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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.
