President Bush will entertain his Russian counterpart at Kennebunkport this weekend, and they have a lot to talk about. Putin is fresh off a meeting with Hugo Chavez--a good customer for conventional arms who's kicking the tires on an Iran-style nuclear program. And while Putin's Russia has become more cooperative in recent years in non-proliferation efforts, Chavez might be hoping to convince Putin that his oil money is just as good as Iran's.

The main building of Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant,
which was built with Russian technology and expertise.

Somewhere between the 'frank exchanges of views,' Putin and Bush might find time to highlight an agreement on nuclear cooperation that the two nations will soon sign:

Such an agreement marks a significant change in US policy. Under the Clinton administration, most nuclear cooperation with Russia was prohibited because of Moscow's pivotal role in building Iran's $US800 million ($NZ1.067 billion) nuclear power plant at Bushehr.

But Bush administration officials, arguing Russia has increasingly co-operated on Iran and other non-proliferation issues, reversed that...

The American Council on Global Nuclear Competitiveness, which represents nuclear and energy experts, has backed a nuclear cooperation agreement with Russia.

The council says the accord would help the United States gain access to Russia's fast-spectrum reactor technology while providing Russia with the opportunity to learn from America's extensive fast reactor experience.

Presidents Bush and Putin set this agreement as a goal when they met at the G-8 in July, 2006. With the renewed attention to nuclear power in Washington, such an accord could go a long way to helping the United States catch up on fast reactor technology--an area where our long absence from 'the nuclear game' has left us far behind. Without a '123 agreement,' only the most limited of exchanges are possible; that's the reason nuclear power proponents rate this deal a priority.

But backers also stress the value of the accord to non-proliferation efforts. They argue that Russia has made great strides and is working as an ally on Iran's program. Part of the reason is that the U.S. held out this treaty as an incentive. If it goes into effect, Russia can become a repository of spent fuel from Taiwan and South Korea. That might reduce the amount of spent fuel available for reprocessing and use in nuclear weapons, and provide Russia with a new source of revenues, and one dependent on its 'good behavior' in the counter-proliferation world.

Congress may yet prove a stumbling block, though. The US-Russia agreement can be blocked by a joint resolution of both Houses. And more directly, such an agreement could be specifically barred by the terms of the Iran Counter-Proliferation Act, which I wrote about here just a few days ago. That legislation would preclude bilateral cooperation agreements "with Russia or with any other countries assisting Iran's nuclear or missile or advanced conventional weapons programmes."

Congress will get 90 days to assess the agreement after it's signed. So once Bush wraps up his frank discussions with Putin, he may have to start a new round with Capitol Hill.

From the Moscow Times: Chavez Lashes Out, Putin is Low Key, by Anna Smolchenko.

From CFR: Soul-Searching in Kennebunkport, by Lionel Beehner.

From Policy Review: Terrorism, the Military, and the Courts, by Benjamin Wittes.

From In From the Cold: General Cartwright's Blog, by Spook86.

From the New York Sun: Bush's Moment of Truth, by the editors.

From Edmunds: Beijing Jeep has introduced this new product, the first new vehicle for China's military in 35 years. Xinhua reports that the Chinese military will also be getting new uniforms to go along with their new rides.

In what has become something of an annual ritual, the House of Representatives yesterday approved an amendment to appropriations legislation to expand commerce with Cuba. But while the House has voted every year since 1999 either to lift the embargo or the travel ban, this year it limited itself to an important technical change that would kick start farm exports to the island dictatorship:

By voice vote, the House adopted an amendment by Jerry Moran, R-Kan., that would block the Treasury Department from enforcing a rule that has effectively limited agricultural sales to Cuba. The rule requires payments for U.S. goods to be made before a ship leaves port. It replaced an earlier regulation that allowed U.S. firms to accept payment after the goods were received in Cuba.

Moran said the current restriction is “disruptive” to the U.S. economy and hurts the country’s reputation as an exporter because it slows the flow of agricultural goods.

In a brief House floor debate on the amendment, supporters argued that Cuba is--technically--open to U.S. agricultural exports now, due to an exemption from the embargo approved in 2000. Two years ago, however, the Treasury Department began to require that Cuba pay for these goods before they are shipped.

And why is that such a problem? Because Cuba doesn't pay its bills. This is from the floor statement of Congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart, a Cuban American proponent of the existing policy:

[The 2005 amendment] stemmed from requests by U.S. financial institutions that were becoming concerned by the increasingly slow rate of payment for agricultural sales by the Cuban regime. The financial institutions requested OFAC to clarify the legislative intent of cash in advance, which is in the law, in order to protect the interests of those financial institutions on their claims.

The Cuban regime's entity in charge of agricultural purchases has an abysmal record of not paying its creditors and has been known to extort or seek to extort agricultural associations in order to increase the regime's lobbying pressure in favor of the unconditional lifting of sanctions, which is sought by the regime. The regime promises more agriculture purchases if agriculture interests lobby Congress for what the regime seeks, an end to sanctions. In effect, the opening of mass U.S. tourism and trade finance.

Currently, Mr. Chairman, the Cuban regime's foreign debt represents close to 800 percent of its GDP, and it is ranked by international credit agencies as the second worst, if not the worst, credit risk in the world. Countries throughout the world are taking extreme measures to obtain restitution for billions of dollars they are owed, which the Cuban regime refuses to pay.

It's not the change in Congressional leadership that's led Cuba trade advocates to lower their sights, according to the WEEKLY STANDARD''s own Duncan Currie. He says "there was not an anti-embargo majority when Republicans were in control; now, my guess is, there would be. But if any bill weakening Cuba sanctions reaches his desk, President Bush will veto it... he has been absolutely consistent on this issue."

And in case you think President Bush might change his mind, the 'Statement of Administration Policy' on the bill includes this rather clear statement: 'If the final version of the bill contained a provision that weakens current restrictions against Cuba, the President would veto the bill.'

So if Fidel wants to enjoy any American farm products before the good Lord takes him away, he'd better get out his checkbook.

More details have emerged on the operations in the Thar Thar region of Anbar province. Meanwhile, operations in Baghdad and Baqubah continue to evolve, while the Iraqi and U.S. recruiting and training of local police south and west of Baghdad is showing some positive results.

The 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines [3/1] are conducting clearing operations in the Thar Thar region of Anbar province. Brigadier General Charles Gurganus, the commanding general of the Ground Combat Element, Multi-National Force-West said he expected to encounter light resistance and find weapons caches and factories during an interview earlier this week.

A U.S. soldier walks past women in line waiting for the
distribution of relief supplies in Baquba, June 28, 2007.
REUTERS/Helmiy al-Azawi

Marines.com reported that the operation in the Thar Thar region is called China Shop, and the 3/1 found three large caches on June 25 and 26. "The first cache reportedly contained more than 121 IEDs, more than half of which were already armed. The devices included “speed bump” IEDs, often placed or buried in roads ... The second find was the largest of the three. A house search uncovered a room containing a high-explosive stack nearly three feet high draped in a United Nations flag. Battalion personnel estimate the material could have been used to construct more than 80 large IEDs ... The third cache ... [contained] various small arms munitions, a rocket-propelled grenade, 10 pressure plate IEDs and other bomb making material."

The raids against al Qaeda's network are ongoing. Coalition Forces killed three al Qaeda operatives and captured 26 during operations Friday in Fallujah, Karmah, Baghdad, and Mosul.

Kinetic operations are said to be "winding down" in Baqubah, the focal point of Operation Arrowhead Ripper in Diyala province. "With almost no hostile fire reported in days, combat operations are winding down," said Drew Brown in Stars and Stripes "The focus of the effort now is to consolidate control and persuade local residents to begin cooperating with U.S. troops and Iraqi security forces."

David Kilcullen the Senior Counterinsurgency Adviser for Multinational Forces Iraq described this phase in an update on the scope of the operation at Small War Journal. "The really decisive activity will be police work, registration of the population and counterintelligence in these areas, to comb out the insurgent sleeper cells and political cells that have 'gone quiet' as we moved in, but which will try to survive through the op and emerge later," said Kilcullen. "This will take operational patience, and it will be intelligence-led, and Iraqi government-led. It will probably not make the news (the really important stuff rarely does) but it will be the truly decisive action."

Earlier this week in Washington, I had the opportunity to sit down for an informal discussion with visiting German defense minister Franz-Josef Jung. While the mounting security risks for Germany’s more than 3,500 soldiers currently deployed in Afghanistan certainly ranked high on his political agenda, the conservative CDU minister also warned that the on-going diplomatic wrangling over the future status of Kosovo could be a source of massive international tensions. The province of Kosovo, inhabited by about two million mainly ethnic Albanian Muslims, remains in a legal limbo since being run as a UN protectorate following NATO’s March 1999 bombing campaign that drove out then-Yugoslav strong man Slobodan Milosevic.

Today, many European political leaders fear that a potential unilateral declaration of independence by Kosovo, without UN Security Council backing and subsequently recognized by Washington, would not only do serious harm to relations with Russia but could also drive a wedge through the 27-nation EU. In the nightmare scenario, some EU members (like the UK) would follow the U.S. lead and recognize an independent Kosovo while others (Greece, Cyprus, Bulgaria, etc.) would continue to support the government in Belgrade, which views an independent Kosovo as a blatant violation of Serbia’s territorial integrity. The remaining EU members--including key powers such as Germany, France, and Italy--would suddenly be caught in the middle of an ugly, damaging international "recognition race" over Kosovo.

In February this year, UN special envoy Martti Ahtisaari presented a status proposal that would, in essence, put Kosovo on track for eventual statehood and independence under temporary EU supervision. For instance, while Ahtisaari’s plan carefully avoids the word "independence," it gives Kosovo the right to negotiate and conclude international agreements, establish a Kosovo Security Force, and adopt national symbols. Serbia is firmly opposed to Kosovo’s independence and has already rejected the Ahtisaari proposal. Moscow, for its part, has made clear that it would veto any UN Security Council resolution that would impose a settlement on Belgrade. While the Kosovo political leadership has reluctantly embraced the Ahtisaari plan, the province’s prime minister Agim Ceku, has already warned that Kosovo would declare independence unilaterally if Russia blocked a UN Security Council resolution enforcing the plan: "We can't wait anymore. Every day of delay means an increase in frustration and a loss of legitimacy."

The idea of granting independence (if necessary against the objections of Belgrade and Moscow) to Kosovo increasingly resonates among top Bush administration officials and influential lawmakers from both parties on Capitol Hill. During his June 10 visit to Albania, Kosovo’s next-door neighbor and ethnic kin, President Bush came out strongly in favor of an independent Kosovo, arguing that "At some point in time, sooner rather than later, you've got to say, 'Enough is enough. Kosovo is independent.'"

Today President Bush made his first trip to Rhode Island, to speak at the Naval War College regarding the war in Iraq. With the final elements of the surge having arrived in Iraq just a few weeks ago, Operation Phantom Thunder has begun. The president highlighted the successes so far:

Last September, Anbar was all over the news. It was held up as an example of America's failure in Iraq. The papers cited a leaked intelligence report that was pessimistic about our prospects there. One columnist summed it up this way: "The war is over in Anbar province, and the United States lost."

About the same time some folks were writing off Anbar, our troops were methodically clearing Anbar's capital city of Ramadi of terrorists, and winning the trust of the local population. In parallel with these efforts, a group of tribal sheiks launched a movement called "The Awakening" -- and began cooperating with American and Iraqi forces. These sheiks, these leaders were tired of murder and tired of mayhem that al Qaeda had brought to their towns and communities. They knew exactly who these folks were.

To capitalize on this opportunity, I sent more Marines into Anbar. And gradually they have been helping the locals take back their province from al Qaeda.

These operations are showing good results. Our forces are going into parts of Anbar where they couldn't operate before. With the help of Iraqi and coalition forces, local Sunni tribes have driven al Qaeda from most of Ramadi -- and attacks there are now down to a two-year low. Recruiting of Iraqi police forces now draws thousands of candidates, compared to a few hundred just a few months ago. This month, Anbar opened its first police academy. And as the slide shows, overall attacks in Anbar are sharply down from this time last year...

To the north of Baghdad, our forces have surged into Diyala province. The primary focus is the provincial capital of Baqubah, which is just an hour's car ride from Baghdad. There, masked gunmen enforce their brutal rule with prisons and torture chambers and punish crimes like smoking.

In one building, our forces discovered a medical facility for the terrorists that tells us the enemy was preparing itself for a sustained and deadly fight. They had burrowed in. There was no resistance. They were trying to export their violence to the capital. Iraqi and American troops are now fighting block by block. The colonel leading the assault says we have denied al Qaeda a major bastion. The city is cleared. The challenge, of course, is going to be for coalition and Iraqi forces to keep it that way. But we're making progress in Operation Phantom Thunder....

Today I had the opportunity to speak with Ambassador Larry Butler, deputy assistant secretary for Near Eastern Affairs at State Department, about the progress of Operation Phantom Thunder. (McQ did as well.) Like the president, Butler stressed the success to date in Anbar, which has been largely deserted by Al Qaeda leading to a dramatic drop in attacks. He also talked about the increased ability of Iraqi troops to 'pull their weight,' mentioning the three brigades sent by President Maliki to work with U.S. troops in Sadr City.

Butler spent some time discussing the Provincial Reconstruction Teams--the military/civilian outreach teams whose work with 'ordinary Iraqis' is key both to rebuilding Iraq and increasing trust in the US. The positive experience with the PRTs and their good work has led to a doubling of the number of teams operating in Iraq, with more still to follow. It's also expected that the teams themselves will expand from units of four people to units of between ten and 20, 'leveraging' the power of the United States to make a difference in Iraq.

All-in-all, Butler stressed the promise of Operation Phantom Thunder to bring Iraq back from the brink.

Baghdad and the Belts. Red bordered units identified as active in offensive operations. Click map to view.

Iraqi and Coalition forces continue to maintain the pressure against al Qaeda, Sunni insurgents, and the "rogue," Iranian backed "secret cells" of the Mahdi Army and the Qazali network. Operation Phantom Thunder is underway inside Baghdad and the Belts, as well as against al Qaeda's network nationwide. Also, the northwestern region of Iraq has been a focus of U.S. and Iraqi operations. The simultaneous operations to pressure al Qaeda's network are occurring in all theaters throughout Iraq. An update on each theater is provided below.

Coalition forces continue to strike at al Qaeda's leadership cells. Multinational Forces Iraq confirmed two senior al Qaeda operatives were killed on June 23. "Mehmet Yilmaz, also known as Khalid al-Turki, was a known terrorist and senior leader in al-Qaeda who operated a cell that facilitated the movement of foreign fighters into Iraq for al-Qaeda operations," Multinational Forces Iraq reported. Yilmaz was a global terrorist, with roots back to Pakistan. "Yilmaz was an al-Qaeda leader who led a group of Turks to Afghanistan in 2001 to fight against Coalition Forces. Intelligence reports indicate he was wounded in the fighting there and went to Pakistan for treatment, where he was captured by the government in 2004 and deported to Turkey. He was released in late 2005 and returned to al-Qaeda operations in 2006, moving his operations to Iraq."

Coalition forces also killed Mehmet Resit Isik, also known as Khalil al-Turki. Isik was "a close associate of Yilmaz who was assessed to be a courier for the same al-Qaeda cell and a close associate of Yilmaz and senior leaders within al-Qaeda."

Two al Qaeda operatives were killed and two captured in raids on Tuesday in Bayji, Mosul, and Baghdad. Wednesday's raids in Mosul and Baghdad resulted in six al Qaeda operatives captured. One of those captured in Mosul "is believed to have replaced the al-Qaeda emir of east Mosul after his capture May 31." Al Qaeda's Mosul network has become a focus of Coalition efforts of late. The network has regenerated since Ansar al-Sunnah merged with al Qaeda this spring.

Diyala

Eleven days after Operation Arrowhead Ripper kicked off in the provincial capital of Baqubah, Coalition and Iraqi forces have been conducting operations throughout the province. In Baqubah, "at least 60 al-Qaida operatives have been killed, 74 have been detained, 31 weapons caches have been discovered, 81 improvised explosive devices have been destroyed and 18 booby-trapped structures have been destroyed," since the start of Arrowhead Ripper, Multinational Forces Iraq reported.

Coalition and Iraqi forces have also distributed "approximately 265,000 pounds of rice and flour ... handed out over 10,000 vegetarian humanitarian rations, and thousands of bottles of water." An al Qaeda warehouse "filled with food seized by al-Qaeda from Government of Iraq food shipments to the city" was found by Iraqi troops in the Khatoon neighborhood.

A joint Iraqi and U.S. operation in Muqdadiyah and the Hamrin mountains resulted in the capture of 18 al Qaeda fighters, while Iraqi soldiers captured five al Qaeda operatives in an operation in nearby Balad Ruz. Two "gunmen" were killed during a raid near Al Thurah, north of Muqdadiyah. In Khalis, Iraqi Police intervened after two villages staged a battle that resulted in four killed and 19 wounded.

The North (Mosul/Salahadin/Tikrit)

In addition to the operations in Diyala and the raids against al Qaeda's network in Mosul, the northern theater has seen an increase in operational tempo from Iraqi and U.S. security forces. With operations ongoing inside Baghdad and in the belts, this region is the natural fall-back position for the terror network.

The Washington Post reports today that the Chinese government quietly dispatched its vice foreign minister to meet with representatives of several presidential campaigns last week:

One of China's top government officials reached out to the leading U.S. presidential contenders last week, holding an unpublicized meeting with several of their top foreign policy advisers during a visit to Washington for high-level talks with Bush administration officials.

Among those present for the dinner with Vice Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo on June 19, according to people familiar with the encounter, were top advisers to Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), former senator John Edwards (D-N.C.), Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney (R)...

By several accounts, the meeting was generally cordial, with Dai listing many areas of potential cooperation and warning the participants that they should not rock the boat on the status of Taiwan, which remains of paramount concern to Beijing.

Wary about pressure from U.S. politicians for China to ease controls on the fluctuation of its currency, Dai made a case for the benefits of expanding economic ties between the two countries, the sources said.

Dai also told the small group that China was interested in helping to stop the violence in Darfur but added that the 2008 Olympics in Beijing should not be held hostage to the issue. Some of the presidential contenders, including New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D), have suggested that the U.S. consider boycotting the Games if China does not do more to pressure Khartoum over the issue.

This is an interesting indication of China improving the way it 'plays the game' in DC. By opening lines of communication early, and establishing relationships with key advisers, the Chinese government might hope to improve upon what could already be considered a remarkably smooth relationship, given all the irritants between the two countries. One wonders how much more of this must go on than meets the eye.

There are many nations who would like to improve their relations with the United States, and who might see the upcoming presidential transition as a good opportunity to do that. Which ones might now be reaching out--in a less obtrusive way--to the nascent campaigns?

It's also interesting that among the 'top tier candidates,' Giuliani was the only one not to send a representative. Perhaps Giuliani is the real China hawk among the candidates for 2008, even if our friends over at The American Scene seem to think that title belongs to McCain--they claim they won't "be shocked if McCain got us into a war with China." Go figure.

The good folks over at the New York Times finally got around to taking a look at Indoctrinate U in the education section yesterday. As we might have expected, the Times’s take on the film was less than flattering--indeed, the author seems to use Evan Coyne Maloney’s film as little more than an introductory device to tell us how few restrictions are placed on free speech on campus.

Maloney has done a fine job dismantling the Times piece, which went so far as to praise university administrators for reopening newspapers they'd previously shut-down for what they perceived as objectionable political content:

Oddly, one of the examples cited in the article (but not the film) was the case of a student paper published by Vassar’s Moderate, Independent and Conservative Student Alliance. The paper was de-funded and shut down for a year after publishing a piece criticizing the school’s funding of special “social centers” for minority and gay students. But because the paper was eventually allowed to start publishing again--the following year--the Vassar case is presented as one in which “[u]ltimately, free speech was respected.”

Sorry, but shutting down a paper for a year is not a benign event, and it is certainly not one in which we can say “free speech was respected.” If Homeland Security shut down the Times for a year after exposing ways that we track terrorist financing, I’m sure they’d understand my position on this.

I’ve already written up my own thoughts on the film, so I won’t go into it any more here. But it is useful to contrast the treatment this documentary received with that of another controversial flick making the rounds: Sicko. A.O. Scott reviewed the new Michael Moore picture for the Times in a modestly celebratory manner. While Maloney’s film is dismissed as “just a pastiche of notorious events,” Moore’s is praised for making an “argument [that] is illustrated with anecdotes and statistics--terrible stories about Americans denied medical care or forced into bankruptcy to pay for it; grim actuarial data about life expectancy and infant mortality; damning tallies of dollars donated to political campaigns.”

Those interested in seeing some other “anecdotes and statistics” that argue America’s health care “crisis” is overblown and that socialized medicine is dangerous to your health can check out Free Market Cure, a project brought to us by one of the primary financiers of Indoctrinate U, Stuart Browning.

From THE DAILY STANDARD: American by Choice, by Peter W. Schramm.

From AEI: To Be, or Not to Be . . . an Empire, by Gary J. Schmitt.

From the Washington Times: Another Great Wall, by Senator Wayne Allard.

From National Review: Surging to Defeat, by J .D. Johannes.

From the Orlando Sentinel: Hone U.S. Message of Freedom, by Senator John McCain.

From Pacific Air Forces: EIELSON AIR FORCE BASE, Alaska--A moose strolls past 18th Fighter Squadron F-16s on the flightline here June 22.

Spc. Luke McMahan, 22, of Mountain View, Ark., talks
to children gathered around his Humvee in the Baghdad
neighborhood of Ghazaliyah. By Jim Michaels, USA TODAY

A front page piece by Jim Michaels in USA Today seems to tell a story of measured success in a neighborhood where the effects of the surge are finally starting to be felt. Michaels writes about a Coalition combat outpost in Ghazaliyah, in western Baghdad.

