President Obama has asked senior officials for a province-by-province analysis of Afghanistan to determine which regions are being managed effectively by local leaders and which require international help, information that his advisers say will guide his decision on how many additional US troops to send to the battle. Obama made the request in a meeting Monday with Vice President Biden and a small group of senior advisers helping him decide whether to expand the war. The detail he is now seeking also reflects the administration's turn toward Afghanistan's provincial governors, tribal leaders and local militias as potentially more effective partners in the effort than a historically weak central government that is confronting questions of legitimacy after the flawed Aug. 20 presidential election.

--Washington Post

AFGHANISTAN / PAKISTAN

Obama Honors Americans Killed in Afghanistan - Paula Wolfson, Voice of America. US President Barack Obama says the sacrifices of Americans serving in harm's way are very much on his mind as he ponders America's war options in Afghanistan. Mr. Obama left Washington in the middle of the night to be on hand when the bodies of 18 recent casualties of the war came home. The president has been seeking advice on Afghanistan from generals, diplomats and members of Congress. But late Wednesday he sought a different guidance. He traveled to an Air Force base in the state of Delaware that is home to the largest military mortuary in the country. There, the president saluted the latest victims of the Afghan war and got a first-hand look at the human cost of the conflict. He watched as their flag-draped coffins were unloaded from a cargo jet and he tried to console their families. Standing on the tarmac in the middle of the night, he honored their sacrifice. The president kept his conversations and his thoughts private, returning to the White House a few hours before dawn.

Support Grows for Pursuit of Peace Deals With the Taliban - Yaroslav Trofimov, Wall Street Journal. The idea of talking to the Taliban - a strategy advocated by Afghan officials - has become increasingly seductive as the Western death toll in the conflict mounts. Obama administration officials openly ponder an outreach to the leadership of Islamist militants, something that has been long advocated by European allies. Gen. Stanley McChrystal has already told the US-led forces under his command here that "reintegrating" lower-level Taliban gunmen into Afghan society is as desirable as killing or capturing them. In his assessment of the Afghan war, Gen. McChrystal explained that conflicts of this kind typically end with a reconciliation with elements of the insurgency -- and, in Afghanistan, may involve "high-level political settlements." Afghan officials share this view. "Everyone has come to the conclusion that fighting is not a solution to the Afghan problem," says Sayed Sharif, director of the government's Commission for Peace and Reconciliation. "More combat brings nothing but destruction. History teaches us that the only solution is a negotiated one." The Taliban, however, increasingly seem to believe that they can regain power in Kabul through violence - and may have no incentive to make peace unless their recent gains are reversed by US-led international forces.

Special Forces for Special Afghan Rescues - Sara A. Carter, Washington Times. The past week has brought plenty of heartache for the medical combat specialists, considered the "special forces" of the Air Force. A day earlier, they had spent an afternoon airlifting 17 severely wounded members of the 5th Stryker Brigade Combat Team to the trauma center at Kandahar Air Field. One American and one Afghan soldier were killed in that IED attack. A rash of combat deaths elsewhere in the Afghan theater has made this the deadliest month of the eight-year-old war for American forces. Seven US troops and three agents of the Drug Enforcement Agency died Monday in helicopter crashes. On Tuesday, eight soldiers with the 5th Brigade, 2nd Division Stryker Brigade Combat Team died from IEDs and hostile fire. The deaths are a "reminder of the extraordinary sacrifices that our young men and women in uniform are engaging in every single day, not only our troops but their families as well," said President Obama, who flew Thursday to Dover Air Force Base to salute 18 of the week's victims and meet with their families. The toll is complicating an already difficult decision for Mr. Obama, who is weighing whether to redefine the US mission in Afghanistan and how many troops it will require. For the nearly 68,000 already here, the debate is not academic.

UN Reviews Security After Deadly Kabul Assault - Alissa J. Rubin and Carlotta Gall, New York Times. Most United Nations workers here were confined to their living quarters on Thursday in the aftermath of a deadly assault on a United Nations guesthouse, and some were moved to more secure housing as foreigners working in Kabul reassessed their security. On Wednesday, gunmen associated with the Taliban entered the compound of the guesthouse and killed eight people, including six foreign staff members. The authorities said the gunmen would have killed far more people had they not been held off by United Nations guards, who engaged the assailants in a fierce gun battle, killing three of them. The assault unnerved many international organizations working here, underscoring the vulnerability of their workers. “Before yesterday, the risk was there, but it was a virtual risk,” said Laurent Saillard, the director of the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief, which represents nonprofit aid organizations here. “Now, it’s become a reality. Any group that is well organized and determined can do it,” Mr. Saillard said. “We are not secure like a military camp or an embassy. It’s easy. They crossed a line.”

UN Evacuates Non-essential Staff After Deadly Attack on Kabul Guesthouse - Jeremy Page and James Bone, The Times. The United Nations started evacuating “non-essential” staff from Kabul yesterday after the Taleban killed five of its foreign employees at an international guesthouse in the deadliest attack yet on the UN in Afghanistan. Ban Ki Moon, the UN secretary-general, said the organisation might move UN staff now living in guesthouses in Kabul and elsewhere into more secure compounds, and hire private contractors to guard them. Mr Ban met the 15-nation UN Security Council last night to appeal for help in protecting UN staff, and plans to address the 192-nation General Assembly to ask for “expedited action” on funding. After an emergency meeting to review security the UN stopped short of withdrawing completely from Afghanistan, as it did in Iraq in the wake of a truck bomb that killed 22 people at its headquarters in Baghdad in 2003. Kai Eide, the UN chief in Afghanistan, had pledged after Wednesday’s attack that the UN would not be deterred from its work, which includes funding and helping to organise an election run-off on November 7. The official conclusion of the meeting was that individual UN agencies should decide whether to advise staff to take leave, according to two participants. UN officials told The Times that many of the roughly 1,000 foreign UN staff not working directly on the election had been instructed to leave for the next three weeks because of the security threat in Kabul.

Afghan Officials Unveil Plans for Runoff - Alexandra Zavis, Los Angeles Times. Afghan election officials said Thursday that they would increase the number of voting centers for next week's presidential runoff election, disregarding UN advice to open fewer sites to prevent the rampant fraud that characterized the first round of balloting. The announcement deepened fears that the Nov. 7 poll would be as tainted as the August election. US and allied officials had hoped that the showdown between President Hamid Karzai and former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah would result in a government that can be a credible partner in efforts to stabilize the country. The massive fraud that took place in the first round has discredited Karzai's government and undermined US public support for the war at a time when President Obama is weighing a Pentagon request to deploy thousands of additional troops. United Nations-backed auditors threw out a third of the ballots cast for Karzai in August, denying him an outright victory and forcing him into a runoff against Abdullah, his main challenger. UN and US advisors said much of the fraud occurred at "ghost" voting centers, which never opened and yet returned results. And at the centers that did open, there was insufficient oversight, they said.

