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January 6, 2008Use of these news articles does not reflect official endorsement.

Reproduction for private use or gain is subject to original copyright restrictions.Story numbers indicate order of appearance only.

PAKISTAN1. U.S. Considers New Covert Push Within Pakistan

(New York Times)....Steven Lee Myers, David E. Sanger and Eric SchmittPresident Bush’s senior national security advisers are debating whether to expand the authority of the CentralIntelligence Agency and the military to conduct far more aggressive covert operations in the tribal areas of Pakistan.

2. Musharraf Apparently Riding Out Crisis(Los Angeles Times)....Laura KingThe Pakistani leader was in a precarious position even before Bhutto's death, and he has taken steps to shore up hisposition.

3. U.S. Relying On Two In People's Party To Help Stabilize Pakistan(Washington Post)....Robin Wright and Griff WitteWith the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the Bush administration is now depending on two politicians -- oneaccused in the 1990s of being a crook and the other still viewed as almost powerless -- to help prop up PresidentPervez Musharraf and stabilize volatile Pakistan, according to U.S. officials, regional experts and Pakistanis.

4. Musharraf Says Bhutto To Blame For Her Death(San Diego Union-Tribune)....Reuters...Musharraf also was quoted as telling the CBS “60 Minutes” program to be broadcast tonight that his governmentdid everything it could to provide security for Bhutto, assassinated Dec. 27 in a gun-and-suicide-bomb attack after apolitical rally.

5. Bhutto's Husband Seeks A U.N. Probe Of Killing(Philadelphia Inquirer)....Ravi Nessman, Associated PressBenazir Bhutto's widower accused members of Pakistan's regime of involvement in his wife's killing and calledyesterday for a U.N. investigation as British officers aiding Pakistan's own probe pored over the crime scene.

6. Democracy Gets Small Portion Of U.S. Aid(Washington Post)....Glenn KesslerTwo years before Benazir Bhutto was assassinated while leading her Pakistan People's Party in its campaign againstthe rule of President Pervez Musharraf, the Bush administration devoted this much new aid money to strengthenpolitical parties in Pakistan: $0.

IRAQ7. Officials Say Iraqi Soldier Killed 2 U.S. Soldiers

(New York Times)....Richard A. Oppel Jr. and Stephen FarrellTwo American soldiers killed last month during an operation in the northern city of Mosul appear to have beendeliberately shot to death by an Iraqi soldier on patrol with them, senior Iraqi officers said on Saturday.

8. Iraq's Middle Class Is Languishing(Los Angeles Times)....Tina Susman and Raheem SalmanMany skilled professionals have fled, but those who remain find few suitable jobs that pay a living wage.

9. Baghdad's Book Market Perseveres(San Diego Union-Tribune)....Hamza Hendawi, Associated Press...The revival of the Mutanabi Street book market is a microcosm of today's Baghdad.

DEFENSE DEPARTMENT10. Military Striving To Fix Health Care Ills

(Charleston (SC) Post and Courier)....Jill ColeyNegative press dogged the Department of Defense's health affairs in 2007. Reports of neglect came out of WalterReed Army Medical Center in Washington. Stories followed of bureaucratic nightmares, and concerns for troopsreturning with mental disorders made headlines.

ARMY11. Blurring Of U.S. Interrogation Policy Complicates Challenge

(Arizona Republic (Phoenix))....Dennis Wagner...The Army, which runs Fort Huachuca, insists it will not tolerate abuse or coercion in interrogations and is instillingthat philosophy in its trainees. In exercises at Fort Huachuca, interrogators instead are taught "persuasive methods,"such as psychological ploys and ruses to coax or pressure suspects into divulging information in the war on terror.

12. Army Lets A Felon Join Up, But The New York Police Will Not(New York Times)....C. J. Chivers and William K. Rashbaum...The rejection of Specialist Hernandez underscores the inconsistencies in the standards for uniformed service in thecountry’s many different police and military services, and the conundrums resulting from the varying rules.

13. Army Agrees To $420 Million Housing Deal For Local Posts(Fairbanks Daily News-Miner)....Chris EshlemanThe Army reported Friday that it has chosen a company for exclusive negotiations in a plan to privatize construction,maintenance and operation of housing on its Fort Wainwright and Fort Greely posts.

14. Bombs Unearthed On School Site(Atlanta Journal-Constitution)....UnattributedOfficials in Orlando, Fla., recovered more than 400 pounds of World War II-era bombs and munitions from groundsaround a middle school built on a site used by the Army in the 1940s to train bombardiers.

15. U.S. Army Faces Spectrum Crunch(Defense News)....Kris OsbornWithin five years, the U.S. Army may have too little radio spectrum to allow its next-generation, networked force towork as it is being designed to do, the service’s outgoing procurement chief said.

MARINE CORPS16. Jury Pool For MCRD Trials Not Very Deep

(San Diego Union-Tribune)....Steve LiewerWhen Sgt. Robert Hankins goes to trial tomorrow on charges that he abused men under his supervision at MarineCorps Recruit Depot in San Diego, he'll probably be staring at a jury full of familiar faces.

AIR FORCE17. New Bunker-Buster Fitted Aboard Stealth B-2 Bomber

(Mideast Stars and Stripes)....Lisa BurgessThe Air Force’s deep-earth “bunker-buster” weapon is one step closer to reality, now that engineers have testedmodifications to the B-2 bomber to carry two of the 30,000-pound bombs.

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NATIONAL GUARD/RESERVE18. National Guard Officer With Local Ties Cited For Bravery In Iraq

(Norfolk Virginian-Pilot)....Louis HansenA Richmond-area police officer has been awarded a Silver Star for valorous actions in Iraq while deployed with hisArmy National Guard unit.

AFGHANISTAN19. Afghan Clerics Warn Karzai Against Missionaries

(New York Times)....ReutersAfghanistan’s Islamic council has told President Hamid Karzai to stop foreign aid groups from converting localpeople to Christianity and has demanded the reintroduction of public executions.

20. Expelled British Envoys Tried To Turn Taliban Chief(London Sunday Times)....Dean NelsonTWO British diplomats expelled from Afghanistan over the Christmas holiday were trying to “turn” a senior Talibancommander, it has emerged.

AFRICA21. U.S. Has Big Stake In Steering Kenya Back From Brink

(Chicago Tribune)....Paul SalopekCountry reeling from postelection violence is strategically vital in counterterrorism and aid efforts in the volatileHorn of Africa.

MIDEAST22. Israel Warns Of Iranian Missile Peril For Europe

(London Sunday Telegraph)....Carolynne WheelerIran is developing nuclear missiles capable of reaching beyond its enemies in the Middle East to Europe, PresidentGeorge Bush will be warned when he visits Israel and the Palestinian territories for the first time since entering theWhite House.

EUROPE23. Government Undecided On U.S. Missile Shield

(Washington Post)....UnattributedPoland is in no rush to decide on hosting a U.S. anti-missile base before U.S. elections, because the next WhiteHouse administration could scuttle the project, Poland's foreign minister said Saturday.

24. Exit Polling Suggests Election Victory For Georgia's Pro-Western President(New York Times)....Andrew E. Kramer...Also on the ballot was a referendum on Georgia’s bid to join NATO, which was expected to pass.

INTELLIGENCE25. How The U.S. Seeks To Avert Nuclear Terror

(Los Angeles Times)....Ralph VartabedianScientists scan cities. Response teams are ready. And if there were a lethal device, experts would work on tracing thesource.

26. For Sale: West's Deadly Nuclear Secrets(London Sunday Times)....UnattributedA WHISTLEBLOWER has made a series of extraordinary claims about how corrupt government officials allowedPakistan and other states to steal nuclear weapons secrets.

TERRORISM

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27. Al Qaeda Videos Available On Cell Phones(Washington Times)....Paul Schemm, Associated PressAl Qaeda video messages of Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri can now be downloaded to cell phones, theterrorist network announced as part of its attempts to extend its influence.

MOVIES28. Area Filmmaker Shows Troops' Good Works

(Charlottesville (VA) Daily Progress)....Bryan McKenzieCharlottesville-based filmmaker Scott Mactavish’s new documentary depicts courage and character amongAmerican military personnel in a response to what he calls Hollywood portrayals of American troops as rapacious,homicidal sociopaths.

BUSINESS29. Defense Spending In State Is Growing, But At A Slower Rate

(Arizona Republic (Phoenix))....Max JarmanThe growth of military spending in Arizona slowed in 2006 as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan caused thegovernment to put off many longer-range projects.

OPINION30. Into Africa Without A Map

(Washington Post)....David IgnatiusLast week's tribal violence in Kenya reminds us of the severe social and political problems facing Africa. But isgreater involvement by the U.S. military the answer to these African challenges?

31. Kenya Too Important To Let Collapse(Baltimore Sun)....Jonathan Stevenson...East Africa and the Horn of Africa constitute a strategically critical region that includes a failed state in Somalia,the defiant and repressive Islamist government of Sudan, insurgency-plagued Uganda, two countries ever poised forwar in Ethiopia and Eritrea, and slowly rising Islamic radicalism throughout.

32. How Safe Are Pakistan's Nukes?(Philadelphia Inquirer)....Trudy RubinEver since 9/11, the nightmare scenario for American security has been the possibility that terrorists could obtainnuclear weapons.

33. The Battle For Pakistan(Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)....Jack KellyPakistan reminds us that in foreign policy, often the only choices we have are between bad and worse.

34. Iraq's Unknown Economy(Washington Times)....Michael O'HanlonWhile Iraq's security situation improves dramatically, and its political scene muddles along with only very limitedand mostly local steps toward gradual Sunni-Shia-Kurd rapprochement, what is happening on the economic side?

35. Nuclear Credulity(Washington Post)....Carolyn LeddyPaying off terrorists doesn't work; it only encourages more terrorism. The same is true with nuclear proliferators.

36. Why I Believe Bush Must Go(Washington Post)....George McGovern...Ironically, while Bush and Cheney made counterterrorism the battle cry of their administration, their policies --especially the war in Iraq -- have increased the terrorist threat and reduced the security of the United States.

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New York TimesJanuary 6, 2008Pg. 11. U.S. Considers NewCovert Push WithinPakistanBy Steven Lee Myers, DavidE. Sanger and Eric Schmitt

WASHINGTON —President Bush’s seniornational security advisers aredebating whether to expand theauthority of the CentralIntelligence Agency and themilitary to conduct far moreaggressive covert operations inthe tribal areas of Pakistan.

The debate is a response tointelligence reports that AlQaeda and the Taliban areintensifying efforts there todestabilize the Pakistanigovernment, several senioradministration officials said.

Vice President DickCheney, Secretary of StateCondoleezza Rice and anumber of President Bush’s topnational security advisers metFriday at the White House todiscuss the proposal, which ispart of a broad reassessment ofAmerican strategy after theassassination 10 days ago ofthe Pakistani opposition leaderBenazir Bhutto. There was alsotalk of how to handle theperiod from now to the Feb. 18elections, and the aftermath ofthose elections.

Several of the participantsin the meeting argued that thethreat to the government ofPresident Pervez Musharrafwas now so grave that both Mr.Musharraf and Pakistan’s newmilitary leadership were likelyto give the United States morelatitude, officials said. But nodecisions were made, said theofficials, who declined tospeak for attribution because ofthe highly delicate nature ofthe discussions.

Many of the specificoptions under discussion areunclear and highly classified.Officials said that the optionswould probably involve theC.I.A. working with themilitary’s Special Operationsforces.

The Bush administration

has not formally presented anynew proposals to Mr.Musharraf, who gave up hismilitary role last month, or tohis successor as the army chief,Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani,who the White House thinkswill be more sympathetic to theAmerican position than Mr.Musharraf. Early in his career,General Kayani was an aide toMs. Bhutto while she wasprime minister and later led thePakistani intelligence service.

But at the White Houseand the Pentagon, officials seean opportunity in the changingpower structure for theAmericans to advocate for theexpanded authority in Pakistan,a nuclear-armed country.“After years of focusing onAfghanistan, we think theextremists now see a chancefor the big prize — creatingchaos in Pakistan itself,” onesenior official said.

The new options forexpanded covert operationsinclude loosening restrictionson the C.I.A. to strike selectedtargets in Pakistan, in somecases using intelligenceprovided by Pakistani sources,officials said. Mostcounterterrorism operations inPakistan have been conductedby the C.I.A.; in Afghanistan,where military operations areunder way, including somewith NATO forces, the militarycan take the lead.

The legal status would notchange if the administrationdecided to act moreaggressively. However, if theC.I.A. were given broaderauthority, it could call for helpfrom the military or deputizesome forces of the SpecialOperations Command to actunder the authority of theagency.

The United States now hasabout 50 soldiers in Pakistan.Any expanded operations usingC.I.A. operatives or SpecialOperations forces, like theNavy Seals, would be smalland tailored to specificmissions, military officialssaid.

Defense Secretary RobertM. Gates, who was on vacation

last week and did not attend theWhite House meeting, said inlate December that “Al Qaedaright now seems to have turnedits face toward Pakistan andattacks on the Pakistanigovernment and Pakistanipeople.”

In the past, theadministration has largelystayed out of the tribal areas, inpart for fear that exposure ofany American-led operationsthere would so embarrass theMusharraf government that itcould further empower hiscritics, who have declared hewas too close to Washington.

Even now, officials say,some in the State Departmentargue that American-ledmilitary operations on thePakistani side of the borderwith Afghanistan could resultin a tremendous backlash andultimately do more harm thangood. That is particularly true,they say, if Americans werecaptured or killed in theterritory.

In part, the White Housediscussions may be driven by adesire for another effort tocapture or kill Osama binLaden and his deputy, Aymanal-Zawahri. Currently, C.I.A.operatives and SpecialOperations forces have limitedauthority to conductcounterterrorism missions inPakistan based on specificintelligence about thewhereabouts of those two men,who have eluded the Bushadministration for more thansix years, or of other membersof their terrorist organization,Al Qaeda, hiding in or near thetribal areas.

The C.I.A. has launchedmissiles from Predator aircraftin the tribal areas several times,with varying degrees ofsuccess. Intelligence officialssaid they believed that inJanuary 2006 an airstrikenarrowly missed killing Mr.Zawahri, who had attended adinner in Damadola, aPakistani village. But thatapparently was the last realevidence American officialshad about the whereabouts oftheir chief targets.

Critics said more directAmerican military actionwould be ineffective, anger thePakistani Army and increasesupport for the militants. “I’mnot arguing that you leave AlQaeda and the Talibanunmolested, but I’d be very,very cautious about approachesthat could play into hands ofenemies and becounterproductive,” said BruceHoffman, a terrorism expert atGeorgetown University.American diplomats in SouthAsia have also issued strongwarnings against expandeddirect American action,officials said.

Hasan-Askari Rizvi, aleading Pakistani military andpolitical analyst, said raids byAmerican troops would prompta powerful popular backlashagainst Mr. Musharraf and theUnited States.

In the wake of theAmerican invasions of Iraq andAfghanistan, many Pakistanissuspect that the United Statesis trying to dominate Pakistanas well, Mr. Rizvi said. Mr.Musharraf — who is alreadywidely unpopular — wouldlose even more popularsupport.

“At the moment whenMusharraf is extremelyunpopular, he will face morecrisis,” Mr. Rizvi said. “Thiswill weaken Musharraf in aPakistani context.” He saidsuch raids would be seen as anoverall vote of no confidencein the Pakistani military,including General Kayani.

The meeting on Friday,which was not publiclyannounced, included Stephen J.Hadley, Mr. Bush’s nationalsecurity adviser; Adm. MikeMullen, chairman of the JointChiefs of Staff; and topintelligence officials.

Spokesmen for the WhiteHouse, the C.I.A. and thePentagon declined to discussthe meeting, citing a policyagainst doing so. But thesession reflected an urgentconcern that a new Qaedahaven was solidifying in partsof Pakistan and needed to becountered, one official said.

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Although some officialsand experts have criticized Mr.Musharraf and questioned hisability to take on extremists,Mr. Bush has remainedsteadfast in his support, and itis unlikely any new measures,including direct Americanmilitary action inside Pakistan,will be approved without Mr.Musharraf’s consent.

“He understands clearlythe risks of dealing withextremists and terrorists,” Mr.Bush said in an interview withReuters on Thursday. “Afterall, they’ve tried to kill him.”

The Pakistan governmenthas identified a militant leaderwith links to Al Qaeda,Baitullah Mehsud, who holdssway in tribal areas near theAfghanistan border, as thechief suspect behind the attackon Ms. Bhutto. Americanofficials are not certain aboutMr. Mehsud’s complicity butsay the threat he and othermilitants pose is a new focus.He is considered, they said, an“Al Qaeda associate.”

In an interview withforeign journalists onThursday, Mr. Musharrafwarned of the risk anycounterterrorism forces —American or Pakistani — facedin confronting Mr. Mehsud inhis native tribal areas.

“He is in South Waziristanagency, and let me tell you,getting him in that place meansbattling against thousands ofpeople, hundreds of peoplewho are his followers, theMehsud tribe, if you get tohim, and it will mean collateraldamage,” Mr. Musharraf said.

The weeks beforeparliamentary elections —which were originallyscheduled for Tuesday — areseen as critical because ofthreats by extremists to disruptthe vote. But it seemedunlikely that any additionalAmerican effort would beapproved and put in place inthat time frame.

Administration aides saidthat Pakistani and Americanofficials shared the concernabout a resurgent Qaeda, andthat American diplomats and

senior military officers hadbeen working closely with theirPakistani counterparts to helpbolster Pakistan’scounterterrorism operations.

Shortly after Ms. Bhutto’sassassination, Adm. William J.Fallon, who oversees Americanmilitary operations inSouthwest Asia, telephoned hisPakistani counterparts toensure that counterterrorismand logistics operationsremained on track.

In early December, Adm.Eric T. Olson, the new leaderof the Special OperationsCommand, paid his secondvisit to Pakistan in threemonths to meet with seniorPakistani officers, including Lt.Gen. Muhammad MasoodAslam, commander of themilitary and paramilitarytroops in northwest Pakistan.Admiral Olson also visited theheadquarters of the FrontierCorps, a paramilitary force ofabout 85,000 membersrecruited from border tribesthat the United States isplanning to help train andequip.

But the Pakistanis are stillyears away from fielding aneffective counterinsurgencyforce. And some Americanofficials, including DefenseSecretary Gates, have said theUnited States may have to takedirect action against militantsin the tribal areas.

American officials said thecrisis surrounding Ms. Bhutto’sassassination had notdiminished the Pakistanicounterterrorism operations,and there were no signs thatMr. Musharraf had pulled outany of his 100,000 forces in thetribal areas and brought themto the cities to help control theurban unrest.

Carlotta Gall contributedreporting from Islamabad, andDavid Rohde from New York.

Los Angeles TimesJanuary 6, 2008Pg. 12. MusharrafApparently Riding Out

CrisisThe Pakistani leader was in aprecarious position evenbefore Bhutto's death, and hehas taken steps to shore up hisposition.By Laura King, Los AngelesTimes Staff Writer

RAWALPINDI,PAKISTAN — Candlesflicker, petals scatter andbouquets slowly wilt at thespot where Benazir Bhutto wasslain. Although somepassers-by still break down intears at the sight of thismakeshift shrine, the pressingquestion for many Pakistanis asthe outpouring of grief over herassassination subsides iswhether President PervezMusharraf will manage tosurvive this crisis, as he has somany others.

In the first days after theDec. 27 attack, the alreadyunpopular Musharraf's grip onpower seemed to hang in thebalance. Riots raged for threedays in Karachi, Bhutto'shometown, and across herhome province of Sindh.

Much of the fury over thekilling of the former primeminister and one of the mostpopular politicians in thecountry's history was aimeddirectly at one man: thepresident. In a dozen cities,demonstrators shouted sloganssuch as "Musharraf, dog!" and"Musharraf, killer!"

But a scant week later,analysts and observers said thePakistani leader appeared tohave weathered the storm,methodically taking a series ofsteps aimed at shoring up hisposition, at least in the shortterm.

He deferred parliamentaryelections that his foes still hopewill become a referendumagainst him. He placatedWestern allies by agreeing toallow Scotland Yard to assistin the investigation of Bhutto'skilling.

He remained largely out ofsight in the first days after theassassination, then resurfacedto coolly rebuff oppositioncalls for his resignation andinsist that no one in his

government bore blame for herdeath.

Moreover, there were nosigns that Pakistan's powerfulmilitary in this nuclear-armedcountry was wavering in itssupport for the man who wasits chief until five weeks ago,when he stepped down underpressure from critics at homeand even supporters abroad. Ata meeting of corpscommanders last week, seniorgenerals did not appear to beseeking to distance themselvesfrom him, at least not yet,longtime observers of themilitary said.

Still, in the eyes of some,Musharraf's authority appearedfrayed as never before.

"There's only so long,"said analyst Shaukat Qadir, aretired brigadier, "that you canhang on by the skin of yourteeth."

"In the short term, thereseems to be no immediatethreat to him," said FarzanaShaikh, an analyst at Britain'sChatham House think tank. "Inthe longer term, I don't see himcontinuing in office, becausehe is increasingly regarded byhis own allies as a liability."

Much will depend onsignals from Washington,Musharraf's chief backer. TheBush administration hasgenerally supported himthrough months of relentlessturmoil, expressing only mildcriticism late last year duringsix weeks of emergency rule,tantamount to martial law.

Putting off until Feb. 18elections that had been set forthis week has given the formergeneral some breathing room.Bhutto's party, now led by herhusband, Asif Ali Zardari,acting as regent to theirteenage son, wanted the pollheld as scheduled, sensing thelikelihood of a groundswell ofsympathy votes.

But with the ElectionCommission dominated by hissupporters, Musharraf was ableto easily deflect that demand.Both the major oppositionparties, Bhutto's PakistanPeople's Party and formerPrime Minister Nawaz Sharif's

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Pakistan Muslim League-N,backed down from threats toflood the street with angryprotesters.

Eye on the electionOne important indicator of

Musharraf's fortunes in comingweeks will be whether signsemerge that his ruling party isseeking to engage in massivevote-rigging, as Bhutto hadalleged before her death.

Before the assassination,many observers expected thevote to yield a parliament notdominated by any one party.Now, for the first time since heseized power in a coup in1999, Musharraf runs the riskof facing a legislature preparedto defy him.

"If the elections are fair,there is a possibility that thePakistan People's Party couldget a clean sweep," said AdilNajam, a professor ofinternational politics at BostonUniversity.

An assertive parliament,he and others said, could moveto reverse measures taken byMusharraf during emergencyrule, particularly his dismissalof senior judges and therestrictions placed on broadcastmedia.

