WSJ Features NeoCon Call For Attack On Iran

NeoCon Norman Podhoretz was given an entire page in the Wall Street Journal yesterday to declare the urgent need for the United States to attack Iran in a massive air campaign.

A kooky call like this from a longtime shill for Israel could be deservedly ignored save for the august forum in America's top financial newspaper where his propagandizing was accorded a good measure of undeserved credibility.

The Case for Bombing Iran: I hope and pray that President Bush will do it.

Since a ground invasion of Iran must be ruled out for many different reasons, the job would have to be done, if it is to be done at all, by a campaign of air strikes. Furthermore, because Iran's nuclear facilities are dispersed, and because some of them are underground, many sorties and bunker-busting munitions would be required. And because such a campaign is beyond the capabilities of Israel, and the will, let alone the courage, of any of our other allies, it could be carried out only by the United States. Even then, we would probably be unable to get at all the underground facilities, which means that, if Iran were still intent on going nuclear, it would not have to start over again from scratch. But a bombing campaign would without question set back its nuclear program for years to come, and might even lead to the overthrow of the mullahs.

The opponents of bombing--not just the usual suspects but many both here and in Israel who have no illusions about the nature and intentions and potential capabilities of the Iranian regime--disagree that it might end in the overthrow of the mullocracy. On the contrary, they are certain that all Iranians, even the democratic dissidents, would be impelled to rally around the flag. And this is only one of the worst-case scenarios they envisage. To wit: Iran would retaliate by increasing the trouble it is already making for us in Iraq. It would attack Israel with missiles armed with nonnuclear warheads but possibly containing biological or chemical weapons. There would be a vast increase in the price of oil, with catastrophic consequences for every economy in the world, very much including our own. The worldwide outcry against the inevitable civilian casualties would make the anti-Americanism of today look like a lovefest.

I readily admit that it would be foolish to discount any or all of these scenarios. Each of them is, alas, only too plausible. Nevertheless, there is a good response to them, and it is the one given by John McCain. The only thing worse than bombing Iran, McCain has declared, is allowing Iran to get the bomb.

And yet those of us who agree with McCain are left with the question of whether there is still time. If we believe the Iranians, the answer is no. In early April, at Iran's Nuclear Day festivities, Ahmadinejad announced that the point of no return in the nuclearization process had been reached. If this is true, it means that Iran is only a small step away from producing nuclear weapons. But even supposing that Ahmadinejad is bluffing, in order to convince the world that it is already too late to stop him, how long will it take before he actually turns out to have a winning hand?

If we believe the CIA, perhaps as much as 10 years. But CIA estimates have so often been wrong that they are hardly more credible than the boasts of Ahmadinejad. Other estimates by other experts fall within the range of a few months to six years. Which is to say that no one really knows. And because no one really knows, the only prudent--indeed, the only responsible--course is to assume that Ahmadinejad may not be bluffing, or may only be exaggerating a bit, and to strike at him as soon as it is logistically possible.

Podhoretz also states that the Afghanistan and Iraq wars were merely the opening acts of a new way of dealing with the Islamic world:

(T)he military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq cannot be understood if they are regarded as self-contained wars in their own right. Instead we have to see them as fronts or theaters that have been opened up in the early stages of a protracted global struggle. The same thing is true of Iran. As the currently main center of the Islamofascist ideology against which we have been fighting since 9/11, and as (according to the State Department's latest annual report on the subject) the main sponsor of the terrorism that is Islamofascism's weapon of choice, Iran too is a front in World War IV. Moreover, its effort to build a nuclear arsenal makes it the potentially most dangerous one of all.

Rants such as this -- especially when given the imprimatur of a influential newspaper -- are sure to stoke the emotions of the masses towards the necessity of having to do something about Iran. The goal here is to make action inevitable.

When action is seen as necessary and inevitable, it becomes much easier for policymakers to get away with normally unimaginable conduct.

Like attacking another country in a crackpot scheme of preventive war.

Iraq War Blowback To Threaten Europe

Al Qaeda -- benefiting from the jihadist training ground par excellence presented by the war in Iraq -- is building up a cadre of trained North Africans that are stirring up trouble in Algeria and are perfectly positioned to move their terrorist activities into Europe when convenient.

"Al-Qaeda's presence in North Africa is a reality," Baltasar Garzon, a senior Spanish magistrate, said in an interview Saturday at a conference in Italy organized by the Center on Law and Security at the New York University School of Law. "It's an ideal base from which to engage in actions against Europe. . . . Moving their next phase of action to Europe, I think, is just a matter of time."

Hamida Ayachi, editor of the Algiers-based daily Djazair News, said organizational links between insurgents in Iraq and armed groups in North Africa have strengthened noticeably in the past year.

"Iraq became a big laboratory to train kamikazes and warriors," Ayachi, the author of a forthcoming book on extremist networks, said in an interview in Algiers. "They are trying to take young people from here to Iraq for training so they can use them later in North Africa. Likewise, they are training people here in the mountains and the desert. Algeria has already become a small Iraq for training these people."

The April 11 bombings in Algiers, along with other recent attacks in the country, are evidence that al-Qaeda's network in North Africa has developed into a more serious threat and is benefiting from lessons learned in Iraq, said a senior military official at the U.S. European Command in Stuttgart, Germany, which oversees operations in Africa.

"Their tactics have definitely increased in sophistication," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was discussing intelligence matters. "Are they getting the technical expertise from the outside? We can't prove it, can't disprove it. But I would strongly suspect they are." ...

Intelligence officials and analysts said that the Algerian al-Qaeda branch, in an effort to rejuvenate its ranks, has tried to tap into independent recruiting networks that have sent a steady flow of North Africans to Iraq to fight. ...

In the past, U.S. and European officials said, it was much easier for underground recruiters to persuade young Algerians to go to Iraq to battle U.S. forces than to get them to stay home and take up arms against the government and their fellow citizens. The Iraqi networks were also better financed than their local counterparts, officials said.

By re-branding itself as an al-Qaeda affiliate, the Algerian group has boosted its own fundraising and become more competitive in the marketplace for recruits, Algerian analysts said.

Liess Boukra, an Algerian terrorism expert, called the recruitment business "a real trade in cannon fodder."

"Indeed, it is possible that the recruiters for Iraq could redirect their combatants toward new operations, either in Algeria or somewhere else in the Maghreb or in the world," he said.

Pakistani Political Crisis Worsening

Washington's official insistence on viewing Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf as the only game in town has painted the U.S. into a bad corner now that the military strongman is losing his grip on power.

We had better hope that our covert relationships with the main opposition parties (and with the current crop of ambitious Army colonels -- just to be safe) turns out to provide us with the necessary influence to protect U.S. interests in the nation that possesses the Islamic nuke.

Longtime political allies are beginning to distance themselves from the 63-year-old Pakistani leader. And although top generals appear to be standing by him, even government ministers are silent in the face of withering criticism of his rule, or offering only tepid support.

"His position has become untenable, unsustainable," said author and analyst Ahmed Rashid.

"I don't see how he can hang on," said journalist Zahid Hussain.

Musharraf faces stark choices, analysts say. He could hunker down and try to ride out the crisis, or move to declare martial law. He could seek to strike a deal with opposition figures, who are likely to spurn him. Or he could step aside.

"It's a scenario that could play out over some time, or could play out quite quickly," said Teresita C. Schaffer, director for South Asia affairs at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "My experience is that in Pakistan, when things are in decline, they don't go down a sloping ramp; it's a series of steep stair steps."

