WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Saddam Hussein believed Iran was a significant threat to Iraq and left open the possibility that he had weapons of mass destruction rather than appear vulnerable, according to declassified FBI documents on interrogations of the former Iraqi leader.

"Hussein believed that Iraq could not appear weak to its enemies, especially Iran," FBI special agent George Piro wrote on notes of a conversation with Saddam in June 2004 about weapons of mass destruction.

He believed Iraq was being threatened by others in the region and must appear able to defend itself, the report said.

July 2

BBC - Saudi Arabia has signed a deal with a major European defence contractor to build a hi-tech security system including a fence around the whole of its 9,000 kilometre border. The country has been wanting to build a strong border security system for some time.

Its two main concerns are its neighbours Iraq and Yemen, and the instability and lawlessness of these two countries have raised fears in Saudi Arabia that their problems will overflow the border. Specifically, the Saudis are worried about weapons and drug smuggling. The cost of the contract has not been officially disclosed, but a French magazine said it is worth about $3 billion.

Tim Cocks & Muhanad Mohammed | Baghdad | June 29

Reuters - U.S. troops pulled out of Baghdad on Monday, triggering jubilation among Iraqis hopeful that foreign military occupation is ending six years after the invasion to depose Saddam Hussein.

Iraqi soldiers paraded through the streets in their American-made vehicles draped with Iraqi flags and flowers, chanting, dancing and calling the pullout a "victory".

One drove a motorcycle with party streamers on it; another, a Humvee with a garland of plastic roses on the grill.

U.S. combat troops must pull out of Iraq's urban centres by midnight on Tuesday under a bilateral security pact that also requires all troops to leave the country by 2012.

All had left the capital by Monday afternoon, Major-General in Staff, Abboud Qanbar, head of Iraqi security forces in Baghdad, told Reuters.

aljazeerah - With proven oil reserves of around 112 billion barrels and up to another 150 billion barrels of probable reserves, Iraq is the greatest untapped prize for international oil companies.

The media has some news apart from MJ, including the countdown to the USA withdrawal from Iraqi cities over the next day, with Army General Raymond T. Odierno stating that the USA Military has met the status of forces agreement deadline. What is intriguing is how air sovereignty will be handled. Over the past years billions of dollars of USA advanced arms sales have been given to Saudi Arabia and Israel to balance out any war-like aggression from Iran. Who is going to maintain the "air straits"?

STEVEN LEE MYERS and MARC SANTORA | Baghdad | June 26

NYT - Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has taken to calling the withdrawal of American combat troops from Iraq’s cities by next Tuesday a “great victory,” a repulsion of foreign occupiers he compares to the rebellion against British troops in 1920. And the Americans are going along with it, symbolically and substantively.

American commanders have hewed far more closely to the June 30 deadline for withdrawing combat forces from Iraq’s cities than expected only a few weeks ago, according to American and Iraqi officials. They have closed outposts — even in Baghdad and still-troubled Mosul in the north — that they had initially lobbied the Iraqis to keep open, having concluded, the officials said, that pressing the case would be counterproductive given the political significance that Mr. Maliki had given the deadline.

The day itself has been declared a national holiday, though it is not yet clear whether Iraq will hold the “feast and festivals” he recently promised. American and Iraqi officials acknowledge the risks — to Mr. Maliki’s political position and to Iraqis’ safety.

Reuters - Iraq PM says forces can handle security without U.S.

Jamie Doward, Gaby Hinsliff and Mark Townsend | June 21

The Observer - A confidential record of a meeting between President Bush and Tony Blair before the invasion of Iraq, outlining their intention to go to war without a second United Nations resolution, will be an explosive issue for the official inquiry into the UK's role in toppling Saddam Hussein.

The memo, written on 31 January 2003, almost two months before the invasion and seen by the Observer, confirms that as the two men became increasingly aware UN inspectors would fail to find weapons of mass destruction (WMD) they had to contemplate alternative scenarios that might trigger a second resolution legitimising military action.

