'What Americans Stand For'
Sen. Lindsey Graham discusses why he is so opposed to President Bush's plans on military tribunals and why the United States should never sanction torture.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14890882/site/newsweek/from/ET/

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/P...5&date=20060925
Iraqi soldiers hinder U.S. efforts to combat militias and tame Baghdad streets

By ANTONIO CASTANEDA
The Associated Press

BAGHDAD, Iraq — The plan was simple: Iraqi troops would block escape routes while U.S. soldiers searched for weapons house by house. But the Iraqi troops didn't show up on time.

When they finally did appear, the Iraqis ignored U.S. orders and let dozens of cars pass through checkpoints in eastern Baghdad — including an ambulance full of armed militiamen, U.S. soldiers said.

It wasn't an isolated incident, they added.

Senior U.S. commanders have hailed the performance of Iraqi troops in the crackdown on militias and insurgents in Baghdad. But some U.S. soldiers say the Iraqis serving alongside them are among the worst they've seen — seeming more loyal to militias than the government.

That raises doubts whether the Iraqis can maintain order once the security operation is over and the Americans have left. It also raises broader questions about the training, reliability and loyalty of Iraqi troops — who must be competent, U.S. officials say, before America can begin pulling out of Iraq.

Last week, for example, Sgt. 1st Class Eric Sheehan could barely contain his frustration when he discovered that barriers and concertina wire that were supposed to bolster defensive positions had been dragged away — again — under the noses of nearby Iraqi soldiers.

"[I] suggest we fire these IAs and get them out of the way," Sheehan, of Jennerstown, Pa., reported to senior officers, referring to Iraqi army troops. "There's nothing we can do," came the reply.

U.S. soldiers from the 4th Squadron, 14th Cavalry Regiment eventually blocked the road again while Iraqi troops watched from a distance.

Some Americans speculated the missing barriers were dragged off to strengthen militia defenses in nearby Sadr City, a sprawling Shiite neighborhood that is a stronghold of anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

"They've been doing this all week. They're working against us," said Sheehan, who resorted to waking up the senior Iraqi officer at the checkpoint to complain — futilely.

Some Americans said they had seen much better Iraqi troops in the northern cities of Mosul and Tal Afar, which have more Kurdish soldiers. They have been disappointed by the performance of units committed to the Baghdad fight.

U.S. officers believe the problem has political and sectarian roots: Many of the Iraqi soldiers here are Shiites recruited from the Baghdad area.

As the security crackdown focuses on Shiite neighborhoods, Iraqi troops come in contact with fellow Shiites from some of the 23 known militias. That puts great stress on the soldiers, who grew up in a society where respect for religion runs far deeper than for government institutions.

"From my perspective, you can't make a distinction between Iraq army Shiites and the religious militias. You have a lot of soldiers and family members swayed and persuaded by the religious leadership," said Col. Greg Watt, who advises one of two Iraqi divisions in the city.

Watt expressed confidence the Iraqi army could win in a pitched battle against militias.

"But what the Iraqi army can't do is protect soldiers when they go home, or protect their families," he added. "It's very, very difficult. That's why a solution has to be a political one and not a military one."

U.S. military leaders have repeatedly called on Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, to aggressively disband the predominantly Shiite militias, but, so far, little progress is seen on Baghdad's streets.

Other developments

• Iraq's feuding ethnic and sectarian groups agreed Sunday to consider amending the constitution and begin debating legislation to create a federated nation. Shiite, Sunni Arab and Kurdish political leaders agreed on a compromise that will allow parliament to take up Shiite-proposed draft legislation to permit creation of partly self-ruling regions. Sunni Arabs have fought the federalism bill, fearing it will splinter the country and deny them a share of Iraq's oil, which is found in the predominantly Kurdish north and the heavily Shiite south.

• Two U.S. Marines died in combat in restive Anbar province west of Baghdad, the U.S. military said. As of Sunday, at least 2,701 members of the U.S. military have died since the war began, according to an Associated Press count.

• At least 20 people were killed and 37 injured Sunday in violence around Iraq, including a mortar attack on the Health Ministry in Baghdad and a car bombing aimed at a police patrol in the city. Police also discovered 13 more apparent victims of sectarian death squads.

• The prime minister's office said Iraqi forces had arrested a leader and seven aides in the 1920 Revolution Brigades, also known as the al-Ashreen Brigades, a group responsible for attacks and kidnappings.

Copyright © 2006 The Seattle Times Company

WHAT IRANIANS LEAST EXPECT: WHAT IF BUSH PUBLICLY OFFERED TO OPEN AN EMBASSY IN TEHRAN? - FAREED ZAKARIA (NEWSWEEK, OCTOBER 2): If we're going to outsmart Iranian president Ahmadinejad, we need clever, compelling arguments of our own. Instead we have tended to threaten, bully and intimidate. No wonder he's winning the public diplomacy.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14975333/site/newsweek/

US-IRAN RELATIONS: PERILS AND PROMISES - HOOSHANG AMIRAHMADI (PAYVAND'S IRAN NEWS ..., SEPTEMBER 22): EU Dependency and US Public Diplomacy: The US' public relations ploy to sway public opinion toward the US position on Iran has been clearly articulated by President Bush and Secretary of State Rice.
http://www.payvand.com/news/06/sep/1254.html

IRAN WAR IN OCTOBER? EVERETT (DISAGREEMENT WITHOUT BEING DISAGREEABLE, SEPTEMBER 24): The president's UN speech may have been the start of an attempt to frame the military action as an opportunity for the Iranian people to overthrow their oppressors, but much more needs to be done if such attempts at public diplomacy are to be successful.
http://dwobd.blogspot.com/

HOW THE UN MEETING TURNED INTO A FESTIVAL OF ANTI-AMERICANISM - AND BOOSTED DUBYA'S ELECTION HOPES - DAVID USBORNE (INDEPENDENT, SEPTEMBER 23): With the help of Iran's unflinching leader, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and a few others, Mr. Chavez successfully hijacked this year's UN General Assembly and turned it into a raucous carnival of anti-Americanism. Nile Gardiner, of the Heritage Foundation, said: "This is a huge public diplomacy challenge, but also a strategic threat."
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politi...icle1705645.ece

BUSH RAGES: 'I AM NOT BEELZEBUB, LORD OF SULFUR' - MIKE WHITNEY (AL-JAZEERAH, SEPTEMBER 22): And where was Bush when Chavez delivered his broadside ....hiding behind Karen Hughes's skirts, picking out a new eye-liner for his next televised harangue against Muslims, retrieving his Yale pom-poms from the dry-cleaners?
http://www.aljazeerah.info/Opinion%20edito...e%20Whitney.htm

STUFF HAPPENS AGAIN IN BAGHDAD - FRANK RICH (NEW YORK TIMES, SEPTEMBER 24): Our public diplomacy efforts in Iraq were equally tone-deaf to Iraqis and their neighbors. Karen Hughes is a presidential flack whose patronizing photo-op tour of the region last year earned mostly ridicule. Our broadcasting outreach is supervised by a longtime Karl Rove pal, Kenneth Tomlinson, who last month was found by State Department investigators to be using his office -- literally -- to run a ?horse-racing operation.?
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/09/24/opini...agewanted=print
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WHAT WOULD JEFFERSON SAY ABOUT IRAQ? OPPOSED TO "WARS OF CHOICE," HE WOULD HAVE A LOT TO SAY ABOUT THE FORCEFUL IMPOSITION OF DEMOCRACY - R.K. RAMAZANI (PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER, SEPTEMBER 24): If asked how best to spread democracy, Jefferson would have suggested three alternative and peaceful methods. First among these would be America's own example of liberal democratic practices. Second would be effective use of what we now call public diplomacy. Third, and most important, Jefferson would have advocated expanding American educational initiatives, such as the Fulbright exchange program.
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/ed...al/15592459.htm

US DELEGATION TO VISIT LEBANON AND DISCUSS REBUILDING (YA LIBNAN, LEBANON, SEPTEMBER 23): The group will be led by Dina Powell, Deputy Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs.
http://yalibnan.com/site/archives/2006/09/post_21.php

CONDI TALKS TOUGH ON DARFUR - (NEWS FROM AFRICA, SEPTEMBER 24): After falling to the back burners of public diplomacy, it seems that maybe Darfur in Sudan is moving up the US administration's list of concerns.
http://twoandtwomakesfive.blogs.com/two_an...from_afric.html
(scroll down link for item)

WORD FOR WORD: 'ISLAMO-FASCISM' HAD ITS MOMENT - SHERYL GAY STOLBERG (NEW YORK TIMES, SEPTEMBER 24): Even Karen Hughes, the former counselor to Mr. Bush who now runs the public diplomacy arm of the State Department, pushed back from the term 'Islamo-fascist,' telling CNN's Wolf Blitzer that she typically does not 'use religious terms' for fear they will be misinterpreted around the world.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/24/weekinre...24stolberg.html?