The United States is increasingly viewed as the main power propping up Musharraf in the face of calls that he resign as army chief, allow the creation of an interim government and call free and fair elections.

Some observers warn that the Bush administration's continuing support for Musharraf at this crucial juncture could threaten long-term U.S. interests in Pakistan, a nuclear-armed state considered an indispensable ally in the fight against Islamic insurgents across the border in Afghanistan.

"There's a huge disappointment over the American position, a real sense that it is a shortsighted one," said Samina Ahmed, South Asia project director at the Brussels-based International Crisis Group. "This didn't happen overnight. Every military government at some point loses its legitimacy."

For the time being, the general appears to still have the backing of his patrons in the Bush administration, with whom he cast his lot after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. That relationship has been clouded, however, by allegations that Musharraf's intelligence services remain entangled with Islamic militants, including the Taliban.

"Are we pulling away from Musharraf? No," said a U.S. diplomat, who spoke on condition that she not be named. "Because that would be pulling away from the government of Pakistan…. We will not draw away from this relationship."

The conventional wisdom has always held that Musharraf is a bulwark against Islamic fundamentalists, and that without him, the country could slide into a chaos that extremist groups would exploit.

But opposition parties insist that free and fair elections could instead empower a moderate, Western-leaning regime. Islamist parties won only about 12% of the vote in the last elections, in 2002, and many believe they would draw less support now.

"There's this perception that if Musharraf goes, in come the Taliban," said Sherry Rehman, a lawmaker with the Pakistan People's Party, the political home of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, now living in exile. "That's really not the case."

U.S. Govt. Anti-Iran/Syria Group Dropping Off Radar

Given the importance of anti-Iran/Syria activities to Vice President Cheney, one can safely assume that many of the duties of this committee have been handed off to an interagency task force or working group.

The Bush administration has dismantled a special committee that was established last year to coordinate aggressive actions against Iran and Syria, according to State Department officials.

The committee, the Iran-Syria Policy and Operations Group, met weekly throughout much of 2006 to coordinate actions such as curtailing Iran's access to credit and banking institutions, organizing the sale of military equipment to Iran's neighbors and supporting forces that oppose the two regimes.

State Department and White House officials said the dissolution of the group was simply a bureaucratic reorganization, but many analysts saw it as evidence of a softening in the U.S. strategy toward the two countries. It comes as the Bush administration has embarked on a significant new effort to hold high-level meetings with Iran and Syria.

The group had become the focus for administration critics who feared that it was plotting covert actions that could escalate into a military conflict with Iran or Syria. The air of secrecy surrounding the group when it was established in March 2006, coupled with the fact that it was modeled after a similar special committee on Iraq, contributed to those suspicions.

A senior State Department official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the press, said the group was shut down because of a widespread public perception that it was designed to enact regime change. State Department officials have said the focus of the Iran-Syria group was persuading the two regimes to change their behavior, not toppling them.

Report of the Select Committee on Intelligence on Prewar Assessments About Postwar Iraq

The Senate Intelligence Committee late yesterday afternoon released their review of the intelligence community's performance before the Iraq invasion in predicting the post-war ramifications of deposing Saddam Hussein.

We recently discussed the same studies (see They Can't Say They Weren't Warned). Basically, the White House was told beforehand that we could expect all the bad things that have since happened in occupied Iraq.

Report of the Select Committee on Intelligence on Prewar Assessments About Postwar Iraq (229 page pdf).

The report declassifies and publishes in full two January 2003 National Intelligence Council (NIC) Intelligence Community Assessments (ICA): "Regional Consequences of Regime Change in Iraq" and "Principal Challenges in Post-Saddam Iraq."

There are a sizable number of excised passages in the original papers dealing with other countries in the region, the deletions being most noticeable when the subject turns to Iran's reaction to events in Iraq.

Much information is presented about the political environment in Iraq during Saddam's reign, with the conclusion that the political culture there is far from fertile ground in which to transplant democracy.

Other analysis wasn't always real accurate. Oil going up to $40 a barrel is a negative possibility foreseen in case of a cutoff of Iraqi supplies, especially -- according to the paper -- in combination with instability in Venezuela. But we are told that $15 barrels would be back as soon as the respective situations returned to normal. However, maybe the analysts were right about the basic economics, which would naturally lead to the suspicion that oil company skullduggery may be responsible for the dissonance.

In July 2002, the intelligence community held a simulation of how the post-Saddam political reconstruction might look. A long-term requirement for large numbers of U.S. forces to remain in country was envisioned. The Iraqis were seen to be focused on short-term political advantage over their rivals rather than focusing on the big picture. And the U.N. was seen as not acquiescing to U.S. plans for Iraqi political development.

After the two big ICAs (which are NIE caliber papers), there is also an Overview of Other Intelligence Assessments on Postwar Iraq, listing and summarizing various products of individual intelligence community agencies.

A CIA assessment from August 2002 entitled The Perfect Storm: Planning For Negative Consequences of Invading Iraq summed up in one handy package what could still be in store for Iraq. Intended as a worst case scenario, here are some highlights: "anarchy and territorial breakup in Iraq; instability in key Arab states; a surge of global terrorism and deepening Islamic antipathy towards the United States; major oil supply disruptions; and severe strains in the Atlantic alliance." Also, "Al Qaeda operatives take advantage of a destabilized Iraq to establish secure safe havens from which they can continue their operations", and "Iran works to install a regime friendly to ... Iranian policies." The Perfect Storm also warns of "Afghanistan tipping into civil strife as U.N. and other coalition forces are unable or unwilling to replace American military resources."

The distribution list of the two primary studies is included, attesting to the fact that this material was sent all over town.

This lengthy report tells us that a lot of effort was expended examining the likelihood that a U.S. invasion of Iraq would turn out to be detrimental to U.S. interests. The issue of whether Iraq was actually a threat was not the subject matter of these Phase II (Senate Intelligence Committee investigative terminology, as opposed to the DOD usage of Phase IV to refer to the postwar scenario) studies.

The Kerr Study Group's second report (a 2004 CIA evaluation) noted vis-a-vis these earlier studies, "Intelligence projections in this area [analysis of post-Saddam Iraq], however, although largely accurate, had little or no impact on policy deliberation."

A more damning indictment of how we got to this national nightmare would be hard to conceive.

"Christ is our Commander-in-Chief"

Psycho nation in full flower.

After complaints by a government watchdog group, the Air Force and the Army partially distanced themselves yesterday from a three-day evangelical Christian event this weekend at a Georgia theme park.

The Memorial Day weekend "Salute to the Troops" celebration at Stone Mountain Park is sponsored by Task Force Patriot USA, a private group that says its purpose is "sharing the fullness of life in Jesus Christ with all U.S. military, military veterans and families," and whose Web site says "Christ is our Commander-in-Chief."

In recent days, both the Task Force Patriot USA Web site and the newspaper of Robins Air Force Base, Ga., described the celebration as "an official U.S. Air Force 60th Anniversary event." Along with speeches by evangelical ministers, church services and distribution of Bibles, the published schedule promised "hourly flyovers" by Air Force jets, performances by military bands, color guard presentations, a parachute demonstration by the Army's elite Silver Wings jump team from Fort Benning, Ga., and exhibitions of Air Force equipment.

The promotional materials also said that an active-duty B-2 pilot, Air Force Maj. Brian "Jethro" Neal, would give Christian "testimony" during an outdoor worship service punctuated by a special flyover of B-2 "stealth" bombers.

