since the United States invaded Iraq -- has spurred the American military to significantly tighten security and change engagement tactics.

10. Iraqi Sovereignty After Turnover Hedged
(Washington Times)...Nicholas Kralev
Iraq's future government will have to give some of its sovereignty back to the U.S.-led forces in the country after the transfer of power on June 30 to allow American troops to provide security, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said yesterday. Meanwhile, the United States began assuming responsibility for two provinces in south-central Iraq in anticipation of when more than 2,000 troops from Spain, Honduras and the Dominican Republic pull out in the next few weeks.

NA
11. Saudi Official Says Iraq Handoff May Be Imperiled
(Wall Street Journal)...Gerald F. Seib
The current American plan to hand over sovereignty to Iraqis at the end of June is imperiled unless Iraq's new rulers are given an army that the U.S. allows to exercise real authority, Saudi Arabia's foreign minister said yesterday.

12. Iraq's Council Chief: U.S. Is At Fault
(Philadelphia Inquirer)...Louis Meixler, Associated Press
The current president of the Iraqi Governing Council said yesterday that the United States had only itself to blame for the military deadlock at Najaf and Fallujah because it allowed its troops to change from "an army of liberation" to "an army of occupation."

13. British Weigh More Troops For Iraq
(Washington Post)...Glenn Frankel
British officials said Monday they were considering a proposal to dispatch more troops to Iraq, while more than 50 former British ambassadors published a letter pleading with Prime Minister Tony Blair to use his influence to change U.S. Middle East policies that they called "doomed to failure."

14. U.S. Tells Rebel Cleric To Remove Weapons From Shrines, Schools
(Los Angeles Times)...Patrick J. McDonnell
U.S. officials issued an ultimatum Monday ordering a militant Shiite cleric to remove weapons from mosques, shrines and schools in Najaf, and a powerful explosion in an industrial building in Baghdad killed two GIs and wounded five. In the aftermath, gleeful teenagers cavorted atop and around several abandoned U.S. Humvees.

15. Iraqis Say Council-Approved National Flag Won't Fly
(Washington Post)...Pamela Constable
It was supposed to be the perfect symbol for a new and unified Iraq: an Islamic crescent on a field of pure white, with two blue stripes representing the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and a third yellow stripe to symbolize the country's Kurdish minority.

16. Captors Give Ultimatum On Italians Held In Iraq
(Washington Post)...Daniel Williams
In a warning aired on Arabic-language satellite television Monday, kidnappers said they would kill three Italians taken hostage in Iraq unless Italy's public rallied against their country's participation in the occupation of Iraq.

17. White House Favorite Is Becoming Its Headache
(New York Times)...David E. Sanger and Eric Schmitt
Before the war in Iraq, Ahmad Chalabi was the Pentagon's favorite exile, the man who supported the Bush administration's claims that Saddam Hussein was sitting on a huge stockpile of unconventional weapons, and who many in the defense secretary's inner circle saw as the future leader of a free Iraq. A year later, he is a problem for the administration, a harsh critic of President Bush's endorsement of a United Nations plan to keep Iraq together until elections next year.

18. Amid An Unseen Enemy, The Welcome Dog Of War
(Washington Post)...Pamela Constable
...The flip side of that restriction was the privilege of being able to interview any Marine we met. To a man, the troops believed they had been sent to Fallujah to help free its people. Their commanders had invoked Guadalcanal, Hue and other historic Marine battles to inspire them, and the soda factory bristled with esprit de corps.

19. Rumors Thrive In A Nation Shaped By Myth
(Los Angeles Times)...Jeffrey Fleishman
...Iraq is awhirl in rumors. Amid fires in the night and mortar rounds pounding city and village, this nation, where so much is uncertain, feeds on the half-truths and conspiracies that U.S. forces are struggling to contain in what has become an information war. The gossip on the street and the grisly images flickering across Arab television are doing as much to undermine American authority as well-armed insurgents staging ambushes on desert highways.

NA
20. Negroponte Has Tricky Mission
(Wall Street Journal)...Carla Anne Robbins
John Negroponte was such a powerful ambassador in Honduras in the early 1980s that he was known as "the proconsul," a title given to powerful administrators in colonial times. Now President Bush has chosen him to reprise that role in Iraq -- assuming, that is, that the Pentagon is willing to cede its control.

DEFENSE DEPARTMENT

21. U.S. Tries New Combat-Stress Treatment
(Philadelphia Inquirer)...Patrick Peterson
The U.S. military is treating combat stress in Iraq with preventive measures as close to the front as possible, a new approach it hopes will reduce stigma and quickly return troops to their posts. Navy doctors who treat Marines and sailors have opened regional centers in Iraq where troops can receive counseling, warm meals, a shower and clean clothes during stays that last a maximum of three days.

22. Military Mail Difficulties Persist
(Los Angeles Times)...John M. Glionna
A pair of recent federal reports critical of the military's handling of overseas mail — including the timely delivery of election ballots to troops stationed in Iraq — could foreshadow potential problems in November's presidential election, two U.S. lawmakers are warning.

23. Pentagon's Uranium Denial
(New York Daily News)...Juan Gonzalez
The Pentagon says Jerry Wheat, a former tank driver with the 3rd Armored Division, is not sick from exposure to depleted uranium. Neither is Mark Zeller, who once loaded depleted uranium tank-busting shells onto Apache helicopters. And Doug Rokke, a retired Army major who first assessed the dangers of depleted uranium after the Persian Gulf War, is scientifically off-base, the Pentagon says. All three men proudly served their country in the Gulf War. All three came home with inexplicable illnesses.

CONGRESS

24. Congressional Oversight Of Intelligence Criticized
(Washington Post)...Dana Priest
In the fall of 2002, as Congress debated waging war in Iraq, copies of a 92-page assessment of Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction sat in two vaults on Capitol Hill, each protected by armed security guards and available to any member who showed up in person, without staff. But only a few ever did.

25. Democrats Question Use Of 9/11 Emergency Fund
(Washington Post)...Dan Morgan
The ranking Democrats on the House and Senate Appropriations committees charged yesterday that the Bush administration had not complied with reporting requirements set by Congress for the use of a $40 billion emergency fund approved three days after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

26. Probe Notes Lapses In Chemical Arms Disclosures
(Washington Times)...Bill Gertz
Russia, China and Iran have failed to fully disclose details of their chemical weapons programs and arsenals that are to be destroyed under a 1997 treaty, raising proliferation risks, according to a congressional report.

ARMY

27. Body Of Former NFL Player Tillman Arrives In U.S.
(Washington Post)...Unattributed
The body of former Arizona Cardinals safety Pat Tillman arrived at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware yesterday, a military official said.

AIR FORCE

28. Make-Or-Break Time For Raptor
(Newport News Daily Press)...Stephanie Heinatz
It's game time for the F/A-22 Raptor. Beginning later this week, the newest and most lethal fighter in the Air Force arsenal will begin roughly four months of operational tests that will determine whether it is ready for battle - and whether the $72 billion program can go into full-scale production.

NATIONAL GUARD

NA
29. Soldier Sisters To Announce Decision Today
(USA Today)...Unattributed
Two sisters of a soldier killed in Iraq plan to announce their decision today on whether they want to return to Iraq with the Wisconsin National Guard.

COAST GUARD

30. More Coast Guard Expansion Is Urged
(Washington Post)...Unattributed
Plans to increase the Coast Guard's fleet of ships and helicopters are not enough to meet the service's expanding needs in the post-Sept. 11 era, according to a study released yesterday.

BUSINESS

31. Ten Penalized Firms Get Contracts In Iraq
(Washington Times)...Matt Kelley, Associated Press
Ten companies with billions of dollars in U.S. contracts for Iraq reconstruction have paid more than $300 million in penalties since 2000 to resolve claims of bid-rigging, fraud, delivery of faulty military parts and environmental damage.

32. Boeing Ex-Analyst Says Lockheed Data Used In Bid
(Bloomberg.com)...Tony Capaccio and Joyzelle Davis
Boeing Co., the No. 2 defense contractor, used Lockheed Martin Corp. data in its 1998 bid to win rocket business from the company, a former Boeing cost analyst told the Justice Department and Air Force this month, recanting an earlier statement, according to people familiar with the situation.

33. Lockheed To Cut 500 Jobs At Fort Worth Plant
(Dallas Morning News)...Bloomberg News
Lockheed Martin Corp., the largest U.S. defense contractor, will cut as many as 500 jobs at its plant in Fort Worth by the end of the year as it slows production of F-16 fighter jets, the local union said.

AFGHANISTAN

34. NATO Allies Urged To Help More In Afghanistan
(USA Today)...Noelle Knox
U.S. Gen. James Jones is used to giving orders, not making sales pitches. But the supreme allied commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization brought 26 NATO ambassadors to Afghanistan on Monday to sell them on sending more troops, helicopters and medical assistance.

MIDEAST

35. 2 On Tape Confess Major Al-Qaeda Plot In Jordan
(Philadelphia Inquirer)...Jamal Halaby, Associated Press
Al-Qaeda plotted bombings and poison-gas attacks against the U.S. Embassy and other targets in Jordan, two conspirators said in a confession aired yesterday on Jordanian state television.

NA
36. MDA, Israel Plan Arrow Flight Tests In U.S. This Summer
(Defense Daily)...Ann Roosevelt
For the first time, the U.S.-Israeli cooperative Arrow anti-ballistic missile will be flight-tested in the United States this summer, defense officials said.

EUROPE

37. Push To Guard Arms In Russia At Risk
(Boston Globe)...David Filipov and Anna Dolgov
In 2002, the United States and other leading industrial nations announced ''a global partnership against the spread of weapons and materials of mass destruction" and with it, an unprecedented $20 billion pledge to help Russia prevent its nuclear, chemical, and biological materials from falling into the hands of terrorists. Two years later, tons of lethal Russian stockpiles remain as vulnerable as ever, and the global partnership is in danger of collapse, Russian and Western weapons specialists warn.

AMERICAS

NA
38. Cold War Missiles Will Be Destroyed
(Washington Times)...Unattributed
Nicaragua will destroy 350 surface-to-air missiles it obtained from the Soviet Union in the 1980s, partially bowing to U.S. demands to scrap its missile stockpile, newspapers said yesterday.

OPINION

NA
39. Australia Won't Cut And Run
(Wall Street Journal)...Alexander Downer
As Australia's foreign minister, I respect the right of countries to take decisions they perceive to be in their national interest. But I do not always agree with the choices they make. The announcement by Spain, and subsequently, by Honduras, to withdraw troops from Iraq is a case in point.

NA
40. Fallujah Is A Key War-On-Terror Battleground
(Wall Street Journal)...George Melloan
As U.S. Marines patrol the streets of Fallujah, inviting a major engagement, it's important to keep their role in mind. They are fighting a war against terror, not against Iraq. In Fallujah, they have engaged an assemblage of terrorists from key viper nests around the Middle East. No place better represents the kind of battleground the Bush administration had in mind when it vowed to confront the international terrorist scourge on its home turf.

41. Tillman Embraced Higher Calling
(USA Today)...Dave Kindred
What U.S. Army Rangers do is so physically and psychologically difficult that few men can do it and fewer want to. Of those who become Rangers and search out the enemy in the enemy's house, fewer still live through it.

42. Red Flags And Regrets
(Washington Post)...David Ignatius
...My own mistake was thinking more about the justice of overthrowing Saddam Hussein's tyrannical regime than about the difficulty of building a new postwar Iraq. I still think the war was a just cause, but I worry that its costs may one day outweigh its benefits. I don't regret my support for toppling Hussein, but I wish I had followed those red flags and examined more carefully how America could win the peace, after it won the war.

NA
43. Flying Blind With The CIA
(Wall Street Journal)...Robert Baer
To understand the state of U.S. intelligence before Sept. 11, read the now famous declassified Presidential Daily Brief of Aug. 6, 2001.

44. In Iraq, A Crucial Role For The State Department -- (Letter)
(Washington Post)...Francis J. Ricciardone
In her April 21 op-ed column, "Having It Both Ways," Anne Applebaum said that the State Department has "washed its hands" of Iraq. This is news to Secretary Colin L. Powell and to the hundreds of others who have made Iraq the department's top priority.

EDITORIAL

45. Defense-Boeing Back-Scratching
(Washington Times)...Editorial
Federal investigators have nabbed the highest-ranking Pentagon official to be implicated in a corruption case since the 1980s. In doing so, they have bolstered the credibility of government surveillance and restored justice to an egregious case of deception and greed. The Pentagon also has said it will look more closely into rules governing the movement of Pentagon officials into the private sector. Some of the details surrounding the corruption case indicate such a review is merited.

(Sharp eyed readers will have noted the ScrappleFace story hidden amongst the links above. That was not included in the original Pentagon briefing. It was a bonus from Mudville.)

IRAQ

7. Attack In Iraq: Many Versions, Obscure Truth
(New York Times)...Ian Fisher
A roadside bomb killed a young American soldier on Sunday morning inside this city, the kind of attack so common in this war that it no longer makes headlines.

8. U.S. Urges Britain To Try Troops, Tactics In Najaf
(Washington Times)...Paul Martin
The United States is urging Britain to send about 1,700 fresh troops to fill the vacuum being left by withdrawing Spanish troops around the Shi'ite flash point of Najaf, newspapers and a senior Conservative Party spokesman said yesterday.

9. 5-Foot-Long Plane To Run Recon Missions For Marines
(USA Today)...Dave Moniz
In an effort to pinpoint concealed guerrilla fighters and attackers threatening U.S. convoys, the Navy will begin shipping a new portable surveillance drone to Marine units in Iraq next month. The 5-foot-long propeller-driven airplane, called Silver Fox, sends live pictures of the battlefield to troops on the ground.

10. Fallujah Effort Beset By Array Of Complications
(USA Today)...Jim Michaels
As Marines prepare to go on patrol in Fallujah, a bastion of anti-American resistance, they face an enemy that is hard to distinguish from the civilian population.

11. Baghdad Camp Houses Those Fleeing Falluja
(New York Times)...Christine Hauser
The prospect of a long, deadly conflict is re-sculpturing the urban landscape of a Baghdad neighborhood.

12. General Says He May Ask For More Troops
(New York Times)...Eric Schmitt
The top United States commander in the Middle East suggested in an interview on Friday that he was likely to ask for another extension in the current troop levels in Iraq, now at 135,000, and might even ask for more troops beyond that.

NA
13. Attack On Iraqi Offshore Terminals Could Choke Off Rebuilding Funds
(Wall Street Journal)...Chip Cummins and Hassan Hafidh
Seaborne assailants attacked Iraq's two offshore oil terminals during the weekend, temporarily shutting off much of the country's exports and raising the specter of further assaults on oil facilities and tankers in the heavily trafficked Persian Gulf.

14. Saudi Ambassador: Iraq Payoff Could Avoid Bloodshed
(New York Times on the Web)...Reuters
The Bush administration might have avoided a deadly insurgency in Iraq by buying the loyalty of its former military for about $200 million, Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States said on Sunday. But Ambassador Prince Bandar bin Sultan declined to say whether he had actually advised President Bush to offer former members of Saddam Hussein's military three months' pay in exchange for their services in securing Iraq.

AFGHANISTAN

15. Three U.S. Soldiers Wounded In Afghan Ambush
(New York Times on the Web)...Reuters
...Lieutenant Colonel Tucker Mansager described the attack as an ambush but would not release further details about the bomb or whether the incident involved Taliban guerrillas, whose insurgency in the province has picked up in recent weeks. The ambush came two days after former U.S. professional football star Pat Tillman, who gave up a $3.6-million sports contract to join the military, was killed in a gun battle with suspected Taliban fighters in southeastern Afghanistan. Afghan officials said Tillman's elite Army Ranger unit killed nine Taliban fighters in the clash.

ARMY

16. Reenlistments Surge Amid Violence
(Boston Globe)...Kimberly Hefling, Associated Press
...As of March 31 -- halfway through the Army's fiscal year -- 28,406 soldiers had reenlisted, topping the six-month goal of 28,377. The Army's goal is to reenlist 56,100 soldiers by the end of September. ''It's a very positive retention picture at this point," said Lieutenant Colonel Franklin Childress, an Army public affairs officer. The Army had nearly a half-million active-duty soldiers. However, Childress cautioned that factors such as an improved economy and the Pentagon's decision to keep about 20,000 troops in Iraq for longer than a year to help quell the violence could change that picture.

NAVY

NA
17. Navy Wants To Cut Number Of Strike Groups, Slash LPD-17 Shipbuilding
(Inside The Navy)...Christopher J. Castelli
In a radical departure from previous plans that could prove contentious in the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill, the Navy intends to cut by one-third the number of expeditionary strike groups it would maintain in the future to glean funding for other programs, including seabasing priorities. This would have major implications for Marine Corps forces at the center of these groups and could also mean significant cuts for the San Antonio-class LPD-17 shipbuilding program.

WHITE HOUSE

18. White House Chose To Promote New Book
(Washington Post)...Mike Allen
...An aide said Bush told his national security team, "Hey, guys, participate. It's important to tell the story." When Cheney balked, Bush pushed him to give an interview. When Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld resisted, Cheney leaned on him. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell felt so comfortable with Woodward that he talked to him by phone from home, according to a government official. Woodward says they talked six times, and transcripts ran as long as 32 pages.

CONGRESS

19. Iraq's Political Price Mounts
(Los Angeles Times)...Janet Hook
...Indeed, for all the politicians who have been stalwart supporters of President Bush's Iraq policy, the conflict is no longer just an abstraction — their constituents increasingly bear the burden of personal sacrifice for the mission. Casualties are mounting, sending more loved ones home in coffins. Tours of duty have been prolonged, keeping thousands of troops away from their families longer than expected. And the price tag is growing rapidly, forcing Congress to consider additional war funding at a time when popular domestic programs are being squeezed.

20. JSF Problems Undercut Backing In Congress
(Fort Worth Star-Telegram)...Bob Cox
Rising costs and development delays have undermined congressional support for the F-35 joint strike fighter program, Navy Secretary Gordon England said Friday. Plans for the $240 billion, 2,600-plane program, being developed by Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co., are "being debated by the Congress," England said. "It is a serious issue on the Hill right now."

BUSINESS

21. Local Firms Respond To A Changing U.S. Military
(Washington Post)...Anitha Reddy
...As the Cold War recedes into history and the American military finds itself instead involved in small wars, antiterrorist operations and peace-keeping missions, the kind of equipment it needs is changing too: It's getting smarter and smaller. Soldiers still need guns and shells, of course, but they also need battlefield computing power and sophisticated communications.

22. High Hopes For Copter Bid
(Washington Post)...Unattributed
The jockeying to get the contract to build Marine One, the helicopter fleet that transports the president, has been intensifying. Despite last month's announcement by the Navy that it was indefinitely postponing a decision on the contract, Lockheed Martin Corp., one of the bidders, proceeded to open an 8,500-square foot office in Patuxent River, declaring it the "Presidential Helicopter Program Office."

23. Security Firms In Search Of Pros For Jobs In Iraq
(Washington Times)...Sharon Behn
The private security companies protecting U.S. officials, contractors and private businessmen in Iraq are quickly running out of skilled elite professionals to hire — even as violence in Iraq has soared in recent weeks. "They are hard to come by," said John MacGaffin, a former CIA chief in Vietnam who is head of AKE Group security firm in the United States.

SEPTEMBER 11

24. 9/11 Panel Set To Detail Flaws In Air Defenses
(New York Times)...Philip Shenon
The commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks is expected to offer sharp criticism of the Pentagon's domestic air-defense command in its final report, according to commission officials who said they believed that quicker military action might have prevented a hijacked passenger plane from crashing into the Pentagon itself.

GUANTANAMO

25. US To Hold Detainees At Guantanamo Indefinitely
(Boston Globe)...Bill Dedman
Most of the 595 suspected terrorists detained by the United States at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, will be held indefinitely, even though there is not yet enough evidence to charge them with crimes, a senior Pentagon official said in an interview with the Globe.

MIDEAST

26. Israeli Officials Soften Sharon Threat
(Los Angeles Times)...Ken Ellingwood
Top Israeli officials on Sunday played down Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's latest threat against Yasser Arafat, saying Israel has no immediate plans to harm or evict the Palestinian leader.

27. Saudis Had Wider Role In War
(Philadelphia Inquirer)...John Solomon, Associated Press
During last year's invasion of Iraq, Saudi Arabia secretly helped the United States far more than has been acknowledged, allowing operations from at least three air bases, permitting Special Forces to stage attacks from Saudi soil, and providing cheap fuel, U.S. and Saudi officials say. The U.S. air campaign against Iraq was essentially managed from inside Saudi borders, where military commanders operated an air command center and launched refueling tankers, F-16 fighter jets, and sophisticated intelligence-gathering flights, according to the officials.

ASIA/PACIFIC

NA
28. Pakistan Frees 50 Men Caught Near Afghan Border
(Baltimore Sun)...Unattributed
In a gesture of reconciliation, Pakistan yesterday freed 50 men arrested in a bloody counterterrorism offensive near the Afghan border, saying investigations proved them innocent. The releases came a day after authorities pardoned five renegade tribal leaders accused of harboring al-Qaida fugitives. In exchange, the leaders promised to not help terrorists.

OPINION

NA
29. Appeasement Never Works
(Wall Street Journal)...Jose Maria Aznar
The decision by the new Socialist government to pull out Spanish troops from Iraq is lawful. But it is also gravely irresponsible. It raises Spain's risks and worsens our foreign relations. It alienates us from our partners and allies and does not contribute to the foreign policy consensus that had been promised to us by the new government. It suggests also a lack of solidarity with the Iraqi people and is the best news possible for those who attacked Spain on March 11.

30. Dubious Threat, Expensive Defense
(Washington Post)...Jackson Diehl
...The president may have declared war on terrorism and launched invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. But for the past 21/2 years, his Pentagon has quietly but implacably persisted in pursuing, without alteration, the previous No. 1 mission. The result is a breakneck, hugely expensive and quite risky attempt to build and activate a national missile defense before the November election.

31. Kurds' Success Provides Lesson For Rest Of Iraq
(USA Today)...Ralph Peters
...While the media concentrate on the combat and confusion to the south, I recently visited the north of the country, where Iraq's 5 million Kurds have brought off a near miracle: They've built a financially efficient, rule-of-law democracy in the Middle East. Elsewhere, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) spends billions to keep a failed state on life support. While the rest of Iraq's population wallows in the region's addiction to blame, the Kurds have rolled up their sleeves and gone to work.

