IRAQ

US to Take 12,000 Refugees - Matthew Lee, Associated Press

The Bush administration is nearing the halfway point in its goal to admit 12,000 Iraqi refugees by the end of September, the State Department said Saturday amid a flurry of activity on the issue. Several senators on Friday called for the appointment of a White House coordinator for Iraqi refugees and said the administration had not done enough to help those who have fled Iraq. The next day, the department said it was on track to meet the 12,000 target.

British Hostages 'Alive' in Iraq - BBC News

Five British hostages who were seized in Baghdad more than a year ago are still alive, Iraq's most senior security official believes. Mowaffak al-Rubai'e told the BBC: "We have a very good, strong intelligence telling us they are alive and we roughly know the area where they are. "But we don't want to be aggressive in our approach, not to risk their lives."

Iraq Oil Rush - New York Times editorial

So great is the demand for oil today - and so great the concern over rising prices - that it would be tempting to uncritically embrace plans by major Western oil companies to return to Iraq. Unfortunately, the evolving deals could well rekindle understandable suspicions in the Arab world about oil being America’s real reason for invading Iraq and fan even more distrust and resentment among Iraq’s competing religious and ethnic factions.

The State of Iraq - Campbell, O'Hanlon and Unikewicz, New York Times opinion

Iraq remains a violent country plagued by high unemployment, raw wounds from sectarian conflict, extremist militias aided by Iran, more than four million people still displaced by violence, and very limited government capacity to meet the country’s core needs. There has, however, been major progress this spring on two fronts. Together they give reason for hope that the major improvement in security resulting from the surge of American forces may endure even as the surge itself ends this July.

AFGHANISTAN / PAKISTAN TRIBAL AREAS

NATO Returns Fire Following Attack from Pakistan - Associated Press

NATO says its forces have launched artillery across the Afghan border at attackers who fired at them from Pakistan. A military statement said three rounds of "indirect fire" landed near a NATO base in Afghanistan's Paktika province Saturday. Three more landed in an Afghan army compound. No casualties were reported. It said NATO forces determined that the rounds were fired from inside Pakistan and returned artillery fire.

Gains in Southern Afghan Town - Jason Straziuso, Associated Press

US Marines are trading gunfire and artillery shells with Taliban militants in the volatile southern province of Helmand, the world's largest poppy growing region. The 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit moved into the town of Garmser in late April. It's the farthest south US forces have been in Afghanistan in years. Marine commanders say the Taliban brought in arms and fighters in response, to protect the lucrative poppy fields that cover Garmser. The Taliban derives tens of millions of dollars from the poppy trade each year by taxing farmers and charging safe passage fees.

Army ‘Vacuum’ Missile Hits Taliban - Michael Smith, Times of London

British forces in Afghanistan have used one of the world’s most deadly and controversial missiles to fight the Taliban. Apache attack helicopters have fired the thermobaric weapons against fighters in buildings and caves, to create a pressure wave which sucks the air out of victims, shreds their internal organs and crushes their bodies. The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has admitted to the use of the weapons, condemned by human rights groups as “brutal”, on several occasions, including against a cave complex. The use of the Hellfire AGM-114N weapons has been deemed so successful they will now be fired from RAF Reaper unmanned drones controlled by “pilots” at Creech air force base in Nevada, an MoD spokesman added.

Bombs Kill 5 Foreign Troops - Stephen Graham, Associated Press

Roadside bombs killed five foreign troops and five government soldiers Saturday, part of a surge of violence that has made Afghanistan's battlefields deadlier for foreign forces than those in Iraq. The US administration already has highlighted the Iraq-Afghan comparison to lobby its NATO allies - with limited success - to commit more forces to Afghanistan for a conflict likely to test the West's stomach for a long, grinding war.

Modern Times Come to Kandahar - Rosie Dimanno, Toronto Star

Kandahar city is no longer the grim, joyless southern capital that the Taliban abandoned in 2001, fleeing their spiritual seat of government as coalition bombs rained down, only the most fanatical choosing to stay and die where they huddled. The metropolis of a half-million people wouldn't be recognizable to the Taliban leadership that took refuge in neighbouring Pakistan. The pious Mullah Omar & Co. would be aghast. In the former Taliban capital - once the capital of Afghanistan, settled since antiquity, rebuilt by Alexander the Great, fought over by Persians and Moghuls, the British and the Red Army - modernity, with all its conveniences and vices, has seized more than a foothold.

