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Summary: U.S./Top News Pentagon officials conducting a review of Iraq strategy are considering a substantial but temporary increase in American troop levels and the addition of several thousand more trainers to work with Iraqi forces, the New York Times reports.
The U.S. military's effort to train Iraqi forces has been rife with problems, from officers being sent in with poor preparation to a lack of basic necessities such as interpreters and office materials, the Washington Post reports. The shortcomings have plagued a program central to the U.S. strategy. A Pentagon effort to rethink policies in Iraq is likely to suggest placing less emphasis on combat and more on training.
Key Democrats said they do not support a resumption of the draft, the Washington Post reports. Their comments came a day after Rep. Charles Rangel said he would again introduce a bill calling for a return to the draft. Rangel's previous bids to reinstate the draft stirred little interest in Congress but considerable agitation among some bloggers and talk radio hosts.
An antiterrorist database used by the Defense Department in an effort to prevent attacks against military installations included intelligence tips about antiwar planning meetings held at churches, libraries, and college campuses, the New York Times reports. The head of the office that runs the military database said Monday that material on antiwar protests should not have been collected. Once the problem was discovered, he said, "we fixed it," and more than 180 entries in the database related to war protests were deleted from the system last year.
In a study at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, which serves more critically injured soldiers than most VA hospitals, doctors found that 62 percent of patients had sustained a brain injury, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. Veterans for America estimates 10 percent of all soldiers who have served in Iraq have suffered from some form of brain injury, and says the nation is unprepared to take care of them.
In a Los Angeles Times op-ed, former CIA analyst Jennifer Glaudemans recounts her experience with Robert Gates at the CIA, when he was accused of politicizing intelligence on Iran.
Iraq Harith al-Dari, who heads the Muslim Scholars Association, is hardly a radical, writes Robert Dreyfus on TomPaine. But that didn't dissuade Iraq's interior minister from ordering his arrest, provoking a storm of outrage from moderate Sunnis.
Iran Iraqi President Jalal Talabani yesterday agreed to travel to Iran this weekend for an unprecedented three-way summit with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Syrian leader Bashar Assad to deal with Iraq's insurgency, the Washington Times reported. The article suggested that the meeting may be a move to pre-empt an expected shift in U.S. policy to find a regional solution. [To send a letter to the Washington Times in support of US talks with Iran and Syria: http://www.washtimes.com/contact-us/index.php?Department=LetterToTheEditor]
The IAEA has put off until Thursday ruling on Iran's bid for aid for a project the West fears could yield bomb-grade plutonium, but is still likely to block such assistance, Reuters reports. Developing nations argued that a rejection of Iran's request would set a precedent for withholding technical aid from them for peaceful atomic energy programs.
Israel/Palestine Peace Now, using maps and figures leaked from inside the government, says 39 percent of the land held by Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank is privately owned by Palestinians, the New York Times reports. The data indicate that 40 percent of the land that Israel plans to keep in any future deal with the Palestinians is privately owned by Palestinians.
Louise Arbour, the UN high commissioner for human rights, said yesterday Palestinians living in the Gaza strip had suffered "massive" human rights violations, the Guardian reports.
Afghanistan Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain warned Monday that the fight against the Taliban and Al Qaeda would be a generation-long one, the New York Times reports.
Syria Iraq and Syria restored full diplomatic relations on Tuesday after a 24-year rift in a move Iraq hopes can help stem what it says is Syrian support for militants, Reuters reports. Allies are urging President Bush to talk about Iraq to Iran and Syria but Washington reacted warily to the surge in regional diplomacy, Reuters says.
Lebanon Lebanese Industry Minister Pierre Gemayel, a vocal opponent of Syrian involvement in the country, was assassinated in Beirut. President Bush made it plain that he suspects the killing was part of an effort backed by Iran and Syria to undermine the Lebanese government, the Washington Post reports. Syria condemned the killing, calling it "a crime aimed at destabilizing Lebanon."
A team of UN investigators has concluded that Israel engaged in "a significant pattern of excessive, indiscriminate and disproportionate force" against Lebanese civilians that amounted to "a flagrant violation" of international law during its war against Hezbollah last summer, the New York Times reports. The article notes that the Israeli military said Israel provided maps to UN forces to assist in finding unexploded cluster bomblets. In a New York Times article on October 6, Michael Slackman reported that "Israel has said it … provided Lebanon with maps of potential cluster bomb locations to help with the clearing process. United Nations officials in Lebanon say the maps are useless." It's odd that the Times would repeat the claim without repeating the refutation.
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- Robert Naiman Just Foreign Policy www.justforeignpolicy.org
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