32. Still On Catastrophe's Edge
(Los Angeles Times)...Robert McNamara and Helen Caldicott
As we continue to grapple with the United States' vulnerability to terrorist attack, we fail to recognize the most serious danger, one that is overlooked by politicians and emergency management agencies alike. Thousands of Russian nuclear warheads are targeted on the U.S.

33. Updated Policy: Don't Ask, Don't Tell And Please Don't Leave
(Chicago Tribune)...Clarence Page
Maybe gay people aren't as bad for our military as some of our military leaders would have us believe.

34. Brahimi's Two Mistakes
(New York Times)...William Safire
U.N. Special Envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, the Bush administration's great Arab hope to appoint a transition government that would bring democracy to Iraq, is off to a troubling start.

35. War In Iraq Aims A Bullet At The Heart Of The Economy
(Los Angeles Times)...James K. Galbraith
...Did Team Bush think through the economics of a long and costly war? There is no evidence it did. It counted on the war being quick, cheap and self-financing. If it thought about the long-range economics, there seems to have been only one goal: control of oil.

NA
36. Our Honor, Our Grief
(Wall Street Journal)...Ronald R. Griffin
...If it is truly the intention of those who support the lifting of the ban to honor these gallant individuals while giving the American public the opportunity to grieve with them -- and if it is truly the intention to bear witness to sacrifice and view at first hand the cost of this war -- then let them visit the families of those who freely chose to join the military family. Let them visit the grave sites, let them journey to Fort Bragg or Fort Campbell or Fort Hood and speak to those who have returned or who might soon be joining the fight.

EDITORIAL

37. 'Enemy Combatants' In Court
(New York Times)...Editorial
...The Bush administration, ignoring basic constitutional principles, argues that because the detentions are military decisions made in wartime the courts have no authority to second-guess them. These are historic cases that could shape the post-9/11 legal landscape for years to come. The Supreme Court should send a strong message that even during a war on terrorism, the government cannot strip citizens of their most basic rights.

38. The Public Face Of Honor
(USA Today)...Editorial
...The Pentagon says the ban is intended to protect the privacy of soldiers' families. But the military can give relatives the space they need without robbing these heroes of the public honor they've earned. Like the more than 800 Americans troops who have died in Afghanistan and Iraq since 9/11, including at least 10 this past weekend, Tillman made the ultimate sacrifice. That brave act deserves to be remembered and celebrated.

NA
39. A Ranger's Death
(Wall Street Journal)...Editorial
Army Ranger Pat Tillman died Thursday when his patrol was ambushed near the Afghan-Pakistani border. He was 27. Specialist Tillman never talked about it publicly, but all the world knew that he had given up a million-dollar career in the NFL for a chance to serve his country.

NA
40. The Fallujah Stakes
(Wall Street Journal)...Editorial
The latest news from the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah is that Marines will now conduct joint patrols with Iraqis, as a way to regain control of the city without a full-scale assault. Perhaps this will even work, but it's also likely our enemies will consider it a sign of weakness and ramp up their attacks there and elsewhere.

DEFENSE DEPARTMENT

NA
7. Rumsfeld: No Need To Reinstate The Draft
(Philadelphia Inquirer)...Robert Burns, Associated Press
The Bush administration sees no need to reinstate the military draft, but it is pushing for improved Pentagon management of the 1.4-million-strong force to meet wartime needs, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said yesterday.

8. New U.S. Security Lineup Should Be Identified Now
(International Herald Tribune)...Michael R. Gordon
...For months, the conventional wisdom in Washington has been that the critics might not have Donald Rumsfeld to kick around any more. Having launched two wars, the defense secretary will probably move on along with Secretary of State Colin Powell, or so the speculation has gone. Their departure would clear the way for a new team and perhaps even open the door to new policies. But the corridor talk at the Pentagon is very different.

9. Photos Of Soldiers' Coffins Revive Controversy
(Washington Post)...Blaine Harden and Dana Milbank
The Pentagon lost its tight control over the images of coffins returning from Iraq as about 350 such images were released under the Freedom of Information Act and a Seattle newspaper published a similar photo taken by a military contractor.

10. Pentagon Families Look To Pros
(Washington Post)...Timothy Dwyer
...Yesterday, in a small and sweltering Senate conference room, the family members gathered for a news conference announcing a national drive to raise $30 million for the construction and maintenance of the Pentagon Memorial. The small room was full of luminaries. There were Sens. John W. Warner (R-Va.) and George Allen (R-Va.); retired Gen. Henry H. "Hugh" Shelton, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and Joyce Rumsfeld, wife of the secretary of defense.

IRAQ

11. Marines Say Time Running Short In Fallujah
(Washington Post)...Rajiv Chandrasekaran and Karl Vick
The U.S. military said Thursday that little progress had been made in efforts to defuse tensions in this besieged city and warned that an all-out attack against insurgents holed up here could occur within days.

12. Allies Suspect Al Qaeda Link To Bombings In Basra; Death Toll Is Reduced
(New York Times)...Eric Schmitt
As the authorities scoured the sites of five nearly simultaneous car bombings that killed dozens of people here on Wednesday, allied military officials said the attacks bore the hallmarks of the Qaeda terrorist network but said they did not have proof.

13. Sadr's Backers Demonstrate In Basra
(Washington Post)...Pamela Constable
Hundreds of followers of an influential Shiite Muslim leader demonstrated in the southern city of Basra on Thursday as residents mourned the deaths of 73 people killed in five car bombings a day earlier.

14. Iraqis Blame Allies For Bombings
(Washington Times)...Annia Ciezadlo
Outraged by their country's collapse into chaos, some Iraqis are turning to a disturbing explanation for Wednesday morning's suicide bombings in Basra — that they must have been planned by British occupation forces or other U.S. allies.

15. Militia Has Holy Iraqi City On Edge
(Christian Science Monitor)...Dan Murphy
...While the situation in Najaf is calm, it is not resolved. US troops on the city's outskirts, who were ordered to kill or capture Mr. Sadr over a week ago, have begun to pull further away from the city. Commanders worry that a battle in the holy city would unite Iraq's Shiite community behind Sadr. Sadr has sought to paint himself as a symbol of Iraqi nationalism and resistance to occupation.

16. Policy Barring Ex-Baathists From Key Iraq Posts Is Eased
(New York Times)...Edward Wong
The American administration here said Thursday that it was loosening a policy aimed at purging the Iraqi government of members of the former governing Baath Party.

NA
17. 1,700 Troops For Iraq
(London Times)...Chris Johnston
ARMED FORCES chiefs are believed to be drawing up contingency plans to send 1,700 extra soldiers to Iraq in response to escalating violence and Spain’s decision to withdraw its 1,300 troops, starting in the next ten days.

18. Iraqi Military's Brutal Past Limits Use To U.S.
(USA Today)...Dave Moniz
The Bush administration should not have been surprised that the new Iraqi army would resist fighting fellow Iraqis, given the history of Middle East dictators using military forces to crush internal opposition, several military analysts say.

19. An Exile Group's Push For War Stirs Questions
(Philadelphia Inquirer)...Warren P. Strobel and Jonathan S. Landay
An Iraqi exile group may have violated restrictions against using taxpayer funds to lobby when it campaigned for U.S. action to oust Saddam Hussein, according to documents and U.S. officials with direct knowledge of the matter.

ARMY

20. Fort Hood Soldiers Return From Iraq
(Dallas Morning News)...Ed Timms
Fort Hood's 4th Infantry Division celebrated a homecoming on Thursday with military pageantry, top-name entertainment and a carnival – but was still mindful of comrades who will never return to their families and soldiers with other units who still face hazardous duty in Iraq.

21. Soldier Coming To See Mother
(Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)...John Diedrich
A 19-year-old U.S. Army soldier from Wisconsin is on his way home from Iraq to be with his gravely ill mother, the Army said Thursday.

22. A General Of Taps And Tears
(Christian Science Monitor)...Kris Axtman
At his 21 services since the war began, Maj. Gen. Alfred Valenzuela arrives early and emerges from his car in a crisp uniform and spit-shined shoes. Up green hills and down dirt paths, he walks alongside flag-draped coffins to support grieving families, to comfort, and to mourn.

MARINE CORPS

23. Wreckage Of Military Jet Is Found In Desert
(Los Angeles Times)...Times Wire Reports
Search crews on Thursday located the wreckage of a $28-million military fighter jet that crashed in the Imperial Valley desert, a Marine spokesman said. The pilot, the plane's sole occupant, remained unaccounted for and the search was continuing.

CONGRESS

24. Stretched Forces Prompting Calls To Restore Draft
(Baltimore Sun)...Tom Bowman
Despite continued opposition from Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, some lawmakers say it's time to bring back the draft, 31 years after it gave way to an all-volunteer force.

25. McCain To Bush: Another Division Is Needed In Iraq
(Philadelphia Inquirer)...Drew Brown
A leading Senate Republican called yesterday for President Bush to commit a division or more of fresh troops to quell the worst fighting in Iraq since the war began a year ago.

26. Administration Details Plan For Returning Power To Iraq
(Los Angeles Times)...Mary Curtius
Bush administration officials offered Congress on Thursday their most detailed explanation yet of U.S. plans for turning power over to Iraqis after June 30, saying that although the nation's sovereignty will be limited, the transition government will be in charge of most ministries, oil revenues and an international development fund.

27. Keeping Close Eye On Senator, Clinton-Watchers Increasingly See A Hawk
(New York Times)...Raymond Hernandez
...But these days, Senator Clinton, of New York, has offered a starkly different image, presenting herself as muscular on defense even when that puts her at odds with members of her own party. Even as the war in Iraq proves unpopular with her core base of liberal supporters, not to mention some mainstream Democrats, Mrs. Clinton has emerged as one of the most prominent Democratic backers of the military activities.

MIDEAST

28. Saudis Support A Jihad In Iraq, Not Back Home
(New York Times)...Neil MacFarquhar
...In Saudi Arabia, a strategic ally of the United States, violence against the occupation in Iraq is seen by many as jihad, or a holy struggle, but virtually no one accepts violence as jihad when it unrolls here at home, in the heart of what is supposed to be the most Muslim of countries.

NORTH KOREA

29. U.S. Doubts Kim's Commitment To End Nuclear Standoff
(Washington Times)...Nicholas Kralev
The Bush administration yesterday expressed skepticism about North Korea's commitment to resolving the nuclear standoff on the peninsula, despite this week's pledge by Kim Jong-il, the reclusive North Korean leader, to show "patience and flexibility" in negotiations.

AFGHANISTAN

30. Afghanistan: Bomb Explodes In Kandahar
(New York Times)...Carlotta Gall
Signs were growing of an urban bombing campaign by the Taliban as another bomb exploded overnight in the bazaar of the southern city of Kandahar. A man was killed and may have been setting the explosive at the time, the local military commander said. International peacekeeping forces, meanwhile, said they had arrested 17 people in Kabul, some of them with explosives.

UNITED NATIONS

31. Cuba Abandons Vote On Detainees Held By U.S. At Guantánamo
(New York Times)...Agence France-Presse
At the United Nations human rights forum, meeting here, Cuba decided Thursday against forcing a vote on reports of rights abuses at the detention center at the United States naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

POLL

32. Poll: Most See Iraq Link To Al-Qaeda
(Philadelphia Inquirer)...Frank Davies
A new poll shows that 57 percent of Americans believe that Saddam Hussein gave "substantial support" to al-Qaeda before the war with Iraq, despite a lack of evidence of that relationship.

33. Bush Approval Hits A Low Point In State
(Los Angeles Times)...Michael Finnegan
President Bush's popularity in California has dropped to the lowest level of his presidency amid rising public concern over his handling of Iraq and the economy, according to a new Los Angeles Times poll that found dislike of Bush driving support for his Democratic rival.

BUSINESS

34. Boeing's Misconduct Is Detailed In Memo
(Los Angeles Times)...Peter Pae
An internal Air Force memo suggests a broad pattern of improprieties by Boeing Co. when it bid on Pentagon contracts, apparently contradicting the aerospace giant's assertions that such problems were isolated and that it corrected them quickly.

35. Work Restarts On Projects Hurt By Strife, Officials Say
(New York Times)...Ian Fisher
Work on rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure is recovering from a near halt at the height of the violence earlier this month, project officials said on Thursday, though 10 percent of the foreign workers remain out of Iraq for safety and little is being done at 10 percent of the projects.

36. Contractors In Iraq Scale Back, Pull Out
(Washington Times)...Marguerite Higgins
...The sharp increase this month in attacks against civilian contractors by insurgents in Iraq is threatening critical efforts to restore the country's infrastructure, from electricity to water service.

37. Violence Slows Progress Of Iraq's Reconstruction
(Los Angeles Times)...David Streitfeld and Nicholas Riccardi
The escalation of violence in Iraq this month is curtailing the pace of U.S. government-financed reconstruction, but both contractors and U.S. officials maintained Thursday that the disruption so far has been relatively minor.

38. Hill International Awaits Deployment To Iraq
(Philadelphia Inquirer)...Suzette Parmley
With violence escalating in Iraq, a major South Jersey construction management company is awaiting word from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers of when to send its employees to begin work there.

OPINION

39. Troop Buildup In Iraq Exposes Critical Shortages
(USA Today)...Editorial
...But agreeing to add more U.S. troops is far easier than actually finding them. Though the U.S. can cobble together 20,000 or so extra troops in the short term, coming up with the hundreds of thousands of soldiers some military experts estimate are needed to quell the Iraqi resistance is fraught with problems. Most available troops, including reserves, have already been tapped for duty in Afghanistan, Iraq and ongoing commitments in 120 countries around the world. And foreign countries haven't provided the tens of thousands of troops the U.S. wanted.

40. Withdraw U.S. Troops
(USA Today)...Ralph Nader
Every day our exposed military remains in war-torn Iraq, we imperil U.S. security, drain our economy, ignore urgent domestic needs and prevent Iraqi democratic self-rule. We need to announce a withdrawal of our troops, not increase them.

41. New Course For Iraq
(Washington Post)...David Ignatius
If you're in a hole, stop digging. The Bush administration seems at last to have embraced that simple wisdom in its Iraq policy and is beginning to undo some of the earlier mistakes that got the U.S. occupation into such trouble.

42. What Went Wrong?
(New York Times)...Paul Krugman
On April 11 of last year, just after U.S. forces took Baghdad, I warned that the Bush administration had a "pattern of conquest followed by malign neglect," and that the same was likely to happen in Iraq. I'm sorry to say those worries proved justified.

43. Hamdi And Habeas Corpus
(Wall Street Journal)...Timothy Lynch
...A close examination of the Hamdi case, however, shows that the constitutional stakes could not be higher. That's because the Bush administration has been using the Hamdi case to advance a sweeping theory of executive branch power. According to this theory, the president can deprive anyone in the world of his liberty and hold that person incommunicado indefinitely. The president need only be careful to issue an "enemy combatant" order to his secretary of defense, not the attorney general. The president's legal advisers have made it clear that it does not matter if the prisoner is seized on a battlefield overseas or in some sleepy town in the American heartland. And it does not matter if the prisoner is a foreign national or an American citizen.

NA
44. Pakistani Troops Rescued U.S. Rangers At Mogadishu -- (Letter)
(Wall Street Journal)...Mansoor Suhail
...The actual situation was quite the contrary. Had the Pakistani peacekeepers not come to rescue the embattled Rangers, U.S. casualties would have been far higher. The role of Pakistani peacekeepers was duly acknowledged by all concerned.

EDITORIAL

45. The Real War
(New York Times)...Editorial
...Since 1991, the Defense Department has prohibited taking photographs of the coffins of members of the armed services while they are being transported back to the United States. The reverent portrait Ms. Silicio produced demonstrates how irrational that policy is. The theory seems to be that the pictures are intrusive, or possibly hurtful, to bereaved families. But it seems far more likely that the Pentagon is concerned about the impact that photos of large numbers of flag-draped coffins may have on the American public's attitude toward the war.

Everyone here? Good. The woods begin right at the edge of the back yard. We'll pass through them, climb a hill, and enjoy the view.

Another sign of spring. These guys are always waiting at the edge of the woods when the weather is warm.

We climb to the hill top. Above is a more detailed version of the first shot. By the end of the year I'll have a good four seasons collection.

And in the opposite direction, this. Amature meteorologists will recognize the cumulonimbus, a thunderstorm cloud characterized by the anvil shaped top. A real sign of spring, though not always welcome. This example is probably unimpressive to those who've watched them burst over the high plains or the Florida Gulf Coast.

Back down the hill, and into the woods, and follow the trail to home.

Today's final sign of spring: Mrs Greyhawk has been busy about the yard, among other things restoring the pond in preparation for the return of the fish that have spent the winter confined to the aquarium in the house. They're ready for the larger outdoor accomodations, and the sunlight. Aren't we all?

Finally, an un-resized higher detail image from the picture above.

Enjoy spring, those of you in the northern hemisphere, wherever you are.

IRAQ

7. U.S. General At Falluja Warns A Full Attack Could Come Soon
(New York Times)...Eric Schmitt
The top Marine Corps general in Iraq said Wednesday that an American attack against insurgents in Falluja was "inevitable" within days unless the militants there immediately surrendered their heavy weapons and ammunition, as called for in a peace deal.

8. Insurgents Spark A Fierce Battle In Fallouja
(Los Angeles Times)...Tony Perry
Marines backed by helicopter gunships and F-16 jets fought a fierce five-hour battle in this city Wednesday with scores of insurgents armed with grenades, machine guns and mortar shells.

9. Fighting Resumes In Falluja; Return Of Families Is Halted
(New York Times)...John Kifner and Christine Hauser
The fragile peace effort here threatened to collapse Wednesday as insurgents fired mortars and battled with the marines, forcing the American military to stop the return of families who had fled the fighting. At the same time, a crucial part of the peace deal — the insurgents' promise to surrender their heavy weapons — got off to an almost comically slow start.

NA
10. General: 10 Percent Of Iraqi Forces Turned On U.S. During Attacks
(USA Today)...Connie Cass, Associated Press
About one in every 10 members of Iraq's security forces "actually worked against" U.S. troops during the recent militia violence in Iraq, and an additional 40 percent walked off the job because of intimidation, the commander of the 1st Armored Division said Wednesday.

11. Najaf Tribal Leaders Urge Sadr Militia To End Conflict
(Los Angeles Times)...Associated Press
Tribal leaders in this Shiite Muslim holy city called Wednesday for an anti-American cleric's militia to end its standoff with U.S. troops.

NA
12. Iraq Blast May Raise Religious Tension
(Wall Street Journal)...Farnaz Fassihi and Yochi J. Dreazen
A savage bombing in the Shiite city of Basra could unravel a nascent alliance between militants from Iraq's rival religious groups, threatening to inflame sectarian tensions that pose a much-feared threat to Iraq's stability.

13. Spain Plans To Hasten Withdrawal Of Troops
(Washington Post)...Robin Wright and Bradley Graham
After announcing its decision last weekend to withdraw forces from Iraq, Spain has raised further ire in Washington by giving notice of plans to pull out faster than expected, a move that Bush administration officials said yesterday is complicating military operations in Iraq and could put lives in danger. Initially, officials here had expected the withdrawal to start in a month or two and be carefully coordinated with U.S. military commanders in Iraq. But the Pentagon received word earlier this week that about half of Spain's 1,300 troops would be leaving in the next 10 days and the rest within 20 days after that.

14. Members Of U.S. Coalition Reaffirm Support
(Washington Times)...Nicholas Kralev
Members of the U.S.-led Iraq coalition said yesterday that the decision of three countries to withdraw their troops from Iraq does not set a trend, while others said they were rethinking their position.

15. Islamic States Say They Could Back U.N.-Led Iraq Effort
(Philadelphia Inquirer)...Rohan Sullivan, Associated Press
Islamic countries are urging the United Nations to take the lead in Iraq when U.S. administrators give up power, and Pakistan and Malaysia said yesterday that they might send troops to protect U.N. personnel if the world body returned to the country.

DEFENSE DEPARTMENT

16. Accused Terrorists Face Different Kind Of Justice
(USA Today)...Toni Locy
Pentagon's tribunals will tip the scales slightly against suspects to try to protect national security.

17. Partial Missile Shield Called About Ready
(Los Angeles Times)...Associated Press
The United States is on track to activate a limited ballistic missile defense system by the end of the year, the program's director said Wednesday.

18. $30 Million Goal Set For Memorial At Pentagon
(Washington Post)...Timothy Dwyer
The Pentagon Memorial Fund will kick off a national fundraising drive today with the announcement of its first major corporate donation and the establishment of a Web site created by the designer of former presidential candidate Howard Dean's successful Internet fundraising campaign.

ARMY

19. A Dying Mother Tries To Get Her Son Home From Iraq
(New York Times)...Stephen Kinzer
...But instead of focusing on the children on the field, Ms. Confer found herself thinking of her 19-year-old son, Pvt. Joseph Wagner, who is in the Army in Iraq and cannot seem to make it home soon enough. Ms. Confer's anxiety about her son was sharpened by her having learned this month that she is terminally ill. "Everything we've heard so far has been negative," Ms. Confer said after the ballgames. "It seems like I'm not dying fast enough for them to send him home."

NA
20. Extended Tour Cuts A G.I.'s Life Short
(New York Daily News)...Maki Becker
Pfc. Clayton Henson was supposed to come home from Iraq on April 16. Instead, he was killed on April 17 when his convoy was ambushed in Diwaniyah.

21. Next Stryker Brigade Pronounced Ready For Action
(Seattle Post-Intelligencer)...Mike Barber
The nation's second Stryker brigade, which, like the first one, was developed at Fort Lewis, is ready to go.

AIR FORCE

NA
22. Jumper Defers To Rumsfeld On McCain's Tanker Documents Request
(Inside The Pentagon)...Elaine M. Grossman
Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. John Jumper says it is up to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld whether to release documents an influential senator has sought in an investigation of the service’s deal to lease tanker aircraft from Boeing.

NA
23. SBIRS High Needs Another $1 Billion, Raising Total Closer To $10 Billion Mark
(Defense Daily)...Amy Butler
Cost for the Pentagon’s troubled next-generation, space-based missile warning system will boost by $1 billion, raising the total bill for the Lockheed Martin [LMT] Space Based Infrared System (SBIRS) High to nearly $10 billion, according to Air Force officials.

24. Air Force Touts Iraq Post-Combat Flights
(Washingtonpost.com)...John Solomon, Associated Press
U.S. warplanes are running about 150 flights a day inside Iraq to conduct combat operations, provide air support to ground troops and gather intelligence to help crush pockets of resistance by extremists, a top Air Force general says.