When this combat outpost, named Casino, was established in January, Ghazaliyah was a battleground. Shiite militias had pushed Sunnis from their homes in this predominantly Sunni neighborhood. That drove many Sunnis to al-Qaeda, concentrated in southern Ghazaliyah, for protection.

Streets were empty and stores closed. Gunfire crackled around the outpost each day. U.S. forces would find 15 bodies a day in the area, many of them victims of sectarian killings, said Joyce, of Garden City, N.Y.

"Now we have a bad day (when we) find one," Joyce said.

It's not all happy news. Michaels points out that "the outposts have made civilians safer but often have exposed American troops to more danger." But as far as reducing the level of sectarian violence, the piece provides anecdotal evidence--which is well supported by the numbers coming out of Iraq--that increased force levels are starting to make a positive difference on the security situation there. As to whether the Iraqis are able to capitalize on those improved conditions, James Nickolas, commander of the battalion that established the outposts in Ghazaliyah, tells Michaels "he's not sure that's been taken advantage of." But this new strategy was never a guarantee of political success, it was designed to create the kind of favorable conditions that might allow for such success. And it looks as if that is exactly what is happening.

It's rare that Republicans and Democrats can agree on anything in Washington. But the fight over Iran's nuclear ambitions shows that even when they do come together, that doesn't guarantee that the White House will jump on board as well.

Yesterday, the House Foreign Affairs Committee passed legislation sanctioning countries that invest in Iran--particularly in that nation's energy sector. Specifically, the Iran Counter Proliferation Act repeals the administration's authority to waive penalties under the Iran Sanctions Act, blocks the import of all Iranian products, provides for the designation of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist group, and increases funds for the Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence.

While the legislation was adopted by an eye-catching vote of 37-1, it's opposed by the Bush administration, which argues that it would undercut multilateral efforts--particularly the sanctions imposed by the U.N. Security Council. Anticipating that it would rattle some cages in European capitals, bill sponsor (and Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman) Tom Lantos said:

Some Europeans will complain about this bill, as they complained when Iran sanctions legislation was first passed in 1996. They will point out that Secretary of State Albright essentially agreed not to impose Iran-related sanctions against the European Union in 1998. But 1998 is a long time ago.

In 1998, many European leaders were still holding out hope that Iran's nuclear efforts were strictly geared toward peaceful energy use. By now every single European leader fully understands, and acknowledges, that Iran is hell-bent on acquiring nuclear weapons. So it is time for Europeans' actions to catch up with their perceptions. It is time for Europe to cease investing in Iran's energy industry, and our legislation will facilitate that result.

Heritage Foundation Research Fellow for Middle Eastern Affairs Jim Phillips, who has written on the merits of stronger sanctions, says that the Bush administration policy in this area has been similar to that of its predecessors. It's been focused more on not 'rocking the boat' with regard to our allies than it has rocking the boat of Iran's Mullahs. He adds, though, that the strong vote for the measure in committee is indicative of its broad support in the House. He noted that given the large number of cosponsors (nearly 300) the administration may be forced to compromise, or see a veto overridden.

While Lantos's spokesmen did not return a request for comment this afternoon (we will update if he does), typically legislation with this level of support is promptly scheduled for floor consideration. It would be no surprise if this measure is headed for Senate consideration as early as July.

And while the Bush administration may regard this measure as too provocative, there are Bush administration alumni who favor even tougher measures to block Iran's nuclear ambitions.

For more information on Iran sanctions, read this CRS backgrounder on the Iran (& Libya) Sanctions Act, or check out Heritage's Iran Briefing Room.

Over at The Danger Room, Noah Shachtman managed to score an interview with Dr. David Kilcullen, chief counterinsurgency adviser to General David Petraeus. Kilcullen seems to have taken a special interest in the power of the blog, posting regular contributions to the blog run by the Small Wars Journal, the most recent of which can be found here, and participating in the OSD's series of blogger conference calls--excerpts of that conversation can be found here.

Kilcullen tells Shachtman that the walls that have been constructed throughout Baghdad to stem the flow of insurgents and militias from one neighborhood to the next have put the Coalition "in a position to move against the [insurgent] havens."

"The point of the walls was to structure the environment, to hold the city and keep it safe," he tells DANGER ROOM. "It's like [keeping] guard inside a concrete building, instead of in the middle of a field... You don't need vast maneuver forces to do it... It's the principle of economy of force."

Now that the eleven sets of walls across Baghdad have been built -- "controlling access, preventing attacks on the community, and preventing attacks from being launched on someone else," Kilcullen says -- "we're now in a position to move against the [insurgent] havens."

"Murders and sectarian killings have dropped 63%" in Baghdad's Adhamiya neighborhood, since the wall has been put in place, he claims. Residents are "thrilled."

Go read the whole thing.

A picture shows a wall made of concrete blocks, which separates Baghdad's
al-Adhamiyah district from a neighboring Shiite area in east Baghdad.
Wisam Sami/AFP

From THE DAILY STADNARD: Lugar's Plan B, by Fred Barnes.

From the Philadelphia Inquirer: A volunteer eyewitness to the hidden side of war, by Edward Colimore.
(HT Ares)

From National Review: Confessions of a Cheney Fan, by Jonah Goldberg.

From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: The Lesson of History: Persevere, by Senator Kit Bond.

From the Washington Post: An Exit to Disaster, by Michael Gerson.

Dean Barnett writes the definitive post on today's Times poll on the attitudes of Americans aged 17-29. Barnett notes that the poll was cosponsored "by that most reputable of news agencies," MTV, and then informs readers that he will analyze the numbers himself, "unguided by Adam [Nagourney's] insights."

Once again, I haven’t read Nagourney’s coverage, but I assume his lead derives from the results to this tendentious question:

50. Which do you think would be better for the country: 1. Having one health insurance program covering all Americans that would be administered by the government and paid for by taxpayers, OR 2. Keeping the current system where many people get their insurance from private employers and some have no insurance.

62% of the kids would opt for the socialist experiment of a single payer system. In a way, I guess this is good. I think it was Churchill who said “If you’re not a communist when you’re young, you have no heart. If you’re still a communist when you’re old, you have no brain.” Good to see the kids have their hearts in the right place, even if the phrasing of the question drove them to that particular place.

What I found really interesting about the poll was Question 62. The question in question asked, “As a result of the United States' military action against Iraq, do you think the United States is more safe from terrorism, less safe from terrorism, or hasn't it made any difference?”

31% said “more safe”, 19% said “less safe”, 47% said “no difference” and 2% said “don’t know.” All I can say is, “Huh?” After being pounded over their young heads for half a decade that Iraq has been a fiasco on every level, the kids lean in the direction that it has made us more safe? Maybe the headline to this poll should be, “Old media’s influence increasingly marginalized.”

Go read the whole thing--it doesn't get better than Barnett writing on "the self-esteem generation."

It looks like earmarking continues to run rampant--even in defense bills. The Politico reports:

Just how open and honest the reformed process is can be seen in the new Department of Defense authorization bill that came out of the House Armed Services Committee in May. It did list 449 earmarks -- in small, unreadable print--costing $7.6 billion, but the list was incomplete. An astute watchdog group, Taxpayers for Common Sense, found 53 additional, unlisted earmarks costing $744 million.

When the Senate Armed Services Committee reported out its different version of the bill, S. 1547, it listed 309 earmarks costing $5.6 billion. When it comes up for debate in the Senate, 200 or more amendments will be introduced. About half of those amendments will be for home-state projects that for some reason the committee did not add during its initial review process.

During the week or two the Senate will take to consider the bill, there will be debates, some of them interesting, on the great issues of the day: the war in Iraq, nuclear nonproliferation, the worn-out U.S. Army and more. Interspersed through those debates will be strange presentations by Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (Mich.) and the ranking Republican, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.). They will be reading off procedural motions, calling up amendments and passing them by "unanimous consent"; they will do this time after time, sometimes passing as many as 20 amendments in one sequence. The amendments will not be debated; they may not even be described.

There's a reason why these items will receive such little scrutiny: They are the pork amendments. The senators pressing them will have "cleared" them with Levin and McCain. Then the amendments will go through the arcane but well-oiled approval process, with utterly no debate -- all in what calls itself the "world's greatest deliberative body..."

Let me stipulate at the start that defense bills often contain meritorious earmarks. There are more than a few worthwhile defense programs that receive funding by specific order of Congress.

That said, there's something disconcerting about defense bill that contain hundreds--or even thousands--of earmarks. If there are that many important programs not receiving funding from the Defense Department, then Congress ought to be looking into procurement as a whole, not just cramming pet projects into appropriations bills.

Le Bourget
The 47th running of the biennial Paris Air Show closed as it always does. Huge crowds on the public days of the last weekend, an air display of fighter and commercial aircraft, and dozens of vendors hawking baseball caps, t-shirts, jackets, refrigerator magnets, and plush toys with the air show’s logo plastered on them.

This year’s air show motif was a sign of how the industry views itself in the present day. Instead of going for some ultra-modern looking, space age logo that looks like the trademark of some hi-tech corporate behemoth, the show used a set of simple drawings that looked like cartoon aeroplanes and rocketships from a pre-schooler’s coloring book.

It is appropriate because in the aftermath of up and down fuel costs, the ripple effects on the commercial airline industry following 9/11, and the troubles at Europe’s Airbus the overall attitude of the industry is almost that of childlike optimism. “I have never seen the aerospace industry in general so upbeat,” said one executive from France’s Dassault Aviation. “It is as if people believe all of these troubles are now behind us.”

Many of the difficulties that the last few years have brought to aerospace firms worldwide may now be finished, but there are a number of potential pitfalls ahead.

Saab J39 Gripen at Le Bourget 2003 taxiing before takeoff.

The Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) is one of the most ambitious programs of its kind and involves numerous foreign partners. If it proceeds according to schedule and without overshooting its cost numbers too far it will be the most successful program in the history of modern military aviation. However, if delivery dates slip to the right or costs rise too high there could be defections.

And there are plenty of firms out there willing to step in to provide a cheaper and more readily available solution. Already Sweden’s Saab Aerospace has offered their JAS-39 Gripen fighter to Norway and Denmark to try and woo them away from the JSF. The Royal Australian Air Force opted to buy a batch of Boeing F/A-18Fs instead of waiting for its JSF’s to be delivered. The RAAF are still in the JSF program, but any further delays could see them decide to go with more F/A-18s instead.

In Europe much depends on the mammoth A380 double-decker super jumbo airliner. That program is behind schedule because of production delays and most of the companies (i.e. DHL, UPS) that had originally planned to buy a cargo version of the aircraft have cancelled their orders in favor of other options. Any hiccups here and Europe’s aerospace industry could be significantly damaged by forced layoffs and drops in share prices.

The defense business in the west has also become somewhat precarious due to its reliance on so many international alliances and interlocking companies. One of the major partners on JSF is the UK’s BAE Systems, which--it was announced today--will now be investigated by the U.S. Department of Justice in relation to continuing stories about kickbacks and other payoffs to former Saudi ambassador to the United States Prince Bandar bin-Sultan and other officials in Riyahd.

The BBC reports that "several petrol stations have been torched in the Iranian capital Tehran, after the government announced fuel rationing for private vehicles." And then adds this comment, attributed to the BBC's correspondent in Tehran, about three-quarters of the way through:

It is a dangerous move for any elected government, especially in an oil-rich country like Iran, where people think cheap fuel is their birthright and public transport is very limited, she says.

Does the BBC's correspondent believe she is working in a democratic state, or that the "elected government" of that state is running the risk of being booted out for rationing fuel? Max Boot had a good piece up at Contentions yesterday on more "Flawed Logic on Iran" from our mainstream press.

This morning the House Committee on Foreign Affairs is holding hearings on the question "Iraq: Is the Escalation Working?" The witnesses include WEEKLY STANDARD contributor Frederick W. Kagan, whose testimony is posted in its entirety at THE DAILY STANDARD. Here's an excerpt, and it's worth reading the whole thing...

But even this operation--the largest coordinated combat operation the U.S. has undertaken since the invasion in 2003--is not the decisive phase of the current strategy. It is an operation designed to set the preconditions for a successful clear-and-hold operation that will probably begin in late July or early August within Baghdad itself. That is the operation that is designed to bring security to Iraq's capital in a lasting way that will create the space for political progress that we all desire.

The U.S. has not undertaken a multi-phased operation on such a large scale since 2003, and it is not surprising therefore that many commentators have become confused about how to evaluate what is going on and how to report it. Sectarian deaths in Baghdad dropped significantly as soon as the new strategy was announced in January, and remain at less than half their former levels. Spectacular attacks rose as al Qaeda conducted a counter-surge of its own, but have recently begun falling again. Violence is down tremendously in Anbar province, where the Sunni tribes have turned against al Qaeda and are actively cooperating with U.S. forces for the first time. This process has spread from Anbar into Babil, Salah-ad-Din, and even Diyala provinces, and echoes of it have even spread into one of the worst neighborhoods in Baghdad--Ameriyah, formerly an al Qaeda stronghold. Violence has risen naturally in areas that the enemy had long controlled but in which U.S. forces are now actively fighting for the first time in many years, and the downward spiral in Diyala that began in mid-2006 continued (which is not surprising, since the Baghdad Security Plan does not aim to establish security in Diyala).

All of these trends are positive. The growing skill and determination of the Iraqi Army units fighting alongside Americans is also positive. Some Iraqi Police units have also fought well. Others have displayed sectarian tendencies and participated in sectarian actions. Political progress has been very slow--something that has clearly disappointed many who hoped for an immediate turnaround, but that is not surprising for those who always believed that it would follow, not precede or accompany, the establishment of security at least in Baghdad. And negative sectarian actors within the Iraqi Government continue to resist making necessary compromises with former foes. Overall, the basic trends are rather better than could have been expected of the operation so far, primarily because of the unanticipated stunning success in Anbar and its spread. But it remains far too early to offer any meaningful evaluation of the progress of an operation whose decisive phases are only just beginning.

Kimberly Kagan, executive director of the Institute for the Study of War, and Frederick W. Kagan, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute--both WEEKLY STANDARD contributors--have put out a great fact sheet on Operation Phantom Thunder, which Army Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno described as the end of the force build-up portion of the surge and the beginning of offensive operations. "It is an open-ended operation that will extend through the summer and will be done in conjunction with civil-military operations to support political and economic efforts," Odierno said. Click here or on the text below to download the pdf. Roggio's also got some great reporting on the operation here.

There are a lot of rumors flying around about the fate of the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. Last week the AP reported that the Bush administration was "nearing a decision to close the Guantanamo Bay detainee facility and move its terror suspects to military prisons elsewhere."

Since then, the administration has denied that any such decision is in the offing, but international pressure and a Democratic Congress are threatening to force a decision on the status of some 400 enemy combatants being held there.

It would seem that the most important question, though, is whether the facility at Guantanamo offers some advantage that would justify its decidedly negative effect on America's image abroad (after looking over poll data, I would offer that most Americans are satisfied with the status quo on this issue), and the answer, according to Alan Liotta, principle director for the Pentagon's Office of Detainee Affairs, is 'yes'. Liotta spoke to a few bloggers on a conference call this morning arranged by the office of the secretary of defense.

The WWS asked why the administration can't just close Guantanamo and move these guys somewhere else, to which Liotta responded:

If we were to bring them to the United States, we would have to put them in one of two places, either a U.S. military prison, like Leavenworth or Charleston, or in a U.S. federal penitentiary....sure we house very dangerous criminals and top mafia people, cartel leaders, and gang leaders in our penitentiary system, but we know for a fact that al Qaeda would like nothing more than to break some of their brethren out of a facility where they're being held by the United States or our allies in Iraq for that matter...we know that Guantanamo and its isolation is a huge deterrent against them being able to do that and being able to attack there. Put that facility in the middle of an American community, in Kansas or Charleston, South Carolina, and you're going to have a huge burden put upon on that local community in terms of what first responders are going to have to be geared up for and where your security is.

Of course, I wouldn't want the federal government to put the worst of the worst from the war on terror in my backyard. And Liotta says there's been "no real look" at where these prisoners might be housed if they were relocated to the U.S. Liotta used Alcatraz as an example of a U.S. prison that, while extremely isolated, could be easily observed by al Qaeda from the surrounding hills. But surely the military could construct a base in the middle of Alaska, for example, that would present al Qaeda with a similar challenge in terms of overcoming geography. To be blunt, I don't find this to be a terribly compelling argument for keeping Gitmo open--though neither is it unreasonable.

But Liotta didn't stop there. He also pointed out that detainees that are brought to the United States,

could have the full panoply of U.S. constitutional protections, which means you'd have to have a judicial hearing on them in a certain amount of time, if you couldn't have that judicial hearing in a certain amount of time, they could be released. And when they went to be released, as it is we can't return many of these people to their home countries as it is, either because the home country won't take them back or because in some instances the home country is such a place that we know they'll get tortured if they go back. So under international treaties and obligations we can't return them, so the result would be they'd be left free here in the United States....that is, from what the lawyers are telling us, a very real possibility.

Robert Bluey asked if it really matters where we put these prisoners--whether "the detention operation would be conducted in a significantly different manner in a different location." Liotta said that wherever the prisoners were held, they would be held under the same basic framework:

No, you're absolutely right...it's not so much the objections over how we treat people...that's not an issue, what people are objecting to is the overall legal framework of how we're holding people and whether you're holding people with proper due process or not and whether they should have access to the courts....Guantanamo, fairly or unfairly, and I would argue unfairly, has a taint to it...and people believe that by closing Guantanamo you could remove that taint. But I think a very real argument could be made that as long as you're not changing the basic legal construct of how we're holding them and why we believe we're entitled to hold them, no matter where you put them, you're still going to have that argument...and while the conditions of detention probably won't change at all...the mere fact that you're holding them probably would be under the same construct, and that's what people object to, particularly Europeans.

Baghdad and the Belts. Red bordered units identified as active in offensive operations. Click map to view.

As operations north of Baghdad in Baqubah and south in Babil province have taken center stage, the third theater in eastern Anbar province has received little attention in the reporting from Iraq. The reporting has been so sparse that the name of Multinational Forces West's operation has yet to be released. In an interview with Brigadier General Charles M. Gurganus, commanding general of Ground Combat Element, Multi-National Force-West, The Fourth Rail has learned the name of the operation is Fahrad Al Amin, or Operation Safety and Security.

As we noted at the opening of Operation Phantom Thunder, the focus of combat operations in eastern Anbar province includes Fallujah, the Karma region, and the desert expanse of the Thar Thar region. Brig. Gen. Gurganus confirmed this, however, he noted that Multinational Forces West did not expect to meet serious opposition in either of the three areas of focus. "I could only hope that they would stand and fight," sai Gurganus. "We should be so lucky because that is our strength."

The purpose of Fahrad Al Amin is to "make sure al Qaeda and the insurgents have no safe sanctuary where they can rest, refit, stage and plan for attacks," said Gurganus. "We want to keep any of [the] ones we have in Al Anbar form getting to and being able to joint the fight in Baghdad."

Regimental Combat Team-6 is conducting the bulk of operations in Fallujah, where Coalition and Iraqi forces are working to establish police stations and neighborhood watches in each of the 11 districts in that city.

The 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit [13th MEU], which just arrived in eastern Anbar province, is conducting operations up to the Thar Thar region. The Marines and Iraqi troops operating in the Thar Thar area are "starting to establish a relative freedom of movement up to and through the Thar Thar region." The arrival of the 13th MEU as part of the surge "gives us an opportunity to go into areas where previously we quite frankly we couldn't stretch that far and maintain a permanent presence."

The Marines operating in Thar Thar "haven't seen a lot of accurate attacks yet." They have mainly encountered indirect fire attacks and have taken some casualties from enemy IEDs. When asked if he expected a major battle in Thar Thar, Gurganus said no. "I don't expect it, I expect to continue to find IEDs, indirect attacks, they'll pop up and fire a few rounds and take off. I really do think they will look for a seam to try to squeeze out and go where there is not a coalition force presence."

the Heritage Foundation's Baker Spring and Peter Brookes led a forum on ballistic missile defense this afternoon. Spring has just authored a piece on the competing missile defense bills being considered in the House and Senate. His assessment:

The Senate Armed Services Committee's version of the National Defense Authorization Act contains two provisions that undermine progress in missile defense. The first curtails the development of a space test bed, which offers the most promise for providing an effective defense. The second creates a procedural dead end for missile defense by requiring operational tests of the system prior to the acquisition of all the components that are necessary to conduct such tests.

If these provisions become law, the American people will be deceived. The rhetoric out of Washington would lead the American people to believe that their government is committed to defending them against missile attack. The reality, however, will be that they are being provided a defense of limited effec­tiveness and subject to significant delays. The Senate needs to make good on its promise to field an effective defense against ballistic missiles.

Spring suggests that a great deal of progress has been made on missile defense since the 1980s--and not just in terms of improved technology and better prospects for success. One important development is that Democrats no longer reflexively oppose ballistic missile defense--a program which has long been perceived as a Republican effort. Instead, they show some support for it, but not enough to lead on deployment of an effective system, in fact, the support they give the program is just barely enough to conceal their reflexive opposition.

That tepid support has led to authorization measures that look good, but contain serious defects, including a potentially fatal blow to Boeing's Airborne Laser program that masquerades as a mere cutback and another funding cut that was covered here several weeks ago and which would allow for the deployment of sophisticated new radars to Eastern Europe but would block deployment of the actual interceptor missiles--Congress will let the Missile Defense Agency track missiles, it just doesn't seem too keen on shooting them down. The general tone of today's forum: to ensure that the U.S., its allies, and its interests are safe from missile attack by rogue states, Congress needs to come forward with legislation better than what's on the table right now.