A Washington-based advocacy group, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, sent letters yesterday to Air Force Secretary Michael W. Wynne and acting Secretary of the Army Pete Geren contending that the military's extensive cooperation in the event would be unconstitutional.

"The Air Force and the Army have crossed the line here: A reasonable observer, upon examining the promotional materials, the Robins Air Force Base newspaper, and the current program schedule, could not help but believe that the Army and Air Force fully support and endorse the Christian substance of the celebration," the letters said.

In response, the Air Force issued a statement saying it is "not a sponsor" of the event and was "not aware until recently of the religious connotations surrounding Task Force Patriot's participation." After seeing the schedule, "Air Force officials began taking steps to avoid the appearance of any endorsement or preferential treatment of any religious faith or worship service," the statement said.

An Air Force spokesman, Capt. Thomas Wenz, added that at the Air Force's request, Task Force Patriot agreed to delete all references to Air Force sponsorship and removed an "unauthorized" photograph of Gen. T. Michael Moseley, the Air Force chief of staff, from its Web site.

He said the Air Force still plans to provide music, exhibits and flyovers during the Memorial Day celebration, but they will not be timed to coincide with religious services. Any Air Force personnel who take part in the religious services "will do so as individuals, not as representatives of the Air Force," he said. Asked if that meant that Neal, the B-2 pilot, would not be allowed to wear his uniform, Wenz replied: "Those are his instructions."

In a much shorter statement, the Army said, "The Silver Wing Parachute Team is not participating in this event and we are unaware of any other Army involvement." Task Force Patriot officials did not respond to requests for comment.

John Edwards Blasts GWOT Concept

When someone is not currently occupying elected office, there is a certain freedom to speak truths that many would prefer not to hear.

Democrat John Edwards Wednesday repudiated the notion that there is a "global war on terror," calling it an ideological doctrine advanced by the Bush administration that has strained American military resources and emboldened terrorists.

In a defense policy speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, Edwards called the war on terror a "bumper sticker" slogan Bush had used to justify everything from abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison to the invasion of Iraq.

"We need a post-Bush, post-9/11, post-Iraq military that is mission focused on protecting Americans from 21st century threats, not misused for discredited ideological purposes," Edwards said. "By framing this as a war, we have walked right into the trap the terrorists have set -- that we are engaged in some kind of clash of civilizations and a war on Islam."

Edwards is not the first presidential candidate to publicly reject the notion of a war on terrorism. In a speech last fall, Democrat Joe Biden also criticized the doctrine as "simply wrong."

In the first presidential debate last month in South Carolina, Edwards and Biden said they did not believe there was a global war on terror, along with Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich and former Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel. Front-runners Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama indicated that they did.

It was a new line of attack for Edwards, who often spoke out in support of pursuing a war on terror as a North Carolina senator and later as the 2004 Democratic vice-presidential nominee.

"For us to be successful in this war on terrorism, we have to find these terrorist groups where they are, whether it's within our borders or outside our borders, and stop them and stamp them out before they do us harm," Edwards said in a 2004 CNN interview.

Edwards also voted in 2002 to authorize the invasion of Iraq but has since become a harsh critic of the conflict. In his speech, he reiterated his call to remove American combat troops from Iraq within a year and vowed to "restore the contract we have with those who proudly wear the uniform to defend our country and make the world a safe and better place."

One opportunistic politician who has perversely established his bona fides exclusively on the dead bodies of the 9/11 victims had a timely riposte to Edwards' observation:

Rudolph Giuliani accused Democrat John Edwards Wednesday of being dangerously in denial about the dangers of global extremism, ripping the former senator after Edwards said the president's war on terror was little more than a "bumper sticker."

"If you think there's a global war on terror as a slogan for George Bush, you are not facing reality," Giuliani said of Edwards, a potential rival for the White House. "It kind of makes the point that I've been making over and over again, that the Democrats, or at least some of them, are in denial." ...

"I guess this Democratic senator doesn't remember it -- bin Laden declared war on us," Giuliani said. In contrast, Giuliani said of terrorists, "I don't get fuzzy and romantic about it. I understand there are people in this world who want to come here and kill us."

A New Plan In The Works For Iraq

Top U.S. commanders and diplomats in Iraq are completing a far-reaching campaign plan for a new U.S. strategy, laying out military and political goals and endorsing the selective removal of hardened sectarian actors from Iraq's security forces and government.

The classified plan, scheduled to be finished by May 31, is a joint effort between Gen. David H. Petraeus, the senior American general in Iraq, and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker. ...

The overarching aim of the plan, which sets goals for the end of this year and the end of 2008, is more political than military: to negotiate settlements between warring factions in Iraq from the national level down to the local level. In essence, it is as much about the political deals needed to defuse a civil war as about the military operations aimed at quelling a complex insurgency, said officials with knowledge of the plan.

The groundwork for the campaign plan was laid out in an assessment formulated by Petraeus's senior counterinsurgency adviser, David J. Kilcullen, with about 20 military officers, State Department officials and other experts in Baghdad known as the Joint Strategic Assessment Team. Their report, finished last month, was approved by Petraeus and Crocker as the basis of a formal campaign plan that will assign specific tasks for military commands and civilian agencies in Iraq. ...

The plan has three pillars to be carried out simultaneously... One shifts the immediate emphasis of military operations away from transitioning to Iraqi security forces -- the primary focus under the former top U.S. commander, Gen. George W. Casey Jr. -- toward protecting Iraq's population in trouble areas, a central objective of the troop increase that President Bush announced in January. ...

Next, the plan emphasizes building the government's capacity to function, admitting severe weaknesses in government ministries and often nonexistent institutional links between the central government and provincial and local governments. This, too, is in contrast with Casey's strategy, which focused on rapidly handing over responsibility to Iraq's government. ...

Finally, the campaign plan aims to purge Iraq's leadership of a small but influential number of officials and commanders whose sectarian and criminal agendas are thwarting U.S. efforts. It recognizes that the Iraqi government is deeply infiltrated by militia and corrupt officials who are "part of the problem" and are maneuvering to kill off opponents, install sectarian allies and otherwise solidify their power for when U.S. troops withdraw, said one person familiar with the plan. ...

(O)ne source of pessimism about the plan is whether the Iraqi government has the means and willpower to weed out sectarian officials and commanders, in an atmosphere complicated by rumors and ambiguous intelligence. ...

Also part of the plan is reaching out to grass-roots groups such as tribes, religious leaders and provincial administrators that are moving forward on reconciliation efforts, said Kilcullen, noting a tribal agreement in Babil province last week to end violence and a tribal movement in Anbar to oppose al-Qaeda. "We should not restrict our view of what a 'political' settlement is, solely to the Iraqi government -- civil society also has a really key role to play."

Efforts at negotiated settlements brokered by U.S. and Iraqi officials will extend to a broad spectrum of Iraqi groups, including some that have killed U.S. troops -- a source of consternation for some U.S. officers. But they will exclude groups such as al-Qaeda that are considered "irreconcilable," officials said. ...

The campaign plan is being formulated by a Joint Campaign Plan Redesign Team, which includes members of the JSAT as well as other military planners and civilian officials. The final document will be signed by Petraeus and Crocker.

The plan is a thick tome with more than 20 annexes on topics such as policy on Iraqi security forces, detainees, the rule of law and regional diplomatic engagement, one participant said.

Iran Secretly Helping Their Sunni Enemies, U.S. Says

This looks like an effort at perception management, the American public being the intended audience.