Stop Killing the Taliban - Simon Jenkins, Times of London opinion

The British expedition to Afghanistan is on the brink of something worse than defeat: a long, low-intensity war from which no government will dare to extricate itself. With the death toll mounting, battle is reportedly joined with the Taliban at the very gates of the second city, Kandahar. There is no justification for ministerial bombast that “we are winning the war, really”. What is to be done? In 2001 the West waged a punitive retaliatory strike against the hosts of the perpetrators of 9/11. The strike has since followed every law of mission creep, now reduced in London to a great war of despair, in which the cabinet can do nothing but send even more men to their deaths.

IRAN

Iran Discounts 'Attack by Israel' - BBC News

Iran has said it considers a military attack on its nuclear facilities by Israel as "impossible". "Such audacity to embark on an assault against the... territorial integrity of our country is impossible," said spokesman Gholam Hoseyn Elham. The statement follows reports in the US media that Israeli aerial manoeuvres over the eastern Mediterranean were a possible test-run for a strike on Iran.

THE LONG WAR

Inside a 9/11 Mastermind’s Interrogation - Scott Shane, New York Times

In a makeshift prison in the north of Poland, Al Qaeda’s engineer of mass murder faced off against his Central Intelligence Agency interrogator. It was 18 months after the 9/11 attacks, and the invasion of Iraq was giving Muslim extremists new motives for havoc. If anyone knew about the next plot, it was Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. The interrogator, Deuce Martinez, a soft-spoken analyst who spoke no Arabic, had turned down a CIA offer to be trained in waterboarding. He chose to leave the infliction of pain and panic to others, the gung-ho paramilitary types whom the more cerebral interrogators called “knuckledraggers.”

Cool Crisis Management? - Michael Dobbs, Washington Post opinion

After a week in which the campaigns duked it out over national security, it's reasonable to wonder how either man would react to such an emergency. Chances are that in such a bind, our next commander in chief will want to consider how one of his predecessors dealt with the ultimate crisis, the 1962 standoff over Soviet nuclear missiles secretly placed in Cuba. Both sides in the presidential race have already invoked the image of President John F. Kennedy going "eyeball to eyeball" with Nikita Khrushchev at the height of the Cold War: the McCain camp to emphasize the need for firmness in dealing with America's enemies, the Obama camp to praise JFK for opening a dialogue with the Soviets. But it's easy to draw the wrong lessons from the missile crisis. The history of those 13 terrifying days when the world stood at the nuclear precipice has become encrusted in mythology and riddled with basic errors of fact.

US DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

Army Adds Air Unit - Thom Shanker, New York Times

In Iraq, the Army has quietly decided to try going it alone for the important surveillance mission, organizing an all-Army surveillance unit that represents a new move by the service toward self-sufficiency, and away from joint operations. Senior aides to Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates say that he has shown keen interest in the Army initiative - much to the frustration of embattled Air Force leaders - as a potential way to improve battlefield surveillance. The work of the new aviation battalion was initially kept secret, but Army officials involved in its planning say it has been exceptionally active, using remotely piloted surveillance aircraft to call in Apache helicopter strikes with missiles and heavy machine gun fire that have killed more than 3,000 adversaries in the last year and led to the capture of almost 150 insurgent leaders.

AFRICA

Assassins Aim at the Grass Roots - Bearak and Dugger, New York Times

Zimbabwe will have a presidential runoff election on Friday, an epochal choice between Robert Mugabe, the 84-year-old liberation hero who has run the nation for nearly three decades, and the opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai. But in the morbid and sinister weeks recently passed, the balloting has been preceded by a calculated campaign of bloodletting meant to intimidate the opposition and strip it of some of its most valuable foot soldiers. Even as hundreds of election observers from neighboring countries were deployed across Zimbabwe in the past few days, the gruesome killings and beatings of opposition figures have continued.