ATTACKS SPARK TOUGHER GUANTANAMO JAIL - ASSOCIATED PRESS (USA TODAY SEPTEMBER 23): The military is toughening a new jailhouse for suspected al-Qaeda and Taliban militants to protect guards after a spate of attacks and evidence that detainees have organized themselves into groups to mount uprisings, officials said.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-09...itmo-jail_x.htm

TORTURE CHIC: SIGN OF DECADENCE ALAN BOCK (ANTIWAR.COM, SEPTEMBER 23): The eagerness of the top two guys in the administration, plenty of others in the political classes and all too many who consider themselves thinkers or intellectuals to see torture become quasi-official policy of the United States, which used to have a reputation as the freest land on earth, verges on the sadistic and pornographic.
http://www.antiwar.com/bock/?articleid=9739

WE'VE SUNK TO BIN LADEN'S LEVEL - JOSEPH L. GALLOWAY (MIAMI HERALD, SEPTEMBER 23/COMMON DREAMS): The torture of prisoners is not only illegal under American and international law it is, put simply, immoral and unjust. It is also un-American.
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0923-27.htm

A TORTURED POLICY EDITORIAL (SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, SEPTEMBER 24): The upshot is a disgraceful policy on detainees that bends American norms of justice, all wrapped in the flag-waving war on terrorism.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?...&type=printable

POWELL BELATEDLY JOINS BID TO SAVE OUR NATION'S SOUL - LEONARD PITTS JR. (BALTIMORE SUN, SEPTEMBER 22): Even if we had to choose between saving Americans and preserving America, it should be an easy call. Kill me before you kill my country.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/o...-oped-headlines

ARE WE REALLY SO FEARFUL? - ARIEL DORFMAN (WASHINGTON POST, SEPTEMBER 24): Are we so fearful, so in love with our own security and steeped in our own pain, that we are really willing to let people be tortured in the name of America?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...2201303_pf.html

DOES TORTURE WORK? - EDWIDGE DANTICAT (WASHINGTON POST, SEPTEMBER 24): We are all endorsers of torture when it is done in our name.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...2201304_pf.html

FIRING POTENT WORDS, FROM A TANK - ARTHUR T. HADLEY (NEW YORK TIMES, SEPTEMBER 25): 'I've seen firsthand the power of Geneva Conventions, both to compel surrenders and to broadcast, for the world, our determination to live up to our highest ideals.'
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/25/opinion/...agewanted=print

AMERICAN STANDARD OPINION (BALTIMORE SUN, SEPTEMBER 24): The compromise approved last week by the GOP renegades draws the line at "redefining" the Geneva Conventions, but then leaves it to the president to "interpret" the conventions pretty much as he sees fit.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/b...inion-headlines

DO UNTO YOUR ENEMY... - PAUL RIECKHOFF (NEW YORK TIMES, SEPTEMBER 25): If America continues to erode the meaning of the Geneva Conventions, we will cede the ground upon which to prosecute dictators and warlords.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/25/opinion/...agewanted=print

SYRIA AND THE US: FELLOW TRAVELERS AT THE CROSSROADS FOR TERRORISM - AMY GOODMAN AND DAVID GOODMAN (MOTHER JONES, SEPTEMBER 23): When President Bush made torture a centerpiece of his foreign policy, he bound himself intimately to the world's worst human rights abusers.
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0923-20.htm

TORTURE IS A MORAL ISSUE RELIGIOUS LEADERS FROM CONNECTICUT, SIGNATORIES (NATION, SEPTEMBER 23): The detainee legislation seems not to be about protecting our military personnel or even US citizens; rather, it appears to be designed to protect the leaders at the top of the chain of command who have tolerated, promoted, and justified torture.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20061009/moral_compass

PARSING WORDS ABOUT TORTURE - STEVE CHAPMAN (BALTIMORE SUN, SEPTEMBER 25): Mr. Bush's stated policy is, "We do not torture." Anyone who really believes in the logic behind his policies ought to be asking, "Why on earth not?"
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/o...-oped-headlines

EXPLOITATION OF 9/11 WAS SHAMEFUL - ANDREW GREELEY (CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, SEPTEMBER 22): The administration, not able to find Osama bin Laden, now plans to drag some of his henchmen -- tortured and illegally imprisoned -- before kangaroo military courts to prove how tough on terrorists it really is before the election. Do the marketers of such propaganda have no shame at all?
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0922-30.htm

AMERICA'S DETAINEES FACE GRAVE INJUSTICE - JONATHAN HAFETZ (BALTIMORE SUN, SEPTEMBER 22)
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/o...-oped-headlines

TORTURE EXHIBIT A - WILLIAM FISHER (TOMPAINE.COM, SEPTEMBER 22): The compromise bill agreed on by the White House and the famous 'Republican rebels' -- Senators McCain, Lindsey Graham, John Warner, Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe and others -- fails to mention extraordinary rendition explicitly.
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/09/2...e_exhibit_a.php

THE ABUSE CAN CONTINUE: SENATORS WON'T AUTHORIZE TORTURE, BUT THEY WON'T PREVENT IT, EITHER ? EDITORIAL (WASHINGTON POST, SEPTEMBER 22)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...6092101647.html

COMPROMISED EDITORS (NEW REPUBLIC, SEPTEMBER 21): The compromise proposed by GOP Senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and John Warner takes the administration's proposals as a starting point and then proceeds to roll back only a few of its more odious provisions.
http://www.tnr.com/docprint.mhtml?i=200610...editorial100206

BUSH GETS HIS WAY - DAN FROOMKIN (WASHINGTONPOST.COM, SEPTEMBER 22): On the central issue of whether the CIA should continue using interrogation methods on suspected terrorists that many say constitute torture, the White House got its way, winning agreement from the "maverick" Republican senators who had refused to go along with an overt undoing of the Geneva Conventions.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...2200703_pf.html

TURNING BACK THE CLOCK ON RAPE EDITORIAL (NEW YORK TIMES, SEPTEMBER 23): The bill on jailing, interrogating and trying terror suspects contains narrow definitions of rape and sexual assault that must be fixed before Congress can responsibly pass the legislation.
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/edit...html?offset=10&

A TORTUROUS COMPROMISE EDITORIAL (BOSTON GLOBE, SEPTEMBER 23): After delaying legal action against hundreds of detainees for almost five years, the administration should work with Congress to devise interrogation and trial rules that civilized peoples expect.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial...promise?mode=PF

TWO-TIERED TORTURE STANDARDS: BY ALLOWING THE CIA LEEWAY IN INTERROGATIONS, THE SENATE GAVE UP TOO MUCH IN ITS COMPROMISE WITH BUSH ? EDITORIAL (LOS ANGELES TIMES, SEPTEMBER 24)
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editor...ment-editorials

CIA VALUES SHOW IN STAND ON DETAINEES - GREG MILLER (LOS ANGELES TIMES, SEPTEMBER 24): On the detainee issue, the CIA is less swayed by concerns that other nations might retaliate against U.S. prisoners, and more inclined to consider any cost worth paying for the intelligence it generates.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/wa...,1,770657.story

WHY RETIRED MILITARY BRASS DON'T WANT TORTURE: FIRSTHAND COMBAT EXPERIENCES COMPEL OLD GUARD TO ATTACK BUSH'S 'ALTERNATIVE INTERROGATION' - CHARLES KAISER (LOS ANGELES TIMES, SEPTEMBER 24)
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commen...omment-opinions

HE WROTE THE BOOK ON TORTURE [REVIEW OF WAR BY OTHER MEANS: AN INSIDER'S ACCOUNT OF THE WAR ON TERROR BY JOHN YOO] - JAMES BOVARD (AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE, OCTOBER 9): John Yoo, the former Justice Department official, implies that the torture scandal may be largely a liberal media concoction. Though this book went to press in July 2006, Yoo relies on dubious data from September 2004 to exonerate the federal torturers.
http://www.amconmag.com/2006/2006_10_09/review.html

UN REPORT: TORTURE IN IRAQ 'TOTALLY OUT OF HAND': BUSH ADMINISTRATION REJECTS CLAIM THAT TORTURE MAY BE WORSE THAN UNDER SADDAM HUSSEIN - TOM REGAN (CSMONITOR.COM, SEPTEMBER 24)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0922/dailyUpdate.html

IN IRAQ, A JOURNALIST IN LIMBO - TOM CURLEY (WASHINGTON POST, SEPTEMBER 23): Bilal Hussein, an Iraqi photographer who helped the Associated Press win a Pulitzer Prize last year, is now in his sixth month in a U.S. Army prison in Iraq. He doesn't understand why he's there, and neither do his AP colleagues.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...2201444_pf.html

DUE PROCESS, BULLDOZED - BOB HERBERT (NEW YORK TIMES, SEPTEMBER 25): Several Iraqi journalists working for international news organizations have been held without charge by American and Iraqi forces. The absence of concrete evidence in so many of the cases is disturbing, to say the least.
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/09/25/opini...agewanted=print