Afghanistan Increases Polling Stations for Election - Voice of America. Afghan election officials say they plan to increase the number of voting stations for next week's presidential runoff election, despite concerns that could lead to more fraud than in the first vote. Afghanistan's independent election commission says it will slightly increase the number of polling centers to 6,322 and have enough staff to ensure a credible process. Foreign election observers had recommended reducing the more than 6,000 polling centers used in the first round after auditors found more than one million fraudulent votes. Many fake ballots are believed to have come from remote polling stations that never opened or did not have observers monitoring the vote. Meanwhile, the Taliban in Afghanistan has vowed to intensify its attacks leading up to the November 7 election. A Taliban spokesman told the French news agency the militant group has new plans and tactics to disrupt the election. The United Nations has not responded to the Afghan announcement of an increase in polling centers. On Wednesday, UN officials said workers will continue to help the country prepare for the vote, despite a deadly Taliban attack on a Kabul guesthouse that killed five UN staff members. The Taliban said the attack Wednesday was the first step of a plan aimed at disrupting the vote, in which incumbent President Hamid Karzai is facing off against former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah.

Afghan Panel Overrides Warnings - Pamela Constable, Washington Post. Rejecting advice from UN officials, Afghanistan's election commission announced Thursday that it would open more than 6,300 polling centers for the upcoming runoff vote, far more than international experts here say can be adequately protected and monitored. The announcement surprised UN officials, who had recommended that only about 5,800 voting centers be opened because of the danger of insurgent attacks in some areas, the likelihood of fraud in others and the short time available to prepare and staff the Nov. 7 presidential election. Officials with Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission told reporters they were confident that Afghan security forces could protect the larger number of centers, but they did not say how they would be able to staff all of them and still fulfill their pledge to get rid of hundreds of polling officials accused of fraud in the original Aug. 20 election. The runoff is being held because the credibility of the first round collapsed amid revelations of widespread fraud, especially at "ghost" polling stations in areas under Taliban threat. This time, President Hamid Karzai and his chief rival, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah, will be the only names on the ballot. The election panel said it would close 11 voting stations in five provinces because they were vulnerable to insurgent attacks or because of approaching winter weather in mountainous regions. The upbeat assessment by the election panel echoed reassuring comments Wednesday by a spokesman for the Afghan Defense Ministry, who said more than 300,000 security personnel would be deployed to ensure voter safety on election day.

In Military Campaign, Pakistan Finds Hint of 9/11 - Jane Perlez and Mark Mazzetti, New York Times. Pakistani forces pushing toward a lair of hard-core Taliban fighters found documents this week linked to a member of the Hamburg cell of Al Qaeda that is believed to have planned the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. In a small village in the dun-colored hills of South Waziristan, soldiers found a German passport belonging to Said Bahaji, a German citizen and associate of Mohammed Atta, the leader of the 9/11 hijackers. The passport was issued in Hamburg in January 2001 and was accompanied by a Pakistani visa dated March 2001. The documents indicated that Mr. Bahaji landed in Karachi from Istanbul on Sept. 4, 2001. The apparent presence of Mr. Bahaji in the tribal areas of Pakistan is a clear indication that members of the Qaeda network - including participants in the 9/11 plot - have taken refuge here, as American officials, like Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Thursday, have charged. There was no indication that Mr. Bahaji had left Pakistan, authorities said. Although Mr. Bahaji was not a central plotter in the Sept. 11 attacks, he lived for eight months in Hamburg with Mr. Atta and Ramzi bin al Shibh, according to the 9/11 Commission Report. He was described in the report as “an insecure follower with no personality and with limited knowledge of Islam.”

Pakistan Army Picks Up Trail of al-Qaeda Operative Wanted for 9/11 - Zahid Hussain, The Times. Pakistani troops fighting Islamist militants in the mountains of South Waziristan have picked up the trail of a leading al-Qaeda figure wanted in connection with the attacks on America on September 11, 2001. The Times was shown yesterday the German passport of Said Bahaji, a close associate of the September 11 hijacker Mohammed Atta. The army said that it found the passport and other documents in a mud compound in the village of Shawangai. The documents, which show that Bahaji, 34, has been in Pakistan since early September 2001, appear to provide the strongest evidence yet of a direct link between Pakistani militants and al-Qaeda’s high command. The army said that the village, captured this week in the latest effort to drive out militants who have been extending their operations ever closer to the capital, Islamabad, served as al-Qaeda’s command base. The Times saw documents showing the recent presence of other European citizens. The battle for Shawangai lasted several days. “They were ferocious fighters and we had to battle hard to capture the village,” Lieutenant-Colonel Inam Rashid, the commanding officer who led the assault, said. His men had killed some of the militants but many others had escaped. Bahaji’s fate was unknown. Another officer said: “We do not know whether he was killed or fled.”

Clinton Seeks to Strengthen US-Pakistani Relations - Sean Maroney, Voice of America. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Pakistan's cultural center, Lahore, Thursday for a spirited town hall discussion with university students. It is the second day of Clinton's three-day visit, which is focused on strengthening bi-lateral relations with Pakistan. Secretary Clinton urged students from the Government College University in Lahore to unite against extremists who threaten to destabilize the country. "This is a fight that has to be won," said Hillary Clinton. "And you know here in Lahore, that you are not immune. No institution is immune." Two weeks ago, gunmen launched three separate attacks in one day on security sites across the city. Clinton's visit to Lahore also comes a day after a car bomb killed more than 100 people in the northwestern city of Peshawar. She stressed to the students that the United States' commitment to Pakistan goes beyond security issues. "I am proud to announce that the United States will give $45 million to Pakistan's Higher Education Commission," she said. She said the money will go to help educate those displaced by violence as well as others in economically vulnerable areas.

Clinton Presses Pakistan on al-Qaeda - Karen DeYoung, Washington Post. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton expressed doubt Thursday over Pakistan's failure to locate top al-Qaeda leaders in the eight years since they escaped over the border from Afghanistan, telling a group of Pakistani journalists that she found "it hard to believe that nobody in your government knows where they are and couldn't get them if they really wanted to." "So far as we know," she said, "they're in Pakistan." Clinton's comments, the most direct public statement of a US argument long made in private, came as she tried to balance assurances of strong economic and military support for Pakistan with reminders that the relationship is a "two-way street." "If we are going to have a mature partnership where we work together," she said, "then there are issues that not just the United States, but others have with your government and your military establishment." Clinton, who made her comments during a day-long trip to the eastern city of Lahore, later met with the country's top military and intelligence officials.

Clinton Challenges Pakistanis on Al Qaeda - Mark Landler, New York Times. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, on a visit meant to improve relations with Pakistan, strongly suggested Thursday that some Pakistani officials bore responsibility for allowing terrorists from Al Qaeda to operate from safe havens along this country’s frontier. “I find it hard to believe that nobody in your government knows where they are, and couldn’t get to them if they really wanted to,” she said to a group of Pakistani journalists on her second day here. “Maybe that’s the case; maybe they’re not gettable. I don’t know.” It is extremely rare for an official of Mrs. Clinton’s rank to say publicly what American politicians and intelligence officials have said in more guarded ways for years. The remarks upset her hosts, who have seen hundreds of soldiers and civilians killed as Pakistan has taken on a widening campaign against militant groups that have threatened the country from its tribal areas. But her skeptical comments also gave voice to the longtime frustration of American officials with what they see as the Pakistani government’s lack of resolve in rooting out not only Al Qaeda, but also the Taliban leadership based in Quetta, and a host of militant groups that use the border region to stage attacks on American and NATO forces in Afghanistan.