Less than a month ago, People’s Daily, the organ paper of the Chinese Communist Party, announced that Sino-Japan relations had gone from "ice to nice" since the two countries’ premiers exchanged visits. This was followed by news reports that China and Japan are to step up military exchanges, beginning with a visit to Japan later this year by Chinese defense minister Cao Gangchuan and a first-ever port call by a Chinese naval ship.

Against this background, China’s official Xinhua News Agency ran an article on June 14th cautioning that Japan has achieved a major breakthrough in the development of military jumbo aircraft and has in fact overtaken China in the field.

Japan's new C-X cargo aircraft.

The article notes that Japan’s unveiling of its C-X cargo and P-X maritime patrol aircraft prototypes came shortly after China’s recent announcement of its own jumbo-aircraft program.

The article states that,

The development and manufacturing by Japan of military jumbo aircraft has a profound and lasting impact on the future aerial security in the western Pacific… The Japan Air Self-Defense Force has ordered four KC-767 aerial refueling aircraft from the United States. Once they are delivered, the range of the C-X or the P-X will increase significantly. Japan’s P-3 maritime patrol aircraft have long been stalking the airspace above the East China Sea to observe the activities of Chinese naval vessels. With the support of aerial refueling aircraft, the Japan Air Self-Defense Force will be able to spy on targets along the eastern coastal area of China for extended periods of time.

Since Beijing declared in March that "China’s dream to have self-developed jumbo aircraft is expected to come true by 2020," there has been ample coverage in official media of developments in this area, including reports on the role of private investment in the project, the selection of Shanghai and Xi’an as assembly cities for the aircraft, and possible future cooperation with Russia.

China’s aviation industry has witnessed exponential growth in recent years. In addition to the economics of satisfying marketplace demand, there is an indisputably nationalistic element to Beijing’s jumbo-aircraft program, as evidenced by this March 3rd piece in People’s Daily:

Should the development and manufacturing of the jumbo aircraft prove to be successful, its impact on the spirit of the nation will be no less significant than the "two bombs and one star," no less significant than the manned spaceship…

The "two bombs" refers to China’s successful testing of a fission bomb in 1964 and a fusion bomb just three years later. The "one star" refers to the 1970 launch and reclamation of the Dongfanghong-1 (East Is Red No. 1) satellite. And the "manned spaceship" refers to the Shenzhou V, China’s first manned spacecraft that orbited the earth 14 times in 2003.

It will be interesting to see if this latest thaw in Sino-Japanese relations survives Japan's next major industry competition to replace the country's ageing fleet of F-4 Phantoms--a competition which may have a far more dramatic effect on the regional balance of power.

The always interesting blog at Small Wars Journal has a post up today from David Kilcullen, the chief counterinsurgency adviser to General David Petraeus. Kilcullen is the man in the middle of this new strategy to secure Baghdad and its environs...it ought to go without saying that his assessment has more value than those of, say, the New York Times, but before getting into the details, Kilcullen is compelled to actually spell it out: the surge-has-failed crowd doesn't know what the heck they're talking about.

This post is not about whether current ops are “working” — for us, here on the ground, time will tell, though some observers elsewhere seem to have already made up their minds (on the basis of what evidence, I’m not really sure). But for professional counterinsurgency operators such as our SWJ community, the thing to understand at this point is the intention and concept behind current ops in Iraq: if you grasp this, you can tell for yourself how the operations are going, without relying on armchair pundits. So in the interests of self-education (and cutting out the commentariat middlemen—sorry, guys) here is a field perspective on current operations.

Needless to say, you should go read the whole thing, and if you want a little more Kilcullen, the WWS got some answers from the Aussie adviser late last month.

(HT Op-For)

From THE DAILY STANDARD: Reality Check for the Antiwar Crowd, by Pete Hegseth.

From the Washington Times: We're Losing, by Newt Gingrich.

From the Boston Globe: The Power of the Navy, by H.D.S. Greenway.

From the NC Times: Interview with Lt. Gen. James Mattis, by Mark Walker. (HT The Tank)

From Defense Tech: Iranian Techniques Tested in Iraq, by Christian Lowe.

From Murdoc: A Standard Missile (SM-3) is launched from the Aegis combat system equipped Arleigh Burke class destroyer USS Decatur (DDG 73) during a Missile Defense Agency ballistic missile flight test. Minutes later the SM-3 intercepted a separating ballistic missile threat target, launched from the Pacific Missile Range Facility, Barking Sands, Kauai, Hawaii. It was the first time such a test was conducted from a ballistic missile defense equipped-U.S. Navy destroyer.

The Hill reports today that some Congressional Democrats won't be satisfied with a withdrawal from Iraq--they want out of Afghanistan, too.

Chairman Abercrombie

Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii), a senior defense authorizer, wants the U.S. out of Afghanistan immediately, calling operations there “futile” in trying to effect political change in a country with a tangled history....

“We are finished there, militarily speaking,” said Abercrombie, the chairman of the Air and Land Armed Services subcommittee.

“There is no useful purpose for our troops there,” Abercrombie stated in a recent interview. “The military should withdraw now,” he said, though he stressed that the U.S. could keep “isolated pockets” of special operators.

Instead of using the military to effect political change, the U.S. should have a complete diplomatic re-engagement in the region, “with an understanding that our role there should change,” Abercrombie added.

Abercrombie isn't just a fringe figure in the Democratic party. He's the chairman of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Air and Land Forces, which has oversight responsibility for U.S. Army and Air Force operations, budget, and equipment and weapons systems procurement. He is also a member of the Seapower and Expeditionary Forces Subcommittee, which oversees the Department of the Navy, including the United States Marine Corps.

Another Democratic Rep. who sounded off to the Hill:

Diane Watson (D-Calif.), a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee and a staunch opponent of the war in Iraq, said that it is time for the U.S. military to start leaving Afghanistan and the Middle East altogether.

“We are not securing America by being there,” she pressed. “The longer we are there, the more plots start growing in our country.”

Does she forget that 9/11, the bombing of the USS Cole, the embassy attacks, and the first World Trade Center attack were all plotted long before we arrived in that country. It's only since U.S. forces have taken the fight to Afghanistan that we've seen those attacks stop.

And what exactly would this withdrawal look like? The Hill quotes Dana Balicki, a spokesmen for Code Pink, the womynist antiwar group.

“We should push for peace talks in the area with all groups that have power.”

Maybe we can send Mz. Balicki herself to have a powwow "with all groups that have power" in Afghanistan. These "groups"--and I assume she's talking about the Taliban and al Qaeda--consider women little more than chattel, to say nothing of the fantasy that these fanatics might be interested in any type of settlement that would be acceptable to the American people. Abercrombie is also pushing for "diplomatic engagement," but with who, and to what end? What concessions do they think we might get?

This message was repudiated by Reid and Pelosi, who continue to point to the war in Afghanistan as "the real war on terror." But if American forces pull out of Iraq, one wonders how long it would be before the Dem leadership tried to pull the plug on Afghanistan, too. As Dennis Kucinich tells the Hill:

“Once we show that we can handle a successful resolution of withdrawing troops from Iraq, it will be easier to shift direction in Afghanistan,” said Kucinich. “There is a sequence of events … get out of Iraq and then we must focus on getting out of Afghanistan.”

The Washington Post's Richard Cohen makes a point that has been brought up several times here--that the Democratic presidential candidate might suffer in 2008 from a perceived weakness on defense:

The history I have in mind is 1972. By the end of that year, 56,844 Americans had been killed in Vietnam, a war that almost no one thought could still be won and that no one could quite figure out how to end. Nevertheless, the winner in that year's presidential election was Richard M. Nixon. He won 49 of 50 states--and the war, of course, went on. Just as it is hard to understand how the British ousted Winston Churchill after he had led them to victory in Europe in World War II, so it may be hard now to appreciate how Nixon won such a landslide while presiding over such a dismal war...

This is where history raises its ugly head. The GOP is adept at painting Democrats as soft on national security. It is equally adept at saying so in the most scurrilous way. And while most Americans would like the war to end, they do not favor a precipitous withdrawal and neither have they forgotten Sept. 11, 2001 -- the entirety of Giuliani's case for the presidency, after all.

Will history trump the polls? It will if, as in the past, the Democratic Party so wounds itself fighting the war against the war, it nominates a candidate beloved by a minority but mistrusted by a majority. It has happened before.

Cohen notes some significant distinctions between then and now. In particular, he points out that the Vietnam War had more public support in 1972 than the Iraq conflict does now. He also repeats the liberal trope that the Swift Boat criticisms of Kerry were unfair (though they were demonstrably true). Last and perhaps most importantly, he seems to believe that the mere fact of having served in the military should exempt Democratic veterans from having to defend their records, as well as their views about current and future conflicts. (I am unaware that Cohen has argued that similar protection should be extended to leaders such as Senator McCain.)

These points aside, Cohen is right. In their race to repudiate the Iraq war and similar conflicts, Democrats are in serious danger of losing their credibility on similar and related threats. Consider the case of Iran. U.S. and foreign intelligence agencies believe that Iran continues to strive to produce nuclear weapons, which would constitute a serious threat to U.S. interests and allies. How will the American public react to a the nominee of a party whose base is demanding (and whose candidates are promising) no military action in the face of such a threat?

At the Musee de l’Air et de l'Espace.
A Spitfire from the 340 Squadron of the Free French Air Force.

The French really know how to put together a great museum. And I’m not referring to the Louvre. France’s Musee de l’Air et de l'Espace, that country's equivalent to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, is tucked away in a corner of Le Bourget airfield and it’s a shame that it goes unnoticed when the Air Show is in full swing. It's a hidden treasure, worthy of the short trip from Paris even when Le Bourget's bi-annual mega-event isn’t going on next door. But eclipsed by the monstrous corporate chalets, exhibition halls, static displays, and the actual flying itself, the museum was virtually empty as I took my time to wander among the displays.

Unlike its Washington, D.C. counterpart, this museum is cluttered with replicas and original aircraft spanning more than a century of aviation history. The faddish “interactive” displays that plague so many modern museums have been avoided, allowing the planes alone to steal the show. Even the obligatory special exhibit on the “female pioneers” of aviation was tasteful insofar as it was small and off to the side.

The museum is organized into several different halls, each with its own theme--aviation’s early history, the French Air Force, space exploration, etc. The best displays by far featured vintage aircraft from the two World Wars. Living in America, it’s easy to forget how important the American P-51 Mustang and RAF Spitfire were to protecting life and property, or how a dog-fight or fleet of long-range bombers could provide a grim sort of entertainment in the skies.

My only complaint is the lack of English on most of the museum signage, but after overcoming a compulsive desire to read and learn about each interesting display, simply admiring the planes was a more than satisfactory experience. Given the choice of watching F-16s and MiG-29s dance artistically overhead or spending time walking the museum’s halls, paying tribute to the planes and innovators that have brought aviation to its present state is worth the sacrifice.

With the traditional Boeing-Airbus foodfight dominating the news coverage of the biennial Paris Air Show, one of the stand-out companies that receives less attention than it deserves is Brazil’s Empresa Brasileira de Aeronáutica S.A., or Embraer, as it is more commonly known.

Embraer jet and propeller-driven aircraft are in use all over the world, although many people do not realize they are flying on a Brazilian product. As a corporation it is the jewel in Brazil’s industrial crown, employing a workforce of 19,265 people, and enjoying a backlog of firm orders totaling $14.8 billion.

Currently Embraer has the third largest yearly delivery of commercial aircraft (behind Boeing and Airbus) and the fourth largest workforce (behind Boeing, Airbus and Bombardier). One of the largest users of Embraer aircraft is the American carrier JetBlue.

Embraer's headquarters, main production facilities, and engineering/design offices are in São José dos Campos, in the Brazilian state of São Paulo. (Embraer employees from São Paulo state are known as Paulistas. They tend to look down on the Cariocas from Rio de Janeiro--saying that they do not know how to work. Cariocas return the favour by accusing those from São Paulo state of being too “up tight.”) The company also manufactures major components and conducts flight testing at a production plant in Gavião Peixoto, São Paulo state. This facility has some of the most modern tooling available from Kawasaki Heavy Industries in Japan and includes a 16,400 foot runway.

The company has an interesting history. It first started producing commercial planes in the early 1970s. “At the time,” said one Embraer executive, “a lot of people laughed at us or asked what the hell we were thinking about. They would say ‘how can they even think of trying to build aircraft in this third--maybe even fifth-world country’ and predicted we would never last.”

But the Brazilan planemaker did last, surviving near-death in the economic crisis of the 1990s in Brazil, when they went down to about 3,000 employees. Today they are one of the best aerospace companies in the business, and their 190 model commuter airliner is only slightly smaller than--and just as popular as--the Boeing 737.

Even less noticed is the company’s defense division, which at times has kept the Brazilian Air Force’s older model Northrop F-5s up to date and has designed a series of airborne early warning and surveillance platforms. Without Embraer’s product line the Brazilian Air Force would be unable to patrol and keep drug traffickers from slipping across into the Amazonia.

The Embraer Super Tucano.

Most interesting of all, this Brazilian powerhouse may be the key to the U.S. being able to gain the upper hand against the insurgency in Iraq. U.S. fighter aircraft makers produce primarily jets--too fast for the close-in fighting that counterinsurgency demands. Helicopters can get in low and fly slow, but they have limited range and cannot get up to speed to move from one spot on the battlefield to another. Embraer’s answer is the Super Tucano, a street-tough, two-seat propeller-driven fighter that looks like a cross between the World War II P-51 Mustang and the Douglas A-1 Skyraiders that were used as search-and-rescue “Sandies” in Vietnam to extract downed pilots. But unlike these aeroplanes of old the Super Tucano is stuffed full of the most modern displays and avionics. It can drop a precision-guided bomb down an air shaft as easily as one of the jet-propelled fast movers can, and it can datalink to any number of sensor platforms to be guided in to a target. It is Brazilian know-how at its best and most innovative.

Georgia governor Sonny Perdue gets a look inside the Super Hornet.

The U.S. military presence at the Paris Air Show this year is larger than at any other time during the Bush administration. A Navy LT who preferred not to reveal his name spoke with me about this and more while we walked the DoD's static display of U.S. aircraft. An F/A-18 Super Hornet pilot based in Oceana, Virginia, the LT was frequently interrupted by the demands of high-profile visitors curious to see the inside of the aircraft's cockpit. After Georgia governor Sonny Perdue was satisfied, a former Soviet MiG pilot and Moldovan minister of defense now serving as that country's ambassador to NATO carefully examined the F/A-18 Super Hornet's components. I didn't detect a spy-camera, but I did ask his Boeing chaperone if Moldova is in the market for fighter jets. The well-meaning exec chuckled as he motioned to a nearby HARM air-to-ground missile. "They can't even afford one of those," he said, let alone a strike fighter like the Super Hornet.

After the VIPs took off, the pilot explained that he was pulling double duty in France--in addition to the standard DoD role, he also claimed a responsibility to help Boeing, the F/A-18's manufacturer, sell airplanes. But the LT had one more self-assigned, unofficial mission: to elevate the sagging reputation of the United States here in France. And he also offered a stunning defense of the French people, who he claimed are completely misrepresented back in the States. According to him, the French are friendly, speak more English than they used to--which he said is a shame and evidence of the destructive power of our pervasive culture--and have been much better war-time allies than we give them credit for. We say the LT's entitled to his opinion on this matter, but his wife, a WEEKLY STANDARD subscriber he confides, might disagree.

Getting back to the aircraft, the LT--perhaps in his capacity as a flack for the F/A-18--said the manufacturers are responsive to the concerns and demands of the pilots who have to fly their planes. When another Oceana-based squadron experienced an ejection mishap, Boeing was quick to help rectify the potentially-fatal problem. And when the F-14 was about to be decommissioned by the U.S. Navy, Northrop still put out "100 percent effort," making repairs to the bitter end.

The Paris Air Show was graced today with the presence of international superstar John Travolta, who appeared to draw a far larger crowd than the show's other star, the Airbus A380--and he certainly drew a larger crowd of photographers. To be honest, after I took out my binoculars to see what all the fuss was about, I still had no idea who he was and just assumed he drove Formula One cars or some other such thing. Well, now we know who he is, and here's the picture taken by WEEKLY STANDARD deputy editor/paparazzi photographer Richard Starr.

Thursday Afternoon Fever

The crowds at Le Bourget are overwhelming, as is the traffic inside the show, which is almost entirely comprised of high-end model Mercedes-Benzes. Here you can see the crush in between two rows of corporate chalets just off the main runway.

The French Mirage 2000 is seen here landing after putting on an exciting aerial display.

There are probably upwards of five thousand models on display at the Paris Air Show across the air field's six exhibition halls--the event is a model-builders dream.

Finally, our daily dose of the babes of Le Bourget. This installment comes straight from the Far East--on a jet airplane we presume.

Truth is stranger than fiction--or so the saying goes. Nothing illustrates this more than the intersection of arms salesmen, government spokesmen, press reporting and a series of mysterious events leading up to the Paris Air Show at Le Bourget.

In the first week of March, Ivan Safranov, a retired Russian colonel and correspondent for the last decade at the Moscow newspaper Kommersant, was found dead outside of his apartment building. Questions raised about several aspects of his death still remain unanswered.

Putin's next big customer?

Safranov lived on the third floor of his building, but he had for some reason fallen from the fifth floor. He was fully clothed and wearing an overcoat, as if he had just returned from a trip to the market. A bag of mandarins was found scattered on the ground near his body. When he landed on the ground he had hit headfirst, which one tends not to do unless they are already unconscious at the time of their fall. Needless to say, if he was unconscious he could not have jumped from the window of the fifth floor without having been “assisted” in the process.

Not surprisingly, the Russian prosecutors assigned to the case wanted to rule his death a suicide, despite all of the evidence to the contrary.

Safranov had made a name for himself by investigating stories related to arms sales and the defense industrial complex in Russia. In the past he had been visited by officers from the Federal Security Service (FSB) demanding to know how he had come to have possession of the information contained in his articles.

Just prior to his death he had been working on a story about how Russia intended to sell advanced military aircraft and other weapon systems to Iran. In order to avoid any unpleasantness, the plan was to ship these aircraft through a third country--either Belarus or Syria--so that Russia’s arms export agency monopoly, Rosoboronexport (ROE), could claim plausible deniability for the sale.

Fast forward to this week’s show at Le Bourget. Russia’s Kommersant newspaper reported on Tuesday that ROE were preparing to deliver five Mikoyan MiG-31E fighter aircraft to Syria, as well as an undetermined number of MiG-29M/M2 fighters, in a deal worth more than $1 billion. The MiG-29M/M2 aircraft would be new production models, but the MiG-31Es would be used Russian air force aircraft refurbished and upgraded at the Sokol plant in Nizhni-Novgorod, Russia.

The F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter is by all accounts an awesome aircraft. Stealthy, speedy, and offered in three variants to satisfy the varied requirements of the Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps, it represents the future of fixed-wing aircraft for the U.S. military. As the Lockheed spokespersons emphasized at today's briefing on the plane, the F-35 will also be a major force in the international market. Understandably, we looked forward to learning some new information at today's "special event." And though my hopes for a juicy announcement went unfulfilled, Lockheed did manage to provide a surprising and alternative form of entertainment--as the saying goes, no plan survives initial contact with the enemy, or in this case, the public affairs staff.

The best art we've seen in Paris.

As we waited for the event to begin, the industry reps put on a short documentary chronicling the JSF's maiden flight. The dramatic music and camera-work was intended to tug at the heart strings--indeed, seeing this superb fighter airborne and performing basic maneuvers triggered thoughts of how not too long from now we might be watching the JSF perform at Le Bourget. A Lockheed executive said the video gave him chills. But this emotional roller coaster was far from over.

The JSF is stunning, and apparently so much so that Lockheed commissioned nine paintings for each of the nine countries participating in the project. The paintings each depict "the role of the F-35 Lightning II JSF for that sovereign nation." When a Lockheed executive issued the command for "each artist to stand by their painting in preparation for a simultaneous unveiling," it didn't quite achieve the desired effect. Another blunder was the decision to have each artist shuffle out the door with his painting before proceeding with Air Force Brigadier General Charles Davis' remarks--the lengthy delay was awkward, but Davis took it in stride.

The amusing antics over-with, General Davis presented a boiler-plate power point brief, basically informing us that the program is on track after a very successful year. One of the JSF's more impressive components that we heard about is the Pratt & Whitney F135 engine, which according to General Davis is "performing flawlessly." (Pratt & Whitney is sponsoring our coverage of the Paris Air Show.) But during the Q&A session, the press was focused on a single issue: the rising cost of the JSF program. General Davis explained that an annual 3-4 percent increase in the price of metals was largely responsible for the increase, but cynics were left wondering how component price volatility wasn't budgeted from the get-go, and others were dubious that the "affordability team" had any chance at keeping the situation under control. We were just happy this was the only art show we'd have to see in Paris.

Bruce Lemkin, the deputy undersecretary of the Air Force for International Affairs, has no counterpart in the Army or Navy, but Lemkin says "[his] job is not selling airplanes, [his] job is building relationships between the U.S. Air Force and other air forces around the world." His goal is to build "interoperability," which at its most basic level means getting U.S. and allied air forces "training together, operating together, flying together, so if we have to, we can fight together." But...his job is kind of about selling airplanes: "When I talk to a foreign air chief about [interoperability], their eyes open up--gee, this guy can help me--cause it's not just about buying the equipment, but the airplane is important, because flying the same plane that the U.S. Air Force flies becomes the centerpiece of that relationship."

And that is certainly true in the case of fighters like the F-16, which is flown by 24 allied air forces, but the newest jet in the U.S. inventory, the F-22, has the potential to do more than help the United States build relationships. The F-22 has unmatched capabilities as an air-to-air fighter, and if the United States were to export that aircraft--speculation about a sale has centered on two of the countries closest allies, Japan and Israel--it would represent a huge leap forward in capability for the recipient. But Lemkin was quick to point out that "by U.S. law, we cannot export the F-22." Is the Air Force working to change that law so as to allow export to Japan? It's a move favored by many, as it would effectively drive down program costs by increasing the number of units produced, as well as giving Japan a more credible deterrent vis-a-vis North Korea and China, but Lemkin said that "[his] personal view, and it's our Air Force view, we want to see Japan flying the Joint Strike Fighter--it's a capability that will be very appropriate to them."