CITY OF DEATH: THE BATTLE FOR BAGHDAD - BERNHARD ZAND (SPIEGEL INTERNATIONAL, SEPTEMBER 22): Once the most progressive city in the Arab world, Baghdad has been ravaged by war and bombings. Everyone wants out, but not everyone can afford to leave -- and car bomb explosions are a daily fact of life.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiege...,438429,00.html

WAR'S FORGOTTEN WOMEN - LIZETTE ALVAREZ (INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE, SEPTEMBER 24): Despite longstanding predictions that the United States would shudder when its women were killed in action, female military deaths have stirred no less -- and no more -- reaction at home than the deaths of the nearly 2,700 male dead.
http://www.iht.com/bin/print_ipub.php?file.../news/women.php

OUR FIVE IRAQ WARS - JAMES JAY CARAFANO (WASHINGTON TIMES, SEPTEMBER 24): What the United States needs to do is finish the job in Iraq -- and that means strengthening Iraq's security forces so they can handle the insurgency.
http://www.washtimes.com/functions/print.p...23-084009-2950r

FACING FACTS ON IRAQ EDITORIAL (NEW YORK TIMES, SEPTEMBER 24): There is nothing about Iraq -- including withdrawal scenarios -- that is anything but ominous.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/24/opinion/...agewanted=print

THE FACTS ON THE GROUND: MINI-GULAGS, HIRED GUNS, LOBBYISTS, AND A REALITY BUILT ON FEAR - TOM ENGELHARDT (TOMDISPATCH, SEPTEMBER 21): While Iraq and future Iraq policy are constantly in the news, almost all the American facts-on-the-ground in that country have come into being without consultation with the American people or, in any serious way, Congress (or testing in the courts).
http://tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=123690

BE READY FOR CIVIL WAR - DANIEL GALLINGTON (WASHINGTON TIMES, SEPTEMBER 15): Civil war may happen in Iraq no matter what we do or what we want -- and we had better be thinking about how it would support our longer-term policy objectives.
http://www.washtimes.com/functions/print.p...24-085113-5472r

SPY AGENCIES SAY IRAQ WAR WORSENS TERROR THREAT - MARK MAZZETTI (NEW YORK TIMES, SEPTEMBER 24): The classified National Intelligence Estimate attributes a more direct role to the Iraq war in fueling radicalism than that presented either in recent White House documents or in a report released Wednesday by the House Intelligence Committee, according to several officials in Washington involved in preparing the assessment or who have read the final document.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/24/world/mi...agewanted=print

NEGROPONTE HIGHLIGHTS U.S. SUCCESSES: INTELLIGENCE VIEW THAT WAR IS INCREASING TERROR IS 'FRACTION OF JUDGMENTS,' HE SAYS - NEWS SERVICES (WASHINGTON POST, SEPTEMBER 25)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...6092400986.html

CLOSING OF A NATION - DAVID BROOKS (NEW YORK TIMES, SEPTEMBER 24): Iraq is the most xenophobic, sexist and reactionary society on earth.
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/09/24/opini...agewanted=print

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PLAYING SHELL GAMES ON RESPONSIBILITY WITH IRAQ - DERRICK Z. JACKSON (BOSTON GLOBE, SEPTEMBER 23): The same White House that trashed generals and bean counters for saying it would take hundreds of thousands of more troops and billions more dollars to secure Iraq is now blaming the puppet government for not securing the country.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial...th_iraq?mode=PF

DIVIDING IRAQ WOULD JUST MEAN MORE THREATS: SEPARATE SUNNI, SHIITE AND KURD STATES ARE A SEDUCTIVE SOLUTION, BUT A SINGLE CENTRAL GOVERNMENT IS IRAQ'S BEST CHANCE FOR STABILITY - W. ROBERT PEARSON (LOS ANGELES TIMES, SEPTEMBER 24)
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commen...omment-opinions

THE TROOPS STAY ON: PRESIDENT BUSH HELD OFF ON FORCE CUTS IN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN THIS FALL. THERE'S GOOD REASON -- BUT IS THERE A GOOD PLAN? ? EDITORIAL (WASHINGTON POST, SEPTEMBER 23)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...2201442_pf.html

LOSING AFGHANISTAN - JOHN KERRY (WALL STREET JOURNAL, SEPTEMBER 25): Where allies have pledged troops and assistance in Afghanistan, they must follow through. But we must lead by example. That's how you win hearts and minds, and show the world the true face of America -- and that's how you win the war on terror. (Mr. Kerry, a senator from Massachusetts, was the 2004 Democratic nominee for president.)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1159138897...in_commentaries

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THE KEY TO AFGHANISTAN: MORE TIME - JIM HOAGLAND (WASHINGTON POST, SEPTEMBER 24): The struggle in Afghanistan needs resources, it needs time -- and it needs never to be forgotten.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...2201396_pf.html

A SILENCE IN THE AFGHAN MOUNTAINS: THE CONCEALMENT OF TWO DETAINEE DEATHS PAINTS A TROUBLING PICTURE OF ABUSE BY U.S. SPECIAL FORCES UNITS DEPLOYED TO THE COUNTRY - KEVIN SACK AND CRAIG PYES (LOS ANGELES TIMES, SEPTEMBER 24)
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/na...-home-headlines

BUSH'S OPTIONS ON IRAN - ROBERT KUTTNER (BOSTON GLOBE, SEPTEMBER 23): Iran is far larger and more powerful than Iraq. Far from making war inevitable, that reality limits American options.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial...on_iran?mode=PF

IRANIAN RHETORIC ASIDE, IT MAY BE TIME TO TALK - ROGER COHEN (NEW YORK TIMES, SEPTEMBER 23): In the Bush-led quest to transform the Middle East, a stick has been applied in Iraq. Its corollary almost certainly has to be a carrot deployed in Iran.
http://select.nytimes.com/iht/2006/09/23/w...agewanted=print

AHMADINEJAD'S GAUNTLET: THE U.S. AND IRAN NEED EACH OTHER TOO MUCH NOT TO FIND ACCOMMODATION - DAVID IGNATIUS (WASHINGTON POST, SEPTEMBER 24): That's the challenge: Can America and Iran find a formula that will meet each side's security interests, and thereby allow Iran to return fully to the community of nations after 27 years?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...2201393_pf.html

IRAN'S UNSUBTLE LEADER EDITORIAL (BOSTON GLOBE, SEPTEMBER 24): The transparent purpose of Ahmadinejad's brief against the Security Council is to delegitimize the resolution that the council passed at the end of August calling on Iran to suspend its enrichment of uranium and comply with the requirements of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial..._leader?mode=PF

WASHINGTON IS SIGNALING TEHRAN - ZE'EV SCHIFF (HAARETZ.COM, SEPTEMBER 24): Washington is saying, effectively, that it will help Iran to develop into a regional power with economic capability if Iran is willing to forgo nuclear weapons. Tehran, for its part, is hesitating.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.j...SubContrassID=0

IRAN: CALLS FOR DIALOGUE WITH THE UNITED STATES - DAVID CULP (COMMON DREAMS, SEPTEMBER 22): When he spoke about the nuclear weapons issues, the Iranian president was offering a reasonable basis for real negotiations.
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0922-27.htm

WAR SIGNALS? - DAVE LINDORFF (NATION, SEPTEMBER 22/COMMON DREAMS): Bush Administration and the Pentagon have issued orders for a major "strike group" of ships, including the nuclear aircraft carrier Eisenhower as well as a cruiser, destroyer, frigate, submarine escort and supply ship, to head for the Persian Gulf, just off Iran's western coast.
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0922-28.htm

WORLD POLITICS AND SHOW BIZ: ALL THE WORLD'S A STAGE JUSTIN RAIMONDO (ANTIWAR.COM, SEPTEMBER 22): The regionalization of the Iraq war, the strong possibility that the U.S., not Iran, will use nuclear weapons -- in short, a cataclysmic clash of civilizations is on the immediate horizon.
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=9732

MORE BUSH DIPLOMACY - GORDON PRATHER (ANTIWAR.COM, SEPTEMBER 23): Bush still intends to nuke the Mullahs.
http://www.antiwar.com/prather/?articleid=9737

AS CRAZY AS IT SOUNDS CHARLEY REESE (ANTIWAR.COM, SEPTEMBER 23): President George Bush might be planning to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities.
http://www.antiwar.com/reese/?articleid=9736

US-IRAN SHOOTOUT IS INEVITABLE LEON HADAR (ANTIWAR.COM, SEPTEMBER 23):
http://www.antiwar.com/hadar/?articleid=9738

THE OCTOBER SURPRISE GARY HART (HUFFINGTON POST, SEPTEMBER 23): It should come as no surprise if the Bush Administration undertakes a preemptive war against Iran sometime before the November election.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gary-hart/th...se_b_30086.html

SPEAKING WITH THE ENEMY: COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS CHIEF EXPLAINS WHY HIS ORGANIZATION HOSTED A DISCUSSION WITH IRAN'S PRESIDENT - RICHARD N. HAASS (LOS ANGELES TIMES, SEPTEMBER 23)
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/o...1,3492119.story

