Iraqi Soldiers Begin Sweep in Northern Iraq
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, Nov. 16, 2006 – Iraqi soldiers swept a northern area in Iraq yesterday with the help of U.S. and coalition forces, military officials reported.

Meanwhile, Iraqi police and coalition forces captured cell members in separate raids in Baghdad, and terrorists trying to set a roadside bomb blew themselves up western Mosul.

More than 1,000 Iraqi soldiers with the 2nd Brigade, 4th Iraqi Army Division, and coalition forces began conducting cordon-and-search operations in the Zytoon and Rashad valleys yesterday to clear several villages of possible insurgents and unauthorized weapons near Iraq's northern city of Kirkuk.

Insurgent forces were reported to be operating in the area, including a recent attack on a combined Iraqi and coalition patrol. The 2nd Iraqi Army Division brigade plans to maintain a formal presence in the area to deny sanctuary to enemy fighters and protect the civilians in southern parts of the Kirkuk province, officials said.

In Ramadi, forces from the 7th Iraqi Army Division, with coalition advisors, conducted a raid Nov. 14 to capture members of a kidnapping and murder cell responsible for abducting, torturing and murdering Iraqi civilian and Iraqi security forces. The cell members also are responsible for placing roadside bombs, officials said. Eight suspects were detained during the raid.

Coalition frces captured six insurgents and detained another suspect in a separate raid in the Al Doura area of Baghdad on Nov 13. The insurgent cell is responsible for deadly attacks against Iraqi civilians and Iraqi security forces in the area and is linked to Al Qaeda in Iraq and other insurgent groups, officials said.

Also on Nov. 13, three terrorists were killed and one was seriously wounded when they tried to plant a roadside bomb in the Baghdad Garage neighborhood on Train Station Road in western Mosul. Two innocent bystanders, injured in the blast, were transported to Al Jamouri Hospital.

(Compiled from Multinational Corps Iraq news releases.)

Related Sites:
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Baker v. AIPAC and its religious right allies on Iran
ARTICLE: "For Evangelicals, Supporting Israel Is 'God's Foreign Policy,'" by David D. Kirkpatrick, New York Times, 14 November 2006, p. A1.
ARTICLE: "Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Maintain Tough Front on Iran," by Jum Rutenberg, New York Times, 14 November 2006, p. A6.

ARTICLE: "Blair Urges Strategy Change In Mideast, Spotlighting Iran," by Alan Cowell, New York Times 14 November 2006, p. A11.

ARTICLE: "Iraqi Premier and U.S. General Discuss Syria and Iran," by Sabrina Tavernise and Qais Mizher, New York Times, 14 November 2006, p. A11.

Some serious testing of the U.S.-Israeli relationship is at hand, with Bush '43 in the middle. Hitler analogies abound, and Baker is seen for what he is: a pragmatist who will put America's needs before Israel's desire for a zero-deductible policy on Iran's nuclear threat.

I mean, when you get James Dobson talking about "covenant land," Sam Harris' stuff starts looking a whole lot more reasonable.

In my opinion, we simply owe it to the people of Iraq and our troops there to salvage what we can of the Bush Big Bang strategy of fostering change in the region, and given where we are today in Iraq, a regionalization of the security agenda makes the most sense. Hell, Iran's reach for the bomb basically mandates it.

But Israel will naturally fight this approach, because it calls into question the zero-deductible strategic security guarantee from the U.S., which basically requires us to keep Israel as the sole nuclear power in the region with fully committed back-up from the United States.

We will have no great movement toward stability in the region with that approach, because it's simply so lop-sided in our favor that it naturally generates balancing against our interests within the region and depresses the desires of other Core powers to come into the region on our side (why bulk up the already dominate hand whose recent behavior and choices makes you more nervous about your nation's ability to access the region's energy in a secure fashion over coming years?). It also naturally incentivizes Iran's reach for the bomb and Iran's and Syria's active support of violence inside Iraq, not to mention both nations' use of proxy war against Israel.

So we're effectively being painted into a corner here: defend Israel at all costs against all comers and--by doing so--resurrect and recast in concrete all the negative regional security dynamics (not to mention the realist strategy of supporting dictators) that got us Al Qaeda and 9/11 in the first place (thus totally negating all sacrifice rendered to date in pursuit of the Big Bang) or secure what we can for now on the Big Bang (Iraq) and build the multilateral security dialogue that puts everything on the table and gets us back to a soft-kill connectivity strategy on Syria and Iran and puts us back in the business of pushing economic connectivity between the region and the outside world.