Bush told Blair the US had drawn up a provocative plan "to fly U2 reconnaissance aircraft painted in UN colours over Iraq with fighter cover". Bush said that if Saddam fired at the planes this would put the Iraqi leader in breach of UN resolutions.

June 18

McChrystal Looks to Spin Afghan Civilian Deaths Problem

Analysis by Gareth Porter - At his confirmation hearings two weeks ago, Gen. Stanley McChrystal said reducing civilian deaths from air strikes in Afghanistan was "strategically decisive" and declared his "willingness to operate in ways that minimise casualties or damage, even when it makes our task more difficult."

Some McChrystal supporters hope he will rein in the main source of civilian casualties: Special Operations Forces (SOF) units that carry out targeted strikes against suspected "Taliban" on the basis of doubtful intelligence and raids that require air strikes when they get into trouble.

But there are growing indications that his command is preparing to deal with the issue primarily by seeking to shift the blame to the Taliban through more and better propaganda operations and by using more high-tech drone intelligence aircraft to increase battlefield surveillance rather than by curbing the main direct cause of civilian casualties.

** WORLD EXCLUSIVE: New Revelations About The Torture Of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi

Iraqi oil minister accused of mother of all sell-outs

Furious protests threaten to undermine the Iraqi government's controversial plan to give international oil companies a stake in its giant oilfields in a desperate effort to raise declining oil production and revenues.

In less than two weeks, on 29 and 30 June, the Iraqi Oil Minister, Hussain Shahristani, will award service contracts to the world's largest oil companies to develop six of Iraq's largest oil-producing fields over 20 to 25 years.

Senior figures within the Iraqi oil industry have denounced the deal. Fayad al-Nema, the director of the South Oil Company, which comes under the Oil Ministry and produces most of Iraq's crude, said on the weekend: "The service contracts will put the Iraqi economy in chains and shackle its independence for the next 20 years. They squander Iraq's revenues."

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CNAS' third annual conference, "Striking a Balance: A New American Security," will be streamed live starting at 8:30 AM EST.

8:30-8:45 AM - INTRODUCTION AND OPENING REMARKS

The Honorable Dr. Richard Danzig
Chairman of the Board, Center for a New American Security

Ambassador R. Nicholas Burns
Professor, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
Board of Directors, CNAS

8:45-9:45 AM - KEYNOTE ADDRESS

Dr. John A. Nagl (INTRODUCTION)
President, Center for a New American Security

General David H. Petraeus, USA
Commander, U.S. Central Command

When will we have an Afghanistan policy?
Yet another review ordered of Afghan policy — fifth this year

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates Monday gave the new U.S. commander in Afghanistan 60 days to conduct another review of the American strategy there, the fifth since President Barack Obama took office less than five months ago.

The Defense Department announced Monday that Gates has ordered the new U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, and his deputy, Lt. Gen. David Rodriguez, to submit a review of the U.S. strategy within 60 days of their arrival in Afghanistan.

The National Security Council, the U.S. Central Command and the Joint Chiefs of Staff each have already reviewed the U.S. Afghan strategy, and civilian departments conducted a separate interagency review. On March 27, shortly after those reviews were completed, the administration announced a new strategy that called for defeating al Qaida, reducing civilian casualties and eliminating terrorist safe havens.

The administration promised that within weeks it would establish benchmarks to measure progress in Afghanistan. On Monday, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell told reporters that the administration is still drafting those benchmarks.

** US Marines fan out across dangerous Afghan south

Operation Iraqi Stephen: Going Commando

U.S. Troops enjoy equal opportunity humor from the Colbert Report.

As Stephen Colbert sits behind a desk propped up by sandbags painted to look like the American flag, he declares the “we won the Iraq war.”

According to AOL News, Colbert is making history this week by being the first to broadcast a series of a taped show from an Iraq tour intended for entertaining the U. S. troops serving in Iraq.