But Musharraf hasdemonstrated readiness to useharsh, authoritarian measuresto hang on to power, as he didduring emergency rule, whenhe jailed more than 5,000political opponents andsuspended the constitution.Even as a civilian president, heretains the ability to fire theprime minister and dissolveparliament.

In addition, Bhutto's deathleft a leadership void in herparty, one of her own making.In life, reluctant to yield thelimelight, she had sidelinedrivals such as Aitzaz Ahsan,the country's most prominentopposition lawyer, whoremains under house arrest atMusharraf's behest, but wieldsenormous moral authority.

Instead, the party is nowco-chaired by Zardari, adivisive figure mistrusted bymany over corruptionallegations, and her

19-year-old son, Bilawal, whowill not be able to run foroffice until he is 25. Theparty's likely candidate forprime minister would beBhutto's deputy, MakhdoomAmin Fahim, a soft-spokenpragmatist who many believemight forge some kind ofworking relationship withMusharraf.

The president insists thathis rural power base has beenundiminished by hisconfrontation last year withPakistan's urban intelligentsia:lawyers, professors, humanrights activists and journalists,who were the main targetduring emergency rule.

When asked at a newsconference with foreignjournalists last week whetherhe should resign because hehad become so unpopular,Musharraf fired back: "If Iagreed with you, I would stepdown. Your information iswrong... . I don't think youhave the correct feel ofPakistan."

Calls for his resignation,however, have come not onlyfrom opposition parties, butfrom independent observerswho say the country risks adescent into chaos unlessMusharraf leaves the scene.

"Stability in Pakistan andits contribution to wideranti-terror efforts now requirerapid transition to legitimatecivilian government," theBrussels-based InternationalCrisis Group wrote in a reportlast week. "This must involvethe departure of Musharraf,whose continued efforts toretain power at all costs areincompatible with nationalreconciliation."

If the current wave ofpublic anger against Musharraffails to subside, the army, nowled by his handpickedsuccessor, Gen. Ashfaq Kiani,might take matters into its ownhands. Many in the ranks feelthat the Pakistani public'straditional respect and evenreverence for the armed forceshas been tarnished byMusharraf's actions last year,including his removal of

Supreme Court Chief JusticeIftikhar Mohammed Chaudhryand the imposition ofemergency rule.

"Gen. Kiani is veryconscious of the wide gulf thatexists between the people andthe army at the moment, and atsome point, he will want torehabilitate that relationship,"said analyst Talat Masood, aretired general.

Musharraf was praised bythe Bush administration forrelinquishing his post asmilitary chief of staff in lateNovember, for setting anelection date and liftingemergency rule inmid-December, and foragreeing last week to accepthelp from Scotland Yard ininvestigating Bhutto's slaying.

The investigationThe British team Saturday

visited the scene of the attackon Bhutto by a gunman and asuicide bomber. But definitiveconclusions about Bhutto'sdeath, which Pakistan hasblamed on a Talibancommander, will be hard toestablish, particularly beforethe February vote.

Especially difficult toprove or disprove will becharges by Bhutto's party thatofficials within Musharraf'sgovernment or the securityservices were complicit in theattack. Although ties betweenIslamic militants and Pakistan'sintelligence services during the1990s are well documented,those links are far more tangledand murky today.

"Whatever the suspicionsagainst elements in hisgovernment, I'm not sure we'regoing to see a smoking gunhere," said a Western diplomat.

Bhutto's party says that atthe very least, Musharraf'sgovernment bearsresponsibility for failing tosafeguard her security. Buteven some of the late leader'sadmirers quietly concede thatshe acted recklessly by pokingher head and shoulders out ofher armored SUV's sunroof towave to the crowd as she left arally in Rawalpindi, the seat ofthe Pakistani military.

Musharraf on Saturdayacknowledged that Bhutto mayhave been shot, something thegovernment initially denied,but said she exposed herself todanger and bore responsibilityfor her death, echoingcomments he made last week.

Musharraf made thosecomments during an interviewon the CBS "60 Minutes"program scheduled to airtonight, and said that hisgovernment did everything itcould to provide security forBhutto.

"For standing up outsidethe car, I think it was she toblame alone. Nobody else.Responsibility is hers,"Musharraf said.

Some observers believethat Musharraf, if prodded byhis generals and the Bushadministration, might realizethat staying in power hasbecome untenable. Ifconvinced of that, the leaderwho once proudly billedhimself as an enlightenedmoderate could seek to salvagehis legacy.

"If he chose -- if -- wecould have an orderlytransition to a post-Musharrafera," said Ahmed BilalMehboob, the executivedirector of the nonprofitPakistan Institute ofLegislative Development andTransparency in Islamabad.

"Right now, that is thecontribution he could make."

Washington PostJanuary 6, 2008Pg. 173. U.S. Relying On TwoIn People's Party ToHelp Stabilize PakistanBy Robin Wright and GriffWitte, Washington Post StaffWriters

With the assassination ofBenazir Bhutto, the Bushadministration is nowdepending on two politicians --one accused in the 1990s ofbeing a crook and the other stillviewed as almost powerless --to help prop up PresidentPervez Musharraf and stabilize

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volatile Pakistan, according toU.S. officials, regional expertsand Pakistanis.

Asif Ali Zardari, who hasassumed the regency of hiswife's Pakistan People's Party,is nicknamed "Mr. 10 Percent"for alleged corruption byprofiting off governmentcontracts when Bhutto wasprime minister in the 1990s,charges for which he spent 11years in prison. He will remaincaretaker of Pakistan's largestopposition movement untiltheir 19-year-old son finishesstudies at Oxford and is readyto assume party control --potentially many years away.

"He represents the old,entrenched faction of the PPPthat resisted modernization ofpolitics and sees parties as anextension of family politics,which is connected to the auraof corruption around him," saidIsobel Coleman of the Councilon Foreign Relations.

Makhdoom Amin Fahim,who led the party duringBhutto's eight-year exile, is theparty candidate to becomeprime minister if the PPP winsthe largest vote in the Feb. 18elections and forms a coalitiongovernment. First elected toparliament in 1970, he lacksboth charisma and clout,according to U.S. officials andPakistani experts.

"Fahim is unknown andnot a strong player. As a feudallandlord, he represents thePakistani elite in a partydependent on the poor for themajority of its membership. Aslong as he is tied to Zardari, itwill also be difficult for him togain leverage with Musharrafor pressure him into reform,"said Farhana Ali of the RandCorp.

Although the United Stateshas contact with an array ofpoliticians, Washington is stillhoping that the deal it tried tobroker between Bhutto andMusharraf last fall -- to forge anew moderate center and worktogether after elections --remains the way to salvageMusharraf's government. Butthe personality and politicaldynamics have changed

dramatically with Bhutto gone,especially within the PPP, U.S.officials said.

"Not only are theindividuals weak andvulnerable, but the party is lesscoherent than it was underBhutto as the standard-bearerand disciplinarian,"acknowledged a senior U.S.official involved in Pakistanpolicy.

The biggest unknown iswhich way the PPP will lean.For the Bush administration,the worst-case scenario is thePPP aligning with the party offormer prime minister NawazSharif in a coalition to try tochange the constitution andoust Musharraf, said StephenCohen of the BrookingsInstitution.

A political alliancebetween the PPP and Sharif'sPakistan Muslim League-NParty was once as unlikely as aDemocratic-Republicancoalition in the United States,said Lawrence K. Robinson, aformer U.S. diplomat inPakistan who knows all thecurrent players. But bothparties now share morecommon views of Musharraf.

Sharif will not rest untilMusharraf, who toppled him ina 1999 military coup, is ousted,Robinson said. "And there'ssuch a strong feeling now inthe PPP that Musharraf is justlike Zia ul-Haq, just anotherIslamist-loving militarydictator who had a role in thedeath of a Bhutto," he added.Former prime minister ZulfikarAli Bhutto, Benazir's father,was hanged during MohammedZia ul-Haq's rule.

Zardari and Musharrafalso have a history of hostility.Zardari was in prison underMusharraf and has been anoutspoken critic of Musharrafsince his release. After Bhutto'sdeath, he accused Musharraf ofcriminal negligence, andreferred repeatedly to a partyallied with the president as "thekiller league."

U.S. officials counter thatno two parties are likely to winenough votes to be able tochange the constitution, noting

that an InternationalRepublican Institute poll inNovember gave the PPP about35 percent support and Sharif'sparty about 25 percent. Thepoll was taken before Bhutto'sdeath, however, and does notfactor in potential sympathy oranger votes.

But the direction andleadership of the PPP, the mostorganized political party inPakistan, are in doubt. "Theparty is adrift without a strongBhutto at the top, and it has togrow up, which will take time,"Robinson said.

Although he served in thenational assembly in the 1990s,Zardari is disliked by many inthe PPP and is expected tostruggle to keep its three majorfactions together. His claim tocontrol rests on Bhutto's will,in which she reportedly namedher husband as her successor.He also comes to the job withsignificant baggage, includinga reputation for lavish living onthe taxpayer's dime.

Supporters dispute theimage, saying he matured inprison and could be a seriouspolitical actor. "Most of thecharges were never proven.The government filed aplethora of cases, and theydragged on for 11 years. Heserved more time awaiting trialthan he would have gotten if hehad been tried and convicted ofany crimes," said HusainHaqqani, a Boston Universityprofessor whose wife isrunning for parliament on thePPP ticket.

Others note that Swissauthorities also indictedZardari in 1998 for moneylaundering. "It may have beenexaggerated, but the reputationis not inaccurate," said FredericGrare of the CarnegieEndowment for InternationalPeace.

Fahim also has no nationalfollowing, a key reason Bhuttoselected him to lead the partyin her absence. Haqqanicompared him to Gerald Ford,"meaning a mild consensusbuilder who moves cautiously."If he should become primeminister, other experts caution

that he may be easilymanipulated by Zardari orMusharraf and would not be astrong voice for a moderatecenter -- the U.S. goal forPakistan.

Witte reported fromIslamabad.

San Diego Union-TribuneJanuary 6, 20084. Musharraf SaysBhutto To Blame ForHer DeathBy Reuters

WASHINGTON –Pakistani President PervezMusharraf concedes that agunman may have shot BenazirBhutto, but said the oppositionleader exposed herself todanger and bore responsibilityfor her own death, CBS Newssaid yesterday.

Musharraf also was quotedas telling the CBS “60Minutes” program to bebroadcast tonight that hisgovernment did everything itcould to provide security forBhutto, assassinated Dec. 27 ina gun-and-suicide-bomb attackafter a political rally.

“For standing up outsidethe car, I think it was she toblame alone. Nobody else.Responsibility is hers,”Musharraf said in theinterview, taped yesterdaymorning.

Pakistan's government hassaid Bhutto died when shestruck her head on a handle onher vehicle's sunroof – acontention widely derided inPakistan, where many peoplesuspect Musharraf'sgovernment of complicity. Thegovernment also has blamedal-Qaeda for the attack.

Musharraf was asked byCBS whether a gunshot couldhave caused Bhutto's headinjury. He replied, “Yes,absolutely, yes. Possibility.”

Elections in Pakistan werepostponed from Tuesday untilFeb. 18 as a result of theassassination.

Bhutto's husband, Asif AliZardari, called yesterday for aU.N. investigation of the

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killing and accused membersof Pakistan's ruling regime ofinvolvement. His remarks weremade in an op-ed article in TheWashington Post.

Philadelphia InquirerJanuary 6, 20085. Bhutto's HusbandSeeks A U.N. Probe OfKillingBy Ravi Nessman, AssociatedPress

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -Benazir Bhutto's widoweraccused members of Pakistan'sregime of involvement in hiswife's killing and calledyesterday for a U.N.investigation as British officersaiding Pakistan's own probepored over the crime scene.

"An investigationconducted by the governmentof Pakistan will have nocredibility, in my country oranywhere else," Asif AliZardari, the effective leader ofBhutto's opposition party, saidin a commentary published inthe Washington Post. "Onedoes not put the fox in chargeof the hen house."

Calls for an independentinternational investigation haveintensified since the formerprime minister was killed Dec.27 in a shooting and bombingattack after a campaign rally.Opposition activists denouncedthe government's initialassessment that an Islamicmilitant was behind the attackand that Bhutto died not fromgunshot wounds, but from theforce of the blast.

President PervezMusharraf acknowledged thatinvestigators may have drawnconclusions too quickly andmishandled evidence,including hosing down the sitehours after the attack. But heinsisted the government wascompetent to run theinvestigation with the help offorensic experts from Britain'sScotland Yard.

The British investigatorsarrived at the site of the attackin Rawalpindi under heavypolice guard. They spoke to

local security officials andrepeatedly walked from thepark where Bhutto held herfinal campaign rally to the spotoutside where her departingvehicle was attacked.

Local police parked atruck where Bhutto's had been,and the British investigatorsphotographed and filmed itfrom different angles,including from a nearbyrooftop.

Zardari said nogovernment investigationwould satisfy him. Hereiterated his demand for aU.N. probe and urged "friendsof democracy in the West, inparticular the United States andBritain, to endorse the call forsuch an independentinvestigation."

Also yesterday, thegovernment accused a leadinginternational think tank of"promoting sedition" for urgingMusharraf, a key U.S. ally inthe war on terrorism, to resign.The report by theBrussels-based InternationalCrisis Group called Musharraf"a serious liability, seen ascomplicit" in Bhutto's death.

In a statement, thegovernment said that the report"amounts to promotingsedition" and that the group"neither has the credentials northe credibility" to comment onPakistan.

Washington PostJanuary 6, 2008Pg. 176. Democracy GetsSmall Portion Of U.S.AidDocuments Show Much of theMoney Helps Entity Controlledby MusharrafBy Glenn Kessler, WashingtonPost Staff Writer

Two years before BenazirBhutto was assassinated whileleading her Pakistan People'sParty in its campaign againstthe rule of President PervezMusharraf, the Bushadministration devoted thismuch new aid money tostrengthen political parties inPakistan: $0.

The entire U.S. budget fordemocracy programs inPakistan in 2006 amounted toabout $22 million, according toState Department documents,much of it reserved for aidingthe Election Commission -- anentity largely controlled byMusharraf. That $22 millionwas just a small fraction of the$1.6 billion in aid the UnitedStates gave Pakistan that year,and it was equivalent to thevalue of jet engine andhelicopter spare parts thatPakistan purchased in 2006with the help of U.S. funds.

In the past year, asMusharraf's grip on powerbecame increasingly fragile,the Bush administration hasscrambled to build contactswith the opposition and toprovide expertise to oppositionparties. The money devoted todemocracy programs in the 165million-person country wasalmost doubled in the fiscal2008 budget, to $41 million,but that is still less than the $43million set aside for suchefforts in Kosovo, the formerAlbanian enclave of Serbiawith a population of 2 million.In the region, U.S. democracyprograms aimed atAfghanistan, Iraq, Iran andEgypt are all larger than theeffort in Pakistan.

Former and current U.S.officials said the administrationshied away from building arobust democracy program inPakistan because it did notwant to offend Musharraf, whoafter the attacks of Sept. 11,2001, was considered an allyagainst al-Qaeda. Now, theadministration is seeking topersuade Musharraf, whoseized power in a bloodlesscoup in 1999, to freedemocratic activists andlawyers and lift mediarestrictions to help make thelegislative elections, currentlyscheduled for next month,appear credible.

Secretary of StateCondoleezza Rice last monthdescribed Musharraf as "a goodally," adding: "I hope that he isgoing to oversee the return ofPakistan to a civilian-led

democratic state. They need tohave free and fair elections."

A recent study of aid toPakistan by the Center forStrategic and InternationalStudies calculated that,excluding covert funds, theUnited States has providedmore than $10 billion toPakistan since 2001, about halfof that through poorlyaccounted "reimbursement" ofexpenses incurred in the waragainst al-Qaeda and Taliban.

Lorne W. Cranerrepeatedly lost battles overdemocracy aid for Pakistanwhen he was assistant secretaryof state for democracy andhuman rights during PresidentBush's first term. "There wasno interest in a broad and deepdemocratization program inPakistan that might have giventhe United States more policyalternatives now," said Craner,now president of theInternational RepublicanInstitute, a democracyadvocacy group.

"A decision was made tochannel the limited funding ina way that avoided a risk ofconflict with the government,"acknowledged a StateDepartment official whoinsisted on anonymity becausehe was discussing internaldecision-making. He said thatthe administration chose tofocus on health care andeducation assistance, such asbuilding clinics andclassrooms, which he said havea quicker impact on people'slives. "I would argue we didnot make bad choices," he said.

When the administrationsubmitted its budget request toCongress last year, it madeclear that the main goal of aidto Pakistan was building "astable, long-term relationship."The notion of creating what thedocument called a "moderate,democratic and civiliangovernment" was a lowerpriority, signified by the factthat the democracy aidamounted to 5 percent of thetotal $785 million request.

"What is amazing to meabout our policy is thatPakistan is brimming with a

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smart, educated, moderatecenter," said Sen. RobertMenendez (D-N.J.), chairmanof the foreign assistancesubcommittee of the SenateForeign Relations Committee."As long as we are pumpingour money into securityassistance and putting all oureggs in the basket withMusharraf, we are making acritical mistake."

Challenged last month at ahearing chaired by Menendezon the administration's aidpriorities for Pakistan, JamesR. Kunder, acting deputyadministrator of USAID, said,"We looked at what we thoughtwere the underlying elementsof fragility in the democracyand tried to design theprograms around strengtheningdemocracy in the long run."

A USAID officialprovided statistics showing thatthe agency has devoted nearly$24 million to democracyprograms for Pakistan since2004, but almost 80 percent ofthat -- $19 million -- wasearmarked for assisting theElection Commission, such ashelping update nationwidevoter rolls. Reports fromPakistan say the effort has beendeeply troubled, with the newvoter list believed to be highlyinaccurate and missing thenames of tens of millions ofPakistanis.

"I found it troubling thatthere was virtually no moneyuntil recently for any workother than the ElectionCommission, which wascontrolled by the president,"said Peter M. Manikas, directorof the Asia programs of theNational Democratic Institute,a pro-democracy group. Hesaid the organization in Junereceived a $1.5 million projectfrom the State Department totrain poll watchers and hasreceived $2.6 million since2002 from USAID for politicalparty training.

"It is a relatively smallamount of money, given thesize of the country," Manikassaid, adding that the NDI hasalso raised about $1.5 millionfor Pakistan programs since

2003 from the Dutch, British,Canadians and the NationalEndowment for Democracy."All of the eggs were put in thepresident's basket, but theentire internationalcommunity" was backingMusharraf.

New York TimesJanuary 6, 20087. Officials Say IraqiSoldier Killed 2 U.S.SoldiersBy Richard A. Oppel Jr. andStephen Farrell

BAGHDAD — TwoAmerican soldiers killed lastmonth during an operation inthe northern city of Mosulappear to have beendeliberately shot to death by anIraqi soldier on patrol withthem, senior Iraqi officers saidon Saturday.

The killings occurred Dec.26 as a joint American-Iraqipatrol was setting up a combatoutpost in a dangerousneighborhood of westernMosul. Gunmen hiding in abuilding and in a car openedfire on the patrol, the seniorIraqi officers said. During thebrief firefight, one of the Iraqisoldiers turned his weapon onunsuspecting Americans, theysaid.

The Iraqi soldier issuspected of killing Capt.Rowdy J. Inman and Sgt.Benjamin B. Portell, andwounding three otherAmerican soldiers and onecivilian interpreter, accordingto American military officials.No Iraqi soldiers were killed orwounded, according to oneIraqi commander.

The Iraqi soldier tried toflee, but he was apprehendedafter being identified by otherIraqi soldiers, Americanmilitary officials said. AnotherIraqi soldier has also beendetained in connection with theshootings, the military said,suggesting that there mighthave been at least oneaccomplice.

The soldier who shot theAmericans was tied to the

insurgency, said Brig. Gen.Mutaa Habib al-Khazraji, acommander in the Iraqi Army’sSecond Division in Mosul.During the firefight, he “seizedthe opportunity” and fired onthe American soldiers, killingtwo of them, the general said ina telephone interview onSaturday, adding that the Iraqi“was an infiltrator.”

The American militarysaid the motives for theshooting “are as yet unknown.”Maj. Gary Dangerfield, anAmerican military spokesmanin Mosul, confirmed that twoIraqi soldiers were being heldat an undisclosed location inIraq and that investigators wereexamining possible insurgentlinks.

“From everything we haveright now, we feel prettyconfident that we have theright guy,” Major Dangerfieldsaid, based on statements fromother Iraqi and Americansoldiers who were witnesses.“The motive behind what hedid or how close he was to anyinsurgent activity is stillunclear. We continue to lookinto every nook and cranny ofthis investigation.”

He said the Iraqicommander of the SecondArmy Division ordered an“immediate stand-down of theunit” and cooperated with theinvestigation. “We will not letthis tragic, isolated incidenthinder our partnership with theIraqi Security Forces and keepus from establishing security inour area of operation,” he said.

The investigation, byAmerican and Iraqi authorities,may renew longstandingquestions about the loyalties ofIraqi forces, who are supposedto assume control as Americantroops withdraw. The IraqiArmy remains dominated byShiites and Kurds, many ofwhom are suspicious of theallegiances of Sunni Arabsoldiers. Many Sunnis, in turn,fear that the Kurds and Shiitesare faithful only to theirfactions and are habituallyhostile to Sunni Arabs.

The American military didnot disclose the circumstances

of the shootings until Saturdayafternoon, shortly after Reutersreported that Iraqi commandershad said that the Americantroops had been deliberatelyshot by an Iraqi soldier.

Previously, the Americanmilitary had said only thatCaptain Inman, 38, ofPanorama Village, Tex., andSergeant Portell, 27, ofBakersfield, Calif., died from“small arms fire duringdismounted combatoperations.” Both men weremembers of the ThirdSquadron of the ThirdArmored Cavalry Regiment,based at Fort Hood, Tex.

“The shooting wasdeliberate,” another Iraqi Armycommander in Mosul, Brig.Gen. Noor al-Din Hussein, toldReuters. “It was not anaccident.”

He said the Iraqi soldierhad been in the army for a yearand was an Arab from theJubouri tribe, which in Mosulis mostly Sunni. “There issome penetration” byinsurgents, he said, “and wewant to purify the Iraqi Army.”

Nevertheless, a spokesmanfor the Iraqi Ministry ofDefense in Baghdad,Muhammad al-Askari, said itwas too early to know whetherthe shootings were deliberate.

“Maybe this man is mad,”Mr. Askari said. “Maybe he issuffering psychologicalproblems.”

While violence has fallenoff in western and central Iraq,Mosul and other parts ofnorthern Iraq remain volatile,and many areas still are underthe sway of extremist Sunnimilitant groups like Al Qaedain Mesopotamia, a homegrowninsurgent group that Americanintelligence agencies say hasforeign leadership.