WHITE HOUSE

25. U.S. Aimed For Hussein As War Began
(Washington Post)...Bob Woodward
This is the fifth of five articles adapted from "Plan of Attack," a book by Bob Woodward that is a behind-the-scenes account of how and why President Bush decided to go to war against Iraq.

26. Bush Isn't Surprised Americans Expect Attack
(New York Times)...Elisabeth Bumiller
President Bush expressed no surprise on Wednesday that the majority of Americans think it is somewhat likely that there will be a terrorist attack in the United States before the November election, and he suggested that they had a reason to be concerned.

27. Iran 'Will Be Dealt With,' Bush Says
(Washington Post)...Mike Allen
President Bush told newspaper editors in Washington yesterday that Iran "will be dealt with, starting through the United Nations" if it does not stop developing nuclear weapons and begin total cooperation with international inspectors.

CONGRESS

28. Troops For Iraq To Cost $700 Million
(Washington Times)...Bill Gertz
Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, yesterday told a House committee initial estimates for keeping additional troops in Iraq through July for security reasons will cost about $700 million.

29. $4 Billion Shortfall Seen On Iraq War
(Philadelphia Inquirer)...Pauline Jelinek, Associated Press
Increased violence in Iraq is pushing the cost of the war over budget, threatening a $4 billion shortfall by late summer, the top U.S. military officer said yesterday.

30. Limited Iraqi Sovereignty Planned
(Washington Post)...Josh White and Jonathan Weisman
The new Iraqi interim government scheduled to take control on July 1 will have only "limited sovereignty" over the country and no authority over U.S. and coalition military forces already there, senior State and Defense officials told Congress this week.

NA
31. Pentagon Funded Mideast Plans In Secret Prior To Iraq-War Vote
(Wall Street Journal)...David Rogers
The Pentagon acknowledged that in tandem with its secret planning for the Iraq war two years ago, it funded 21 military-related projects in the Mideast when the Bush administration had yet to seek a war resolution from Congress.

32. House Approves Tax Relief For Troops
(New York Times)...Associated Press
The House voted unanimously Wednesday to let National Guard and Reserve troops who are suffering financially tap into retirement savings without penalty. Some Democrats, however, called for more support for the troops.

33. Hagel Seeking Broad Debate On Draft Issue
(Washington Post)...Helen Dewar
Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), a Vietnam War veteran and an influential member of the Foreign Relations Committee, wants the United States to consider reviving the draft as part of a broader effort to ensure that all Americans "bear some responsibility" and "pay some price" in defending the nation's interests.

34. Bremer Accused Of Delaying Probe
(Washington Times)...Shaun Waterman, United Press International
An adviser to the Iraqi Governing Council yesterday accused U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer of deliberately slowing the IGC's probe into a $10 billion kickback scandal that is bound to embarrass the United Nations.

NORTH KOREA

35. North Korean Ends 'Candid' China Visit
(Washington Post)...Edward Cody and Anthony Faiola
China announced Wednesday that the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il, had reached a "broad common understanding" with the Chinese government during three days of talks in Beijing on the crisis over his country's nuclear weapons program and will make his "own contributions" to resolving the dispute.

ASIA/PACIFIC

36. U.S. Cautions Taiwan On Independence
(Washington Post)...Glenn Kessler
The Bush administration, in its first broad response to vows by Taiwan's recently reelected president to craft a constitution, warned Taiwan yesterday that unilateral moves toward independence could prompt a Chinese military response "that could destroy much of what Taiwan has built and crush its hopes for the future."

37. U.S. To Continue Sale Of Defensive Arms To Taiwan
(Washington Times)...Bill Gertz
The United States will continue to sell defensive arms to Taiwan under the provisions of a 1979 law, but the island nation's government should not move toward formal independence, a senior State Department official told Congress yesterday.

BUSINESS

38. Northrop Lied To U.S., Papers Say
(Los Angeles Times)...Peter Pae
Northrop Grumman Corp. lied to the Air Force to cover up problems with a radar-jamming system it was developing in the late 1980s and submitted fraudulent bills on other equipment, according to documents unsealed Wednesday.

39. Violence In Iraq Forces 2 Big Contractors To Curb Work
(New York Times)...James Glanz
The insurgency in Iraq has driven two major contractors, General Electric and Siemens, to suspend most of their operations there, raising new doubts about the American-led effort to rebuild the country as hostilities continue.

NA
40. Defense Firms Post Earnings Gains
(Wall Street Journal)...Jonathan Karp, J. Lynn Lunsford and Andy Pasztor
A trio of major aerospace and defense firms reported double-digit increases in first-quarter earnings against a backdrop of increased defense spending and the beginnings of a gradual recovery in commercial aviation.

41. Woman Loses Her Job Over Coffins Photo
(Seattle Times)...Hal Bernton
A military contractor has fired Tami Silicio, a Kuwait-based cargo worker whose photograph of flag-draped coffins of fallen U.S. soldiers was published in Sunday's edition of The Seattle Times.

More to come

The original (three images stitched) is 5690x1870 pixels, at 180 pixels/inch. Graininess in image is due to budding leaves on trees. Detail in the original is spectacular.

The birdsong stays a bit longer too. But not much. (See Daily Briefing)

Yesterday I promised birdsong, and the earlybirds got to hear and see it. The link is down now. I'll describe: The video was dark, of course, but the birds were at their loudest at dawn. The image above is from a couple hours later. Enjoy.

Perhaps more such things will come and go today, as I celebrate record bandwidth use.

TOP STORIES

1. Pentagon Drafts Iraq Troop Plan To Meet Violence
(New York Times)...Thom Shanker and David E. Sanger
The Pentagon has drawn up plans to send fresh troops quickly to Iraq in case it decides it must keep 135,000 or more American soldiers deployed beyond July, senior officials said Tuesday.

2. War May Require More Money Soon
(Washington Post)...Jonathan Weisman
Intense combat in Iraq is chewing up military hardware and consuming money at an unexpectedly rapid rate -- depleting military coffers, straining defense contractors and putting pressure on Bush administration officials to seek a major boost in war funding long before they had hoped.

3. Allies Expected To Stay On 'Sidelines'
(Washington Times)...Bill Gertz
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz yesterday told a Senate committee that he doesn't expect more allies to put troops on the ground in Iraq as long as fighting continues, even if the United Nations is given a greater role.

4. Several Blasts Kill 30 In Basra
(Los Angeles Times)...Tony Perry, Said Rifai and Jeffrey Fleishman
Car bombs exploded almost simultaneously outside three police stations in the southern city of Basra early today, killing at least 30 people and injuring dozens of others.

5. Pentagon Deleted Rumsfeld Comment
(Washington Post)...Mike Allen
The Pentagon deleted from a public transcript a statement Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld made to author Bob Woodward suggesting that the administration gave Saudi Arabia a two-month heads-up that President Bush had decided to invade Iraq.

6. Justices Question Wartime Powers
(USA Today)...Joan Biskupic
Several Supreme Court justices expressed skepticism Tuesday about the Bush administration's effort to block court hearings for nearly 600 foreigners who are being held at a military base in Cuba as part of an anti-terrorism policy.

IRAQ

7. U.S. Generals Fault Ban On Hussein's Party
(New York Times)...Eric Schmitt
Two American generals warned Tuesday that the occupation authority's policy of barring former Baath Party members, including senior Iraqi Army officers, from government jobs was self-defeating and breeding resentment against the American-led efforts in the country.

8. Shelling Kills 22 Prisoners In Iraq
(Washington Post)...Thomas E. Ricks and Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Insurgents launched a mortar attack on the former Abu Ghraib prison outside the capital on Tuesday, killing 22 Iraqi prisoners and injuring more than 90 others. The U.S. military said those killed in the 18-shell barrage were either former members of Saddam Hussein's government or people involved in attacks on American forces.

9. Troops Start To End Siege Of Najaf
(Washington Times)...P. Mitchell Prothero, United Press International
U.S. troops began to withdraw from a base near the city of Najaf yesterday, signaling an unwillingness to enter the Shi'ite holy city in pursuit of a radical cleric the U.S.-led coalition once vowed to capture "dead or alive."

10. Tribunal Arranged To Try Saddam
(Washington Times)...Louis Meixler, Associated Press
Iraqi leaders have set up a tribunal of judges and prosecutors to try ousted dictator Saddam Hussein and other members of his Ba'athist regime, a spokesman announced yesterday.

11. Attacks On Convoys Isolate Coalition's HQ
(Philadelphia Inquirer)...Carol Rosenberg
...Two weeks into a wave of attacks that have destroyed dozens of convoys carrying crucial goods to the capital, the insurgent campaign has disrupted life for the U.S.-led coalition - even in the Green Zone, the city within this city where U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer and 5,000 coalition members live and work. The experience has underscored how isolated the U.S. operation is from the Iraqi society it's trying to transform. Outside the zone, life goes on, and food and other necessities appear to be plentiful.

12. Cleric's Militia Upends Shiite Power Balance
(New York Times)...Edward Wong
The meeting signaled a change in the balance of Shiite political power in this inflamed country and a triumph, at least for now, of the Kalashnikov over the Koran.

NA
13. Army Chief Admits Friction With US Commanders
(London Times)...Michael Evans
CONTRASTING ideas about the way to keep the peace in Iraq led to friction between British and American commanders, the head of the Army admitted yesterday.

14. Truce Lets Families Return To Falluja, A Few At A Time
(New York Times)...John Kifner
A tenuous peace deal between the American occupation forces and the embattled city of Falluja got off to a slow and sometimes chaotic start on Tuesday. A handful of families managed to return home, hundreds of people trying to were stranded along the road and Iraqi security forces whose loyalty was suspect only days ago lined up to return to patrol.

15. Another Nation To Pull Iraq Troops
(Los Angeles Times)...Times Wire Services
The Dominican Republic will pull its 302 troops out of Iraq early, and Thailand will withdraw its 451 medical and engineering troops if they are attacked, officials said.

16. Iraqi Backer Of U.S. Became Its Victim
(Los Angeles Times)...Patrick J. McDonnell
Journalist slain with his driver by troops had supported occupation. Reaction to his death shows moderates losing faith in Americans.

DEFENSE DEPARTMENT

17. Academies Taking Attitude Surveys
(Colorado Springs Gazette)...Pam Zubeck
Students at the Army, Navy and Air Force academies began filling out identical attitude surveys Monday for the first time in history.

18. World In Brief
(Washington Post)...Unattributed
A Spanish High Court judge asked the United States to hand over documents on the death of a Spanish cameraman killed in a U.S. tank attack on a Baghdad hotel during the Iraq war.

NAVY

19. Judge Blocks Navy's Plan For Airfield Near Flyway
(New York Times)...Felicity Barringer
A federal judge in North Carolina has ordered the Navy to halt its efforts to create a new landing field for training pilots five miles from a large migratory bird refuge, pending further court rulings.

NATIONAL GUARD/RESERVE

20. Army Hopes It Has Enough In Reserve
(Baltimore Sun)...Dan Fesperman
...With the Reserves and the National Guard filling an ever-busier role in military forces already stretched to the limit, re-enlistment decisions have become a worrisome issue for the Pentagon, especially because the 90-day waiting period has begun expiring for many citizen soldiers who were part of the first lengthy deployments to Iraq.

WHITE HOUSE

21. Blair Steady In Support
(Washington Post)...Bob Woodward
This is the fourth of five articles adapted from "Plan of Attack," a book by Bob Woodward that is a behind-the-scenes account of how and why President Bush decided to go to war against Iraq.

22. Bush-Cheney Interview On 9/11 Is Set
(New York Times)...New York Times
President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney will appear together on April 29 before the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, an official said Tuesday.

CONGRESS

23. Wolfowitz Denies Woodward Report
(Washington Post)...Dan Morgan
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz yesterday denied a report in a new book that the Pentagon in 2002 secretly diverted $700 million to a covert military construction program in Kuwait linked to a future war with Iraq without adequately informing Congress.

24. Wolfowitz Denies Secret Iraq War Funding
(USA Today)...Tom Squitieri
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz denied on Tuesday to angry Democrats on Capitol Hill that the Bush administration secretly financed preparations for the war in Iraq long before last year's invasion.

25. Hil Takes Brass On And G.I.s Win
(New York Daily News)...Richard Sisk
The U.S. military's top general pledged yesterday to shake up the system to improve the screening and tracking of troops who may have been exposed to uranium dust in the Iraq war.

26. Defense Official: U.N. Act May Not Sway Allies
(Philadelphia Inquirer)...Pauline Jelinek, Associated Press
Even though the United States intends to seek a new U.N. resolution on Iraq, the effort is unlikely to persuade more allies to send troops as long as fighting continues, the Pentagon's No. 2 official said yesterday.

27. Administration Takes Friendly Fire At Hearing
(Los Angeles Times)...Mary Curtius And Janet Hook
Stifling private concerns about the direction of events in Iraq, Senate Republicans on Tuesday gave the Bush administration a largely supportive platform for restating its case for war as Congress began three days of hearings on the planned June 30 transfer of sovereignty.

28. Byrd Questions Use Of Money For Iraq
(New York Times)...Carl Hulse
Senator Robert C. Byrd, the senior Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, said Tuesday that the administration might have broken the law by failing to inform Congressional leaders in mid-2002 of its use of emergency antiterror dollars to begin preparations for an invasion of Iraq.

29. Constituents' Iraq Worries Growing, Lawmakers Say
(Washington Post)...Helen Dewar
Lawmakers returning from their spring break say constituents are increasingly concerned about what they see as a lack of progress toward stability in Iraq, and want President Bush to spell out a clear strategy for victory.

30. Congress To Consider Tax Break For Guard And Reserve Families
(Baltimore Sun)...Associated Press
Financially strapped National Guard and Reserve troops on duty for six months or more would be allowed to tap into their retirement accounts without penalty under a bill coming up for debate today.

NA
31. House Armed Services Committee May Authorize War Supplemental For FY05
(National Journal's CongressDailyAM)...Amy Klamper
As violence against U.S. troops escalates in Iraq, the House Armed Services Committee may consider authorizing appropriations to pay for an increase in the number of active duty and reserve troops and other costs associated with the ongoing fight against terrorism, according to congressional aides.

32. We May Need Draft For Iraq: GOPer
(New York Post)...Niles Lathem
A senator said yesterday that the United States might have to reinstate the military draft to cope with the shortage of soldiers in strife-torn Iraq.

BUSINESS

NA
33. Former Boeing Official Pleads Guilty To Conspiracy
(Wall Street Journal)...J. Lynn Lunsford and Andy Pasztor
A former senior Air Force official pleaded guilty to improperly discussing a job with Boeing Co. weeks before removing herself from negotiations involving a $23 billion defense contract sought by the company.

34. Ex-Pentagon Official Admits Job Deal
(Washington Post)...Renae Merle and Jerry Markon
...Darleen A. Druyun, 56, is the highest-ranking Pentagon official to be implicated in a corruption case since the 1980s. After pleading guilty in federal court in Alexandria, she was released on a $25,000 personal-recognizance bond and faces up to five years in prison when sentenced in August. Her voice breaking, she stood before U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III and said she "would like to apologize for my actions, apologize to my family and to my nation."

35. Air Force's Top Brass Praises Raptor
(Atlanta Journal and Constitution)...Dave Hirschman
Despite concern among government auditors that Lockheed Martin's F/A-22 Raptor and C-130J Hercules aircraft are too costly or fail to meet performance requirements, U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. John P. Jumper gave the Marietta-built planes glowing reports Tuesday.

MIDEAST

36. U.S. Sees Syria 'Facilitating' Insurgents
(Washington Times)...Rowan Scarborough
Syria is "facilitating" the movement of foreign fighters into Iraq and helping supply them with arms, according to U.S. military officials with access to intelligence reports.

37. Arab Allies Tell U.S. Of Rising Anger
(Philadelphia Inquirer)...Barry Schweid, Associated Press
...The war in Iraq, and a shift on the Israeli-Palestinian issue, has left the Bush administration facing growing hostility and an estrangement from friends across the Middle East.

NORTH KOREA

38. China Reportedly Urges N. Korea To Ease U.S. Stance
(Baltimore Sun)...Associated Press
China reportedly is urging North Korean leader Kim Jong Il to ease his hard-line stance toward the United States, a sign of Beijing's impatience with its Communist ally's insistence on building nuclear weapons.

ASIA/PACIFIC

NA
39. Musharraf May Pose Dilemma For U.S.
(Wall Street Journal)...Zahid Hussain and Jay Solomon
...Political analysts in Islamabad say that should Gen. Musharraf quit his army post by Dec. 31 -- as he is required to do by Pakistan's constitution -- he will lose significant influence within the military. That, in turn, could diminish Pakistan's support for the war on al Qaeda's Islamist terrorists, since many Pakistanis are critical of Islamabad's alliance with Washington.

NA
40. U.S. To Provide 26 Utility Helicopters To Pakistan
(Defense Daily)...Sharon Weinberger
The United States government is set to approve the sale of a range of new military equipment to the Pakistani military, including 26 utility helicopters, according to a senior Pentagon official.

HAITI

41. U.N. Team To Offer U.S. Relief In Securing Haiti
(Washington Post)...Colum Lynch
U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan called Tuesday for establishment of a force of 6,700 U.N. troops to relieve a U.S.-led multinational mission that has maintained security in Haiti since the Feb. 29 departure of former Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

POLITICS

42. A Marine Jumps Party Lines To Join Democrats In Trenches
(Wall Street Journal)...Michael M. Phillips
...With Vietnam veteran John Kerry at the top of the ticket and unease growing over the Bush administration's handling of Iraq and terrorism, Democrats are hoping to tap a new constituency: members of the military and veterans, who vote overwhelmingly Republican.

TERRORISM

43. U.S. Depicts A Weaker Al Qaeda, But Bin Laden Remains Elusive
(Miami Herald)...Katherine Pfleger Shrader, Associated Press
The nation's top counterterrorism and intelligence officials have reassured Congress repeatedly about the significantly diminished capabilities of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Yet outside experts note that bin Laden has evaded capture during almost three years of pursuit by U.S. and other forces and remains able to communicate an increasingly sophisticated and targeted message to possible followers worldwide.

OPINION

NA
44. Secure Borders, Open Doors
(Wall Street Journal)...Colin L. Powell
On Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists attacked our homeland, ruthlessly exploiting our openness, and killing some 3,000 people from 90 countries. But President Bush and the American people are determined that they shall not shatter our will or shut down our free and democratic society. In response to the attacks, the U.S. and our allies launched a global war on terrorism. At the same time, the president resolved to keep our doors open and our borders secure. We are doing our utmost to balance the need to protect our citizens with the need to preserve America's accessibility.

45. The Real Nuclear Danger
(New York Times)...Nicholas D. Kristof
...North Korea is potentially more dangerous than the mess in Iraq. It probably has at least 1 to 3 nuclear weapons already, it is producing both plutonium and uranium, and it is on track to have close to 10 nuclear weapons by the end of this year. Yet because President Bush's policy has failed in North Korea, Washington is determinedly looking the other way. When we next focus on North Korea, after the election, it could be a nuclear Wal-Mart.

NA
46. Public Still Backs Bush On Iraq War, Though It's Fretting
(Wall Street Journal)...Gerald F. Seib
A spate of new public polling produces a surprising picture: After three weeks of the worst news yet from the yearlong American engagement in Iraq, public support for the effort hasn't seriously eroded.

EDITORIAL

47. Privatizing Warfare
(New York Times)...Editorial
It's one thing for the military to outsource food and laundry services to private firms, as it started doing aggressively in the 1990's, but it's quite another to outsource the actual fighting. That is what the Pentagon is perilously close to doing in Iraq.

Williams' son, Joseph, 24, of Kansas, and her four sisters and her brother were devastated by the news, she said.

Williams and Kim Bigley, 47, of Paducah, Ky., were shot and killed Saturday by a Jordanian UN police officer. Investigators still don't know what led to the shooting.

And the front page of the Southern Illinoisian:

A former warden of Shawnee Correctional Center was killed and a Vienna resident critically injured Saturday when a Jordanian U.N. police officer opened fire on American correctional officers in Kosovo.

Former warden Kim Bigley, a 47-year-old Paducah resident who lived most of her life in southern and southwestern Illinois, and Gary Weston of Vienna, a retired employee of Shawnee Correctional Center, were among a group of DynCorp International employees who had just completed their first day of job orientation when the Jordanian fired on them as they left a Kosovo prison.

The news stunned family and friends of Bigley and Weston in Vienna, which has just over 1,200 residents. Suddenly the turmoil of a far- distant conflict had hit home.

The two were serving with the United Nations as international police officers in Kosovo.

Mike Dickerson, a DynCorp spokesman, said the group was "attacked without warning and for unknown reasons."

(Sidebar note: DynCorp employees would definitely meet Kos' definition of "mercenaries". Those interested in details of Sean Penn's encounter with and response to some Dyncorp employees in Iraq see this earlier report from Mudville)

The shoot-out occurred in Kosovska Mitrovica, a city in northern Kosovo that has a history of violence between Serbs and ethnic Albanians, including riots that broke out a month ago, killing 19 and injuring 900.

The motive of the attack was not clear Monday. Lou Fintor, state department spokesman, said an investigation into the incident was initiated immediately by the U.N. Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo.

"We will not speculate on the motivations of the attack while the investigation is under way," Fintor said. "We will be following the investigation closely."

...

Marilyn Whiteside, whose daughter Nina has been married to Weston for 30 years, said little Monday. Her face and voice were composed as she was leaving her daughter's home a few blocks from her own, but her eyes revealed the strain of the past days.

Whiteside said she had been told not to talk about the incident. But she did say Gary "wanted to be there -- he was doing what he wanted to do" in trying to promote peace in Kosovo.

...

Gary Weston received two gunshot wounds to the head, family members said. He was flown first to Greece for surgery and stabilization before being flown to Macedonia and finally to a U.S. military hospital back in Kosovo.

...

Information on the incident was scarce Monday. But even before official sources confirmed the news about Bigley and Weston, many in the town knew.

At Dolly's Restaurant on the east edge of town, shift manager Diana Taylor was hoping the news wasn't true.

"I hope they all come home safe," she said.

...

At the Veach Short Stop station, friends Jon Simmons, Joe Perry and Wendell Clardy, all of Vienna, and Sandy Johnston of Jonesboro expressed their concern about the families. They said they all had heard "rumors" and hoped they were only that. "We're all just in the dark," Simmons said.

The New York Times provides the AP report of the few additional details available at this time:

Four U.N. police officers from Jordan were stripped of their diplomatic immunity Monday to be questioned in a fellow Jordanian's killing of two American guards in Kosovo.

It wasn't clear why Sgt. Maj. Ahmed Mustafa Ibrahim Ali opened fire on a convoy of corrections officers on Saturday. He and the two female American guards were killed in the shootout that followed, and 11 people were wounded.