“It must be nice her in Iraq because I understand some of you keep coming back again and again,” Colbert joked, “You’ve earned so many frequent flyer miles, you’ve earned a free ticket to Afghanistan.”

His first guest, General Ray Odierno received a videotaped order from President Obama to shave Colbert’s head and he gladly accepted. Gen. Odierno started shaving Colbert’s head and it was then finished by a stylist

** US court: Iraq immune from Saddam-era lawsuits
** U.S. Frees Suspect in Killing of 5 G.I.’s

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REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT ON A NEW BEGINNING

Cairo University
Cairo, Egypt

1:10 P.M. (Local)

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Thank you very much. Good afternoon. I am honored to be in the timeless city of Cairo, and to be hosted by two remarkable institutions. For over a thousand years, Al-Azhar has stood as a beacon of Islamic learning; and for over a century, Cairo University has been a source of Egypt's advancement. And together, you represent the harmony between tradition and progress. I'm grateful for your hospitality, and the hospitality of the people of Egypt. And I'm also proud to carry with me the goodwill of the American people, and a greeting of peace from Muslim communities in my country: Assalaamu alaykum. (Applause.)

June 1

Army fury at refusal to bolster Afghan campaign

Britain's most senior military commanders have warned Gordon Brown that unless he sends more troops to Afghanistan Britain will lose credibility with its American allies, The Independent has learnt.

Senior generals are bemused that the Prime Minister has turned down the advice of his own Defence Secretary, John Hutton, that a larger force should be sent to Afghanistan following the withdrawal from Iraq. Now they have warned Number 10 that the reputation of the armed forces will suffer in the eyes of senior American commanders unless Mr Brown authorises an autumn surge in troop numbers. Such a surge, they say, would signal Britain's intent to "pull its weight" in the Afghan conflict by plugging the shortfall in the multinational force. (If I was a Brit I would wonder who General Dannatt works for ;) ~ tina)

Iraq's Kurdish region to export oil for first time

Iraq's self-ruled Kurdish region will begin exporting crude oil for the first time on June 1, piping up to 90,000 bpd to its neighbours in a landmark step for the area, officials said on Sunday.

Companies chosen by the regional government will pump oil from two Kurdish fields via an Iraqi pipeline to Turkey with the consent of Baghdad in a step that could pave the way to ending bitter domestic feuds over Iraq's oil wealth.

Initial exports will be around 40,000 barrels per day from the Taq Taq field in the province of Arbil and another 50,000 bpd from the Tawke field in Dohuk, company officials told AFP.

** Is Halliburton forgiven and forgotten?

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Daily Telegraph | Nile Gardiner

Politico has an extraordinary report on Robert Gibbs, the White House Press Secretary, launching a furious broadside against the British press. Here are Gibbs' sneering and condescending remarks:

"I want to speak generally about some reports I've witnessed over the past few years in the British media," Gibbs said. "In some ways, I'm surprised it filtered down."

"Let's just say if I wanted to look up, if I wanted to read a write-up of how Manchester United fared last night in the Champions League Cup, I'd might open up a British newspaper," he continued. "If I was looking for something that bordered on truthful news, I'm not entirely sure it'd be the first pack of clips I'd pick up."

Gibbs' juvenile comments followed an article in The Daily Telegraph relating to the President's decision not to release new photos reportedly showing appalling prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib by a tiny minority of military personnel. The straightforward news piece, hotly disputed by the White House, is based upon an interview with Major General Antonio Taguba, who oversaw the inquiry into the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal.