In Diyala Province,perhaps Iraq’s most troubledregion, insurgents planted abomb north of Muqdadiya thatexploded on Saturday, killingsix civilians and wounding fourothers, an Iraqi police officialin Diyala said.

The American militaryreported that a United States

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soldier was also killed inDiyala on Saturday, when animprovised bomb explodednear his vehicle.

In the provincial capital ofBaquba, another improvisedbomb wounded three civilians,the police said. Gunmen killeda truck driver in northeastDiyala.

Reporting was contributedby Khalid al-Ansary, Mudhaferal-Husaini and AbeerMohammed from Baghdad,and an Iraqi employee of TheNew York Times from Mosul.

Los Angeles TimesJanuary 6, 20088. Iraq's Middle Class IsLanguishingMany skilled professionalshave fled, but those whoremain find few suitable jobsthat pay a living wage.By Tina Susman and RaheemSalman

BAGHDAD — Night afternight, hour after hour, HusseinAli Mohammed sits alone inthe medical clinic that employshim as a guard.

It is not the job the26-year-old envisioned whenhe earned his teaching degree,but it's the best he can do fornow in a country teeming witheducated, ambitious people --but sorely lacking in suitablejobs that pay living wages.

Years of political turmoil,U.S.-imposed sanctions andwar have devastated Iraq'sworkforce. Hundreds ofthousands of skilledprofessionals have left thecountry. Businesses haveclosed. Insurgents and thugshave targeted professors,doctors and businesspeople,killing them, abducting them ordriving them out of their jobsand out of Iraq.

Even as sectarian violencesubsides, the options arelimited for those who remain.

Shiite Muslims, who saythey were held back from goodjobs under Saddam Hussein'sSunni Muslim-led regime,complain that corruption andviolence now limit theiropportunities. Sunni Arabs say

they are discriminated againstas payback for Hussein'smistreatment of Shiites, whonow dominate the government.

"I feel this job doesn't suitmy dignity or personality,being a guard in a clinic,passing the night between fourwalls talking to nobody," saidMohammed, who lives inHillah, a city about 60 milessouth of Baghdad. "I think it isdifficult to find the job I wouldlike in Iraq, under the currentcircumstances. I wish I couldleave Iraq, but it is not thateasy."

Iraq's governmentestimates unemployment at17.6% and underemploymentat 38%, but those areconsidered conservativefigures. The problem is seen asone of the major threats to thecountry's long-term recovery.To make matters moreprecarious, about 60% of thepopulation is younger than 30-- and many young people areripe for recruitment intocriminal life if the money isright.

"A lot of these people arepretty much stagnant, withlow-income wages," said Col.Gabe Lifschitz of the U.S.military's Gulf RegionDivision, comprised of militaryand civilian personnel workingon reconstruction projects inIraq. Without middle-classpeople creating jobopportunities for low-wageearners to move up theeconomic ladder, Lifschitzsaid, Iraq's economy wouldflat-line, breeding anger anddiscontent.

"The way to go in and turnthat around is, you want tohave somebody who isemployed. That person who isemployed will have lesslikelihood of becoming aninsurgent."

U.S. officials are fundingprograms to provide vocationaltraining, but those do little foreducated middle-class Iraqissuch as Mohammed, who saytheir job-seeking efforts arestymied by political nepotismand corruption in theinstitutions that might hire

them.Akeel Mohsin Sharif, 29,

graduated from BaghdadUniversity four years ago witha degree in computer sciences.Recently, he said, a medicalcollege invited him to apply fora job as a teacher's assistant."After three months of pushingand pulling and doinginterviews for the job, theykept coming up with excusesfor not hiring me," Sharif said."At the end, they asked me for$400 in exchange for the job."

Sharif refused."Why should I pay them?

Our lives have become allbribes. Everyone has to bribesomeone to get anything done,"said Sharif, whose previous joboverseeing computermaintenance ended when thebusiness closed because ofsecurity concerns.

Now he installs computersfor individuals or smallbusinesses on an on-call basis,earning $200 to $300 a month,not nearly enough to considermarrying, having children andbuying a home.

Several other young mensaid they had put off marriageand family because of theirdim job prospects, a sign of theshredding of the social fabricin a country where men andwomen were expected to marryyoung and produce children.Men are expected to be thebreadwinners.

Some leave Iraq in hopesof finding lucrativeemployment, only to returnwith their morale furtherdiminished.

Saad Naeem, 29, went toLebanon hoping to obtain amaster's degree aftergraduating in 2005 fromBaghdad University's collegeof sciences, but it was tooexpensive there. Now he drivesa taxi in the southern city ofNajaf.

"I am shocked by thereality, but I feel I have to getused to this job as a faitaccompli," said Naeem, whowon't consider marriage untilhe finds a better job.

"Almost all Iraqis feel thattheir country is not yet able to

offer the jobs they want," hesaid. "We were dreaming whenwe were students, but thedreams are something, and thereality is something else."

Broken dreams areeverywhere.

After the fall of Hussein,Ali Qittan, an aspiring historyteacher, imagined dressing in asuit and tie each day andstanding at a chalkboard beforeeager students. Instead, Qittan,29, loads and unloads trucks inBaghdad.

Like many would-be stateemployees, he discovered thathe could make more moneydoing day labor than workingin a government institution.And like Sharif, he discoveredthat getting a teaching jobrequired knowing someone in ahigh place or paying a heftybribe.

"I have to either find aparliament member or aninfluential official in theMinistry of Education. The lastchoice is to pay hundreds ofdollars to someone," Qittansaid.

"I feel I deserve somethinghigher than this job, as aporter," he said. "I amfrustrated and bored, but whatcan I do? I have no option. Ihave to earn a living."

Qittan said two of hiscollege-educated brothers alsoworked as porters.

In Hillah, 30-year-oldOmer Nima Mosawi, anaspiring mechanic whograduated with a technologydegree in 2003, works in thecafeteria of his former college.Like virtually everyoneinterviewed for this article, hefound the job because he had apersonal connection with theperson in charge of hiring.

Hayder Nouri, 27, worksin a women's clothing store.Last year he was offered a jobteaching Arabic, but it wouldhave required him to travelfrom his neighborhood in westBaghdad to the east side of thecity, via an area notorious forabductions and killings.

He turned it down andfound work in a cookie factoryuntil a friend rented the

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clothing store and offered himwork.

"I feel this is not mycalling, but what can I do?"Nouri said. "I'm not beingchoosy. I just want somethingthat pays well and is close tohome."

It is not only the youngwho are finding it difficult.Older workers also arestruggling. Many said theywere shut out of good jobsunder Hussein's regimebecause they refused to join theruling Baath Party. Now, theysay, their age works againstthem.

Ahmed Mehdi, 45, has anadvanced degree in bankingand finance but says his refusalto be a Baathist held him backfor years. He has worked avariety of jobs, includingdelivering pizzas and using hisfamily's 1980 Toyota to run alimousine service. Now heworks in a shop sellingelectronics.

At first he wasembarrassed, Mehdi said. "Butthen I began noticing thatothers with degrees were doingthe same thing."

At 41, Haqqi Ismail findshimself in similarcircumstances. He laughedwhen asked what year hegraduated from college. It was17 years ago, with a degree ingeography. All he wanted wasa job in a government institute,where he could sit in an office,have a desk and a chair, collecta salary, and provide for hiswife and five children.

It never happened, soIsmail, who lives in thesouthern city of Basra, didother things. He ran a smallshop for a while. Now, he isself-employed, handlingpaperwork for peoplepurchasing homes or land. Hisattempts to find work havebeen thwarted by his age, hesaid.

"One time I am older thanthe wanted age. Other timesthey only want people whograduated after 2000," saidIsmail, who said if things didn'tchange soon, he would do whatso many of Iraq's educated

citizens had done: leave thecountry.

"I will join my brother,who is living in Germany," hesaid hopefully. "I think I canfind a job there."

Times staff writers UsamaRedha and Wail Alhafithcontributed to this report.

San Diego Union-TribuneJanuary 6, 20089. Baghdad's BookMarket PerseveresBombing in March didn't stopvendorsBy Hamza Hendawi,Associated Press

BAGHDAD – Dustybooks lie on flattenedcardboard boxes on a sidewalkburied in litter and buildingdebris. Their vendors hunchtheir shoulders and sip blacktea to fend off the cold. Whatmatters is that they're here.

The revival of theMutanabi Street book market isa microcosm of today'sBaghdad.

The titles on displayreflect a live-and-let-livementality shared by Sunni andShiite vendors. The wreckage,the deserted buildings and thedevastated Shahbandarcoffeehouse are the scars fromyears of violence.

The ambitious face-liftunder way on Mutanabi Streetattests to a hope for betterthings now that violence inBaghdad is noticeably down.

Through SaddamHussein's oppression, the biteof Western sanctions, theU.S.-led invasion of 2003 andthe bombings and shootingsthat followed, the Mutanabimarket, named after a10th-century Baghdad poet,never ceased to be a favoriteFriday hangout forintellectuals, artists andstudents.

On March 5, many thoughtits days were over. A car bombblamed on al-Qaeda militantsripped the market apart, killingat least 38 people andwounding more than 100.

The bombing wiped outdozens of bookstores,

stationery shops and presses.Nevertheless, it did not

stop Sunni, Shiite and Kurdishvendors from continuing towork here in harmony. “Thebomb did not change the waywe feel about each other in themarket,” said Atta Zeidan, whoruns a secondhand bookstore.“What it did is make us allafraid for our lives.”

In response, authoritiesbanned vehicular traffic fromMutanabi Street, put up blastbarriers and checkpoints, andsent in U.S. troops in an effortto calm the panicked tradersand assure them ofreconstruction funds.

The shoppers who initiallystayed away have since driftedback, though their numbers arestill down.

“People must eat, so theywill still shop at food marketsthat have repeatedly been hitby attacks,” said Zeinal-Naqshabandi, a bookseller inhis mid-30s.

“But people postponebuying books or go withoutaltogether if they sense dangeror are generally uncomfortablewith security,” said the fatherof four and author of a“History of Coffeehouses inOld Baghdad.”

On the other hand, vendorMohammed Hanash Abbassaid sales have beenimproving. His main income isfrom lending textbooks tostudents for a fee.

Hazem al-Sheikhli, whoowns a stationery shop, definesthe resilient spirit of MutanabiStreet.

He lost four brothers and anephew in the March 5bombing. His father,Mohammed al-Sheikhli, wasdragged alive from the rubblein the Shahbandar coffeehousehe had run for 45 years.

“People were stillsearching for bodies whensome of the booksellersreturned to the sidewalks insearch of business,” saidal-Sheikhli, a 50-year-oldfather of three. “Death hasbecome a part of our dailylife,” he said.

His mother died that week.

“The loss of four sons and agrandson took its toll on her,”al-Sheikhli said.

Mutanabi vendors say atleast 10 booksellers were killedin sectarian violence during aburst of Sunni-Shiitevengeance killings in 2006.However, they say interfaithrelations on the street remaingood, largely because thekillers were generally viewedas outsiders, not marketworkers, and because thosekilled were known extremists.

Still, things remainunpredictable. Just a fewweeks ago, an exchange of firebetween army troops andmembers of a U.S.-backedneighborhood watch group sentshoppers scurrying for cover,according to witnesses.

The ouster of Hussein in2003 was keenly felt. Shiitebooks, long banned byHussein's Sunni-dominatedregime, poured in from Iranand went on sale at discountprices next to books on SunniMuslims.

Bookseller Shaalan Zeidansaid the “bookstores sellingreligious books belong to twocamps.”

“Some have 90 percent oftheir books on the Shiite faith,while others have 90 percent oftheir books about SunniIslam,” he said with a chuckle.

But the market for bookswith titles such as “Saddam theCriminal” still sell well on bothsides of the divide.

Charleston (SC) Post andCourierJanuary 4, 2008Pg. 110. Military Striving ToFix Health Care IllsSystem's 2nd in command maps2008 plansBy Jill Coley, The Post andCourier

Negative press dogged theDepartment of Defense's healthaffairs in 2007. Reports ofneglect came out of WalterReed Army Medical Center inWashington. Stories followedof bureaucratic nightmares, andconcerns for troops returning

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with mental disorders madeheadlines.

Stephen L. Jones, secondin command of the MilitaryHealth System, recently satdown with The Post andCourier to discuss work doneto address the problems. TheIsle of Palms resident headedfederal relations and economicdevelopment at MedicalUniversity of South Carolinafor about 20 years beforemoving to the Pentagon.

After the last year ofcritical press, Jones wants toshare what the DefenseDepartment has done to rightthe scandal. "We haven't toldthat story very well as to howwe responded to the woundedwarrior criticisms," he said.

The Defense Department'sMilitary Health Systemcomprises the health andmedical services of the Army,Navy and Air Force, andincludes TRICARE insurance.The system is responsible formore than 9 millionbeneficiaries and accounted for8 percent of the DefenseDepartment's $532 billionbudget for fiscal 2007, or about$42 billion. If the high-costhealth care trend continues,Jones said that by 2015,Military Health System willreach 12 percent.

Year 2008, Jones said, willsee advances in the followingthree areas:

*Research inpost-traumatic stress disorderand traumatic brain injury, andreducing stigmatization ofmental disorders.

*Streamlining case workto prevent troops from fallingthrough the cracks when theytransition from military to VAhospitals.

*Sharing information withthe Department of VeteransAffairs.

On the legislative front,however, President Bushvetoed Dec. 28 the defenseauthorization bill, whichincluded the Wounded WarriorAct. The act was designed toimprove the management ofmedical care, personnel actionsand quality-of-life issues for

outpatient troops.Bush vetoed the legislation

because of a provision thatwould permit plaintiffs'lawyers to freeze Iraqi funds,exposing Iraq to massiveliability in lawsuits concerningthe misdeeds of the SaddamHussein regime, according toWhite House deputy presssecretary Scott Stanzel.

Meanwhile, the Wounded,Ill and Injured SeniorOversight Committeecontinues its work. Thecommittee was formed tohandle the influx ofrecommendations coming outof numerous task forcesdesigned to look critically atthe system and can makechanges immediately wheneverpossible within the law, Jonessaid.

The Defense Department'sfunding is in place, passingseparately in an appropriationsbill. "We're spending andplanning those programs underway," Jones said.

Among the changesalready in place is theDecember creation of theCenter of Excellence forPsychological Health andTraumatic Brain Injury. Theconcept is to network expertiseand build a blueprint fortreatment and research, Jonessaid.

Another emphasis of thecommittee's work is a closepartnership between theDefense Department and VA,both of which are representedon the committee.

The departments arepiloting a program that wouldeliminate duplicate processesin the departments' disabilityevaluation systems. Troopswould only need to undergo asingle physical exam from theVA, not one from bothdepartments.

The VA/Defensepartnership has local reach, asthe departments are poolingtheir resources for a superclinic in Goose Creek, set toopen in spring or summer of2009. Services available at theNaval Weapons Station and atthe Navy's former North

Charleston hospital, now calledNaval Health ClinicCharleston, will be handled atthe new facility. The new clinicwill also have an outpatientcenter run by the VA.

In another programdesigned to ease transitionfrom the Defense Departmentto the VA, especially for theseverely wounded, nine federalrecovery coordinators havebeen hired to oversee carebefore, during and after thehandover.

"It hit us head-on becauseall of a sudden we have theseverely wounded who don'tneed to be in the hospital butneed all the treatments," Jonessaid.

In making that transitioneasier, information sharingbetween the DefenseDepartment and VA becomescritical. The DefenseDepartment already shares datareaching back to 1989 forseparated service members,shared patients and newveterans receiving care fromVA.

While those medicalrecords are viewable by theVA, they are not truly jointrecords because thedepartments use differentsystems and cannot modifyeach other's files.

A study on creating a jointDefense/VA inpatientelectronic health record isexpected to be complete thisyear.

"The goal is not to waste alot of money on having onerecord," he said. "The goal is tohave the information there sothe provider can diagnose youand give you the besttreatment."

Another fiscalresponsibility measure maymean an increase in TRICAREfees, which have remainedfrozen since 1996. Last month,a task force reported the needfor increasing fees for retirees.Congress may consider therecommendation this year.

"There's no doubt thosewho've served should get thebest health care available, butwe need to ensure some

reasonable balance," Jonessaid.

Arizona Republic (Phoenix)January 6, 2008Pg. 111. Blurring Of U.S.Interrogation PolicyComplicates ChallengeBy Dennis Wagner, ArizonaRepublic

FORT HUACHUCA - Asquad of U.S. soldiers enters asmall "Iraqi village" in thesouthern Arizona foothills,automatic weapons ready.Their eyes nervously scan thecivilians in Middle Easterngarb, watching for enemycombatants.

Later, in a shack near thecenter of town, twointerrogators question abearded man caught with avideo camera with footage ofmissile attacks launched byinsurgents.

One of the soldierspeppers the captive withquestions to no avail.

"Can I go?" the manfinally asks in a thick Arabicaccent. "Or actually, perhapsyou can answer some questionsfor me?"

Asked about the images onthe camera, he smiles. "It ishappenstance, yes?" he says."Coincidence."

The intelligence collectorspress ahead with the give andtake. They are in a mockvillage with paid actors - afield exercise at the FortHuachuca Military IntelligenceCenter and School, the nation'slargest center for interrogationtraining.

As in Iraq, there is noguarantee that the terroristsuspect will talk. But there isone certainty: No one here willcontemplate using torture as aninterrogation technique.

The Army, which runsFort Huachuca, insists it willnot tolerate abuse or coercionin interrogations and isinstilling that philosophy in itstrainees.

In exercises at FortHuachuca, interrogators

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instead are taught "persuasivemethods," such aspsychological ploys and rusesto coax or pressure suspectsinto divulging information inthe war on terror.

"You can torture someoneall day long, and it's not areliable way to getinformation," says Lt. Col. JeffJennings, commander of the309th Military IntelligenceBattalion. Torture often elicitsbogus intelligence, he said.

Most experts seem alignedwith the Army position, yet anational debate continues overthe value of coercivequestioning. In the presidentialcampaign, for example, Sen.John McCain, who wasbrutalized as a prisoner of warin Vietnam, condemns torture,including waterboarding, orsimulated drowning, saying itproduces false intelligence andsabotages America's stand forrighteousness. By contrast,Rudy Giuliani refuses to labelwaterboarding as unlawful,saying: "It depends on thecircumstances. It depends onwho does it."

The challenge forhundreds of men and women atFort Huachuca's HUMINTschool is to navigate the grayarea between torture and toughquestioning.

Use of coercionInterrogations are difficult

in any war, but since 9/11, thechallenge has beencompounded by a blurring ofU.S. law and policy coveringdetainee treatment. Publicrecords describe how the Bushadministration used new legalinterpretations and executiveorders to sanction increasedlevels of duress in seekingintelligence. In a few instances,the CIA even resorted towaterboarding, historicallytreated as a war crime byinternational law and theUnited States.

Public records andcongressional testimonyexplain how America'sembrace of coercive methodsevolved: In 2002, PresidentBush relied on a JusticeDepartment opinion to assert

that Taliban soldiers inAfghanistan were not prisonersof war and had no right toGeneva Conventionsprotections. The governmentthen adopted a secret memofrom the Department ofJustice's Office of LegalCounsel, which redefinedtorture as life-threatening painequivalent to sensations oforgan failure, impairment ofbodily function or death.Defense Secretary DonaldRumsfeld authorized sleepdeprivation, stress positions,dietary harassment, religioushumiliation and theexploitation of phobias. Overtime, public disclosuresunveiled results of the newapproach:

*Internet video revealedphysical abuse and sexualhumiliation of detainees at theArmy's Abu Ghraib prison inIraq in 2003. The abuse wasattributed primarily to guardsat the prison, militaryintelligence officers, CIAagents and civilian contractors.Guards appeared to takesadistic pleasure in pouringcold water on naked detainees,sexually taunting them andusing military dogs to threatenattack.

*A federal renditionprogram shuttled detainees tohidden sites in Europe and theMiddle East for intensivequestioning at the hands ofnon-American inquisitors.

*Accounts ofwaterboarding emerged at theGuantanamo detainee camp inCuba. The technique, whichplaces a bound prisoner upsidedown in water, was employedby CIA agents who laterdestroyed the video evidence.U.S. Attorney General MichaelMukasey last week ordered acriminal investigation into thedestruction of the tapes.

Despite the controversies,some experts insist thatcoercion should remain anoption for interrogators as itcould save American lives.

Retired CIA agent JohnKiriakou claims that wheninterrogators at Guantanamowere unable to crack a key

al-Qaida suspect, AbuZubaydah, they finally resortedto waterboarding. Kiriakousaid in interviews thatZubaydah broke down within35 seconds, divulginginformation on "maybe dozensof attacks."

Because videotape wasdestroyed and records areclassified, Kiriakou's claimcannot be verified.

Frank Gaffney Jr., directorof the Center for SecurityPolicy, says he has been toldthat two key al-Qaida figuresgave up critical intelligencewhen confronted with so-called"enhanced interrogation." Heargues that "aggressive"methods are "absolutelyessential and should not beruled out," adding: "War is anevil... . It requires us to do evilthings."

At Fort Huachuca, Lt. Col.Jennings insists there is nouncertainty among hisinstructors and students: TheArmy does not condone tortureor train its interrogators to usesuch practices.

A new Army Field Manualon Intelligence Interrogation,written at Fort Huachuca, haspassages designed to prevent arepeat of Abu Ghraib.Interrogation requires soldiersto abide by the GenevaConventions, general laws ofwar, federal statutes and theDetainee Treatment Act of2005, all of which prohibittorture. The manual expresslyforbids waterboarding andmany other coercive methodsemployed during the war onterror.

"There is no debate (in themilitary)," Jennings says. "Ifyou don't follow the rules, oryou step outside the rules, youget your toes cut off.

"Abu Ghraib was a lack ofoversight. That was aleadership failure. And peoplehave been punished for it."

The accepted methodsFort Huachuca is where

select soldiers learn the art andscience of extractinginformation from enemies, ajob that is more problematicamid the U.S. government's

redefinition of torture in itsglobal war on terror.

During 2007 at theMilitary Intelligence School,about 1,650 enlisted soldiers,National Guard members andArmy Reservists were taught tobecome human-intelligencecollectors, known as 97Es.That is more than five timesthe number trained in 2003.Hundreds more Navy and AirForce personnel completedsimilar courses in the fort'sHuman Intelligence Trainingprogram. The demand is sogreat in Iraq and Afghanistanthat commanders have beenforced to hire civiliancontractors, mostly formermilitary, as instructors.

The intelligence collectorsgo through a 93-day coursethat includes culturalawareness, warrior tasks,live-fire exercises andinterrogation methods. Thereare 12 hours of class spent withlawyers covering legal andethical lessons.