Hillary Clinton Tells Pakistan it's Doing Too Little Against Al Qaeda - Paul Richter, Los Angeles Times. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, visiting Pakistan on a fence-mending tour, turned unusually blunt Thursday, accusing the government of failing to do all it could to track down Al Qaeda. Clinton told a group of journalists in Lahore that she found it "hard to believe that nobody in your government knows where they are and couldn't get them if they really wanted to." Al Qaeda, she said, "has had a safe haven in Pakistan since 2002." Clinton's three-day visit is her first to Pakistan since she became secretary of State, and its principal goal is to improve strained relations. On the first day of her visit, in Islamabad, she declared that she wanted to "turn a page" in the US-Pakistani relationship. But on the second day, frustration seemed to surface as Clinton, a former US senator from New York, confronted the long-standing strains between the countries. Discussing Al Qaeda, she raised the issue of Pakistan's powerful military intelligence arm, the Inter-Services Intelligence agency, which has been accused of secretly supporting militant groups in Afghanistan. "There are issues that, not just the US, but others have with your government and with your military security establishment," she said.

US Seeks to Counter Enemy’s ‘Weapon of Choice’ - John J. Kruzel, American Forces Press Service. The Defense Department expects US forces in Afghanistan to continue to be targeted by improvised explosive devices -- which have claimed more lives there than any other weapon - while it seeks ways to counter the threat, officials said. As President Barack Obama and his advisors weigh decisions on the next phase of the Afghan war, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates is working to protect against and defeat the growing threat from IEDs, Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said today, noting that October has been the deadliest month for US forces in the eight-year war. “Secretary Gates is working to ensure that this department continues to do everything possible to provide our men and women in uniform with the very best protection and capabilities to defeat the growing IED threat,” Morrell said in a news conference at the Pentagon. More intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities, including the most advanced drones and other equipment, are among the supplies the department is working to field to troops in Afghanistan, where one defense official today said the IED has emerged as the enemy’s preferred means of attack. Gates last month ordered nearly 3,000 extra route clearance and explosive ordnance disposal teams and other key personnel downrange, in addition to a parcel of the more than 6,600 mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles designed specifically for Afghanistan's rugged terrain that the department plans to field. Morrell has said previously the department would like the M-ATVs, as the vehicles are known, to have an effect in Afghanistan similar to the one that the original MRAP vehicles had when they were delivered en masse to Iraq, leading to a reduction in casualties resulting from roadside bombs. “Even with all these additional counter-IED resources, there will no doubt be many difficult and dangerous days ahead for our forces,” Morrell cautioned.

Department Takes Steps to Reduce Casualties - Jim Garamone, American Forces Press Service. Defense Department officials have taken steps to stem mounting casualties in Afghanistan, Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said here today. October has become the deadliest month for American servicemembers in Afghanistan, with 56 killed, and Morrell said Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has no higher mission than ensuring troops have everything they need to protect themselves from improvised explosive devices and other threats. Some assets already are moving to Afghanistan, he noted, including additional intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities. The theater also is receiving the most advanced drones and new platforms such as the MC-12. "Last month, … Secretary Gates ordered nearly 3,000 enablers, including additional route clearance and explosive ordnance disposal teams, into Afghanistan," Morrell said. The teams comb routes to locate and defuse roadside bombs before they go off. The department also is sending new mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles, known as M-ATVs, to the country. The all-terrain vehicles are designed to operate in the Afghan country and towns and are smaller and more maneuverable than the large vehicles that were successful in Iraq. "The M-ATVs are being delivered by air as fast as we can get them off the factory floor, with hundreds due to be fielded to our warfighters by year's end," Morrell said. American forces are not the only ones making sacrifices, Morrell noted, as NATO allies, Afghan forces, United Nations aid workers and the Afghan people have suffered from the terrorist strikes in the country.

The Commander’s Duty Done - New York Times editorial. In his midnight mission to honor the returning war dead, President Obama did more than personally extend the nation’s condolences to grieving families gathered at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. Without uttering a public word, Mr. Obama erased President George W. Bush’s shameful attempts to hide the pain of war from Americans and to shield himself from paying public tribute to the thousands who died in Iraq and Afghanistan. The long-overdue display of national gratitude and regret by the commander in chief rekindled a note of most solemn ritual that the country owes sons and daughters in uniform sacrificed in war. The president was restoring a post-Vietnam tradition that included the graphic embraces and wrenching words personally extended by President Ronald Reagan to the families of the 241 soldiers, sailors and Marines who perished 26 years ago in the bombing of the Marines’ camp in Lebanon.

Muddled Thinking on Afghanistan - Washington Times editorial. It's been more than two weeks since President Obama announced that a decision on courses of action in Afghanistan would be made "in the coming weeks." Yesterday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said a decision would wait until "sometime after the Afghan election is finally resolved." Given the fluid nature of Afghan politics, it's hard to say what "finally resolved" means. We doubt it will be anytime soon. The Taliban are not waiting for Mr. Obama's decision. Their suicide attack on the UN guesthouse in Kabul on Wednesday was reminiscent of the August 2003 bombing of UN headquarters in Baghdad that drove the mission from Iraq. The Taliban are seeking to conduct high-profile, potentially game-changing attacks that will influence thinking in Washington. The decision-making void on Afghanistan has been filled by a cacophony of voices offering every possible option. Ramp up, pull out. More troops, fewer troops. Guard the cities, secure the countryside. Fight the Taliban, buy them off. Eliminate drugs, ignore narcotics. Dump Afghan President Hamid Karzai, stick with the devil you know. Pakistan is key. Send in the drones. The conventional wisdom is settling on reports of a scaled-down strategy to protect Afghan cities and infrastructure, which is uncomfortably resonant of the losing strategy the Soviet Union pursued in the 1980s.

Mrs. Clinton in Pakistan - New York Times editorial. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s first trip to Pakistan as secretary of state was never going to be easy. The day she arrived, extremists detonated a car bomb at a crowded market in Peshawar that killed at least 100 people. The Nation newspaper dismissed the visit as a mere “PR exercise, but who will buy what the US is selling is difficult to imagine, beyond the already compliant government.” Polls show that an overwhelming majority of Pakistanis dislike and mistrust the United States. They blame Washington for using and then abandoning them after the Soviets were driven from Afghanistan. And they resent Washington for pressing their government now to fight against extremists - and suspect that they will be abandoned again. The fact that many of the extremists are on Pakistan’s territory and threatening Pakistan’s government has not shifted that thinking or mitigated that resentment. A good part of this, of course, is the failure of Pakistan’s government, which has still not adequately explained that this is not just America’s fight. But the United States is also to blame. For eight years the Bush administration coddled the Pakistani Army at the expense of the rest of society.

On the War's Front Lines - David Ignatius, Washington Post opinion. Here's what you would see if you traveled this week to Kandahar and Helmand provinces, the two big battlegrounds of the Afghanistan war: a conflict that is balanced tenuously between success and failure. The United States has deployed enough troops to disrupt the Taliban insurgency and draw increasing fire, but not enough to secure the major population centers. That's not a viable position. I visited four US bases in the two provinces this week, traveling with the military. I was able to hear from local commanders and talk with a few Afghans. I'll describe what I learned, positive and negative, so readers can weigh this evidence from the field. Then I'll explain why my conclusion is that President Obama should add some troops. We began in Kandahar city, at the headquarters of what's known as Regional Command South, which oversees the battle in the two provinces. It's a city on the edge of the desert, surrounded by jagged, slate-gray mountains. Just over the border to the east are the Taliban's supply lines in Pakistan. America's NATO allies have been running the war in Kandahar province, but they have been badly outgunned. So several months ago, the United States sent an Army brigade of about 4,000 troops with Stryker armored vehicles. That disrupted the Taliban insurgents, but they have responded with more roadside bombs along Highway 1, the main route that connects Kandahar to Afghanistan's other major cities.