For the record I firmly believe the President was right to refuse to release the photos in the face of pressure from the ACLU, which would only further inflame anti-American sentiment across the Muslim world. However I cannot recall an instance like this where the President's official spokesman has blasted the press of a key ally - in this case America's closest friend, Great Britain. MORE

May 23

Maliki Wants To Walk Back Sunni Amnesty Law ~ Newshoggers

_{** Two Pentagon workers die in Baghdad's Green Zone
** Baghdad has new security layer: street gates
** Iranian, Afghan, Pakistani Presidents to Meet Tomorrow
** Troops kill 60 rebels, make largest Afghan drugs bust
** Going for Broke: Six Ways the Af-Pak War Is Expanding}

May 21

3 US soldiers killed by roadside bomb in Baghdad

Three American soldiers were killed and nine others wounded Thursday in a bombing attack in Baghdad, the U.S. military said, in a burst of violence only weeks before American combat troops are due to leave Iraqi cities.

Iraqi militiamen frustrated that promised jobs haven't materialized

Al Qaida in Iraq fighters are returning to this dusty desert town and attacking the Sunni Muslim militias that once subdued them, and they may have infiltrated the makeshift police force

US soldiers charged over Spanish journalist's death

A Spanish judge on Thursday revived murder charges against three US soldiers over the killing a Spanish television cameraman during the shelling of a Baghdad hotel in 2003.

_{** Is Iraq's enigmatic Sadr headed for a comeback?
** KBR's chief defends electrical work in Iraq
** Historic handoff puts Minnesota troops in charge of 9 Iraqi provinces
** Arms Sent by U.S. May Be Falling Into Taliban Hands}

U.S. Pullout a Condition in Afghan Peace Talks

Leaders of the Taliban and other armed groups battling the Afghan government are talking to intermediaries about a potential peace agreement, with initial demands focused on a timetable for a withdrawal of American troops, according to Afghan leaders here and in Pakistan.

The talks, if not the withdrawal proposals, are being supported by the Afghan government. The Obama administration, which has publicly declared its desire to coax “moderate” Taliban fighters away from armed struggle, says it is not involved in the discussions and will not be until the Taliban agree to lay down their arms. But nor is it trying to stop the talks, and Afghan officials believe they have tacit support from the Americans.

_{** Afghanistan seeks 400,000 soldiers, police
** Does war promote the Dignity of Afghan women?
** Canadian Supreme Court to say whether it will hear Afghan detainee case
** 'Model' villages around Kandahar aim to render Taliban 'irrelevant'}

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UPDATED | May 10

MAY 19

Zalmay Khalilzad wants to be CEO of Afghanistan

Zalmay Khalilzad, who was President George W. Bush’s ambassador to Afghanistan, could assume a powerful, unelected position inside the Afghan government under a plan he is discussing with Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, according to senior American and Afghan officials.

Mr. Khalilzad, an American citizen who was born in Afghanistan, had considered challenging Mr. Karzai for the presidency in elections scheduled for this summer.

But Mr. Khalilzad missed the May 8 filing deadline, and the American and Afghan officials say that he has been talking with Mr. Karzai for several weeks about taking on a job that the two have described as the chief executive officer of Afghanistan.

_{** Afghanistan says no plan to put U.S. ex-envoy in charge
** US mil: Afghan contractors violated gun policy
** Commentary: How will we measure success in Afghanistan?
** Taliban Influx Threatens ‘Hot Months’ in Afghanistan}

Anthony H Cordesman: The new forgotten war

Despite the violence of the past few weeks, it is Iraq that now risks becoming the "forgotten war.'' Iraq has become both a perceived "victory'' and a war that many Americans and members of Congress would like to forget. As a result, the nation's leaders may rush toward the "exit'' without a strategy -- and lose both the ongoing war and the peace that could follow.

It's all too easy to forget that the U.S. "won'' in Vietnam. Americans left having defeated the Viet Cong, having forced North Vietnam to halt its offensives -- and having gotten a Nobel Prize for the settlement. The Americans created something approaching a functioning democracy, a reasonable level of development, and Vietnamese forces that seemed able to defend both without our support. It only took a few years, however, to show how costly an exit without a strategy can be.