"We spend a lot of time inthe classroom and then outhere talking about where thatline is - what coercion is, whattorture is, what they can andcannot do," said Chief WarrantOfficer 4 Daniel Moree,HUMINT training supervisor.

"Let's say he (a soldier)steps over that line and usescoercion. He'll be counseled onthe spot," Moree says. "We'lltreat it as a crime and evenconduct a mock trial."

Trainees at Fort Huachucalearn 19 ways to exploit acaptive's weaknesses duringinterrogations. They offerincentives such as money orfamily contact. They play onemotions of hate, pride, fearand love. They use the silenttreatment, deceptive ruses,rapid-fire questions and the old"good cop, bad cop" technique.

The accepted methods areall geared to gain intelligencethrough cooperation rather thancoercion.

Moree says field exerciseshelp soldiers learn to deal withstress, and they are taught toask senior interrogators if aninterrogation method seems

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questionable.Christopher M. Anderson,

now a civilian instructor at thefort, served as thenon-commissioned officer incharge of questioning at AbuGhraib during 2005-06,supervising a team of 80interrogators and analysts."The scandal had alreadyhappened," Anderson notes."We knew when we weregoing in there we were more orless the cleanup crew."

Anderson says he oversawabout 30 interrogations a daywith al-Qaida suspects, Iraqiinsurgents and foreigncombatants, most of whomwere resistant. Even withmortars hitting the camp and aconstant pressure forintelligence, he says, therewere no torture-relatedincidents during his 10-monthtour. "It's not worth it. And it'sillegal, and you're going to goto jail," Anderson notes. "I liketo think with my guys, it waskilling them (captives) withkindness."

Anderson endorses astraightforward approach inmost cases, using honesty andincentives. He told of awounded foreigner who hadsigned up for combat againstAmericans but wound up beingtrained for a suicide mission.Anderson says the man'swounds were treated, he wastreated decently and hisbetrayal was emphasized. Overtime, the foreign fighter gavedetailed intelligence on enemyrecruiting methods.

"He came to Iraq, he gotmixed up in what he was goingto do, and things went wrong,"Anderson says. "He wound upin coalition hands. He came tothe realization, 'Holy cow,maybe these people aren't asbad as I was told.' "

Job: InterrogatorThe Iraqi videographer

divulges nothing, promptinghis inquisitor to end thequestioning with a sarcasticremark: "I thank you for thealmost cooperative attitude thatyou have."

Another trainee steps in,only to have the tables turned.

"Who are you with?"demands the Iraqi.

"I'm with forceprotection."

"And who are youprotecting?"

"Well, we protect thegood, and we protect the bad."

Lt. Col. Jennings, standingnearby, observes that the fieldexercise has gone on for dayswith soldiers on duty for18-hour shifts under pressure."They're getting tired," he says."They're starting to feel stress,making mistakes, and that'swhere the best learningoccurs."

To be a good interrogatorrequires patience, creativethinking and an ability to getalong with and manipulatepeople.

Jennings says HUMINTstudents are the intellectualcream among Army recruits -screened for brains, characterand psychological strengths.The commander steps into atent and starts talking tosoldiers at random about theirbackgrounds: One is a collegegraduate looking for lifeexperience before law school.Another is a 38-year-oldhousewife who joined theArmy after her children weregrown. There is also a youngman with a degree inbiochemistry, and a womanwhose brother was killed inIraq.

The trainees are nearlydone with 13 weeks of intensecourse work. Instructors haveindoctrinated them in combatskills, interrogation methods,the law of war and culturalawareness. About 10 percentwill drop out or fail. The restwill take positions in nationaldefense, being deployed asinterrogators in Iraq,Afghanistan, Germany, thePhilippines and elsewhere inthe world.

"When they leave here,they're confident," Jenningssays. "We tell them about theimportance of what they'redoing and how it makes adifference in the war on terror."

New York TimesJanuary 6, 200812. Army Lets A FelonJoin Up, But The NewYork Police Will NotBy C. J. Chivers and WilliamK. Rashbaum

NAWA, Afghanistan —On the day after he completeda one-year sentence at theRikers Island jail, OsvaldoHernandez walked into anArmy recruiting office inElmhurst, Queens. He was afelon with a plan to change hislife.

It was late in 2003. Mr.Hernandez had been convictedof possessing an unregisteredpistol the year before. TheArmy, struggling to meet itsrecruiting goals, granted himan enlistment waiver for thecrime and soon swore him in.

Four years later, Mr.Hernandez, 25, is SpecialistHernandez, a paratrooper in the82nd Airborne Division inAfghanistan.

His transformation frominmate to productive citizenwould seem to be complete.His Army supervisors say he isreliable, honest and brave.Barring something unforeseen,he will be honorablydischarged at the end of his15-month combat tour this yearand hopes to become a NewYork City police officer.

But Specialist Hernandezis finding that what the Armyforgave is still remembered athome. The New York PoliceDepartment is among the broadmainstream of departments thatsay a felony conviction is anabsolute bar to police work, nomatter his exemplary militaryrecord, even in a combat zone.

“Basically they told me,word for word, ‘You’re goodenough for the Army, but youaren’t good enough to be apolice officer,’” SpecialistHernandez said, describing anexchange with a policerecruiter on the department’srecruitment hot line. “Theysaid, ‘You need more moralstature to be a police officer.’”

The rejection of SpecialistHernandez underscores the

inconsistencies in the standardsfor uniformed service in thecountry’s many different policeand military services, and theconundrums resulting from thevarying rules.

It is also a case withmultiple interpretations, manyof them balancing notions ofcrime, punishment and thepossibilities for redemptionagainst the risks of allowingapplicants with checkered pastsinto positions of public trust,even at a time when New Yorkis struggling to fill the ranks ofits police force.

New York City currentlyhas about 35,400 officers,nearly 2,500 below itsauthorized head count of37,838. The number hasrecently been holding steady,in part because of a lull in thepace of retirements.

One of the department’sbarriers to recruiting, policeofficials say, is the $25,100starting salary; police officialssay the salary is low enough todiscourage many qualifiedapplicants.

Were it not for his record,Specialist Hernandez, awell-regarded member of arenowned military unit, mightbe an ideal applicant.

The department has longmade it a priority to recruitmilitary veterans, noting thatmost are already adjusted tothe peculiar demands ofregimented life and many areextensively trained. In recentyears, many veterans have alsobeen seasoned and tested bytheir experiences in war.

The value placed on priormilitary service is clear in boththe department’s recruitingefforts — it has offered thecivil service test for officers onseveral military bases aroundthe country, as it does on somecollege campuses — and awaiver it routinely grants.

Under the current hiringrules, two years of active-dutymilitary service, with anhonorable discharge, can besubstituted for the 60 collegecredits otherwise required tojoin the force.

In all, officials said, 8

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percent to 10 percent ofofficers have militaryexperience.

The institutional value ofmilitary service also runs to thetop of the department. Three ofthe four most recentcommissioners servedactive-duty military tours:William J. Bratton and BernardB. Kerik in the Army, andRaymond W. Kelly in theMarines. (The remainingformer commissioner, HowardSafir, began but did notcomplete Marine Corps officertraining.)

Chuck Wexler, who headsthe Police Executive ResearchForum, a nonprofit groupfocused on improving policetactics, said he sympathizedwith Specialist Hernandez’sdisappointment. But, he said,he believed few, if any, policedepartments in this country hadever considered hiring anofficer with a felonyconviction, particularly arecent one.

“With the scrutiny that thepublic puts the police under, itis hard to ignore,” he said in atelephone interview. IfSpecialist Hernandez made amistake on the streets or got introuble, he said, it “would bepretty hard for a policedepartment to defend.”

But Mr. Wexler said thatfor all the similarities, the jobsof urban police officers in aWestern democracy and Armysoldiers in Afghanistan werenonetheless different.

“If you’re working in awar-torn environment, the levelof concern, the level of threat,the level of security is verydifferent,” he said.

Specialist Hernandez saidthat the same military servicethe police value in potentialrecruits should justify a waiverin his case.

“One percent of Americais doing what I’m doingtoday,” he said recently, sittingbehind the turret on a patrolthrough a part of the Afghandesert where Taliban fightersoperate openly. “But I’m notgood enough to go serve NewYork City?”

He and several of hisArmy supervisors noted that hewas fit and disciplined, andthat his firsthand sense of thestreets and his record of publicservice could make him anespecially informed patrolmanon the beat.

He grew up in Corona,Queens, raised by his motherafter his father abandoned thefamily when SpecialistHernandez was 6. By the timehe graduated from NewtownHigh School in 2000, he said,he had seen the value of work.

“We were poor as dirt canbe,” he said. “But my mothergot her education, and we werefine after a while.”

He also said that his crimewas less severe than many ofthe felonies that areunderstandably disqualifying.He was arrested in 2002, courtrecords show, after beingpulled over by plainclothespolice officers in RichmondHill, Queens. The officersfound a semiautomatic .380pistol under his car seat.

He admitted that the pistolwas his, but said that a friendhad given it to him a weekbefore he was arrested and thathe had not used it to commit acrime. His neighborhood wasdangerous, he said, and he keptthe pistol with youthful notionsof self-defense. “I don’t evenknow if it worked,” he said.

He pleaded guilty in courtto third-degree criminalpossession of a weapon, a Dfelony in a penal code that listsfelonies in severity from A, themost serious, to E, the least. Hehad never been arrested before.

When he began to servehis sentence in jail, he said, hewas mentored by a correctionofficer who had been an ArmyRanger. The officerencouraged him to considertrying to enlist. “After twomonths, my mind was set thatthat’s what I wanted to do,” hesaid.

No matter thecircumstances, Paul J. Browne,the Police Department’s chiefspokesman, said that thedepartment could not offer awaiver because a felony

conviction is an “absolute bar”to joining the force, a stricturelaid out in the city’sAdministrative Code. Evenmisdemeanor convictions, Mr.Browne said, often disqualifycandidates.

And most felons areprohibited by law fromcarrying weapons — clearly abar to service as a policeofficer.

Specialist Hernandez, inhis current job, legally carriesan M4 assault rifle andoperates a medium machinegun from behind a vehicleturret. The government hastrained him in other weaponsystems as well, and he said hehad taught himself to use someof the weapons commonly usedby the Taliban, including theKalashnikov assault rifle.

While in some ways thecase might seem awkward forthe Army — which sharplyimproved the quality of itsranks with decades ofvolunteer service, and hasnever wanted to be seen as ameans for ex-convicts tolaunder their lives — officersin Specialist Hernandez’scommand have beensupportive of his efforts to findwork in law enforcement.

His platoon leader, FirstLt. Mordechai Sorkin, went sofar as to research thepossibility of a pardon fromGov. Eliot Spitzer. But becausethere is no question thatSpecialist Hernandezcommitted the crime for whichhe was convicted, LieutenantSorkin said he learned, thechances are slim.

Lieutenant Sorkin, whenasked what kind of policeofficer Specialist Hernandezmight make, spoke withouthesitation. “This is a soldierwho wants to better himself,and wants to give back to hiscommunity and his city,” hesaid.

In an official characterreference, the lieutenant wrotethat Specialist Hernandez’s“hard work and leadershipcapabilities easily make himone of the best paratroopers inthe platoon.” The specialist,

Lieutenant Sorkin added, “is amodel of how our country’scorrectional system shouldwork.”

C. J. Chivers reportedfrom Afghanistan and WilliamK. Rashbaum from New York.

Fairbanks Daily News-MinerJanuary 5, 200813. Army Agrees To$420 Million HousingDeal For Local PostsBy Chris Eshleman, StaffWriter

The Army reported Fridaythat it has chosen a companyfor exclusive negotiations in aplan to privatize construction,maintenance and operation ofhousing on its Fort Wainwrightand Fort Greely posts.

If approved, the dealwould hand primaryresponsibility forapproximately 1,800 homesand apartments toNashville-based Actus LendLease LLC for the next fivedecades. The Army currentlymaintains and services familyhousing on the posts.

The proposal is part of theArmy’s ResidentialCommunities Initiativeprivatization program, which isslowly handing primaryownership of military housingover to private partners acrossthe country.

The development planproposed by the companycarries a potential price tag of$420 million. The Army couldcontribute one third of thatcost.

Congress and theDepartment of Defense willreview the proposal, which isslated to take effect in July.

Actus Lend Lease alreadyoperates 10 similar projectsacross the country worthapproximately $5.6 billion indevelopment value, accordingto its parent company, LendLease Corp. The subsidiaryworks “extensively” with themilitary on long-termprivatization programs, it saidin a Friday news release.

The two Army posts in

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Interior Alaska have alreadyseen a sizable addition of newwell-built homes, said KatieAlger, a development managerwith Actus Lend Lease. “Wesee this project as anopportunity to enhance thewonderful work they’vealready done,” she said.

The Army’sannouncement comes eightmonths after it issued a requestfor proposals for privatizationprojects on the two posts. Areview team evaluated thequalifications of companiesthat replied before evaluatingthe individual proposals,according to the Army.

The offer from Actus LendLease includes plans to addhundreds of new homes andapartments on the posts overthe next six years. It wouldalso build two new communitycenters with fitness rooms,ice-skating rinks andneighborhood parks, the Armystated. “The (program) is acritical part of the Army’s planto alleviate housing shortages,rapidly improve the conditionof our existing housing andsustain quality communitiesover the 50-year life of theseprojects,” a separate releasefrom the military explains ofthe nationwide privatizationinitiative.

Similar programs are inplace for other branches of themilitary. The 2,022 homes onElmendorf Air Force Base inAnchorage have beenprivatized, Air Forcespokeswoman Tech. Sgt.Francesca Popp said.

The larger Lend LeaseCorp. has been involved withmajor projects including arestoration of the Statue ofLiberty and a renovation ofNew York City’s GrandCentral Terminal, according tothe company.

Atlanta Journal-ConstitutionJanuary 6, 200814. Bombs UnearthedOn School Site

Officials in Orlando, Fla.,recovered more than 400pounds of World War II-era

bombs and munitions fromgrounds around a middleschool built on a site used bythe Army in the 1940s to trainbombardiers. The itemsincluded about 50 bombs,several rockets, a rocketbooster and a cannon. "I'mreally uneasy about it," saidRalph Hazlett, whosegranddaughter attends theschool. "How can they dig thisup and say she and all the kidsare safe?"

Defense NewsJanuary 7, 2008Pg. 115. U.S. Army FacesSpectrum CrunchMay Run Out of FrequenciesIn 5 Years: Procurement ChiefBy Kris Osborn

Within five years, the U.S.Army may have too little radiospectrum to allow itsnext-generation, networkedforce to work as it is beingdesigned to do, the service’soutgoing procurement chiefsaid.

Battlefield radio networksthat allow friendly forces toexchange voice, data and videosignals will be key to an Armyequipped with 27-ton FutureCombat Systems vehiclesinstead of 70-ton Abramstanks. Even with Joint TacticalRadio Systems (JTRS) thatmove bits hundreds of timesfaster than earlier radios, theneeds of aninformation-powered force arepoised to overwhelm theavailable bandwidth.

“We have enough to dothe job today, but I am notconvinced we have enough todo the job I see coming fiveyears from now,” ClaudeBolton, the outgoing assistantArmy secretary for acquisition,logistics and technology, saidin an exit interview.

Beginning in 2010 andcontinuing for several decades,the Army will introduceelements of anever-more-networked forcethat moves vast amounts ofdata from soldier-mountedsensors, aerial and ground

robots, manned vehicles andmore.

Bolton, who stepped downfrom his job on Jan. 2, said theArmy is taking several steps tohead off a communicationscrunch.

First, he wants a bettersense of the magnitude of theproblem. In December, Boltoncommissioned theCalifornia-based think tankRAND Corp. to estimate hisservice’s bandwidth needs in2012, 2017, 2022 and 2027.

“I commissioned a studybecause I think it is time to getreal data, at least for the Army,because I could not find astudy in the Department ofDefense that gave me adatabase estimate of bandwidthrequirements over the next 20years in five-year increments,”he said.

Bolton also has asked theArmy Science Board to look atthe problem.

One area of promise isadvances in compressiontechnologies, which condensetransmitted information tomore efficiently usebandwidth.

“If you were collectingstreaming video of a movinghostile target, you could dial upor dial down the datacompression capability so thatyou are only able to view whatyou need,” said LorenThompson of the LexingtonInstitute, a Virginia-basedthink tank. “The idea behinddata compression is that youuse only as much transmissioncapacity as needed to get thefidelity of messages you wantto see. By tinkering with datacompression, you can get muchmore carrying capacity out ofavailable bandwidth than mostpeople realize.”

But compression and eventhe new JTRS radios aren’tgoing to solve the Army’sbandwidth problems, Boltonsaid.

“Whether you ask me tocompress, prioritize, or go to adifferent band, those are allBand-Aids. Eventually, yourun completely out ofbandwidth. Now what? I need

that information,” he said.One possibility, albeit

long-term, may lie in the exoticworld of quantum mechanics,where researchers arepondering methods ofcommunication that use noradio transmissions at all, hesaid.

“My gut feeling is if wewere allowed to come back in100, or certainly 500 years,nobody would useelectromagnetics and resultingbandwidth to communicatebecause it is a bankruptapproach,” Bolton said. “Idon’t know if that particulartechnology is the answer. All Iknow is, we can’t go on withelectromagnetics.”

Several physicists saidthere are early theoreticalmodels now examining thepossibility of using quantumphysics to communicateinformation faster than thespeed of light.

In the meantime, the Armyis taking a pragmatic approachto the problem. Units that aretesting out early versions ofFCS technology at Fort Bliss,Texas, are pushing the newsystems to their limits — butalso practicing to see what theycan still do when parts of thenetwork go dead.

A soldier who gets used tofighting amid a wealth ofinformation is hampered whenthat network goes down,according to a 2006 RANDstudy.

“Message latency (delay)affected warfightereffectiveness by as much as 50percent for a selectedscenario,” the study said.

Bolton said the Army istrying to figure how to fightwith its new gear when itworks as advertised as well aswhen it doesn’t.

“That is going to be thekey to success in the future forus,” he said. “We want tored-team the network and seewhat happens if some of it goesaway. That is exactly what weare going to do.”

Faster RadiosThe next-generation JTRS

radios move data far faster than

page 17

existing radios. For instance,JTRS radios running theSoldier Radio Waveform cantransmit several megabits persecond, far more than today’sEPLRS (Enhanced PositionLocating Reporting System)radios, which move severalhundred kilobits per second, orthe SINCGARS (SingleChannel Ground-Air RadioSystem) radios, which moveroughly 10 kilobits per second.

These new radios will givetroops in headquarters, invehicles and even on foot ahuge advance in access toinformation.

“You can move maps andimagery as well as transmitvoice and data with a tacticalInternet capability, includinghigher data rates, anti-jammingand wireless networkingcapability,” said Howard Pace,JTRS deputy joint programexecutive officer for thePentagon.

But networked waveforms,such as SRW and WidebandNetworking Waveform(WNW), use more of theelectromagnetic frequencyspectrum than today’s radios.

“WNW is capable becausewe are using a large chunk ofspectrum to broadcast atmegabits per second withcontinuous bandwidth,” Pacesaid. “Now you are taking apiece of the spectrum that isalready crowded, and you willbe crowding more waveformsinto the same spectrum.”

Pace said the Pentagonmust move more quickly toretire older radios so that thenewer ones can have electronicroom to operate.

“If you don’tdecommission some of thesewaveforms, you are trying totake more from something thatis not there,” he said.

But Pace’s boss, JTRSjoint program executive officerDennis Bauman, said that’sgoing to take some time.

“Part of the force will stillbe using SINCGARS until weintroduce the new capability,so at least until we get WNWand SRW across the force,SINCGARS is here to stay,”

Bauman said. “But once youget it across the force, youshould be able to phase outwaveforms like SINCGARSand EPLRS.”

Nor can the Army lookbeyond its narrow segment ofthe spectrum.

Over the last two decades,the U.S. government hasauctioned off to privatecompanies many frequenciesonce reserved for the Pentagon,bringing in billions of dollarsbut constraining militarycommunications.

Harvard Universityphysicist Roy Glauber said theincreasing use of frequency is agrowing problem.

“The point is that everyelectromagnetic device uses acertain range of frequencies,”said Glauber, a 2005 Nobellaureate. “So every electronicdevice has a bandwidth, so ifyou have another device withan overlapping frequency band,you will get overlap andcross-talk. There is noalternative to having abandwidth.”

Some Army officials seehope in the Air Force’sTransformational Satellitecommunications system, whichwill allow data rates of abouttwo gigabits per second whenit arrives around 2020, abouteight times faster than the 250megabits of today’s AdvancedExtremely High FrequencySatellites. TSAT’s InternetProtocol-based system willalso offer more flexibility thanAEHF’s point-to-pointconnections.

San Diego Union-TribuneJanuary 6, 200816. Jury Pool ForMCRD Trials Not VeryDeepChoices on small bases limited,attorneys sayBy Steve Liewer, Staff Writer

SAN DIEGO – When Sgt.Robert Hankins goes to trialtomorrow on charges that heabused men under hissupervision at Marine CorpsRecruit Depot in San Diego,

he'll probably be staring at ajury full of familiar faces.

Some attorneys said thepool of potential jurors at smallbases, including the depot, isso limited that it's typical formany of the people who passthrough the courtroom aslawyers, jurors or witnesses toknow each other.

“There's little that goes onaboard MCRD that all handsdon't know about, particularlywhen it comes todrill-instructor abuse,” saidGary Solis, a former MarineCorps attorney from San Diegowho now teaches law atGeorgetown University inWashington, D.C.

Small jury pools make itharder for lawyers to choose apanel that isn't biased. Movinga trial to a different base iscumbersome and rare, saidlongtime lawyersknowledgeable about militarycases.

“It's up to the judge todetermine impartiality,” saidJohn Hutson, formerly theNavy's senior judge advocategeneral and now dean of theNew Hampshire-basedFranklin Pierce Law Center.“In the end, you rely on theexperience of the militaryjudge.”

Hankins faces 16 counts ofmaltreating recruits, violatingorders, destroying property,lying to investigators andcovering up serious charges.He's the last of three drillinstructors to becourt-martialed on similarallegations involving recruitPlatoon 2167 betweenDecember 2006 and February2007.

About 1,450 servicemembers work at the depot,said a spokeswoman there. Butonly a fraction of them may beeligible for jury duty.

By comparison, CampPendleton has about 50,000Marines and sailors.

Even low-profile cases canpose challenges with juryselection, said Capt. PatrickCallahan, the recruit depot'ssenior defense counsel.