The assertion that Iran is working with Sunni Arab militias is the giveaway.

Iran is secretly forging ties with al-Qaida elements and Sunni Arab militias in Iraq in preparation for a summer showdown with coalition forces intended to tip a wavering US Congress into voting for full military withdrawal, US officials say.

"Iran is fighting a proxy war in Iraq and it's a very dangerous course for them to be following. They are already committing daily acts of war against US and British forces," a senior US official in Baghdad warned. "They [Iran] are behind a lot of high-profile attacks meant to undermine US will and British will, such as the rocket attacks on Basra palace and the Green Zone [in Baghdad]. The attacks are directed by the Revolutionary Guard who are connected right to the top [of the Iranian government]."

The official said US commanders were bracing for a nationwide, Iranian-orchestrated summer offensive, linking al-Qaida and Sunni insurgents to Tehran's Shia militia allies, that Iran hoped would trigger a political mutiny in Washington and a US retreat. "We expect that al-Qaida and Iran will both attempt to increase the propaganda and increase the violence prior to Petraeus's report in September [when the US commander General David Petraeus will report to Congress on President George Bush's controversial, six-month security "surge" of 30,000 troop reinforcements]," the official said.

The designed conclusion to be drawn is that political movement in Washington towards the exits in Iraq would be a result of us being duped by the manipulations of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Since no self-respecting politician can afford to look weak on national security, this manufactured line by U.S. officials is sure to carry great weight as doubts about the "surge" grow even among the most clueless lawmakers in Washington.

Like the "they'll follow us home" meme, this American propaganda product can be expected to be used with great effect upon those wanting an end to our counterproductive Iraq endeavor.

Brits Conducting Secret Negotiations With Iraqi Insurgents

We have previously discussed the U.S. military and OGA's secret talks with Iraqi insurgent groups (see inter alia, Details of High-Level US Talks With Iraqi Insurgent Groups Revealed and US Talks With Iraqi Insurgents Confirmed).

Our British allies were always assumed to be at least peripherally involved with the effort. Now the Brits are reported to be taking the lead along these lines after the U.S.-led initiative didn't make the desired progress.

Britain is holding secret talks with leading insurgents in Iraq with the aim of dividing them from Al-Qaeda in a new drive to curb sectarian violence.

Dominic Asquith, the British ambassador to Baghdad, is said to have been coordinating the talks over recent months, along with other British representatives believed to be from MI6.

Details of the initiative, which followed the failure of similar talks between insurgents and American officials, emerged yesterday as Tony Blair visited Iraq.

Middle Eastern sources said extensive talks between insurgents and British officials were under way. Some had taken place in private houses in the Kurdish north of Iraq, others outside the country, they said.

"Apart from Al-Qaeda, all the main insurgent groups took part," claimed a Kurdish source close to the discussions. "Representatives of the groups have met with the British several times in recent months."

According to this source, the participants have included the Islamic Mujahidin, the 1920 Revolutionary Brigades and a faction led by Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, one of Saddam Hussein's most senior military commanders.

Iraq's president, Jalal Talabani, is believed to be a driving force behind the talks. Talabani, who met Blair yesterday, has made properties available for covert meetings in northern Iraq.

The Iraqi president has initiated his own contacts with insurgent groups. "Talabani has been updating the British on their progress and the British ambassador is kept in the picture at all times," said one source.

Last week Talabani claimed there were signs of a breakthrough in attempts to persuade some groups to give up violence and pursue political means.

Others are understood to have turned against the largely foreign fighters of Al-Qaeda for its indiscriminate killings of Iraqis.

"All these groups are solid in their resistance to Al-Qaeda's growing dominance in Iraq, and in recent weeks we witnessed clashes between these groups and Al-Qaeda," said a source close to the president.

One item on the agenda is believed to be the offer of an amnesty for Sunni prisoners.

They Can't Say They Weren't Warned

None of the assessments in these two reports would have been particularly surprising to an average undergraduate student of international relations at a mediocre college or university, but it is interesting to see that a paper trail of warnings existed and was circulated to policymakers prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Two intelligence assessments from January 2003 predicted that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and subsequent U.S. occupation of Iraq could lead to internal violence and provide a boost to Islamic extremists and terrorists in the region, according to congressional sources and former intelligence officials familiar with the prewar studies.

The two assessments, titled "Principal Challenges in Post-Saddam Iraq" and "Regional Consequences of Regime Change in Iraq," were produced by the National Intelligence Council (NIC) and will be a major part of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence's long-awaited Phase II report on prewar intelligence assessments about Iraq. The assessments were delivered to the White House and to congressional intelligence committees before the war started. ...

The assessment on post-Hussein Iraq included judgments that while Iraq was unlikely to split apart, there was a significant chance that domestic groups would fight each other and that ex-regime military elements could merge with terrorist groups to battle any new government. It even talks of guerrilla warfare, according to congressional sources and former intelligence officials.

The second NIC assessment discussed "political Islam being boosted and the war being exploited by terrorists and extremists elsewhere in the region," one former senior analyst said. It also suggested that fear of U.S. military dominance and occupation of a Middle East country -- one sacred to Islam -- would attract foreign Islamic fighters to the area. ...

The NIC assessments also projected the view that a long-term Western military occupation would be widely unacceptable, particularly to the Iraqi military. It also said Iraqis would wait and see whether the new governing authority, whether foreign or Iraqi, would provide security and basic services such as water and electricity. ...

The senior intelligence official said that the prewar analysis of challenges in post-Hussein Iraq contained little in the way of classified information since it was an assessment of future situations and was almost all analysis. The assessment of regional consequences of regime change in Iraq would require deletions since it contains "comments on the policies and perspectives of some friendly governments."

Iraqi Shiite Leader In U.S. For Cancer Treatment

Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the leader of the largest and most powerful Shiite party in Iraq, is in the United States for urgent medical attention, according to U.S. officials and his organization.

His party, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, refused to discuss Hakim's diagnosis, but U.S. officials said the cleric, 57, has been found to have lung cancer and is in the United States for further tests and to develop a treatment plan.

In a reflection of Hakim's stature, President Bush authorized immediate transportation to get Hakim from Iraq to the United States, an administration source said yesterday. Vice President Cheney played a role in arranging for Hakim to see U.S. military doctors in Baghdad, who made the original diagnosis, and for the current medical treatment in Houston, the sources said. ...

His party, until recently known as the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, has the most seats in the Iraqi parliament. ...

Hakim has been a strong advocate of the creation of a Shiite region out of nine Shiite-dominated southern provinces in Iraq. "He has been forceful in his style to ensure that the Shiites of Iraq are recognized as the main force in politics, and he has been outspoken in his support for a Shiite regional entity that could challenge the authority of the central government," said retired Army Col. Paul Hughes, who served in Iraq and helped orchestrate the work of the Iraq Study Group at the U.S. Institute of Peace.

Eyeless in Gaza

Israel this week allowed the Palestinian party Fatah to bring into the Gaza Strip as many as 500 fresh troops trained under a U.S.-coordinated program to counter Hamas, the radical Islamic movement that won Palestinian parliamentary elections last year. Fighting between Hamas and Fatah has left about 45 Palestinians dead since Sunday.

The forces belong to units loyal to the elected Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, a moderate Fatah leader whom the Bush administration and Israel have sought to strengthen militarily and politically. A spokeswoman for the European Union Border Assistance Mission at Rafah, where the fighters crossed into Gaza from Egypt, said their entry Tuesday was approved by Israel.