There are limits to what can be done in Iraq. The Americans cannot force the Iraqis into political accommodation. They cannot develop their economy for them, and cannot act as a lasting substitute for effective Iraqi forces or the creation of local security and a rule of law. But there are steps that can and should be taken to complete the "clear, hold and build'' strategy that has changed the war so dramatically since 2007.

_{** US moves shooting suspect from Iraq
** Iraq rejects Kurdish plans to export gas to Europe
** Turkish companies eye Iraq opportunity}

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Dexter Filkins | May 20

The New Republic

The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008
By Thomas E. Ricks
(Penguin Press, 394 pp., $27.95)

I.

From centrality to banality: perhaps no other event in modern American history has gone from being contentious to being forgotten as quickly as the war in Iraq. Remember the war? It consumed a trillion American dollars, devoured a hundred thousand Iraqi lives, squandered a country's reputation, and destroyed an American presidency. Given the retreat of the American press--the first American withdrawal from Iraq, you might say--one could almost be excused, in the spring of 2009, for forgetting that 140,000 American troops are still fighting and dying there.

That an undertaking as momentous and as costly as America's war in Iraq could vanish so quickly from the forefront of the national consciousness does not speak well of the United States in the early twenty-first century: not for its seriousness and not for its sense of responsibility. The American people, we are told, appear to be exhausted by the war in Iraq. But exhausted by what, exactly? Certainly not from fighting it. The fighting is done by kids from the towns between the coasts, not by any of the big shots who really matter. And they are not exhausted by paying for it, either: another generation will do that. No, when Americans say that they are tired of the war in Iraq, what they really mean is that they are tired of watching it on television, or of reading about it on the Internet. As entertainment, as Topic A, the agony has become a bore. "A car bomb exploded today in a crowded Baghdad marketplace, killing 53 and wounding 112." Click.

more

A spate of bombings in Iraq has given rise in recent weeks to asking how long US troops must remain in the country. Al Qaeda was thought to be all but eliminated from the Sunni Arab provinces and barely holding on to redoubts in the northern Kurdish provinces. But al Qaeda’s recent bombing campaign has caused some to ask if the US will be able withdraw from Iraq by the end of 2011. That’s the wrong question.

Many forces are pressing for the US to remain in Iraq for the foreseeable future. Kurdish and Sunni Arab minorities, fearful of the Shi’a majority, want protectors and may be able to revise the withdrawal timetable established in last year’s Status of Forces Agreement. Israel and Saudi Arabia see eye to eye on few things but fear of Iran (and perhaps an inordinate fear) is one such thing. Both will use their considerable influence in Washington to keep US troops there as a buffer against Shi’a expansion. The US military, having adopted a “see it through” ideology in the wake of Vietnam (distant though that memory now is), also wants to maintain a presence in Iraq until a stable government is established, though no one can say just when that will be.

May 8

U.S. Admits Civilians Died in Afghan Raids

United States officials acknowledged Thursday for the first time that at least some of what might be 100 civilian deaths in western Afghanistan had been caused by American bombs. In Afghanistan, residents angrily protested the deaths and demanded that American forces leave the country.

Initial American military reports that some of the casualties might have been caused by Taliban grenades, not American airstrikes, were “thinly sourced,” a Pentagon official in Washington said Thursday, indicating that he was uncertain of their accuracy.

** A giant US military base emerges in Afghanistan
** Gates to boost Afghan war US senior command-report

Ex-soldier could face death over Iraq murders, rape

A former U.S. soldier could face the death penalty after being convicted of raping a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and killing her and her family.
Former U.S. soldier Steven Green has been convicted of raping and killing a 14-year-old Iraqi girl.

Steven Green was convicted Thursday in a civilian court in Kentucky and will be sentenced Monday.

After more than 10 hours of deliberations, a jury found the former soldier guilty of murder, rape and obstruction of justice, CNN affiliate WPSD-TV in Paducah, Kentucky, reported.