Ali was a member of a highly trained unit in Jordan and had been decorated for warding off an attack on the Israeli Embassy in Amman, a Jordanian official said.

The four other Jordanian police officers at the prison in the town of Kosovska Mitrovica were detained. Authorities lifted their diplomatic immunity, opening the way for them to be interrogated, officials said.

A delegation of Jordanian police officials arrived Monday in Kosovo to assist with the investigation, which is led by an international prosecutor, officials said.

Eight of the 10 Americans were moved to a U.S. military base in Kosovo for treatment, a U.S. military spokesman said Monday. The other two were treated and released, and an Austrian also wounded was flown home Sunday for treatment.

One American officer remained in critical condition following brain surgery in neighboring Macedonia, U.S. peacekeeping spokesman Staff Sgt. Michael Houk said.

The attack shook the United Nations mission in Kosovo, already in turmoil following violent ethnic clashes last month between ethnic Albanians and Serbs that killed 19 and wounded more than 900 in Kosovska Mitrovica.

``The shooting struck a huge blow at the very idea of peacekeeping,'' said Alex Anderson, the Kosovo project director of the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based organization that monitors the Balkans.

An American police officer serving with the U.N. mission in Kosovo told The Associated Press that the shooting was ``clearly an attack against Americans.'' The officer spoke on condition of anonymity.

Officials denied rumors that a quarrel about the war in Iraq had sparked the gunbattle.

...

Jordan's government expressed regret for the shootings, a statement carried by the official Jordanian Petra agency said.

In an apparently unrelated story,

King Abdullah of Jordan dealt a rebuff to President Bush on Monday, abruptly putting off his visit to Washington scheduled for later this week. Jordanian officials said the visit had become impossible in light of Mr. Bush's recent support for Israel's territorial claims in the West Bank.

A statement from Jordan said the king, who was in California on Monday and went home rather than to Washington, would not meet with Mr. Bush this week as planned.

It said the meeting would wait "until discussions and deliberations are concluded with officials in the American administration to clarify the American position on the peace process and the final situation in the Palestinian territories, especially in light of the latest statements by officials in the American administration."

A Jordanian official said the statement, in deliberately cool tones, was meant to send a message of displeasure.

Perhaps Sgt. Maj. Ahmed Mustafa Ibrahim Ali meant only to send a message of displeasure too?

Meanwhile, back at the headquarters building:

NEW YORK — Russia dropped its opposition yesterday to a U.N. resolution endorsing an investigation of the U.N. oil-for-food program for Iraq, clearing the way for former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker to take charge of the inquiry.

U.S. lawmakers have said the U.N.-run program allowed billions of dollars in illegal oil revenue to flow to Saddam Hussein. Critics have said Saddam for years manipulated the program through illegal surcharges, kickbacks and illegal oil shipments.

With the exception of Russia, Security Council members had been prepared to endorse an inquiry into accusations of corruption in the U.N. humanitarian program and to call for countries and companies to cooperate.

"There will be a resolution," Russia's deputy U.N. ambassador, Gennady Gatilov, said, dropping his objection and adding that Security Council experts were working on a text.

Russian companies will undoubtedly come under scrutiny in any investigation because they were major buyers of Iraqi oil and suppliers of humanitarian goods to the program, which allowed Saddam's regime to sell oil and use the money to buy humanitarian goods and pay reparations to victims of the 1991 Gulf war.

...

Mr. Gatilov said Friday that Russia believed a council statement on March 31 pledging cooperation with the inquiry was sufficient support for the panel. He said Russia didn't want "to look backwards into the history, and to stir up the old issue of the humanitarian program, which is closed."

But the Russians apparently changed their mind after Mr. Annan spoke to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Saturday and after extensive consultations by Germany's U.N. ambassador, Gunter Pleuger, the current council president.

"We are in a good way," Mr. Pleuger told reporters yesterday, saying he hoped to have a draft resolution soon.

...

Under the oil-for-food program, which began in December 1996 and ended in November, the former Iraqi regime could sell unlimited quantities of oil, provided the money went primarily to buy humanitarian goods and pay reparations to victims of the 1991 Gulf war.

Saddam's government decided on the goods it wanted, who should provide them and who could buy Iraqi oil — but a U.N. committee monitored the contracts.

The complaints of corruption surfaced last January in the Iraqi newspaper Al-Mada. It included a list of about 270 former government officials, activists and journalists from more than 46 countries suspected of profiting from Iraqi oil sales that were part of the U.N. program.

And (or "but")

Pakistan, Brazil, Germany and other Security Council members are working to scale back a U.S. initiative meant to halt the spread of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons to terrorist groups, on grounds the proposals could subject governments to sanctions and weaken the international system of disarmament treaties.

Representatives from the governments say they support Washington's goal of outlawing the transfer of weapons of mass destruction to terrorists and renegade arms dealers. But they maintain that a U.S.-sponsored resolution under negotiation in the 15-nation council would impose new legal obligations on all members of the United Nations without their consent.

The diplomatic standoff shows the difficulty in forging new agreements -- even among friendly nations -- aimed at halting the illegal spread of the world's deadliest weapons. It is also a fresh setback for President Bush, who urged the Security Council in a September 2003 address to criminalize the transfer of weapons of mass destruction to terrorists.

A pass on the daily cartoon in favor of this shot of the woods behind Haus Greyhawk. The significance? A day before this there was no green in the trees.

Tomorrow, perhaps, I'll post the birdsong.

TOP STORIES

1. Deal Struck On Fallujah Attacks
(Washington Post)...Rajiv Chandrasekaran and Pamela Constable
American officials and local Iraqi leaders agreed Monday to a series of measures aimed at defusing tensions in the violence-wracked city of Fallujah, where fierce clashes between insurgents and U.S. Marines have killed hundreds of people over the past two weeks.

2. Support Is Growing For Sending More Troops To Iraq
(USA Today)...Rick Hampson
For three weeks the nation has been battered by the worst news from Iraq since the war began 13 months ago. But despite the shootings, bombings, sieges, ambushes, kidnappings and combat deaths, most Americans still support the war. And an increasing number think it should be stepped up.

3. Road Perils In Iraq Add To Chaos, Shortages
(Los Angeles Times)...Nicholas Riccardi and Edmund Sanders
At a sprawling desert camp in southern Iraq, U.S. soldiers sleep in trucks and Humvees because Iraqi merchants are afraid to deliver tents to them.

4. Bush Criticizes Spanish Pullout
(Washington Times)...Bill Sammon
President Bush yesterday rebuked Spain's new socialist prime minister for pulling Spanish troops out of Iraq, a move that prompted Honduras to follow suit while other nations stood firm.

5. Jordanian King Puts Off Meeting Bush Over Israel
(New York Times)...Steven R. Weisman
...The problems with Egypt and Jordan came as the administration faced another round of difficulties in its plans for Iraq, especially after the abrupt announcement by Spain that it would quickly withdraw its forces there in the face of a deteriorating security situation. Honduras announced Monday night that it would withdraw its 370 troops, which have been operating in Iraq as part of the Spanish contingent. Administration officials also said that Poland faced a decision on whether to renew its commitment to keep troops in Iraq, and that it was far from clear whether it would renew its pledge.

6. Poll Shows New Gains For Bush
(Washington Post)...Richard Morin and Dan Balz
President Bush holds significant advantages over John F. Kerry in public perceptions of who is better equipped to deal with Iraq and the war on terrorism, and he has reduced the advantages his Democratic challenger held last month on many domestic issues, according to a Washington Post-ABC News Poll.

IRAQ

7. Deal Is Reached In Volatile Fallujah
(USA Today)...Jim Michaels
...Together, the developments suggested at least a temporary cooling of tensions in the two major hotspots of the anti-American insurgency that has made April the deadliest month of the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq.

8. U.S. Gives Leaders In Falluja A Chance To End The Insurgency
(New York Times)...Ian Fisher
After days of talks and threats of a military showdown, American officials agreed Monday to call off an offensive in the flash point city of Falluja if civic leaders can persuade insurgents there to turn in their heavy weapons.

9. Insurgents Endanger Mosques, U.S. Military Warns Iraqis
(Los Angeles Times)...Tony Perry
...Marines and soldiers distributed leaflets in this farming village outside the encircled city of Fallouja asking residents to keep insurgents from using the local mosque for meetings or to store weapons. Included in the message was a warning: If insurgents shoot at U.S. forces from mosques, the buildings will lose their protected status and will be fired on.

10. U.S. Commanders Say Increased Border Patrols Are Halting The Influx Of Non-Iraqi Guerrillas
(New York Times)...Eric Schmitt
American and allied forces have choked the flow of foreign fighters coming into Iraq from Syria and Iran, curbing a small but persistent source of combatants that has fueled the insurgency, especially in the Sunni Muslim heartland, American military officers said Monday.

11. For Engineering Battalion, A Longer Haul
(Washington Post)...Thomas E. Ricks
Army Spec. Matthew Rushing had packed his rucksack and was just two hours from departing on the convoy that would take him out of this turbulent country when he got the news: His battalion had been ordered to remain in Iraq for another four months. But Rushing, like many others in his engineering unit from the 1st Armored Division, is handling the delayed departure with equanimity.

12. Marines' Demeanor Toughens After Attack
(St. Louis Post-Dispatch)...Ron Harris
The day after fighting in Husaybah left five of their brethren dead and at least a dozen wounded, a different, grimmer 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, returned to the city Sunday.

13. Marines Uncover Weapons Cache
(North County (CA) Times)...Darrin Mortenson
Without firing a shot or shedding any blood, Marines struck a huge blow to the insurgency on Monday when they uncovered a sizeable cache of heavy weapons in a roughneck neighborhood in northwest Fallujah.

14. 'It's Real Now,' Troops Say As Bullets Start To Fly
(Los Angeles Times)...Edmund Sanders
...For the next four hours, the soldiers got more contact with the enemy than they had bargained for. Unlike the usual skirmishes with insurgents, the 50 to 100 Al Mahdi fighters held their positions, even as the U.S. pummeled the grove with 150 mortars. Three U.S. soldiers were wounded. An estimated 20 to 40 Al Mahdi fighters were killed, the military said. The battle outside the Shiite holy city of Kufa on Friday marked first time many of the soldiers had seen combat or fired a shot. Their division, the 25th Infantry, hadn't seen combat since Vietnam.

15. Iraqis Show Captured U.S. Vehicle, Brag Of Fight
(Philadelphia Inquirer)...Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson
Gunmen loyal to rebel cleric Muqtada al-Sadr towed a battered Second Armored Cavalry Regiment humvee into Kufa police headquarters yesterday and said it was a trophy from a firefight they said left 16 Americans dead or wounded.

16. Bush Picks U.N. Envoy As Ambassador To Iraq
(Washington Post)...Robin Wright
President Bush yesterday nominated John D. Negroponte, the top U.S. diplomat at the United Nations, to be the new American ambassador to Iraq. He would head the largest U.S. diplomatic mission in history.

DEFENSE DEPARTMENT

17. Some Delayed Casualties Of Vietnam War
(Washington Post)...Monte Reel
Hundreds of family members gathered at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial yesterday to read aloud the names of relatives who died of the lingering effects of the war, including illness linked to the toxic defoliant Agent Orange and suicides attributed to post-traumatic stress disorder.

18. Soldiers' Stories From the Latest War
(Washington Post)...Philip Kennicott
...The NEA project is organized in partnership with the Department of Defense and the Southern Arts Federation, a nonprofit group based in Atlanta, and $250,000 of the $300,000 cost is being paid by Boeing. Writers visiting military bases will be paid a $3,000 honorarium. NEA officials say they don't expect the military to place any constraints on what is written, and that the volume that is eventually published will represent a diversity of viewpoints about the war.

19. Nontoxic Gas Test Near Pentagon To Aid Defense Against Attacks
(Los Angeles Times)...Associated Press
The military will release an invisible nontoxic gas into the air around the Pentagon in the coming weeks as part of an effort to develop defenses against a chemical or biological attack, officials said Monday.

NATIONAL GUARD/RESERVE

20. Army Fears Reservists Are Stretched Thin
(Dallas Morning News)...Richard Whittle
...Combined with the war on terrorism, the unexpected turmoil in Iraq has boosted the Army's demand for Reserve and National Guard troops to unprecedented levels – leaving their leaders worried that many reservists may quit to avoid repeated and often dangerous deployments.

WHITE HOUSE

21. Cheney Was Unwavering In Desire To Go To War
(Washington Post)...Bob Woodward
This is the third of five articles adapted from "Plan of Attack," a book by Bob Woodward that is a behind-the-scenes account of how and why President Bush decided to go to war against Iraq.

22. Bush Officials Deny Money Was Diverted For Iraq War
(New York Times)...Richard W. Stevenson and Carl Hulse
The Bush administration on Monday denied a report in a new book that it secretly diverted money intended for the effort to prevent terrorism in 2002 to prepare for an invasion of Iraq.

23. Powell Says He Was 'Committed' To Iraq War
(Washington Post)...Dan Morgan
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, responding to a new book about the Bush administration's decision to go to war in Iraq, said yesterday he was closely involved with planning for the attack and had been as "committed as anyone else" to toppling the government of Saddam Hussein.

CONGRESS

NA
24. Clinton To Push G.I. Health Tests
(New York Daily News)...Tamer El-Ghobashy
Sen. Hillary Clinton will call today on Pentagon officials to beef up programs that track radiation levels in soldiers returning from Iraq.

NORTH KOREA

NA
25. N. Korea's Kim Reportedly In China For Talks
(Washington Post)...Edward Cody and Anthony Faiola
The leader of North Korea, Kim Jong Il, was reported to have pulled into Beijing aboard a special train car Monday for unusual face-to-face talks with Chinese leaders on the standoff over his country's nuclear weapons program.

26. N. Korean Nuclear Issue Simmers On A Back Burner
(Los Angeles Times)...Barbara Demick
...Dealing with Pyongyang's headlong pursuit of nuclear weapons, once described as the biggest security threat to the United States, has been downgraded to a droning diplomatic process with little sense of urgency — at least until after the U.S. presidential election.

AFGHANISTAN

27. Al Qaeda Disrupted In Pakistani Tribal Areas, General Says
(New York Times)...Carlotta Gall
The commander of American-led forces in Afghanistan, Lt. Gen. David Barno, said Monday that Pakistan had successfully disrupted the Qaeda network in the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan and had significantly affected its ability to support a suspected Taliban insurgency across the border in Afghanistan.

28. Eight Al-Qaeda Suspects Arrested In Afghan Raid
(Philadelphia Inquirer)...Unattributed
Local police and international peacekeepers raided a compound yesterday in Afghanistan's capital, Kabul, and arrested eight men suspected of ties to both al-Qaeda and a group loyal to Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a peacekeeping spokesman said. Authorities seized weapons, explosives and documents that showed the suspects had links to both groups, the spokesman said. He did not reveal the names or nationalities of those held.

TERRORISM

29. At Court: Terror-War Detentions
(Christian Science Monitor)...Warren Richey
Legal challenges to the indefinite detention of Al Qaeda and Taliban suspects at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, have placed the US Supreme Court at a constitutional crossroads, with potential historic implications for the balance of power in American government.

30. Ridge Says Security Must Be Tightened
(USA Today)...Mimi Hall
The federal government plans to "ratchet up" security through early 2005 based on concerns that terrorists will strike during high-profile political, economic and athletic events, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said Monday.

UNITED NATIONS

31. U.S. Effort On Arms Opposed
(Washington Post)...Colum Lynch
Pakistan, Brazil, Germany and other Security Council members are working to scale back a U.S. initiative meant to halt the spread of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons to terrorist groups, on grounds the proposals could subject governments to sanctions and weaken the international system of disarmament treaties.

32. Probe Of Iraq Oil-For-Food Program Clears Hurdle
(Washington Times)...Edith M. Lederer, Associated Press
Russia dropped its opposition yesterday to a U.N. resolution endorsing an investigation of the U.N. oil-for-food program for Iraq, clearing the way for former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker to take charge of the inquiry.

MEDIA

33. Rising Peril Impels Reporters To Join U.S. Units In Field
(Chicago Tribune)...John Cook
The number of journalists embedded with U.S. military units in Iraq has more than doubled over the past two weeks as a growing insurgency and a series of kidnappings have made it increasingly dangerous for civilians traveling without military protection.

34. 2 TV Station Workers Shot
(Miami Herald)...Associated Press
U.S. troops shot to death two employees of U.S.-funded television station Al Iraqiya and wounded a third in the central city of Samarra, the station said.

BUSINESS

35. Boeing Combat System Backed
(Seattle Times)...Tony Capaccio, Bloomberg News
Boeing's $92 billion program to develop a family of armored ground vehicles linked by high-speed communications, unmanned drones and new combat radios retains strong Pentagon support, the former comptroller of the Defense Department said.

OPINION

36. Treatment Of Terror Captives Diminishes U.S. Values
(USA Today)...Editorial
After U.S. forces attacked al-Qaeda and its Taliban protectors in October 2001, thousands of prisoners were swept up amid the fighting across Afghanistan. More than two years later, nearly 600 captives remain jailed in a military prison built at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba. Today, the U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments over whether the Bush administration must justify its claimed right to hold these captives indefinitely.

37. U.S. Acts Under Laws Of War
(USA Today)...Thomas W. O'Connell
...We have a right to defend ourselves. And yet, faced with our enemy's barbaric conduct, the United States continues to act in accordance with the laws of war. Under such laws, captured enemy combatants may be detained until the end of hostilities.

NA
38. War Comes To Court
(Wall Street Journal)...Ruth Wedgwood
Today the nine justices of the U.S. Supreme Court will hear an appeal regarding wartime operations abroad and the capture of foreign enemy combatants that could have grave consequences for the outcome of the war on terror. The high court has been asked to overthrow settled precedent and extend the writ of habeas corpus to foreign combatants captured outside the U.S. and interned at Guantanamo. The plea is to require the president of the United States to prove to the satisfaction of a federal judge that each capture of an al Qaeda or Taliban combatant is supported by sufficient evidence.

39. America's Prisoners, American Rights
(New York Times)...David Cole
Today the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on whether the United States government can detain foreign nationals held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, as "enemy combatants" without charge and without hearings. Next week the court will hear arguments in similar cases involving American citizens. Many consider the detention of citizens to be more dubious legally. But from a constitutional standpoint, citizenship should not matter.

40. Bicycling To War
(Washington Post)...Richard Cohen
...But as Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told Vanity Fair in an amazingly candid interview, Hussein's purported arsenal was almost beside the point -- not the prime reason for going to war. The real reason, as Woodward's book makes clear, was the president's conviction that he was in an epochal fight against evil and had the historic opportunity to reorder the Middle East.

NA
41. Farewell To The New Europe?
(Washington Times)...Frank J. Gaffney Jr.
...Unfortunately, Old Europe is poised to have the last laugh. The European Union is about to foist a draft constitution on all its New European members and Great Britain that will virtually ensure that, from now on, the French and Germans will be able, among other things, to enforce a single foreign and defense policy. Inevitably, the party line will more closely resemble their anti-American predilections than the trans-Atlantic reflexes of our traditional and new-found friends there.

42. U.S. Saber Rattling Worries Castro Regime
(USA Today)...DeWayne Wickham
Ricardo Alarcón believes the Bush administration has Cuba in its cross hairs. He thinks it is only a matter of time before a U.S. invasion force descends upon this island nation in an attempt to force a regime change.

NA
43. Navy's Central Planning On Computers Bogs Down -- (Letter)
(Wall Street Journal)...David R. Henderson
The article on EDS's megacontract with the U.S. Navy ("Sink or Swim: After Landing Huge Navy Pact, EDS Finds It's In Over Its Head," April 6) understandably focused on EDS's huge losses from the contract. But the situation is even worse. Most rank and file Navy users are unhappy with the Navy's and EDS's centralized plan for personal computers and for the Navy's own Intranet. According to the Feb. 23 Government Computing News, 72% of respondents to a survey disagreed that the vaunted Navy-Marine Corps Intranet was on track.

EDITORIAL

NA
44. Bush's Brahimi Gamble
(Wall Street Journal)...Editorial
One mystery of the last year in Iraq is that a U.S. occupation that is supposed to midwife democracy has put so little trust in Iraqis. The Bush Administration may be compounding that error now by abdicating decisions about the June 30 transition to Iraqi rule to U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi.

45. The U.N. In Iraq
(Washington Post)...Editorial
...A year ago we argued for the internationalization of Iraq's postwar administration. Regrettably, that option no longer exists. After a year of occupation, Iraqis are impatient to take back control of their country and are not likely to accept continued rule by foreigners, even under U.N. auspices. Meanwhile, the United Nations' standing in Iraq, already questionable during the rule of Saddam Hussein, has been weakened. The bombing of the agency's headquarters in Baghdad has shaken the institution and left Secretary General Kofi Annan and his staff deeply reluctant to reestablish a large presence. A growing scandal over U.N. management of the oil-for-food program has further damaged its reputation.

NA
46. 'Gestapo' Tactics
(Wall Street Journal)...Editorial
...Another Woodward disclosure about Mr. Powell's collegiality is the way America's top diplomat refers privately to the Pentagon policy shop run by Undersecretary Douglas Feith. Mr. Powell reportedly accuses Dick Cheney, Cheney aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Mr. Feith and his "Gestapo office" of running what amounted to a separate government.

TOP STORIES

Exactly like the briefing the senior Pentagon officials get, but better. (Theirs rarely includes sheep cartoons.)

1. Bremer Is Increasing Pressure For A Quick End To Iraqi Uprisings
(New York Times)...John F. Burns and Christine Hauser
With no sign of a breakthrough in talks with rebels in Falluja and Najaf, the leader of the American occupation appeared to move closer on Sunday to a military showdown, saying that the rebels' failure to submit to American demands would require decisive action against those who "want to shoot their way to power."

2. Spanish Premier Orders Soldiers Home From Iraq
(New York Times)...Marlise Simons
Spain's new Socialist prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, keeping a firm campaign promise, announced Sunday that he was ordering Spanish troops to leave Iraq "as soon as possible."

NA
3. Early U.S. Decisions On Iraq Now Haunt American Efforts
(Wall Street Journal)...Farnaz Fassihi, Greg Jaffe, Yaroslav Trofimov, Carla Anne Robbins and Yochi J. Dreazen
...The battles U.S. forces are waging, against Sunni insurgents around the town of Fallujah and Shiite forces loyal to Mr. Sadr across the south, may have seemed to erupt suddenly. In reality, they have been long in the making, fed by a year's worth of decisions and calculations about the Iraqi army and security, about the depth of popular tolerance for occupation and about the role of the country's important Shiite leaders.