“It's unusual that I try a

case on MCRD where thejurors don't know at least oneof the witnesses. It's going tobe rare that you find a seniorofficer on base who doesn'tknow every other seniorofficer,” said Callahan,referring to military law thatcalls for service members to betried by jurors who outrankthem.

Another distinctive featureof the military justice system isthe convening authority. Thisterm describes a senior officer,such as the commandinggeneral of a base, who decideswhether a service membershould be court-martialed andchooses the pool of prospectivejurors who will judge thatdefendant's guilt or innocence.

“It's a given that the jurorsare going to be hand-picked bythe convening authority,” saidEugene Fidell, who heads thenonprofit National Institute ofMilitary Justice in Washington.

In 2001, the institutecommissioned a report thatultimately recommendedchanges to the Uniform Codeof Military Justice, whichgoverns military courts.Among its top suggestions:stripping convening authoritiesof their right to select jurypools.

“There is no reason topreserve a practice that createssuch a strong impression of,and opportunity for, corruptionof the trial process,” the reportsaid.

Military brass haven'tadopted the proposed change.

The recent trials ofHankins' co-defendants, Sgts.Jerrod Glass and BrianWendel, offered a view into thecloistered world of criminaljustice at the recruit depot.

Prosecutors and defenseattorneys questioned a panel ofofficers and senior enlistedMarines in a process calledvoir dire, which allows for theprobing of potential jurors'views to detect potential bias.

For Wendel'scourt-martial, it took two daysto select a five-member panelfrom the 13 prospective jurors.Voir-dire questioning revealed

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that all of the potential jurorsknew at least several Marineson the list of about 60 expectedwitnesses, and about half knewthe two prosecutors.

Some had read mediaaccounts and/or internalinvestigations about the abusecases, and at least twoacknowledged that they hadformed opinions aboutWendel's guilt or innocence.One officer said he haddiscussed the cases at lengthwith the battalion commanderwho brought the charges.

The revelations didn't endwith voir dire. While Glassgave testimony againstWendel, the court-martialjudge briefly halted the trialbecause he suddenly realizedhe had served with Glass inIraq. After brief questioning,prosecutors and defenseattorneys agreed that the judgecould continue to preside overthe case because he knew Glassonly slightly.

“Everybody's got somesort of connection,” said 1st Lt.Joshua Levine, Wendel'sco-counsel.

In the end, the juryacquitted Wendel of three ofthe five charges against him.He could have been imprisonedfor six months and given abad-conduct discharge, but thejurors gave him a reprimandand a one-rank demotion fordisobeying an order anddereliction of duty.

“We felt that they wereunbiased, and we got a fairtrial,” said Capt. Jahn Olson,Wendel's lead attorney.

Several lawyers said themilitary's professionalismpartly offsets theincestuousness of small bases.Unlike some civilian juries,they said, the officers andsenior enlisted members whoserve on military panels aretypically well-educated andunderstand how to follow ajudge's orders.

“I can't think of any time Iever had cause to question thefairness of a juror,” Solis said.“A military panel is about asfair a panel as one can get.”

Mideast Stars and StripesJanuary 5, 200817. New Bunker-BusterFitted Aboard StealthB-2 BomberBy Lisa Burgess, Stars andStripes

ARLINGTON, Va. — TheAir Force’s deep-earth“bunker-buster” weapon is onestep closer to reality, now thatengineers have testedmodifications to the B-2bomber to carry two of the30,000-pound bombs.

On Dec. 18, Air Forceordnance handlers atWhiteman Air Force Base,Mo., loaded a dummy versionof the 20.5-foot long MassiveOrdnance Penetrator, or MOP,into a mocked-up duplicate ofthe stealth bomber’s weaponsbay.

What the Air Force waschecking in the test waswhether the B-2’s existingmounting hardware isadequate, and if the bomb fit inthe bay, according to Airman1st Class Stephen Linch, aspokesman for the 509th BombWing at Whiteman.

The combined weight ofthe two MOPs is 20,000pounds more more than thepublished 40,000-poundmaximum payload the B-2 islisted as carrying.

However, according to 1stLt. Candace Cutrufo, Air Forceengineers have calculated thatthe airframe of the aircraft iscapable of handling them.

“The B-2 hasn’t actuallydone a test flight carrying theactual bombs,” Cutrufo, aspokeswoman at Whiteman,told Stars and Stripes onThursday by phone. She didn’tknow when those tests wouldbe held.

“But once that occurs, theB-2 will have achieved a newmilestone for payloadcapacity,” and the old payloadof 40,000 will be updated toreflect that the bomber cancarry 60,000 pounds, she said.

The Pentagon has askedCongress for nearly $88

million to fund thedevelopment of the MOP infiscal 2008.

Because the MOP’spurpose is to destroy deeplyburied and what the militarycalls “hardened” targets —those specifically reinforced tosurvive strikes with highexplosives — the bomb canburrow up to 200 feet beforeexploding, according to Linch.

Once the MOP gets to itstarget, Linch said, the weaponwill deliver 5,300 pounds ofexplosives “with more than 10times the explosive power” ofthe BLU-109, itsbunker-busting predecessor,Linch said.

The first successful tests ofthe MOP’s explosivecapabilities took place at theend of March at the WhiteSands Missile Range in NewMexico.

Norfolk Virginian-PilotJanuary 6, 200818. National GuardOfficer With Local TiesCited For Bravery InIraqBy Louis Hansen,Virginian-Pilot

A Richmond-area policeofficer has been awarded aSilver Star for valorous actionsin Iraq while deployed with hisArmy National Guard unit.

Chief Warrant Officer 3James B. Herring left hisarmored Humvee twice toprotect his fellow soldiersduring a withering ambushnear Baqouba, Iraq, inDecember 2006, according toan Army citation of the award.

Herring, 46, is a warrantofficer with Bravo Company,3rd Battalion, 20th SpecialForces Group in RoanokeRapids, N.C. He received hisaward in a ceremony Saturdayin North Carolina.

Herring is also a lieutenantin the Chesterfield CountyPolice, where he has been since1983. His mother, SusanDillon, and stepfather, MichaelDillon, live in Norfolk.

Herring deployed to

Diyala province in Iraq in2006. On Dec. 23 of that year,his unit and members of theIraqi army loaded into fiveheavily armored Humvees tosearch for insurgents in thevillage of Tahrir.

Spc. Stephen Haas, Spc.Broughton Aragon, Staff Sgt.John Mason and Herring rodein the lead vehicle. Herring, ina telephone interview, said thepatrol unit hit "ambush afterambush" as it chased severalgunmen deep into the village.

The Humvee lurcheddown a small path when 20insurgents began firingautomatic weapons andgrenades from behind aconcrete wall.

Herring saw enemymachine gunners focused onthe back of turret gunnerAragon. He leaped out of thevehicle and shot the gunnersbefore they could strikeAragon, according to thecitation.

After he returned to thevehicle, he learned that Haas,the truck's driver, was struck inthe leg and badly injured.Herring again left the truck,dodging rocket-propelledgrenades and machine gun fire.

He circled around to thedriver's side, pulled Haas fromhis seat and placed him in theback of the Humvee, where amedic treated him.

Herring, who has beenwith the guard unit for almost23 years, said he never thoughttwice about rushing into dangerto protect his soldiers. "I knowalmost every single guy," hesaid. "I would take itpersonally, almost, that theenemy would attack us."

Four hours after theskirmish, Herring hopped inanother Humvee and rode onanother mission, where hewould survive his fourthambush of the day.

New York TimesJanuary 6, 200819. Afghan ClericsWarn Karzai AgainstMissionaries

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KABUL, Afghanistan(Reuters) — Afghanistan’sIslamic council has toldPresident Hamid Karzai to stopforeign aid groups fromconverting local people toChristianity and has demandedthe reintroduction of publicexecutions.

The council, an influentialgroup that lacks bindingauthority, is made up of theIslamic clergy and ulema, orreligious scholars, from variousparts of Afghanistan. It madethe warning in a statementFriday during a meeting withMr. Karzai.

The ulema have alwaysplayed a crucial role inAfghanistan and have beenbehind several revolts againstpast governments.

The council said it wasconcerned about the activitiesof some “missionary andatheistic” groups, saying thatthe actions were “againstIslamic Shariah, theConstitution, and politicalstability,” according to a copyof the statement. “If notprevented, God forbid,catastrophe will emerge, whichwill not only destabilize thecountry, but the region and theworld.”

Quoting what he said werereliable sources, Ahmad AliJebrayeli, a member of thecouncil and a member ofParliament, said unnamedChristian missionaries hadoffices in Kabul, the capital,and in the provinces to convertAfghans.

Some nongovernmentalorganizations “are encouragingthem, give them books andpromise to send them abroad,”he said Saturday.

Numerous foreign aidgroups and charities operatingin Afghanistan have strongdirect or indirect links toChristian organizations, butthey insist they are notproselytizing.

Last year, 23 SouthKorean missionaries werekidnapped by the Taliban and,among other things, accused oftrying to convert Muslims.Two members of the group

were killed before the rest,almost all women, were freed.

The conversion andspiriting out of an AfghanChristian convert after theintervention of several Westernleaders and Pope Benedict XVIin 2006 prompted a series oflocal protests.

Strict interpretations ofIslam, as practiced inAfghanistan, treat conversionsas apostasy, punishable bydeath.

The council also urged Mr.Karzai to stop local televisionstations from showing Indiansoap operas and movies, whichare enormously popular inAfghanistan but which it saidincluded obscenities andscenes that were immoral.

The council alsodemanded a return to publicexecutions for killers as well asa crackdown against graft. TheTaliban, which is leading aninsurgency against Mr.Karzai’s government andforeign troops, publiclyexecuted those convicted ofcapital crimes — usually onFridays after midday prayers.

While Afghanistan stillhas the death penalty, it hasrarely been carried out sincethe Taliban’s fall and never inpublic.

Mr. Karzai instructedvarious governmentdepartments to address thedemands of the council, butstopped short of committing tomaking any changes, Mr.Jebrayeli said.

London Sunday TimesJanuary 6, 200820. Expelled BritishEnvoys Tried To TurnTaliban ChiefBy Dean Nelson

TWO British diplomatsexpelled from Afghanistanover the Christmas holidaywere trying to “turn” a seniorTaliban commander, it hasemerged.

They held secret meetingswith Mansoor Dadullah - athorn in the side of Britishmilitary in Helmand province -

to try to persuade him to breakwith the Taliban and form hisown political party and militia,according to Afghangovernment sources.

If they had succeeded itwould have been a coup for thewestern allies shoring up thegovernment of Hamid Karzaiin Kabul. Instead, MervynPatterson, a high-ranking UNofficial, and Michael Semple,the acting head of the EUmission to Afghanistan, wereexpelled after an Afghannational “confessed” to Afghanintelligence that he hadaccompanied the two to asecret meeting with Dadullahin Musa Qala.

Days later the Talibansacked Dadullah for refusing toobey orders, according to astatement to the Pakistan-basedIslamic Press Agency by aTaliban spokesman. He saidthat sympathisers of Dadullahshould break all contacts withhim and continue their jihad.

Dadullah took over theTaliban’s southern strongholdlast May after his brother,Mullah Dadullah, was killed byAfghan forces. Of 86 Britonskilled in Afghanistan sinceOctober 2001, 27 were killedby the Taliban since Dadullahtook charge. He now claims tocommand more than 25,000battle-hardened fighters whoare loyal to him.

Patterson, from NorthernIreland, and Semple, an Irishpassport-holder who hasworked as a British diplomat inPakistan, are regarded as twoof the most knowledgeable andexperienced political officersin Afghanistan. They speakfluent Dari and Pashtun andhave extensive contacts.

According to friends, theywere visiting Musa Qala on afact-finding mission. However,the governor of Helmandprovince, Assadullah Wafa,complained to Karzai that theyhad met Taliban commanders,and demanded action be taken.

The UN denied the menwere involved in anintelligence operation or thatthey held talks with Dadullah.Dadullah also denied meeting

foreigners.

Chicago TribuneJanuary 5, 2008Pg. 121. U.S. Has Big StakeIn Steering Kenya BackFrom BrinkCountry reeling frompostelection violence isstrategically vital incounterterrorism and aidefforts in the volatile Horn ofAfricaBy Paul Salopek, Tribuneforeign correspondent

NAIROBI, Kenya--MaryWambui sat dazed with griefunder a tree on the outskirts ofthis embattled African capital,her pauper's hut looted by agang of thugs, her sisterrecovering from rape in a localhospital and all her worldlypossessions stuffed into aplastic bucket salvaged fromthe ashes of Kenya's recentspasm of election violence.

"Americans won't careabout this," Wambui, 18, said,pressing a fist to her mouth asif to still her quavering voice."They will just say we arehopeless, like anotherSomalia."

Many Americans mightindeed be tempted to dismissthe recent television images ofNairobi's bleeding slums andflaming roadblocks as just onemore baffling example ofAfrica's flirtation with chaos.

But alarmed U.S.diplomats and analysts knowbetter. The unprecedentedpolitical violence that hasrocked this once orderlycountry, pitting the supportersof re-elected President MwaiKibaki against an enragedopposition that claims the votewas rigged, threatens to upendyears of carefully erectedAmerican foreign policy acrossa vast, strategic and deeplytroubled swath of Africa.

Bound painfully to theUnited States by the 1998bombing of the U.S. Embassyin Nairobi by Al Qaedaaffiliates -- a terrorist attackthat killed far more Kenyansthan Americans -- Kenya has

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become many things to itsWashington ally: an outpost ofpeace and stability in animpoverished and violentregion; a springboard fromwhich to funnel billions ofdollars in aid to nearly half thecontinent; and a quiet bulwarkagainst the lawlessness ofAfrica's Horn, a toughneighborhood that securityexperts have begun calling thethird major front in the war onterrorism, after Afghanistanand Iraq.

"This isn't an ordinaryAfrican political crisis," said J.Stephen Morrison, director ofthe Africa program at theCenter for Strategic andInternational Studies, a foreignaffairs think tank inWashington. "The stakes arepretty big for the U.S. If theylose Kenya, I'm not sure whatthe Plan B is."

Not that Kenya is doomedto anarchy yet.

On Friday the nationseemed dazed after five days ofmayhem that saw homes andchurches torched, untoldnumbers of women raped andupward of 300 peopleslaughtered in political clashesthat quickly devolved intoethnic vendettas.

In Nairobi, a trickle of carsand taxi vans began circulatingon otherwise empty streets. Afew shops cautiously yankedup their shutters. And hundredsof riot police were on patrol.

Raila Odinga, the fieryopposition leader who says hewon the Dec. 27 election,warned that a new vote must bescheduled within 90 days orKenya would slide deeper intobedlam. A governmentspokesman shrugged off thatsuggestion.

Foreign leaders anddiplomats, meanwhile, werescrambling to keep the twoleaders talking -- and Kenyafrom toppling into ahumanitarian and politicalcatastrophe. Few delegationswere pulling out more stopsthan the Americans.

"Kenya is an importantcounterterrorism partner," saidNational Security Council

spokesman Gordon Johndroe,adding that Washington isworking hard to help what isarguably its closest Africanally "get back on thenon-violent, democratic paththey had been on."

The stakes couldn't behigher. The U.S. relied onKenyan airspace and armedborder patrols a year ago whenthe Pentagon backed anotherregional ally, Ethiopia, incrushing a radical Islamistregime in neighboring Somalia.Kenya has acted also as alogistical corridor for abillion-dollar humanitarian aideffort, paid for largely by theU.S., in southern Sudan. AndKenyan intelligence agenciescollaborate closely with theirU.S. counterparts inmonitoring Al Qaedainfiltration in the region.

The alliance onlydeepened after Al Qaedaoperatives blew up anIsraeli-owned hotel inMombasa in 2002.

Such pro-Americanstances have paid offhandsomely.

Total U.S. aidmushroomed more than tenfoldover the past decade, from$29.5 million in 1997 to$390.5 million in 2006, the lastyear for which governmentfigures are available. Much ofthat largesse comes in the formof food donations andanti-AIDS funding. Americanmilitary assistance, however,has grown apace. In the fiveyears before Sept. 11, itamounted to $3 million; in thefive years after, it zoomed to$34.8 million.

Still, Washington'sembrace of the Kibaki regimehas caused some awkward andunexpected blow-back in thecurrent crisis.

The eruption ofpostelection violence appearsto have caught U.S. diplomatsflat-footed, political analysts inboth countries say, becauseWashington is too cozy withKenya's often-corrupt rulingelite. An embarrassed StateDepartment retracted atoo-hasty congratulation to

Kibaki after internationalmonitors declared thevote-counting deeply suspect.

"The U.S. has in our viewgone back to a Cold Warparadigm where it supports anyregime as long as it fightsAmerica's war on terrorism,"said Maina Kiai, head of theKenya National Commissionon Human Rights. "The resultis that the Americans haveleverage with Kibaki butcredibility almost nowhere elsewithin Kenya."

The Nairobi-Washingtonalliance also has managed toalienate many of Kenya'sminority Muslims.

Over the past year, Kibakihas been accused of permittingsuspected Islamic extremists tobe deported without trial tosecret jails in Ethiopia -- alocal version of Washington'sclandestine rendition program.

"Ninety percent ofMuslims voted for theopposition in this election,"said Said Athman, the directorof Kenya's National MuslimLeaders Forum. "We feel thatthe current Kenyangovernment is a proxy of theUnited States. We view theU.S. as hostile towards us."

Yet the specialrelationship is likely tocontinue, unless Kenya utterlycollapses.

"We have no otherreliable, coherent partners inthe region to contain troublespots like Somalia and Sudan,"said analyst Morrison. "Even ifOdinga eventually takes power,the U.S. will work with him."

This may or may not be acomfort to Wambui, the youngslum refugee and victim ofelectoral violence, who wascamping rough under the trees.

Americans may not beparticularly moved by herfaraway miseries. But at leastWashington is watchinganxiously.

--Tribune correspondentBay Fang contributed to thisreport from Washington

London Sunday TelegraphJanuary 6, 2008

22. Israel Warns OfIranian Missile PerilFor EuropeBy Carolynne Wheeler, inJerusalem

Iran is developing nuclearmissiles capable of reachingbeyond its enemies in theMiddle East to Europe,President George Bush will bewarned when he visits Israeland the Palestinian territoriesfor the first time since enteringthe White House.

A senior Israeli cabinetminister has told The SundayTelegraph that his governmentis convinced Iran is intent onbecoming the first Muslimsuperpower, with weaponscapable of striking not only atIsrael but also Egypt, Libya,Saudi Arabia as well as Greeceand other parts of south-easternEurope.

Avi Dichter, the Israeliminister of public security, willwarn President George Bushabout Iran's nuclear capabilities

The Israeli government isfurious about the recent USintelligence assessment whichconcluded that Iran hadsuspended its nuclear weaponsprogramme in 2003, and hopesto convince the Americanleader that work is continuingon a bomb that poses awidespread threat.

In an exclusive interview,Avi Dichter, the Israeliminister of public security,warned that Iran wasdeveloping missiles with arange of more than 1,250miles.

"Iran is a big, strong richcountry, and that competitionin leading the Muslim world iswell-known to all Arab andMuslim countries," he said.

"Once you can reach withyour missile double thedistance between Iran andIsrael, it means there is somefarther target. Is it Egypt?Libya? Saudi Arabia? AEuropean country?"

The Israeli intelligencecommunity insists there is noproof that Iran has abandonedits weapons programmeindefinitely.

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Mr Dichter said it wasworking to develop missileswith a range that suggestedambitions beyond threateningIsrael.

He said Israeli officialswould warn Mr Bush thatfailing to take action wouldhave serious consequencesbeyond the Middle East, whereIran was funding groups,including Hezbollah inLebanon and Hamas in Gaza.

The Sunday Telegraphrevealed last year how Gulfcountries, including SaudiArabia and the United ArabEmirates, were spendingbillions of pounds onupgrading their armed forces tocontain the growing threatfrom Iran.

Mr Bush, who is due toarrive on Wednesday, hopes tomake progress on theIsraeli-Palestinian peacenegotiations launched at theAnnapolis summit in Marylandin late November.

But talks have made littleor no progress since, withIsraeli officials accusing thePalestinians of not doingenough to dismantle militantgroups.

Instead, Israel hasprepared a long list of concernsfor Mr Bush, including thoseover the US intelligenceestimate and the need for peacetalks with Syria.

Mr Dichter said Israelwanted to bring Syria out ofthe Iranian "axis" of influencetowards a peace treaty, whichwould mirror Israel's 1979peace agreement with Egypt.

Peace with Syria wouldreduce Hezbollah's influence,force Hamas's leader-in-exileKhaled Meshaal, who nowlives in Damascus, to relocate,and improve Israel's image andstanding in the Arab world.

Mr Bush is expected tospend two to three daysmeeting separately withMahmoud Abbas, thePalestinian authority president,and Ehud Olmert, the Israeliprime minister, before going toEgypt, Saudi Arabia and theGulf states.

Mr Dichter said, however,

that there was almost no hopeof an Israeli-Palestinian peaceaccord this year, and that amajor operation against Hamasand other Islamist groups inGaza would eventually beneeded.

He added that thePalestinian authority's loss ofGaza to Hamas in June showedit was not ready to take fullcontrol of security in aneventual state, and that Gazamust be brought back undercontrol before a Palestinianstate is created.

The Palestinian authorityhas deployed hundreds of extratroops in Nablus andBethlehem as the start of acrackdown on militant groups,and Mr Dichter's Palestiniancounterpart, the interiorminister Abdel-Razekal-Yahya, said last week it haddismantled the al-AqsaMartyrs' Brigade, a violentFatah offshoot.

Palestinians also argue,however, that their efforts tocrack down on militant groupsare hampered by Israel's refusalto permit them to be properlyequipped.

Washington PostJanuary 6, 2008Pg. 15Poland23. GovernmentUndecided On U.S.Missile Shield

Poland is in no rush todecide on hosting a U.S.anti-missile base before U.S.elections, because the nextWhite House administrationcould scuttle the project,Poland's foreign minister saidSaturday.

Warsaw has been in talkswith Washington on plans tohost ground-based interceptormissiles in Poland, part of aproject to protect Europeagainst attacks from what theBush administration calls"rogue states," such as Iran andNorth Korea.

But negotiations havestalled since Donald Tusk tookover as Poland's prime minister

in November."The worst-case scenario

would be one in which Polandagrees to the shield, shouldersthe political costs and then thebase isn't built because thegovernment in the U.S. haschanged," Foreign MinisterRadoslaw Sikorski said in anewspaper interview.

New York TimesJanuary 6, 200824. Exit Polling SuggestsElection Victory ForGeorgia's Pro-WesternPresidentBy Andrew E. Kramer

TBILISI, Georgia —Georgia’s pro-Westernpresident seemed close onSaturday to winning an earlyelection called after hedeclared a state of emergencythis fall to deal with protesters.