** Iraqi relatives urge death for U.S. rape soldier
** Tension Runs Deep Between Iraqi Government And Awakening Councils
** Northern Iraqi Kurds Say To Start Oil Exports In June

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I noticed this odd little story in the right-wing Washington Examiner today:

Federal prosecutors say a former Army Special Forces soldier turned Department of Defense contractor attempted to smuggle eight machine guns from Iraq to Fort Bragg.

John A. Houston, who retired as a sergeant major in 2006 to become a security subcontractor working in Baghdad, allegedly sent the weapons, illegal under U.S. law, through contacts in the military.

He claimed to two government informants that some of the guns were given to him by Blackwater employees following the September 2007 shooting in Baghdad’s Nisour Square, court documents said. The attack left 17 Iraqi civilians dead and raised questions about the role contracting companies played in Iraq’s security.

The informants reported to investigators that Houston claimed the Blackwater employees were trying to get rid of the weapons “before an investigation ensued,” Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Special Agent Christopher J. Trainor wrote in a sworn statement.

I've long expected us to reap quite a crop of karma in the form of damaged but well-trained veterans returning from Afghanistan and Iraq. A few of the red flags: the lowering of standards for recruits, some of the nastyness that got reported, some that didn't, the extreme lengths of time soldiers were assigned to combat zones, and the brutality of the battles, and the singularly abysmal care our soldiers get on their return.

We're seeing a good deal of reporting on the difficulties veterans are having adjusting.

The right-wingers are playing their usual kill the messenger game so that's why I was intrigued to see this odd tale in the Examiner.

I paid a lot of attention to the Oklahoma City bombing and it made a huge impression on me that Timothy McVeigh learned to kill in the first Gulf War. How many more McVeighs have we spawned? Is the Examiner story just a routine tale of corruption or are the implications more sinister. What's worse? A failed attempt to profiteer from smuggling high powered weaponry or an attempt to bring that kind of ordinance home to use for hunting liberals?

Josh White | May 1

WaPo - When the photos of detainee abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq surfaced in 2004, U.S. officials portrayed Army Pvt. Charles A. Graner Jr. as the ringleader of a few low-ranking "bad apples" who illegally put naked Iraqi detainees in painful positions, shackled them to cell doors with women's underwear on their heads and menaced them with military dogs.

Now, the recent release of Justice Department memos authorizing the use of harsh interrogation techniques has given Graner and other soldiers new reason to argue that they were made scapegoats for policies approved at high levels. They also contend that the government's refusal to acknowledge those polices when Graner and others were tried undermined their legal defenses.

Graner remains locked up at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., about halfway through a 10-year prison sentence for detainee abuse, assault and dereliction of duty. His lawyer said this week that he is drafting appeals arguments centered largely on the revelations in the memos and a newly released congressional investigation into the interrogation practices.

In the last few days, reports appeared about how the Pulitzer committee awarded their prestigious prize to topics like the luxury bordello scandals involving elected officials, Thomas Jefferson’s various mistresses, and international sex trafficking, among others.

No doubt these subjects are important and sizzle in the public mind, yet something feels missing—a shoe lace untied, a hole worn through a pocket by a house key, or that war lasting more than 7 years now.

The Pulitzer committee grants awards for socially redeeming art, beautiful music, or fine writing that pierces the veil of deception in high places. Plenty of journalists and writers have accomplished this on the subject of Operation Iraqi Freedom, focusing not on the sizzling sex scandals but on the more primitive forms of brutality and rape in the chaos of a destroyed country.