Lemkin says the F-35 has technologies that are 15 years beyond what's available in F-22.

But the Japanese have an urgent need for a next-generation fighter, and F-22 is available now, while the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is still in development. But Lemkin says there would be "huge costs" associated with developing an exportable version of F-22, and that doing so would take considerable time--"by the time they got that," Lemkin said, "they could have an F-35." Lemkin said the Air Force might be able to provide the Japanese with JSF as early as 2013. According to Lemkin, JSF is "the right choice for Israel, it's the right choice for Japan." Still, one industry source familiar with the program told me today that he believed Israel would likely get access to F-22 in the not too distant future. And there seems to be considerable support on the Hill and in the White House--and, of course, at lead contractor Lockheed Martin--for changing the export laws governing sales of the F-22 in order to allow both Japan and Israel access to the world's most advanced operational fighter.

Moving on to other matters...Lemkin got himself in a bit of hot water in March when, on a trip to India to promote U.S. aircraft in a major competition to supply that country's air force with a new fleet of fighters, he told reporters that "I am not here to sell airplanes, but I can tell you that the F-16 is the best there is as we attempt interoperability between our air forces in the global fight against terror." There are two U.S. airplanes competing for that contract: the Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet, and the Lockheed Martin F-16. The American government is not supposed to favor one aircraft, or company, over another in promoting the interests of U.S. business. Lemkin's explanation for the alleged misconduct: "that was mischaracterized...[I said] the F-18 is a wonderful fighter...but I'm the deputy undersecretary of the U.S. Air Force, I want the Indian air force to fly the F-16 because we [the U.S. Air Force] don't fly the F-18. I want them to fly the same airplane we fly--to be the centerpiece of an air force to air force relationship."

Asked whether he thought there was a real chance the Indians might purchase the F-16, Lemkin was diplomatic, insisting that that was a decision for the Indians, but he did say that he thought "the message of the relationship between the air forces is very powerful." And American industry should hope that's true--as WWS contributor Reuben Johnson wrote here yesterday, that contract is the "Powerball lotto jackpot of defense sales."

To call Bell-Boeing's tilt-rotor V-22 Osprey a controversial military acquisition would be an enormous understatement. Yet the press corps, long dubious of the aircraft's capabilities and survivability, seemed to hold its collective tongue during yesterday's briefing at the Boeing chalet--there were no questions asked about the aircraft's reliability, instead the focus was on the Osprey's upcoming deployment to Iraq. In September, the Marine Corps's VMM-263 squadron will deploy with ten Ospreys to Al-Asad Air Base in Anbar province.

The V-22 did not appear at Le Bourget, an absence that
was explained by the need for all available aircraft and
crews to focus on training for potential deployment.

Whether or not the program has the full support of defense analysts and U.S. Marines has become a non-issue in the face of the Marine Corps's unwavering commitment to keep the program moving forward. Though this obstinacy may have deterred the press from asking hard-hitting questions, our colleagues have not lost their penchant for sarcasm and cynicism--one lamented the "obligatory" coverage of the Osprey only hours before squeezing into Boeing's packed media room with 60 or so fellow journalists.

The Marine Corps's V-22 program director, Colonel Matthew Mulhern, must have been equally surprised by the softballs being lobbed at him. The press asked nothing about the reported instability the Osprey experiences when it tilts its rotors. There was no reference to a potentially fatal fluid mechanics defect known as Vortex Ring State, which some experts maintain still poses a serious threat to the Osprey, and there was no follow-up when the colonel said they're "still looking at ideas" for providing defensive fire in all directions--a huge issue for a platform expected to be in the thick of it just three months from now and with nothing more than a single M240 machine gun mounted on the tail ramp for self-defense.

On the plus side, Colonel Mulhern was frank about his expectations for the Osprey on deployment. His honesty and confidence were reassuring. He warned of the danger of taking enemy fire, and the high probability the Marines "are gonna lose some" of the birds as a result. He cited the unavoidable effects of incessant sand wearing on engines and rotors, which is his primary fear for the success of the deployment. He didn't obscure the fact that only as a result of this maiden combat deployment will the true tactical capabilities of the "multi-mission" Osprey become clear. And he said that even as an F/A-18 pilot who knows the meaning of speed, the Osprey offers an impressive acceleration and the real ability to surprise an enemy that's likely to spot the bird only after it's too late.

Some of my buddies who may actually be flying into combat on the Osprey within the next year will wait and see what happens before passing judgment--though they admit they wouldn't volunteer for the first combat op. This mindset seems reasonable. Nobody really knows how the Osprey will perform and whether it truly demonstrates a new capability deserving of the lives that have already been lost over the course of the program. The colonel's requirement for calling the program a success is the first wounded Marine airlifted faster and further in the back of an Osprey to receive vital medical treatment saving life or limb. Perhaps the subdued journalists yesterday were similarly holding their breath.

Senator James Inhofe arrived at the Paris Air Show early Monday morning. As "the last active commercial pilot in the United States Senate," Inhofe makes a point of never missing the show, and I had the chance to sit down with him just a few hours after the show kicked off to discuss a wide range of defense issues.

On Joint Strike Fighter: "How could there be anything better than that?"
Inhofe stopped himself as he was about to say that the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter would allow the United States to maintain its air superiority, instead saying that "a lot of people don't realize, but during the 1990s--the drawdown during the Clinton administration--we cut back on modernization. In fact, I was so proud of [former Air Force chief of staff] General Jumper, who had the courage to stand up in 1998 and admit that the Su series that the Russians were making were superior to our best strike fighters in some ways...so the F-22 and the Joint Strike Fighter are going to put us back [on top], unquestionably.

On F-22: "I think we need to get the numbers up."
Inhofe said that "we do need to have the F-22 [production numbers] enhanced, as well as the Joint Strike Fighter, as well as the C-17--our lift capabilities are more strained than they have been [at any time] in the history of the United States...[when the C-17 program got first started] we never dreamed we'd have Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq and all the lift needs that we have today. So our deficiency isn't only in strike vehicles."

On missile defense: "What the House did in their mark-up was not acceptable at all."
Inhofe was none too pleased with recently proposed legislation in the House that would see deep cuts to the missile defense program, including cuts to funding for the deployment of interceptors in Eastern Europe and Boeing's Airborne Laser program. Inhofe said that he and his Republican colleagues were committed to restoring that funding in conference, and he added that proposed cuts to the Future Combat System would also face stiff resistance in the Senate.

To all these questions, Inhofe said "the only answer is that we have to have the best of everything, artillery, strike vehicles, lift capacity, everything has to be the best if we're going to meet what I consider to be the minimum expectations of the American people."

And how are we going to pay for the best of everything? Inhofe said that American defense spending in the 20th century averaged more than 5.5 percent of GDP, dropped to 2.8 percent during the Clinton administration, and was now "hovering at around 4 percent." But Inhofe says that's not enough--"we need to be really close to where we've been in the 20th century...it's going to have to be at 5-5.5 percent of GDP." As for how we might get back to a number like that, Inhofe said "it won't be long before I'm chairing the Armed Services committee again, and I look forward to rebuilding these programs."

During the Cold War, defense procurement was a fairly straightforward proposition. The Soviet Union would produce a new weapon, and the United States would respond with something bigger and better. The Russians would then respond with some weapon that challenged the American military. And so it went for many years.

When the Berlin Wall came down and the U.S.S.R. disintegrated, the tit-for-tat move and countermove in defense spending came to an end. It was obvious there was never going to be a war in Central Europe--the primary justification and presumed battleground for a good deal of America’s arsenal--and the Russian defense industry was in danger of vanishing altogether.

The Russian MiG-35 is competing against the U.S. F-16 for
an Indian defense deal estimated at more than $8 billion.

At this point Russian and American defense business stopped being a one-on-one game, and the two industries went off in different directions. U.S. defense contractors starting thinking about different places they might need to deploy in the post-cold war world--and what type of a military machine you would need to be victorious in the brave new conflicts they envisioned.

And Russian companies became primarily concerned with what their export customers wanted, with barely a care as to what their own military establishment wanted or needed. The question became what could be sold to India, China, and others in large enough numbers to make up for the practically nonexistent funding being disbursed Ministry of Defense in Moscow.

Despite $70 a barrel oil and all of the other economic windfalls the Russians have lately begun to enjoy, they still are not providing much in the way of funding to their own defense industry. When asked here at Le Bourget how much his firm depends to this day on export sales for income, one Russian defense executive answered “about 90 percent.”

Since I first saw Israel's massive exhibition complex, I've been intrigued to find out what our New Jersey-sized ally has to offer and why in the world they would need so much space to display it. Unfortunately for the Israelis, my curiosity put me in the minority at Le Bourget. At their "first-ever" super-duper, invite-only press tour, only seven reporters, including myself, turned out to see what the fuss was about.

Israeli Aerospace Industries contributes to the carnival atmosphere by
hosting events in what appears to be a Gravitron.

So, while the vast majority of my colleagues were outside watching the show, I set off on a tour with "Israel's leading defense expert," Dr. Ehud Ganini, that featured the products of some eleven Israeli defense companies. I learned that Bental Industries makes very small UAVs, Star Defense Systems manufactures night vision goggles and flight suits, SGD makes reconnaissance and countermeasure pods for the F-16, and on and on. A handful of companies did exhibit more interesting and innovative products. For example, Aeronautics Defense Systems had on display a model of their unmanned surface warfare vessel, the SeaStar, which can use lethal and non-lethal means (think water cannon) to eliminate threats. Plasan Sasa was happy to announce a deal signed just two weeks ago to supply the Marine Corps with 1,200 armor kits new MRAPs by February 2008--though it's unclear to us why the Marine Corps is buying MRAPs without armor, and the company spokesperson was unwilling to reveal any specifics as to the thickness of the armor or its survivability against threats like explosively formed projectiles (EFP).

The most exciting display of all was also the most incomprehensible. Elbit Systems put on an impressive 3-D video production that included a helicopter, UAV, fixed wing jet and infantry forces collaborating to accomplish a fictitious combat operation. They even hired refined British actors, snubbing one of their own employees who confessed to me that his mild Israeli accent disqualified him. Thanks to catch-phrases like "operational success with ease" and liberal use of the word "synergy," I was utterly lost by the end but happy enough to have rested my legs watching Elbit's show.

One last interesting tidbit I discovered before ditching the happy hour for the press center is that as of July 2005, Israel's exports of military technology exceed her imports--though it is unclear whether this statistic takes into account the considerable military assistance given to Israel by the United States each year. Also unclear is whether any of the fancy Israeli technology on display at Le Bourget will be useful in countering the low-tech threat posed by Hezbollah and Hamas. Still, the Israelis put on a good show, even if attendance was somewhat less than expected.

Yesterday the U.S. Air Force's RQ-1 Predator caught my eye. Unlike the myriad UAVs on display at the air show, the Predator has seen plenty of combat in the war on terror. If robots could win medals, the Predator would have fruit salad. Built by General Atomics, the Predator has a wingspan of 48.7 ft, a maximum speed of 135 mph, a range of 454 miles, and a ceiling of 25,000 feet. The Air Force officially describes its primary mission as "interdiction...and armed reconnaissance against critical, perishable targets." A secondary mission is "reconnaissance, surveillance, and target acquisition." The Predator also has obvious and probably underexploited potential as a tool for securing American borders.

The Predator RQ-1, armed and dangerous.

By no means obsolete, the Predator's success has also the set the stage for the next generation of combat-effective unmanned vehicles, including Boeing's A-160 Hummingbird and Israel Aerospace Industry's new behemoth, the Heron II. But with price tags for new UAVs sky-rocketing as the designs grow in complexity, commanders must now be more cautious in using the aircraft, which are ever less expendable. Still, if new UAVs aren't pushed to the brink, they may not fulfill their implicit mission--to prevent American pilots from being killed or captured. There's been much griping, some of it legitimate, about the current limits of UAV technology, and thus the barrage of new models. The Predator, for example, can't take off without a runway and requires significant manpower both to operate and maintain. Perhaps as a result, the military is showing more and more interest in vertical takeoff UAVs and mini-UAVs. But to most observers, every Predator shot down in the course of supporting our troops and killing our enemies means potentially another American pilot saved from the same fate. Judging by the looks of things here at the show, though, despite the rising popularity of the UAV, we won't have a glut of unemployed pilots on our hands anytime soon.

I also had the chance to speak with two Airmen who work maintaining the Predator. Senior Airman Terrance Mose and Staff Sergeant Angelo Munoz, based out of Nellis AFB in Nevada, are having a fantastic time in a fancy hotel in Paris--the Air Force lives up to its sterling reputation, again. Enlisting out of Mobile, Alabama and Chicago respectively, these Airmen are big fans of the relatively trouble-free Predator. Senior Airman Mose described Predator maintenance as a "piece of cake" compared to his old job as an A-10 crew chief. And Staff Sgt Munoz says the most frequent work done on the aircraft is a simple oil change, though as a comm guy his responsibility is to make sure the Predator responds to whatever commands the control operators give it.

Airman Mose enjoyed his two deployments as part of Operation Enduring Freedom, getting into a routine of "wake-up, work, gym, sleep" that made life easier, while Staff Sergeant Munoz has deployed once as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Both mentioned the girls back home as the thing they missed most, and both were enthusiastic about redeploying. Finally, I asked the most important question--how are they spending their nights in Paris? Answer: go to bars "as long as you can stay up and still make it to work in the morning."

The V-22 Osprey isn't at Le Bourget, but its civilian cousin, the Bell Agusta 609 Tiltrotor is. The BA 609 is being marketed to that executive who already has everything else and just can't stand having to take a helicopter to his private jet, and why not...Here you can see the tiltrotor coming in for a vertical landing.

The Bell Agusta 609 Tiltrotor, a civilian derivative of Boeing's V-22 Osprey, comes in for a landing.

All anybody at this show talks about is the MiG-29OVT, but there's something to be said for the grace and elegance of the F-16. I've been a huge fan of this plane since I was a kid, and as far as commercial success, nothing else really comes close. The F-16 serves in some 24 air forces around the world and more than 4,000 have been produced in five different countries. It may not put on quite the same acrobatic display as the MiG, but there's no other aircraft at the show that looks as good.

A U.S. Air Force F-16B (Lockheed) makes a pass over the runway.

The Super Hornet, on the other hand, looks like a real pig on the ground. It's a lot bigger than the F-16, and it has two engines to the F-16's one, but once that thing gets up in the air, it appears highly maneuverable--a real pleasure to watch from the ground.

The belly of a U.S. Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet (Boeing).

The F-35 II is the future of American military aviation, with plans for a purchase of nearly 2,500 of the stealthy plans in three variations--450 short take-off, vertical land (STOVL) copies for the Marine Corps, 260 of a more durable variant capable of carrier landings for the Navy, and 1,783 of a standard model for the U.S. Air Force. Those numbers might fall, but the Joint Strike Fighter, as it is otherwise known, is certain to play a major role in American air operations once production begins in earnest a few years from now. It's also a beautiful aircraft in its own right. The aircraft will be produced and financed by a coalition of American allies, the flags of which are painted below the cockpit.

The F-35 Lightning II (Lockheed) sits just across from the Lockheed Martin chalet.

And finally, a scene from right outside the press chalet that had photographers from around the world scrambling their own jets.

From Russia with love.
Journalists camped out at the press chalet fall for some old fashioned marketing from the East Bloc.

Last September the U.S. Air Force flight tested a B-52 using a 50-50 mix of synthetic jet fuel and conventional JP-8. Of the B-52's eight engines, only two were burning the mix, while the other six ran on conventional JP-8, but the Air Force has been hyping the test as evidence of the potential of alternative fuels.

Inside the C-17, Secretary Wynne chats with the crew.

Today at Le Bourget, Secretary of the Air Force Michael Wynne and FAA Administrator Marion C. Blakey gave a briefing inside a Mississippi Air National Guard C-17 Globemaster III that's on display here at the show, and which is the next aircraft slated for testing with a synthetic blend. The aircraft was impressive...the briefing, not so much. The Air Force has plenty of reason to search for an alternative to JP-8--as the federal government's largest consumer of petroleum products, for every $10 rise in the cost of a barrel of oil the Air Force sees its own fuel bills rise some $600 million.

Unfortunately, it seems like the Air Force is moving towards alternative fuels for all the wrong reasons, i.e. a heavy on the P.R. pedal goal of reduced carbon emissions. Wynne said that the Air Force is moving "aggressively" to certify its entire fleet by 2010--including the service's most advanced fighter jets--with the aim of reducing volatility in the cost of fuel. And two weeks ago the Air Force awarded a $1.1 million contract to Shell Oil to deliver the blend to several Air Force locations and NASA. The synthetic fuel is created using the Fischer-Trope process, which is an interesting technology, but nothing new.

Wynne also said that the Air Force is working with the Department of Energy "to test the use of biomass with coal as a feedstock to reduce the carbon emissions...to move to a reduced carbon philosophy." Wynne says the Air Force is "committed to being good environmental stewards." And Wynne said that the Air Force will only buy fuel from companies that have "either carbon capture or carbon usage technology," but added that, "of course we're going to continue to use petroleum fuels for decades to come."

In response to a question from Jane's reporter Caitlin Harrington about using coal as a feedstock, the secretary added that the Air Force "would have to partner with some of the more exotic algae or biomass that actually consumes carbon." At this point we couldn't help but feel a little sorry for the secretary, who's been reduced to talking algae instead of air-to-air combat. Also, one wonders if the Air Force isn't closing in on the dangerous precedent of requiring the federal government to offset its carbon emissions. At the end of the day, we'd have much preferred that the secretary spent his afternoon discussing how the U.S. Air Force might play a vital role in counterinsurgency operations in Iraq...but, c'est la vie.

DAY ONE OF Le Bourget is like being at the biggest Macy's store you can imagine on the Friday after Thanksgiving. Only it is around 90 degrees, you are fighting a crowd all day long and running to get from one place to the next--all the while perspiring through your coat and tie. At the end of the day you are loaded down with overstuffed heavy duty plastic bags. Only instead of being full of Polo, Prada, Levis and the Gap you are dragging around the world's biggest pile of aerospace brochures, CDs, calendars, pen sets, lapel badges and magazines.

The MiG-29OVT

The combined sums spent by all the firms at the air show producing promotional materials and distributing them to the press and official delegations is probably larger than the budgets of most small countries, and it gets larger all the time. Whereas the average press kit used to contain color brochures and a CD with images of a company's products, the norm now is to distribute memory sticks and other sophisticated paraphernalia.

A look at the first day's events shows just how much the business of aerospace has shifted into the commercial sector. The air show has always been thought of as a place where people go to watch fighter jets strut their stuff across the sky--a spectacle of military muscle-flexing that brings out the crowds. But the military business does not seem to be where the action is in the present day.

Of the approximately 100 press conferences and other announcements taking place on the first day, roughly 60 per cent of them are related to commercial aviation. The big deals that are announced at Paris are no longer record sales of fighter jets or military helicopters, but contracts for airliners and business jets. The European Airbus consortium alone announced $46.7 billion worth of orders today. Defense contractors are still well-represented and have a major profile, but the real money is in airliners, commercial satellites, and services--what one large company refers to as "global sustainment"--and the sales are nothing like these type of numbers.

The one country that still is pushing its defense business and not much else is Russia. Le Bourget has always been an event where the Russians try to show a large presence--a holdover from the Soviet period where being at the Paris show was always seen as a sign of prestige and importance. By far the biggest crowd pleaser is the Mikoyan MiG-29OVT that performs the most acrobatic display of any fighter ever made. The defense business remains Russia's only real money-maker.

At a press conference on day one, the general designer for Mikoyan was discussing MiG's prospects for a sale on the Indian Air Force's M-MRCA fighter aircraft tender. The Indian sale is for 126 aircraft plus follow-ons, which could be well over 200 fighters at the end of the program, making it the Powerball lotto jackpot of defense sales. No country has purchased this many aircraft at one time for over 30 years.

When asked what the company's chances were in India, the MiG official, Vladimir Barkovsky, said that "we work at MiG and not in a casino, so we cannot talk about the chances for success as if we were gambling." But gambling is exactly what the increased Russian reliance on defense sales to keep their aerospace industry alive is. Defense sales can only sustain them for so long, and without a sizeable piece of the commercial market, Russia will end up a small-time player in the world market. As one Russian colleague told me "Italy used to have a fairly robust aircraft-building industry and look where they are today. This can be our future as well."

But the real sleeper this year is the announcement by Brazil's Embraer of its Phenom-series of mini-jets. Small, seating only a few persons, the Phenom models are specifically designed for the executive trying to escape from airline hell or the well-heeled soccer mom who has had enough of the absurd experience of having TSA confiscate your toddler's sippy cup on grounds of national security.

A day at the show is exhausting and dehydrating, but an eye-opener in terms of how much aerospace means in the modern world--how much it affects much of what we do in daily life and how technology is making our flying machines, better, faster and more efficient.

Tomorrow: What the defense business is like 17 years after the cold war.

Northrop Grumman's MQ-8B Fire Scout

A new unmanned helicopter could revolutionize the way special operations forces working in hard-to-reach environments are resupplied with beans, bullets, and band aids. But while Northrop Grumman's MQ-8B Fire Scout might someday serve in a close air support role and offer the Navy a platform for destroying enemy submarines and surface vessels, that type of capability is still a long way off. In fact, Fire Scout is only one of many new UAV programs that are keeping defense contractors busy and tempting the military with the prospect of war without (friendly) casualties. To be fair, the Fire Scout is one of the more interesting UAVs on display in Paris--unlike many of its competitors, it is capable of vertical takeoff and landing. Still, it's unclear that this unmanned helicopter would offer the U.S. military a capability not already available. According to Northrop, the Fire Scout is already in late stage development for the U.S. Army and Navy and is generating interest in 13 foreign markets.

