Dawn Patrol

The Dawn Patrol, a daily feature of the Mudville Gazette, is a roundup of news stories that we think might be of interest to readers and of use to fellow bloggers. Appearances of stories or editorials in this collection are not to be considered as endorsement of their content by the Greyhawks.

• Saudi chief justice urges fighting U.S.

  Comments caught on tape encouraging battle in Iraq

  The question is raised with the disclosure of secretly recorded comments from the kingdom's chief justice encouraging young Saudis to travel to Iraq to wage war against Americans.

• Myers says U.S. winning in Iraq

  The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said yesterday that U.S. and allied forces in Iraq are winning the war against former Saddam Hussein loyalists, foreign terrorists and criminals.

• Laptop in Iraq Militant's Truck Aided Capture of His Aides

  The recovery of a laptop computer in Iraq by American forces in February has helped in the capture of several associates of the Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Pentagon officials said Tuesday.

• Texas Guard Soldiers Patrol Deadly Grounds

  Texas Army National Guardsmen play a deadly game of Russian Roulette every time they go to work because the sandy ground that they patrol is strewn with unexploded ammunition.

• Iraq PM finally unveils cabinet list 12 weeks after polls

  Iraq's prime minister-designate Ibrahim Jaafari reportedly handed President Jalal Talabani his proposed cabinet list, after nearly three months of protracted consultations which tested Washington's patience.

  • Iraqi Leaders Give 6 Cabinet Posts To Sunnis

    Iraq's new Kurdish and Shiite Arab political leaders agreed to a cabinet split Tuesday, giving six posts to the holdout Sunni Arab minority, top politicians involved in the negotiations said.

• CIA can't rule out WMD move to Syria

  The CIA's chief weapons inspector said he cannot rule out the possibility that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction were secretly shipped to Syria before the March 2003 invasion, citing "sufficiently credible" evidence that WMDs may have been moved there.

  • Saddam most deadly WMD

    The new leader of Iraq has sent a letter to Tony Blair thanking him and the British people for freeing his country from Saddam Hussein.

• Explosive Study Gives NY Times Failing Grade in Mideast Coverage

  An explosive study released today on New York Times coverage of the Israeli- Palestinian conflict reveals that the Times reported Israeli deaths at rates up to seven to ten times greater than Palestinian deaths.

  • World Terror Attacks Tripled in 2004 by U.S. Count

    The U.S. count of major world terrorist attacks more than tripled in 2004, a rise that may revive debate on whether the Bush administration is winning the war on terrorism, congressional aides said on Tuesday.

  • Losing Ground In Iraq

    The millions of brave Iraqis who risked their lives to vote in January didn't expect that nearly three months later, their squabbling politicians would still be struggling to form a government. As a result, precious momentum has been lost, and a briefly improving security situation has again started deteriorating. The Sunni-based insurgency seems to have drawn fresh encouragement from the inability of the victorious Shiite and Kurdish parties to put the future of their country ahead of their narrow political agendas.

• Italians Angry Over Inquiry on Iraq Death

  Tensions between the United States and Italy surged Tuesday, as Italian politicians and citizens reacted furiously to leaked reports in the Italian news media that a joint investigation into the shooting death of an Italian agent in Baghdad would absolve American soldiers of guilt in the incident.

• Hearing Begins for Marine Accused of Killing 2 Iraqis

  Military prosecutors ended months of silence on Tuesday as they presented their first witnesses in the case of a marine accused of murder during his platoon's search of a suspected insurgent hideout near Baghdad last year.

  • Marines Take Stand in Iraq Murder Hearing

    Fellow Marines testified Tuesday that an officer who is accused of murder shot two Iraqis in the back and put a sign near the bodies bearing a Marine slogan: "No better friend, no worse enemy."

• Seller beware: All military gear not right for eBay

  Going once, going twice, SOLD to the highest bidder: Military-issue items including body armor, combat helmets and gas masks.

• Bush Wants Refineries at Ex-Defense Bases

  President Bush is offering to make closed military bases available for new oil refineries and will ask Congress to provide a "risk insurance" to the nuclear industry against regulatory delays to spur construction of new nuclear power plants, senior administration officials said Tuesday.

• A first for Afghan women: the governor
  
  High in the snow-capped Hindu Kush, visitors stream in to see the new governor. A huddle of turbaned men carry plastic sunflowers in a gold vase, nodding respectfully. Mountain farmers come wrapped in wool blankets. The British ambassador flies in from Kabul.

• Afghan Farmers Defy U.S. Opium Clampdown
  
  Afghan farmers have begun harvesting this year's opium crop, exposing the limits of a U.S.-sponsored crackdown on the world's largest narcotics industry despite claims Tuesday by President Hamid Karzai that drug cultivation was down sharply.
  • Taliban Deny Link with Accused Afghan Drug Kingpin

    Afghanistan's ousted Taliban have denied that an Afghan arrested in the United States and accused of being a top heroin trafficker ever supported them, as a U.S. prosecutor has said.

• Oil-for-food probe has not cleared Annan, Volcker says

  Former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Paul Volcker says his investigation into the scandal-plagued oil-for-food program has not cleared U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan of wrongdoing, despite Mr. Annan's claims to the contrary.

• Putin Arrives in Egypt

  President Vladimir V. Putin made the first official visit to Egypt by a Russian leader in 40 years on Tuesday, focusing on efforts to revive the internationally backed plan for Middle East peace in a meeting with Egypt's president, Hosni Mubarak.

• Bill Would Put Serial Numbers on Bullets

  A state Senate committee approved a proposal Tuesday to put a serial number on every handgun bullet made or sold in California.

• Success halts test of breast cancer treatment

  By Byron Spice, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Researchers called an early halt to two large, federally sponsored clinical studies of the drug Herceptin when it proved to be unusually effective at preventing cancer.