The troops' deployment illustrates the increasingly partisan role that Israel and the Bush administration are taking in the volatile Palestinian political situation. The effort to fortify the armed opposition to Hamas, which the United States and Israel categorize as a terrorist organization, follows attempts to isolate the radical Islamic movement internationally and cut off its sources of financial aid. ...

The Bush administration recently approved $40 million to train the Palestinian Presidential Guard, a force of about 4,000 troops under Abbas's direct control, but both Israel and the United States, each deeply unpopular among Arabs in the region, have been trying to avoid the perception of taking sides in a conflict that this week in Gaza has resembled a nascent civil war. ...

The troops were trained by Egyptian authorities under a program coordinated by Lt. Gen. Keith W. Dayton, a special U.S. envoy to the region who has been working to improve security in Gaza and the West Bank in order to foster Israeli-Palestinian economic alliances in the short term and peace prospects over time.

A State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Dayton had not yet begun his phase of training Fatah forces because the funding was only recently approved. He said none of the troops who arrived in Gaza this week were trained with U.S. funds. ...

Israeli officials said the forces, whom one Israeli Defense Ministry official called "Dayton's guys," were trained in Egypt and numbered between 400 and 500 men.

Lawsuit Filed Over OFAC Watch List

Civil rights lawyers sued the Bush administration Wednesday over a Treasury Department terrorist watch list, asking a federal court to order the release of documents on the secretive program.

The Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, which filed the Freedom of Information Act lawsuit in U.S. District Court here, says the government list sometimes wrongly snags innocent people.

The lawsuit comes nearly two years after the attorneys' group invoked the act to request documents from the Treasury Department on complaints from people mistakenly ensnared by the list, and department policies regarding the list.

According to the group, the department refused to provide its policies, asserting that they were not covered by the Freedom of Information Act, and said it did not track complaints.

The lawsuit filed Wednesday "demands immediate disclosure of the requested documents," the group said.

Credit bureaus, health insurers, car dealerships, employers and landlords all use the watch list, which the government says is vital to catching people, companies or groups accused of supporting or financing terrorism.

Treasury Department spokeswoman Molly Millerwise said the department has several safeguards meant to avoid "false positives" and to make the list user-friendly.

Among other things, it issues supplemental identifying information such as dates of birth to avert wrongful red flags, and it holds hundreds of workshops a year to help the businesses comply with laws, she said.

Millerwise declined to comment on the lawsuit Wednesday, citing an agency policy on pending litigation.

The government by law has 30 days to respond to the lawsuit, presumably by turning over the records or by maintaining its stance that the policies are not covered by the Freedom of Information Act, said Philip Hwang, an attorney with the lawyers' committee.

If the administration continues to resist disclosure, "then it could drag out into full-blown litigation," Hwang said.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson testified before a congressional panel in March about the program and said the number of complaints was in the tens of thousands.

The list of more than 6,000 names of possible terrorists and drug smugglers is managed by the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control. Most are foreigners. Their assets may be frozen by U.S. banks, and Americans are forbidden from doing business with them.

The list includes some of the world's most common names, such as Gonzalez, Lopez, Ali, Hussein, Abdul, Lucas and Gibson, and companies are often unsure how to root out mismatches. Some turn consumers away rather than risk penalties of up to $10 million and 30 years in prison for doing business with someone on the list, the lawyers' group said.

DOJ Determined NSA CATCH-ALL Program Was Illegal

The blogosphere is reacting to the story of Alberto Gonzales' and Andrew Card's visit to pressure then-Attorney General John Ashcroft on his sick bed as if it is "news."

Hardly.

On New Year's Day 2006, the story was featured on this very blog, with the added revelation that the episode was behind Ashcroft's resignation as AG.

Yesterday's testimony by James Comey did yield a few additional tidbits, including the heretofore unpublicized involvement of President Bush in the matter.

President Bush intervened in March 2004 to avert a crisis over the National Security Agency's domestic eavesdropping program after Attorney General John Ashcroft, Director Robert S. Mueller III of the F.B.I. and other senior Justice Department aides all threatened to resign, a former deputy attorney general testified Tuesday.

Mr. Bush quelled the revolt over the program's legality by allowing it to continue without Justice Department approval, also directing department officials to take the necessary steps to bring it into compliance with the law, according to Congressional testimony by the former deputy attorney general, James B. Comey.

Although a conflict over the program had been disclosed in The New York Times, Mr. Comey provided a fuller account of the 48-hour drama, including, for the first time, Mr. Bush's role, the threatened resignations and a race as Mr. Comey hurried to Mr. Ashcroft's hospital sickbed to intercept White House officials, who were pushing for approval of the N.S.A. program. ...

Mr. Comey, the former No. 2 official in the Justice Department, said the crisis began when he refused to sign a presidential order reauthorizing the program, which allowed monitoring of international telephone calls and e-mail of people inside the United States who were suspected of having terrorist ties. He said he made his decision after the department's Office of Legal Counsel, based on an extensive review, concluded that the program did not comply with the law. At the time, Mr. Comey was acting attorney general because Mr. Ashcroft had been hospitalized for emergency gall bladder surgery.

Mr. Comey would not describe the rationale for his refusal to approve the eavesdropping program, citing its classified nature.

White House Tampers With Congressionally Mandated Privacy Report

The Bush administration made more than 200 revisions to the first report of a civilian board that oversees government protection of personal privacy, including the deletion of a passage on anti-terrorism programs that intelligence officials deemed "potentially problematic" intrusions on civil liberties, according to a draft of the report obtained by The Washington Post. ...

The changes came after the congressionally created Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board had unanimously approved the final draft of its first report to lawmakers, renewing an internal debate over the board's independence and investigative power. ...

But one section deleted by the administration would have divulged that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence's civil liberties protection officer had "conducted reviews of the potentially problematic programs and has established procedures" for intelligence officials to file complaints about possible civil liberties and privacy abuses.

The passage would have been the first public disclosure of an internal review identifying such potentially intrusive intelligence programs. In its place, White House officials suggested more modest language, which ended up as a substitution in the final report. ...

Another significant revision was the deletion of a reference to the panel's plan to investigate how the Department of Homeland Security assigns "risk" ratings to people entering the United States under the Automated Targeting System. The controversial program's scope has expanded over the past decade from screening cargo to targeting allegedly dangerous travelers, foreign and American. Customs officials have said they store the risk assessments for up to 40 years. ...

One deleted passage divulged that the board had sent a letter in late January asking Bush to issue an executive order to all federal agencies to fully cooperate with the privacy board. It was prompted by board members' concerns, including a lengthy delay in receiving a briefing on the National Security Agency's warrantless eavesdropping program and White House efforts to keep the media from attending a planned public board meeting scheduled just weeks before last November's election.

One Man's Bureaucratic War in Iraq

A Department of Defense official in Iraq is engaged in a bureaucratic battle with the State Department over his initiative to re-open some Iraqi state-owned firms.

The DOD official, Paul Brinkley, figures that putting thousands of people back to work will help keep chronically disaffected people from joining the insurgency.

But the State Department -- with help from the CIA -- is saying the jobs issue is not a driver of the violence there.

Embassy officials warned Brinkley that if he opened factories in Sunni areas first, he risked angering Shiites. Moreover, the electricity needed by production lines would mean less for residences. Would people really be happier, embassy officials asked, if they had jobs but less power at home?