The Tenacity Question - David Brooks, New York Times opinion. Today, President Obama will lead another meeting to debate strategy in Afghanistan. He will presumably discuss the questions that have divided his advisers: How many troops to commit? How to define plausible goals? Should troops be deployed broadly or just in the cities and towns? For the past few days I have tried to do what journalists are supposed to do. I’ve called around to several of the smartest military experts I know to get their views on these controversies. I called retired officers, analysts who have written books about counterinsurgency warfare, people who have spent years in Afghanistan. I tried to get them to talk about the strategic choices facing the president. To my surprise, I found them largely uninterested. Most of them have no doubt that the president is conducting an intelligent policy review. They have no doubt that he will come up with some plausible troop level. They are not worried about his policy choices. Their concerns are more fundamental. They are worried about his determination.

What We Can Achieve in Afghanistan - Robert B. Zoellick, Washington Post opinion. As governments reconsider strategies in Afghanistan, stories abound about why achieving progress in this "graveyard of empires" is so challenging: The country is racked by violence and opium production; confidence in the government is weak; its neighbors meddle; and fiercely independent tribes distrust any intruder - whether from Britain, the Soviet Union, NATO or Kabul. The World Bank Group's experience in Afghanistan reflects all these problems. This is one of the most difficult environments in which we work. Yet we have seen real, measurable progress: in the health sector, education, community development, microfinance and telecommunications. Since 2002, the World Bank has committed nearly $2 billion to these and other projects and manages, with partners, a $3.2 billion trust fund for 30 donor countries.

A Familiar War in Afghanistan - Eugene Robinson, Washington Post opinion. The opium poppy was introduced to Afghanistan more than 2,300 years ago by the armies of Alexander the Great. His forces were eventually driven out, like those of every would-be conqueror since. The poppy has proved more tenacious. On Monday, three US Drug Enforcement Administration agents - Forrest Leamon, Chad Michael and Michael Weston, all from the Washington area - were killed in a helicopter crash in western Afghanistan. US officials have released few details about the incident. The Times of London reported that the aircraft was shot down after a raid on the compound of a prominent Afghan drug lord. On Wednesday, the New York Times reported that the CIA has been making regular payments to a suspected major figure in the Afghan opium trade: Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of President Hamid Karzai. The newspaper quoted sources alleging that Ahmed Wali Karzai -- who denies any involvement in the drug business - collects "huge" fees from traffickers for allowing trucks loaded with drugs to cross bridges he controls in the southern part of the country. So is it our policy to attack the Afghan drug trade while we also line the pockets of one of its reputed kingpins? Who is going to explain this to the families of agents Leamon, Michael and Weston?

IRAQ

Iraq Arrests Security Personnel for Sunday's Deadly Explosions - Edward Yeranian, Voice of America. Baghdad's top government security official has announced the arrest of close to a dozen officers and around 50 members of Iraq's security forces for alleged involvement or negligence in Sunday's suicide bombings in the Iraqi capital. Iraqi TV reported that Major General Qasim Atta, acting as a military spokesman for the Iraqi capital, announced the arrests of 11 officers and 50 members of the military and police for alleged responsibility or negligence in Sunday's attacks in Baghdad. About 155 people were killed and hundreds of others wounded in the massive explosions that rocked the Iraqi capital, gutting two government ministries and blowing out windows across the entire center of the city. The explosions, which killed dozens of children near the government-controlled Green Zone, provoked widespread outrage. Several opposition members of parliament called on top ministers to resign and called on Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to testify to parliament about security lapses. General Atta, who had spoken only recently of the improving security situation in Iraq, announced the crackdown to journalists. He said that both the military commander and the police chief of Baghdad's Salhiya district, site of Sunday's explosions, were under arrest, pending investigation.

Iraq Makes Sweeping Arrests Over Baghdad Blasts - Timothy Williams and Mohammed Hussein, New York Times. Iraq announced Thursday that it had arrested dozens of police officers and soldiers responsible for security in the neighborhood where car bombs killed and wounded hundreds of people outside government buildings this week. The attacks on Sunday, aimed at the Justice Ministry and the Baghdad provincial council buildings, occurred in a heavily protected section of the capital, prompting accusations that Iraq’s security forces had been complicit in the bombings. The two suicide attacks killed 155 people and wounded more than 500. Among the 61 people in security jobs arrested Thursday were the commanders of local police posts and the soldiers and police officers responsible for security checkpoints in downtown Baghdad near the buildings. The arrest order was announced by the Baghdad Operations Command, which is responsible for security in the capital and reports directly to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. The announcement did not offer any further details, so it remained unclear whether the 61 security force members were suspected of having aided those who carried out the attacks.

Iraq Arrests 61 Officials in Fatal Blasts - Ernesto Londoño, Washington Post. Iraqi authorities on Thursday announced the arrest of 61 police and army officials responsible for the central Baghdad district where two bombs killed more than 155 people Sunday. The arrests, like others following security breaches, reflect the Iraqi government's strategy of holding soldiers and law enforcement officials criminally responsible for attacks carried out in their areas. Eleven of the men were officers and 50 were lower-ranking, said Maj. Gen. Qassim Atta, a spokesman for the Baghdad operational command. Atta did not specify the charges brought against them. In similar arrests recently, officials have cited negligence. The suicide bombers targeted the Justice Ministry and the Baghdad Provincial Council building, located in areas that are supposed to be among the capital's most heavily guarded. The twin attacks, and similar bombings Aug. 19 targeting the Foreign and Finance ministries, have dealt a blow to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who had proclaimed that his government was ready to assume responsibility for security after US troops largely withdrew from Iraqi cities this summer. The government also announced this week that it would bar TV stations from broadcasting live from bombing scenes. Iraqi and other Arab stations have been airing ghastly footage of the aftermath of Sunday's blasts, the deadliest in Iraq in two years.

IRAN

Iran Adds Caveat to Nuclear Cooperation Deal - Elizabeth Arrott, Voice of America. Iran has given its formal response to a UN plan for processing its nuclear material. Details remained sketchy, but it appears Tehran has put a few conditions on what appeared to be a take-it-or-leave-it deal. Iran's envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency says his country has taken a positive approach to talks on uranium enrichment. But in comments carried on Iran's Press TV, Ali Asghar Soltanieh appeared to downplay the importance of the discussion, as well as suggest that more talking is needed. "In the course of such a meeting, which is merely a technical discussion between Iran and the IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the economic and technical concerns have to be taken into consideration when dealing with the modality of the supply of the fuel," he said. His reference to economic and technical issues appears to reinforce reports that Iran will seek to place some conditions on the original plan, that was intended to ease Western concerns about Iran's enrichment of uranium. The IAEA wants Tehran to send most of its uranium stockpile to Russia for about 20-percent enrichment - useful for energy purposes, but well below the level of enrichment for use in weapons.