4. 10 GIs Die In Attacks In Iraq
(Washington Post)...Sewell Chan
...The deaths of the 10 troops, all on Saturday, raised to nearly 100 the number of Americans killed in combat in April, already the deadliest month since the U.S. invasion began, as urban rebellions, ambushes of military convoys and kidnappings have convulsed the country. In the bloodiest encounter of the weekend, five Marines were killed near the Syrian border in a day-long firefight with a force of 120 to 150 insurgents armed with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades.

5. Bush Plans Aid To Build Foreign Peace Forces
(Washington Post)...Bradley Graham
Facing a chronic shortage of foreign troops for peacekeeping missions, President Bush has decided to launch an international drive to boost the supply of available forces -- a move that if successful could relieve some of the pressure on U.S. soldiers to join such operations, defense officials said.

6. NORAD Had Drills Eerily Like Sept. 11
(USA Today)...Steven Komarow and Tom Squitieri
In the two years before the Sept. 11 attacks, the North American Aerospace Defense Command conducted exercises simulating what the White House says was unimaginable at the time: hijacked airliners used as weapons to crash into targets and cause mass casualties.

IRAQ

7. Bremer: Iraqi Forces Not Ready
(Philadelphia Inquirer)...Matthew Schofield and Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson
As fighting in Iraq widened and the death toll mounted, the top U.S. administrator conceded yesterday that Iraqi police and security forces were not ready to protect the country from insurgents.

8. Security Companies: Shadow Soldiers In Iraq
(New York Times)...David Barstow
...Far more than in any other conflict in United States history, the Pentagon is relying on private security companies to perform crucial jobs once entrusted to the military. In addition to guarding innumerable reconstruction projects, private companies are being asked to provide security for the chief of the Coalition Provisional Authority, L. Paul Bremer III, and other senior officials; to escort supply convoys through hostile territory; and to defend key locations, including 15 regional authority headquarters and even the Green Zone in downtown Baghdad, the center of American power in Iraq.

9. Cease-Fire In Fallujah Frustrates Some Marines
(USA Today)...Jim Michaels
U.S. military commanders, frustrated by a weeklong truce and talks aimed at ending hostilities in Fallujah, say the pause in offensive operations is giving insurgents a chance to reorganize and rearm, military officers say.

10. Carnage Dims Hopes For Political Way In Iraq
(Los Angeles Times)...Alissa J. Rubin
U.S. forces have stepped back from massive military action in the turbulent cities of Fallouja and Najaf, but the overwhelming sense here is that across much of Iraq, the ground is giving way beneath the Americans.

11. Under The Falluja Sun, Gunfire And A Grim Task: Wait It Out
(New York Times)...John Kifner
...The marines said they had been greeted with nearly constant rocket and mortar barrages from Falluja insurgents when they first arrived, but the last two days had been relatively quiet. Now they are doing what armies mostly do: wait.

12. Troop Deaths Highest Since Vietnam War
(Philadelphia Inquirer)...Drew Brown
With fighting in Iraq now at its worst, the number of U.S. troops killed by enemy fire has reached the highest level since the Vietnam War.

13. Fallujah Rebels Condemn Abductions
(Washington Times)...P. Mitchell Prothero, United Press International
Members of the largest group battling the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq deny participating in the wave of recent abductions of foreigners and call the perpetrators "cowards."

NA
14. Iraqi Military Chief Blasts 'Enemies Of Peace'
(USA Today)...Louis Meixler, Associated Press
Iraq's new defense minister on Sunday denounced guerrillas who are attacking U.S.-led coalition forces and announced that a Kurd and a Sunni Muslim will be his two top generals.

15. Governing Council Huddles Over Power Transfer
(Washington Times)...Sharon Behn
The 24 members of the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) are to hold closed-door meetings this week on what Iraq's new government should look like and its future relationship with the United States.

16. U.S. Says Al-Jazeera Putting Troops At Risk
(USA Today)...Peter Johnson
U.S. officials in Iraq expect a pro-Arab slant from Al-Jazeera, the Qatar-based satellite television network that is beamed to about 40 million Arab viewers. But as fighting has intensified in Fallujah, officials at the Coalition Provisional Authority charge that Al-Jazeera's reporting has become particularly biased and inflammatory — or flatly wrong — and that it is endangering American lives.

17. Iraqis To Prosecute Case Of Contractors' Killers
(Los Angeles Times)...Nicholas Riccardi and Tony Perry
Leaders in this besieged city and representatives of the U.S.-led occupation coalition have agreed that those responsible for the killing and mutilation of four American civilian contractors — the attack that sparked a bloody Marine advance into the city this month — will be prosecuted by an Iraqi judge, a key negotiator said Sunday.

18. Uprising Shatters Brief Return Of Normal Existence
(USA Today)...Jim Michaels
A few months ago, Ammar Hussein finally felt it was safe enough to keep his pizza shop open until midnight. Life was returning to normal in Iraq's capital. Most nights, families crowded around plastic tables outside his shop to eat pizza and ice cream.

DEFENSE DEPARTMENT

19. In The Lair Of The Wolf -- Iraq: The Second Year
(The Australian)...Greg Sheridan
...Even more than combative Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz is the engine of Iraq policy. He won't hear of defeat and restates the vision that few share in these dark days: "You can have endless debates about how imminent the [Iraq] threat was and the President never said it was imminent. The whole point was to deal with it before it became imminent," Wolfowitz tells The Weekend Australian.

20. 'Walrus' Airship Seen As Pentagon's U-Haul
(Chicago Tribune)...Noah Shachtman
The Defense Department already has airships handling spy duties and communications work. Now there's a movement afoot to use zeppelins to become the military's U-Hauls in the sky.

ARMY

21. G.I.s Press Army For Uranium Test
(New York Daily News)...Juan Gonzalez
Hundreds of soldiers back from Iraq have asked the Army to test them for radiation exposure after the Daily News revealed four members of a New York Army National Guard unit are contaminated with depleted uranium.

22. Where The Bunkers Are Made Of Concrete
(Christian Science Monitor)...Patrik Jonsson
When chanting green-shirted grunts ran their daily four miles last week, the guy in the lead wasn't a top sniper or a bellowing sergeant major. Instead, his camo-shirt name tag read "Pfc. Woods," the world's greatest golfer, come to Fort Bragg for a taste of his father's training here 40 years ago and a fresh draft of discipline in his career.

23. Weapons Moving Out, Wildlife Moving In
(New York Times)...Kirk Johnson
...The arsenal is still a major environmental cleanup project and will be for years to come. The $2.2 billion restoration will not be finished until perhaps 2011, when 10,000 acres are to be added to the refuge. Small bomblets containing liquid sarin, a deadly nerve agent, were uncovered as recently as 2000. But wildlife experts also say that somewhat paradoxically, the bounty of nature that came to exist — owls and egrets, coyotes and deer, prairie dogs and salamanders — is also a direct product of those dark years. The arsenal became an island of nature in a way that it never was or could be when farmers like the Maurers lived here, they say, because for four decades through the hot and cold wars of the 20th century, military security kept the arsenal isolated.

MARINE CORPS

24. Marines Write To Comfort Kin Of Comrades, And Themselves
(Los Angeles Times)...Tony Perry
Custom and friendship are behind letters eulogizing troops who gave their lives in Iraq.

25. Marine Corps Snipers Aim To Strike Fear
(Los Angeles Times)...Tony Perry
...Sniping — killing an enemy from long distance with a single shot — has become a significant tactic for Marines in this Sunni Triangle city as three battalions skirmish daily with armed fighters who can find cover among buildings, walls and trees.

WHITE HOUSE

26. Court Set To Hear Cases On War Policy
(Philadelphia Inquirer)...Stephen Henderson
...This week and next, the Supreme Court will review these policies in four of the most pivotal cases this term. The justices will hear arguments in cases that will decide whether the administration's war on terrorism is being conducted in accordance with constitutional restraints or whether it represents an unprecedented, and illegal, power grab on the part of the executive branch.

27. With CIA Push, Movement To War Accelerated
(Washington Post)...Bob Woodward
This is the second of five articles adapted from "Plan of Attack," a book by Bob Woodward that is a behind-the-scenes account of how and why President Bush decided to go to war against Iraq.

28. Airing Of Powell's Misgivings Tests Ties In The Cabinet
(New York Times)...Steven R. Weisman
...But Mr. Powell's apparent decision to lay out his misgivings even more explicitly to the journalist Bob Woodward for a book has jolted the White House and aggravated long-festering tensions in the Bush cabinet. Moreover, some officials said, the book has created problems for the secretary inside the administration just as the situation in Iraq is deteriorating and President Bush is plunging into his re-election drive.

29. Election Could Tempt Attack By Terror Groups, Rice Says
(New York Times)...David E. Sanger
President Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, said on Sunday that the administration was worried that terrorist groups could find the approaching presidential election "too good to pass up" and that Washington was already considering measures to deter an attack seeking to influence the election's outcome.

30. Lack Of Resolution In Iraq Finds Conservatives Divided
(New York Times)...David D. Kirkpatrick
A growing faction of conservatives is voicing doubts about a prolonged United States military involvement in Iraq, putting hawkish neoconservatives on the defensive and posing questions for President Bush about the degree of support he can expect from his political base.

CONGRESS

31. Congress Wants Answers On Bush's Plans For Iraq
(Los Angeles Times)...Mary Curtius
An increasingly anxious Congress has summoned Bush administration officials to testify this week on their plans for quelling violence in Iraq and for handing power over to Iraqis by June 30.

NORTH KOREA

32. N. Korea Leader Arrives In China
(Los Angeles Times)...Barbara Demick
North Korea's reclusive leader arrived today in Beijing for a rare trip away from home apparently necessitated by his standoff with the United States over nuclear weapons and his nation's urgent economic problems.

ASIA/PACIFIC

33. Fearful Of A Pakistani Drive, Tribesmen Hunt Qaeda Supporters
(New York Times)...Associated Press
Fearing another offensive by the Pakistani Army, a 2,000-member local militia began a sweep through mud-brick villages in their tribal homeland on Sunday, saying their intention was to hunt down supporters of Al Qaeda and hand them over to the government.

34. Wolfowitz Urges 'Key' Australia To Keep Troops In Iraq
(The Australian)...Greg Sheridan
US Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz has urged Australia as a "key player" in the coalition that invaded Iraq to leave soldiers in the violence-torn country.

BUSINESS

NA
35. Northrop Papers Indicate Coverup
(Wall Street Journal)...Andy Pasztor and Jonathan Karp
Posing fresh legal and financial problems for a company that has worked hard to cleanse its image, internal documents show that Northrop Grumman Corp. covered up major accounting irregularities during the late 1980s to stay in the Pentagon's good graces.

36. Navy Gives Approval To Contractors
(Washington Post)...Anitha Reddy
The Navy has given 151 government technology contractors approval to compete for work related to ships and ship weapon systems under a 15-year contract worth up to $19.5 billion.

37. Violence In Iraq Makes Work Difficult For Contractors
(USA Today)...Laura Parker and Steven Komarow
President Bush can order more troops to Iraq. But he can't do the same for the private contractors, whose role is critical to the U.S.-led effort to turn that country into a prosperous democracy.

38. U.S. Rice Growers Push For Iraq Contracts
(Washington Post)...Dan Morgan
When the U.S. military took control of Iraq, many farmers across America's southern rice belt looked forward to reclaiming a multimillion-dollar market lost after a post-Persian Gulf War economic embargo against Saddam Hussein's government. They are still waiting for the payoff.

39. Robotic Test Plane Drops Inert Bomb Near Its Target
(Baltimore Sun)...Unattributed
A robotic plane deliberately dropped a bomb near a truck at Edwards Air Force Base yesterday, marking another step forward for technology that the U.S. military hopes will one day replace human pilots on dangerous combat missions.

OPINION

40. Scandal With No Friends
(New York Times)...William Safire
How fares the multination cover-up of the richest rip-off in world history?

41. Rumsfeld's Candor Can Be Too Revealing
(Chicago Tribune)...Clarence Page
Every so often a high-profile Washington figure gets himself or herself in trouble by inadvertently revealing what he or she really thinks. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld knows. In a town where candor can be a crime, he's a repeat offender. His latest score came during a Pentagon news conference Thursday when he revealed a new Rummy-ism: "People are fungible."

42. Military Ought To Draw All Income Levels
(Atlanta Journal-Constitution)...Cynthia Tucker
Reading biographical profiles of dead American soldiers, I am struck, always, by their ages -- 22 or 19 or 24. For most, childhood is all they get; their lives end even as their adulthood begins. Usually, they come from families of modest means, strivers looking to serve their country but also to gain technical training or college scholarships. In this group, graduates of Harvard or Yale or Duke are rare. Rare, too, are children of those policy-makers who decided this war was necessary.

43. The Wrong War
(New York Times)...Bob Herbert
Follow me, said the president. And, tragically, we did.

44. We Didn't Dare Wait
(Washington Post)...William Raspberry
What follows is the speech the president didn't make at his news conference last week. He can use it now, with no further permission from me.

45. Understanding Sistani's Role
(Washington Post)...Vali Nasr
As U.S. forces encircle Najaf to "capture or kill" Moqtada Sadr and disband his militia, the Mahdi Army, it is important that policymakers consider the costs of such an operation. Reining in Sadr and his militia is important to U.S. objectives, but it may prove to be a Pyrrhic victory. Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani has refused to sanction the entry of U.S. forces into Najaf, and he has publicly warned the United States about crossing a "red line" that will inflame Shiite public opinion, not only in Iraq but from Pakistan to Lebanon. The fallout is likely to make U.S. objectives in Iraq and its surrounding region more difficult to realize. It will instead cause instability, violence and anti-Americanism in quarters where such tendencies have so far not been evident.

46. Punished Over Policy -- (Letter)
(Washington Post)...John Cornyn
William J. Haynes II, as the Pentagon's general counsel, is duty-bound to represent the administration's legal positions. Yet in the debate about his nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, he is being punished for doing his job.

EDITORIAL

47. The Court And Guantanamo
(New York Times)...Editorial
The Supreme Court will hear a pair of cases tomorrow that will help set the ground rules for the war on terror. Detainees at Guantánamo, some of whom have been held for more than two years, are seeking an opportunity to challenge their confinement. The Bush administration insists, however, that they can be imprisoned indefinitely. That position is legally and morally wrong, and rather than help America's defense, it makes the nation more vulnerable. The Supreme Court should rule for the detainees.

48. Afghanistan's Descent
(Washington Post)...Editorial
THE FIGHTING in Iraq has kindled hopes of sharing the burden with allies, perhaps by involving NATO. Meanwhile Afghanistan, where NATO assumed peacekeeping responsibility last August, is not progressing well. NATO's European members have failed to contribute sufficient troops to extend the peacekeeping presence much outside the capital, and the resulting power vacuum has been filled by warlords.

A new report mandated by the U.S. Congress and released in Washington on 1 October says the United States must drastically overhaul its public diplomacy efforts to stem a tide of surging anti-American sentiment in the Arab and Muslim worlds.

...Drafted by a panel of 13 independent experts, the 81-page report urges a radical overhaul of the way Washington communicates U.S. values and policies to the Arab and Muslim worlds.

Titled "Changing Minds, Winning Peace," the study was led by Edward Djerijian, a former U.S. ambassador to Syria and Israel who is now with Rice University in Texas.

Djerijian told reporters at the State Department that if "America does not define itself" to the Muslim world, then "the extremists will do it for us."

"This report is a wake-up call. I think it is a wake-up call for the United States to face effectively the challenge of the battle for minds that we have out there," Djerijian said.

<...>

He noted that total funding for public diplomacy -- just over $1 billion a year -- amounts to about three-tenths of 1 percent of the Pentagon's budget. In real terms, Djerijian says that a mere $25 million is spent on programs that actually touch lives in the Muslim and Arab worlds.

Glenn Reynolds hypothesizes asking the President: A year after the invasion, the Marines are seeking donations from blog readers to set up TV stations in Iraq so as to counter anti-American propaganda from Al Jazeera and other hostile media. Why wasn't this a priority from day one? Why isn't it one now?

I'll note the Marines aren't asking, but thats not the point. I'll answer for my boss: it has been. We've been tackling it in our best big government style:

The panel's recommendations come as Washington has already spent tens of millions of dollars since the attacks of September 2001 in a bid to improve its image in the Middle East, through radio broadcasts, magazines, and television advertisements on Muslim life in America.

Some U.S. officials acknowledge that some of those efforts have been ineffective, such as a series of television commercials in 2002 called "Shared Values" that sought to depict Muslim-Americans living happy and prosperous lives. Several Arab countries refused to broadcast the commercials.

A few million or billion more seems like good money after bad to me. But here's where optimisim kicks in: I say that no matter what side of the political spectrum you're on, who wouldn't like to see this grass roots program, giving the power to Iraqis to get their own message out at a fraction of the cost, suceed on a much greater scale? (It couldn't do worse.) That, I think, is the appeal - low cost grass roots effort suceeds where government millions fail.

One hundred thousand.

How congress would laugh.

Omar, at Iraq the Model

:: I've been visiting the BBC Arabic site in the last few days and I found a forum where people from many Arab countries –including Iraq- post their opinions about some hot topics, the main of those is Iraq and terrorism of course. I wasn't surprised to see that most Arabs (especially from Egypt, Palestine, Sudan, Saudi Arabia and Syria) are forming one side of the debates while Iraqis and people from the rest of the gulf countries are taking the other side. But I was surprised when I found that the almost all the Iraqis who took part in the debates are on our side, maybe 95% of Iraqis expressed their rejection to the violent behavior of some Iraqis and condemned the terrorists attacks on both Iraqis and the coalition saying that the Arab world must stop supporting the terrorists and the thugs from inside Iraq. It's also surprising that many of those Iraqis live in areas that are recognized to have a public anti American attitude in general like A'adhamiya, Diyala and Najaf. I feel that those people are still afraid to voice their points of view in public in such hostile atmospheres but the internet is providing them freedom and safety to say whatever they believe in. Here, I translated three of the posts made by Iraqis and for those who can read Arabic or have a way to translate web pages, here's the link.

You'll have to visit there for the link, but really, we can amplify these voices.

Can? I think we must. The troops are ready to come home, you know?

Spirit of America site here.

Direct contributions here (or 800-691-2209).

(If you want to get in on some blogospheric fun though, go here. And personally I'm pledging at least 10 cents, maybe more, for every contest entry left here. Donation in the name of the contest winner.)

Update 2: Originally thought the WSJ story was subscription only. May have been, but it's available now, so minor rewrite to first paragraph and several edits.

There's a great new angle for the media: get audio and video of relatives of GI's. Or better, photos. See here and here. Surely we can expect better than to see stock photos reused as in these two stories? Of course, with still pictures we can put any words we want in their mouths, can't we? We all have our own private caption contests when we see images like those.

The other great new angle: those GIs were extended because of poor planning. The DoD knew all along they'd need more troops in Iraq.

Respectfully submitted: No. There was no plan on our part for an uprising of militants in two cities at once. Since it has happened, what would a sane response be? Send the troops home anyway? Ignore it?

Just curious here. Peruse the stories in today's morning briefing. Lots of headlines. My entry for lowest of the low is from the NY Times: Extended Tours In Iraq Dash Hopes And Raise Fears Among Families. That cries for a direct quote to support it. None follows. We must assume the author is psychic. Disappointed? To be sure. Without hope? Not likely.

We're a nation at war. Odd how the media seems to have difficulty grasping this. Flexibility is the key to victory and in this case means pain. This too shall pass. It would be wonderful if other nations were there sharing this burden. It would be wonderful if American taxpayers over the past ten years had insisted on spending twice the actual budgets to double the size of the military. It would have required protestors ringing every base and post when that location was closed, and refusing to allow the troops to leave. They would have to have piled money at the gate to block the exit.

They would have had to have forced their children to enlist. 'Sign up and be trained, my darling daughter, your nation will need you to be a mid-level NCO in five years in Iraq. Don't worry; I'm going to open a factory to produce bullet proof vests for you while you're in basic. We'll have plenty ready for you when needed.'

Yes, I'm sure we all remember those cries. I'm sure every reader here can tell the tale of the time they took their child to the recruiters and were turned away. The many unanswered letters they wrote to Al Gore demanding he cease and desist inspiring the talent hemorrhage he dubbed "reinventing government" that led to a net exit of traffic through those gates of that Air Force Base up the road...

And how 'bout that Rumsfeld character? He says now he didn't expect the number of casualties we've had this week. How unprofessional. You know a good leader would have come out ahead of time and posted not just the number, but the names of all the troops who would be killed, so they could dodge, or duck, or jump the other way.

Perhaps we expected too much after World War II. You can identify the guys who aren't going to make it, you know. "I can't wait to get home and marry Bess and buy that farm I've always wanted!" They say, moments before the bullet strikes home. At least that's the way of the movies I've seen. And most of the movies I've seen only last a couple of hours. The longest, Band of Brothers, pretty much told the whole story in ten.

It's Bush, you know. He lied, the cad, and we all remember it well. "This will be a quick and painless war" he said those many months ago, "Like Grenada. You'll never even notice it. Go on about your business. We'll be done here in a minute."

Remember that? That's what he meant you know, when he said this:

This war will not be like the war against Iraq a decade ago, with a decisive liberation of territory and a swift conclusion. It will not look like the air war above Kosovo two years ago, where no ground troops were used and not a single American was lost in combat.

Our response involves far more than instant retaliation and isolated strikes. Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign, unlike any other we have ever seen. It may include dramatic strikes, visible on TV, and covert operations, secret even in success. We will starve terrorists of funding, turn them one against another, drive them from place to place, until there is no refuge or no rest. And we will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. (Applause.) From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime.

Sounds to me like he was saying we'd wrap up Afghanistan in a week and then we'd be done. And now he won't admit he was wrong. And claims he has no regrets.

Here, review to the whole pack of lies.

What a strange world he must live in, where west is east and up is down and everyone lives happily ever after, regardless of race, color, or creed.

It's just not subtle, is it? It lacks... nuance.

TOP STORIES

1. Conceding Losses, Rumsfeld Backs Longer Stay For Troops
(Philadelphia Inquirer)...Robert Moran, Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson and Ken Moritsugu
...In Washington, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said at a news conference that the U.S. death toll in recent fighting in Iraq was higher than he had expected. He said the tours of about 20,000 troops would be extended up to three months to allow the total number of U.S. troops to remain at about 135,000.

