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News flash: Winter becomes spring. In spite of numerous pronouncements by naysayers expecting an alternative result, spring appears to be advancing across the northern hemisphere.
"Yes" cautioned an observer, "but let's not forget for a moment those poor souls in the southern half of the globe, who have nothing but winter to look forward to, assuming they live that long."
TOP STORIES
1. Intense Fighting Erupts In Two Cities
(Washington Post)...Rajiv Chandrasekaran and Karl Vick
Intense firefights erupted Monday between U.S. forces and insurgents here and in Najaf, two cities surrounded by thousands of troops.
2. Mosque Targeted In Fallouja Fighting
(Los Angeles Times)...Tony Perry and Rick Loomis
...In Baghdad, two U.S. troops were killed and five were wounded by a powerful explosion that ripped through an industrial building they were searching for suspicious chemicals. In Fallouja, a U.S.-set deadline for Iraqis to hand in heavy weapons is due to expire today. In recent days, as negotiators have declared short-term cease-fires, the Marines here have been engaged in almost daily skirmishes with insurgents. So many Marines have been wounded that there is a backlog awaiting Purple Hearts.
(Ed note: Online version of the following story now has a slightly different headline)
3. Fierce Battle At Falluja Mosque Further Dims Hopes For Accord
(New York Times)...John F. Burns
A protracted firefight between marines and insurgents in a Falluja suburb on Monday culminated in American helicopter gunships and tanks firing at a mosque and toppling its minaret, further dimming hopes for a peaceful resolution to the three-week-old siege.
4. The Lasting Wounds Of War
(Washington Post)...Karl Vick
...While attention remains riveted on the rising count of Americans killed in action -- more than 100 so far in April -- doctors at the main combat support hospital in Iraq are reeling from a stream of young soldiers with wounds so devastating that they probably would have been fatal in any previous war.
5. Ex-Baathists Offer U.S. Advice, Await Call To Arms
(Los Angeles Times)...Jeffrey Fleishman
The phone is dusty, the fan is weak, and the banished soldiers — a bit paunchier and a step slower these days — wait for a call to join the new Iraqi army. They drink strong coffee from the same cup and talk about withered pride and wonder why no one's swooning anymore over their medals and ribbons.
NA
6. As Boeing Tries to Put Scandals To Rest, Prosecutors Widen Probe
(Wall Street Journal)...Andy Pasztor and Jonathan Karp
Boeing Co., which had begun putting the fallout from its ethical lapses behind it, faces a federal criminal investigation that has expanded into whether it used a rival company's documents to compete for NASA contracts, according to government and industry officials close to the probe.
7a. Kerry to Reenact Medal Tossing Protest
Democrat presidential hopeful John Forbes Kerry today announced he would reenact for TV cameras the historic moment when he tossed his own Vietnam war medals over the White House fence.
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.)