Iran Rejects Deal to Ship Out Uranium, Officials Report - David E. Sanger, Steven Erlanger and Robert F. Worth, New York Times. Iran told the United Nations nuclear watchdog on Thursday that it would not accept a plan its negotiators agreed to last week to send its stockpile of uranium out of the country, according to diplomats in Europe and American officials briefed on Iran’s response. The apparent rejection of the deal could unwind President Obama’s effort to buy time to resolve the nuclear standoff. In public, neither the Iranians nor the watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, revealed the details of Iran’s objections, which came only hours after Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, insisted that “we are ready to cooperate” with the West. But the European and American officials said that Iranian officials had refused to go along with the central feature of the draft agreement reached on Oct. 21 in Vienna: a provision that would have required the country to send about three-quarters of its current known stockpile of low-enriched uranium to Russia to be processed and returned for use in a reactor in Tehran used to make medical isotopes.

Iran Demands Changes to Deal with the West on Nuclear Ambitions - Catherine Philp, The Times. Iran demanded important changes in a crucial international nuclear fuel deal yesterday, challenging the basis of the agreement struck with the US, France and Russia. Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), announced that he had received Iran’s proposal in Vienna yesterday, five days after the deadline for its submission expired. He called it only an initial response, which suggested that it fell short of the demands of the international community. Iran had been asked to ship out most of its nuclear fuel stockpile before the end of the year for reprocessing into higher grade material under international supervision. Reports in Iran’s state-controlled media said that Tehran had demanded “important changes”. They hinted that Iran wanted to export the fuel only in small batches while simultaneously importing the higher-grade fuel. That would be a deal breaker because the UN wanted to remove temporarily three quarters of Iran’s nuclear fuel stockpile, to prevent it from acquiring material for a bomb. The deal being haggled over would buy time. An agreement between Iran and the UN would defuse tensions, put off sanctions and avert the threatened Israeli strike on nuclear facilities. Under the terms of the deal drawn up by the IAEA and already approved by Western governments, Iran would export more than 1,200kg of its 3.5 per cent low-enriched uranium to Russia for refining to 20 per cent purity to fuel a Tehran reactor which makes medical isotopes. France would then turn it into fuel rods. The fissile material would be in a form that would be difficult to turn into weapons-grade uranium. Diplomats described Iran’s response as a slap in the face for Mr ElBaradei, who has been seen by the West as being too ready to believe Tehran.

Iran Reply on Nuclear Deal Called 'Inadequate' - Paul Richter and Borzou Daragahi, Los Angeles Times. Iran's response Thursday to a proposed deal to transform its controversial nuclear material into fuel for a medical reactor is "inadequate," a senior Western diplomat said, adding that the reply failed to address key US and European concerns about Tehran's nuclear intentions. Iran appeared to seek modifications to the proposal to temporarily move most of its enriched uranium to Russia and France to be further refined and shaped for use in a medical reactor after a delay of nearly a week and a flurry of contradictory signals. The proposal would have depleted Iran's stockpile of nuclear fuel below the threshold necessary for making a single nuclear bomb, possibly creating diplomatic breathing room for a broader agreement between Tehran and those worried about its atomic research program. But according to the diplomat, Iran wants to send its uranium abroad in smaller batches over an undetermined stretch of time rather than the lump transfer by year's end outlined under the proposal offered by International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei.

US DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

Exercise Seeks Battlefield Information Effectiveness - Gerry J. Gilmore, American Forces Press Service. US warfighters and allies operating in Afghanistan and Iraq depend on various sensor platforms that can provide information about the enemy’s whereabouts night or day, a senior US military officer said today. That’s why the annual joint Empire Challenge demonstration, which explores how to improve dissemination of vital intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance information to battlefield commanders, is so important, Air Force Col. George J. Krakie, the director of this year’s exercise, told American Forces Press Service. “It’s about bringing all these different ISR capabilities together to form a coherent picture for the warfighter of the battle space that’s around them,” Krakie said. This year’s four-week demonstration, he said, was held in July at several locations across the world. Empire Challenge 2009 was the sixth of the series and the first managed by Norfolk, Va.,-based US Joint Forces Command, Krakie said. The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, he said, ran the previous exercises, which are directed by the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence. Senior officials had decided the demonstration needed to be “more operationally realistic and relevant,” Krakie said, so Joint Forces Command was directed to take the lead. US military members from all service branches as well as allied participants from France, Norway, Great Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand took part in this year’s demonstration, Krakie said. Wartime commanders crave situational awareness - the ability of knowing what is happening around you - so they can make better, more informed decisions, said Krakie, who is chief of the intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance integration division at Joint Forces Command’s intelligence directorate.

UNITED STATES

Judge Credits Time Served in Sentencing al-Qaeda Aide - Carrie Johnson, Washington Post. In a decision that could carry implications for the masterminds of the Sept. 11 attacks, a judge on Thursday sentenced an al-Qaeda sleeper agent with ties to the group's senior leaders to eight years and four months in prison. The sentence sliced away nearly half of the 15-year maximum available penalty against Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, who entered the country as a graduate student on Sept. 10, 2001, under instructions from al-Qaeda operations chief Khalid Sheik Mohammed. US District Judge Michael Mihm essentially gave Marri credit for spending more than six years on a US Navy brig in Charleston, S.C. Marri was held in isolation without criminal charges as one of only three enemy combatants on American soil. Over the course of the two-day sentencing hearing in Peoria, Ill., attorneys for Marri presented evidence of his often-bleak detention conditions, arguing that he was held in a dark and chilly cell without a blanket, a mattress and his prescription eyeglasses for long stretches, and that his mouth sometimes was covered with duct tape. The judge said he pared nine months from the prison term because of the harsh conditions. Justice Department lawyers had exhorted the judge to ignore Marri's indefinite detention, ordered in 2003 by President George W. Bush, and to focus instead on the alleged danger he posed. They pointed to evidence uncovered in an FBI search that Marri had performed research on hazardous chemicals and had bookmarked possible US targets such as dams and reservoirs.

Admitted Qaeda Agent Receives Prison Sentence - John Schwartz, New York Times. A man who confessed to trying to aid Al Qaeda in the United States was sentenced by a federal judge Thursday to more than eight years in prison. Under a plea bargain with federal prosecutors, the man, Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, had faced 15 years in prison, but the judge agreed to consider the time he had already served. Mr. Marri, the last enemy combatant held on United States soil, admitted in May to having attended terrorist training camps from 1998 to 2001, to meeting with Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, a high official within the Qaeda organization, and to having “offered his services.” The sentence was imposed by Judge Michael M. Mihm of Federal District Court in Peoria, Ill. Mr. Marri’s lawyers urged Judge Mihm to reduce the sentence, asking him to take into account Mr. Marri’s eight years in custody, including five and a half years in a Navy brig in Charleston, S.C., much of that spent in isolation. They argued that whatever Mr. Marri’s intentions when he traveled to this country in 2001, he no longer harbored a desire to attack the United States. Prosecutors had argued for the full sentence, however, and on Wednesday they presented testimony from a psychologist that Mr. Marri was “likely to engage in hostile acts towards the United States,” according to The Peoria Journal Star.

Dozens in Congress Under Ethics Inquiry - Ellen Nakashima and Paul Kane, Washington Post. House ethics investigators have been scrutinizing the activities of more than 30 lawmakers and several aides in inquiries about issues including defense lobbying and corporate influence peddling, according to a confidential House ethics committee report prepared in July. The report appears to have been inadvertently placed on a publicly accessible computer network, and it was provided to The Washington Post by a source not connected to the congressional investigations. The committee said Thursday night that the document was released by a low-level staffer. The ethics committee is one of the most secretive panels in Congress, and its members and staff members sign oaths not to disclose any activities related to its past or present investigations. Watchdog groups have accused the committee of not actively pursuing inquiries; the newly disclosed document indicates the panel is conducting far more investigations than it had revealed.