2. U.S. Open To A Proposal That Supplants Council In Iraq
(New York Times)...Steven R. Weisman and David E. Sanger
The Bush administration accepted on Thursday the outlines of a United Nations proposal to dissolve the Iraqi Governing Council installed last year by the United States and replace it with a caretaker government when Iraqi sovereignty is restored on July 1.

3. Iran Envoy Assassinated
(Washington Times)...Willis Witter
Iranian diplomats traveled to the holy city of Najaf yesterday to help mediate a U.S. military standoff with an armed militia led by radical Sheik Muqtada al-Sadr just as gunmen killed an Iranian diplomat in Baghdad.

NA (Greyhawk notes: I'll post on this later)
4. Fewer Soldiers Re-enlist
(USA Today)...Dave Moniz
The number of soldiers staying in the Army is falling just as the demand is increasing in Iraq.

Site currently down
5. 9/11 Panel Looks At Military
(Los Angeles Times)...Josh Meyer
While missteps by the CIA and FBI have come under harsh public scrutiny by a commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, the independent panel is quietly amassing evidence of a decade of failures by a third institution: the Pentagon.

6. Europeans Reject Bin Laden 'Truce'
(Washington Post)...John Burgess
...European governments quickly rejected the offer, but analysts said the message appeared to mark a new strategy of trying to manipulate antiwar sentiment in Europe to bring pressure on governments that support the United States.

IRAQ

7. Rumsfeld Says He Underestimated Level Of Violence In Iraq
(Washington Post)...Bradley Graham
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld acknowledged yesterday that he had not expected the level of violence confronting U.S. forces in Iraq, but he stood by his decision to send fewer troops than some Army officials and lawmakers have argued were necessary to stabilize the country.

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8. Rumsfeld Says Troop Losses Unexpected
(Los Angeles Times)...John Hendren and Tony Perry
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld acknowledged Thursday that he had not anticipated that American forces in Iraq still would be suffering so many casualties one year after the invasion and said he regretted having to extend the deployment of 20,000 troops. Asked what mistakes he had made in the conduct of the war in Iraq, Rumsfeld said, "I certainly would not have estimated that we would have had the number of individuals lost … that we have had lost in the last week."

9. Rumsfeld Admits Iraq Delays
(Washington Times)...Rowan Scarborough
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld yesterday conceded for the first time that progress in Iraq is not where he thought it would be a year ago when a U.S.-led coalition ousted dictator Saddam Hussein on April 9, 2003.

10. Rumsfeld Says Recent Losses Not Foreseen
(USA Today)...Tom Squitieri
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Thursday that he never expected so many American troops to be dying at this point in the war in Iraq, a rare admission from an official who almost never publicly concedes an error in fact or judgment.

11. General Calls Insurgency In Iraq A Sign Of U.S. Success
(Washington Post)...Sewell Chan
The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff said Thursday that the deadly insurgency that flared this month is "a symptom of the success that we're having here in Iraq" and an effort to undermine the country's transition to self-government.

NA
12. Strange Bedfellows In Iraq
(Wall Street Journal)...Farnaz Fassihi
...The standoff in Najaf, which U.S. officials say still could lead to a military confrontation between the U.S. and Mr. Sadr's legions, has been mediated from the beginning by an unlikely American ally: The Iranian-born Mr. Sistani, who until a month ago was giving occupation officials grief with his demand for direct elections. For now, at least, his efforts to counter Mr. Sadr's agitation have defused a potentially disastrous showdown. But the difficulty in dealing with the ambitious firebrand vividly illustrates the complex Iraqi politics that are impeding the U.S. effort to impose stability and hand sovereignty back to the Iraqis.

13. Iraqis Are Hoping For Early And Peaceful End To Shiite Insurrection
(New York Times)...Edward Wong
Iraqi officials involved in talks aimed at quelling a Shiite insurrection said Thursday that they hoped a peaceful settlement could be reached as soon as Friday, though there was still disagreement between the parties on what to do about the thousands-strong militia behind the uprising.

14. Marines' 'Mad Dog Mattis' Battles For Iraqis' Support
(Los Angeles Times)...Tony Perry
Maj. Gen. James N. Mattis paused briefly to watch his troops digging fighting holes during a lull in combat with Iraqi insurgents.

15. During Truce, Marines Endure Boredom And Sporadic Fire
(Washington Post)...Pamela Constable
It's been nearly a week since Marine forces here were ordered to suspend offensive operations -- six days of twitchy boredom, punctuated by brief bursts of action.

16. Fallujah Streetfight Looms
(New York Daily News)...Corky Siemaszko
The Marines have the latest in weaponry, superior firepower, unlimited ammunition and complete domination of the Iraqi skies. But none of this matters in Fallujah, where U.S. forces are in a gutter fight with an enemy that doesn't wear uniforms, uses the densely packed city as cover - and is operating from a playbook that urban guerrillas have been perfecting since World War II.

17. A Peacemaker Runs The Gantlet In Fallouja
(Los Angeles Times)...Nicholas Riccardi
...Hassani is a businessman, a former Angeleno, an acting Iraqi Governing Council member and the last link between the U.S.-led coalition and the people of Fallouja, who have long been a thorn in the coalition's side and have become a national symbol of resistance to the occupation. During several days of freelance negotiations this week, Hassani, a leader of the once-outlawed Iraqi Islamic Party, brokered a shaky truce between militants and the U.S. forces that have encircled the city of 300,000 in the heart of the so-called Sunni Triangle.

18. Insurgents Turn To Abduction To Fracture U.S.-Led Coalition
(USA Today)...Steven Komarow and John Diamond
...Before this month, only a handful of abductions of Westerners had occurred in Iraq. But in just the past eight days, at least 28 foreign nationals have been seized. Hostage-taking has mushroomed into a key part of the broad strategy seemingly designed to fracture the international coalition in Iraq and drive out U.S. allies, and ultimately the United States itself.

19. Iraqi Leaders: Acts Of Insurgency Will Worsen
(Philadelphia Inquirer)...Matthew Schofield
In Ramadi, U.S. troops gave two-way radios to Iraqi forces - not for communications, as they said, but so they would know when their allies were phoning Marine positions to the enemy.

AFGHANISTAN

20. U.S. Military Leader Visits Afghanistan
(New York Times on the Web)...Associated Press
Gen. Richard B. Myers, the chairman of the U.S. joint chiefs of staff, headed to Afghanistan on Friday amid a stepped up campaign to kill or capture Osama bin Laden and a growing urgency to stabilize the country for historic elections.

21. U.S. May Cut Afghan Force Size Despite Al Qaeda Hunt
(New York Times on the Web)...Reuters
The United States, which has increased troops numbers in Afghanistan to hunt for Osama bin Laden and other militants, may cut their number after the country holds elections, the top U.S. military officer said on Friday.

DEFENSE DEPARTMENT

22. Extended Tours In Iraq Dash Hopes And Raise Fears Among Families
(New York Times)...Andrew Jacobs
The triumphant display of fighter jets over the nearby town of Leesville has been postponed. So, too, has the celebratory parade down Third Street and the floats featuring decorated veterans and musicians playing big band music. At the Landmark Hotel, just up the road from the entrance to this expansive Army base, the military wives who had traveled cross-country for promised reunions with their husbands are packing their bags and heading home.

23. Soldiers' Wives Frustrated By Delays In Iraq
(USA Today)...Charisse Jones
Plans already were being made for the homecoming celebrations when wives of Guardsmen of the 1221st Transportation Company out of Dexter, Mo., learned Thursday that their husbands were among 20,000 troops staying in Iraq up to three more months.

24. Pentagon Official Grilled At U. Of C.
(Chicago Tribune)...Russell Working
Facing a skeptical and sometimes sharp-tongued audience at the University of Chicago, a senior Pentagon official on Wednesday defended the war in Iraq as an essential part of the global struggle against terrorism.

25. Rumsfeld Takes A Rain Check On Speech Planned For Phila.
(Philadelphia Inquirer)...Tom Infield
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, scheduled to address the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia on Tuesday, sent word yesterday that he would not be coming.

NAVY

26. The Grim Realities Of War
(Baltimore Sun)...Molly Knight
Veterans of the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq return to the Naval Academy to impart the unpleasant truths about combat.

AIR FORCE

27. Former Air Force Academy Official Justifies Conduct
(Los Angeles Times)...Associated Press
A former Air Force Academy official fired amid questions about the school's handling of sexual abuse claims defended himself Thursday while testifying in a high-profile rape case, saying politics, not his conduct, led to his ouster.

WHITE HOUSE

28. Administration Considers A Post For National Intelligence Director
(New York Times)...Douglas Jehl
The White House is weighing whether to pre-empt the Sept. 11 commission's final report this summer by embracing a proposal to create a powerful new post of director of national intelligence, administration officials said on Thursday.

29. Bush, Blair To Showcase Alliance
(Washington Times)...David R. Sands
President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair are likely to present a united front today when they hold their first face-to-face meeting since a surge in violence in Iraq produced new strains between the two powers leading the military coalition.

TERRORISM

30. New Target And Tone
(Washington Post)...Dana Priest and Walter Pincus
Osama bin Laden's psychological operations campaign against the United States took a surprising turn yesterday with the release of an audio message that is modern, tactical and nearly diplomatic in tone, and that addresses Europeans rather than Muslim devotees, counterterrorism experts and intelligence officials said.

ASIA/PACIFIC

31. Cheney Chides China On Reforms
(Washington Times)...Bill Gertz
Vice President Dick Cheney called on China to match its economic changes with political reform, and he warned yesterday that the failure to resolve the North Korea crisis could trigger a nuclear arms race in Asia.

32. Korean Vote Shifts Power In Assembly
(Washington Post)...Anthony Faiola
In the sharpest political shift in four decades, South Korean voters on Thursday handed control of the National Assembly to the Uri Party, which advocates rapprochement with North Korea and greater independence from the United States.

NA
33. U.S. Military Gives HIV/AIDS Workshop
(Washington Times)...Unattributed
U.S. military HIV/AIDS specialists yesterday ended a four-day workshop aimed at raising awareness and knowledge of the disease within the Vietnamese military.

MIDEAST

34. Evacuation Is Ordered For Most U.S. Diplomats In Saudi Arabia
(Washington Post)...Robin Wright and Dana Priest
The United States yesterday ordered the evacuation of most U.S. diplomats and all U.S. family dependents from Saudi Arabia, and "strongly urged" all American citizens to leave because of "credible and specific" intelligence about terrorist attacks planned against U.S. and other Western targets, the State Department announced.

35. Iran Supporting Iraqi Radicals, Arab Dailies Say
(Washington Times)...Jay Bushinsky
Iran is training and committing funds to Shi'ite radicals in Iraq even as it helps the United States to tamp down the latest anti-American insurgency, according to Arabic-language news reports.

NA
36. Powell Seeks Help In Stabilizing Iraq
(Washington Times)...Unattributed
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell has asked Syria for help in stabilizing Iraq, the official news agency reported yesterday.

BUSINESS

37. Audit Criticizes Another Boeing Deal
(Washington Post)...Renae Merle
A former Air Force official, already under investigation for accepting a job offer from Boeing Co., had a role in the improper restructuring of a $1.34 billion contract with her future employer, according to a report from the Pentagon inspector general.

NA
38. Boeing NATO Upgrade Contract Flawed, Pentagon Says
(Bloomberg.com)...Tony Capaccio
Boeing Co.'s $1.3 billion contract with the Air Force to upgrade NATO surveillance aircraft didn't follow proper contracting procedures and was negotiated by a government official who later went to work for Boeing, Pentagon Inspector General Joseph Schmitz said in a report.

39. Norway Threatens To Revoke Support For Strike Fighter
(Washington Post)...Renae Merle
A top Norwegian Parliament official warned yesterday that the country would abandon the Joint Strike Fighter program if project manager Lockheed Martin Corp. doesn't help Norway's local industries secure work on the aircraft.

NA
40. Iraq Reconstruction Work Resumes But The Effort Remains Fragile
(Wall Street Journal)...Christopher Cooper
Reconstruction work in Iraq that was stalled by a surge in violence is picking up again, industry and government officials say. But the work disruptions over the past week underscore the fragile nature of the U.S.-led rebuilding effort.

41. New Unity On Contracts Seen In NATO
(New York Times)...Katrin Benhold
...A group of six companies, led by the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company, known as EADS, and Northrop Grumman of the United States, looks set to win the contract, worth $4.8 billion, to build a mixed fleet of manned and unmanned surveillance aircraft for the alliance by 2010, said a NATO official close to the selection process.

OPINION

42. Focus On Iraqi Politics
(Washington Post)...Ivo Daalder and Anthony Lake
It is time for a fundamental reassessment of our policy on Iraq -- not because of the spiral of violence in recent days but because the current approach is simply not working.

43. A Soldier's Sacrifice
(New York Times)...Bob Herbert
It was about 3 a.m. and pitch-black when the convoy of U.S. Army trucks, traveling south on Highway 1, turned right and began moving along a rutted dirt road near Bayji, a small town in the Sunni Triangle about 25 miles north of Tikrit.

44. This Is Hardly Vietnam
(Washington Post)...Charles Krauthammer
...This is no time for despair. We must put down the two rebellions -- Fallujah's and Sadr's -- to demonstrate our seriousness, and then transfer power as quickly as we can to those who will inherit it anyway, the Shiite majority, with its long history of religious quietism and wariness of Iran. And antagonism toward its former Sunni oppressors. If the Sunnis continue to resist and carry on a civil war, it will then be up to the Shiites to fight it, not for Americans to do it on their behalf.

NA
45. Here's A Way You Can Help The Cause In Iraq
(Wall Street Journal)...Daniel Henninger
...If the Marines can get these moribund stations back on the air, the coverage area would include Fallujah and Ramadi. The VHF/UHF stations are owned as cooperatives by TV-competent Iraqis already vetted by the Army. Some broadcast Al-Jazeera for lack of other content. In return for the upgrades, the Iraqi operators would be asked two things: Criticism is fine, but don't run anti-coalition propaganda; and let the Marines buy air time to broadcast public-service announcements, such as the reopening of schools or clinics -- or indeed, pending military operations.

46. Radical Theories And Reality
(Washington Post)...E. J. Dionne Jr.
...Still, give Bush the benefit of the doubt again. No matter what the president said before the war, spreading democracy is a good thing. But you had better make it work. Unfortunately, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had his own pet theory. American military power is so impressive, he insisted, that we can now win wars with fewer troops -- far fewer than Colin Powell demanded in 1991 for throwing Iraqi forces out of Kuwait.

EDITORIAL

47. A Lifeline To Grab In Iraq
(Los Angeles Times)...Editorial
The Bush administration is making two important moves to blunt the violence and anger that threaten the U.S. occupation and all of Iraq. The first is relying on Iranian diplomats to help end the uprising of Shiite rebel cleric Muqtada Sadr. The second, and more significant, is turning back to the United Nations.

48. Asia's Ill-Advised Umbrella
(New York Times)...Editorial
By pushing ahead with its plans for a missile defense in Asia, the Bush administration runs the risk of creating a larger threat than the one it means to counter. The danger of an American-led Asian "umbrella club," theoretically protected from any missiles — we say "theoretically" because of the technology's poor track record — is that it would unnecessarily isolate and antagonize China.

49. Cheney In China
(Wall Street Journal)...Editorial
Vice President Dick Cheney applied further diplomatic effort this week to one of the least recognized foreign policy successes of the Bush Administration. China, a giant that has often been the spoiler in Asian politics, is being coaxed into playing a stabilizing global role.

I think I might continue to put a "comic section" in the news. This one by Chris Muir seems especially appropriate this week

It's from Easter of course, but I think it would be fitting any day. Click the image for the latest from Chris. I'm going to launch a campaign to get his strips in Stars and Stripes, by the way. If you're a military reader you may want to consider contacting your local office to let them know what a great idea that would be.

If not, contact the syndicate for your local paper. Details can be found at the Day by Day site linked above.

And remember that hope as you read the following:

TOP STORIES

1. Return To U.S. For 20,000 Troops Halted
(Washington Post)...Bradley Graham
About 20,000 U.S. soldiers due to return from Iraq to their home bases this month and next will have their tours extended at least three months in a plan the Pentagon finalized yesterday, defense officials said.

2. Iranians In Iraq To Help In Talks On Rebel Cleric
(New York Times)...John F. Burns
An Iranian government delegation arrived in Baghdad on Wednesday to help mediate the standoff between American troops and a rebel Shiite cleric holed up in Najaf with hundreds of his militiamen, offering American officials an improbable ally in their quest to put Iraq on a peaceful path to self-government.

3. Cleric Offers Unconditional Talks With U.S.
(Philadelphia Inquirer)...Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson
With American troops encircling this ancient city and a growing number of his gunmen in hiding, radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr yesterday offered unconditional talks with U.S. authorities seeking to kill or capture him.

4. Envoy Urges U.N.-Chosen Iraqi Government
(Washington Post)...Rajiv Chandrasekaran
A U.N. envoy proposed on Wednesday that Iraq's U.S.-appointed Governing Council be dissolved when the United States hands over power on June 30 and replaced with a caretaker government of technocrats who would rule until elections are held.

5. Deadly Week Ends In Tears For The Fallen
(New York Times)...Monica Davey
...The Department of Defense identified 64 service members who died in the week that ended on Saturday. Until then, the highest toll had come many months ago, not long after the start of the war last March, in a week when 50 Americans died. The dead came from cities and small towns across the continental United States, as well as from Puerto Rico and the Mariana Islands. They came from all the major service branches ? the Air Force, Navy, Army, Marines, as well as the Army National Guard and the Army Reserve. They were as young as 18, as old as 45. At least two were women. And this week their remains were returned home.

6. 9/11 Panel Finds CIA Slow To See Looming Threat From Al Qaeda
(Los Angeles Times)...Greg Miller and Richard B. Schmitt
Despite years of escalating attacks, the CIA was slow to understand the scale and structure of Al Qaeda, and never produced a comprehensive report on the threat posed by the terrorist network before the Sept. 11 strikes, according to new findings released Wednesday by the commission investigating the attacks.

IRAQ

7. U.S. Denies Raid On Najaf Is Imminent
(Washington Post)...Bradley Graham
While U.S. military commanders in Iraq have massed forces on the outskirts of the holy city of Najaf, Pentagon officials said yesterday that the United States is in no hurry to send troops into the city and attempt to seize the radical cleric Moqtada Sadr.

8. Top U.S. Military Officer In Iraq To Evaluate
(New York Times on the Web)...Reuters
Top U.S. military officer General Richard Myers began a first-hand evaluation of military operations in Iraq Wednesday amid escalating violence.

NA
9. Top US Genl Says Radical Iraq Cleric In 'Weak Position'
(Wall Street Journal (wsj.com))...Associated Press
Anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr is now in a "very weak position" and must be dealt with to build a new Iraq, the U.S. chairman of the joint chiefs of staff said Wednesday.

10. Attacks Test Truce In Fallujah
(Washington Post)...Sewell Chan and Pamela Constable
U.S. troops drew heavy machine-gun and artillery fire Wednesday in the besieged Iraqi city of Fallujah, as a surge of attacks by insurgents threatened to undermine a shaky four-day cease-fire.

11. Training Skills Of U.S. General Sought After Poor Performance By Some Iraqi Forces
(New York Times)...Eric Schmitt and Thom Shanker
The Pentagon is rushing one of the Army's most highly regarded generals, Maj. Gen. David H. Petraeus, back to Iraq this weekend to help step up the training and equipping of Iraqi security forces, many of whom abandoned their posts or refused to fight in the recent violence there, military officials said Wednesday.

12. Death Lurks In The Groves On The Road Toward Najaf
(Washington Post)...Thomas E. Ricks
The nighttime ambush had left one soldier dead, another wounded. When it was over, Sgt. James Amyett calmly lit a cigarette, leaned over, and in a stage whisper drawled, "Don't be alarmed, but somebody here is trying to kill us."

NA
13. A Wrong Turn, Chaos And A Rescue
(Washington Post)...Pamela Constable
It began as a routine supply mission to the front lines, in a volatile but largely becalmed city. It ended as a fiery and chaotic rescue mission, with a small force of Marine tanks, Humvees and ground troops surrounded and attacked as they fought their way through a hostile neighborhood to save the crew of a burning armored personnel carrier.

14. Marines Use Low-Tech Skill To Kill 100 In Urban Battle
(New York Times)...Jeffrey Gettleman
American forces killed more than 100 insurgents on Tuesday in close combat in a small village in central Iraq, Marine commanders said Wednesday.

15. Troops Take Over Houses Of Fleeing Fallujah Residents
(North County (CA) Times)...Darrin Mortenson
...Between 100,000 and 200,000 people fled Fallujah last week after Marines surrounded the city and battled insurgents in the industrial slums and underdog neighborhoods at the city's edges. Now, with a cease-fire in effect, troops of the Camp Pendleton-based 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment used an additional day of peace Wednesday to fortify the homes until the troops are free to pursue the insurgents into the city.

16. Firing Up New Weapon In Fallouja: The Bulldozer
(Los Angeles Times)...Tony Perry
As U.S. aircraft mounted heavy fire against Iraqi snipers Wednesday, Marines began building an earthen barrier around this Sunni Triangle city, suggesting that the U.S. does not anticipate an immediate resolution of the standoff.

17. Iraqi Politicians Called Obstacle To U.S. Force
(Washington Times)...Rowan Scarborough
Iraqi politicians are playing a growing role in blocking U.S. commanders from unleashing fatal force on insurgents.

18. Iraqi Nuclear Gear Found In Europe
(Washington Post)...Colum Lynch
Large amounts of nuclear-related equipment, some of it contaminated, and a small number of missile engines have been smuggled out of Iraq for recycling in European scrap yards, according to the head of the United Nations' nuclear watchdog and other U.N. diplomats.

NA
19. Back To Fallujah, With Brave Words
(New York Daily News)...Unattributed
The commander of the Marines in Fallujah, Maj. Gen. James Mattis, predicted yesterday that the nominal ceasefire in effect would not hold.

20. I'll Take That -- And That
(Los Angeles Times)...Mark Magnier
In Iraq, higher wages, a newly resurgent middle class and reconstruction funds are driving a boom in consumer demand.

DEFENSE DEPARTMENT

21. Defense Will Try Its New Pay System Step By Step
(Washington Post)...Stephen Barr
A new pay and personnel system for civil service workers at the Defense Department will roll out in stages, with time for evaluation by experts and feedback from employees between the phases, Navy Secretary Gordon England said yesterday.

NA
22. U.S. Iraq Troops Won't Likely Require Budget Add, Zakheim Says
(Bloomberg.com)...Tony Capaccio
Retaining the U.S. force of about 135,000 soldiers in Iraq to quell Muslim unrest doesn't have to cost the government any more money than it had planned to spend, Defense Department Comptroller Dov Zakheim said.