New Wave of Attacks on Zimbabwe Opposition - Los Angeles Times

As Friday's runoff nears, the regime of longtime President Robert Mugabe has unleashed a new wave of attacks against the opposition in dense urban areas near Harare, the capital, according to the MDC. More of the opposition party's activists were killed last week than in any other since the first round of voting. Zimbabwe Doctors for Human Rights says there have been at least 85 deaths and 3,000 people injured in political attacks since the March 29 presidential vote, in which MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai won more ballots than Mugabe. The independent group has described the level of election violence as unprecedented. As many as 200 activists are missing, according to Zimbabwean human rights activists. For many here, life has become a terrifying round of beatings, harassment, political "reeducation" meetings and funerals. Many opposition activists now believe that without peacekeepers, the MDC has no choice but to withdraw from the upcoming vote. The MDC's government council is due to meet today to vote on whether to press on.

The Madness of Robert Mugabe - Times of London editorial

Not much is predictable in politics, but it is more than a fair bet that Robert Mugabe will be “re-elected” as president of Zimbabwe this week. If you use the state to murder and terrorise your opponents in sufficient numbers and tear up ballot papers, you tend to get a majority. Mr Mugabe is not shy about this. “We will never allow an event like an election to reverse our independence, our sovereignty,” he pronounced last week. “Only God who appointed me will remove me – not the MDC, not the British.” The madness of Mr Mugabe is beyond parody. The opposition MDC should pull out of this charade of an election, which can never be free or fair. Writing in The Sunday Times today, Peter Hain, the former anti-apartheid campaigner and Africa minister, says that it is time for other African leaders, and in particular “South African apologists”, to call time. The Mugabe of today bears no relation to the liberation leader they once admired. There is nothing colonial or racist about wishing the end of a dictator who has destroyed his country and inflicted misery on his people.

The Way to Make Mugabe Go - Peter Hain, Times of London opinion

Zimbabwe was once the jewel in Africa’s crown, a beautiful and hospitable land to visit, with the highest standards of education in Africa, good infrastructure and a strong and growing economy. Yet, these past 10 years, Mugabe has all but destroyed it, turning a booming agricultural sector – a breadbasket for not just his people but surrounding nations too – into a wasteland, with starvation widespread. Deploying the convenient rhetoric of anticolonialism to force white farmers off their land, he deprived in each case an average of 100 black workers of their jobs and homes, handing over farms to incompetent cronies. With corruption institutionalised and the economy in freefall, inflation has surged and the currency has collapsed.

Nigerian Youths Blow Up Oil Pipeline, Output Cut - Reuters

Armed youths blew up a Nigerian crude oil pipeline operated by U.S. major Chevron, a militant group said on Saturday, cutting more output from the world's eighth largest oil exporter. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) said it was contacted by youths claiming responsibility for Thursday's attack on Chevron's Abiteye-Olero crude pipeline and commended their action. The military said about 120,000 barrels per day of crude oil production were shut by the sabotage.

Reinventing Rwanda - Stephen Kinzer, Los Angeles Times opinion

In the dozens of poor countries I've covered as a foreign correspondent, development specialists -- people who run projects aimed at pulling nations out of poverty -- have generally worked hand in hand with human rights advocates. That makes sense because these two groups are natural allies. Both instinctively support governments that promote freedom and prosperity and oppose corrupt and repressive ones. Recently, though, I've been spending time in a country where these two groups are on opposite sides: Rwanda. No other country's government is so highly praised by development specialists but also so roundly condemned by human rights advocates. In fact, Rwanda's spectacular rebirth since the shocking genocide of 1994 has reignited an old debate about the very nature of human rights -- and about whether the West's obsession with this concept can undermine innovative solutions to problems that hold entire nations in misery.

AMERICAS

FARC Rebels Release Hostage Video - BBC News

Colombian rebels have released a video designed to show that a leading politician they have been holding hostage is alive. It was not clear when the video was filmed, but it appeared to be recent. Sigifredo Lopez is the only survivor of a group of 12 politicians who were killed by the Farc rebels in 2002.

Chavez Refutes US Hezbollah Charges - Associated Press

President Hugo Chavez says the United States is trying to bring him before an international court. Chavez says the United States is using accusations that the Venezuelan government is supporting the Lebanese group Hezbollah to "see if the world will make a move" against him. The US has charged a Venezuelan official and others with helping Hezbollah. Washington considers the armed group and political party in Lebanon a terrorist organization.