THE POWER OF PUBLIC OPINION - PATRICK MCELWEE (COMMON DREAMS, SEPTEMBER 22): Despite the propaganda onslaught, 19 percent believe Iran poses no threat at all to the U.S. and an additional 55 percent of the population believe Iran can be handled diplomatically.
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0922-34.htm

FROM THE NEW "ANTI-SEMITISM" TO NUCLEAR HOLOCAUST: HOW ISRAEL IS ENGINEERING THE "CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS" - JONATHAN COOK (COUNTERPUNCH, SEPTEMBER 23/24): As ever, the main target of the new anti-Semitism campaign were audiences in the US, Israel's generous patron. There, members of the Israel lobby were turning into a chorus of doom.
http://www.counterpunch.org/cook09232006.html

DO SOMETHING - OPINION (BALTIMORE SUN, SEPTEMBER 22): Washington should be prepared to facilitate Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' efforts to reopen a dialogue with the Israelis.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/b...inion-headlines

DELUSION IN DAMASCUS: BASHAR ASSAD BELIEVES THAT SYRIA WON THE LEBANESE WAR ?EDITORIAL (WASHINGTON POST, SEPTEMBER 24): The many statesmen who have tried to do business with the Syrian president in the past -- such as former secretary of state Colin L. Powell or Egypt's Hosni Mubarak -- have discovered his assurances to secure the Syrian border are not only worthless but deliberately mendacious.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...2300722_pf.html

AXIS OF SKETCHY ALLIES - MAUREEN DOWD (NEW YORK TIMES, SEPTEMBER 24): The administration?s great ally in the war on terror is General Musharraf, a dictator who appears to be harboring terrorists, including the one we want most.
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/09/23/opini...agewanted=print
PAID SUBSCRIPTION

DEMOCRACY IN THE MUSLIM WORLD - LORENZO VIDINO (BOSTON GLOBE, SEPTEMBER 24): Promotion of democracy is an ambitious goal whose prospects for success are unclear. What can produce immediate gains is a head-on challenge of the enemy's ideological shortcomings.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial...m_world?mode=PF

VARIETIES OF DEMOCRACY - SARAH L. GILDEA / F. ANDY MESSING ( WASHINGTON TIMES, SEPTEMBER 25): Our experience with democracy is relatively successful, but we must be wary of forcing our brand of freedom and democracy on others, or risk disillusionment and failure.
http://www.washtimes.com/functions/print.p...24-085115-9442r

AS CHÁVEZ TALKS TOUGH, THE BUSH TEAM YAWNS EDWARD M. GOMEZ (WORLD VIEWS, SF GATE, SEPTEMBER 23)
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/det...5&entry_id=9140

CHÁVEZ'S INFERNO - ALVARO VARGAS LLOSA (WALL STREET JOURNAL, SEPTEMBER 25): Chávez's eighth circle of hell is fraudulent anti-Americanism. Since oil makes up half the government's revenue and the U.S. is the principal destination of Venezuelan oil, he pays daily homage to U.S. capitalism.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1159141344...in_commentaries
PAID SUSBCRIPTION

HURRICANE CHÁVEZ: WHAT'S WORSE FOR ENERGY SECURITY: A NATURAL DISASTER OR A PETRO-BULLY? EDITORIAL (WASHINGTON POST, SEPTEMBER 24): To the extent that Mr. Chávez's wild talk stirs up anti-American feeling, he must be regarded as an irritant.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...2300721_pf.html

DEVIL IN DISGUISE
EDITORIAL (BOSTON GLOBE, SEPTEMBER 22): Chávez has been brandishing anti-Americanism ever since he became president in 1998. Chávez is criticizing the leading force behind a world economic system that has enriched his country and enhanced his power.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial...isguise?mode=PF

A WHIFF OF THE DEVIL - JEFF JACOBY (BOSTON GLOBE, SEPTEMBER 24): As night descends on Venezuela, thuggish rulers everywhere are finding Chávez a kindred spirit. There was indeed an odor of sulfur at the UN last week, but it didn't come from President Bush.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial...e_devil?mode=PF

TRASH TALK AT THE U.N.: CHAVEZ DELUSION - STEPHEN JOHNSON (NATIONAL REVIEW, SEPTEMBER 22): When he spoke at the U.N. General Assembly this week, President Chávez made it clear that his objective is to lead a global coalition to confront the United States.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YTY3Y...DYzYjdhNTMwYjc=

DIFFERENCES ASIDE, IT'S ALL POLITICS - MARK H. TEETER (MOSCOW TIMES, SEPTEMBER 25): Is somebody willing to put real, visible effort into developing avenues and areas for Russian-U.S. cooperation now, to engage and interact? Or is the best we both can hope for an uncomfortable, ill-defined stasis that benefits no discernible good cause?
http://www.moscowtimes.ru/stories/2006/09/25/009.html

WHY YOU SHOULD CARE ABOUT REINHOLD NIEBUHR: NO ONE IS ALL GOOD OR ALL EVIL - EMILY L. HAUSER (SEPTEMBER 24): President Bush has long painted the international community, and the nation's foreign policy, in stark terms. "Islamo-fascists" and, before them, the "axis of evil," described our many enemies in black and white.
Yet as Bush divides the world this way, more Americans are beginning to question his strict breakdown of good and evil.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion...perspective-hed

RENOUNCING BUSH'S FAILURES IS A START: THE PRESIDENT'S ONETIME LAPDOGS SHOULD ALSO RETHINK THE EXTREMIST IDEOLOGY THAT GOT US HERE - TODD GITLIN (LOS ANGELES TIMES, SEPTEMBER 23): The core of the Bush problem is an extremist worldview. Bush's aggressive go-it-alone attitude kicked in long before 9/11. "You're either with us or you're with the terrorists" was just an extension of Bush's rejection of the Kyoto Protocol (the international global warming agreement) and the International Criminal Court.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commen...omment-opinions

WHY WE CAN'T WIN - JON BASIL UTLEY (ANTIWAR.COM, SEPTEMBER 22): America is incapable of organizing itself to successfully impose our will by force upon small foreign nations, much less the world.
http://www.antiwar.com/utley/?articleid=9728

A FOREIGN POLICY OF FAILURE DOUG BANDOW (ANTIWAR.COM, SEPTEMBER 22): The United States today is weaker, more isolated, and more vulnerable because of the Bush administration's policies.
http://www.antiwar.com/bandow/?articleid=9726


THE NEW GLOBAL POPULISM - KAVEH L. AFRASIABI (ASIA TIMES, SEPTEMBER 23): What sets this year's General Assembly gathering somewhat apart is the window it has opened onto a global realignment consisting of many Third World nations forming a coherent anti-US bloc.
http://atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/HI23Aa02.html

THE WAR OF THE HACKS - COLBERT I. KING (WASHINGTON POST, SEPTEMBER 23): The terrorist ilk that attacked on Sept. 11 must be broken -- not chased, harassed or condemned from a U.N. podium, but broken. That means: Take them down here, there or anywhere they're found.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...2201439_pf.html

QUOTATIONS FOR THE DAY

"SHOW ME WHERE THE ROADS END, AND I WILL SHOW YOU WHERE THE TALIBAN BEGINS."

--Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan; cited in Jim Hoagland, 'The Key to Afghanistan: More Time (Washington post, September 24)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...2201396_pf.html

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060925/ts_al...HE0BHNlYwN0bWE-

Iraq tours stretched for 4,000 US troops: Pentagon Mon Sep 25, 7:22 PM ET

The US Army will lengthen tours in Iraq for 4,000 soldiers to maintain the US troop level there at 145,000 until next spring, the Pentagon said.

The Defense Department will keep one unit in Iraq 46 days longer and send another unit 30 days earlier than scheduled.

"These adjustments are necessary to maintain the current force structure in Iraq into the Spring of next year," the Defense Department said in a statement.

The current troop level stands at 145,000.

Last week, General John Abizaid, head of the US Central Command, said more than 140,000 troops will likely remain in country through the spring of 2007.

"In consultation with the new Iraqi government, commanders continue to assess the situation to ensure the appropriate force levels to support the Iraqi government," the military said.

"The 1st Brigade Combat Team of the 1st Armored Division, based in Friedberg, Germany, will have their tour of duty extended for approximately 46 days," the Pentagon said in a statement.

The unit was to return home in mid-January and will remain until late February.

That will allow another unit, the 1st Brigade Combat Team of the 3rd Infantry Division 12 months to rest, re-equip, train and prepare for its next tour of duty, the Pentagon said.

Another unit, the 4th Brigade Combat Team of the 1st Cavalry Division, will go to Iraq 30 days earlier than planned, to head for Iraq in late October.

"There's no question but that any time there's a war, the forces of the countries involved are asked to do a great deal," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said.

"From time to time there may be units that will be asked to increase the number of days in the country from what had been anticipated," he said.

The Washington Times reported Monday that the Pentagon may look at adding more units to the rotation mix.

"It may accelerate the pace of deployments, or it may mean looking at calling up additional units," the Washington daily quoted a Pentagon official as saying.