AFRICA

Zimbabwe Officials Deport UN Investigator Invited by Government - Jan Raath, The Times. The United Nations chief torture investigator was deported from Zimbabwe early today after being detained by security officials on Wednesday night as he arrived at the invitation of the country's Government. Manfred Nowak, the UN special rapporteur on torture, was held for several hours at Harare airport before being put on a plane and returned to Johannesburg. "We are boarding the plane to Johannesburg now," a UN official said by mobile phone from Harare airport. Mr Nowak had been due to spend a week in the country to investigate allegations of human rights abuses. He had been invited formally by Patrick Chinamasa, the Justice Minister, in February. However when he arrived at Harare he was told he did not have security clearance and would have to catch the next aircraft out. “I have never been treated in any other country in this way,” he told The Times as he argued with immigration officials late last night. “This is a major diplomatic incident.” Human rights agencies in Harare began to grow suspicious on Friday when they discovered that the Justice Ministry had drawn up no programme for Mr Nowak.

Zimbabwe Expels UN Investigator - Celia W. Dugger, New York Times. A United Nations torture investigator who was supposed to meet Zimbabwe’s prime minister, Morgan Tsvangirai, was instead detained under guard at the airport overnight and ejected from Zimbabwe on Thursday morning. The investigator, Manfred Nowak, said his treatment by the party of Zimbabwe’s president, Robert Mugabe, was “totally unheard of behavior” and illustrated Mr. Tsvangirai’s lack of power in a government he ostensibly runs with Mr. Mugabe. Mr. Tsvangirai, the opposition leader, joined the government in an effort to end a political crisis in Zimbabwe, but he and his party say they continue to be assailed by Mr. Mugabe’s party, ZANU-PF, through its selective enforcement of “shadowy charges.” Zimbabwe’s state-run media, controlled by Mr. Mugabe’s party, depicted Mr. Nowak as a “gate crasher.” He had been officially invited to conduct a mission in the country, but said he was informed en route to Zimbabwe that the government wanted him to postpone his eight-day trip because of a two-day visit from regional ministers addressing the country’s political crisis. “It’s a serious diplomatic incident,” Mr. Nowak said in an interview, adding that he would not return even if invited. He was planning to investigate what he called “credible and serious allegations of human rights violations.”

Guinea's Military Government Arrests Opponents - Scott Stearns, Voice of America. Military leaders in Guinea have arrested several leading pro-democracy advocates. The Obama Administration is restricting travel to the United States by members of the military government following the killing of opposition protestors one month ago. Guinean soldiers arrested pro-democracy attorney Thierno Balde and several organizers of a youth hunger strike called to remember those killed and raped in a protest last month against the expected presidential candidacy of military ruler Captain Moussa Dadis Camara. Balde is the director of Guinea's Research Institute on Democracy and Rule of Law and is a frequent source of information for international media, including the Voice of America. Their arrests late Wednesday come as Guinea's military government is facing additional international sanctions for the September 28 killings. The European Union has joined the Economic Community of West African States in an arms embargo against Guinea. The US State Department is restricting travel to the United States by certain members of the military government and others "who support policies or actions that undermine the restoration of democracy and the rule of law."

British Couple Held Off Somali Coast - Jeffrey Gettleman and Mohammed Ibrahim, New York Times. Somali pirates said Thursday that they had moved a British couple seized from their sailboat last week to a container ship anchored off Somalia’s lawless shores, and that they would “protect” the captives until a ransom was delivered. Meanwhile, the British ITV News said it had made contact with Paul Chandler, one of the kidnapping victims. In a brief interview, Mr. Chandler described how he and his wife, Rachel, had been taken captive early Friday morning as they sailed near the Seychelles islands. “I was off watch,” he told the station, according to a transcript of the interview. “I was asleep and men with guns came aboard.” Mr. Chandler, reached by cellphone, told the station that he and his wife were being held in the captain’s quarters of the Kota Wajar, a Singaporean ship seized by pirates in mid-October, and that the ship was anchored about a mile off the Somali coast. He said that the pirates had not demanded a ransom, but that “they kept asking for money and took everything of value on the boat.” The interview cut out after Mr. Chandler was asked how the couple was being treated. Christine Collett, Ms. Chandler’s sister-in-law, said in an interview that the family was relieved to hear evidence that the Chandlers were alive and apparently unharmed. She said family members were now waiting to hear from the captors, and she emphasized that the Chandlers were not wealthy.

AMERICAS

US Envoys Extend Stay in Honduras in Bid to Help End Crisis - David Gollust, Voice of America. A team of senior US diplomats has extended a stay in Honduras aimed at helping end the political crisis spawned by the ouster of elected President Manuel Zelaya in June. A resolution is seen as essential for the success of elections to be held there at the end of next month. The team headed by the top Latin America experts at the State Department and White House National Security Council had originally intended to leave Tegucigalpa Thursday. But they say they now intend to stay on to try to help prod the parties to complete a deal that will restore political peace to Honduras. The Central American state has been in turmoil since June 28 when troops detained leftist President Manuel Zelaya and deported him to Costa Rica. Backers of the move say the interim president Roberto Michelleti, installed by the country's congress, is now the lawful head of state. But Mr. Zelaya and his supporters, backed by the Organization of American States, say the ouster amounted to a coup d'etat and demand his return to office. The two sides have been trying to reach a negotiated settlement of the crisis but talks are stalled over the future status of Mr. Zelaya, who has been sheltered at the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa since slipping back into the country in September.

Honduras Rivals Reach Zelaya Deal - Associated Press. Representatives of ousted President Manuel Zelaya and Honduras' interim government signed an agreement late Thursday that could open the way for Mr. Zelaya's reinstatement. No text of the accord was immediately released, but it was greeted by all sides as a resolution to the long-running political dispute that has polarized the country and subjected it to international sanctions. "Tonight I am pleased to announce that ... I authorized my negotiating team to sign a final accord that marks the beginning of the end to the political situation in the country," interim President Roberto Micheletti said in a televised address. The agreement appears to soften Mr. Micheletti's previous stance that the Supreme Court which has already rejected Mr. Zelaya's reinstatement decide the issue. Instead, the high court would make a recommendation, but the final decision would be left to a vote in Congress.

Haiti Prime Minister Removed - Associated Press. Prime Minister Michele Pierre-Louis was removed from office by the Haitian Senate shortly after midnight Friday, in a move that could imperil efforts to attract foreign investment to the storm-wracked, impoverished country. The vote of 18 of 29 senators to censure Mrs. Pierre-Louis most voting against her were members of President Rene Preval's party also dissolves the cabinet. Political instability could imperil efforts by the international community and Haitian leaders, including Mrs. Pierre-Louis, to attract foreign money to the embattled Caribbean nation. Most of those voting against the prime minister, who is Haiti's head of government and was nominated by Mr. Preval last year, were members of Mr. Preval's own Lespwa party. They took control of the Senate just weeks ago after winning June elections praised by some international observers but marred by low turnout and fraud allegations. Debate raged for more than nine hours, with senators storming out of the room, accusing each other of carrying weapons and marching up and down the aisle of the narrow chamber as Senate President Kelly Bastien rang a silver bell to call for order. But almost no time was devoted to discussion of the prime minister herself. Instead supporters including some like opposition Sen. Youri Latortue who held up her nomination last year spent hours denouncing the process as illegal because of alleged procedural errors.