The Fire Scout's specs seem impressive: 125+ knot airspeed, a flight ceiling of 20,000 feet, and a 600 lb maximum payload. But Lockheed Martin's manned/unmanned K-MAX helicopter, although slightly slower, can carry 6,000 lbs at sea level and 5,000 lbs at 9,500 feet, with a ceiling of 29,000 feet. Similarly, some of the Fire Scout's gizmos and gadgets--like a harpoon on its underbelly that anchors it to the flight deck and its modular payload system--don't seem to offer much in the way of new capability. But there are a lot of skeptics out there, including WWS pal Christian Lowe, who wrote last month that,

It seems like a classic case of a Pentagon project on life support, bouncing from the Navy to the Marine Corps and now as part of the Army's (potentially doomed) FCS program.

Another potential problem is Northrop's emphasis on interfacing the Fire Scout with the Littoral Combat Ship, a program that seemed at one point to embody the Navy's future but is now on the brink of collapse. Still, Dave Fuqua, Northrop's Business Development Manager for the Fire Scout, says he's not worried because of the Fire Scout's versatile ability that "qualifies it to land on all air capable ships."

The Fire Scout does have the potential to wreak havoc on the enemy, as demonstrated by a successful rocket test in Yuma, AZ in July of 2005, but first it will need a radar--a hurdle that the company has yet to overcome despite the fact that many other UAVs have already achieved weaponization. But the real issue may simply be that the Fire Scout is trying to fill a role that's already been ably filled by other platforms. Three Fire Scouts with rotor blades folded have the same footprint as one Navy H-60 Seahawk, but it's unclear as to whether there's any mission that three Fire Scouts can carry out as well as one workhorse H-60. The Fire Scout is a "complement, not replacement" to current helicopters and weapons systems, the program manager said. But in the meantime, the Navy is more than capable of defeating whatever subs, ships, and air assets with which it comes into contact.

At a lecture hosted by Sikorsky Aircraft, the company that bears his late father Igor's name, Sergei Sikorsky today recalled attending the air show in the early 1950s, when it was first held at Le Bourget field, here in the northern suburbs of Paris. The show featured an appearance by Charles Lindbergh, who had made the airfield famous by landing at it in 1927, completing his historic trans-Atlantic flight. (Lindbergh and Igor Sikorsky had a long professional collaboration, beginning when Lindbergh was the first pilot of Sikorsky’s pathbreaking S-40 "flying boat.")

Sergei Sikorsky

As Sergei tells the story, Lindbergh was interviewed at the show by a young reporter who was aware he was a famous man. But not quite recalling the source of Lindbergh’s celebrity, she asked the following immortal question: "Is this your first trip to Paris, Mr. Lindbergh?" Ah, yes, a reporter’s worst nightmare: when enthusiasm outstrips knowledge, resulting in public humiliation.

Sergei Sikorsky’s affecting presentation could not have been better timed, coming the day after Father’s Day. He described that "moment of transition" at age 16 when he realized that the man he knew as a father was known to the world as an immortal aviation pioneer: the inventor, among many other innovative aircraft, of the single-rotor helicopter—"considered impossible by all the reputable engineers of the time," Sergei said, putting deliciously ironic emphasis on the word "reputable."

His father, Sergei said, was most proud of the fact that the helicopter had become "a unique instrument for the saving of human lives." He estimated that "two millions lives have been saved by the helicopter." This is a testament to the ability of the helicopter to land in remote locations beyond the reach of roads and runways, thus making it the vehicle of choice to deal with natural disasters. Not to mention its well known ability to ferry the injured to medical care from battlefields and accident scenes. One of the slides he displayed showed the first public demonstration of a rescue hoist raising someone up into a hovering helicopter. The "someone" in the hoist? That was the young Sergei Sikorsky.

According to Sergei, his father was a great admirer of the Wright brothers, and not just for their inventiveness. He said that the brothers had figured out that aviation pioneers needed to know two things--the first being how to design and build aircraft, the second being how “to stay alive.” In what Sergei called three miraculous years, his father "taught himself how to design airplanes, taught himself how to build airplanes, and taught himself how to fly airplanes." Nowadays, of course, the species of self-taught pilots is vanishingly rare. On second thought, it always was a rare breed. Igor Sikorsky’s first five airplanes, his son said, lasted an average of five minutes in the air before they crashed. But his father was a survivor, and then some, dying in 1972 at the age of 83.

Commandant of the Marine Corps
General James Conway.

In the recent past, the American presence at the Paris Air Show was distinctly subdued, a casualty of what you might call the Chirac-Rumsfeld era of Franco-American relations. This year the place is crawling with Americans.

On my way to see the introductory address from the American ambassador, I am instead swept away in a sea of green uniforms. It's the entourage of the Commandant of the Marine Corps, General James Conway, comprising at least two colonels, one brigadier general, the Sgt Major of the Marine Corps Carlton Kent, and the first lady of the Marine Corps Mrs. Conway. I manage to compliment the charming Mrs. Conway for her beautiful home at the Marine Barracks at 8th and I in Washington, D.C. (which I was lucky enough to have toured a week ago). It's the oldest continually inhabited house in the capital, chock full of portraits of former Commandants and priceless antiques. She receives me warmly and advises me to come back any time.

Alas, I've now missed the ambassador's press conference, but at the Paris Air Show it's impossible to find yourself with nothing to do. I only make it about 10 yards when I am surrounded by more military brass than I have ever seen in my life (including the just-departed contingent of Marines). The glare off the stars on these top-ranking officers is almost blinding. In front of me are at least five Chinese generals who don't look too upset at being subjected to my flash photography.

Red brass.

Behind them I find some of our NATO friends from the Italian navy. A short walk further on are the first U.S. Army officers I've seen. When I ask a colonel what the Army is doing here I find out this group is actually on the staff of the Joint Chiefs and thus unable to answer my question. With him is U.S. Air Force Lt General Jeffrey B. Kohler, director of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (they oversee U.S. foreign military sales). The list goes on, and with so many countries and services present, identifying uniforms and testing foreign military officers' language skills quickly becomes a game of trivial pursuit.

But one last group of officers catches my eye. I observe a group of Italian pilots in flight suits browsing a gift stand. They affirm the universal reputation of pilots and bring it to an entirely new level with side-burns longer than Elvis and stylish designer sunglasses, while one even sports a "soul patch" under his lip. I can't say I'm a big fan of the soul patch, but perhaps I should take a fashion cue from the cream of the Italian air force before an upcoming trip to Rome. Then again, the Marines looked much sharper...but again my train of thought is interrupted--my shoulder is aching, time for another croissant break.

The stylish airmen of the Italian Air Force.

There's a fairly large delegation from the United States Senate at the show. Led by Alaska Senator Ted Stevens, the crew seems to be having a pretty good time. Kansas City, or the "Paris of the Plains" as it is being called here, has set up a booth featuring a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. Here you can see Colorado Senator Wayne Allard enjoying the photo-op.

After the opening ceremony, the senators moved on to the the Honeywell exhibition space to check out that company's 3-D Flight Deck. Here we see Senators Mikulski, Allard, and Stevens (from right to left) wearing their 3-D glasses in what has to be one of the funniest images of the day.

Finally, my personal favorite from this morning. I have no idea what these girls are promoting--if you can't make out the writing on the lycra, here's the link--but whatever it is, I'm sure we need three of them.

The flying demonstrations have been underway for about an hour now, and your correspondent is stuck in the press "chalet"--so that's all for now. But I was able to sit down with Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe for about a half hour this morning and will have more to report on that conversation in a little while.

Senators Stevens (R-Alaska) and Mikulski (D-Maryland) cut the ribbon inside the American exhibition space.

The U.S. pavilion kicked off the air show in grand fashion, with a ribbon-cutting ceremony, speeches by industry officials, and a few words from Senator Ted Stevens, who is attending the show on behalf of President Bush. In the audience were Secretary of the Air Force Michael Wynne, Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition Claude Bolton, Marine Corps Commandant General James Conway, and NASA Administrator Michael Griffin.

Everyone rolls their eyes when you tell them it's your first time attending the Paris Air Show. At a press dinner last night hosted by Lockheed Martin, a succession of executives smiled when I said it was my first air show and said, "prepared to be overwhelmed." The numbers are staggering: Almost 2,000 exhibitors, 400,000 visitors expected over the course of the next week. The scale is vast: walking at a reasonable clip from one end of the show to the other takes the better part of an hour. The variety of the flying machines is extraordinary, from the Airbus A380 double-decker jumbo jet, to unmanned aircraft that are barely larger than the model planes one flew as a child.

And it's striking just how many unmanned aircraft are on display here, from small, tactical UAVs that can be launched by hand, to large, stealthy UCAVs--unmanned combat aerial vehicles. The snapshot below is the Dassault UCAV technology demonstrator, and above right you can see the small Skylark UAV, produced by the Israeli firm Elbit.

The Israelis in particular have a wide array of UAVs on display at the show, including the massive Heron, which is making its debut today (click here for a hi-res image).

More to follow soon.

Paris, France
The City of Lights is several times more expensive than it was back in the late eighties, it is even more overrun with pickpockets, but a 12-year reign by one of the more contrarian European heads of state has come to an end. Everyone asks now if France can restore its former glory, patch up its relations with Washington, and address the social dislocations that cause increasing strains with its Muslim population.

But most of these developments pale in comparison to how much the Le Bourget air show has changed since I first saw it twenty years ago. Called simply “the Paris Air Show” by most of those who attend it, the biennial aerospace extravaganza (officially, the Salon international de l'aéronautique et de l'espace de Paris-Le Bourget) symbolizes the long, distinguished history of aviation in France by being held at the same Le Bourget aerodrome where Charles Lindbergh landed after his 1927 solo flight across the Atlantic in the Spirit of St. Louis.

(There is a small brass plaque set flush with the surface of the tarmac that is inlaid on the far end of the huge aerodrome--marking the spot where Lindbergh first stepped out of his aircraft and onto French soil. Good luck finding it. France has always considered itself to be the birthplace of modern aviation and they have never recovered from the multiple embarrassments that the first man to fly a dirigible from the Parc Saint Cloud and circle around the Eiffel tower in less than 30 minutes in 1901 was a Brazilian--Alberto Santos-Dumont--and that the first aeroplane flight and the first solo flight across the Atlantic were accomplished by Americans--the Wright Brothers and Lindbergh. So this plaque is not properly sign-posted as a landmark. You practically have to stumble across it.)

The contrasts with Le Bourget of the late 1980s are startling. In 1989, the then-Soviet Union was opening up to the West. For only the second time since the 1930s a Soviet fighter aircraft appeared at an international air show. It was the debut appearance abroad for the Sukhoi Su-27. The crowd was expecting something out of this world, and they were not disappointed.

The Sukhoi Su-27 Flanker.

Sukhoi test pilot Viktor Pugachev put the aircraft through a series of acrobatic twists and turns that seemed to defy gravity. Flight routines like his famous “Cobra Maneuver” and the “Tail Slide” that then-Mikoyan test pilot Anatoliy Kvochur made famous in the MiG-29 have become almost blasé in the present day. Watch this year’s flight by the MiG-29OVT thrust vectoring testbed aircraft and you can see the difference.

Kvochur also became well-known in a way that he would rather not have at the 1989 show by crashing his MiG-29 fighter following the low-speed, high angle-of-attack portion of his flight routine. It was the first crash of a Soviet aircraft at Paris since the Tupolev Tu-144 “Concordski” went down at the 1973 show. That year the Soviets indignantly packed up and went home, but in 1989 they stayed to the end and tried to put a positive spin on the reasons for the crash. They knew there was also a crash of their own way of life coming, and they couldn't just walk away from either one of them and pretend that they did not exist.

Don't forget...the WWS is heading to Paris next week to cover the biggest air show of the year. We will be filing updates all week long with the support of the good folks over at Pratt & Whitney, so be sure to check back for all the latest news.

As for predictions, this being my first trip to the big show, I don't want to go out on a limb, but over at Ares, Bill Sweetman says "the Russians will steal the flying show as they have done since 1989, and will probably cause at least one collective OMG-he's-going-in gasp." We'll be there getting the video if they do.

(But Still Pretty Bad)

A little while back my colleague, Ulf Gartzke, wrote a piece on the perverse demographic effects of the European welfare state. The Economist follows with a piece that provides details on some of those effects, and some very interesting data. But while the piece is presented as a challenge to the arguments of folks like Mark Steyn (and Gartzke), the data actually seem to bolster their concerns:

Received opinion holds, in the phrase of Auguste Comte, a 19th-century social scientist, that “demography is destiny” and that Europe is doomed by its death-spiral population numbers. American observers from Walter Laqueur, an academic, to Mark Steyn, a conservative polemicist, argue that Europe is fast becoming a barren, ageing, enfeebled place. Vast numbers of old people, they reckon, will be looked after, or neglected, by too few economically active adults, supplemented by restless crowds of migrants. The combination of low fertility, longer life and mass immigration will put intolerable pressure on public health, pensions and social services, leading (probably) to upheaval.

There are several possible objections to that gloomy forecast. One is that a growing population is not, of itself, necessarily a good thing, nor a falling one unambiguously bad. Another is that there is no short-term correlation between population change and wealth: Japan and South Korea have even lower fertility than Europe. But there is a simpler objection: the picture of relentless decline is wrong, or, to be accurate, half wrong. Europe is not in decline. Rather, as Jitka Rychtarikova of the Charles University in Prague argues, it no longer makes sense to talk about Europe as a single demographic unit at all. There are two Europes.

One is the familiar place of low fertility and population decline. Here, the fertility rate is below 1.5 and countries are struggling in a fertility trap. The low fertility belt runs from the Mediterranean to central and eastern Europe, embracing both old and new parts of the continent. The other, surprising Europe is a place of recovering fertility and rising population. It stretches from Scandinavia to France. Here, countries have escaped the fertility trap and the childbearing rate is around 1.8—not high, but higher than it was, and, in some cases, reaching the magic replacement level.

Much of the discussion on Capitol Hill nowadays centers on earmarks: those discrete priorities that senators and representatives quietly insert into moving legislation. While House Republicans celebrate a commitment by Democrats to subject earmarks to scrutiny and challenge, word comes that one of the Senate's committed earmark foes is casting his gaze in a new direction:

Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., is taking his earmark crusade across the Capitol to the House fiscal 2008 defense authorization bill, mobilizing his aides and interns to blanket House Armed Services Committee member offices with calls and e-mails requesting more information on their individual add-ons.

It is an unorthodox tactic -- and one that has prompted criticism from House aides, who point out that the House committee's report on the authorization bill complies with House rules. It includes 13 pages of charts providing details on 458 individual projects totaling $7.7 billion, they say...

The earmark disclosures in the House-passed defense authorization bill include the budget account from which the funding will be drawn, a brief description of the project, the amount, the intended recipient and the requesting member.

But Coburn is not satisfied with the disclosures.

Shocking indeed, that anyone would find this disclosure insufficient to warrant the expenditure of taxpayer dollars. How could anyone need to know more than is shown here (in a randomly-selected disclosure page from the relevant committee report).

No reasonable person can find fault with Senator Coburn for not being entirely satisfied with the information disclosed in the report. To ask for additional scrutiny is not the same as recklessly opposing every specific spending provision. More Senators would do well to show the interest Coburn is in how the committees propose to spend taxpayer dollars.

After all, aren't they the ones who take the blame for $500 toilet seats and $800 hammers? If you're going to vote for them, might as well know about it beforehand.

Violence in Baghdad and greater Iraq remains low as the Iraqi government is enforcing a curfew in the major population centers where the threat of sectarian backlash from the Samarra mosque bombing remains high. There have been one confirmed report of a mosque attack and no major clashes on the streets. A Sunni mosque in Basra was destroyed on Friday, and a curfew is now in place in the city. The Iraqi Security Forces, along with a Coalition advisory team, have deployed an additional 650 soldiers and police to Samarra, including "Approximately 300 Iraqi Army soldiers from 4th Battalion, 1st Brigade, 4th Iraqi Army Division, 140 National Policemen from the 3rd Battalion, 3rd National Police, and 150 other National Policemen," noted Multinational Forces Iraq.

From DVIDS: Two Stryker Soldiers prepare to enter a house during a raid
near Mushada, just north of Baghdad, June 11. The Soldiers are with
the 4th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division.

The supporters of Muqtada al Sadr, the leader of the fractured Mahdi Army, held a protest today in Sadr City, home to an estimated 2 million Shia. The protests drew "more than 2,000 eastern Baghdad residents," according to Multinational Forces Iraq, which closely monitors large gatherings. The poor turnout for today's demonstration speaks volumes about Sadr's power on the street. One year ago, Sadr drew hundreds of thousands into the streets.

This comes after Sadr demanded the Iraqi government conduct a full investigation on the Samarra mosque bombing, immediately rebuild the dome and minarets, and that the government rid “the city of Samarra of any presence of the American forces,” IraqSlogger reports. “We presented our deadline to the government, and after its expiration we will have something else to say," said one of Sadr's representatives in parliament.

U.S. and Iraqi forces are keeping up the pressure on Sadr's Mahdi Army. "Peshmerga Forces"--which are actually Iraqi Army units from the Kurdish regions--"killed two members of the Mahdi Army and arrested six others including an official of Al Sadr Bloc in Suwayra village," Al Sumaria reported. Yesterday, U.S. forces and Iraqi police raided Sadr City and captured six suspects. They also found "a sizeable weapons cache" which included "complete mortar systems," rounds and rockets.

In the violent province of Diyala, where al Qaeda has established its command center, the Iraqi government announced over 2,000 Kurdish-based troops are deploying to the region. "The deployment came following a formal request by the Iraqi government and ‘multinational forces’ in the country," noted Azzaman. Iraqi and U.S. forces also beat back an attack on the Diyala Government Center and the Diyala Operations Center in Baqubah, and killing one insurgent and wounding another. Two other insurgents were killed by U.S. helicopters as they loaded explosives into a vehicle.

Operations against al Qaeda and insurgent networks continue. Coalition forces killed one al Qaeda operative and captured 16 during raids in Mosul and Anbar province. In Mosul, U.S. forces killed Abu Ahmad, "the head of five terrorist cells in Mosul...responsible for directing attacks against Iraqi and Coalition Forces." In Karma, U.S. forces captured an "individual suspected of providing fake documents for al-Qaeda leaders and operatives in the Karmah area." U.S. forces also captured nine members of an IED cell in the east Doura neighborhood of the Rashid District in Baghdad. "The individuals detained are believed to be involved in an Al-Qaeda roadside bomb and recruiting ring that had recently launched attacks against the unit in Doura."

The senator has an Op-Ed in today's Wall Street Journal that's a must-read:

I recently returned from Iraq and four other countries in the Middle East, my first trip to the region since December. In the intervening five months, almost everything about the American war effort in Baghdad has changed, with a new coalition military commander, Gen. David Petraeus; a new U.S. ambassador, Ryan Crocker; the introduction, at last, of new troops; and most important of all, a bold, new counterinsurgency strategy.

The question of course is--is it working? Here in Washington, advocates of retreat insist with absolute certainty that it is not, seizing upon every suicide bombing and American casualty as proof positive that the U.S. has failed in Iraq, and that it is time to get out.

In Baghdad, however, discussions with the talented Americans responsible for leading this fight are more balanced, more hopeful and, above all, more strategic in their focus--fixated not just on the headline or loss of the day, but on the larger stakes in this struggle, beginning with who our enemies are in Iraq. The officials I met in Baghdad said that 90% of suicide bombings in Iraq today are the work of non-Iraqi, al Qaeda terrorists. In fact, al Qaeda's leaders have repeatedly said that Iraq is the central front of their global war against us. That is why it is nonsensical for anyone to claim that the war in Iraq can be separated from the war against al Qaeda--and why a U.S. pullout, under fire, would represent an epic victory for al Qaeda, as significant as their attacks on 9/11.

Some of my colleagues in Washington claim we can fight al Qaeda in Iraq while disengaging from the sectarian violence there. Not so, say our commanders in Baghdad, who point out that the crux of al Qaeda's strategy is to spark Iraqi civil war.

Go read the whole thing. I don't know how the Dems can argue against this line of thinking...any retreat from Iraq is a victory for al Qaeda. The candidates can complain about the mistakes that have been made by this administration, but that doesn't change the fact that defeat would be a completely unacceptable outcome. And they can say 'the war is lost' already, but that is patently false. Look at the reaction to the most recent attack on the al-Askari mosque--even the Times conceded that U.S. forces "appeared to have headed off the risk of a new sectarian convulsion." We failed to do just that after the first attack in 2006. Things are getting better, even if it comes in fits and starts.

Update: A little research turns up this quote from Harry Reid. Upon returning from his most recent trip to Iraq, in 2005, the senator had this to say:

"I came away with the feeling that we cannot leave Iraq," said Reid, one of seven Senate Democrats and Republicans on a weeklong trip through the Middle East and several countries near the troubled region. "If we do, the terrorists will have won."

And what's changed between then and now, senator?

Dissecting the controversy--ginned up controversy in the estimation of the folks involved--over Harry Reid calling Generals Pace and Petraeus "incompetent," a few unresolved questions jump out. First off, the "progressive" bloggers with whom Reid was speaking seem to have no idea exactly what was said on the call. A few of them say they don't remember the senator making any such statement, and one of them "flatly denies" it ever happened.