NA
23. Lockheed F/A-22 Likely To Survive Budget Debates, Zakheim Says
(Bloomberg.com)...Tony Capaccio
Lockheed Martin Corp.'s $71 billion F/A-22 fighter program probably will survive its current Pentagon evaluation in preparation for the fiscal 2006 defense budget, Comptroller Dov Zakheim said.

24. Slow Mail Gets Troops Down, Report Says
(Los Angeles Times)...Reuters
U.S. troop morale in Iraq is suffering because of slow mail deliveries caused by poor training, equipment shortages and bureaucratic inefficiencies, a congressional report said Wednesday.

25. Friend Or Foe? A Digital Dog Tag Beams The Answer
(New York Times)...Noah Shachtman
AS violence boils in Iraq, American troops and allied forces are in danger - not just from local insurgents and militias, but from their own side as well.

NA
26. Balloons To Check Air Over Pentagon
(Washington Times)...Unattributed
Beginning today and through May 15, the Pentagon will test new devices to detect chemical or biological threats.

ARMY

27. Charges Against Chaplain Dismissed
(Los Angeles Times)...John Hendren
The Army on Wednesday dismissed all charges against a Muslim chaplain who was initially investigated for espionage, held in a military jail for 76 days, but eventually convicted only of minor administrative charges of adultery and downloading pornography onto his government computer.

MARINE CORPS

28. 2 Marines Face Courts-Martial In Death Of Prisoner In Iraq
(Los Angeles Times)...Associated Press
Two Marines face courts-martial on charges including assault and dereliction of duty in the death of an Iraqi prisoner in their custody, a Camp Pendleton spokeswoman said.

NAVY

29. ID Theft Ring Strikes Carrier?s Officers
(Norfolk Virginian-Pilot)...Matthew Dolan
At least 19 officers on the aircraft carrier George Washington have had their identities stolen by thieves based in Baltimore, Navy officials said Tuesday .

AIR FORCE

30. Space Command Redesigning Sex-Assault Protocol
(Colorado Springs Gazette)...Pam Zubeck
Air Force Space Command will use checklists and work more closely with local police to improve how sexual assaults are handled, commander Gen. Lance Lord said Tuesday.

NATIONAL GUARD/RESERVE

31. Bush Fulfills Vow To Injured GI
(Washington Times)...Associated Press
President Bush, fulfilling a 15-month-old promise, jogged around the South Lawn yesterday with a soldier who had been badly wounded in Afghanistan.

ASIA/PACIFIC

32. Cheney Urges China To Press North Korea On A-Bombs
(New York Times)...Joseph Kahn
Vice President Dick Cheney presented Chinese leaders with new evidence on Wednesday about the scope of North Korea's nuclear program and warned that "time is not necessarily on our side" in negotiations, a senior Bush administration official said Wednesday.

33. Cheney Stands Firm On U.S. Weapons For Taiwan
(Washington Times)...Bill Gertz
Vice President Dick Cheney yesterday told Chinese leaders that the United States is committed to its arms sales to Taiwan, and prodded China to pressure North Korea to abandon its nuclear program.

34. U.S. Teams Cross DMZ To Search For Remains Of Korean War MIAs
(Pacific Stars and Stripes)...Joseph Giordono
For the first time, U.S. remains recovery teams have crossed the Demilitarized Zone with equipment to search for servicemembers missing from the Korean War.

35. South Korea Is Wary But Firm On Iraq
(New York Times)...Norimitsu Onishi
...The soldiers training at the camp, in Kwangju outside the capital, will be part of the 3,000 troops Seoul is expected to send to Iraq by June. Those soldiers, on top of about 600 already in Iraq, will make South Korea's the third-largest national force in Iraq, after the United States and Britain, and will amount to this country's biggest military expedition since the Vietnam War. As Vice President Dick Cheney prepares to visit here Thursday, the last stop of his East Asia tour, the government reiterated its intention to send the additional troops.

AFRICA

NA
36. DOD Officials: Existing Commands Can Handle U.S. Interests In Africa
(Inside the Pentagon)...Prairie Summer
The Pentagon does not need to restructure its regional combatant commands to address threats in Africa, even though the continent is increasingly important to U.S. national security and economic well-being, defense officials said this week.

AFGHANISTAN

37. Top Rebel Arrested In Kabul
(Washington Times)...Paul Haven, Associated Press
International peacekeepers refused to reveal the identity of a suspected senior rebel commander arrested in a raid in the capital earlier this week, but insisted yesterday that his capture removed an imminent threat to Afghan peace.

EUROPE

38. Blair May Nudge Bush To Reach Out On Iraq
(Los Angeles Times)...John Daniszewski
Prime Minister Tony Blair has been President Bush's staunchest ally in the Iraq war. But when the two meet Friday at the White House, chances are the British leader will give his American partner a message: Shift course to put a more international face on the struggle to rebuild Iraq.

RUSSIA

39. Old Weapons, New Terror Worries
(Christian Science Monitor)...Scott Peterson
...But such what-ifs are among the nuclear terrorism threats that analysts are reexamining, as the learning curve of terror groups today comes closer to intersecting the vulnerabilities of atomic arsenals. A handful of Russian and American nuclear experts, both military and civilian, are quietly convening a first meeting in Moscow later this month, to launch a year-long modeling exercise to specify the new dangers.

TERRORISM

40. Purported Bin Laden Tape Offers 'Truce'
(Los Angeles Times)...Times Wire Services
In an audio recording broadcast on Arab satellite TV channels today, a man identifying himself as Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden offered a "truce" to European countries that "do not attack Muslims."

BUSINESS

41. Armored Hummers Shipment To Iraq Instead Of Israel
(Jerusalem Post)...Arieh O'Sullivan
Israeli defense officials have agreed to a US request to divert a shipment of armored Hummer vehicles purchased for the IDF to Iraq where American soldiers need them urgently.

42. Some U.S. Workers Say The Risk Is Too Great
(Washington Post)...Ariana Eunjung Cha and Jackie Spinner
With new violence erupting in many parts of Iraq, it is increasingly challenging for U.S. contractors to continue working on thousands of reconstruction projects.

NA
43. Boeing: Company Changed 767 To Meet USAF Tanker Requirements
(Aerospace Daily & Defense Report)...Kathy Gambrell
Boeing Co. followed the intent of congressional law in its strategy to provide new tanker aircraft to the U.S. Air Force, officials told The DAILY in a continuing defense of the deal.

OPINION

NA
44. What Iraqis Want
(Wall Street Journal)...Ahmad Chalabi
The most ominous harbinger for the future of Iraq to emerge from the week of bloodshed that has engulfed parts of the country is the collapse of the indigenous Iraqi security structures put in place by the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA).

45. Putting Politics To Work In Iraq
(Washington Post)...Jim Hoagland
...The assigning of the Marines to the hottest of Iraq's hot spots was a conscious decision to pit the best-trained fighters and the most advanced urban combat tactics in the U.S. arsenal against the spreading insurgency. The Marine campaign in Fallujah is perhaps the decisive battle for the Sunni Triangle that was not fought a year ago. But to succeed now, it must be integrated with clear political objectives.

46. From Gaza To Baghdad
(New York Times)...Thomas L. Friedman
Something is brewing in Gaza that may help U.S. officials think through how to deal with what is boiling in Iraq.

47. Coalition Loses The 'Psy-Ops' Advantage In Iraq
(Los Angeles Times)...Max Boot
As the current symphony of violence reached its grotesque crescendo in Iraq last week, I happened to be in Paris attending a NATO conference on psychological warfare. This somehow seemed appropriate because it is in the realm of "psy-ops" that the coalition is suffering its biggest setbacks.

48. Red Tape Threatens To Cage Military Might
(USA Today)...R. James Woolsey and Robert Andrews
...When it comes to clandestine military operations in Iraq and elsewhere in the war on terrorism, however, similar layers of reporting and procedure will only discourage ideas from the field and delay operations that require quick action. Most military operations are kept secret beforehand in order to achieve success through stealth and surprise. In some cases, deception plays a major part in providing this secrecy.

EDITORIAL

49. Beyond Resoluteness
(Washington Post)...Editorial
...From the beginning, as we have said repeatedly, Mr. Bush failed to prepare the American people for the difficulty of occupation. Now they see their troops fighting a vicious insurgency while trying not to turn ordinary Iraqis into enemies. The troops are performing with amazing courage and skill, and there is still time for them to succeed. Most Iraqis do not want a return to Baathism, nor a Shiite theocracy. Mr. Bush is right to promise that America will not abandon them. He should also adapt to changing circumstances, make sure U.S. forces are strong enough to take on Iraq's illegal militias and show more willingness to share authority with others who may be willing to help.

Shortly thereafter, Kerry was transferred to Coastal Division 11 at An Thoi. Apparently, Kerry petitioned to have his Purple Heart request reconsidered. Hibbard remembers getting correspondence from Kerry's new division, asking for his approval. In the hurried process of moving to a new command himself, Hibbard thinks he might have signed off on the award. If so, "it was to my chagrin," Hibbard remembers. Kerry's second commander, Lt.Cmdr. G.M. Elliott, says he has no recollection of such an event ever occurring.

There are no written records of Kerry's magical first Purple Heart on file at the Naval Historical Center in Washington, the nation's primary repository for such documentation. A Purple Heart normally is not requested but is awarded de facto for a wound inflicted by the enemy - a wound serious enough to require medical attention. The Naval Historical Center keeps all documents connected to such awards to U.S. Navy and Marine personnel. These typewritten "casualty cards" list the date, location and prognosis of the wound for which the Purple Heart is given, and they are produced by the medical facility that provides treatment for the combat wound at the hands of the enemy. There are two such cards for Kerry - for his slight wounds on Feb. 20 and March 13, 1969, but none for his December 1968 claim.

And the Boston Globe:

Back at the base, Kerry told Hibbard he qualified for a Purple Heart, according to Hibbard. Thirty-six years later, Hibbard, reached at his retirement home in Florida, said he can still recall Kerry's wound, and that it resembled a scrape from a fingernail. "I've had thorns from a rose that were worse," said Hibbard, a registered Republican who said he was undecided on the 2004 presidential race.

The Globe asked Kerry's campaign whether the Massachusetts senator is certain he was under enemy fire and whether he recalled that a superior officer raised questions about the matter. The campaign did not respond directly to those questions. Instead, Meehan said in a prepared statement that Kerry "received the shrapnel wound early in the course of that combat engagement. " Meehan also provided a copy of a medical report showing treatment for a wound on Dec. 3, 1968. The Purple Heart regulation in effect at that time said that a wound must "require treatment by a medical officer."

Nearly three months later, a document was sent to Kerry informing him that he would receive a Purple Heart "for injuries received on 2 December 1968." The Naval Historical Center, which could not locate a copy of the original card for the incident, nonetheless confirmed that Kerry did receive the Purple Heart.

USA Today has a 'balanced' piece on Kerry's service. Before moving to that, here's Best of the Web Today's comments on that story:

USA Today devotes almost a full page to an article revealing that John Kerry served in Vietnam. We already knew this, and in fact we may have mentioned it in this column once or twice. But we loved this passage from the piece by Andrea Stone:

Interviews with 18 officers and enlisted sailors who served with Kerry in Vietnam mostly portray a young leader with an aggressive command style. Many recall a warm, compassionate officer who cared deeply about his working-class crew.

Granted, this isn't a direct quote, but can you imagine a normal person saying anything like "He was a warm, compassionate officer who cared deeply about his working-class crew"? One suspects that, if anything, this was Kerry's self-description. Here is a direct quote from the haughty, French-looking Massachusetts Democrat, who by the way served in Vietnam:

"I was a good leader, a strong leader. I had strong awareness and perception of the things around me. I listened. I took things in," Kerry said in a 50-minute interview. "I was decisive."

If he does say so himself!

Here's the link to the USA Today piece. We'll get back to it, but first this insight on the end of Kerry's Vietnam tour from one of his fellow officers, quoted in Insight:

Of the 138 servicemen and officers in Kerry's unit who received Purple Hearts during the time he was there, records indicate only two received more than two. These were Lt.(jg) Jim Galvin and a boatswain's mate named Stevens. When Insight reached Galvin he said all three of his Purple Hearts were the result of shrapnel or glass shards. Such minor injuries were common on PCF boats with their glass windows and thin metal hulls, and, like Kerry's, Galvin's injuries were not serious enough to take him out of combat for more than a few days.

Unlike Kerry, Galvin elected to stay with his men. Indeed, though a professional Navy officer, he never had heard of instruction 1300.39. It was not until early April of 1969, when Galvin noticed that Kerry was preparing to leave the officers' barracks at An Thoi that he learned about "three Purple Hearts and you're out." According to Galvin, it was Kerry who told him, "There's a rule that gets you out of here and I'm getting out. You ought to do the same." Galvin remembers, "He seemed to take care of everything pretty quickly," because that was the last time Galvin saw Kerry in Vietnam.

The three-times wounded Galvin stayed with his men, transferred to Cam Ranh Bay to get them a respite from the dicey Mekong Delta, and eventually left the swiftboats for destroyer school.

Insight contacted many men who served in Coastal Division at the same time Kerry did to ask if any of them had heard of anyone leaving the combat zone by invoking three minor wounds. Of the 12 who replied, none had heard of anyone doing so but John Kerry."

No one ever has. No other American officer in history has done so. I'll offer a ten dollar reward to anyone who can prove to me that they were an American officer who abandoned their troops in time of war. (Being carried away on a stretcher or relieved for cause doesn't count.) Almost anyone who would do so could certainly use ten bucks, I'm sure. There is one exception.

And that one exception went on to do more than anyone to promote the concept of the deranged, murderous Vietnam veteran. He avoided that fate somehow, no doubt thanks to the brevity of his tour of duty.

The final word, from another swift commander quoted in USA Today:

"John was a master at looking out for John," says Larry Thurlow, a fellow boat commander. "John has never been bashful about saying, 'Man, I'm a war hero.' "

IRAQ

Base hit...
7. Ambush Reignites Fighting In Fallujah
(Washington Post)...Pamela Constable
Fierce fighting erupted here Tuesday between U.S. Marines and anti-American guerrillas. A group of Marines was ambushed at dawn in a marsh where they were guarding a downed helicopter, and U.S. fighter jets and gunships attacked another area at dusk after a Marine patrol came under attack.

Relentless? Thought the ammo was low. Strike...
8. Marines In Falluja Still Face And Return Relentless Fire
(New York Times)...Jeffrey Gettleman
...But in an instant, the city bursts into a fully engulfed combat zone. Both sides, marines and insurgents, drop behind dusty brick walls and unload whatever they have — mortars, rockets, machine guns, rocket propelled grenades — at each other. On Tuesday night, insurgents rushed a marine compound on the outskirts of the city. They came within one city block. The marines drove them back with an endless stream of tracer bullets that cut ruby red arcs across the sky. Sometimes the gunfire was so long and steady it sounded like rain.

Resisted urge for adjectives, a double...
9. Marines Tighten Grip On Fallouja
(Los Angeles Times)...Tony Perry
U.S. Marines tightened their cordon around this embattled city Tuesday in an effort to stem the flow of guns, ammunition and reinforcements to insurgents who continued to clash with American forces despite a truce sponsored by the Iraqi Governing Council.

Foul, tipped - needs adjective "some"...
Color commenter: Yes, but they're going for style, not substance...
10. War Reports From Civilians Stir Up Iraqis Against U.S.
(New York Times)...Christine Hauser
The memories were so raw that the boy's words tumbled out of his mouth on Tuesday, a day after he survived an American attack that destroyed his house outside Falluja.

Base hit...
11. U.S. Military And Sadr Army Poised For Clash
(Philadelphia Inquirer)...Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson
The armed militia of radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr remained in charge here yesterday as U.S. troops intent on arresting him massed at the edge of this, the holiest of Shiite Muslim cities.

Really? That's a surprise (/sarcasm). A bunt:
12. Cleric, Surrounded By U.S., Hints At Easing His Resistance
(New York Times)...John F. Burns
A 2,500-member American force backed by tanks and artillery took up positions outside Najaf on Tuesday when a rebel Shiite cleric, Moktada al-Sadr, resisted demands that he disband a militia that has challenged American authority across wide areas of southern Iraq.

Well, that defines critics, doesn't it? Pop fly, easy catch in the outfield, no base runners advance...
13. Bush Open To More Troops, But Critics Say It May Not Help
(USA Today)...Dave Moniz and Tom Squitieri
President Bush's promise to send more troops to Iraq if U.S. commanders request them still may not stabilize the country, many military analysts say.

Base on balls with numerous fouls. Wasn't a great month for the people of Iraq either...
14. April Becomes Deadliest Month Of The Iraq War For U.S. Troops
(Philadelphia Inquirer)...Robert Burns, Associated Press
...At least 83 U.S. troops were killed in action in the first 13 days of April, more than 560 were wounded, and two soldiers were declared missing. At least four U.S. civilians were killed, one contractor was captured by gunmen, and six others are missing and feared abducted.

Game over.
15. U.S. Vows No Hostage Talks; 4 Bodies Found
(Philadelphia Inquirer)...Carol Rosenberg
..."We will not negotiate with terrorists and kidnappers," said coalition adviser Dan Senor, revealing that the FBI and other international law-enforcement agencies had been assigned to the case. "We are working to pursue the hostages and the hostage-takers." The abductions of foreigners may be a new tactic in an underground war to drive the West from Iraq.

16. Negroponte Is Expected To Be Picked For Iraq Post
(New York Times)...Steven R. Weisman
...Under the administration's plans, the American military — which is expected to remain in Iraq after the transfer of power — will remain under the command of the Defense Department, not the ambassador. Iraqi forces are to report to American military commanders.

17. Britain And US 'Divided On Iraq Policy'
(London Daily Telegraph)...Alec Russell
...Michael Rubin, who resigned from the Pentagon 10 days ago after returning from the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad, gave a stark account of fundamental divisions between British and American officials over how to run Iraq. He suggested that British officials clearly had little interest in pursuing the White House vision of a democratic Iraq, a keystone of its foreign policy, and were too "soft" in confronting dissent. He also said that many American officials had been startled at British attempts to capitalise on their presence in southern Iraq for a "freelance" fostering of ties with Iran, one of Washington's most implacable enemies.

MIDEAST

18. Bahrain-US Ties 'Vital To Gulf'
(Gulf Daily News (Bahrain))...Robert Smith
BAHRAIN's close ties with the US are key to the long-term security of the Gulf, a top American general said yesterday.

19. Top General Says U.S. Must Rely On Iraqi Forces
(New York Times on the Web)...Reuters
The United States is committed to its strategy of turning over increasing security duties to U.S.-trained Iraqi forces despite their ``uneven'' performance, the top U.S. military officer said Tuesday.

20. Mubarak Offers Aid
(Washington Times)...Joseph Curl and David W. Jones
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said yesterday that his nation is prepared to train policemen — "as many as they can bring" — to secure Iraq's major cities, but that U.S. forces should pull back from populated areas after a planned June 30 turnover of power.

DEFENSE DEPARTMENT

21. Pentagon Crash Scenario Was Rejected For Military Exercise
(Washington Post)...Bradley Graham
While planning a high-level training exercise months before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, U.S. military officials considered a scenario in which a hijacked foreign commercial airliner flew into the Pentagon, defense officials said yesterday.

ARMY

22. Schoomaker Touts Troop Flexibility
(Army Times)...Matthew Cox
With Iraq showing signs that the need for U.S. troops there may not taper off soon, the Army’s top officer said he has the flexibility to increase the number of soldiers, as necessary.

23. Army Strategist Criticizes Bush Administration Conduct Of Iraq War
(Newhouse.com)...David Wood, Newhouse News Service
In a broadside fired at the conduct of the war in Iraq, a senior Army strategist has accused the Bush administration of seeking to win "quickly and on the cheap" while ignoring the more critical strategic aim of creating a stable, democratic nation.

MARINE CORPS

24. Marines Cleared In Death Of Corporal From Arundel
(Baltimore Sun)...Ariel Sabar
Military investigators have exonerated a Marine sniper team that killed a 20-year-old corporal from Pasadena in Iraq last April after mistaking him for an enemy fighter.

NAVY

25. Focus On Effectiveness, And Efficiency Will Happen
(Federal Times)...Jason Sherman
During last fall’s Army-Navy football game, Navy Secretary Gordon England squeezed for a photo between two Navy players in uniform with numbers 72 and 73. The numbers mark England’s place in Navy history as the 72nd and 73rd service secretary, the first to serve terms back to back, and only the second to hold the post twice.

NATIONAL GUARD/RESERVE

26. Family Faces Agony, Duty
(USA Today)...Debbie Howlett
As relatives mourn soldier, her 2 sisters must decide whether to go back to Iraq.

27. Abuse Charges Against Marine Reservist Are Dismissed
(San Diego Union-Tribune)...Rick Rogers
Charges against a Marine reservist accused of fatally abusing an Iraqi prisoner last June have been dismissed, leaving in question whether anyone will be tried in the death of a former Baath Party member implicated in an ambush of U.S. soldiers.

WHITE HOUSE

28. Making A Case For A Mission
(New York Times)...David E. Sanger
Facing a moment of political peril unlike any in the more than one thousand days of his presidency, George W. Bush made the case on Tuesday night for staying the course in Iraq with the language and zeal of a missionary and combined it with a stark warning that failure would embolden America's enemies around the world.

NA
29. U.S. Will Prevail, Hold To Timetable In Iraq, Bush Says
(Wall Street Journal)...Christopher Cooper and Jeanne Cummings
A stern, defiant President Bush said he wouldn't back down from the challenges of Iraq and offered no hint he would alter his approach there, despite a recent surge of violence that has boosted U.S. casualties and heightened criticism of the president's war plans.

CONGRESS

30. McCain's Comments Threaten F/A-22 Raptor
(Dayton Daily News)...Timothy R. Gaffney
Arizona Sen. John McCain's Sunday criticism of the F/A-22 Raptor is likely to put more congressional pressure on the Air Force program, critics of the expensive fighter jet said Monday.

AFGHANISTAN

31. Bomb Explodes Near U.S. Afghan Base, Police Wounded
(New York Times on the Web)...Reuters
A bomb exploded near a U.S. military base in Afghanistan's turbulent southern Kandahar province on Wednesday, wounding a senior Afghan police official and two of his bodyguards, witnesses said.

NORTH KOREA

32. 3 Nuclear Devices Cited In N. Korea
(Washington Post)...Peter Slevin
Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan has told interrogators that he shipped nuclear technology to North Korea, where he said North Koreans showed him three devices they identified as nuclear weapons, Bush administration officials said yesterday.