THE CAUCASUS

In Russia, an Intensifying Insurgency - Philip P. Pan, Washington Post. Her face wet with tears and framed by a black shawl, Madina Albakova sat in her ransacked living room and described how she had become another teenage widow here in Ingushetia, the most volatile of Russia's Muslim republics. The details emerged between sobs: the arrival of the security forces earlier in the day, her husband's panicked attempt to flee, the gunfire that erupted without warning. He was a law student, barely 20 and "so beautiful," she said, but the soldiers planted a rifle next to his body and called him an Islamist rebel. Then they took everything of value - the family's savings, a set of dishes, even baby clothes, she said. Such heavy-handed tactics by the Russian security forces have helped transform the long-running separatist rebellion in Chechnya, east of Ingushetia, into something potentially worse: a radical Muslim insurgency that has spread across the region, draws support from various ethnic groups and appears to be gaining strength. Moscow declared an end to military operations in Chechnya in April, a decade after then-President Vladimir Putin sent troops into the breakaway republic. But violence has surged in the mountains of Russia's southwest frontier since then, with the assassination of several officials, explosions and shootouts occurring almost daily, and suicide bombings making a comeback after a long lull. On Sunday, a popular Ingush opposition leader was fatally shot, months after the slaying of Chechnya's most prominent human rights activist.

MIDDLE EAST

US Envoy Launches Another Attempt at Mideast Peace - Luis Ramirez, Voice of America. US special envoy George Mitchell has begun yet another trip to Jerusalem in an effort to get Israelis and Palestinians to re-launch peace negotiations. The US envoy arrived in the region as tensions continued to flare. Mitchell came to Jerusalem in advance of a visit by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The days preceding the US officials' arrival have seen clashes between Israeli police and Palestinians in Jerusalem. Both Israelis and Palestinians showed little sign Thursday of being ready to compromise enough to return to the negotiations table. Palestinians say they will not reopen talks until Israel freezes construction on Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank. Israel says it w ants negotiations without preconditions and is offering only a partial halt to construction. Israel's vice Prime Minister Silvan Shalom told Israeli radio the atmosphere is - in his words - not good. The Israeli official accused the Palestinians of trying to make President Obama pressure Israel for concessions while not wanting to give up anything. He said the Palestinians are dragging their feet. Palestinian leaders this week reaffirmed their demand for a full freeze on settlement construction before any talks take place, and they hope the US will continue to pressure Israel to stop building on the settlements.

EVENTS

The US Military Academy’s Department of History is pleased to invite you to a West Point Symposium on the History of Irregular Warfare, 18-20 November 2009. The symposium will feature the scholarship of five cadet panel presenters with commentary by distinguished guest scholars, including: Dr. Stephen Biddle as our keynote speaker, Dr. Jeremy Black, Col. Robert Cassidy, Dr. Conrad Crane, Dr. George Herring, Dr. Brian Linn, and Dr. Peter Mansoor. Additionally, Dr. James Le Sueur (Uncivil War: Intellectuals and Identity Politics, 2005) will present a special lecture on Algerian society since 1963. Col. Gian Gentile, a History faculty member, will participate as part of the “Visiting Scholars Panel” with Dr. Crane, Dr. Mansoor, and Col. Cassidy. (Invitation and POC Information) (History of IW Symposium Agenda)

BOOKS

Horse Soldiers: The Extraordinary Story of a Band of Soldiers Who Rode to Victory in Afghanistan - Doug Stanton.

Horse Soldiers tells the important story of the Special Forces soldiers who first put American boots on the ground in Afghanistan in 2001. Fighting alongside the Northern Alliance, the troops, often riding on horseback, achieved several important victories against the Taliban.

War 2.0: Irregular Warfare in the Information Age - Thomas Rid and Marc Hecker.

War 2.0: Irregular Warfare in the Information Age argues that two intimately connected trends are putting modern armies under huge pressure to adapt: the rise of insurgencies and the rise of the Web. Both in cyberspace and in warfare, the grassroots public has assumed increasing importance in recent years. After the dot-com bubble burst in 2000, Web 2.0 rose from the ashes. This newly interactive and participatory form of the Web promotes and enables offline action. Similarly, after Rumsfeld's attempt to transform the US military into a lean, lethal, computerized force crashed in Iraq in 2003, counterinsurgency rose from the ashes. Counterinsurgency is a social form of war - indeed, the US Army calls it armed social work - in which the local matrix population becomes the center of strategic gravity and public opinion at home the critical vulnerability.

The New Counterinsurgency Era: Transforming the US Military for Modern Wars - David H. Ucko.

Confronting insurgent violence in Iraq and Afghanistan, the US military has recognized the need to "re-learn" counterinsurgency. But how has the Department of Defense with its mixed efforts responded to this new strategic environment? Has it learned anything from past failures? In The New Counterinsurgency Era, David Ucko examines DoD's institutional obstacles and initially slow response to a changing strategic reality.

Journey into Darkness: Genocide in Rwanda - Thomas P. Odom.

In July 1994, Thomas P. Odom was part of the US Embassy team that responded to the Goma refugee crisis. He witnessed the deaths of 70,000 refugees in a single week. In the previous three months of escalating violence, the Rwandan genocide had claimed 800,000 dead. Now, in this vivid and unsettling new book, Odom offers the first insider look at these devastating events before, during, and after the genocide.

Joker One: A Marine Platoon’s Story of Courage - Donovan Campbell.

Donovan Campbell, first as a Marine and then as a writer, shows us that the dominant emotion in war isn’t hatred or anger or fear. It’s love. His story stands as a poignant tribute to his men–their courage, their dedication, their skill, and their love for one another, even unto death.

The Battle for Peace: A Frontline Vision of America's Power and Purpose - Anthony Zinni and Tony Koltz

The intellectual complement to Zinni and Clancy's bestselling Battle Ready (2004), a narrative memoir salted with specific policy recommendations, this volume provides the former US Central Command chief's analysis of America's current global position. Zinni begins by asserting that America's status as "the most powerful nation in the history of the planet" has created a de facto empire. The US has no choice: if it fails to take the lead, nothing significant happens. At the same time, Americans must recognize that, in a global age, there can be no zero-sum games.

The Unforgiving Minute: A Soldier's Education - Craig Mullaney

The Unforgiving Minute is the ultimate's soldier's book - universal in its raw emotion and its understanding of the larger issues of life and death. Mullaney, a master storyteller, plunges the depths of self-doubt, endurance, and courage. The result: a riveting, suspenseful human story, beautifully told. This is a book written under fire - a lyrical, spellbinding tale of war, love, and courage. The Unforgiving Minute is the Three Cups of Tea of soldiering.

Great Powers: America and the World after Bush - Thomas P.M. Barnett

In civilian and military circles alike, The Pentagon’s New Map became one of the most talked about books of 2004. “A combination of Tom Friedman on globalization and Carl von Clausewitz on war, [it is] the red-hot book among the nation’s admirals and generals,” wrote David Ignatius in The Washington Post. Barnett’s second book, Blueprint for Action, demonstrated how to put the first book’s principles to work. Now, in Great Powers, Barnett delivers his most sweeping - and important - book of all.