But if it never happened, why is it that Reid won't deny or confirm what was said on the call? He now says he's "lost confidence" in General Pace, but he refuses to repeat the charge of incompetence. Fortunately, Bob Geiger has produced what he claims is a verbatim quote of the senator's original remarks:

"I guess the president, uh, he's gotten rid of Pace because he could not get him confirmed here in the Senate… Pace is also a yes-man for the president and I told him to his face, I laid it out to him last time he came to see me, I told him what an incompetent man I thought he was."

So, now it turns out that Reid did, in fact, call Pace "incompetent," despite the denials of all the bloggers linked above, and Reid's own non-denial denial. Not only that, Reid claimed that he called Pace a "yes-man" and "incompetent" to his face. He claimed he questioned the man's competence AND his integrity. He might as well have slapped him across the face with a white glove! How could none of these bloggers have thought such a claim newsworthy? So which is worse: the unbelievably small chance that Reid did actually say those things to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, or that he lied about doing so in a pander to lefty bloggers. The truth is that he was probably embellishing for his audience, given that his public comments paint the encounter as slightly less confrontational:

"I told [Pace] how I felt, that he had not done a very good job in speaking out for some obvious things that weren't going right in Iraq. I told him that to his face."

As to why the bloggers didn't think the initial comment to be newsworthy...either they knew this to be such a ridiculous claim that they decided not to print it, or this type of rhetoric is so common on that side of the aisle that it just didn't stand out as exceptional. Again, I'm not sure which is worse. Also, we still have no idea what Reid said about Petraeus--whose confirmation Reid did support, and who has not yet even had enough time on the job to be judged one way or the other.

Another interesting undercurrent to this is the contempt of the left-wing bloggers for the Politico, and the Drudge Report, which often links to the site. The story was "based on unsubstantiated, third-party recollection," says Geiger, under the headline "The Politico Fails Journalism 101." "Politico, the online soul-mate to the Drudge Report, has gotten into the habit of creating news stories through innuendo, omission, outright error, and now today, out of thin air," was the line from Kos blogger BarbinMD (is that a professional opinion, doctor?). And the grand wizard of Politico haters once complained that Drudge and the Politico are "poisonously joined at the hip."

Well, for all that griping, it seems the Politico nailed this story, and Drudge just did what he always does--amplify it. Dr. Barbin still contends this is a non-story--though, apparently factually accurate despite protestations to the contrary--because it was just "a throw away line...that Harry Reid said to the unable-to-be-reconfirmed Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff's face." And Geiger puts off the outrageous statement Reid claims to have made to the senator's "tendency to speak like the straight-talking, former boxer that he is." If it's all true, then Reid's a brave man, but a jerk nonetheless. The other possibility, of course, is that he's full of it and never said any such thing to Pace--in which case, he's still a jerk, but not so stupid as to question the integrity of this nation's highest ranking officer to his face.

The lefty bloggers, for their part, have shown themselves to be totally inept. They failed to report the comments, then they denied Reid ever made them while making their own unsubstantiated allegations, and now they defend the comments as irrelevant--and without even the slightest doubt as to their validity. Which is worse?

Update: Dean Barnett is all over this as well.

Yesterday's destruction of the twin minarets of the revered Askaria mosque in Samarra threatens to reignite the sectarian war which began in February of 2006 after the dome of the same mosque was destroyed by al Qaeda in Iraq. Almost immediately after the minarets were bombed, Iraqi and Coalition forces dispatched units to secure mosques and religious sites nationwide and imposed a curfew in the major flash-point cities. Iraqi and U.S. forces also cordoned Sadr City to prevent the Mahdi Army from attacking Sunni neighborhoods in Baghdad.

The Askaria mosque after the first attack in 2006.
The two minarets were destroyed in this latest attack.
Sabah al-Bazee/Reuters.

Reports from Iraq indicate five mosques were attacked immediately after the Samarra bombing--three in Iskandariyah, one in Baghdad, and one in Basra. A Shia shrine was also bombed in Khalis, Diyala.

Iraqi and U.S. security forces now appear to have gotten a handle on the situation. No attacks on mosques or religious sites were reported on Thursday. There were no reports of major attacks by death squads, and violence in Iraq has been remarkably low. The real test will come after Friday's sermons, and when the curfews begin to be lifted in the days and weeks ahead.

The Samarra mosque bombing occurred as al Qaeda has stepped up its bridge-bombing campaign. A bridge in Diyala province was attacked on Wednesday. "The blast destroyed the east-bound lane of the bridge and left the west-bound lane standing, but impassable," noted Multinational Forces Iraq. This is the fourth bridge attacked in four days. Al Qaeda in Iraq appears to be conducting a scorched earth policy while attempting to disrupt military traffic across the rivers and away from their safe havens in Diyala province. Al Qaeda also murdered 14 members of the Iraqi security forces and posted the video on the Internet.

U.S. and Iraqi security forces continue to press the fight against al Qaeda in Iraq and other elements of the insurgency. Twenty-five al Qaeda suspects were captured in raids in Mosul, Tarmiyah, Amiriyah, and Baghdad. The Tarmiyah raid resulted in the capture of an "individual believed to be a close associate of Omar al Baghdadi," the leader of al Qaeda's Islamic State of Iraq. Also, Coalition forces captured 15 al Qaeda suspects in Mosul on June 11.

Multiple raids and operations were carried out on June 13. The most important operation resulted in the death of Kamal Jalil Bakr ‘Uthman, the military emir of Mosul. ‘Uthman "coordinated and facilitated suicide bombings in the Mosul area" as well as "facilitated the movement of more than 100 foreign fighters through safe houses in the area, and orchestrated attacks against Iraqi and Coalition Forces." Two terrorists were killed and 13 captured during a raid on a Baghdad car bomb network.

Also, on June 13, Coalition forces killed one member of the Iranian backed Qazali network, and captured two more during a raid in Baghdad. "The targeted individual of the morning’s operation is associated with a kidnapping cell and is believed to be directly involved in the November Ministry of Health kidnappings," which resulted in the disappearance of five British nationals.

On June 12, U.S. and Iraqi soldiers killed six terrorists and captured 19 during multiple operations in Baqubah, Diyala. Numerous caches were found, including one with "approximately 200 pounds of home made explosives, numerous anti tank mines, mortar and artillery rounds, and other IED making materials." Diyala is al Qaeda country, and Baqubah is the declared capital of its Islamic State.

From the Washington Post: The Power China Is Building, by Gary Schmitt.

From the Washington Times: A 'Ballistic Missile Triad', by Fred Stakelbeck.

From the New York Post: Iraq and the Arab Suicide Cult, by Ralph Peters.

From Flying: Night Carrier Qualifications, by Lt. j. g. Doug Masters.

From the Danger Room: Aerospace Boondoggle's Congressional Assist, by Jason Vest.

Bonus Video: Boeing 707 Completes a Barrel Roll.

Forty-nine 3rd Infantry Division Soldiers re-enlist in front of the Task Force Marne headquarters on the Army's 232nd birthday, June 14.

Ever since the Democrats regained the majority in the House of Representatives, Congressman John Murtha has been a train wreck. Whether it was the attention paid to his role as unindicted co-conspirator in AbScam, his promise to use a back-door way to 'slow-bleed' the war effort in Iraq, his push to reinstate the draft, his threats to colleagues, or his breaking of House rules, Murtha seems unable to avoid embarrassing his conference.

Now it's reported that Congressman Murtha has informed the House Intelligence Committee that jurisdiction over the No-Fly List and the terror incident training program are to be transferred to the National Drug Intelligence Center--which is located in Murtha's district. If you're surprised that the Department of Justice would give the NDIC jurisdiction over programs that seem to have little to do with drug intelligence, you're in good company--the Justice Department was surprised as well:

To secure congressional funding for a pet project, Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., made a surprising claim: The little-known National Drug Intelligence Center was about to take charge of the "vitally important" terrorist no-fly list.

Murtha's news, in a letter he sent to the House Intelligence Committee last month, came as a surprise to the nation's intelligence community. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence already had recommended that the NDIC, in Murtha's hometown of Johnstown, Pa., be closed for poor performance. It also puzzled the Justice Department, NDIC's parent agency, where spokesman Dean Boyd said there are no "current" plans for such a transition...

Murtha's letter said the center "also anticipates undertaking a new and vitally important mission…with the National Counterterrorism Center—assuming responsibility for the terror no-fly list, the terror incident training program and [as] the post-disaster recovery site for the National Counterterrorism Center."

The Justice Department's Boyd said there are no "current" plans to move the terror incident program to the NDIC. Boyd said he could not comment on any plans dealing with post-disaster relocation.

The DoJ has been trying to shut down the NDIC for several years, but has been frustrated by Murtha's use of earmarks to keep the center open. In light of the opposition from the DoJ, one can only conclude that Murtha was either lying to the committee, or is planning to use another secret earmark to force the Justice Department to make work for the NDIC. Which would be worse?

The Politico reports that Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader in the United States Senate, has labeled both the outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Marine General Peter Pace, as well as the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, General David Petraeus, as "incompetent." Here's the relevant quote from the Politico:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called Marine Gen. Peter Pace, the outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, "incompetent" during an interview Tuesday with a group of liberal bloggers, a comment that was never reported.

Reid made similar disparaging remarks about Army Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said several sources familiar with the interview.

We have the following statement from Senator John McCain:

"It's incredibly disappointing that Harry Reid would make such disparaging remarks about both the highest ranking officer in the U.S military and the commander of our troops in Iraq. Generals Pace and Petraeus are two leaders who have spent their entire lives in service to their country and Senator Reid needs to clarify his criticisms, which can only be described as highly inappropriate and regrettable."

I think outrageous would be another word to describe Reid's comments, and on a number of levels. If Reid really believes this to be true, than why not say it directly to the American people. He's talking about two men who have devoted themselves to a life of service and honor, and while that does not exempt them from criticism, it ought to exempt them from being stabbed in the back by the likes of Reid. We wonder if the Democratic presidential candidates will distance themselves from these remarks, which go far beyond an assessment of the facts on the ground to attack the character of this country's military leaders. And shouldn't Republican senators be calling for Reid's resignation, or at least for him to step down as majority leader--this is a man who seems more concerned with currying favor in the blogosphere than supporting American troops, and their commanders, fighting in Iraq. As Powerline's Scott Johnson writes, it seems there's "No depth too low to stoop for partisan victory, no price too great to be paid for defeat of the United States."

This is an outrage--Reid isn't fit to shine the boots of either Petraeus or Pace.

The Iraqi police have made arrests in this morning's twin bombings of the al Askaria mosque's remaining minarets. While early reports indicated that the Iraqi National Police were responsible for securing the mosque complex, it was, in fact, a provincial police unit that was guarding the area. As the suspects behind the attacks were rounded up, unconfirmed reports of attacks on religious sites in Baghdad and Diyala began to surface.

The suspects in the bombing came from the Salahadin Emergency Response Unit, not the 3rd Battalion, 3rd Brigade of the 1st Iraqi National Police Division (3-3-1 INP), according to Multinational Division North. "I can confirm ... that Brig. Gen. Duraid, deputy commander for the National Police in Samarra, did arrest the Emergency Response Unit Iraqi Police commander and 12 of his Iraqi police who had been guarding the mosque at the time of the explosions," Major Tage J. Rainsford, the spokesman for Major General Benjamin Mixon, Kuwaiti News Agency. A "correspondent of Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) said he saw US military tanks and bulldozers being stationed, blocking bridges over the waterway that separates Sadr city and central Baghdad," in an attempt to keep the Mahdi Army from attacking from its bases in Sadr City.

The Associated Press reports that "sketchy reports of sectarian strife" are starting to surface. Four Sunni mosques and a Shia shrine north of Baghdad were targeted. The AP also reported that the Khudair al-Janabi mosque in Baghdad's Bayaa district was the site of an arson attack, while the Shia Imam Ali Kamal shrine in Khalis, Diyala province, was reported to have been destroyed in a bombing. IraqSlogger reports that three mosques in Baghdad--the Grand Iskandariyah Mosque, the Hiteen Mosque, and the Abdullah Mosque--were reported to have been destroyed, and fighting was reported in the mixed Sunni-Shia neighborhood of Ghazaliyah in northern Baghdad.

Early reports of sectarian violence and of the destruction of mosques should be treated with caution. Reports of mosque bombings in Baghdad last summer were inflated or in some cases completely fabricated. Al Qaeda, Muqtada al Sadr, and other elements looking to incite further violence will manufacture incidents as part of their sophisticated Information Operations. But fallout from the bombing of the al Askaria mosque should be expected.

A great piece on life at Camp Anaconda from Baltimore Sun reporter David Wood...

Elsewhere in Iraq, soldiers and Marines patrol into dangerous Iraqi neighborhoods from squalid COPs, temporary Combat Outposts set in those neighborhoods, places where heat, dirt and foul odor triumph and plumbing, air conditioning and cold water are distant memories, a grueling existence with sudden death or dismemberment as constant companions.

Here, no one goes "outside the wire" except on the nerve-wracking convoys. If something is needed - computer paper, communion wafers, concrete slabs, drinking water, an Iraqi souvenir - it is made here or comes by truck or air. People fly in for a year's duty and never set foot "out there."

Some try.

"I have guys who want to go out to see what it's like," said Lt. Col. Matthew Parsley of Scotts Bluff, Neb., who commands a National Guard battalion on convoy security duty. He is unsympathetic. "If there's no reason to go out, there is no reason to go out."

For Fobbits inside the wire, after all, life is tolerable. The food is abundant, the showers have hot water and usually good water pressure, the $5 million gyms are open 24/7, as are the swimming pools, the post exchange and the 745-seat movie theater.

A friend of the WWS writes of the story: "the best description I've read of what it's actually like to be in Iraq for most who are deployed. Of course most people stateside have no idea; they think it's a living hell." Doesn't sound too bad, but boredom can have a nasty effect on morale. According to a recent Pentagon study, "Boring and repetitive work was a main concern for 39 percent of soldiers and 33 percent of Marines."

From the Wall Street Journal: Our Common Struggle, by Nouri al-Maliki.

From Contentions: Lieberman’s Vision, by Max Boot.

From the New Atlantis: China’s Military Ambitions--And Ours, by Jeff Kueter.

From CFR: The Candidates on North Korea Policy, by Carin Zissis.

From USA Today: Lock Up Dangerous Enemy Combatants, by Richard Samp.

From Ares: Israel’s huge new Eitan/Heron TP UAV, which will debut at next week's Paris Air Show.

The Golden Dome of the al-Askaria Mosque and its two minarets prior to the bombings in 2006 and 2007.

Just as U.S. and Iraqi security forces have begun to get the sectarian violence back to pre February 2006 levels, the minarets of Samarra's al-Askaria mosque, on of the most holy shrines in Shia Islam, were destroyed in a pair of bombings this morning. Explosives charges were placed at the base of the towers, and detonated within seven minutes. The Golden Dome of the al-Askaria mosque was destroyed by al Qaeda in February of 2006, which touched off the wave of Sunni - Shia bloodletting, driven largely by Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army on one side, and al Qaeda in Iraq on the other.

In the wake of the destruction of al-Askaria's minarets, the Iraqi government immediately announced curfews of indefinite lengths in Samarra and Baghdad. Iraqi troops are said to have been rushed out onto streets of Baghdad, and an additional Iraqi Army brigade is being rushed to Samarra.

Both the U.S. and Iraqi governments have pointed the finger at al Qaeda in Iraq as the primary suspect in the attack. Major General Benjamin Mixon, the commander of Multinational Division North, said the evidence points to an "inside job" and that "members of the Iraqi security forces who were guarding the site either assisted or directly took part in helping al Qaeda insurgents place and detonate explosives at the mosque's minarets."

Security for the al-Askaria mosque is provided for by Iraq's Interior Ministry, which is dominated by the Shia. Lieutenant General Martin E. Dempsey, the recently departed commander of Multi-National Security Transition Command - Iraq, told us that up to 85% of the Iraqi police are Shia. The 3rd Battalion, 3rd Brigade of the 1st Iraqi National Police Division is responsible for security in Samarra, and took over security from local police in April of 2007.

CNN noted that 15 members of the Iraqi National Police were detained for suspicion in the involvement in the attack. The Washington Post reported "the entire Iraqi security force responsible for guarding the mosque, the 3rd Battalion of the Salahadin province police, was detained for investigation."

There are conflicting reports on exactly what happened in Samarra prior to the attack. A Reuters report indicated there was an attempt to target the mosque two weeks ago. AFP reported "a new batch of security force came from Baghdad to take over the security of the shrine from the previous force and there was a row between the two groups which saw some exchange of fire... Finally, the new force did take up the security. The previous force was local from the town of Tikrit."

CNN reported that "the blast followed clashes between gunmen and Iraqi National Police, who were guarding the holy site. During the firefight, the insurgents entered the mosque, also known as the Golden Dome, planted explosives around the minarets and detonated them."

Al Qaeda in Iraq is known to have been behind the 2006 bombing in Samarra. In June of 2006, Coalition forces arrested Yousri Fakher Mohammed Ali, "a key al-Qaida suspect" in the February 2006 bombing of the Golden Dome. Ali, aka Abu Qudama, is of Tunisian origin and was wounded during a raid in Baqubah, where "fifteen other foreign fighters were killed in the confrontation." Haitham Sabah Shaker Mohammed al-Badri is believed to be the ringleader in the 2006 Samarra operation and is still on the loose.

Today's bombing in Samarra benefits two parties: al Qaeda in Iraq, and Muqtada al Sadr. Both parties have little desire for reconciliation, and their power is derived by the continuation of sectarian violence. Both parties are in fact the driving forces behind the sectarian attacks.

The Pentagon held another blogger roundtable today, this time with Brigadier General Kevin Bergner, chief of staff for Strategic Effects at MNF-I.

General Bergner opened with a statement about "the vicious attack that took place today on the al Askari Mosque in Samarra. It really is, in every aspect, an affront to the values and dignity of people from all religions...it is further proof of the enemies indiscriminate violence and the depths to which they will go to incite hatred."

Berger reports that, so far at least, "there is restraint...there have been some peaceful gatherings, but nothing that's out of the normal atmospherics."

General Petreaus and Ambassador Crocker met today with Iraqi prime minister Maliki, and Bergner said that Maliki has "has announced a curfew, deployed additional security forces to Samarra, and announced an investigative commission to determine what happened."

Bergner was not totally disheartened by the event, though, or perhaps he was just looking for a silver lining when he said that there was "a very strong sense that this was galvanizing Iraq's leaders--they were very unified in condemning the attack, they were very unified in calling for restraint, and they were very unified in their commitment to one another and making sure that this did not somehow disrupt or split the political leadership. So if there's anything we can hope for that might come out of something as vicious and tragic as this attack, it might be a galvanizing of the Iraqi leadership."

In other news, Bergner reported that Coalition forces "have now significantly increased the pressure on al Qaeda and are now going places where they have not had us operating" in the past. He pointed to a raid in South Baghdad two days ago in which the 4th Brigade of the 1st Infantry Division discovered "an IED cache that was clearly an important part of [al Qaeda's] operating base." Also, about 10 days ago in Fallujah, Coalition forces raided a truck bomb factory, the general said, that "was also an important and well developed support base for al Qaeda."

The general reported that last night Coalition forces "took out...the military emir of Mosul," and soldiers from the 82nd Airborne had just this morning "located a mortar cell, detained six people, along with a complete 120mm mortar system, a complete 82mm mortar system, and then three 60mm mortar systems, along with the people, and the van, and all the other paraphernalia associated with it."

Bergner said all this indicated that the Coalition was applying "a significant level of pressure that's now taking away the elements that these extremist forces have been using to operate against us."

As far as Coalition casualties, Bergner stressed that the key was "the result of the operations that we're increasingly involved in, and what do we see in terms of effects that those are having on the enemy....taking down five complete mortar systems, and their van, and their ammunition, that's an enormous blow to the indirect fire network here....when we're taking those kinds of targets out and we're removing that kind of capability, that's a pretty good signal to us that our operations are being effective and that we're having the necessary result."

Finally, speaking to morale, Bergner said "these guys are all over it, and they have tremendous morale, but I'm not going to tell you there aren't soldiers out there that are struggling. This is hard...but my experience with the guys I've been riding with has been really good.

I've noted before that debates over energy in Congress seem disjointed and tend to focus on a laundry list of responses to today's political concerns, rather than any overarching strategy for addressing our future energy needs.

While Congress may not yet be up to the challenge, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is stepping into the fray--with the founding of the The Institute for 21st Century Energy. The institute has laid out the following goals:

* Maintain a strong economy by increasing energy supply from all sources;
* Protect national security through the expansion of domestic energy production;
* Preserve and improve the environment;
* Expand the nation's fuel and power delivery systems; and,
* Encourage U.S. government and private sector leadership to address global energy problems.

The head of the Institute is retired Marine Corps General James Jones, who, according to the Wall Street Journal, is a confidante of Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John McCain. He joins Eisenhower, Schwarzkopf, and Powell (at least) in a long line of former military men courted by both parties after leaving the service. Jones is regarded as a strong contender for secretary of defense in any of several potential administrations and may now be a contender for secretary of energy as well.

A major challenge for this effort is that energy has become among the most partisan of issues in Washington DC, so serious reform efforts are hard to manage. Republicans support low gas prices, drilling in ANWR, expanded use of coal, and permissive environmental regulation, while opposing drastic changes in CAFE standards. Democrats take the reverse position on almost all of those--and most seem to think that Halliburton is the physical manifestation of Satan on Earth.

The only issue that seems able to break the parties out of these positions right now is a measure of bipartisan support for increased use of nuclear power, which doesn't produce greenhouse gases.

Absent a true energy crisis, it's unlikely we will see a major shift on this issue from either party in the near fture. That might change if General Jones is enough of a political prize for a presidential candidate to endorse whatever he comes up with. After all, if Paris was worth a Mass, perhaps General Jones might ultimately prove to be worth putting a few drills in ANWR.