That option may become reality in November, when the Pentagon is expected to identify units that will go to Iraq next year, the report said.

The increased demand for troops comes at a time when military analysts say it is nearly stressed to the breaking point, according to the Times.

Non-deployed combat brigades are experiencing low readiness ratings due mostly to a lack of usable weapons and equipment, the paper noted.

The wear and tear in Iraq is ruining M1A1 tanks, Bradley fighting vehicles, Humvee vehicles and other equipment at such a fast pace that the Army has neither the money nor the industrial base to replace them, according to the Times.



Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AFP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Agence France Presse.


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http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-0..._x.htm?csp=N009

Families bear catastrophic war wounds

Army Spc. Ethan Biggers, 21, left, shown in this undated photo is in a coma at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington after being shot in the head by a sniper in Iraq on March 5, 2006. Twin brother, Army Spc. Matthew Biggers, is shown on the right.

By Gregg Zoroya, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — Army chaplain Kenneth Kaibel touched a cup of Communion wine to the lips of Spc. Ethan Biggers, who lay comatose at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. A drop slipped down his throat. The soldier gagged and coughed twice as his stepmother, Cheryl Biggers, cradled him ever more closely.
"That's all right," she whispered, her left hand gently supporting the base of his head. Depressions revealed where battlefield surgeons peeled back his scalp and removed large sections of skull to relieve swelling from a bullet fired by a sniper in Iraq in March.

His stepmother grasped his clenched fingers and kept her face close to his. "I want to make sure that he knows that I have him," Cheryl Biggers explained.

That was in June. Ethan Biggers, 22, was later transferred to a Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in Tampa and remains in a near-coma state.

"He can hear us. He opens his eyes. And we think he can follow our voices," says Cheryl Biggers, 51. "But he can't quite focus."

Biggers is part of a small but growing number of catastrophically wounded casualties from Iraq and Afghanistan — many of whom would never have survived this long in previous wars.

According to the Pentagon, at least 250 soldiers and Marines have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan with head wounds that left them — at least initially — comatose or unable to care for themselves.

ARMY MULLS LIVING WILLS: More returning from war with brain damage

"We all look at the amputees and say, 'God, they're really lucky,' " says Liza Biggers, 25, who left her career as a freelance artist to devote all her time to her brother.

Families' lives rearranged

Families of these wrecked young men contend not only with the shock of seeing the physical destruction to their loved ones but also with how their own lives change dramatically. Parents and siblings give up careers, forsake wages and reconstruct homes to care for wounded relatives rather than consign them to a nursing home.

"My son is in such a state," says Edgar Edmundson, 51, who left his job as a pie bakery supervisor to care full time for his son, Eric, 26, an Army sergeant. "He doesn't have control of his bladder or his bowels. He can't walk and he can't talk. ... To me, his father, the life my son knew is over."

Eric Edmundson, married and the father of a 20-month-old girl, was hurt in a roadside explosion Oct. 2 in Iraq. During surgery, his heart stopped and he suffered severe brain damage. His father, who had dreams of one day opening a gun and bait shop with his only son, now bathes and changes him daily and takes him to a rehabilitation center for physical therapy. Edgar Edmundson and his wife, Beth, who works as a state office supervisor, share a three-bedroom rental home in New Bern, N.C., with their son and his family.

"I guess you could say we don't have any disposable income," Edgar Edmundson says. "I live this every day. My son and I were very close. We had big plans."

Families say they also struggle with military and VA medical systems that were unprepared for these severely brain-damaged casualties.

They say the rehabilitation of catastrophic cases has not kept pace with the advances in battlefield medicine that kept these servicemembers alive and brought them home safely.

"They're saving their lives. But there is no system really in place to give them their life back," says Marissa Behee, whose husband, Jarod, 27, was shot in the head by a sniper in Iraq on May 25, 2005.

She says her husband showed little improvement after spending three months in the summer of 2005 in one of the VA's new polytrauma centers in Palo Alto, Calif. The centers are designed specifically to treat servicemembers suffering multiple injuries.

Help for soldiers, families

VA officials defend their programs and say they have made great strides in meeting these severe needs with their polytrauma facilities. By the end of this fiscal year, 21 new outpatient centers designed to monitor and continue treating rehab patients will be operating, officials say. They concede, however, that war has brought new challenges.

"There are some issues about family support, issues about the complexity of the medical and specialized needs that have to be addressed," says Lucille "Lu" Beck, chief consultant to the VA for rehabilitative services. "We have survivors now who come to us with medical conditions, rehab needs, multiple impairments that we've not seen before."

Behee has formed a foundation called Heroes with Head Injuries to provide other families with information on how to navigate the military medical system with a brain-damaged loved one.

In an effort to address concerns about military care, the Army's Wounded Warrior Program, which serves as an advocate for severely disabled soldiers and their families, held the first in a series of symposiums with wounded soldiers and family members. In June, the Army asked the more than 40 attendees to go through dozens of complaints and narrow them to a manageable list. Among the issues raised: problems in the process of notifying families about casualties; a shortage of trained case managers; the adequacy of rehabilitation for severely brain-damaged soldiers; confusion about the medical retirement process; and the need for more financial support for families.

"They are being pushed to the highest level," says Army Col. Mary Carstensen, director of the Wounded Warrior Program.

One recommendation from the symposium was for the military to more aggressively urge soldiers to fill out living wills containing directives about whether medical treatment should be withheld in the event of a dire brain injury.

Ethan Biggers' family is divided. His twin brother, Matt, a former soldier, believes Ethan wouldn't have wanted extraordinary steps taken to preserve his life.

Army Maj. Ronald Riechers, a neurologist who treated Ethan Biggers at Walter Reed, is grim about his future. He says Biggers could either remain in a near-coma or progress to requiring significant lifelong assistance. Perhaps he would be able to sit in a wheelchair, Riechers says.

Cheryl and Liza Biggers believe they see incremental improvement in Ethan and hold out hope. Ethan Biggers' wife, Britni, hopes her husband will someday recognize the couple's son, Eben, born June 2.

Liza Biggers works with hospital staff to stimulate responses from her brother, using Britni's Cotton Blossom body lotion, peeled oranges and Tootsie Rolls.

"I feel that we're here to get Ethan better," she says. "It's not asking too much to sacrifice a year or two of our lives to get Ethan back."

They suffered a setback July 27 when Ethan's father, Rand Biggers, died in a traffic accident. He had shepherded his son through the military's medical system. "I believe in God," he had said. "Something goodwill come out of it."

Today, the Biggers family continues its vigil at Ethan's bedside.

Cheryl Biggers says that for soldiers like her stepson, their last waking thought was of war. "I want to make sure that he knows where he is, that he's safe. We wouldn't be here with him unless it was safe, and trying to convince him to wake up," she says softly, cradling Ethan.

"Come on out and join us," she tells him. "Everybody's waiting."

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0925/p20s01-lire.html

Backstory: Enlisting churches to help soldiers
A military chaplain in Minnesota encourages clergy to act as counselors to National Guard troops returning from Iraq.
By Sean J. Miller | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

MINNEAPOLIS – John Morris, a military chaplain, stands at the front of a crowded conference room dressed in desert fatigues and tan combat boots, commanding his audience's attention with a tone barely above a whisper. Addressing some 30 Minnesota church leaders, Major Morris opens with a story about his time in Anbar Province, an insurgent stronghold in western Iraq.
"When the insurgents found out a new unit was there, they would walk a child in front of our convoys," he recalls. "What does a good Minnesota person do? Stop. You only do that one time, because you get ambushed and someone gets maimed or killed."

It's a chilling story, which Morris heard from numerous soldiers in combat, meant to convey the reality of war - and the kind of psychological stress soldiers go through in the field and when they come home.

Morris is on a mission. Since returning from the Middle East, the deputy state chaplain of the Minnesota Army National Guard has labored to convince members of Minnesota's religious community - many of whom oppose the war - to support the soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. More than that, he wants them to be frontline counselors and comforters.

"Sociologists or psychologists - they're great, they're helpful," Morris tells the audience. "But when I get to this issue, I have to always tell them, 'I'm sorry but there are people better qualified than you to handle this: religious leaders.' You're the healers. You bring reconciliation."

***

Morris is tall, with close-cropped brown hair and smooth features. He projects a calm, commanding presence that comes from experience hard earned. In April 2004, he was deployed with the US troops who surrounded Fallujah in response to four American contractors being killed and mutilated. While the battle for Fallujah raged, Morris circled the area in an armored Humvee offering Protestant Easter sunrise services to the support troops. The brutality of the conflict tested even his Christianity.

"That's probably the closest I've ever come to hate," says Morris."I came so close to the mentality: 'Kill them all and God is on our side.' Spiritual discipline held me back from that abyss."

Morris's spiritual discipline was still being tested two months after he returned home to Roseville, Minn. He was experiencing violent mood swings. His anger erupted at the slightest provocation, as when someone cut in front of him in a line at the airport. Morris wondered what combat soldiers must face after coming home.

"I'm a chaplain and I didn't pull a trigger and didn't take a human life, and I'm this mad," he says.