"Staying the course" or reverting back to old patterns of behavior vis-a-vis Israel will put America squarely in the camp of accepting the region's current lack of economic connectivity with the outside world and encouraging the Salafi jihadist movement to seek to depress that minimal connectivity even further with regime destabilizing terrorism.

Whether Bush recognizes this or not (and I suspect he does not), he himself is becoming the biggest threat to the Big Bang strategy by allowing an irrational defense of Israel's security desires to again resurface (something his father and Baker never did).

When Israel hunkers down and refuses to engage regionally, the terrorism simply comes to it, and the same will happen to a United States that apes this misguided approach.

Militias Must Be Dealt With on Security, Political Fronts, Officials Say
By Sgt. Sara Wood, USA
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, Nov. 16, 2006 – Illegal armed militias are one of the biggest challenges facing stability efforts in Iraq, but they cannot be defeated by military efforts alone, two of the top U.S. officials who deal with Iraq said here yesterday.

The only way to effectively deal with militias is to combine military efforts with serious political reconciliation, Army Gen. John P. Abizaid, commander of U.S. Central Command, and David M. Satterfield, senior advisor to the secretary of state and coordinator for Iraq, said while testifying before the House Armed Services Committee.

"I think that militia units and militia organizations that are involved in death squads must be killed or captured," Abizaid said during questioning. "I believe that those militia forces that are willing to come into the process can come into the process of demobilization and disarmament, provided that we show a will to do that on the Iraqi governmental side. I think it is absolutely essential that there only be one security institution in Iraq, ultimately, and that be the Iraqi army and police forces."

The challenge of stopping illegal militias lies first with the Iraqi security forces, who must quell the violence rocking Iraq's streets, Satterfield said. But, he added, lasting stability will only be achieved through a political reconciliation that includes disarmament and demobilization of militias. The reintegration process for militias must include an amnesty program that gives members incentives for returning to normal society, he said.

To achieve true national reconciliation, the Iraqi government must prove to its security forces and its people that it is a non-sectarian entity committed to a peaceful Iraq, Abizaid and Satterfield agreed. Abizaid stressed that he believes Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is a true patriot capable of uniting the country and ending the violence.

"I believe, contrary to what a lot of other people believe, that he is an Iraqi patriot, that he will lead the country, that he will take on the militias, that he will build an armed forces, that they will take the lead," Abizaid said.

Maliki has already shown willingness to confront the militias, particularly in the Sadr City area of Baghdad, Abizaid noted. He pointed out Maliki's swift response to the mass kidnappings in the Karrada district Nov. 14, when the government immediately ordered its armed forces into the area, released many of the people who were kidnapped, and arrested some perpetrators dressed in national police uniforms.

Maliki also has told his Ministry of Interior to clean up sectarian problems in the national police, and many units have been retrained and people dismissed as a result, Abizaid said.

Illegal militias need to be defeated so the Iraqi people can have confidence in their armed forces, Abizaid said. Right now, some Iraqis aren't convinced that the coalition wants the Iraqi forces in the lead, he said. "The key point is that people in Iraq must come to trust their armed forces and their national police over and above the militia units that are operating in and amongst them," he said.

Iraqi forces are responsible for disarming the militias, but coalition troops will engage anyone they encounter on patrol who is considered hostile and not a uniformed member of the security forces, Abizaid said.

Iraqi forces are capable of taking over the security for their own country, but the U.S. must invest more resources into military transition teams that work with Iraqi units, Abizaid said. The Army and Marine Corps have done a good job of developing transition teams with cultural backgrounds, but the teams need to be more robust in order to be effective, he said.

Al Qaeda in Iraq has lost most of its popular support, and the problem now is mostly sectarian in nature, Abizaid and Satterfield said. Eliminating illegal militias is a huge step that needs to be taken in unifying the country and bringing lasting peace, they said.

"Confronting all of the militias, wherever they are engaged in violence, is an essential element here," Satterfield said. "It has to be pursued. Failure to do so will have consequences first and foremost on Prime Minister Maliki and his government, on their relevancy, on their credibility, on their ability to address a process of disintegration, which in the end challenges everything that we and Iraqis would define as success."

Pentagon travel system hardly being used
By LARRY MARGASAK, Associated Press WriterThu Nov 16, 4:17 AM ET
The Pentagon that gave taxpayers a $434 hammer and a $600 toilet seat cover now has a half-billion-dollar travel booking system that is bypassed by more than eight in 10 users.