This is unquestionably bad news. Here's the statement from Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker and General David Petraeus on the attack:

“We strongly condemn this morning’s vicious attack on the Al-Askari Mosque in Samarra. This brutal action on one of Iraq’s holiest shrines is a deliberate attempt by al-Qaeda to sow dissent and inflame sectarian strife among the people of Iraq. It is an act of desperation by an increasingly beleaguered enemy seeking to obstruct the peaceful political and economic development of a democratic Iraq.

“We share in the outrage of the Iraqi people against this crime, and we call on all Iraqis to reject this call to violence. We can not allow these terrorists to work against the interests of the Iraqi people who are seeking peace and prosperity for all.”

I'm sure Roggio will have some more information on the bombing later today.

Blackfive posted on the U.S. Navy's new mission in Iraq, patrolling the Euphrates River, including the waterways of Ramadi, on small riverine craft. In December of 2005, I embedded with the Damn Security Unit (or DSU) at Haditha Dam in Anbar province. You can see the photogallery here. The DSU was made up of Marine Corps Reservists who were part of an armored amphibious company (AAV) converted to the Small Marine Riverine Craft. These bots are essentially tanks on the water, as they pack a serious amount of firepower and can take a beating. I described the craft here:

Their boats are called Small Marine Riverine Craft, 40 feet long by 10 feet wide, and are powered by twin souped-up 440 horsepower racing engines. The SMRC can easily exceed 40 knots, and is both quick and highly maneuverable. Because it is jet driven and not propeller driven, the SMRC can go into waters as shallow as 9 inches. It holds a crew of five, and can carry up to thirteen Marines for an assault.

The boat packs some serious firepower to go along with its speed. It mounts two M240G machine guns forward, and either a .50 caliber machine gun at the rear, or a or a Mark 19 grenade launcher. The boat is also equipped to mount an electric powered Gatling gun.

Here's the video from Blackfive:

Today marks the 20th anniversary of Ronald Reagan's 'Tear Down this Wall' speech at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. And this morning marked the dedication of the Memorial to the Victims of Communism, which was commissioned by Congress and funded through a combination of taxpayer dollars and private financing.

According to the Victims of Communism Foundation, more than 100 million have been killed by communism since the Bolshevik Revolution. Today more than 20 percent of the world population continues to live under communist regimes--the vast majority in the People's Republic of China. Given that fact, it's no surprise that the memorial dedicated today takes the form of the 'Goddess of Democracy.'

Quin Hillyer recently wrote about the memorial:

The lesson of the new memorial, and of tragic historical experience, is that Communism--all Communism--is by its very nature a tyranny of the sort [Reagan speech writer Lee] Edwards warned against. It is certainly not the only tyranny, but so far it is the worst one this Earth has ever known. We Americans led the way in defeating it. We should not forget why the battle was necessary.

Communism has not been completely vanquished, and though it is now largely rejected, authoritarian philosophies that elevate the collective over the individual are still going strong--in the Middle East and elsewhere. As we pay tribute to the victims of communism, we should not forget those who are still being killed by fundamentalist Islam.

WWS pal Tim Slagle writes in with word on Al Gore's epic global warming concert series, which is to feature musical performances from all seven continents broadcast live on July 7. Unfortunately, it seems that the concert that is to take place on Antarctica will not quite have the star-power that Gore had sought:

Nunatuk warms up the crowd, but they may need more lighting
for the show--the sun never rises at the camp in July.

According to Linda Capper, representative for the British Antarctic Survey, the Antarctic leg of the Live Earth Show will not be a “Major Concert” as Al Gore once promised. In fact according to Linda: "We have a house band--five of our science team. They are very good indie rock-folk fusion.”

The Rothera Research Station is under British jurisdiction, and home to only 22 winter residents. July 7th is mid winter down there and it is completely inaccessible by plane or boat. But that didn’t deter the Oscar winning star of An Inconvenient Truth. Back in February, Gore’s office contacted the BAS requesting a flight into Rothera. The questioned Linda “about the possibility to fly an artiste [no-one specific] into to the research station in July.” When Al Gore was informed that July is winter in Antarctica, and completely inaccessible, Linda Capper suggested letting the scientists play. She actually sent a cameraman down to Rothera in March on one of the last flights of the season, to film a video of the band.

The band is called Nunatak, which is a Greenlandic word for an exposed summit of a ridge mountain or peak not covered with snow. As for audience, according to Linda: The remaining 17 [residents] will be the audience on location.

So Gore's attempt to rock Antarctica in the name of global warming was stymied by the fact that the continent is so darn cold as to be virtually uninhabitable and completely inaccessible at the time of the event. Still, if you want a glimpse of Nunatuk, you can check out the roughly 75 hours of event coverage that NBC Universal will serve up.

From Contentions: Warships for China? by Gordon G. Chang.

From the AP: Rightist asks Japan to revive its army, by Hiroko Tabuchi.

From the DEW Line: Subsonic Long Range Strike: So Much for That, by Stephen Trimble.

From Wired: Soviet-Era Arcade Games Crawl Out of Their Cold War Graves, by Alexander Zaitchik.

From the New York Times: Afghan Forces Found Bomb Like Type Used in Iraq, by Abdul Waheed Wafa.

From Pajama's Media: This map breaks down the gigantic US GDP into the GDPs of individual states and then compares them to those of other countries. (Strange Maps)

Seth Gitell has an excellent piece at the New York Sun on the reaction to Senator Lieberman's comments on Face the Nation this week regarding military action against Iran.

Gitell writes:

Pillory the American official who deigns to be so brazen as to state that it might be necessary to attack a country that is complicit in killing American soldiers and our allies. That appeared to be the response of many to Senator Lieberman raising the possibility of an attack on Iran Sunday on "Face the Nation."

"I think we've got to be prepared to take aggressive military action against the Iranians to stop them from killing Americans in Iraq," Mr. Lieberman said. "That would include a strike…over the border into Iran, where we have good evidence that they have a base at which they are training these people coming back into Iraq to kill our soldiers." Mr. Lieberman, notably, introduced only the possibility of limited military action, saying "I want to make clear I'm not talking about a massive ground invasion of Iran."

Mr. Lieberman's comments met with immediate derision on "Face the Nation." "We have a not insignificant small problem on our hands already called Iraq where we are kind of bogged down, and we have Afghanistan on our hands…We're taking on a really big problem if we go striking Iran," scoffed Colbert King of the Washington Post. "I can't think of anything worse than announcing in advance your military strikes," added Roger Simon of Politico.com.

It's worth reading the whole thing, but Roger Simon makes an interesting comment there. Were the president to take military action against Iran, should he do so without warning? And even if that was determined to be the best course of action, does that preclude a healthy debate on the matter in the Congress and in the media? Surely not. If the Democratic leadership can inveigh against military action, and threaten legislation that would prevent such action without Congressional authorization, then certainly proponents of a hard-line approach ought to have the opportunity to make their case to the American people as well.

Really.

Saddam had "conducted extensive terrorism activities, but [George H.W.] Bush looked the other way," says Gore. So good thing this president didn't, right?

Nearly four months since the Baghdad Security Plan was announced, the Sunni population in the provinces continues to turn on al Qaeda in Iraq, and attempts to weaken support for the group inside Baghdad are showing early signs of success. Al Qaeda in Iraq, for its part, has focused its attacks largely in the provinces, and zeroed in on the Iraqi Security Forces, the anti-al Qaeda Sunni community, and Iraq's bridges.

US soldiers walk past a Sunni mosque as they patrol
southwest of Baghdad, 07 June.
AFP/File/Roslan Rahman

The most significant development inside Baghdad over the past week occurred in the Sunni-dominated western neighborhood of Amiriyah, where a group of local residents and Sunni insurgent groups (largely fighters from the 1920s Revolution Brigade and the Islamic Army in Iraq) banded together to eject al Qaeda from the neighborhood.

Al Qaeda in Iraq overreached in attempting to set up a Taliban-like state in the Baghdad neighborhood, and the locals rebelled. "The group sprung up last week when several local leaders called on neighborhood residents to take up arms against al Qaeda after unprovoked killings in the neighborhood," Jane Arraf reported from Baghdad last week. "At least two local imams normally opposed to the presence of American soldiers agreed to cooperate with the U.S. forces."

The group requested that the U.S. unit stationed in the area stay out of the fighting, but U.S. and Iraqi forces did provide weapons, ammunition, food, and guidance. In some cases, they did fight alongside the self-described "freedom fighters." The Anbar Salvation Council, the grouping of Sunni tribes and former insurgents, also sent advisers to assist and fight with the Amiriyah fighters.

The Amiriyah fighters are now patrolling the neighborhood and conducting raids jointly with U.S. and Iraqi forces. Lieutenant Colonel Dale Kuehl, the commander of the 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment noted that more al Qaeda were killed or captured in the area during the past week than had been in the six months prior.

While many news outlets have characterized the support of such Sunnis fighting against al Qaeda simply as the creation of new Sunni militias; but this view reflects a misunderstanding of counterinsurgency strategy. Part of a successful counterinsurgency strategy includes turning moderates against the radical, irreconcilable elements of the insurgency--in this case al Qaeda in Iraq.

The strategy is certainly not without risk, particularly in the charged sectarian environment of Iraq (and in Baghdad in particular). The Shia Iraqi government looks with suspicion upon armed Sunni groups of any stripe. But the goal is to secure the local areas first, develop trust with the Iraqi government later, and ultimately incorporate these groups into the Iraqi Security Forces. We can reasonably hope that this might be the beginning of a reconciliation process, however long and painful.

As President Bush follows his G-8 visit to Berlin with a stop in Bulgaria, Congressional Quarterly covers a bizarre 'kerfuffle' over a North Korean money laundering operation involving a Bulgarian bank:

During a private meeting in Washington last February, Deputy Treasury Secretary Robert M. Kimmitt warned Bulgaria’s Finance Minister that the Economic and Investment Bank (EI), chaired by the girlfriend of powerful Sofia mayor and presidential aspirant Boiko Borissov, was a target of a North Korean money-laundering effort.

The bank denies it has any connections with North Korea and denounced Kimmitt for spreading unfounded “rumors,” which it charges originated with political rivals of Borissov, whose right-wing nationalist party is surging in the polls...

EI Bank board Chairwoman Tsvetelina Borislavova, who acknowledged in an interview with CQ that she was “living with” Borissov, said she had been informed of Kimmitt’s warning “personally, by the finance minister,” Plamen Oresharski, upon his return from Washington last February.

But she said the tip was based on “false information” concocted by political enemies of her boyfriend Borissov, who before he became mayor last year was a top official in Bulgaria’s powerful Interior Ministry.

Borislavova said the bank had thoroughly investigated the allegation and found that “there has never been any account opened by a North Korean company or a joint venture company” in the bank...

So the live-in girlfriend of the likely future president sits on the board of a bank that may or may not be laundering money for the North Koreans depending on who you ask--your choices being the live-in girlfriend or the deputy secretary of the Treasury. CQ stresses that Borrisov has become a close ally of President Bush, and that Bulgaria is home to three U.S. bases. Further, Bulgaria is pressing to become part of the anti-ballistic missile shield that will see U.S. installations set in nearby Poland and the Czech Republic.

But when Borrisov travels to Washington this week, he's unlikely to discuss the details of such cooperation with American military officials. According to CQ, the highest ranking official on Borrisov's dance card is Washington mayor Adrian Fenty. No word on whether the live-in girlfriend is joining Borrisov on the trip.

Defense Daily reports today on a new armored vehicle, which, the manufacturers claim, is capable of defeating the simple but deadly explosively formed penetrators (EFPs) that have been causing so much trouble in Iraq. The report says that,

Ceradyne Inc.'s Vehicle Armor Systems in conjunction with its teaming partner, Ideal Innovations Inc., announces the introduction of a high-threat vehicle called the BULL. Specifically designed for close urban terrain, the vehicle can withstand the most lethal improvised explosive device threats, the company says. The BULL's armor provides protection against explosively formed penetrators, as well. "The BULL is a commercial derivative of a vehicle that successfully passed limited testing by the U.S. Government," Marc King, vice president of Armor Operations for Ceradyne, says. The details of the vehicle's complete capabilities are classified, but it has "clearly demonstrated a level of performance and crew survivability not previously seen in other armored vehicles," says King. "We feel this is a clear technological leap forward in crew survivability." (Defense Daily – 6/11)

If the vehicle lives up to the hype, no doubt the technology would be a "technological leap forward." But WWS pal Stuart Koehl was cautious in assessing the claim:

Ceradyne makes a kind of ceramic armor called FlexKit, which consists of panels of ceramic tiles backed with SpectraShield, encapsulated in a metal or composite box to keep it under compression. It has reasonably good multi-hit capability, and should be blast-resistant. I wonder at the EFP capability, though--if an EFP can bore through 40mm of RHA, I don't see how an inch or so of ceramic and composite is going to do better. There must be something under the ceramic--either a steel or aluminum shell, or some sort of metal composite. If it can really keep out EFPs, the whole system must weigh something on the order of 150 lbs per square foot.

I'm hearing more and more about ceramic armor lately, but the biggest advantage of ceramics is supposed to be the reduced weight. If Koehl's correct and there is an additional layer of metal armor underneath the ceramic plates, then this might be more of an evolution than a "technological leap forward." In any case, a vehicle that can withstand a direct hit from an EFP would be an excellent addition to the inventory.

Several articles in the news in the past few days have raised questions about the success and even the wisdom of American efforts to turn former insurgents--and Iraq's Sunni Arab population in general--into allies against al Qaeda. Stories in the Washington Post and the New York Times highlighted the risks of this approach, and also made a number of assertions about the supposed "failures" of the Baghdad Security Plan that require a response.

John F. Burns and Alissa Rubin make a number of such assertions that need to be addressed in today's Times under the title "U.S. Arming Sunnis in Iraq to Battle Old Qaeda Allies":

1. This article notes that suicide bombings have dropped in Baghdad (and risen elsewhere) as evidence of the failure of the effort. We must remember that it is called the Baghdad Security Plan, not the Iraq Security Plan. If bombings are dropping in Baghdad, which the administration, General Petraeus, and everyone else who supported this proposal identified as the center of gravity--as the capital is home to roughly a quarter of Iraq’s population--then the Baghdad Security Plan is working. No one imagined or promised that 30,000 troops would get the whole country under control in four months.

2. No one imagined or promised that the plan would work even in Baghdad in just four months. Saying that the plan has "failed so far to fulfill the aim of bringing enhanced stability to Baghdad" is both inappropriate and wrong. It is inappropriate because the plan is just starting to take full effect. It is wrong because both sectarian killings and, apparently from this article, suicide bombings are down in Baghdad. How is that failing to bring "enhanced stability" to the capital?

The Wall Street Journal runs an excellent editorial today on the decision by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates not to renominate Marine Corps General Peter Pace to a second term as chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Gates explained the decision as an effort to avoid a "quite contentious" debate in Congress. And the Journal nails him for it:

Mr. Gates seems to think he can succeed as the anti-Rumsfeld by appeasing the likes of Mr. Levin, but his kowtow only makes Mr. Bush look weaker as a Commander in Chief who can't even select his own war generals. Mr. Levin was quick to brag about his latest conquest, confirming for reporters that he had told Mr. Gates that General Pace's nomination would have resulted in a fight. The Democrat will now return Mr. Gates's favor by holding Senate hearings on the Administration's detainee and interrogation policy. Mr. Levin is seeking thousands of documents to further embarrass Mr. Bush, and we're told Mr. Gates is urging the White House counsel's office to accommodate the Democrat....

But the problem seems to go deeper than just Gates. From the top down, the administration seems incapable of defending itself, and whatever one thinks of Pace, the administration's capitulation to Levin is pathetic--and signals a more troubling unwillingness to defend the war.

The Journal goes on:

General Pace's fate is one more example of Mr. Bush's recent habit of abandoning those most closely identified with his Iraq policy. Paul Wolfowitz received only tepid support from Treasury while he was besieged at the World Bank, while I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby may soon go to jail because the President has refused to pardon him. With Mr. Libby, what is Mr. Bush afraid of--jeopardizing his 33% approval rating? A pardon would be a two-day story. His opponents can't hate Mr. Bush more than they already do, and his supporters would cheer to see the President standing by the man who stood by him when others in his Administration cut and ran.

The Levin Democrats aren't seeking some new "bipartisan" strategy that will avoid defeat in Iraq. They want to blame Mr. Bush for defeat so they can destroy his Presidency and elect a Democrat in 2008. Mr. Bush can't change that through appeasement in Washington but only by improving the facts on the ground in Baghdad. We thought he hired Mr. Gates to make that happen, not to act as a Beltway middleman for Carl Levin's desires.

We couldn't agree more. And one other point that we hear was raised against Pace's renomination: he wrote a letter to the presiding judge on Libby's behalf....

From Contentions: The Price of One Leak, by Gabriel Schoenfeld.

From RealClearPolitics: The Power & Promise of American Realism, by Condoleezza Rice.

From the Philadelphia Inquirer: A positive story from the Iraq war, by Kevin Ferris.

Two From Defense Tech: Blues out of San Fran? by Pinch Paisley. Rescue Chopper Rumble, by Christian Lowe.

Bonus Audio File: Missile Defense, the U.S. and Europe, NPR with Nathan Hodge.

From Ares: An hour after liftoff, the combined 7.5-million-lbs. of thrust of the two ATK solid rocket boosters and three space shuttle main engines (SSMEs) interacted with upper atmospheric winds to form magnificent calligraphy in the sky above the launch site. Photo by Carleton Bailie for Aviation Week.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD has a full-time position available for a staff assistant. This is a clerical position working with the editors. Duties will include answering phones and emails, updating our website, research, and record-keeping. Candidates should address a cover letter and résumé to hr@weeklystandard.com.

Last week, Defense Secretary Robert Gates succeeded in securing guarantees from Kyrgyz president Kurmanbek Bakiev for continued U.S. use of the Manas air base. During a June 5th press conference in Bishkek--the Kyrgyz capital--Secretary Gates reiterated the importance of Coalition operations at Manas and their role "in support of a larger war on terrorism."

Airman 1st Class Michael Lepla digs out a C-17 Globemaster III
at Manas air base on Jan. 28, 2006.

The next day, People’s Daily, the organ paper of the Chinese Communist party, ran a piece titled "U.S. Defense Secretary Uses anti-Terrorism as an Excuse to Cling Shamelessly to Kyrgyz Air Base."

The article describes an American military bent on overstaying its welcome in Kyrgyzstan, despite calls by Kyrgyz parliamentarians last month for the eviction of U.S. forces from Manas. The piece ends with this observation:

According to published reports, the United States currently has troops deployed in about 130 countries. History tells us that once American troops enter a country or a region, they will be unwilling to leave. Take, for instance, South Korea, Germany and Japan. After more than half a century, American troops are still stationed in these countries. Just the other day the U.S. government indicated that it would follow the South Korea model and deploy troops in Iraq for the long term.

This sentiment reflects Beijing’s growing resentment over not only the Manas air base, but with this country's global military posture more generally. As noted in a 2004 article on "U.S. occupation of Kyrgyz air base" that has been re-published by a number of official Chinese websites:

Undoubtedly, a sharp knife has been positioned to the back of China by the presence of American forces in Central Asia. Once clashes break out over the Taiwan Strait and America decides to intervene, U.S. troops stationed in Central Asia would probably launch an attack from behind our back. Manas is only a little over 400 kilometers from Xinjiang in China. It would take American warplanes just over 10 minutes to reach Xinjiang. Therefore, it can be said that Manas constitutes a direct military threat to Xinjiang and the western region of China.

For obvious reasons, China has kept a watchful eye on Central Asia. While Beijing lacks Moscow’s historical presence, it has in recent years made considerable inroads into the region. In Kyrgyzstan, for example, China has launched infrastructure projects worth billions of dollars. These include a power station, a railway line, and a highway system. And of the three major powers vying for influence in the region, China is the only one that shares a border with Kyrgyzstan.

The big news on the Sunday circuit this week was Joe Lieberman's declaration on Face the Nation that "we've got to be prepared to take aggressive military action against the Iranians to stop them from killing Americans in Iraq.'' You can watch the video here, and here's an excerpt of Lieberman's statement:

SCHIEFFER: Well, let me just act--ask you about Iran. You brought up Iran. What should we do? Because we continue to hear more and more of just what you're saying. What should the United States do at this point about Iran?

LIEBERMAN: It's very important, Bob, because I didn't just go to Iraq, I went visited throughout the Arab world and Israel. And what you see throughout the Middle East is Iran in battle basically with us and the moderates, supplying the extremists in Iraq, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas fighting the Fatah faction, our allies among the Palestinians, and, of course, committing terrorists acts against the Israelis. I'm not one to say we shouldn't sit down with the Iranians. I'm glad we did that in Baghdad a while ago. What we did was present them with evidence that we have that I've seen that I believe is incontrovertible that the Iranians are training and equipping the Iraqi extremists to come into Iraq, and they're killing American soldiers and Iraqis. And I think this is a very important moment. If we're going to sit and talk about the Iranians, tell them what we want them to do, which is to stop doing that, because it's killing Americans, we can't leave it at that. I think we've got to be prepared to take aggressive military action against the Iranians to stop them from killing Americans in Iraq. And to me that would include a strike into--over the border into Iran where I--we have good evidence that they have a base at which they are training these people coming back into Iraq to kill our soldiers.

SCHIEFFER: Well, let's just stop right there, because I think you've probably made some news here, Senator Lieberman. You're saying that, if the--if the Iranians don't let up, that the United States should take military action against them.

LIEBERMAN: I am, and I want to make clear I'm not talking about a massive ground invasion of Iran or--but it--we have good evidence. We've told them, we've said so publicly that the Iranians have a base in Iran at which they are training Iraqis who are coming in and killing Americans. By some estimates they have killed as many as 200 American soldiers. Well, we can tell them we want them to stop that, but if there's any hope of the Iranians living according to the international rule of law and stopping for instance their nuclear weapons development, we can't just talk to them. If they don't play by the rules, we've got to use our force and, to me, that would include taking military action to stop them from doing what they're doing now.