The embassy's in-house think tank, the Joint Strategic Planning and Assessment Office, also joined the fray, issuing an internal memorandum declaring that "trying to give these enterprises a new lease on life will make Iraqis poorer without reducing the violence." The memo, written by an economist from the Rand Corp. working on contract for the embassy, added that "resuscitating state-owned enterprises is a bad idea."

State asked the CIA to assess the link between employment and attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq, two U.S. government officials said. The CIA's subsequent regression analysis found no statistically significant tie between the two phenomena, the officials said. The CIA also told State that the vast majority of insurgents questioned by U.S. interrogators in Iraq claimed to be employed, one official said.

Brinkley said he felt stung by the opposition, but he took heart from the support of England and other Pentagon officials. He also countered with an analysis from the military's Joint Warfare Analysis Center, which asserted that a slight increase in job satisfaction among Iraqis led to as much as a 30 percent decline in attacks on coalition forces, according to a U.S. official familiar with its contents who supports Brinkley's efforts.

Embassy opposition was not Brinkley's only problem. His plan to have Iraq's Finance Ministry pay for repairs at the factories ran counter to Bremer's edict, issued in 2004, that prevents the Iraqi Central Bank from funding state-owned enterprises. Brinkley arranged for two Iraqi banks to provide $5.6 million in loans to six factories, and he plans to announce a second round of loans totaling about $20 million.

Proposed NIE on Global Warming Opposed By GOP

Non-traditional threats have been the subjects of NIEs in the past. Potential consequences of pandemics have been examined (see The Global Infectious Disease Threat and Its Implications for the United States). Other scientific topics that are still classified have also received the full treatment.

But now, the GOP global warming deniers are bitching about a proposed NIE on global warming. The ranking House Intelligence Committee gooper is bullshitting that such a study would withhold important resources from "the War on Terror."

He knows this is untrue.

Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell believes it is "appropriate" for global climate change to be considered in a future National Intelligence Estimate, according to a letter he sent Wednesday to Rep. Anna G. Eshoo (D-Calif.), a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

The letter arrived yesterday, one day after senior Republicans on the House intelligence panel criticized a provision in the fiscal 2008 intelligence authorization bill, co-authored by Eshoo, that requires the production of an NIE dealing with the impact climate change would have on U.S. national security.

After a vigorous exchange late Thursday night, the House voted 230 to 185 to defeat a motion to remove the provision from the bill. The motion was offered by Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.), ranking minority member and former committee chairman.

In the letter, made available to The Washington Post by Eshoo's office, McConnell wrote, "I believe it is entirely appropriate for the National Intelligence Council (NIC) to prepare an assessment on the geopolitical and security implications of global climate change." The NIC supervises national intelligence estimates.

McConnell specified, however, that he hoped the legislation would "direct" other government agencies more familiar with climate change -- such as the National Academy of Sciences and the national laboratories -- to work with NIC analysts.

Hoekstra and his Republican colleagues were vehement in their opposition, stating that the measure would divert valuable intelligence analysts and case officers from working on the terrorist threat and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In an op-ed article in Thursday's Wall Street Journal, Hoekstra wrote that in the 1990s, intelligence satellites were diverted to photograph "ecologically sensitive" sites because of then-Vice President Al Gore's interest in environmental issues. Hoekstra said former CIA director George J. Tenet in his new book, "At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA," had referred to this as "bugs and bunnies."

Tenet did use that phrase in his book but went on to endorse Gore's efforts. "Those kind of issues can have a profound effect on population flow, migration, civil wars, ethnic strife and the like," Tenet wrote.

Hoekstra, however, speculated that "intelligence clues in the run-up to 9/11 were missed" because spy satellites were "focused on the polar ice caps and schools of fish."

The White House also opposed an NIE on climate change, but based its objection on it being mandated by law and thus setting "a harmful precedent." It said the production of such intelligence reports should be done through dialogue between the executive and legislative branches.

(The) provision requiring a national intelligence estimate on climate change was in the 2008 intelligence authorization bill that the House passed early Friday morning. The exact amount of the authorization is classified, but it is believed to be approximately $48 billion, which would be the largest intelligence authorization ever considered by Congress.

Iraqi Parliament Wants U.S. Exit Timetable

Are Iraqi politicians morphing into defeatocrats?

Don't they know that setting a timetable will allow the bad guys to wait us out.

Are they unconcerned that the terrorists will follow us home?

A majority of members of Iraq's parliament have signed a draft bill that would require a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. soldiers from Iraq and freeze current troop levels. The development was a sign of a growing division between Iraq's legislators and prime minister that mirrors the widening gulf between the Bush administration and its critics in Congress.

The draft bill proposes a timeline for a gradual departure, much like what some U.S. Democratic lawmakers have demanded, and would require the Iraqi government to secure parliament's approval before any further extensions of the U.N. mandate for foreign troops in Iraq, which expires at the end of 2007.

Iraq's lawmakers are moving further away from the views of the government, particularly on the basic issue of the American presence in their country. The draft bill is being championed by a 30-member bloc loyal to Sadr, but it has also gained support from some other Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish legislators. So far, at least 138 lawmakers have signed the proposed legislation, the slimmest possible majority in the 275-member parliament, according to Araji. Nasar al-Rubaie, another Sadr loyalist, told the Associated Press that the proposal had 144 signatures.

"We think that America committed a grave injustice against the Iraqi people and against the glorious history of Iraq when they destroyed our institutions and then rebuilt them in the wrong way," said Hussein al-Falluji, a lawmaker from the largest Sunni coalition in parliament and a supporter of the timetable proposal.

Several legislators, including those loyal to Maliki, said they doubted that the effort would succeed at a time when Iraqi troops still rely heavily on U.S. firepower. The most prominent political parties in Iraq -- such as Maliki's Dawa party; the Shiite group known as the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq; the Iraqi Islamic Party, a leading Sunni group; and prominent Kurdish factions -- appear to oppose setting specific dates for withdrawal. And even if such dates were fixed, it is unclear whether that would compel the United States to obey them.

Conviction In 'Al-Jazeera Memo' Leak

Well, it looks like the much denied (and still denied) allegation that President Bush spoke favorably about bombing the headquarters of the Al Jazeera network was true after all.

You can't be convicted of leaking a document that doesn't exist.

A British civil servant and an aide to a legislator were convicted Wednesday of leaking a classified memo about a meeting between Prime Minister Tony Blair and President Bush in a breach of the Official Secrets Act.

Cipher expert David Keogh, convicted on two counts, had admitted passing on the memo about April 2004 talks in which Bush purportedly suggested the bombing of Arab satellite channel Al Jazeera.

The Daily Mirror newspaper reported that the memo described Blair arguing against Bush's suggestion of bombing Al Jazeera's headquarters in Doha, Qatar. But the paper said its sources disagreed on whether Bush's suggestion was serious.

Blair said he had no information about any proposed U.S. action against Al Jazeera, and the White House called the claims "outlandish and inconceivable."

Keogh was accused of passing the memo to his codefendant, Leo O'Connor, 44, who in turn handed it to his boss, Tony Clarke, then a Labor member of parliament who voted against Britain's decision to join the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Keogh, 50, told London's Central Criminal Court he felt strongly about the memo, which he had to relay to diplomats overseas using secure methods, and hoped it would come to wider attention. ...

The document, marked "Secret-Personal," was intended to be restricted to senior officials. The memo's contents are considered so sensitive that much of the trial was heard behind closed doors. Witnesses and counsel did not refer to the contents in open court.