The horrors of war do shadow American soldiers. According to a 2004 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, 17 percent of combat veterans arrive home with mental health issues, ranging from depression to posttraumatic stress disorder.

National Guard soldiers face their own peculiar problems. They experience a rapid change from military to civilian life. In less than two weeks, once their tours in Iraq or Afghanistan are up, they can go from dodging roadside bombs and insurgent ambushes, to picking up Starbucks and rushing to a business meeting. Moreover, not since World War II have so many Guard soldiers served in combat and had to reintegrate into civilian life.

The Pentagon has learned - often the hard way - that returning soldiers need long-term support with the transition. "We didn't do it for the Vietnam vets, and in a sense we're paying for that now," says David Segal, a military sociologist at the University of Maryland.

Guard soldiers are entitled to the same counseling and support services offered to members of other branches of the military. But they often live hundreds of miles from the nearest military post, which can make counseling difficult.

Minnesota's program is unusual because - in addition to offering spiritual counseling - it requires Guard soldiers to report back to their barracks 30, 60, and 90 days after they're home. This is actually in violation of Pentagon policy, which insists that Guard members are "on leave" and cannot be called back. But Morris calls this time the "golden, hour," and feels it's critical to keep members connected and supported.

"I'm proud to tell you that, in Minnesota, we are in open violation of that Department of Defense policy," he says.

In the last year, he's had two soldiers tell him that they planned to kill themselves after they reported back to their barracks. Morris says he got those soldiers counseling, which they may not have received otherwise.

Another soldier Morris helped was Sgt. Ron Huff, an 18-year veteran of the Army National Guard. Sergeant Huff recently spent a year in Iraq clearing improvised explosive devises from the highway between Tikrit and Kirkuk. In his first month home, he couldn't switch out of his Iraq driving style and was ticketed four times for speeding by the same sheriff's deputy. Later, he experienced flashbacks, turned to alcohol, and totaled his motorcycle.

In Iraq, Huff commanded 35 soldiers - who affectionately called him "Huff Daddy" - but back home he didn't know where, or how, to ask for help. That's when Morris walked into his office. As Huff recalls it, Morris made him realize that "I'm not the only one who feels crazy." Huff and Morris now work together. "He's the smart guy and I'm the common sense guy," Huff says.

***

In the year sinc Morris started his church outreach programcalled "Beyond the Yellow Ribbon," Minnesota hasn't lost a Guard to suicide. The idea is to ask churches with soldiers in their congregations to become "military friendly." Morris encourages them to take care of the service members and their families - bringing them meals, providing marital counseling, or just listening.

Pastors, he says, can publicly welcome soldiers home and acknowledge their service. They can also watch for signs of reckless behavior.

The program "is a step in the right direction," says Prof. Segal, the military sociologist. "I think it will make the transition easier."

Yet not everyone is enamored of Morris's program. Gary Kohls, a lay member of Every Church a Peace Church, a national group that encourages churches to preach pacifism, says Christians shouldn't engage in combat, even if they're soldiers. "We take the stance that [combat trauma] could be prevented totally, by refusing to engage in homicidal violence," says Dr. Kohls, the leader of a worship community in Duluth, Minn. "I'm very disappointed when churches are either silent or vocally in support of killing."

It took until late July for Minnesota's religious leaders to accept an invitation to hear Morris address the problems faced by returning Guard soldiers. When the chaplain finished his presentation and the applause died down, he made a heartfelt request. "Please, do not repeat what we did to Vietnam veterans," he said.

One pastor who listened that morning - and won't - was Don Britt. His church, the United Church of Christ, has opposed the war in Iraq. "I hate war and I hate this war in particular," says Mr. Britt. "But I have a son there."

Britt says listening to Morris will help him raise his congregation's awareness of his son, Dan, and other soldiers' experience. "Hopefully, a lot more people will make the distinction between the politicians making the decisions to send these guys to war and our soldiers," he says.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060926/pl_af...HE0BHNlYwN0bWE-

Three Marines to face court-martial in Iraq murder probe: military Mon Sep 25, 8:45 PM ET



Three US Marines are to face court-martial for allegedly murdering an Iraqi civilian north of Baghdad earlier this year, the military said in a statement.

Corporal Marshall Magincalda, private first-class John Jodka and lance-corporal Jerry Shumate are accused of killing Hashim Ibrahim Awad on April 26 in Hamdania, the statement said.

The statement released by the Marines at their Camp Pendleton base south of Los Angeles said the three men would face court-martial at a later date.

Marines commander James Mattis had ordered the court-martial following preliminary hearings against the men. The statement said the death penalty would not be sought against any of the three Marines.

Jodka, Magincalda and Shumate are charged with murder, conspiracy and housebreaking. They also are charged with seizing and holding the victim against his will.

Jodka also faces a charge of assault, while Magincalda and Shumate also are charged with larceny.

The charges relate to the death of Awad in April. Prosecutors allege that Awad was kidnapped from his home and shot dead.

The accused Marines are alleged to have attempted to cover up the killing by planting a shovel and an AK-47 assault rifle next to the body in order to make it look as if Awad had been an insurgent planting a roadside bomb.

Neighbours and family members alleged Marines shot the 52-year-old disabled former Iraqi soldier because he had refused to act as an informer for coalition forces hunting members of the insurgency.

A relative of the dead man also claimed that an unidentified US soldier had later offered to pay the family an undisclosed sum in compensation provided they told investigators that Awad had been an insurgent.

Jodka, Magincalda and Shumate are among seven Marines and one navy corpsman charged in the killing. The remaining five suspects await preliminary hearings.

Charges of assault against a fourth Marine, lance-corporal Henry Lever, relating to a separate incident on April 10 were dismissed.

The Hamdaniya case is the first hearing relating to the conduct of Marines in Iraq to take place at Camp Pendleton, which is also expected to host hearings and trials for the deaths of 24 civilians in Haditha last November.




Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AFP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Agence France Presse.


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http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060925/ts_al...HE0BHNlYwN0bWE-

White House admits Iraq fuels extremism Mon Sep 25, 3:32 PM ET

The White House acknowledged that Iraq was among several factors that "fuel the spread of jihadism" but said that winning the war would dishearten potential terrorists.

Spokesman Tony Snow sought to challenge news reports on Sunday about the latest National Intelligence Estimate for Iraq, which represents the comprehensive consensus findings of the 16 US intelligence agencies.

"It assesses that a variety of factors, in addition to Iraq, fuel the spread of jihadism, including longstanding social grievances, slowness of the pace of reform, and the use of the Internet," he told reporters.

"And it also notes that should jihadists be perceived to have failed in Iraq, fewer will be inspired to carry on the fight," the spokesman said as US President George W. Bush traveled here for a political fundraiser.

On Sunday, the New York Times quoted an official familiar with the report, entitled "Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States," as saying that "the Iraq war has made the overall terrorism problem worse."

That contradicts frequent speeches by Bush ahead of November 7 legislative elections, in which the unpopular war in Iraq may cost his Republican party control of one or both houses of the US Congress.

The Washington Post said the report described the Iraq conflict as the primary recruiting vehicle for violent Islamic extremists.

While the US has seriously damaged Al-Qaeda and disrupted its ability to carry out major operations since the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington, it noted, radical Islamic networks have spread and decentralized.




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http://www.ft.com/cms/s/80766b90-4cbb-11db...00779e2340.html

US forces in Iraq to exceed 140,000
By Edward Luce in Washington

Published: September 25 2006 18:48 | Last updated: September 25 2006 18:48

US officials said on Monday that American troop levels in Iraq were likely to remain well above 140,000 for the next few months, although they would not confirm reports that the 3,500-strong First Armoured Division had been ordered to remain in Iraq beyond its official tour of duty.

Growing sectarian conflict between Iraqi militias in the last few months and the continuation of the mostly Sunni insurgency against US forces has complicated the Bush administration’s goal of “standing down as the Iraqis stand up”. The overall US troop presence in Iraq has risen from 127,000 in July to 142,000 this week.


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Last week John Abizaid, the US commander in the region, said that US troop deployment in Iraq was likely to remain at these levels well into 2007 in order to wrest Baghdad and other provinces from the day-to-day control of sectarian death squads and insurgent groups.

In August, General Abizaid, the most senior Arab-American in uniform who has a reputation for being a straight talker, surprised many when he told the Senate armed services committee that Iraq could be heading towards civil war. This contradicted the Bush administration’s view that the situation was gradually improving. As many as 20,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed in 2006 – although estimates vary drastically.

“The Bush administration has complicated its task in Iraq by talking up the rhetoric at home of ‘standing down as they stand up’,” said Tony Cordesmann, a senior analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “But in practice Mr Bush has responded to what the commanders are requesting on the ground, which is more troops and, to a lesser extent, more equipment.”

However, the increase in deployment comes amid growing complaints from senior generals about the overstretch of US military units, some of which have served more than one tour of duty in Iraq and also in Afghanistan, where US troop levels have also risen this year from 15,800 to 20,000 owing to the resurgence of Taliban forces.