ASIA PACIFIC

Olympic Torch’s Tibet Visit Is Short and Political - Jim Yardley, New York Times

The visit of the Olympic torch to the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, came and went in about two hours on Saturday. Leaders of the ruling Communist Party probably exhaled once the flame was trundled onto an airplane without incident and flown out of a city that only three months ago had erupted in violent anti-Chinese protests. But if Chinese leaders were anxious to avoid protests, they did not avoid using the torch relay as a stage to again lash out at the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader. Zhang Qingli, the Communist Party secretary of Tibet, stood beneath the Potala Palace, the historic seat of the Dalai Lama, and bid farewell to the flame with a speech that at times was itself fiery. “Tibet’s sky will never change and the red flag with five stars will forever flutter high above it,” Mr. Zhang said, according to Reuters. “We will certainly be able to totally smash the splittist schemes of the Dalai Lama clique.”

Bibles are Big Business in China - Ching-Ching Ni, Los Angeles Times

The factory looks like it could be any plant in this export-driven nation. Hundreds of Chinese workers huddle over loud machines churning out large orders for customers at home and abroad. But what they're making might surprise you: Bibles. As Tibetan monks grab headlines protesting the lack of religious freedom under Chinese rule, a booming Bible industry is on its way to turning the world's biggest atheist nation into the world's largest producer of the Good Book.

EUROPE

Life in Putin's Russia - Julia Latynina, Washington Post opinion

The most striking thing about everyday life in the Russia of Vladimir Putin (and make no mistake, it is Putin's Russia, despite the election of a new president, hand-picked by the great man) is the incredible corruption of the courts, the police, the special forces -- all the institutions that are supposed to uphold law and order in a democracy and that in Russia today have been transformed into a cancer that's devouring the state.

MIDDLE EAST

Israel in the Season of Dread - Ethan Bronner, New York Times

After a year of painful violence - Hamas rockets flying into Israeli communities, soldiers killed and wounded on forays into Gaza - one might have expected the start of a six-month cease-fire with Hamas to be hailed here as good news. Yet what was the front page headline in Maariv newspaper that day? “Fury and Fear.” That says a great deal about the mood in Israel, a widely shared gloom that this nation is facing alarming threats both from without and within. Seen from far away, last week must have offered some hope that the region was finally at, or near, a turning point: the truce with Hamas, negotiated by Egypt, started on Thursday; other Palestinian-Israeli talks were taking place on numerous levels that both sides said were opening long-closed issues; there were also Turkish-mediated Israeli negotiations with Syria, and a new offer to yield territory to Lebanon along with a call for direct talks between Jerusalem and Beirut.

Security Aids Jenin's Economy - Joshua Mitnick, Washington Times

Once infamous as a nest of suicide bombers and militant gangs, this war-torn corner of the West Bank has seen the beginnings of an economic recovery amid efforts to re-establish law and order, Israeli and Palestinian officials say. Israel's army recently began letting thousands of its Arab citizens cross into Jenin for shopping and family visits, a move expected to bring an influx of cash to the region. "The siege has been broken partially. It plants hope in the hearts of Palestinian people," said Qaddoura Moussa, the Palestinian Authority's governor of Jenin. "Suddenly, our priorities have changed. We're getting back to serving the people."

Nuclear Inspectors Head to Syria - BBC News

UN nuclear inspectors are beginning a visit to Syria to investigate claims that it was building a nuclear reactor. The International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) four person team will spend three days examining the al-Kibar site in the desert in northern Syria. The site was bombed by Israeli jets in September 2007. The ruins were bulldozed after the attack.

The Saudi Spigot - Washington Post editorial

When President Bush to Saudi Arabia in mid-May to plead for an increase in oil production, his friend King Abdullah resisted him. US consumers might be straining to afford gasoline, the Saudi monarch said, but the best he could do would be an additional 300,000 barrels a day, raising total output to 9.45 million barrels a day. Now, however, the Saudis have improved their offer. In response to appeals from UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and others, the kingdom has signaled its willingness to open the spigots wider, by 200,000 barrels a day above what it promised Mr. Bush. After months of blaming the spike in oil prices on speculators, the Saudis have finally admitted, tacitly to be sure, that the root cause is insufficient supply. An official announcement of expanded production will probably come at an energy summit in Jiddah today.