The Official Secrets Act is rarely utilized. Somebody on this side of the pond must have pushed the Brits to take strong action.

British prosecutors said only a handful of people have been charged in recent decades with violations of the Official Secrets Act of 1911, a wide-ranging law that provides criminal sanctions for revealing confidential government information.

In 2003, the government charged a translator at the Government Communications Headquarters with violating the act. The translator, Katherine Gun, was accused of providing a British newspaper with documents from the U.S. National Security Agency asking for British help to eavesdrop on U.N. Security Council delegations in the run-up to the Iraq war. Gun said she disclosed the documents as a matter of conscience. After a public outcry supporting her, the government dropped the charges without comment in 2004.

Odierno Says "Surge" Needs Another Year

It is the Army's job to keep coming up with practicable-sounding military solutions to our insurmountable Iraq disaster. When one approach fails, you can always be certain that another plan will be rapidly offered up.

And now they want the "surge" to be given another year.

U.S. commanders in Iraq are increasingly convinced that heightened troop levels, announced by President Bush in January, will need to last into the spring of 2008. The military has said it would assess in September how well its counterinsurgency strategy, intended to pacify Baghdad and other parts of Iraq, is working.

"The surge needs to go through the beginning of next year for sure," said Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the day-to-day commander for U.S. military operations in Iraq. The new requirement of up to 15-month tours for active-duty soldiers will allow the troop increase to last until spring, said Odierno, who favors keeping experienced forces in place for now.

"What I am trying to do is to get until April so we can decide whether to keep it going or not," he said in an interview in Baghdad last week. "Are we making progress? If we're not making any progress, we need to change our strategy. If we're making progress, then we need to make a decision on whether we continue to surge."

National Security Exodus From The Bush Administration

Top members of President George W. Bush's national security team are leaving in one of the earliest waves of departures from a second-term U.S. administration — nearly two years before Bush's time ends.

As rancor in the United States rises over handling of the war in Iraq, at least 20 senior aides have either retired or resigned from important posts at the White House, Defense Department and State Department in the past six months.

Some have left for lucrative positions in the private sector. Some have gone to academic or charitable institutions. The latest was Deputy National Security Adviser J.D. Crouch, who spoke favorably of Bush's policies as he announced he was leaving last week.

Turnover is normal as an administration nears its end, but "this is a high number," said Paul Light, a professor of public service at New York University and an expert on government.

"You would expect to see vacancies arise as things wind down, but it's about six months early for this kind of a mass exodus," he said. ...

Some officials, however, speaking only privately, say some people may be leaving to avoid being associated with the increasingly unpopular Iraq conflict.

About six in 10 Americans say the United States made a mistake in going to war in Iraq and almost as many say they think it is a hopeless cause, according to recent AP-Ipsos polling. Less than a third support Bush's handling of the war.

At the White House, four top officials have stepped down, including Crouch; Meghan O'Sullivan, another deputy national security adviser who worked on Iraq; Tom Graham, the senior director for Russia, and Victor Cha, the point man for the Koreas.

O'Sullivan's departure has set off a search for a "war czar" to oversee operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, a job reportedly turned down by a number of senior or retired generals.

Graham's resignation comes as tensions with Russia rise over U.S. missile defense plans in Europe, and Cha leaves amid concerns over North Korea's failure to comply with deadlines to eliminate its nuclear weapons programs.

Former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld resigned under fire in November and is not included in the list of 20.

His close associate and chief of intelligence Stephan Cambone followed him out the door as did Peter Rodman, the assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs. Army Secretary Francis Harvey was fired over shoddy conditions at Walter Reed hospital.

Another Pentagon official, Richard Lawless, the senior policy coordinator for Asia, is expected to leave this summer.

The State Department has been hit hardest with at least five so-called "principals" — people in the top four tiers of the bureaucracy — stepping down.

Light said the diplomatic departures appeared to demonstrate a feeling that the administration is running out of time for foreign policy accomplishments despite Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's perseverance.

"They reflect a decline in the Bush foreign policy agenda," he said. "No matter how hard Condi Rice works, this administration's foreign policy has pretty much run its course."

Deputy State Department spokesman Tom Casey said the departures were not unusual and would not affect the agency's handling of relations with foreign governments.

DOD Looking For Silicon Valley Type Startups

First there was In-Q-Tel, now we have DeVenCI. The U.S. government effort to catch up to our adversaries in the area of high-tech gimcracks seems to be really moving along.

Adversaries, you ask?

Yes, the big defense contractors.

Through a program that recently emerged from an experimental phase, the Defense Department is using some of the nation's top technology investors to help it find innovations from tiny start-up companies, which have not traditionally been a part of the military's vast supply chain.

The program provides a regular exchange of ideas and periodic meetings between a select group of venture capitalists and dozens of strategists and buyers from the major military and intelligence branches. Government officials talk about their needs, and the investors suggest solutions culled from technology start-ups across the country.

It is in some ways an odd coupling of the historically slow-moving federal agencies and fast-moving investors, who deal in technologies that are no sooner developed than they are threatened with obsolescence.

But the participants argue that the project, called DeVenCI for Defense Venture Catalyst Initiative, brings together two groups that have much to gain from each other and that have had trouble finding easy, efficient ways to work together. Those on the military side of things have adopted the Silicon Valley vernacular to explain the idea of systematically consulting investors to find new technology.

"We're a search engine," said Bob Pohanka, director of DeVenCI, noting that the program is a chance for military procurement officials to have more intimate contact with investors who make a living scouring laboratories and universities for the latest innovations.

Venture capitalists "have knowledge of emerging technology that may be developed by companies as small as two guys in a garage," Mr. Pohanka said. "These are companies that are not involved in the D.O.D. supply chain."

For the investors, it is a chance to get closer to a branch of government with vast spending power that is a potential customer for the start-ups they have backed. That can be particularly valuable because the venture capital industry, far from enjoying the success of the dot-com boom, has languished in recent years and is looking for new markets and sales opportunities.

The military is "like a Fortune No. 1 company," said E. Rogers Novak Jr., managing director of the venture capital firm Novak Biddle Venture Partners, and one of the investors who consults with the government. "We may get a customer and the D.O.D. gets something that helps them."

The project is in its early stages, having convened three meetings since October. And there are questions about whether a bureaucratic and careful system built around long-term relationships between the military branches and their contractors can be compatible with the quicker culture of Silicon Valley.

"Everybody is feeling their way through this relationship," Mr. Novak said. "The potential is there. The devil is in the details."

There is nothing fundamentally new about the military trying to gain access to cutting-edge technology. For much of the 20th century, it financed and led that development. But that has changed in the last several decades as innovation has started to move at light speed in the private sector.

Since the Sept. 11 attacks, the military has reached out more to the private sector, trying to make use of a range of technologies in pursuing security and fighting wars. Some venture capitalists have catered to those demands, creating firms aimed at military and security needs.

On the public sector side, the Central Intelligence Agency in 1999 started In-Q-Tel, a venture that identifies and invests in start-ups and technologies whose products could be used in intelligence. And the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency backs new technology and has helped create many important advances, including the Internet.

What makes DeVenCI unusual, its participants say, is that by bringing together military procurement agents and technology investors it is creating a kind of brokerage for ideas.

Lockheed Martin Battles British Head Shop, Loses

It can build aircraft that are invisible to enemy radar and travel at three times the speed of sound, but Lockheed Martin met its match when it took on a small shop in Bexleyheath that sells cannabis paraphernalia.