There are also concerns about pressure to send regular military and National Guard units back to Iraq within the one-year pause that is customary. In addition, the army and National Guard have both recently relaxed recruiting standards by raising the maximum age and improving the one-off cash payment as an incentive for new recruits.

Worries about the Bush administration’s handling of the increasingly unpopular war in Iraq intensified at the weekend when the New York Times and Washington Post leaked contents of a classified US National Intelligence estimate from April that said America’s invasion of Iraq in 2003 had exacerbated the threat from Islamist terrorist groups.

The report, which was submitted to Mr Bush in April, also said that the overall threat from Islamist terror groups had grown since the attacks of September 11 2001.

The disclosure comes just six weeks before critical mid-term elections, where Mr Bush’s Republicans face the threat of losing control of the House of Representatives. The opposition Democrats have fielded a number of Iraq war veterans in order to bolster their credibility as patriotic critics of the war in Iraq.

Mr Bush has ignored continuing calls by retired US generals – most recently on Monday – to sack Donald Rumsfeld, secretary of defence, over his handling of the war in Iraq.



Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...6092500731.html

Three Retired Officers Demand Rumsfeld's Resignation

By William Branigin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, September 25, 2006; 5:14 PM

Three retired military officers who served in Iraq called today for the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, telling a Democratic "oversight hearing" on Capitol Hill that the Pentagon chief bungled planning for the U.S. invasion, dismissed the prospect of an insurgency and sent American troops into the fray with inadequate equipment.

The testimony by the three --two retired Army major generals and a former Marine colonel -- came a day after disclosure of a classified intelligence assessment that concluded the war in Iraq has fueled recruitment of violent Islamic extremists, helping to create a new generation of potential terrorists around the world and worsening the U.S. position.

In testimony before the Democratic Policy Committee today, retired Maj. Gen. John R.S. Batiste, who commanded the 1st Infantry Division in Iraq in 2004 and 2005 and served as a senior military assistant to former deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, charged that Rumsfeld and others in the Bush administration "did not tell the American people the truth for fear of losing support for the war in Iraq."

He told the committee, "If we had seriously laid out and considered the full range of requirements for the war in Iraq, we would likely have taken a different course of action that would have maintained a clear focus on our main effort in Afghanistan, not fueled Islamic fundamentalism across the globe, and not created more enemies than there were insurgents."

Joining his call for Rumsfeld to resign were retired Army Maj. Gen. Paul D. Eaton, who was responsible for training Iraq's military and police in 2003 and 2004, and retired Marine Col. Thomas X. Hammes, who served in Iraq in 2004 and helped establish bases for the reconstituted Iraqi armed forces.

Rumsfeld, appearing at a news briefing with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, rejected the demands for his resignation. Asked about the Capitol Hill hearing and whether he was considering stepping down, Rumsfeld shook his head slightly and mouthed the word "no" before calling for the next question.

Democrats today sought to make the most of the National Intelligence Assessment and of the retired officers' remarks at the hearing, which Democratic leaders said they had to hold by themselves outside the regular congressional process because of the Republican leadership's persistent "neglect" of oversight.

"On the heels of the disclosure that America's intelligence community has concluded that the war in Iraq has increased the terrorist threat, today's hearing deals a fatal blow to any claim that staying the current course is an acceptable strategy for success in Iraq," said a statement issued by the office of Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.).

Batiste charged in his testimony that Rumsfeld "is not a competent wartime leader" and surrounded himself with "compliant" subordinates.

"Secretary Rumsfeld ignored 12 years of U.S. Central Command deliberate planning and strategy, dismissed honest dissent, and browbeat subordinates to build 'his plan,' which did not address the hard work to crush the insurgency, secure a post-Saddam Iraq, build the peace and set Iraq up for self-reliance," Batiste said.

In addition, Rumsfeld "refused to acknowledge and even ignored the potential for the insurgency," the retired general said. "At one point, he threatened to fire the next person who talked about the need for a post-war plan," Batiste added.

"Secretary Rumsfeld's dismal strategic decisions resulted in the unnecessary deaths of American servicemen and women, our allies, and the good people of Iraq," Batiste said. "He was responsible for America and her allies going to war with the wrong plan and a strategy that did not address the realities of fighting an insurgency."

Eaton told the panel, "We went in with a bad plan," adding that "stay the course is not a strategy."

Hammes said removing the regime of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein "introduced major instability not just in Iraq, but in the greater Middle East." And while the Bush administration has repeatedly said the war in Iraq is critical to U.S. security, "it has asked nothing of the majority of U.S. citizens," he said.

"While asking major sacrifices, to include the ultimate sacrifice, from those Americans who are serving in Iraq, we are not even asking our fellow citizens to pay for the war," Hammes complained. "Instead we are charging it to our children and grandchildren."

Responding to critics who have charged that the National Intelligence Assessment shows the failure of Bush's Iraq war policy, the White House today sought to put the best face on the document, which was completed in April and disclosed in the news media Sunday.

"One thing that the reports do not say is that war in Iraq has made terrorism worse," White House spokesman Tony Snow said.

The National Intelligence Assessment "is not limited to Iraq," he told a news briefing. "The false impression has been created that the NIE focuses solely on Iraq and terrorism. This NIE examines global terrorism in its totality, the morphing of al-Qaeda and its affiliates and other jihadist movements. It assesses that a variety of factors, in addition to Iraq, fuel the spread of jihadism, including longstanding social grievances, slowness of the pace of reform and the use of the Internet. And it also notes that should jihadists be perceived to have failed in Iraq, fewer will be inspired to carry on the fight."

All these points already have been stated publicly by Bush, Snow asserted.

"Obviously, we're not going to go into what the classified report does say, but what we did see in the newspapers yesterday, the substance, is precisely what the president has been saying," he told reporters.

Separately, Vice President Cheney today accused Democrats of advancing a "strategy of resignation and defeatism in the face of determined enemies."

In a speech at a Republican fundraiser in Milwaukee, Cheney indicated that he was not backing away from national security issues despite Democrats' criticism that the administration has mishandled the war in Iraq.

"As we make our case to the voters in this election season, it's vital to keep issues of national security at the top of the agenda," Cheney told Wisconsin Republicans, Reuters news agency reported. He specifically criticized Reid, the Senate Democratic leader, as well as Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.) and Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean.

Reid replied in a statement, "When the U.S. intelligence community confirmed that America is losing the war on terror because of Bush failures in Iraq, this White House lost all credibility on matters of national security. With Iraq in a civil war, Afghanistan moving backwards and our own borders unsecured, it's clear George Bush and Dick Cheney are desperate to hide their record and distort the truth."

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Iraq war fuels Islamic radicals: retired U.S. general

Sep 25, 2006 — By Susan Cornwell

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The conduct of the Iraq war fueled Islamic fundamentalism across the globe and created more enemies for the United States, a retired U.S. Army general who served in the conflict said on Monday.

The views of retired Army Maj. Gen. John Batiste buttressed an assessment by U.S. intelligence agencies, which intelligence officials said concluded the war had inspired Islamist extremists and made the militant movement more dangerous.

The Iraq conflict, which began in March 2003, made "America arguably less safe now than it was on September 11, 2001," Batiste, who commanded the 1st Infantry Division in Iraq in 2004-2005, told a hearing on the war called by U.S. Senate Democrats.

"If we had seriously laid out and considered the full range of requirements for the war in Iraq, we would likely have taken a different course of action that would have maintained a clear focus on our main effort in Afghanistan, not fueled Islamic fundamentalism across the globe, and not created more enemies than there were insurgents," Batiste said.

Batiste, who was among retired generals who called for the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld earlier this year, poured scorn on the war plan along with two other retired military men at the Democrat-sponsored session.

They said the Pentagon let the insurgency grow by not sending enough U.S. troops and made enemies by abusing Iraqis.

"Probably 99 percent of those people were guilty of absolutely nothing," Batiste said of thousands of Iraqis that U.S. forces held at Abu Ghraib prison. "But the way we treated them, the way we abused them, turned them against the effort in Iraq forever."

At one point, retired Marine Corps Col. Thomas X. Hammes derisively referred to the U.S. Iraq strategy as "Whack-a-mole," a fairground game where the player uses a big hammer to swat at mechanical moles as they pop up from holes.

MORE TROOPS, MORE TIME

But their proposed solution was not the U.S. troop pullout sought by some Democrats. They urged more troops and time.

Hammes said the United States needed another 10 years to succeed in Iraq, while retired Army Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton said the Army needed another 60,000 troops to finish the job. There are 142,000 U.S. troops in Iraq.

Hammes helped establish bases for Iraqi armed forces in 2004, while Eaton trained Iraqi military and police in 2003-4.

Most Democrats are pushing for a plan to start withdrawing U.S. forces, but without a deadline to finish the withdrawal.

Democrats said the hearing would be the first of several on war oversight, which they charged the majority Republicans were neglecting. Republicans denounced the exercise as partisan.

Ahead of November elections in which control of Congress is at stake, Democrats have seized upon the National Intelligence Estimate to undermine the image fostered by President George W. Bush and Republicans as the party best able to stop terrorism.