Senate investigators found the Pentagon's Web-based product — despite its high price tag — fails to find the cheapest airfares, offers an incomplete list of flights and hotels and won't recognize travel categories used by the National Guard and Reserves.

The investigators found that Defense Department travelers are contacting professional travel agents to find their hotels, flights and rental cars, and then using the computer system to enter those choices. Once the system is activated at an installation, travelers must use it to make their reservations, the Pentagon said.

The result: a half-hour booking process that, according to testimony before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, would take travel professionals only five minutes.

The Defense Travel System was designed as the Pentagon's moneysaving version of an Internet travel site, where a traveler can make reservations without the need for fee-based travel agents.

The subcommittee, in checks this year of 41 military installations and the Pentagon, found that 83 percent of travelers have been contacting professional travel agents before entering the information in the new system. Investigators said they checked 755,000 trips between January and September.

At the Pentagon, less than 20 percent of travelers used the Defense Travel System as intended, without the travel agents. Virtually no travelers used the system at Dugway Proving Grounds in Utah, and Fort Leavenworth, Kan., investigators found.

The investigators and Congress' Government Accountability Office are now questioning the Pentagon estimates of how much it saved by replacing the old paper form system with the expensive computerized one.

A senator plans legislation to force the Pentagon to use travel agents, saying military staff is wasting too much time using the cumbersome new system and therefore erasing any cost savings.

Sen. Norm Coleman (news, bio, voting record), R-Minn., chairman of the investigative panel, said the Pentagon's idea of eliminating travel agents "would be the same as directing all DoD personnel to speak Arabic in order to save money on translation services.

"DoD is claiming the savings from reduced travel agent fees without considering the cost of having the troops do the work," Coleman said.

Pentagon officials insist the new system is working well.

"If my boss said I had to leave in a couple of hours, I could do that," said Marine Maj. Stewart Upton, a Pentagon spokesman. "The future is in Internet booking. The system is effective, it's efficient, it gives you options on airlines, rental car agencies and hotels. We're very impressed."

For 2006, the Pentagon estimated savings at between $13.9 million and $33.4 million. After 2007, the savings would range between $56 million and $177 million annually, with recent estimates supporting the higher figure, the Pentagon said.

But the cost of the Defense Travel System has skyrocketed. It grew from an initial estimate of $263 million to $474 million, bringing to mind some of the Pentagon's classic wasteful expenditures.

Coleman said further efforts to save the computer system are a waste. "I am appalled that DoD did not pull the plug on the travel function" of the new system long before now, he said.

The contract was awarded in 1998 to a company that is now part of Northrop Grumman Mission Systems.

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On the Net:

Defense Travel System: http://www.dtstravelcenter.dod.mil

Just wait for a more convenient truth, urges PM


Mark Metherell
November 14, 2006

The Prime Minister, John Howard, is proposing his own inconvenient truth after finding the movie of that name not to his liking.

An Inconvenient Truth, starring the former US vice-president Al Gore, "showed a degree of the peeved politician [with] the constant jibes at the Bush Administration," Mr Howard said yesterday. He urged Australians who think nuclear power is a "horrific thought" to consider the forthcoming report which is expected to find that nuclear power will become more economical as the cost of reducing greenhouse emissions makes coal-fired electricity more expensive.

Mr Howard, who is believed to have seen An Inconvenient Truth only recently, said he did not need to be persuaded of the need to reduce greenhouse gases.

But he said "it is not going to overwhelm us tomorrow, we are not going to drown in the sea in a couple of weeks' time … we have to be sensible and measured and calm in our responses…"

His remarks came as an expert report on uranium found that ill-informed community suspicion of the radioactive mineral has added to the obstacles in development of Australia's uranium industry.

"The opposition, however, is mainly due to a significant misalignment between public concern and the objective risk. While risks from uranium are carefully measured and relatively low, the public perception of risk is relatively high," says the Government-commissioned report by the Uranium Industry Framework group, chaired by the Melbourne engineer and industrialist, Dr John White.

The report calls for a national "stewardship" plan to ensure Australia's huge uranium deposits - the world's largest - are developed to maximise value and minimise risks to safety, the environment and community. It calls for reforms to remove constraints on the transport of uranium in Australia and internationally, for steps to maximise the benefits for indigenous communities affected by uranium mining, and for more effective community education about uranium.

It says that the level of regulation of the Australian uranium industry "may add to the perceived level of risk associated with uranium mining and perhaps hinders the public's understanding of the actual level of risk".

Alec Marr, of the Wilderness Society, said the intent of the report was to run a massive campaign for the nuclear industry.