An exit poll suggested thatPresident Mikheil Saakashviliwould win with more than 50percent of the vote, avoidingthe need for a runoff electionand securing a victory for agovernment that is a close allyof the Bush administration.

The poll projected Mr.Saakashvili finishing with 54percent of the vote. The pollreported having a margin oferror of two percentage points.

The main oppositioncandidate, LevanGachechiladze, challenged theaccuracy of the poll, which wasconducted by four Georgiantelevision stations. It foundhim trailing with 28 percent.

Badri Patarkatsishvili, abillionaire who had promisedto pay a stipend to theunemployed from his personalfortune, was projected to finishthird, with 6 percent.

The Central ElectionCommission had not releasedofficial results as of earlySunday. Also on the ballot wasa referendum on Georgia’s bidto join NATO, which wasexpected to pass.

Mr. Saakashvili’scampaign claimed victorybased on the exit poll’s results.“I congratulate citizens of

Georgia on MikheilSaakashvili’s election for asecond term,” the campaignspokesman David Bakradze,said after the polls closed.

The Bush administrationhas cited Mr. Saakashvili’sgovernment as an example ofdemocratic success in a regionwhere that has been scarce.

Georgia has deployed2,000 soldiers in Iraq and is thethird-largest contributor oftroops there, after only theUnited States and Britain. Thegovernment named a street inTbilisi, the capital, afterPresident Bush.

Mr. Saakashvili, 40, agraduate of ColumbiaUniversity, is a formeremployee of the New York lawfirm of Patterson BelknapWebb & Tyler.

He had about a year morein his five-year term but calledthe election early in hopes ofwinning a new mandate togovern after he ordered apolice crackdown on protestsand declared a state ofemergency on Nov. 7. In thedispersal of demonstrators,more than 500 people wereinjured, none fatally.

The police also closed atelevision station managed byRupert Murdoch’s NewsCorporation, saying reporterswere inciting a riot. Theseactions brought criticism downon the government at home andabroad.

“They made a mistake,”Vaja Rostiashvili, a42-year-old unemployedengineer, said of Mr.Saakashvili’s governmentwhile standing in line at aTbilisi polling place. “They feltguilty and wanted to correcttheir mistake. That is themeaning of this election.”

International observerscalled the election Saturdayfair. “Everywhere I went today,I have seen no evidence ofsystematic fraud,” saidRepresentative Alcee L.Hastings, Democrat of Florida,who led the observer missionfor the Organization forSecurity and Cooperation inEurope. He said fears of a

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violent protest movementdiminished as the electionseemed to have been carriedout smoothly.

But by early afternoon,opposition groups said thatthey had documented fraud.The Labor Party, which fieldedone of the seven candidates inthe race, said city buses hadbeen diverted from theirnormal routes to ferrySaakashvili supporters topolling places to vote morethan once.

Kakha Dzagania, theLabor Party spokesman, calledthe buses a “carousel” in whichvoters made the rounds ofpolling places. The ElectionCommission and Mr.Saakashvili’s campaign deniedthe accusation.

In a town in the Kakheticregion in the eastern part of thecountry, though, the JusticeMinistry arrested a manaccused of ballot stuffing.

The leading oppositiongroup, a coalition of ninepolitical parties, is alsopro-Western and favorsGeorgia’s bid to join NATO.

But David Usupashvili,chairman of the RepublicanParty and a member of thecoalition, said Mr.Saakashvili’s close relationshipwith the Bush administrationhad blinded the United Statesto what Mr. Usupashvili calledauthoritarian tendencies in hisgovernment. Mr. Saakashvilihas weakened Parliament toeliminate checks and balanceson his rule, Mr. Usupashvilisaid in an interview.

The main oppositioncandidate, Mr. Gachechiladze,ran on a platform that calledfor the transformation ofGeorgia into a parliamentaryrepublic within 200 days of theelection. He had said he wouldresign and abolish thepresidency if he won.

Los Angeles TimesJanuary 6, 2008Pg. 125. How The U.S. SeeksTo Avert Nuclear

TerrorScientists scan cities. Responseteams are ready. And if therewere a lethal device, expertswould work on tracing thesource.By Ralph Vartabedian, LosAngeles Times Staff Writer

About every three days,unknown to most Americans,an elite team of federalscientists hits the streets in thefight against nuclear terrorism.

The deployments are partof an effort since 2001 toratchet up the nation'sdefenses. More than two dozenspecialized teams have beenpositioned across the nation torespond to threats of nuclearterrorism, and as many 2,000scientists and bomb expertsparticipate in the effort.Spending on the program hasmore than doubled since it waslaunched.

And an evolving nationalpolicy aims to create a systemof nuclear forensics, in whichscientific analysis couldquickly identify the source of anuclear attack or attemptedattack. A key report on nuclearforensics is due next month.

The counter-terrorismefforts are becoming routine.Scientists in specially equippedhelicopters and airplanes useradiation detectors to scancities for signs of weapons.They blend into crowds atmajor sporting events, wearingbackpacks containinginstruments that can identifyplutonium or highly enricheduranium.

So far, they have notencountered a terrorist. Nearthe Las Vegas Strip, theyinvestigated a homeless personwho somehow had picked up apiece of radioactive material.On the streets of Manhattan, ahot-dog vendor fresh from amedical test triggered apoliceman's radioactivitysensor.

But the teams have notbecome complacent. If themany layers of federal defenseagainst nuclear smugglingbreak down, these unarmedweapons designers andphysicists, along with experts

from the FBI, could be the lasthope of staving off acatastrophic attack.

They are supposed to rushup to a ticking nuclearexplosive (or a "dirty" bomb,which would disperseradioactive material) anddefuse it before it's too late -- asituation often depicted byHollywood that seems lessfictional every year.

"After everything elsefails, we come in," saidDeborah A. Wilber, thescientist who directs the Officeof Emergency Response at theEnergy Department's NationalNuclear SecurityAdministration. "I don't believeit is a question of if it willhappen. It is a question ofwhen."

Since the attacks of 2001,the office has created 26rapid-response units around thenation.

If a device were located,two other specialized teamswould rush to the scene, onefrom a base in Albuquerque,where a fueled jetliner is on24-hour alert. Another FBIteam would depart from ruralVirginia.

The teams would firstattempt to disable a bomb'selectrical firing system andthen quickly transfer theweapon to the Nevada desert.There, the bomb would belowered into the G Tunnel, a5,000-foot-deep shaft, where acrew of scientists and FBIagents would attempt todisassemble the device behindsteel blast doors, logging anyevidence.

About 1,000 nuclearweapons scientists and 500 to1,000 more FBI professionalsparticipate in the nation'semergency response effort,though not full time. Increasedinvestment in the projectreflects an acknowledgmentthat the nation remainsvulnerable to nuclear terrorism.

But the effort is alsoreaching for something greaterthan defense: a Cold War styleof deterrence.

The scientists are alsoexperts in the rapidly evolving

field of nuclear forensics,which aims to track nuclearmaterials to their country oforigin. Even if a bombdetonates, fallout can beanalyzed to identify theterrorists and their statesponsors. A retaliatory strikecould be the response.

The idea is to force othernations to take better care oftheir own nuclear fuels or elsefind themselves in the crosshairs of the U.S. nucleararsenal.

A major technical andpolicy analysis of this approach-- the report that is due nextmonth -- is being conducted bysome of the nation's topnuclear weapons experts,sponsored by the AmericanAssn. for the Advancement ofScience and led by StanfordUniversity physicist MichaelM. May.

In the meantime, theUnited States is retrieving andlocking down nuclear fuelsabroad, has created a line ofradiation detectors at foreignand domestic ports, and hasincreased intelligence efforts.

If those and othermeasures fail, the emergencyresponse teams are a last hope,but one nobody should rely on,said Charles B. Curtis,president of the Nuclear ThreatInitiative, which pushes forstronger efforts to preventnuclear terrorism.

Intercepting a device "is avery, very, very difficultproblem, but not impossible,"said Curtis, a former EnergyDepartment deputy secretary.

Vahid Majidi, a nuclearweapons chemist and head ofthe FBI Weapons of MassDestruction Directorate,seemed more confident. Askedhow good his chances wouldbe to find a nuclear bomb inManhattan with 24 hours'warning, he said, "Quitereasonable."

He continued: "When youthink of issues only as atechnical problem, you onlythink of technical capability. Iam not sitting on my handswaiting for some detector to gooff. We will use every asset at

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our disposal. Technology is avery small portion of what wedo."

The full capability of theteams is classified. BruceGoodwin, nuclear weaponschief at Lawrence LivermoreNational Laboratory, said theteams now had "some reallyremarkable tools that canprevent nuclear function,"suggesting a device that canfoil the arming system orperhaps even neutralize itsbasic operation.

It is assumed that anyterrorist bomb would havebooby traps and anti-tamperingdevices, perhaps designed byscientists who studied at thesame universities that trainedU.S. weapons scientists.Emergency response scientistsrun exercises in which oneteam designs a booby-trappedbomb and another team tries todisarm it.

A weapon stolen from anational stockpile might posefewer problems than amakeshift terrorist device.

"We know a lot aboutother people's weapons," saidCurtis. "They will tolerate agreater intrusive disarmingstrategy than an improvisednuclear device."

History has someunfortunate lessons. In 1980,Energy Department expertswere sent to help disarm a1,000-pound conventionalbomb placed by an extortionistat Harvey's Resort Hotel inStateline, Nev. The bomb hadextraordinary anti-tamperingdevices that prevented theteams from disassembling,disarming or even moving it.

So the bomb expertsdecided to fire a shaped chargeinto the arming mechanism,hoping to sever it from the restof the bomb before it coulddetonate. After the hotel wasevacuated, the team triggeredthe charge from a safe distance.The strategy failed and thebomb badly damaged the hotel.

But today's level ofexpertise would easily havesolved the problem, saidJoseph J. Krol Jr., a retiredNavy rear admiral who heads

the National Nuclear SecurityAdministration's Office ofEmergency Operations, towhich Wilber's emergencyresponse office belongs.

"We are very much betterprepared," Krol said. "How weoperated then and how weoperate now is like night andday."

Indeed, Philip E. Coyle, aformer deputy director atLawrence Livermore, recalledthat when he served on theemergency teams in the 1970sand 1980s, he carried a card inhis wallet to present at anairport in an emergency so hecould order airlines to take himwhere he needed to go.

"It sounded good, but Ialways wondered whether itwould work," he said. Now theteams travel by governmentaircraft and other federalvehicles.

A successful terroristnuclear attack would triggerthe so-called national responseplan.

Many federal agencieswould swing into action,including the EnvironmentalProtection Agency, theDefense Department, theDepartment of HomelandSecurity and the Department ofJustice, as would myriadobscure offices unknown to thevast majority of Americans.For example, the NationalAtmospheric Release AdvisoryCenter, based at the Livermorelab, would run advancedcomputation models of falloutpatterns to provide evacuationplans for potentially millions ofpeople.

Whether so many federalagencies could work togetherin the chaos of a nuclear attack,all while coordinating withstate and local officials, is amatter of grave concern inCongress. But Majidi and Krolsay extensive planning andexercises have clarified thelines of authority.

Communications would bea major undertaking.

"If you tell 100 millionpeople to go east, 25 millionwill go west because they don'ttrust the government," said Jay

C. Davis, a retired weaponsscientist who is working on theforensics study.

The forensics study istrying to assess howauthoritative the U.S. could bein attributing a nuclear deviceto a particular source and inmaking its case to theAmerican public and the rest ofthe world.

Davis said it was hopedthat nuclear forensics coulddetermine the size of adetonation within one hour; thesophistication of the bombdesign within six hours; howthe fuel was enriched within 72hours; and the peculiar detailsof national design -- "Does thislook like a Russian, a Chineseor a Pakistani device, orsomething we have never seenbefore?" -- within a week.

What next? That part ofthe strategy is still evolving.Retaliation is one option thatcounter-terrorism officials havesuggested in congressionaltestimony. Rep. Adam Schiff(D-Pasadena), who hassponsored legislation toincrease funding for nuclearforensics, suggested that anypolicy had to be flexible.

"It would be left to theadministration in office todetermine what therepercussions would be," hesaid.

Deterrence might dependsimply on the perception thatthe U.S. could respond with acounterstrike. But if nuclearfuel were traced back toRussia, would the U.S. start anuclear exchange? And what ifthe nuclear materials camefrom the U.S.?

Of course, those on thefront lines hope such aquandary never has to beconfronted.

The scientists andengineers -- who sayanonymity is their only defense-- talk about their jobs withmarked calm.

"I told my wife that I havea job that might require me toleave home in the middle of thenight and I won't be able to saywhere I'm going," said Jerry,one team member. "Well, that

didn't set too well with her. Butshe works in the Pentagon, andwas right next to the corridorthat took the hit in the 9/11attack. So we share what thisservice means."

London Sunday TimesJanuary 6, 200826. For Sale: West'sDeadly Nuclear Secrets

A WHISTLEBLOWERhas made a series ofextraordinary claims abouthow corrupt governmentofficials allowed Pakistan andother states to steal nuclearweapons secrets.

Sibel Edmonds, a37-year-old former Turkishlanguage translator for the FBI,listened into hundreds ofsensitive interceptedconversations while based atthe agency’s Washington fieldoffice.

She approached TheSunday Times last month afterreading about an Al-Qaedaterrorist who had revealed hisrole in training some of the9/11 hijackers while he was inTurkey.

Edmonds described howforeign intelligence agents hadenlisted the support of USofficials to acquire a networkof moles in sensitive militaryand nuclear institutions.

Among the hours of coverttape recordings, she says sheheard evidence that onewell-known senior official inthe US State Department wasbeing paid by Turkish agents inWashington who were sellingthe information on to blackmarket buyers, includingPakistan.

The name of the official –who has held a series of topgovernment posts – is knownto The Sunday Times. Hestrongly denies the claims.

However, Edmonds said:“He was aiding foreignoperatives against US interestsby passing them highlyclassified information, not onlyfrom the State Department butalso from the Pentagon, inexchange for money, positionand political objectives.”

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She claims that the FBIwas also gathering evidenceagainst senior Pentagonofficials – including householdnames – who were aidingforeign agents.

“If you made public all theinformation that the FBI haveon this case, you will see veryhigh-level people goingthrough criminal trials,” shesaid.

Her story shows just howmuch the West was infiltratedby foreign states seekingnuclear secrets. It illustrateshow western governmentofficials turned a blind eye to,or were even helping, countriessuch as Pakistan acquire bombtechnology.

The wider nuclear networkhas been monitored for manyyears by a jointAnglo-American intelligenceeffort. But rather than shut itdown, investigations by lawenforcement bodies such as theFBI and Britain’s Revenue &Customs have been aborted topreserve diplomatic relations.

Edmonds, a fluent speakerof Turkish and Farsi, wasrecruited by the FBI in theaftermath of the September 11attacks. Her previous claimsabout incompetence inside theFBI have been welldocumented in America.

She has given evidence toclosed sessions of Congressand the 9/11 commission, butmany of the key points of hertestimony have remainedsecret. She has now decided todivulge some of thatinformation after becomingdisillusioned with the USauthorities’ failure to act.

One of Edmonds’s mainroles in the FBI was totranslate thousands of hours ofconversations by Turkishdiplomatic and political targetsthat had been covertly recordedby the agency.

A backlog of tapes hadbuilt up, dating back to 1997,which were needed for an FBIinvestigation into linksbetween the Turks andPakistani, Israeli and UStargets. Before she left the FBIin 2002 she heard evidence that

pointed to money laundering,drug imports and attempts toacquire nuclear andconventional weaponstechnology.

“What I found wasdamning,” she said. “While theFBI was investigating, severalarms of the government wereshielding what was going on.”

The Turks and Israelis hadplanted “moles” in military andacademic institutions whichhandled nuclear technology.Edmonds says there wereseveral transactions of nuclearmaterial every month, with thePakistanis being among theeventual buyers. “The networkappeared to be obtaininginformation from every nuclearagency in the United States,”she said.

They were helped, shesays, by the high-ranking StateDepartment official whoprovided some of their moles –mainly PhD students – withsecurity clearance to work insensitive nuclear researchfacilities. These included theLos Alamos nuclear laboratoryin New Mexico, which isresponsible for the security ofthe US nuclear deterrent.

In one conversationEdmonds heard the officialarranging to pick up a $15,000cash bribe. The package was tobe dropped off at an agreedlocation by someone in theTurkish diplomatic communitywho was working for thenetwork.

The Turks, she says, oftenacted as a conduit for theInter-Services Intelligence(ISI), Pakistan’s spy agency,because they were less likely toattract suspicion. Venues suchas the American TurkishCouncil in Washington wereused to drop off the cash,which was picked up by theofficial.

Edmonds said: “I heard atleast three transactions like thisover a period of 2½ years.There are almost certainlymore.”

The Pakistani operationwas led by General MahmoudAhmad, then the ISI chief.

Intercepted

communications showedAhmad and his colleaguesstationed in Washington werein constant contact withattachés in the Turkishembassy.

Intelligence analysts saythat members of the ISI wereclose to Al-Qaeda before andafter 9/11. Indeed, Ahmad wasaccused of sanctioning a$100,000 wire payment toMohammed Atta, one of the9/11 hijackers, immediatelybefore the attacks.

The results of theespionage were almostcertainly passed to AbdulQadeer Khan, the Pakistaninuclear scientist.

Khan was close to Ahmadand the ISI. While runningPakistan’s nuclear programme,he became a millionaire byselling atomic secrets to Libya,Iran and North Korea. He alsoused a network of companiesin America and Britain toobtain components for anuclear programme.

Khan caused an alertamong western intelligenceagencies when his aides metOsama Bin Laden. “We wereaware of contact between A QKhan’s people and Al-Qaeda,”a former CIA officer said lastweek. “There was absolutepanic when we initiallydiscovered this, but it kind ofpanned out in the end.”

It is likely that the nuclearsecrets stolen from the UnitedStates would have been sold toa number of rogue states byKhan.

Edmonds was later to seethe scope of the Pakistaniconnections when it wasrevealed that one of her fellowtranslators at the FBI was thedaughter of a Pakistaniembassy official who workedfor Ahmad. The translator wasgiven top secret clearancedespite protests from FBIinvestigators.

Edmonds says packagescontaining nuclear secrets weredelivered by Turkishoperatives, using their cover asmembers of the diplomatic andmilitary community, tocontacts at the Pakistani

embassy in Washington.Following 9/11, a number

of the foreign operatives weretaken in for questioning by theFBI on suspicion that theyknew about or somehow aidedthe attacks.

Edmonds said the StateDepartment official once againproved useful. “A primarytarget would call the officialand point to names on the listand say, ‘We need to get themout of the US because we can’tafford for them to spill thebeans’,” she said. “The officialsaid that he would ‘take care ofit’.”

The four suspects on thelist were released frominterrogation and extradited.

Edmonds also claims thata number of senior officials inthe Pentagon had helped Israeliand Turkish agents.

“The people provided listsof potential moles fromPentagon-related institutionswho had access to databasesconcerning this information,”she said.

“The handlers, who werepart of the diplomaticcommunity, would then try torecruit those people to becomemoles for the network. Thelists contained all their‘hooking points’, which couldbe financial or sexual pressurepoints, their exact job in thePentagon and what stuff theyhad access to.”

One of the Pentagonfigures under investigation wasLawrence Franklin, a formerPentagon analyst, who wasjailed in 2006 for passing USdefence information tolobbyists and sharing classifiedinformation with an Israelidiplomat.

“He was one of the toppeople providing informationand packages during 2000 and2001,” she said.

Once acquired, the nuclearsecrets could have goneanywhere. The FBI monitoredTurkish diplomats who wereselling copies of theinformation to the highestbidder.

Edmonds said: “Certaingreedy Turkish operators

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would make copies of thematerial and look around forbuyers. They had agents whowould find potential buyers.”

In summer 2000, Edmondssays the FBI monitored one ofthe agents as he met two SaudiArabian businessmen inDetroit to sell nuclearinformation that had beenstolen from an air force base inAlabama. She overheard theagent saying: “We have apackage and we’re going tosell it for $250,000.”

Edmonds’s employmentwith the FBI lasted for just sixmonths. In March 2002 shewas dismissed after accusing acolleague of covering up illicitactivity involving Turkishnationals.

She has always claimedthat she was victimised forbeing outspoken and wasvindicated by an Office of theInspector General review ofher case three years later. Itfound that one of thecontributory reasons for hersacking was that she had madevalid complaints.

The US attorney-generalhas imposed a state secretsprivilege order on her, whichprevents her revealing moredetails of the FBI’s methodsand current investigations.

Her allegations were heardin a closed session ofCongress, but no action hasbeen taken and she continuesto campaign for a publichearing.

She was able to discuss thecase with The Sunday Timesbecause, by the end of January2002, the justice departmenthad shut down the programme.

The senior official in theState Department no longerworks there. Last week hedenied all of Edmonds’sallegations: “If you are callingme to say somebody said that Itook money, that’s outrageous... I do not have anything to sayabout such stupid ridiculousthings as this.”

In researching this article,The Sunday Times has talkedto two FBI officers (oneserving, one former) and twoformer CIA sources who

worked on nuclearproliferation. While none wasaware of specific allegationsagainst officials she names,they did provide overlappingcorroboration of Edmonds’sstory.

One of the CIA sourcesconfirmed that the Turks hadacquired nuclear secrets fromthe United States and sharedthe information with Pakistanand Israel. “We have noindication that Turkey has itsown nuclear ambitions. But theTurks are traders. To myknowledge they became bigplayers in the late 1990s,” thesource said.

Washington TimesJanuary 6, 2008Pg. 727. Al Qaeda VideosAvailable On CellPhonesBy Paul Schemm, AssociatedPress

CAIRO--Al Qaeda videomessages of Osama bin Ladenand Ayman al-Zawahri cannow be downloaded to cellphones, the terrorist networkannounced as part of itsattempts to extend itsinfluence.

The announcement wasposted late Friday by alQaeda's media wing, al-Sahab,on Web sites commonly usedby Islamic militants. As ofyesterday, eight previouslyrecorded videos were madeavailable, including a recenttribute to Abu Musab Zarqawi,the former al Qaeda in Iraqleader killed by U.S. forces inIraq in June 2006.

In a written messageintroducing the new cell phonevideos, al-Zawahri, al Qaeda'sNo. 2 figure, asked followersto spread the terrorist group'smessages.

"I asked God for the menof jihadi media to spread themessage of Islam andmonotheism to the world andspread real awareness to thepeople of the nations,"al-Zawahri said.

Videos playable on cell

phones are increasinglypopular in the Middle East.The files are transferred fromphone to phone usingBluetooth or infrared wirelesstechnology.