ASIA/PACIFIC

NA
33. Cheney To Reassert U.S. Stance On Taiwan
(Washington Post)...Glenn Kessler
With tensions rising across the Taiwan Strait, Vice President Cheney arrived here Tuesday for meetings with top Chinese officials, including President Hu Jintao, on a range of economic and security issues, including Chinese complaints about the narrow reelection victory of Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian and his campaign to write a new constitution for the island.

NA
34. Generation Why? The 386ers Of Korea Question Old Rules
(Wall Street Journal)...Gordon Fairclough
...As they move into positions of prominence in politics, business and the media, the 386ers are reordering politics in Asia's fourth-largest economy, introducing new tension into the country's traditionally close relationship with America. The shift is complicating relations between Seoul and Washington at a critical time. The U.S. is not only looking to the South for help containing North Korea's nuclear-weapons program but is relying on its commitment of troops for operations in Iraq. Vice President Dick Cheney is scheduled to arrive in Seoul tomorrow for meetings with government officials.

UNITED NATIONS

35. U.N. Envoy May Provide The Key To A Transfer Of Power In Iraq
(Los Angeles Times)...Maggie Farley and Sonni Efron
Struggling to figure out what to do next in Iraq, more and more heads are turning to the United Nations.

POLITICS

36. 'Kill Rumsfeld' Ad Withdrawn
(Washington Times)...Charles Hurt
A Florida Democratic club has taken out a newspaper advertisement urging the assassination of Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, and another partisan group is running a national television commercial with an actor impersonating President Bush's voice saying, "I used 9/11 as an excuse to invade Iraq."

BUSINESS

NA
37. At Center Of Halliburton Uproar, Little-Known Kuwaiti Company
(Wall Street Journal)...Glenn R. Simpson and Chip Cummins
Every time an American soldier buys a Nathan's Famous hot dog in Camp Arifjan near here, part of the profit goes to an affiliate of a Kuwaiti company called Altanmia. Employees of U.S. military contractor Halliburton Co. bed down in nearby apartments rented from another Altanmia affiliate. And Altanmia takes a cut whenever one of its gasoline-tanker trucks rolls across Kuwait's northern border headed for Iraq.

38. U.S. Workers, Lured By Money And Idealism, Face Iraqi Reality
(New York Times)...Andrew Jacobs and Simon Romero
They were driven by the promise of six-figure salaries or a powerful sense of patriotism. For others, the decision to sign up for a job in the cauldron of Iraq was motivated by desire to help ordinary Iraqis improve their lives. Among the tens of thousands of American citizens working in Iraq, few could have imagined how dangerous their jobs would become.

39. U.S. Cites Iraq Oil Sales Of $7.5 Billion In Past Year
(Washington Post)...Reuters
Baghdad has exported more than $7.5 billion in crude oil since last year's invasion of Iraq, the U.S.-led authority governing Iraq said Tuesday.

NA
40. Former Air Force Official To Enter Guilty Plea In Boeing Tanker Case
(Wall Street Journal)...J. Lynn Lunsford and Andy Pasztor
...According to people familiar with the case, investigators are looking into whether anyone inside the Air Force misled senior Pentagon officials in justifying the need for the tanker. In a recent letter to Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, an outspoken critic of the tanker deal, the Pentagon's inspector general indicated that criminal investigators were looking into "Boeing's involvement in the operational requirements document."

NA
41. Textron Must Improve V-22 Parts Management, U.S. Says
(Bloomberg.com)...Tony Capaccio
Textron Inc. must improve the quality and spare-parts management of its V-22 Osprey before the Pentagon approves the aircraft for full production, a multibillion-dollar step, an independent review of the military program found.

42. Northrop To Build Spy Plane Plant
(Los Angeles Times)...Bloomberg News
Northrop Grumman Corp., the largest producer of unmanned spy planes for the U.S. military, will build a plant in Moss Point, Miss., to assemble and test its new Fire Scout unmanned plane for the Army and Navy.

OPINION

43. Uprisings In Iraq Call For Strategic U.S. Adjustments
(USA Today)...Editorial
A year after the fall of Baghdad, coalition forces are facing a spring surprise: a growing insurgency by Sunni and Shiite militias in several Iraqi cities. The violence has claimed the lives of at least 80 U.S. and allied troops since April 1. Compounding matters, Iraqi groups have begun kidnapping foreigners, including an American contractor. This scenario of Iraqis using guerrilla tactics against coalition forces is precisely what the U.S. feared most a year ago.

44. Don't Change Course Now
(USA Today)...Ken Adelman
Iraqis can't defeat us. Only USA TODAY editorials and similar worrywarts can defeat us.

45. Winning The 'Three-Block War'
(Washington Post)...George F. Will
...No sensible person wants the United Nations involved because of any competency. Before the war, the United Nations presided over spectacular corruption in the oil-for-food program. After the war, it took just one bomb to blow the United Nations out of Iraq. And the democratic forces in Iraq despise the United Nations as a collaborator with Saddam Hussein. However, some involvement by the United Nations would usefully blur the clarity of U.S. primacy.

NA
46. Freedom Held Hostage
(Wall Street Journal)...Terry Anderson
The cruel and shocking video of frightened young Japanese, guns and knives to their throats, surrounded by shouting, threatening hooded figures, brings back emotions I had hoped never to feel again. More than a decade after my release, I know intimately the terror of the hostages, the devastating helplessness of their families.

EDITORIAL

47. Crunch Time In Washington
(Wall Street Journal)...Editorial
A week of counterattacks by the U.S. military has improved security in Iraq, but we wish we could say the same about judgment in Washington. All sorts of people are drawing the wrong lessons from the surge of violence, enough so that the war could still be won on the ground in Iraq but lost in Georgetown and the East Side of Manhattan.

48. Mr. Bush's Press Conference
(New York Times)...Editorial
Happily, President Bush finally held a prime-time news conference last night. Unhappily, he failed to address either of the questions uppermost in Americans' minds: how to move Iraq from its current chaos, and what he has learned from the 9/11 investigations.

49. Bush's Rosy Vision
(Los Angeles Times)...Editorial
In a nationally televised White House press conference Tuesday evening, President Bush sought to remind and reassure Americans during the bloodiest month in Iraq since major combat was declared over last May.

(Kidding of course, whose gonna stop 'em?)

As the new CD from Tool blasted in the barracks, Sergeant Mena scrolled through the computerized music library, which ranged from Abba and AC/DC, through Limp Biskit and Metallica and on to Van Halen and ZZ Top.

Émigrés from West Africa who joined the Army for citizenship and career training arrived with the latest Nigerian pop CD's. Chinese-Americans hauled along hot Hong Kong video imports.

"We've got the whole world under one tent," said Pfc. Nicholas Allen of the First Infantry Division's Third Brigade Combat Team.

Troops running a checkpoint near the Kuwait border end their day by listening to Bush, not their commander in chief but the grunge riffs of a band with the same name.

Inside the Baghdad Green Zone, the walled-off sector of central Baghdad whose palaces are home to the American-led occupation authority, Ludacris and R. Kelly were heard within earshot of the broad promenade where Saddam Hussein celebrated victories under crossed swords that reach five stories into the sky.

A Green Beret sergeant in his 40's, a veteran of the war in Afghanistan and now in Iraq to train new domestic security forces, said he packed Grateful Dead CD's next to his laser rangefinder.

The country and western of Dwight Yoakam blared from a mechanics' bay at Taji airfield, north of the Iraqi capital, even as a bass drum of captured ordnance rumbled in a controlled detonation.

<...>

"Back in Vietnam you had those doing recreational drugs on one side and the heavy drinking on another," he said. "Here there's no alcohol allowed. And drugs aren't the thing anymore (Greyhawk note: Note the distinction). Everybody has their own MP3 player to pass the time."

But for those who don't, there's alway old reliable, the Armed Forces Network

"Our format is `Bright Adult Contemporary,' which is mainstream hits," said Lt. Col. Mathew Durham, who is in charge of the American Forces Network in Baghdad. "Naturally we have to be careful about what we play in an Islamic nation. But we've got a big play list."

Yeah, wouldn't want to irritate the locals. We'll assume Howard Stern isn't one of the jocks?

Soldiers at checkpoints, where headphones are prohibited, are among the most loyal network radio listeners. The messages they hear between the songs are mostly lowest common denominator public service announcements, urging soldiers to clear their weapons before entering dining halls, to drink more bottled water as March temperatures push toward 100 degrees, to write home more often and file their taxes on time.

Death, taxes, and certain other essential elements of modern life...

Hollywood's hottest films are here on the local markets, usually illegally.

"If a movie has been out in a theater for a week, you can get it here," said Specialist Michael Trujillo with the 819th Military Police Company. He said bootleg DVD copies of "50 First Dates," starring Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore, were on sale just days after it opened in the United States.

Not surprisingly, soldiers tend to favor action flicks like the "Matrix," "Mad Max" and "Terminator" trilogies, "Tomb Raider" films, "Scorpion King" and "Cop Land."

Officers prefer "The Sopranos" and slightly more cerebral combat movies, like "U-571," a submarine thriller about World War II. Once you get enough stars on your collars though, the tube is turned to 24-hour news.

Careful now guys, wouldn't want you risking your lives defending your country only to end up busted for smuggling pirated movies back into the good old USA!

Update: Tim notices a different angle on this story. (Can't believe I missed it!)

IRAQ

7. U.S. Troops Arrest Al - Sadr Representative
(USA Today)...Associated Press
U.S. troops arrested a representative of anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr as he attended a meeting of tribal leaders at a hotel in Baghdad on Tuesday.

8. More Troops Sought For Iraq
(Philadelphia Inquirer)...Matthew Schofield and Drew Brown
...Evidence mounted that coalition forces were losing control of the roads in Iraq as another supply convoy was set ablaze and officials announced that nine more Americans were missing.

NA
9. Military Seeks More Troops In Iraq
(Wall Street Journal)...Greg Jaffe and Christopher Cooper
Senior military officials in Iraq have asked for more troops to battle insurgents, who are increasingly targeting aid workers and army contractors, including seven civilians working for Halliburton Co. who were reported missing yesterday.

10. U.S. Reclaims Major Roads, Presses Cleric
(Los Angeles Times)...Jeffrey Fleishman and Edmund Sanders
U.S. forces used heavy firepower Monday to regain control of strategic roads around Iraq as about 2,500 American soldiers massed outside this southern city in an attempt to force the surrender of a Shiite cleric and his militias.

11. Iraqi Cleric Pulls Back Militia
(USA Today)...Cesar G. Soriano and Dave Moniz
Followers of a radical cleric gave up their hold in three cities Monday as U.S. troops prepared to launch an offensive against them, easing a standoff that threatened to become a major battle.

12. At Least One Iraqi Battalion Is Ready To Help U.S.
(Los Angeles Times)...Tony Perry
As would-be peacemakers tried Monday to avert a military showdown between U.S. Marines and insurgents cornered in this city, one group of soldiers left no doubt that it was prepared for a fight.

13. Iraqi Security Forces Fall Short, Generals Say
(Washington Post)...Bradley Graham
Top U.S. military commanders in Iraq yesterday acknowledged serious shortcomings in efforts to establish new Iraqi security forces and said the program is being reassessed in light of the failure over the past week of Iraqi units to join U.S. troops in combating militants.

14. Iraqi Security Forces Disappoint 2 U.S. Generals
(Washington Times)...Rowan Scarborough
...Gens. Abizaid and Sanchez did not offer a clear strategy for escaping from the escalating violence. They are awaiting word on whether Iraqi-to-Iraqi talks bring an end to fighting between U.S. Marines and Sunni insurgents in Fallujah. To the south, the end of a Shi'ite religious holiday and the exodus of thousands of pilgrims could bring a decision on whether to confront Sheik al-Sadr.

15. Seeking Help From Ex-Senior Officers
(Philadelphia Inquirer)...Robert Burns, Associated Press
U.S. commanders in Baghdad said yesterday that they would reach out to former senior members of Saddam Hussein's disbanded army to try to stiffen Iraqi security forces, which have proved disappointing against a growing insurgency.

16. Members Of Iraqi Council Bitter At Being Left Out Of War Plans
(New York Times)...Christine Hauser
Members of the Iraqi Governing Council, picked by the United States to serve as a transitional authority here, say they were never consulted over the large-scale American military moves last week, exposing deep fissures between the council and the occupation authorities.

17. Mutual Mistrust At U.S. Checkpoint In Restive City
(Washington Post)...Pamela Constable
The pickup truck crawled toward a U.S. military checkpost Monday, a large white flag fluttering out one window. A machine gunner atop a Humvee kept his weapon trained on the truck and watched through binoculars as it came to a halt and troops frisked the driver and a companion.

18. Revolt In Kut Echoes In Ukraine
(Washington Post)...Peter Baker
As mortar shells fell around them, a detachment of Ukrainian soldiers beat a hasty retreat last week, abandoning the Iraqi city of Kut to insurgents in a significant setback to the U.S.-led occupation forces.

19. Delicate Challenge Of Taming Iraq's Militias
(Christian Science Monitor)...Faye Bowers
As US troops enter a second week of fighting an Iraqi insurgency, it is painfully clear how important it is to either integrate or eliminate the many armed militias in Iraq before the June 30 handover.

20. G.I.'s In Iraq Tote Their Own Pop Culture
(New York Times)...Thom Shanker
American troops arrive for duty in Iraq with a rifle in one hand, a wrench in the other and a lot of American pop culture in their rucksacks.

NA
21. Fleeing Family Films Scenes From City Racked By Violence
(London Times)...Stephen Farrell
...These extraordinary scenes were captured on video by an Iraqi family as they fled the besieged city in a giant convoy of refugees who escaped to Baghdad at the weekend. For days before and even during the current precarious ceasefire, American and Iraqi accounts of events in Fallujah have flatly contradicted each other. Coalition forces accuse Iraqi gunmen of firing from mosques and using civilians as human shields; Iraqis accuse the Marines of killing civilians and imposing ?collective punishment? on the town.

22. Fallujah Gains Mythic Air
(Washington Post)...Karl Vick and Anthony Shadid
The U.S. Marine siege of Fallujah, designed to isolate and pursue a handful of extremists in a restive town, has produced a powerful backlash in the capital. Urged on by leaflets, sermons and freshly sprayed graffiti calling for jihad, young men are leaving Baghdad to join a fight that residents say has less to do with battlefield success than with a cause infused with righteousness and sacrifice.

23. U.N. Ambassador Top Choice For Iraq Envoy Post
(Los Angeles Times)...Maggie Farley
John D. Negroponte, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, is emerging as the top candidate to become the American envoy to Iraq, U.N. diplomats and U.S. officials said Monday.

ARMY

24. Five Took Varied Paths To Serve
(Washington Post)...Lee Hockstader
Troops in Iraq die more anonymously now, noted in hometown newspapers, memorialized on military bases, mourned in private. The deaths are eclipsed by the general mayhem; sometimes, they are even eclipsed by other deaths. So it was when five soldiers from the 1st Engineer Battalion were killed early in the morning on the last day of March in Habbaniyah, a town in the Sunni Triangle west of Baghdad. Their M-113 armored personnel carrier ran over a bomb, possibly detonated by remote control. No one in the vehicle survived.

NATIONAL GUARD/RESERVE

25. Together In Iraq, But Still Far Apart
(Washington Times)...Maya Alleruzzo
Spc. Jessica Hall, 21, and Cpl. Bobby Hall, 25, of Castlewood, Va., have been married for almost two years, but their marriage has been anything but traditional since they were deployed to northern Iraq with Virginia's 276th Engineer Battalion.

WHITE HOUSE

26. Facing Questions, Bush Calls News Conference
(Los Angeles Times)...Peter Wallsten
President Bush has scheduled a rare prime-time news conference for tonight, ending days of relative seclusion amid one of the most politically treacherous periods of his presidency.

AFGHANISTAN

27. World In Brief
(Washington Post)...Unattributed
Hundreds of Afghan and American soldiers are engaged in a new hunt for Osama bin Laden and other terror suspects in a mountainous region bordering Pakistan, the Afghan military said.

28. U.S. Air-Drops Leaflets
(International Herald Tribune)...Reuters
U.S.-led forces have air-dropped leaflets on Afghan border areas seeking intelligence on Al Qaeda and Taliban militants, residents said on Monday. Jets dropped thousands of leaflets featuring a picture of a rebel carrying a shoulder-held rocket launcher and a message in Persian and Pashto urging Afghans to inform on the Taliban, Al Qaeda and forces loyal to the renegade commander Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.

29. Afghanistan: Taliban Say They Killed Spy Chief
(New York Times)...Carlotta Gall
A Taliban spokesman claimed the movement had executed the intelligence chief of Uruzgan Province and two of his bodyguards after kidnapping them several days ago, and threatened to increase attacks in southern Afghanistan. The Uruzgan governor warned that if the men had been killed, he would retaliate by killing Taliban prisoners.

30. Afghanistan: 9 Pakistanis Freed; 500 Still Held
(New York Times)...Carlotta Gall
The government freed 9 Pakistani prisoners of some 500 being held in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban two years ago. The prisoners, captured during the fighting and held as prisoners of war or spies, were released after President Hamid Karzai ordered that their sentences be commuted.

NORTH KOREA

31. Pakistani Tells Of North Korean Nuclear Devices
(New York Times)...David E. Sanger
Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani scientist who sold nuclear technology around the world, has told his interrogators that during a trip to North Korea five years ago he was taken to a secret underground nuclear plant and shown what he described as three nuclear devices, according to Asian and American officials who have been briefed by the Pakistanis.

ASIA/PACIFIC

32. Cheney Praises Koizumi
(Washington Post)...Glenn Kessler and Anthony Faiola
Vice President Cheney lauded Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi on Monday for resisting public pressure to withdraw Japanese troops from Iraq and said the United States was assisting Japan in trying to resolve the seizure of three Japanese citizens.

33. Pakistan Seeks Reform On Afghan Border
(Washington Times)...Jason Szep, Reuters News Agency
Awash with guns, opium, bands of armed Islamic militants, medieval laws, smugglers, rugged tribesmen and breathtaking mountains, Pakistan's remote Afghan border is one of the wildest places on earth. But as the hunt intensifies for Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda fighters, pressure is growing to tame the semiautonomous region and impose 21st-century courts on a people who have defied conquest and state authority for centuries.

34. Surrounded Tribe Denies Al-Qaeda Ties
(Philadelphia Inquirer)...Paul Haven, Associated Press
A Pakistani army cordon tightening around their mud-brick compounds, leaders of a tribe along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border say they are desperate to avoid bloodshed as a deadline to turn over al-Qaeda suspects draws near.

35. U.S. To Stop Patrols After 50 Years, Give More Duties To S. Koreans
(Pacific Stars and Stripes)...Jeremy Kirk
...But many American faces soon will disappear from this front line under a plan to give the South Korean military more leverage over its own defense. Already, just a handful of U.S. soldiers still put on camouflage face paint, load live rounds into rifles and take positions within eyesight ? and gunshot range ? of North Korean soldiers. But later this year, no U.S. troops will patrol the Demilitarized Zone.

BUSINESS

36. Plea Bargain Takes Shape In Boeing Tanker Case
(Washington Post)...Jerry Markon and Renae Merle
A former Boeing Co. executive under investigation for possible corruption and conflicts of interest has agreed to plead guilty to one count of conspiracy, according to court documents.

37. Pentagon Notes Faults In C-130J
(Los Angeles Times)...Bloomberg News
Lockheed Martin Corp. delivered 50 C-130J transport aircraft to the U.S. Air Force that have deficiencies, the Pentagon inspector general said.

38. Halliburton Suspends Some Iraq Supply Convoys
(Los Angeles Times)...T. Christian Miller
Halliburton Co. has suspended some convoys delivering supplies to the military in Iraq due to escalating violence, U.S. Army and company officials said Monday, raising the danger of shortfalls in food, fuel and water supplies if the situation continues.

39. Missing Workers Point Up Halliburton Danger
(New York Times)...Simon Romero
The families of six civilian contractors who have been missing since an ambush last week in Iraq were waiting in anticipation of information about their loved ones, with company representatives by their sides, the Halliburton Company said Monday.

40. More Limits Sought For Private Security Teams
(Washington Post)...Mary Pat Flaherty and Dana Priest
With hostilities flaring in Iraq, the U.S.-led authority wants to tighten controls over the surging number of private armed security teams being hired to protect U.S. government agencies and contractors involved in rebuilding.

OPINION

41. A Strategy For Iraq
(Washington Post)...John F. Kerry
To be successful in Iraq, and in any war for that matter, our use of force must be tied to a political objective more complete than the ouster of a regime. To date, that has not happened in Iraq. It is time it did.

42. Blind In Baghdad
(Washington Post)...Richard Cohen
Here are the reasons Iraq is not Vietnam: It is a desert, not a jungle. The enemy is not protected and supplied by major powers such as the Soviet Union or China, not to mention a formidable front-line state such as North Vietnam. The Iraqis are not, like the Vietnamese, a single culture fighting a long-term war of liberation from colonial masters. They are fragmented by religion and language, and they have been independent ever since the British left lo these many years ago. In almost every way but one, Iraq is not Vietnam. Here's the one: We don't know what the hell we're doing.

43. Back To The Basics
(Washington Post)...David Ignatius
...What's needed is a "New Deal" for Iraq -- a post-June 30 plan that evokes the crash efforts of Franklin D. Roosevelt to turn the momentum of the Great Depression. No more administration pieties about democracy and terrorism, please. In the nine months before Iraq is to hold elections, the United States must focus on the basics: Put people to work, make them feel that the United States and its allies are bringing a better life.

NA
44. We Already Know Why Al Qaeda Succeeded
(Wall Street Journal)...George Melloan
...The failure to distinguish between crime and war is crucial to understanding why America ultimately became vulnerable. Over the 30 years since the U.S. defeat in Vietnam, Congress has tangled up the executive branch in legalities limiting its ability to fight a "war in the shadows."

45. Forget Europe. How About These Allies?
(Washington Post)...Thomas P.M. Barnett
...So who's going to stay with us through the tough times ahead? Here's a hint: If 10 well-placed bombs can flip a country's national election, that country probably isn't cut out for the job of waging a global war on terrorism. A country also probably isn't cut out for the job if its society is generations past remembering what religious fervor feels like, if its military hasn't suffered significant (or any) combat losses since World War II, and if its government hasn't been accused of significant human rights violations in recent memory. Messy wars require allies who don't mind getting dirty.

46. Pentagon Could Teach Public Schools Some Lesso