The classified intelligence document said Iraq had become the main recruiting tool for the Islamic militant movement as well as a training ground for guerrillas, according to current and former intelligence officials familiar with it.

The White House contends that the parts that have been reported are not representative of the complete document.

"This NIE examines global terrorism and its totality, the morphing of al Qaeda and its affiliates and other jihadist movements," White House spokesman Tony Snow said. "It assesses that a variety of factors, in addition to Iraq, fuels a spread of jihadism, including long-standing social grievances, slowness of the pace of reform and the use of the Internet."

"One thing that the reports do not say is that the war in Iraq has made terrorism worse," Snow added.

Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas, Republican chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence, urged the administration to declassify the document.

(Additional reporting by David Morgan and Matt Spetalnick)


Copyright 2006 Reuters News Service. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Copyright © 2006 ABCNews Internet Ventures

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No Silent Majority for Bush

By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Tuesday, September 26, 2006; A21



What could prove to be the most important factor in the 2006 elections is overlooked because it is unseen: The Republicans cannot try to curry favor with a "silent majority" that favors the Iraq war because a majority of Americans, both vocal and quiet, have come to see the war as a mistake.

President Bush's defenders have cast opponents of the war as weak on terrorism. Yesterday, Vice President Cheney accused Democrats of "resignation and defeatism." But the charges have not taken hold, because most Americans don't agree with the premise linking the war on terror with the war in Iraq.

And blame for the failures in Iraq has fallen not on some liberal coterie supposedly holding our generals back but on the choices of civilians in a conservative administration. Those civilians, and their allies outside the administration, find themselves under increasing fire from leaders of the military and the intelligence services for bad planning, flawed analysis and unrealistic expectations.

Moreover, the tone of the opposition to this war is quite different from the tenor of some sections of the movement against the Vietnam War. Reaction to "hippie protesters," as the phrase went, allowed President Richard Nixon to pit a hardworking, patriotic "silent majority" -- it was one of the most politically potent phrases of his presidency -- against the privileged, the young and the media, whom his vice president Spiro Agnew memorably characterized as "effete snobs" and "nattering nabobs of negativism."

As the historian and Nixon biographer Stephen Ambrose noted, tiny minorities -- "they numbered less than 1 percent of the demonstrators," he wrote of a 1969 rally -- "waved Viet Cong flags . . . and even burned American flags" and served as "magnets to the television cameras." They were used to exemplify an entire movement.

By contrast, critics of the Iraq war, deeply influenced by the post-Sept. 11 climate of national solidarity, have been resolutely patriotic and pro-military. They have often chastised the administration for offering American troops too little in the way of body armor and armored vehicles, and for shortchanging veterans.

Among the most visible critics of the administration's approach have been generals, vets, parents with sons and daughters in the military, and foreign policy realists who think of themselves as moderate or even conservative opponents of what they see as the administration's radical direction.

That is why news over the weekend of a National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq is especially troublesome for Republican electoral chances. By finding that the war in Iraq has encouraged global terrorism and spawned a new generation of Islamic radicals, the report by 16 government intelligence services undercuts the administration's central argument that the Iraq war has made the United States safer.

Nor is there any way to dismiss the assessment as partisan, left-wing or unpatriotic. That high-level government officials have offered their own criticisms of the war's impact makes it difficult for Republicans to force the argument into a classic "he said-she said" framework in which facts can be set aside and the claims of critics dismissed as political.

It is no wonder that the administration immediately insisted that news reports were "not representative of the complete document," in the words of a White House spokesman. The phrase was a classic instance of the non-denial denial, a defensive response from an administration that has tried, with some success, to remain on offense on the terrorism issue all month.

The conventional, and accurate, view of this fall's elections is that Iraq is a Democratic issue and the broader war on terrorism is a Republican issue. Accordingly, Democrats such as Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid were understandably eager to point to the report as a commentary on the president's "repeated missteps in Iraq and his stubborn refusal to change course," as Reid put it Sunday.

But beneath the conventional account is a more revealing truth: that over the past four years, the burden of proof on the Iraq war has been turned on its head.

During the 2002 election campaign -- before the war had actually begun -- Democratic candidates all over the country fled the Iraq debate and feared raising any questions about Bush's national security choices. In 2006 it's the administration trying to keep Iraq out of the campaign and to move the public conversation to anything else as an alternative to an accounting for its war decisions that so many middle-of-the-road Americans now regret. There is no silent majority to bail the president out.

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For Democrats, Welcome Words on Rumsfeld -- if Not the War

By Dana Milbank
Tuesday, September 26, 2006; Page A02

Maj. Gen. John Batiste, the former commander of the Army's 1st Infantry Division in Iraq, had complained loudly about the handling of the Iraq war since he retired 11 months ago -- but no one invited him to present his views to Congress.

"I find that outrageous," the general said. "I have a sense for what I'm talking about."

Yesterday, Batiste got his moment -- sort of. Shunned by the Senate Armed Services Committee, Batiste and two other retired officers spoke before the Senate Democratic Policy Committee, a rump group with little legislative clout but access to a proper Senate hearing room. And Batiste made up for lost time.

"Donald Rumsfeld is not a competent wartime leader," said Batiste, wearing a pinstripe suit, calling himself a "lifelong Republican" and bearing a slight resemblance to Oliver North. "He surrounds himself with like-minded and compliant subordinates who do not grasp the importance of the principles of war, the complexities of Iraq or the human dimension of warfare. . . . Bottom line: His plan allowed the insurgency to take root and metastasize to where it is today."

Further, Batiste charged, Rumsfeld "reduced force levels to unacceptable levels, micromanaged the war" and created an environment where U.S. troops "are doing unconscionable things."

"Our world is much less safe today than it was on September 11," Batiste said, echoing the administration's newly leaked intelligence estimate.

Batiste, who retired in protest rather than accept a three-star promotion, was a persuasive witness -- and Democrats were joyous. "Your statement, I believe, defines the word 'courage,' " Sen. Byron Dorgan (N.D.) gushed. Sen. Charles Schumer (N.Y.) pumped his fist and gave Batiste and his colleagues pats on the biceps. And Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) proclaimed, giddily: "This hearing today could change our country."

Perhaps. But Democrats, while celebrating Batiste's criticism of the administration, exercised some selective listening at the hearing when Batiste and his colleagues offered their solution: more troops, more money and more time in Iraq.

"We must mobilize our country for a protracted challenge," Batiste warned.

"We better be planning for at least a minimum of a decade or longer," contributed retired Marine Col. Thomas Hammes.

"We are, conservatively, 60,000 soldiers short," added retired Army Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, who was in charge of building the Iraqi Security Forces.

That last remark caused Schumer to shake his head, indicating he was not so sure. And, indeed, the retired officers' recommendations were off-message for the Democrats. Six of the seven Democrats at the hearing supported legislation calling for the start of a troop withdrawal from Iraq this year. One, Richard Durbin (Ill.), voted for the pullout to be mostly complete by next summer.

The officers' bipartisan scolding disappointed some of the antiwar activists in the crowd, who wore colorful shirts with messages such as "Troops Home Fast" and "Say No to War."

"Peace is the solution, not more war," one activist shouted as the session ended.
But on balance, the retired officers' strong words about the war's conduct outweighed their calls for a greater commitment to Iraq. "Secretary Rumsfeld built his team by systematically removing dissension," Batiste said. "At one point, he threatened to fire the next person who talked about the need for a postwar plan."

Rumsfeld "has tried and continues to fight this war on the cheap," Eaton added. "The Army is in terrible shape, and the Marines aren't much better."

"It is time for him to provide the nation the last in a long series of services and step down," Hammes said coolly.

Rumsfeld himself, meeting with Afghanistan's president yesterday, answered the dissidents' calls for his resignation with a two-word answer. "I'm not," he told reporters, and then he asked for a different question.

But those at the hearing practiced no such economy of words. Dorgan twice referred to William Manchester's "Glory and the Dream." Antiwar Rep. Walter Jones (N.C.), the lone Republican participant, quoted Rudyard Kipling: If any question why we died/ Tell them, because our fathers lied.

In between literary allusions, senators worked to squeeze every possible criticism out of the witnesses. When Batiste spoke about the need for strong leadership, Durbin tried to lead the witness. "What I hear you saying," Durbin said, "is we're talking about political competence, too."

"Absolutely," Batiste complied.

The questioners skillfully directed the witnesses toward past failures rather than their expansive prescriptions for the future. A notable exception was the relatively hawkish Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.), who, as the last questioner, invited the officers to comment on the effect of a specific withdrawal date.

"The result will be a civil war of some magnitude that will turn into a regional mess," Batiste said without hesitation.

As he stood to leave, Batiste worried that this last point -- the need to stay in Iraq -- might be overlooked. "The hard part," he told reporters, "is moving forward."

Did he detect any enthusiasm for making a bigger effort in Iraq?

"God help us if there's not," the general said.

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I have to listen to these gentlemen, cause they earned it...