Clips showing former Iraqileader Saddam Hussein'sexecution in December 2006showed up on cell phones soonafter his death. In Egypt,images showing policebrutality have been passedaround via cell phones.

Video and audio tapesfrom various Islamist groups,including al Qaeda, areavailable on militant Web sitesbut require a computer and afast Internet connection —often rare in the region — todownload, but the eight videoscurrently available todownload to cell phones byal-Sahab range in size from 17megabytes to 120 megabytes,requiring phones to have largeamounts of free data capacity.Al-Sahab has promised torelease more of its previousvideo messages in cell-phonequality formats.

The terrorist network hasbeen growing moresophisticated in targetinginternational audiences. Videosare always subtitled in English,and messages this year frombin Laden and al-Zawahrifocusing on Pakistan andAfghanistan have been dubbedin the local languages, Urduand Pashto.

In December, al Qaedainvited journalists to sendquestions to al-Zawahri. Theinvitation was the first time themedia-savvy al Qaeda offeredoutsiders to "interview" one ofits leaders since the September11, 2001, attacks.

Charlottesville (VA) DailyProgressJanuary 4, 200828. Area FilmmakerShows Troops' GoodWorksBy Bryan McKenzie

Charlottesville-basedfilmmaker Scott Mactavish’snew documentary depicts

courage and character amongAmerican military personnel ina response to what he callsHollywood portrayals ofAmerican troops as rapacious,homicidal sociopaths.

“God and Country,” whichis now ready for distribution,“corrects the general consensusof the military as guys whohave no other recourse in life,”according to Mactavish. Hesaid films such as “Redacted,”“The Valley of Elah” and“Stop Loss” portray Americantroops as “blood-thirsty thugs.”

“It’s part of Hollywood’s[thought pattern] to put out thatmessage and maybe that’sbecause they haven’t had muchcontact with the military andthe people in it,” saidMactavish, a Gulf War veteran.“I wanted to disprove that andcontradict what Hollywoodfilmmakers like Brian DePalma seem to believe, thatAmerican soldiers are rapistsand murderers.”

Mactavish’s company,Mactavish Films, has produceda variety of videos and films,including “Summer Running:The Race to Cure BreastCancer” with AlbemarleCounty resident Sissy Spacek.Mactavish worked oncommercial movie crews,including on “The Crow,”before creating his ownproduction company.

“God and Country”includes segments frommilitary humanitarian efforts inDjbouti, Belize and Guatemalaand efforts by crews on theNavy hospital ship USNSComfort. Also included in thefilm is a segment on the lateCpl. Bradley T. Arms, whowas killed Nov. 19, 2004, incombat in Fallujah, Iraq.

Arms, who graduated fromCharlottesville’s CovenantSchool and attended theUniversity of Georgia, was inthe Marine Corps Reservewhen called to active duty. Hedied while leading a combatteam to help other Marines in agun battle with insurgents.

“He didn’t have to enlist.He didn’t have to go, but hedid it anyway, and he knew it

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meant going to war,”Mactavish said. “When you seethe things he did in school andat his fraternity [at theUniversity of Georgia] and hisservice to his country, you seethe kind of character you findthroughout the military.”

Bob Arms, Brad’s father,agrees.

“It’s sad that there isn’tmore recognition of the good[the military has] done,” hesaid. “Brad was not ahigh-profile, look-at-me kindof personality. He was a quiet[guy] who walked the walk. Hebelieved in what he wasdoing.”

Arms said Mactavish andhis crew came to his house, setup cameras and made thefamily feel at ease as taperolled and Mactavish askedquestions. Among the hardestto answer was recalling the daythree Marines in dress blueswalked up to the door.

“When you have someonein a war zone, you listen forcars in the driveway at timeswhen you’re not expectingsomeone, and it makes youworried,” Arms recalled.“When they did come, our sonDoug was the first to see them.We knew what it meant.”

Mactavish said he hopeshis film will provide somebalance to the images being putout by Hollywood.

“I’m not against protestingor marching. I would neverdiscourage any from beingagainst war or speaking out,but in making your point, don’tpaint 95 percent of the peopledoing their jobs withcommitment and courage ascriminals,” Mactavish said.“There are people who believe[America] is still the good guy.We may not always get it right,but we’re also the first countryin history to use its military tohelp others as much as we do.”

Arizona Republic (Phoenix)January 6, 200829. Defense Spending InState Is Growing, ButAt A Slower Rate

By Max Jarman, ArizonaRepublic

The growth of militaryspending in Arizona slowed in2006 as the wars in Iraq andAfghanistan caused thegovernment to put off manylonger-range projects.

After growing by morethan $1 billion a year from2001 through 2005, defensecontracts to Arizona businessesgrew by only $300 million in2006.

While analysts predictfewer exotic new defenseprograms will be approved inthe future, they see a robustshort-term business inrepairing, replacing andupgrading equipment that hasbeen in the field in Iraq,Afghanistan and other areas ofconflict.

Such a "resetting," as themilitary calls it, could be aboon for Arizona companiesthat make combat equipmentsuch as Boeing Co. in Mesa,maker of Apache helicopters;Alliant Techsystems in Mesa, agunmaker; and ArmorWorksLLC in Chandler, a maker ofbody, vehicle and aircraftarmor.

The $9.7 billion in defensecontracts awarded to localbusinesses in 2006 gaveArizona the sixth-largestmilitary economy among the50 states. California rankedfirst with $32 billion.

The 2006 AmericanElectronics Association'sCyberstates report rankedArizona fourth in defenseelectronics manufacturingemployment, with more than8,800 jobs. The defenseindustry is a magnet for theso-called knowledge workerswho are critical to the state'seconomic future.

"Arizona has a cluster ofsome of nation's top aerospaceand defense companies," saidDavid Drennon, a spokesmanwith the Arizona Departmentof Commerce. "They providesome of the state'shighest-quality andhighest-paying jobs."

Missiles, aircraft parts andelectronics and

communications equipmentaccounted for much of themilitary purchases in Arizonain 2006. The government alsobought billions of dollars inother goods and services frommore than 1,000 Arizonacontractors during the year.

In all, defense contractscontributed 4.5 percent of thestate's $216.5 billion grossdomestic product in 2006.

Despite the delay ofseveral major projects, ofwhich many Arizonacompanies have a stake, thestate is expected to benefitfrom the emphasis onrepairing, replacing andupgrading the military'sexisting equipment.

"The focus is now onrepairing, upgrading andreplacing field equipmentinstead of exotic newprograms," said JohnRobinson, editor of DefenseDaily, a Washington, D.C.,publication that tracks thedefense industry.

The trend is expected to bereflected in 2007 numbers thatwill be released by the U.S.Department of Defense laterthis year and in spending for2008. The 2009 defense budgetthat will be released later thisyear also is expected to befocused on maintainingexisting equipment.

Still, the $9.7 billion indefense contracts awarded tolocal businesses in 2006 gaveArizona the sixth-largestmilitary economy among the50 states and providedthousands of jobs and billionsof dollars in economicstimulation.

Among the big contractsand trends:

*Alliant Techsystemsjumped onto the list ofArizona's top 10 defensecontractors in 2006 with $77million in orders for itsmedium-caliber cannons.

*Phoenix-basedHoneywell aerospace, whichmakes cockpit avionicsequipment and tank enginesamong many products,received $888 million indefense contracts in 2006, up

from $621 million in 2005.During 2006, Honeywell won a$1.4 billion multiyear contractto repair and maintain engineson the Army's fleet of Abramstanks.

*While Boeing's contractsfell $707 million in 2006, from$963 million the year before,the company won a $1.1 billionArmy contract in early 2007 torebuild 126 Apachehelicopters.

"There is a tremendousamount of gear that needs to berepaired and swapped out,"noted Defense Daily'sRobinson.

Indeed, the Department ofDefense's budget for so-calledequipment resets rose to $24billion in 2007, from $9 billionin 2006. The 2008 budget setsaside $38 billion to repair,replace and upgradeequipment.

"Most companies withproducts in the field willcontinue to do well in the shortterm," Robinson said.

Conversely, the shift infunding could have a negativeimpact on contractors, such asScottsdale's General DynamicsC4 Systems, that are heavilyfocused on research anddevelopment.

General Dynamics C4Systems is the lead contractorfor the Army's $4 billion LandWarrior program, which wascanceled last year.

"We stand ready tosupport whatever plans thegovernment has to equipsoldiers in the future," saidFran Jacques, a spokeswomanfor General Dynamics.

The Scottsdale GeneralDynamics Corp. divisionreceived $378 million indefense work in 2006, downfrom $459 million in 2005.

The unit has beensuccessful, though, in winningcontracts for its existingproducts such as its militaryoperations centers and ruggeddevices to secure computercommunications.

"There is still plenty ofbusiness that we are receiving,"Jacques said.

While Congress has been

page 27

reluctant to cut defense fundingwith the wars in Iraq andAfghanistan unresolved, if thesituation continues to stabilizein Iraq, Robinson sees pressuremounting to begin to cut backon spending.

"If things are perceived tobe going better, there could bemore scrutiny of the defensebudget," Robinson said.

Next stepsDefense powerhouse

Raytheon Co. in Tucson, amissilemaker, is lookingbeyond the current wars.Louise Francesconi, presidentof Raytheon's Missile Systems,is working to move thecompany into new businessessuch as space and lasers toabsorb a reduction in wartimespending.

With 9,000 employees,Raytheon is Arizona's largestdefense contractor andSouthern Arizona's largestprivate employer. Thecompany received $3.2 billionin missile orders in 2006, a$600 million increase, from the$2.6 billion in work it wasawarded in 2005.

Washington PostJanuary 6, 2008Pg. B730. Into Africa WithoutA MapBy David Ignatius

Last week's tribal violencein Kenya reminds us of thesevere social and politicalproblems facing Africa. But isgreater involvement by theU.S. military the answer tothese African challenges?

The growing U.S. militaryrole in Africa isn't ahypothetical issue. In one ofthe sleeper events of 2007, thePentagon established a newcommand for the continent,known as AFRICOM. Theorganization has a commander,Gen. William "Kip" Ward, butit doesn't yet have a plan forwhere it will be based or evena clear statement of its role.Right now, it's a headquartersin search of a mission.

Pentagon officials haveoffered idealistic but vague

explanations of what the newcommand is supposed to do."We want to prevent problemsfrom becoming crises, andcrises from becomingcatastrophes," said TheresaWhelan, deputy assistantdefense secretary for Africanaffairs. Ward said in aninterview two months ago withPBS's Charlie Rose, "We havein our national interest thatAfrica is a stable continent.That's what's in it for us."

Nobody would argue theneed for assisting Africa,especially after the gruesomeethnic killings that left morethan 300 Kenyans dead. Buthow should that assistance beprovided? Is the U.S. militarythe right instrument for thenation-building effort thatAFRICOM apparentlyenvisions? Should Americansoldiers coordinate the diggingof wells, the vaccination ofanimals and other developmentprojects that will come underAFRICOM's umbrella? Will alarger U.S. military presencecheck terrorism and instabilityon the continent, or will itinstead become a new magnetfor anti-Americanism?

The chaos in Kenya shouldprompt a serious discussion,better late than never, of theseissues. AFRICOM's missionisn't well understood, either inAmerica or Africa. Twoleading African nations --Nigeria and South Africa --have expressed strongreservations about the greaterU.S. military role on thecontinent. And surely theAmerican experience in Iraqshould prompt closer scrutinyof military projects with boldideals but fuzzy details.

The African commandbegan as a project ofthen-Defense Secretary DonaldRumsfeld, who believed thatthe military wasn't wellprepared for the kind ofstabilization operations itwould face in the post-Sept. 11world. The command wasformally established Oct. 1,with a temporary headquartersin Stuttgart, Germany -- andthe goal of establishing a

forward base in Africa by thiscoming Oct. 1.

But problems surfacedimmediately. The first was the$5 billion cost of setting up theforward headquarters, a steepprice for a military strapped byIraq and Afghanistan. Asecond problem was where toput the headquarters. Liberiawas eager to play host, butPentagon officials believed thatWest Africa would be too farfrom the continent's bigsecurity challenges. For now,the Pentagon will probablyfinesse the headquarters issueby starting with several smallerregional centers -- perhaps inBotswana, Liberia and Rwanda-- that combine military andcivilian operations.

The new command hashad bipartisan political backing-- who could question the ideaof taking Africa moreseriously? But behind thescenes, some senior Pentagonofficials have been skeptical."The depth of support is prettyshallow, frankly, and that's areal hazard. There's a dangerthat everything will be done onthe cheap," says StephenMorrison, director of theAfrica Program at the Centerfor Strategic and InternationalStudies.

The real puzzle withAFRICOM is understanding itspurpose. Some advocatespropose pragmatic strategicgoals, from containing China'sinfluence in Africa tocountering terrorism toprotecting African oil supplies.But the official rationale ismuch less specific -- in Ward'sformulation, "bringing stabilityto the continent." SomeAfricans worry that thesegeneralities mask a deeper goalof establishing what amountsto American neocolonialism.

What would AFRICOMbe doing now in Kenya, say, ifit were up and running? Wouldit intervene to halt the violencebetween Kikuyus and Luos thatexploded last week? Would itwork with nongovernmentaland relief organizations?Would it operate jointly withthe Kenyan military to restore

order? Ward says that he doesnot "envision kineticoperations for United Statesforces," but what happens ifKenya spirals towardRwanda-level genocide?

The U.S. military is sopowerful -- so blessed withmoney and logistical skill andleadership -- that it's easy tomake it the default answer toproblems that are otherwise inthe "too hard" category. That'smy worry about AFRICOM.Its nation-building goal soundsnoble, but so did Europeanimperialism of 150 years agoto its proponents. BeforeAmerica sends its soldiersmarching off to save Africa,we need more discussion aboutwhat this mission is all about.

Baltimore SunJanuary 6, 200831. Kenya TooImportant To LetCollapseBy Jonathan Stevenson

Kenya has been the anchorof political stability in EastAfrica. But in recent days, 300people have been killed and100,000 have been displaced inpolitical unrest after there-election of President MwaiKibaki amid widely reportedvoting irregularities.

As America's key ally inthe region, Kenya cannot beallowed to collapse. Mr. Kibakihas acquiesced to a judicialinvestigation of the elections,but its impartiality is open todoubt. The U.S. must warn Mr.Kibaki that unless he agreeseither to a conciliatoryaccommodation satisfactory tothe opposition or to new,legitimate elections, economicsanctions will be in the offing.

Mr. Kibaki's refusal tobudge has only intensifiedopposition suspicions ofgovernment fraud and fueledthe violence, much of whichhas had the flavor of outrightethnic cleansing.

If the opposition'sgrievances are left unanswered,civil discord could consumethe nation. While complete

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civil breakdown is unlikely,even partial political debilitywould diminish Kenya's sorelyneeded leadership and clout.

East Africa and the Hornof Africa constitute astrategically critical region thatincludes a failed state inSomalia, the defiant andrepressive Islamist governmentof Sudan, insurgency-plaguedUganda, two countries everpoised for war in Ethiopia andEritrea, and slowly risingIslamic radicalism throughout.Always pro-Western, Kenyaalone has been consistentlyactive and effective in regionaldiplomacy. Nairobi furnishedcrucial political support for thenorth-south peace process inSudan - one of Washington'sfew recent diplomaticachievements in Africa.Kenya's steadycounterterrorism cooperationhas also helped the UnitedStates keep a lid on Islamistterrorism in the region. AndKenya's dogged diplomacy haskept alive prospects ofSomalia's politicalrehabilitation.

Kenya thus remainsAmerica's indispensablepartner. Kenya's problems are,to be sure, acutely domestic.Deep divisions among its morethan 30 tribes were kept to asimmer during the autocraticbut politically sturdy 24-yearrule of former President DanielT. arap Moi, a member of themedium-sized Kalenjin tribe.Mr. Kibaki, however - likeKenya's first president, JomoKenyatta - is from the Kikuyutribe, Kenya's largest and mostpowerful. The large butless-powerful Luhya and Luotribes, along with smallertribes, backed Raila Odinga, awealthy and charismatic Luo,as a champion of the poor andan antidote to a Kibakigovernment increasinglyregarded as corrupt,incompetent and biased infavor of the Kikuyu.

There is room for apower-sharing compromise.Even if official election resultsstand, although Mr. Kibakinarrowly won the popular vote,

his coalition party wasdecimated in parliament,emerging with only 37 of 210seats as several Cabinetministers were defeated. Yetthe Kibaki government hassummarily rejected theopposition's proposal oftemporary joint rule and a newelection in three months.

Washington has tried mild,bilateral diplomatic measures -bland commendations ofpeaceful democratic principlesand earnest pleas fornegotiation - but they havebeen insufficient to move Mr.Kibaki. Stern demarches andoffers of third-party brokeragewould also probably fall short,as his government has statedfirmly that it will not acceptoutside mediation. Multilateralorganizations such as theUnited Nations and the AfricanUnion could nudge Mr. Kibakitoward concessions, but theyalone probably won't be able toproduce them.

The most effectivepolitical lever in Africa is stilleconomic power. The U.S. andother major powers, bilaterallyand through the InternationalMonetary Fund and WorldBank, have long used threats towithhold economic assistanceto cajole African countries -including Kenya - into bettergovernance. The result hasbeen a frustrating seesawpattern of compliance andbacksliding.

But now Kenya has moreto lose. Mr. Kibaki is proudestof Kenya's economic recovery.Since his first election victoryin 2002, Kenya has enjoyed 5percent average annual growth,earned a solid B+ sovereigncredit rating, and maintained acomparatively strong currency.After delaying millions ofdollars in aid in 2006 becauseof corruption, the IMF andWorld Bank resumed lendingin 2007. Prolonged politicalviolence could threaten theseresults as well as the $870million annual tourist trade andmajor state commercialtransactions such as Kenya'sjoint venture with the Britishgiant Vodaphone and a planned

$300 million internationalbond issue.

Acting in concert, theUnited States, Europeanpowers, the European Unionand the international financialinstitutions can establish strongincentives to compromise byensuring Nairobi that althoughrecalcitrance will be penalized,compromise will be rewarded.Preserving Kenya's specialplace in Africa's geopolitics, aswell as its recent domesticadvances, warrants the effort.

Jonathan Stevenson is aprofessor of strategic studies atthe U.S. Naval War College.

Philadelphia InquirerJanuary 6, 200832. How Safe ArePakistan's Nukes?By Trudy Rubin

Ever since 9/11, thenightmare scenario forAmerican security has been thepossibility that terrorists couldobtain nuclear weapons.

I've just come back fromthe place where, in theory, thatmight happen. Not Iraq, ofcourse, not now and not beforewe invaded. (Our focus hasclearly been on the wrongcountry.) I refer instead toPakistan, a country that isthought to have about 50nuclear warheads, whereal-Qaeda, the Taliban and otherjihadis have established asubstantial foothold.

The assassination offormer Prime Minister BenazirBhutto and the continuinginstability in her country forceus to ask a terrifying question:Could Pakistan's Islamicextremists seize a nuke or stealthe fissile material for a dirtybomb?

Back in November, U.S.intelligence agencies assessedthat Pakistan's nuclear arsenalwas safe under then-currentconditions. "I don't see anyindication right now thatsecurity of those weapons is injeopardy," Adm. Mike Mullen,chairman of the Joint Chiefs ofStaff, told reporters. "Butclearly we are very watchful,as we should be."

Just after imposingemergency rule in November,Pakistani President PervezMusharraf told reporters that aslong as the military was incharge of the weapons, therewas no problem. The situationhas deteriorated sharply sincethen, with Musharraf'spopularity sinking and Bhutto'smurder further poisoning thepolitical climate.

So are those weaponssafe?

To search for answers, Ivisited a top security officialresponsible for the safety ofPakistan's nuclear program,two days after the death ofBhutto. We met in awell-guarded militarycompound not far from thecapital, Islamabad.

The official, a militarygeneral, declined to beidentified because of thesensitive nature of his job. Fortwo hours, using a slidepresentation, he outlined amultilayered system ofsafeguards for weapons andmateriel, along with anelaborate system of personnelchecks for scientists andworkers, designed to weed outany militancy or connectionwith terrorist elements.

"Pakistan's nuclearweapons are absolutely safeand secure irrespective of thepolitical situation," the topsecurity official told me. Sowho's in charge of thoseweapons?

A Nuclear CommandAuthority, made up of thepresident and prime minister,along with senior cabinetmembers and military officials,controls the nukes and woulddecide on any deployment. APersonnel Reliability Programfocuses on the most sensitiveemployees of the system, evenafter they leave it, includingbackground checks andpsychological testing.

"There is no way a groupof terrorists could penetrate ourstrategic facilities," said thesecurity official. "That is aHollywood scenario.Especially given the multiplelayer of defenses inside and

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outside."The system was set up in

1999, after Pakistan's first,1998 detonation of a nuclearweapon; it was tightened afterthe nuclear scandal perpetratedby the father of the Pakistanibomb, A.Q. Khan.

Khan sold nuclearweapons designs andcomponents to Iran, NorthKorea and Libya in the 1980sand 1990s and is now underhouse arrest. (Many expertsbelieve senior Pakistanimilitary and intelligenceofficials were complicit, andthat it was not simply a rogueoperation as the governmentclaims.)

In today's uncertainPakistani political climate,could another A.Q. Khanprovide nuclear material toIslamists? Could Islamistsympathizers within themilitary evade the scrutiny ofthe security system?

The security officialinsisted that there would neverbe a repetition of the A.Q.Khan disaster where the systemwas penetrated. The slightestsniff of any such misadventurewould be reported.

And could there be arepetition, I asked, of theAugust 2001 meeting inAfghanistan at which tworetired Pakistani nuclearscientists offered to helpOsama bin Laden? (He wantedthem to design a bomb, butfortunately, they didn't havethe knowledge.) "Today thatwould not happen," thesecurity official told me. "Themoment anyone moves, with orwithout permission, we wouldknow."

The professionalqualifications of the topsecurity official wereimpressive. The system hedescribed was complex andsubstantial with a Pakistaniversion of the sophisticatedPALS locking system theUnited States uses to preventunauthorized launch of aweapon. Counterintelligenceon weapons security nowcomes directly to the topsecurity official, not routed via

other intelligence agencies,some of which have had pastconnections with jihadis.

"If anyone had a linkage toany al-Qaeda or Taliban, or toany jihadis from Kashmir, hewould be out the next day,"said the security official. As forreligious fervor in the military,"We don't accept anyone whomight be in the preachingbusiness."

OK, I said, let's supposethe Pakistani security systemworks. But in a time ofpolitical uncertainty, couldsomeone with Islamistsympathies take over the entiresystem?