The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One - David Kilcullen

A remarkably fresh perspective on the War on Terror. Kilcullen takes us "on the ground" to uncover the face of modern warfare, illuminating both the big global war (the "War on Terrorism") and its relation to the associated "small wars" across the globe: Iraq, Afghanistan, the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Chechnya, Pakistan and North Africa.

The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008 - Thomas Ricks

Thomas E. Ricks uses hundreds of hours of exclusive interviews with top officers in Iraq and extraordinary on-the-ground reportage to document the inside story of the Iraq War since late 2005 as only he can, examining the events that took place as the military was forced to reckon with itself, the surge was launched, and a very different war began.

Why Vietnam Matters: An Eyewitness Account of Lessons Not Learned - Rufus Phillips

Phillips details how the legendary Edward G. Lansdale helped the South Vietnamese gain and consolidate their independence between 1954 and 1956, and how this later changed to a reliance on American conventional warfare with its highly destructive firepower. He reasons that our failure to understand the Communists, our South Vietnamese allies, or even ourselves took us down the wrong road. In summing up US errors in Vietnam, Phillips draws parallels with the American experience in Iraq and Afghanistan and suggests changes in the US approach. Known for his intellectual integrity and firsthand, long-term knowledge of what went on in Vietnam, the author offers lessons for today in this trenchant account.

Baghdad at Sunrise: A Brigade Commander's War in Iraq - Peter Mansoor

This is a unique contribution to the burgeoning literature on the Iraq war, analyzing the day-to-day performance of a US brigade in Baghdad during 2004-2005. Mansoor uses a broad spectrum of sources to address the military, political and cultural aspects of an operation undertaken with almost no relevant preparation, which tested officers and men to their limits and generated mistakes and misjudgments on a daily basis. The critique is balanced, perceptive and merciless - and Mansoor was the brigade commander. Military history is replete with command memoirs. Most are more or less self-exculpatory. Even the honest ones rarely achieve this level of analysis. The effect is like watching a surgeon perform an operation on himself. Mansoor has been simultaneously a soldier and a scholar, able to synergize directly his military and academic experiences.

The Strongest Tribe: War, Politics, and the Endgame in Iraq - Bing West

From a universally respected combat journalist, a gripping history based on five years of front-line reporting about how the war was turned around - and the choice now facing America. We interpret reality through the clouded prism of our own experience, so it is unsurprising that Bing West sees Iraq through the lens of Vietnam. He served as a Marine officer there, and he thinks politicians and the media caused the American public to turn against a war that could have been won. Now a correspondent for the Atlantic, West has made 15 reporting trips to Iraq over the last six years and is almost as personally invested in the current conflict as he was in Vietnam; this book, his third on Iraq, is his attempt to ensure that the "endgame" in Iraq turns out better than in his last war.

Tell Me How This Ends: General David Petraeus and the Search for a Way Out of Iraq - Linda Robinson

After a series of disastrous missteps in its conduct of the war, the White House in 2006 appointed General David Petraeus as the Commanding General of the coalition forces. Tell Me How This Ends is an inside account of his attempt to turn around a failing war. Linda Robinson conducted extensive interviews with Petraeus and his subordinate commanders and spent weeks with key US and Iraqi divisions. The result is the only book that ties together military operations in Iraq and the internecine political drama that is at the heart of the civil war. Replete with dramatic battles, behind-doors confrontations, and astute analysis, the book tells the full story of the Iraq War’s endgame, and lays out the options that will be facing the next president.

The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008 - Bob Woodward

Woodward interviewed key players, obtained dozens of never-before-published documents, and had nearly three hours of exclusive interviews with President Bush. The result is a stunning, firsthand history of the years from mid-2006, when the White House realizes the Iraq strategy is not working, through the decision to surge another 30,000 US troops in 2007, and into mid-2008, when the war becomes a fault line in the presidential election. As violence in Iraq reaches unnerving levels in 2006, a second front in the war rages at the highest levels of the Bush administration. In his fourth book on President George W. Bush, Bob Woodward takes readers deep inside the tensions, secret debates, unofficial backchannels, distrust and determination within the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department, the intelligence agencies and the US military headquarters in Iraq. With unparalleled intimacy and detail, this gripping account of a president at war describes a period of distress and uncertainty within the US government from 2006 through mid-2008. The White House launches a secret strategy review that excludes the military. General George Casey, the commander in Iraq, believes that President Bush does not understand the war and eventually concludes he has lost the president's confidence. The Joint Chiefs of Staff also conduct a secret strategy review that goes nowhere. On the verge of revolt, they worry that the military will be blamed for a failure in Iraq.

We Are Soldiers Still: A Journey Back to the Battlefields of Vietnam - Harold Moore and Joe Galloway

In their stunning follow-up to the classic bestseller We Were Soldiers Once... and Young, Lt. Gen. Hal Moore and Joe Galloway return to Vietnam and reflect on how the war changed them, their men, their enemies, and both countries - often with surprising results. It would be a monumental task for Moore and Galloway to top their classic 1992 memoir. But they come close in this sterling sequel, which tells the backstory of two of the Vietnam War's bloodiest battles (in which Moore participated as a lieutenant colonel), their first book and a 1993 ABC-TV documentary that brought them back to the battlefield. Moore's strong first-person voice reviews the basics of the November 1965 battles, part of the 34-day Battle of the Ia Drang Valley. Among other things, Moore and Galloway (who covered the battle for UPI) offer portraits of two former enemy commanders, generals Nguyen Huu An and Chu Huy Man, whom the authors met - and bonded with - nearly three decades after the battle. This book proves again that Moore is an exceptionally thoughtful, compassionate and courageous leader (he was one of a handful of army officers who studied the history of the Vietnam wars before he arrived) and a strong voice for reconciliation and for honoring the men with whom he served.

In a Time of War: The Proud and Perilous Journey of West Point' Class of 2002 - Bill Murphy

The West Point cadets Murphy follows through their baptism by fire are an admirable sample of young American men and women: intelligent, ambitious and intensely patriotic. Most come from career military families and hold conservative opinions. Murphy describes their four years at West Point with respect even when discussing their love lives and marriages. All yearn for battle, and most get their wish. The book's best passages describe the confusion of moving to Iraq or Afghanistan and fighting insurgents, for which they lack both training and equipment. All feel something is not right but concentrate on the job at hand; some inevitably die or are grievously wounded.

Iraq and the Evolution of American Strategy - Steven Metz

Today the US military is more nimble, mobile, and focused on rapid responses against smaller powers than ever before. One could argue that the Gulf War and the postwar standoff with Saddam Hussein hastened needed military transformation and strategic reassessments in the post–Cold War era. But the preoccupation with Iraq also mired the United States in the Middle East and led to a bloody occupation. What will American strategy look like after US troops leave Iraq? Metz concludes that the United States has a long-standing, continuing problem “developing sound assumptions when the opponent operates within a different psychological and cultural framework.” He sees a pattern of misjudgments about Saddam and Iraq based on Western cultural and historical bias and a pervasive faith in the superiority of America’s worldview and institutions. This myopia contributed to America being caught off guard by Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990, then underestimating his longevity, and finally miscalculating the likelihood of a stable and democratic Iraq after he was toppled. With lessons for all readers concerned about America’s role in the world, Dr. Metz’s important new work will especially appeal to scholars and students of strategy and international security studies, as well as to military professionals and DOD civilians. With a foreword by Colin S. Gray.