The Two Israels - Nicholas Kristof, New York Times opinion

To travel through the West Bank and Gaza these days feels like traveling through Israeli colonies. You whiz around the West Bank on new highways that in some cases are reserved for Israeli vehicles, catching glimpses of Palestinian vehicles lined up at checkpoints. The security system that Israel is steadily establishing is nowhere more stifling than here in Hebron, the largest city in the southern part of the West Bank. In the heart of a city with 160,000 Palestinians, Israel maintains a Jewish settlement with 800 people. To protect them, the Israeli military has established a massive system of guard posts, checkpoints and road closures since 2001.

WORLD

Let Us Now Praise Coups - Paul Collier, Washington Post opinion

The government of Zimbabwe recently ordered foreign aid groups to halt their operations within its borders, thereby blocking the food aid that the United Nations funnels through such organizations from getting to the country's starving people. Last month, the government of Burma issued a similar ban. Of course, when we say "the government of Zimbabwe," what we really mean is President Robert Mugabe, just as "the government of Burma" these days means Senior Gen. Than Shwe, the leader of the ruling junta. In justifying the bans, each ruler harrumphed that outsiders should not be allowed to tell his nation what to do. But the real obstacle blocking international food aid is not the principle of national sovereignty; it is the insistence of dictators on being left to call their own shots. Mugabe decided that his citizens were better dead than fed; his nation had no part in the decision.

EVENTS OF INTEREST

24-25 June - 16th Annual Expeditionary Warfare Wargame (Public Event - Wargame). Quantico, Virginia. Sponsored by the Marine Corps Combat Development Command (MCCDC) and National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA). The purpose of the war game series is to provide education and familiarization to members of the Association concerning current issues, capabilities, and expeditionary force trends in the United States Marine Corpsand to identify areas where NDIA can provide assistance. The Purpose of the 2008 NDIA Expeditionary Warfare Division/USMC War Game is to examine C2 Integration issues concerning Sensor Fusion, Information Management, and Fusion and the Commander's Visualization Requirements and Realities using seabased Humanitarian Assistance/Disaster Relief operations at the MEB level for a background.

11-15 August - Counterinsurgency Leaders Workshop (Official Event - Workshop). Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. The US Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency (COIN) Center is hosting a five-day program for prospective counterinsurgency leaders, 11-15 August 2008, at the Combined Arms Center, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. The program is focused on equipping leaders with an understanding of the insurgency and counterinsurgency environments, as well as close consideration of the kinds of persons and organizations that usually emerge from insurgencies in contrast to those of conventional conflicts. This event will be held at the Battle Command Training Center (BCTC) Training Facility on Fort Leavenworth. Seating is limited. However, registration is open to any person who serves in any official capacity with regard to dealing with insurgencies, with priority is given to those applying from invited organizations. Other applicants will be reviewed for eligibility on a space-available, case-by-case basis. The duty is uniform/business casual. Application must completed on-line at the link above. The deadline for application is 1 August 2008. For more information, contact the COIN Center at 913-684-5196.

11-12 September - DNI Open Source Conferece 2008 (Public Event - Conference). Washington, DC. Sponsored by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The Office of the DNI is pleased to announce the "DNI Open Source Conference 2008" to be held on Thursday, 11 September and Friday, 12 September, 2008 at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washington DC. The conference is free; however, all who wish to attend must register online in advance (deadline 31 July). The two-day conference will explore a wide range of open source issues and open source best practices for the Intelligence Community and its partners. We invite participants from the broader open source community of interest including academia, think tanks, private industry, federal, state, local and tribal entities, international partners, and the media to attend. The conference will include speakers from across the broader open source community participating in panel discussions and focus group sessions. Information about the agenda and break-out sessions is now available. The DNI Open Source Conference 2007 was held 16-17 July 2007 at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center. More than 900 registered participants and speakers attended. Presentations made at the conference break-out sessions are available on the DNI Open Source Conference 2007 website.

16-18 September 2008 - The U.S. Army and the Interagency Process: A Historical Perspective (Public Event - Conference / Call for Papers). Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Sponsored by the U.S. Army Combat Studies Institute. The symposium will include a variety of guest speakers, panel sessions, and general discussions. This symposium will explore the partnership between the U.S. Army and government agencies in attaining national goals and objectives in peace and war within a historical context. Separate international topics may be presented. The symposium will also examine current issues, dilemmas, problems, trends, and practices associated with U.S. Army operations requiring close interagency cooperation.