Patrick Cockburn | London, UK | April 26

The Independent - The use of torture by the US has proved so counter-productive that it may have led to the death of as many US soldiers as civilians killed in 9/11, says the leader of a crack US interrogation team in Iraq."The reason why foreign fighters joined al-Qa'ida in Iraq was overwhelmingly because of abuses at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib and not Islamic ideology," says Major Matthew Alexander, who personally conducted 300 interrogations of prisoners in Iraq. It was the team led by Major Alexander [a named assumed for security reasons] that obtained the information that led to the US military being able to locate Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the head of al-Qa'ida in Iraq.!--break-- Zarqawi was then killed by bombs dropped by two US aircraft on the farm where he was hiding outside Baghdad on 7 June 2006. Major Alexander said that he learnt where Zarqawi was during a six-hour interrogation of a prisoner with whom he established relations of trust. Major Alexander's attitude to torture by the US is a combination of moral outrage and professional contempt. "It plays into the hands of al-Qa'ida in Iraq because it shows us up as hypocrites when we talk about human rights," he says. An eloquent and highly intelligent man with experience as a criminal investigator within the US military, he says that torture is ineffective, as well as counter-productive. "People will only tell you the minimum to make the pain stop," he says. "They might tell you the location of a house used by insurgents but not that it is booby-trapped."

Janine di Giovanni | April 24

NYT - David Kilcullen is a former officer in the Australian Army, a strategist and a scholar. He is also an expert on counterinsurgency, or how to combat a rebellion, and one of the few brave souls who had the ear of people in the Bush White House and advised against the invasion of Iraq.

“It’s going to take a lot more than you seem to be willing to commit,” he told the Americans. No one listened. After the invasion, Kilcullen watched the growing mayhem with outrage and dismay. This time people listened.

The French writer on military affairs David Galula, who was known for his theories on counterinsurgency, particularly during France’s Algerian war, must have influenced Kilcullen while he was doing his Ph.D. in political anthropology. Galula’s thesis is that one aim of war is to support the local population rather than control the territory. Part of Kilcullen’s academic research involved living and working alongside villagers in West Java, trying to absorb the culture of Dar’ul Islam, a guerrilla movement hatched in the late 1940s (and later identified by some as an Indonesian clone and ally of Al Qaeda).

What Kilcullen wanted to do was to observe the movement the way the locals did — not from the “official version I could find in books.” So he lived in vil­lages and conversed with his curious neighbors about blue jeans and the Internet, until they trusted him enough to share ­information.

"Our Fearless Independent Media Ignore the Pulitzer Prize That Calls Them On Their Own Conflicts of Interest"
By Susie Madrak Friday Apr 24, 2009

for Crooks and Liars

On the April 20 edition of NBC's Nightly News, reporting on the awarding of the 2009 Pulitzer Prizes earlier that day, anchor Brian Williams stated that "The New York Times led the way with five, including awards for breaking news and international reporting." But Williams did not note that the Times' David Barstow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting that day "for his tenacious reporting that revealed how some retired generals, working as radio and television analysts, had been co-opted by the Pentagon to make its case for the war in Iraq, and how many of them also had undisclosed ties to companies that benefited from policies they defended." Media Matters for America has repeatedly documented the unwillingness of the major broadcast networks, including NBC, to report on Barstow's April 20, 2008, Times article. Moreover, NBC joined ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC in reportedly declining to participate in a segment based on Barstow's article that aired on the April 24, 2008, edition of PBS' NewsHour.

James Hider | Baghdad | April 24

UK Times online - Iraqi forces said yesterday that they had arrested one of the most wanted al-Qaeda leaders in Iraq, even as his suicide bombers killed more than 70 people in attacks in and around Baghdad.

Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, a leader of the so-called Islamic State of Iraq, was held in the capital after a tip-off, said Major General Qasim Atta, Baghdad’s security spokesman.

Alternatively - According to a Reuters, Wed Jul 18, 2007 story by "Senior Qaeda figure in Iraq a myth: U.S. military"...

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A senior operative for al Qaeda in Iraq who was caught this month has told his U.S. military interrogators a prominent al Qaeda-led group is just a front and its leader fictitious, a military spokesman said on Wednesday. Brigadier-General Kevin Bergner told a news conference that Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, leader of the self-styled Islamic State of Iraq, which was purportedly set up last year, did not exist.