The multibillion-dollar company brought a complaint against Skunk Works, motto "In the leaf we trust", over the domain name ukskunkworks.co.uk .

The web address should be awarded to Lockheed Martin, lawyers for the aircraft manufacturer claimed, because Skunk Works is the name of its secret research laboratory in California where it developed the F-117 Nighthawk stealth fighter and the F-22 Raptor. It was also responsible for building the U-2 spy planes that flew over the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

The aircraft manufacturer sent a 1,000-page document to Nominet, the company that administers British domain names, in October asserting that it was already the owner of several European trademarks for “Skunk Works” and that the cannabis accessories shop was sullying its reputation.

The Bexleyheath business responded in November with a single sheet of paper. It won both the first hearing in January, when Nominet dismissed the complaint, and the appeal at the end of last month.

Max Mulley, owner of the London shop, said that Lockheed Martin's claim that customers would be confused was ridiculous. "I don’t know what the confusion would have been — they sell aeroplanes and we sell smoking equipment. They are a multimillion-dollar company making aeroplanes and we’re a small shop in Bexleyheath."

Mr Mulley, who estimates that his shop makes about £2,000 a month, did not hire any lawyers for the case. "I've done it all myself. They've got highflying lawyers. I'm guessing the whole thing has cost them about £40,000."

Lockheed Martin declined to comment on how much it had spent, but said that it was considering other options. "Lockheed Martin respectfully disagrees with the conclusions of the panel but plans to continue to enforce its trademark rights in its famous mark."

It could attempt to bring a claim against the shop for trademark infringement at the High Court, but a legal expert told The Times that the case would be difficult and expensive.

Mark Hickey, of Murgitroyd and Company, said that Lockheed would have to argue that it was an upstanding company and that its reputation was being undermined.

2008 U.S. Intelligence Budget Authorized

The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence has authorized U.S. intelligence agencies to spend an estimated $48 billion in fiscal 2008, the largest amount ever included in an intelligence bill, thanks to inclusion of funding efforts associated with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In approving the bill Monday evening, the panel's chairman, Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-Tex.), said, "The single largest intelligence authorization bill ever written by the committee [is] evidence of how important intelligence has become to our national security." While the exact numbers in the measure are classified, intelligence experts estimate it has grown nearly 4 percent annually in recent years. ...

Committee Democrats cut back on a group of classified CIA programs for Iraq that Reyes described as a wasteful "wish list" that lacks a "real strategy or metrics for evaluating its effectiveness." The committee's ranking Republican, Rep. Peter Hoekstra (Mich.), said yesterday that Republicans criticized these "deep cuts to classified CIA programs designed to help America fight and succeed in the conflict against radical jihadists." Neither would describe the nature of the secret activities.

Hoekstra and his colleagues also took issue with the committee's request for a national intelligence estimate on how global warming may affect U.S. national security. ...

The panel also asked for reports on the intelligence community's use of contractors, which appears to be rising in many areas formerly handled by government employees. Examples include a private contractor looking to recruit an individual to handle counterintelligence in Afghanistan under contract to the Pentagon's Counterintelligence Field Activity, and Allworld Language Consultants looking for an intelligence analyst at $126,260 a year for a contract in Iraq.

U.S. Diplomats Suffering From PTSD After Iraq Tours

U.S. diplomats are returning from Iraq with the same debilitating, stress-related symptoms that have afflicted many U.S. troops, prompting the State Department to order a mental health survey of 1,400 employees who have completed assignments there.

Larry Brown, the State Department's director of medical services, said that as early as this month the department will e-mail questionnaires to employees who have been posted in Iraq.

The surveys, to be completed anonymously, are intended to determine how many returning diplomats and civilian employees are suffering post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or other problems as a result of exposure to a war zone, Brown said.

State Department employees in Iraq seldom leave the capital's heavily fortified Green Zone. Even there, rocket and mortar attacks are frequent, and the sound of gunfire is constant. Suicide bombers have penetrated the zone on rare occasions, most recently on April 12.

The department was prodded to act by the American Foreign Service Association. It reported that some diplomats had difficulty adjusting after leaving.

Brown said the State Department is considering forming support groups "for alumni of high-stress or unaccompanied posts" — jobs in countries where the threat is so high or schools and medical facilities so poor that diplomats cannot bring family members.

The number of jobs classified by the department as unaccompanied posts has more than tripled since 2001 to about 700. There are about 200 such jobs in Iraq, said Henrietta Fore, undersecretary for management.

More than 1,400 State Department employees have served in Iraq since 2003. Three have been killed there.

Although U.S. diplomats have served in violent places before, they have "never been put into an active war zone in this way," Brown said.

Who Listens To Them Anyway?

Every British ambassador in the Middle East warned the Government that invading Iraq would be a "nightmare" and turn popular opinion against the West, a former envoy has told The Daily Telegraph.

Sir Ivor Roberts, now the president of Trinity College, Oxford, saw a selection of the telegrams sent by Britain's envoys in the Middle East when he served as ambassador to Ireland before the invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

As Britain and America massed their forces on Iraq's borders, these telegrams to the Foreign Office contained the ambassadors' considered advice on the wisdom and likely consequences of going to war. Some were circulated to every British envoy in the European Union and reached Sir Ivor's desk in Dublin.

To the best of his memory, the assessments offered by Britain's representatives in the Muslim world were unanimous. "Every ambassador in a Middle East post accurately predicted what a nightmare invading Iraq would be," he said.

"The telegrams I saw were full of doom and gloom about the consequences."

Sir Ivor did not "check them off one by one", but believes that every ambassador "from the Arab world or the Muslim world was anticipating how disastrously it would play in their countries at both public and government levels".

Sir Ivor did not see all the secret telegrams emerging from Britain's embassies in the Middle East. But British ambassadors in EU countries were on the Foreign Office circulation list for "quite a large amount of traffic".

Sir Ivor, who retired last year, called for an official inquiry into the war in Iraq. "How we landed up in this mess is going to be the subject of a long inquiry, I hope," he said.

Venezuela Quits World Bank/IMF

President Hugo Chavez announced Monday he would pull Venezuela out of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, a largely symbolic move because the nation has already paid off its debts to the lending institutions.

"We will no longer have to go to Washington nor to the IMF nor to the World Bank, not to anyone," said the leftist leader, who has long railed against the Washington-based lending institutions.

Venezuela, one of the world's top oil exporters, recently repaid its debts to the World Bank five years ahead of schedule, saving $8 million. It paid off all its debts to the IMF shortly after Chavez first took office in 1999. The IMF closed its offices in Venezuela late last year.

Chavez, who says he wants to steer Venezuela toward socialism, made the announcement a day after telling a meeting of allied leaders that Latin America would be better off without the U.S.-backed World Bank or IMF. He has often blamed their lending policies for perpetuating poverty.

Chavez wants to set up a new lender run by Latin American nations and has pledged to support it with Venezuela's booming oil revenues. The regional lender, which he has called "Bank of the South," would dole out financing for state projects across Latin America.

Chavez has criticized past Venezuelan governments for signing agreements with the IMF to restructure the economy -- plans blamed for contributing to racing inflation.

Under former President Carlos Andres Perez in 1989, violent protests broke out in Caracas in response to IMF austerity measures that brought a hike in subsidized gasoline prices and public transport fares.

Enraged people took the streets in violence that killed at least 300 people -- and possibly many more. The riots came to be known as the "Caracazo," and Chavez often refers to it as a rebellion against the status quo.