World News - US releases anti-insurgency guide
The US military has released a new manual on counter-insurgencies - its first guide on the topic for 20 years. The manual, which draws on lessons from Iraq and Afghanistan, underlines the need for troops to do more than fight. Critics have accused the US military of inflaming insurgencies by failing to gain the trust of local people. The US military says the 282-page manual, which contains chapters on intelligence and ethics in war, fills "a doctrinal gap". The US's first post-9/11 counter-insurgency manual tackles intelligence, developing and carrying out strategies and boosting local security. The manual says it aims to prepare US soldiers and marines "to be greeted with a hand grenade or a handshake, and to respond appropriately to each". A spokesman for the US Army's institutes of military education said the manual "codifies a lot of what's happening in the field already"....
Pentagon eyes $468.9 bln budget for fiscal 2008
"They would like the administration to ask for most of the funding up front," he said. Kosiak also rejected England's statement in the memo that the 2008 increase "reverses a trend of declining real growth", calling England's description "flat-out wrong". "There has been a upward trend in real terms, above the rate of inflation," he said, citing a 23 percent real increase, above inflation, in the Pentagon's budget from 2000 to 2007. Loren Thompson of the Virginia-based Lexington Institute, said England's letter revealed the Pentagon's growing concern about being able to modernize its forces and fund new weapons programs while paying escalating war bills. "This has real significance for the Pentagon in terms of being able to fund other items besides the war," he said. The Pentagon is likely to ask for an additional $100 billion to fund the Iraq and Afghanistan wars early next year....
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=politicsNews&storyID=2006-12-16T043904Z_01_N15422822_RTRUKOC_0_US-BUDGET-PENTAGON.xml&pageNumber=2&imageid=&cap=&sz=13&WTModLoc=NewsArt-C1-ArticlePage2
Iraqi death squad leader evades capture as more US troops die
A special Iraqi army unit backed by US troops killed one militant and arrested six people during operations against a death squad leader in a Baghdad Shia stronghold yesterday. The target, who appears to have evaded capture, was believed to lead a group of 100 militants who conducted kidnappings and killingsfrom Sadr City.The US military said that three more US troops died in fighting this week, raising to 54 the number of Americans killed in Iraq in December. The month is shaping up to be one of the deadliest for Americans since the war started.At least 25 of the US troops killed this month died in the vast stretch of desert that extends from the capital to the borders with Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. The large number of casualties reflects the strength of Sunni insurgents, ...
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2081647.ece
Iraq premier asks for help from Saddam's army
Iraq's army has "opened its doors" to all former members of Saddam Hussein's army, the prime minister said Saturday at a national reconciliation conference boycotted by one of his main Shiite allies, a major Sunni group and Iraq's exiled opposition. Despite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's effort to reach out to Iraq's Sunni Arabs and some former members of Saddam's outlawed Baath Party, the gathering was overshadowed by rising sectarian tensions and political divisions. The radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, one of al-Maliki's key political backers — refused to attend the meeting, as did a major Sunni group and former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, a secular Shiite. The U.S. military raided the Shiite slum of Sadr City — a stronghold for the Mahdi Army militia that is blamed for some of the worst violence against Iraq's Sunnis — and detained six suspects. The raid and airstrike left one fighter dead and another wounded....
Showdown looms over domestic spying New Congress may demand Bush seek warrants, but will he yield?
Federal agents continue to eavesdrop on Americans' electronic communications without warrants a year after President Bush confirmed the practice, and experts say a new Congress' efforts to limit the program could trigger a constitutional showdown. High-ranking Democrats set to take control of both chambers are mulling ways to curb the program Bush secretly authorized a month after the Sept. 11 attacks. The White House argues the Constitution gives the president wartime powers to eavesdrop that he wouldn't have during times of peace. "As a practical matter, the president can do whatever he wants as long as he has the capacity and executive branch officials to do it," said Carl Tobias, a legal scholar at the University of Richmond in Virginia. Lawmakers could impeach or withhold funding, or quash judicial nominations, among other measures. The president, however, can veto legislation, including a law demanding the National Security Agency obtain warrants before monitoring communications...
Mexican Federal Police Leave Oaxaca's City Center After Weeks of Occupation
Hundreds of federal police officers packed up their tents Saturday and marched out of this troubled Mexican city's central square, ending their seven-week occupation to put down a lengthy protest by leftists that had left nine people dead. More than 4,000 federal police seized the plaza from protesters in October, five months after they had taken it over to demand the resignation of Oaxaca state Gov. Ulises Ruiz. The upheaval scared off foreign tourists and shattered the historic southern city's economy. Lino Celaya, Oaxaca's secretary of citizen protection, said about 2,000 officers would remain in a military base outside the city in case trouble flares again. Many residents had complained the presence of armored police cast a shadow over the colonial square and was akin to a military occupation. But some business owners feared more violence without the officers...