"The Taliban or al-Qaedaare in no position to take overthe central government andthereby the National CommandAuthority," came back theswift answer. "They may killBenazir," or may try to kill thepresident, "but to take over thegovernment and nuclear assetsis out of the realm ofpossibility." This is probablytrue.

The problem is thatPakistan is enteringunchartered political waters.Under Musharraf, the militaryhas been ambivalent abouttaking on Pakistani militantsand has become demoralizedby losses sustained in jihadiattacks. No political leaderexcept Bhutto has spelled outclearly that this is nowPakistan's war, not a proxy warfor American interests.

The greatest fear of U.S.experts on Pakistan's nuclearsecurity is that disgruntledinsiders could penetrate thesecurity system. "The moststressing scenario is one ofmultiple insiders helpingoutsiders" in an attack or atheft, said Matthew Bunn,senior research associate in theProject on Managing the Atomat Harvard University'sKennedy School ofGovernment.

Bunn notes that militaryinsiders were involved in twoassassination attempts onMusharraf. "If they can't trustthe men guarding the president,can they trust those guarding

e nuclear weapons?" he asks.I want to believe that the

Pakistani security system canweed out bad actors beforethey get their hands on fissilematerial. But can we be sure?

Pittsburgh Post-GazetteJanuary 6, 200833. The Battle ForPakistanIt's the new central front in theglobal war on terrorBy Jack Kelly

Pakistan reminds us that inforeign policy, often the onlychoices we have are betweenbad and worse.

The war in Iraq is windingdown. U.S. deaths inDecember (21) were thesecond lowest monthly total,and the tally for October,November and December (93)was the lowest three-monthperiod of the entire war.

Insurgents are taking apounding in Afghanistan. In2007, 231 Allied troops (110 ofthem Americans) and about1,000 Afghan soldiers andpolicemen were killed. Butal-Qaida, the Taliban and druggangs allied with them lost anestimated 4,500 dead andseveral thousand more werearrested. The heavy losses arecausing the Taliban to split,with Taliban leader MullahOmar taking the unusual stepof firing Mullah MansoorDadullah, his commander insouthern Afghanistan. Severalhundred Pakistanis have fled tothe relative safety ofAfghanistan, a U.S. officer toldThe Washington Times.

So Pakistan has becomethe central front in the war onterror. Perhaps it always was,since al-Qaida's leadershiptook up residence there afterbeing chased out ofAfghanistan, and the war inAfghanistan cannot be won solong as the Taliban has a safehaven in Pakistan's northwestterritories.

The assassination Dec. 27of former Prime MinisterBenazir Bhutto may turn whatfor us has been anunsatisfactory situation into a

catastrophe.We've been relying on

Pakistani President PervezMusharraf to tamp downIslamic radicalism in his owncountry and to interdictsupplies and reinforcements forthe Taliban in Afghanistan. Butas George Friedman ofStratfor, a private intelligenceservice, has noted, this strategywas "triply flawed":

First, it's doubtful that thePakistani army -- even if itwere united and motivated todo so -- has the capacity tocarry out the mission. Second,it's clear that many in the armyand especially in theintelligence service sympathizewith the Islamists. Third, Gen.Musharraf is more interested inhanging onto power than indoing America's bidding.

So Mr. Musharraf is aslender reed on which to lean.But he's a stout oak comparedto the alternatives.

Benazir Bhutto has beenlionized in the Western newsmedia since her assassination.She was beautiful, brave andskilled at telling liberals whatthey wanted to hear. But Ms.Bhutto's two terms as primeminister (1988-1990 and1993-1996) were disasters inwhich the standard of living inPakistan plunged and Islamicradicalism soared. She talked amuch better game than sheplayed.

Ms. Bhutto'sadministrations were failureschiefly because she and herhusband -- Asif Ali Zardari,aka "Mr. Ten Percent" -- wereso corrupt. They squirreledaway more than $100 millionin foreign bank accounts.Canadian journalist DavidWarren described Ms. Bhuttoas "the most spoiled brat I evermet."

The Pakistan PeoplesParty she headed was nevermore than a vehicle for herfather and then for Ms. Bhuttoto obtain power to use forpersonal enrichment. Itsundemocratic nature wasdemonstrated when the PPPelected Ms. Bhutto's19-year-old son, Bilawal, to

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succeed her, even though he'sreturning to school at Oxfordin England. Mr. Ten Percentwill run the party while her soncompletes his education.

The Bush administrationpressured Gen. Musharraf topermit Ms. Bhutto to returnfrom exile. President Bushhoped that she as primeminister and he as presidentwould form a coalition to battlethe Islamists. But as soon asshe returned to Pakistan, Ms.Bhutto directed her rhetoricalfire at Mr. Musharraf, not theTaliban.

But as bad as a thirdBhutto administration likelywould have been, it wouldhave been preferable to havingthe other major "democratic"figure in Pakistan, NawazSharif, (prime minister from1990 to 1993, and again from1997 to 1999) elected to a thirdterm.

While Ms. Bhutto's PPPwas (more or less) secular, Mr.Sharif drew much of hissupport from Islamists. Hestrongly supported the creationof the Taliban, and it wasduring his second term thatPakistan developed the atomicbomb.

Shortly before he wasoverthrown by then Gen.Musharraf, Mr. Sharif accepteda $1 million bribe from Osamabin Laden, a one-time binLaden intimate, Ali Mohamed,told the FBI. Mr. Sharif'sfriendship with the al-Qaidaleader goes back to the 1980s,a former officer of Pakistan'sintelligence service told ABCNews.

Because of Ms. Bhutto'sassassination, theparliamentary electionsscheduled for Tuesday havebeen postponed to Feb. 18. Inview of the fact that Mr. Sharifis now the leading politicalfigure in Pakistan (after theincreasingly unpopular Mr.Musharraf), that's probably agood thing.

Jack Kelly is a columnistfor the Post-Gazette and TheBlade of Toledo, Ohio.

Washington TimesJanuary 6, 2008Pg. B334. Iraq's UnknownEconomyBy Michael O'Hanlon

While Iraq's securitysituation improvesdramatically, and its politicalscene muddles along with onlyvery limited and mostly localsteps toward gradualSunni-Shia-Kurdrapprochement, what ishappening on the economicside?

As students andpractitioners ofcounterinsurgency and nationbuilding well know, theeconomy is the third pillar ofany successful mission, alongwith the security and politicalenvironments, and can neverbe neglected.

After meeting againrecently with some of our topeconomic aid andreconstruction experts on Iraq,I have concluded they continueto do remarkable things atconsiderable personal risk andhardship in Iraq. Hospitals andelectricity plants are beingbuilt, transportationinfrastructure improved, waterand waste treatment plantsconstructed. But the otherstriking, and lamentable, factabout our economic efforts inIraq is that for the most part wedon't have the foggiest ideahow well they are working.That has to change.

To be fair, some things areknown. Inflation is withinreasonable bounds. Oilrevenues are up quite a bit dueto the price of petroleum, evenif production has increasedonly very gradually. Duelargely to the improvedsecurity environment,electricity production anddistribution finally took asubstantial step forward in2007, for the first time sincethe 2003 invasion. Withouteven counting the informalelectricity sector, which hasitself grown, official numbershave increased 10 percent to 20percent. Cell phone ownership

and usage have gone throughthe roof; national port capacityhas increased substantially; theInternet is making real inroads.

Less happily, householdfuel supplies are nudgingupward slightly, but only aftera couple years of stagnation oreven decline relative todemand. Foreign investmentremains very modest due toongoing uncertainty aboutIraq's future — and concernabout the violence of thepresent. Unemploymentremains quite severe.

Beyond those conclusions,though, we don't know much.While the U.S. government canpoint to many individualprojects that are progressing orreaching the ribbon-cuttingphase, we do not have a senseof overall national trends. Howmany Iraqis get water? Howmany have their trash pickedup, or sewage removeddependably from theirneighborhoods? How many getthe water they need to irrigatetheir crops? How many getbasic health care when theyneed it? How many of theirkids are in school? And how doall these numbers compare tolast year, or the latter year's ofSaddam's rule — importantbenchmarks in shaping Iraqis'perceptions of theirgovernment's performance (notto mention that of the UnitedStates)?

The answers are blowingin the wind. American aidagencies either do not haveviable strategies to collectmeaningful data or believe theymust defer to sovereign Iraqiauthorities on such matters.

With American aid dollarsdrying up even as Iraqigovernment funds skyrocketdue to the high price of crudeoil, it is increasingly clear thatwhile security remains in largepart an American task,economic reconstruction anddevelopment must be led byIraqis. So we bow out of thedebate at times.

There is some logic to thisthinking, but in the end it isflawed. We must know howwell the economy in Iraq is

doing. How else can we knowwhether to advise Iraqis toundertake a massive jobscreation program to alleviatethe unemployment rate? Or torevamp strategies for nationalinfrastructure, focusing onsmaller and more local systemsrather than larger onesvulnerable either to sabotage orto politicians' bickering andinterference?

How else can we pressurecountries like Saudi Arabia todo more to help Iraq, if wecannot clearly explain howmuch help Iraq still needs?How can we convincewar-weary American voters tostay with the Iraq effort (evenas it is gradually downsized incoming years) if they have nocomprehensive sense of how itis really going?

It is entirely possible tocollect better data. Each yearthe World Bank producesadmittedly imperfect but stilluseful basic developmentalinformation on theoverwhelming majority of theworld's countries, includingsome others experiencingconflict.

Few of these countrieshave the huge foreign presencefound in Iraq, yet data are stillcollected and vetted.Information on child survival,primary education, literacy andlife expectancy is readilyavailable for most Africanstates, for example. Why can'twe do as well in Iraq?

We need to do better. Oneplace to start is to ask theUnited Nations, whichproduces most of theabove-mentioned data for othercountries, to expand its similaroperations throughout Iraq.UNICEF has recently issued areport on the state of Iraq'schildren, but its data oneducation is old. In fact, thereport provides a nationwideestimate on the availability ofbasic utilities only for thesingle specific matter of sewers(UNICEF estimates that,outside Baghdad, 20 percent ofIraq's children have use ofproper sewerage facilities).

Another complementary

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approach would using pollingand surveys to gauge Iraqiattitudes about quality-of-lifeindicators. To be sure, suchsurveys produce impreciseinformation at best, and onlybecome truly meaningful overmonths or years as we candiscern trends in perceptions.But better late than never.

Also, even if survey dataare bound to be inexact,perceptions are hugelyimportant in building a nation,healing sectarian wounds andrestoring to the extent possiblethe image of America. Weneed to know if Iraqis believetheir lives are getting better.

Last year was the year ofsecurity in Iraq, a remarkableperiod of unmistakable andhugely encouraging progress inreducing violence. Of course,2008 needs to a year for Iraqipolitical progress to reinforcethat security trajectory. But justas much, it needs to be the yearof the economy. With thesecurity environment so muchbetter, that is now possible.

We will only know howwell we are doing and whatfurther changes may benecessary, if we recognize theimportance of economic trends— and become curious enoughto study them with the samecare and attention we devote tounderstanding Iraq's violence.

Michael O'Hanlon issenior fellow at the BrookingsInstitution.

Washington PostJanuary 6, 2008Pg. B735. Nuclear CredulityBy Carolyn Leddy

Paying off terroristsdoesn't work; it onlyencourages more terrorism.The same is true with nuclearproliferators. They tend to takethe bribe and hide the program,and the next thing you know,they're testing nuclearweapons. That was why somany nonproliferation expertswelcomed the Bushadministration's repudiation ofthe 1994 "agreed framework"with North Korea. It is also

why, after nearly five years ofworking on nonproliferationissues in the Bushadministration, I chose to leavegovernment.

Dec. 31 was the deadlinefor North Korea to disable itsYongbyon nuclear facility andto provide a full declaration ofall its nuclear programs andfacilities. A muted newsrelease from the StateDepartment lamented themissed deadline as"unfortunate." White Housestatements were similarlytepid.

It's well known that mostof the administration'snonproliferation experts wereunhappy with the agreementreached with North Korea lastFebruary. Nonproliferationanalysts and expertsthroughout the administrationhave been marginalized onnational security issues foryears. The nuclear agreementwith India was negotiatedlargely absent seniorparticipation from our ranks;the dialogue with alliesregarding Iran's nuclearprogram has been conductedalmost exclusively on apolitical level.

Given that history, fewwere surprised that the NorthKorea deal was reached soeasily by political and regionalofficials. But we were assuredthat President Bush had apersonal desire to seek,through the six-party process,an end to North Korea'snuclear weapons program.

To support the president,we labored to define nebulousterminology -- "nuclearprograms," say, and"disablement" -- crafted by thenegotiators. Nonproliferationexperts and verificationspecialists endured accusationsof disloyalty to theadministration and of politicaland international naivete. Ourexpertise was faulted. Yet wecontinued to try to strengthenthe hand dealt to the presidentby the State Department and toclose the glaring loopholes inthe agreement.

Ultimately, it became clear

that honest assessments ofintelligence on North Korea'snuclear program were not ofinterest to the administration's"regional specialists." Theywanted a deal. They continueto keep the deal afloat even asNorth Korean intransigencecontinues.

Last fall the chief U.S.negotiator to the six-partytalks, Assistant Secretary ofState Christopher Hill, testifiedto Congress that disablementmeasures underway at theYongbyon facility would"effectively end" North Korea'splutonium productioncapability by year's end andthat its uranium enrichmentprogram would cease to existas well. Yet media reportsindicate that disablementactivities at Yongbyon haveslowed to a crawl. In astatement Friday, North Koreaprofessed to have alreadydisclosed all nuclear programs.

Were this merely a matterof a missed deadline, it wouldhardly be cause for concern.And the deadline reportedlybecame part of the deal only atPresident Bush's insistence --reiterated in hisgroundbreaking letter todictator Kim Jong Il lastmonth.

Yet, perhaps anticipatingthe lapse, Secretary of StateCondoleezza Rice said lastmonth that she wasn't "tooconcerned about whether [thedeadline] is December 31 ornot."

This view is misguided.As with all things regardingNorth Korea, the devil is in thedetails. Deadlines matter. Itook part in a U.S. delegation'strip to survey the Yongbyonnuclear facility in September.Afterward, it was clear thatNorth Korean officials view allelements of the six-partyagreement as negotiable. If thedeadline can be overlooked, socan the "disablement" and the"disclosure." This is how theClinton administration's agreedframework unraveled.

Declarations are key toarms control andnonproliferation. They are

invaluable when judging thesincerity of the state inadhering to its commitments.Any credible declaration froma "nuclear weapons state"should include a thoroughaccounting of all its plutonium,uranium and weaponizationprograms. For each of theseprograms North Korea shouldbe asked to include the specificamounts of nuclear materials;all associated equipment,facilities and components; theorganizations and personnelinvolved; and records (hours ofoperation, periods ofmaintenance, etc.) from allassociated facilities.

The rubber meets the roadhere not only for North Koreabut also for President Bush'slegacy on one of the mostpressing threats of our time.The president has alreadyachieved several landmarknonproliferation successes,including the ProliferationSecurity Initiative and thedisarmament of Libya. Ideally,his administration will attainthe complete, irreversible andverifiable dismantlement of allaspects of North Korea'snuclear weapons program. Atthis point, though, I have mydoubts.

The writer covered NorthKorea's nuclear program asdirector forcounterproliferation strategyon the National SecurityCouncil staff from July 2006 toNovember 2007.

Washington PostJanuary 6, 2008Pg. B136. Why I Believe BushMust GoNixon Was Bad. These GuysAre Worse.By George McGovern

As we enter the eighthyear of the Bush-Cheneyadministration, I have belatedlyand painfully concluded thatthe only honorable course forme is to urge the impeachmentof the president and the vicepresident.

After the 1972 presidentialelection, I stood clear of calls

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to impeach President RichardM. Nixon for his misconductduring the campaign. I thoughtthat my joining theimpeachment effort would beseen as an expression ofpersonal vengeance toward thepresident who had defeatedme.

Today I have made adifferent choice.

Of course, there seems tobe little bipartisan support forimpeachment. The politicalscene is marked by narrow andsometimes superficialpartisanship, especially amongRepublicans, and a lack ofcourage and statesmanship onthe part of too manyDemocratic politicians. So thechances of a bipartisanimpeachment and convictionare not promising.

But what are the facts?Bush and Cheney are

clearly guilty of numerousimpeachable offenses. Theyhave repeatedly violated theConstitution. They havetransgressed national andinternational law. They havelied to the American peopletime after time. Their conductand their barbaric policies havereduced our beloved country toa historic low in the eyes ofpeople around the world. Theseare truly "high crimes andmisdemeanors," to use theconstitutional standard.

From the beginning, theBush-Cheney team'sassumption of power was theproduct of questionableelections that probably shouldhave been officially challenged-- perhaps even by acongressional investigation.

In a more fundamentalsense, American democracyhas been derailed throughoutthe Bush-Cheney regime. Thedominant commitment of theadministration has been amurderous, illegal, nonsensicalwar against Iraq. Thatirresponsible venture has killedalmost 4,000 Americans, leftmany times that numbermentally or physicallycrippled, claimed the lives ofan estimated 600,000 Iraqis(according to a careful October

2006 study from the JohnsHopkins Bloomberg School ofPublic Health) and laid wastetheir country. The financialcost to the United States is now$250 million a day and isexpected to exceed a total of $1trillion, most of which we haveborrowed from the Chinese andothers as our national debt hasnow climbed above $9 trillion-- by far the highest in ournational history.

All of this has been donewithout the declaration of warfrom Congress that theConstitution clearly requires, indefiance of the U.N. Charterand in violation of internationallaw. This reckless disregard forlife and property, as well asconstitutional law, has beenaccompanied by the abuse ofprisoners, including systematictorture, in direct violation ofthe Geneva Conventions of1949.

I have not been heavilyinvolved in singing the praisesof the Nixon administration.But the case for impeachingBush and Cheney is farstronger than was the caseagainst Nixon and VicePresident Spiro T. Agnew afterthe 1972 election. The nationwould be much more secureand productive under a Nixonpresidency than with Bush.Indeed, has any administrationin our national history been sodamaging as the Bush-Cheneyera?

How could aonce-admired, great nation fallinto such a quagmire of killing,immorality and lawlessness?

It happened in partbecause the Bush-Cheney teamrepeatedly deceived Congress,the press and the public intobelieving that Saddam Husseinhad nuclear arms and otherhorrifying banned weaponsthat were an "imminent threat"to the United States. Theadministration also led thepublic to believe that Iraq wasinvolved in the 9/11 attacks --another blatant falsehood.Many times in recent years, Ihave recalled Jefferson'sobservation: "Indeed I tremblefor my country when I reflect

that God is just."The basic strategy of the

administration has been toencourage a climate of fear,letting it exploit the 2001al-Qaeda attacks not only tojustify the invasion of Iraq butalso to excuse such dangerousmisbehavior as the illegaltapping of our telephones bygovernment agents. The samefear-mongering has ledgovernment spokesmen andcooperative members of thepress to imply that we are atwar with the entire Arab andMuslim world -- more than abillion people.

Another shockingperversion has been theshipping of prisoners scoopedoff the streets of Afghanistanto Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, andother countries without benefitof our time-tested laws ofhabeas corpus.

Although the presidentwas advised by the intelligenceagencies last August that Iranhad no program to developnuclear weapons, he continuedto lie to the country and theworld. This is the samestrategy of deception thatbrought us into war in theArabian Desert and could leadus into an unjustified invasionof Iran. I can say with someprofessional knowledge andexperience that if Bush invadesyet another Muslim oil state, itwould mark the end of U.S.influence in the crucial MiddleEast for decades.

Ironically, while Bush andCheney made counterterrorismthe battle cry of theiradministration, their policies --especially the war in Iraq --have increased the terroristthreat and reduced the securityof the United States. Considerthe difference between thepolicies of the first PresidentBush and those of his son.When the Iraqi army marchedinto Kuwait in August 1990,President George H.W. Bushgathered the support of theentire world, including theUnited Nations, the EuropeanUnion and most of the ArabLeague, to quickly expel Iraqiforces from Kuwait. The

Saudis and Japanese paid mostof the cost. Instead of gettingbogged down in a costlyoccupation, the administrationestablished a policy ofcontaining the Baathist regimewith international armsinspectors, no-fly zones andeconomic sanctions. Iraq wasleft as a stable country withlittle or no capacity to threatenothers.

Today, after five years ofclumsy, mistaken policies andU.S. military occupation, Iraqhas become a breeding groundof terrorism and bloody civilstrife. It is no secret that formerpresident Bush, his secretary ofstate, James A. Baker III, andhis national security adviser,Gen. Brent Scowcroft, allopposed the 2003 invasion andoccupation of Iraq.

In addition to the shockingbreakdown of presidential legaland moral responsibility, thereis the scandalous neglect andmishandling of the HurricaneKatrina catastrophe. Theveteran CNN commentatorJack Cafferty condenses it to asentence: "I have never everseen anything as badly bungledand poorly handled as thissituation in New Orleans." Anyimpeachment proceeding mustinclude a careful and criticallook at the collapse ofpresidential leadership inresponse to perhaps the worstnatural disaster in U.S. history.

Impeachment is unlikely,of course. But we must stillurge Congress to act.Impeachment, quite simply, isthe procedure written into theConstitution to deal withpresidents who violate theConstitution and the laws ofthe land. It is also a way tosignal to the American peopleand the world that some of usfeel strongly enough about thepresent drift of our country tosupport the impeachment of thefalse prophets who have led usastray. This, I believe, is therightful course for an Americanpatriot.

As former representativeElizabeth Holtzman, whoplayed a key role in the Nixonimpeachment proceedings,

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wrote two years ago, "it wasn'tuntil the most recentrevelations that President Bushdirected the wiretapping ofhundreds, possibly thousands,of Americans, in violation ofthe Foreign IntelligenceSurveillance Act (FISA) -- andargued that, as Commander inChief, he had the right in theinterests of national security tooverride our country's laws --that I felt the same sinkingfeeling in my stomach as I didduring Watergate... . APresident, any President, whomaintains that he is above thelaw -- and repeatedly violatesthe law -- thereby commitshigh crimes andmisdemeanors."

I believe we have a chanceto heal the wounds the nationhas suffered in the openingdecade of the 21st century.This recovery may take ageneration and will depend onthe election of a series ofrational presidents andCongresses. At age 85, I won'tbe around to witness thecompletion of the difficultrebuilding of our sorelydamaged country, but I'd liketo hold on long enough to seethe healing begin.

There has never been aday in my adult life when Iwould not have sacrificed thatlife to save the United Statesfrom genuine danger, such asthe ones we faced when Iserved as a bomber pilot inWorld War II. We must be agreat nation because from timeto time, we make giganticblunders, but so far, we havesurvived and recovered.

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