It will be interesting to see how the Democratic presidential candidates, who say they want out of Iraq but want to be tough on Iran, respond to this statement from Lieberman. Of course, toughness isn't exactly what their base is looking for judging from the flawless logic of this reaction at The Daily Kos:

If Lieberman really wanted to stop what he believes are Iranian-sponsored attacks on our troops, well, then, he should be demanding that we bring our troops home.

But it's not just Lieberman who 'believes' the Iranians are sponsoring attacks on American troops. In addition to the substantial and persuasive--dare we say incontrovertible--evidence of Iranian involvement in attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq, Iran was recently caught "red-handed" supplying arms to the al Qaeda-affiliated Taliban in Afghanistan. We wonder if the Kos community would also demand we bring our troops home from that country in order to stop Iranian-sponsored attacks?

The January 20 attack on the Karbala Provincial Joint Coordination Center by the Iranian backed Qazali Network, which resulted in the kidnapping and murder of five U.S. soldiers, was long known to be an Iranian planned and sponsored strike. While Iran has insulated itself with its cutouts in the Qazali Network, Multinational Forces Iraq has captured members of the network who implicated the Iranian regime, as well as documents that substantiate the allegations. And now U.S. forces have satellite imagery that proves Iranian involvement. In the June 4 edition of Aviation Week and Space Technology, the magazine reports that Iran had built inside its borders a mockup of the Karbala Provincial Joint Coordination Center, which was used to train the attackers. The "training center" was discovered by a U.S. spy satellite surveying Iran.

"U.S. reconnaissance spacecraft have spotted a training center in Iran that duplicates the layout of the governor's compound in Karbala, Iraq, that was attacked in January by a specialized unit that killed American and Iraqi soldiers," Michael Mecham reported in the "In Orbit" section of the magazine. "The U.S. believes the discovery indicates Iran was heavily involved in the attack, which relied on a fake motorcade to gain entrance to the compound. The duplicate layout in Iran allowed attackers to practice procedures to use at the Iraqi compound, the Defense Dept. believes."

An American military officer confirmed to us that the report is accurate, but did not disclose the location of the training camp. In early January, Strategic Policy Consulting confirmed a two year old report by the British Ahwazi Friendship Society that Iran was using the "Arab populated city of Ahwaz, southwestern Iran, as a base of operations." The city of Ahwaz is in Khuzestan province, which borders the southern Iraqi province of Basra. It is not publicly known if Ahwaz is the location of the Karbala mockup.

"The Al-Qods Force trains militants in manufacturing improved explosive devices and finances and organises pro-Iranian militias in Iraq," noted the the British Ahwazi Friendship Society report. "According to SPC, the Iraq network is under the command of Jamal Jaafar Mohammad Ali Ebrahimi, who is also known as Mehdi Mohandes."

We were the first to note, on January 26, that Iran’s Qods Force, which is responsible for planning and conducting foreign operations, intelligence gathering, and terrorist activities, was likely behind the attack due to the complexity of the strike. General David Petraeus briefed on the Karbala attack on April 26 and noted the Qazali network was responsible for the strike.

On May 19, Coalition forces killed Azhar al-Dulaimi during a raid in Baghdad's Sadr City. Dulaimi was described as the "mastermind" and "tactical commander" of the Karbala attack, In March, U.S. forces captured Qais Qazali, the network's leader, his brother Laith Qazali, and several other members.

Multinational Forces Iraq has been targeting the Qazali Network's "secret terror cells" as well as those of the Sheibani Network. Coalition and Iraqi forces have killed 26 members of this network and captured 71 more since April 27, 2007. Three more members of the "secret cell" were captured and another killed today.

The Sheibani Network is the overarching organization that receives support, weapons, advice, and targeting from Iran's Qods Force. Senior members of the Qazali and Sheibani Networks are members of Iran's Qods Force.

MEMRI has posted a translation of an interview with Osama bin Laden’s former bodyguard, Nasser Al-Bahri. He confirms what we already knew; theological differences do not preclude cooperation between the Sunni al Qaeda and Shiite Iran. Al-Bahri explains (emphasis added):

Nasser Al-Bahri, as seen on Al-Arabiya TV on May 4, 2007.

Interviewer: Do you think there is any coordination between the [Al-Qaeda] organization and Iran?

Nasser Al-Bahri: There is coordination on the basis of joint interests.

Interviewer: In what way?

Nasser Al-Bahri: For example, there is a common enemy--the U.S.--and the Iranians, for your information, know that the [American] strike in inevitable. Therefore, they have to take advantage of all those available on the scene, including the Al-Qaeda organization.

Interviewer: So the way you see it, the Al-Qaeda organization can cooperate with the Iranians against America?

Nasser Al-Bahri: It can cooperate with the Iranians but it won't operate under the Iranians. But there is no problem with regard to cooperation.

Al-Bahri’s interview was published at the same time as we learn that Iran has been caught "red-handed" delivering explosives to the al Qaeda-affiliated, Sunni Taliban in Afghanistan. But none of this is terribly new. (See, for example, here, here, here, and here for starters.) Some counterterrorism analysts think that theological differences are everything in these matters. They are not. The pattern of Iran’s support for Sunni terrorists the world over should have been clear years ago. As long as the terrorist forces are targeting Iran’s enemies, and especially Tehran’s main enemy--the United States--the Shiite-Sunni divide is easily bridged.

The real question is this: what is America’s policy for dealing with this well-substantiated pattern of cooperation? As far as I can tell there is none.

John Edwards's idea of counterterrorism.

John Edwards has given a policy address on his plan for fighting the war on terror.

Wait, scratch that. That's nothing but a bumper sticker. If you go to his website, Edwards explains we are engaged in a 'fight against terrorism.' See the difference? Nuance!

Anyway, Edwards has revealed his strategy for addressing the underlying causes of terrorism:

The plan Mr. Edwards presented yesterday — which he dubbed "A Strategy to Shut Down Terrorists and Stop Terrorism Before It Starts" — calls for a 10,000-person "Marshall Corps" to deal with issues ranging from worldwide poverty and economic development to clean drinking water and micro-lending. He said investing in those areas would shore up weak nations and help ensure that terrorism does not take root there. That, he said, would allow the country to stop potential terrorists before they even join the ranks.

There are "thousands committed to violence" today, he said, and America needs to use all of its tools to go after them. But he said millions more people are "sitting on the fence" about whether to join those ranks. "We have to offer them a hand to our side instead of a shove to the other side of that fence," he said.

A cynic might suggest that this represents a strategy to combat violence with the Peace Corps rather than the Marine Corps. Left unanswered is what would happen if one of these well-intentioned kids Edwards packs off to the Middle East with nothing but a pair of birkenstocks is killed by somebody who fell over the wrong side of the proverbial fence. Do we send more hippies as reinforcement?

But, again, that's an argument for a cynic to make, we prefer to point out that there is nothing new here. President Bush supports a doubling of the Peace Corps; candidates Kerry and Edwards likewise called for dramatic increases in the Corps' size in their losing effort in 2004. A larger Peace Corps may serve to improve the image of the United States abroad, but as a substitute for serious efforts to combat terror, this will fall far short.

As critics of the war on terror frequently note, those who attack us are not products of poverty. Osama bin Laden, his associates, and the 19 who attacked us on September 11 were all from prosperous backgrounds. Clean water, better education, and expanded commerce are good things--but they won't reduce the dangers of terror. To get at the root causes of terrorism we must replace religious extremism with the values of democracy. The Marine Corps may not be the best instrument for prodding this kind of cultural change, but the alternative Edwards is floating sounds dangerously naive, most of all for the kids he would send to implement it.

And Edwards may not be the best person to determine just where al Qaeda is, and where the population is more "sitting on the fence." He said today that "There was no group called al-Qaida in Iraq before this president's war in Iraq." For starters, we'd encourage the former senator to read this piece that appeared yesterday in the New Republic, and which describes a December 2002 visit by French Socialist Bernard Kouchner, now Sarkozy’s Foreign Minister, to pre-war Iraq:

The Iraqis in 2002 were afraid of Al Qaeda.

Kouchner was perfectly aware that, all over the world, people had listened to the Bush administration fulminate about the dangers of a secret alliance between and Saddam and Al Qaeda. He knew that, all over the world, entire publics had come away convinced that Bush was an atrocious fabulist, and no such alliance existed. But the Iraqis told Kouchner about precisely such an alliance, or what they concluded to be an alliance, between Saddam and a group called Ansar al-Islam, which was Al Qaeda's affiliate in Iraq (and the ancestor of what became, after the invasion, a number of splinter groups affiliated with Al Qaeda). In 2002 Ansar al-Islam was already battling against Saddam's worst enemies, the anti-Baathist Kurds. Ansar al-Islam was growing stronger, too. Hundreds of bin Laden's militants had fled Afghanistan after the overthrow of the Taliban, and some of those militants had turned up in Iraq and had taken their place in Ansar al-Islam.

InsideDefense.com reports:

Army leaders are heading to Iraq and Kuwait on a mission to determine exactly how many Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles the service needs, an assessment that could propel the total size of the MRAP program well beyond 23,000 vehicles and the price tag north of $23 billion, according to defense sources.

Well, that's not really surprising, We've been saying for a while now that the final price tag was likely to be in the neighborhood of $25 billion, but what is surprising is this:

The Army has issued a request for proposals for a new Medium Mine Protected Vehicle (MMPV) initiative that resembles the Marine Corps' Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicle program and could draw on the same industrial base. The solicitation, dated May 29, calls for a blast-protected, wheeled vehicle that will operate in explosive hazardous environments to support route clearance operations, explosive hazards reconnaissance operations and explosive ordnance disposal operations. While there are major similarities between the MRAP and MMPV programs in terms of technical requirements for survivability and mobility, there are also key differences. The MRAP program is looking to multiple companies to provide vehicles with V-shaped hulls designed to deflect underbody bomb blasts. But the Army will pick just one winning contractor. At a minimum, the Army plans to buy seven MMPVs for test purposes, but it could buy as many as 2,500, the RFP says. The MMPV will be procured and produced over a five to eight year period, the RFP says. The Marine Corps is fielding MRAPs abroad this year, based on urgent requests from commanders in the field. The Army does not plan to field MMPVs until the third quarter of FY08 and will start fielding them in the United States. The Army is using the Pentagon’s force-development process - the Joint Capability Integration and Development System - to develop the MMPV. The MRAP program calls for multiple variants, but the MMPV program simply seeks one kind of vehicle. The MRAP program involves contractor logistics support, but the Army wants organic logistics support for the MMPV. House authorizers recommended shifting $66 million in the Army's fiscal year 2007 budget request away from the MMPV effort to support the MRAP program. In the report that accompanies the House version of the FY07 defense authorization bill, House authorizers said the $66 million requested to build 82 MMPVs would be better spent on MRAPs. (Christopher J. Castelli, Inside The Navy – 6/4/07)

That actually sounds like it makes a good bit of sense--one of the biggest concerns with MRAP has to be the Pentagon's reliance on multiple suppliers, which will create a logistics nightmare. But let's not forget that the Pentagon is also going full steam ahead with JLTV, the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle--which is the real replacement for the Humvee, and which also has a v-shaped hull.

Just how many tactical wheeled vehicle programs does the Pentagon have, and how much is going to be spent on them over the next few years? I'm not sure anyone really knows the answer to the second question, but it looks like we now have three programs to replace the Humvee. Which might make sense, but it is troubling that the biggest proponent of MRAP in the U.S. Congress, Joe Biden, is saying things like "The idea that we're not building new Humvees with the V-shaped things is just crap." We are, Senator Biden, a whole lot of them. Is it possible that Congress understands these issues just well enough to really screw things up?

The Senate Armed Services Committee held hearings yesterday on the confirmation of Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute as the administration's new "war czar." Lute was a controversial pick for the job, having previously gone on record with his own doubts about the president's new strategy for bringing stability to Iraq, aka the surge. Beyond that, the mismanaged process by which Lute was finally selected was also controversial--at least three former generals turned the job down before the administration offered it to Lute. And finally, there are more than a few observers who questioned whether there was any merit at all to the position. Czars don't exactly have a stellar track record for getting things done in Washington, one need only look at the position of "drug czar"--an office that was created during the Reagan administration despite opposition from Reagan himself--to see that adding more bureaucracy is no guaranteed path to victory.

Lt. Gen. Lute makes like a window at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.

At least with the drug czar, there was no confusion about who was in charge. Determining just what the responsibilities of this new position are seems to be a bit more confusing.

Senator Carl Levin said yesterday that he understood the job to entail "bringing coherence to an incoherent policy, a policy that is still floundering after more than four years of war in Iraq.” That's probably not what the administration had in mind, and Lute seemed to disagree as well, saying

"The position for which I have been nominated is designed for one fundamental purpose: to advise the President on how to provide our troops and civilians in the field with increased focused, full-time, real time, support here in Washington. It will do so in two basic ways: by executing policy decisions comprehensively and by developing policy adaptations to meet changing needs. If confirmed, I will report directly to the President. I will brief him daily, and act on his instructions in fulfilling my duties. I will work closely with National Security Advisor Steve Hadley to clarify priorities, establish milestones, provide follow-through, and set the policy development agenda. The aim is to bring additional energy, discipline, and sense of urgency to the process. Our troops deserve this support."

That description does make clear that Lute understands his position in the chain of command--he's not giving orders to Petraeus, he's supporting Petraeus here in Washington. But it would do Petraeus no good to have a war czar that didn't believe in the war as it was being waged. And in an effort to shore up his pro-surge credentials, Lute said at the hearing that "America’s at war, and the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan represent what we in the military call the 'main effort' in the long war."

So he thumbed his nose at Congressional Democrats who've sought to banish the term "long war" from official use, and he said what supporters of the president's new strategy needed to hear--Iraq is the central front in the war on terror, meaning defeat would not just be humiliating for the U.S. military and catastrophic for the people of Iraq, it would be tantamount to surrender in the war against al Qaeda.

But does Lute really believe this, or is he just saying what we want to hear? Lute told Hadley he didn't consider making that case here in Washington as part of his job. And back in February, when I heard Lute speak at a Kennedy School Forum, he did not appear to hold the opinion that Iraq represented the central front in the war on terror. In fact, Lute didn't seem all that optimistic as to whether victory in Iraq could even be achieved. Lute's analogy was that of a window closing. There was a window of opportunity, he said, in which the people of Iraq would consent to U.S. assistance in helping form a new, democratic government. That window was closing he said, and it may have already closed.

One can lambaste the administration for its failure to appreciate the facts on the ground and to manage the war accordingly, but if one believes that this country is engaged in a long war against al Qaeda and its ilk, and that the war in Iraq is central to that fight, then one cannot view victory there as an opportunity that may or may not have passed. Victory may not be certain, but it must be viewed as necessary and vital to American interests, especially by the man whose job it is to make sure that the troops in the field have the support they need to succeed. All of which explains why, when pressed to comment on Lute's appointment, Senator McCain offered this tepid response:

"He’s fine; he’s the president’s choice...We have a new strategy now in place, and we have a new general on the ground. That’s what I’m supporting."

The good news is that Lute is unlikely to undercut that support for Petraeus, publicly or otherwise. The bad news, don't expect Lute to help explain what's going on over there to the people asking questions back here.

Update: CQ defense reporter and WWS pal Josh Rogin covered the hearing spoke with NPR's Here and Now. Click here to listen.

Qods Force logo, click to view.

Since the end of April, Multinational Forces Iraq has released a multitude of press releases noting the capture or killing of members described as belonging to "a secret cell terrorist network known for its use of explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs, as well as facilitating the transport of weapons and EFPs from Iran to Iraq, and bringing militants from Iraq to Iran for terrorist training." Coalition and Iraqi forces have killed 25 members of this network and captured 68 more since April 27, 2007. These are Shia terrorists who are trained, armed, funded, and directed by Iran's Qods Force, and have connections to Muqtada al Sadr's Mahdi Army.

Multinational Forces Iraq is cryptic yet clear when discussing this network of Iranian backed operatives. General David Petraeus, the commander of Multinational Forces Iraq, first identified the network at a press briefing on April 26. He described it as a "secret cell network" to which the Iranians had "provided substantial funding, training on Iranian soil, advanced explosive munitions and technologies as well as run of the mill arms and ammunition, and, in some cases, even a degree of direction." Since then, 17 press releases have referred to raids against the network. In his briefing on April 26, General Petraeus mentioned both the Sheibani and Qazali networks, specifically.

The overarching network is actually the Sheibani Network, according to one intelligence official. The Qazali network was described as a radical splinter unit of the Mahdi Army operating under the aegis of the Sheibani network.

"There's no question, again, that Iranian financing is taking place through the Qods force of the Iranian Republican Guards Corps," General Petraeus noted, as documentation seized during raids provided evidence of this. Qods Force [or Jerusalem Force] is a branch of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and is responsible for planning and conducting foreign operations, gathering intelligence, and managing the the regime's terrorist affiliates. The unit works extensively with Hezbollah. and Qods Force regularly uses its diplomatic missions to provide cover for its operatives.

The U.S. currently has seven senior members of Iran's Qods Force in custody after raids in Baghdad in December of 2006 and Irbil in January of 2007. The Qazali Network responded by kidnapping and murdering five U.S. soldiers during a complex attack on the Joint Provincial Coordination Center in Karbala on January 20. On May 19, Coalition forces killed Azhar al-Dulaimi during a raid in Baghdad's Sadr City.

From Kristol's latest column for Time magazine, now available here:

In the old days, historians--at least some of them--were patriotic and moralistic. No longer. We live in what Andrew Ferguson, in his brilliant new book, Land of Lincoln: Adventures in Abe's America, calls "a wised-up era." Now, Ferguson explains, "skepticism about the country, its heroes and its history" is "a mark of worldliness and sophistication." Ferguson is himself a worldly and sophisticated observer of contemporary America. (Full disclosure: he also happens to be a colleague of mine at the Weekly Standard.) But his guided tour of the often amusing, sometimes bizarre ways we remember Lincoln today leads us gently from being wised-up toward wisdom.

Lincoln expected that America would become a nation doubtful about its heroes and its history. In his astonishing address to the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, Ill., on Jan. 27, 1838, on "the perpetuation of our political institutions," the 28-year-old Lincoln foresaw the inevitable rise in a modern democracy like ours of skepticism and worldliness. Indeed, he worried about the fate of free institutions in a maturing nation no longer shaped by a youthful, instinctive and (mostly) healthy patriotism.

Such a patriotism is natural in the early years after a revolutionary struggle for independence. To the generation that experienced the Revolution and the children of that generation, Lincoln explained, the events of the Revolution remained "living history," and those Americans retained an emotional attachment to the political institutions that had been created. But the living memories of the Revolution and the founding could no longer be counted on. Those memories "were a fortress of strength; but what invading foemen could never do, the silent artillery of time has done; the leveling of its walls." So, Lincoln concluded, the once mighty "pillars of the temple of liberty" that supported our political institutions were gone.

Go read the whole thing.

A very interesting op-ed titled "Europeans' flight from Europe" caught my eye in yesterday's Washington Times. While the Belgian author of the piece, Paul Belien, is not exactly part of the European political mainstream--the editor of the conservative-libertarian blog The Brussels Journal wants to curb Muslim immigration to Europe, is pro-life, favors Flemish independence, and has home-schooled all of his three children with his wife, a Belgian MP for the far-right Vlaams Belangparty--he has a very interesting perspective on the Old Continent's ticking demographic time bomb. (Belien has also written for THE DAILY STANDARD.)

According to Belien, Europe's lavish welfare system--supported by high taxes--has led to a massive brain drain among the young and well-educated elites in Germany, France, and other European countries who increasingly "vote with their feet" and move to the United States, Canada, or Australia in pursuit of better opportunities. The situation is compounded by relatively high rates of unemployment and a sense of social/cultural decline in Europe:

Last year more than 155,000 Germans emigrated from their native country. Since 2004 the number of ethnic Germans who leave each year is greater than the number of immigrants moving in. While the emigrants are highly motivated and well educated, ‘those coming in are mostly poor, untrained and hardly educated,' says Stephanie Wahl of the German Institute for Economics.…

This indicates that the flight from Europe is related to a loss of confidence in the future of nations which have taken in the Trojan horse of Islamism, but which, unlike the Trojans, lack the guts to fight.…

While the fertility rate in France is 1.9 children per woman, two out of every five newborns in France are children of Arab or African immigrants. In Germany (fertility rate 1.37) 35 percent of all newborns have a non-German background. Paradoxically, fertility rates in Turkey, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, etc., are lower than among immigrants from these countries in Europe. ‘A woman in Tunisia has on average 1.7 children. In France she has six because the French government pays her to have them,' Mr. Heinsohn explains. ‘Of course, the money was never intended to benefit Tunisian women in particular, but French women will not touch this money, whereas the Tunisian women are only too happy to... For Danish and German women the welfare benefits are too low to be attractive.

Europe's welfare system is causing a perverse process of population replacement. If the Europeans want to save their culture, they will have to slay the welfare state.

The Old Continent's demographic trend is even more worrisome when you take into account that in Germany, between 30 and 40 percent (there are different statistics floating around) of all university-educated German women do not have any children at all. This different kind of "brain drain" should be a source of serious concern for a resource-poor country that prides itself on being the "Land of Ideas," a driver of innovative technologies, and the world's top exporter.

Yesterday's news from Iraq was dominated by rumors of a Turkish invasion of northern Iraq. The news turned out to be false, as Ankara, Baghdad, and Washington all denied the reports from two unnamed Turkish officials. Turkey has seen an increase in attacks from the radical Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) over the past several months, and has been pressuring the Iraqi and U.S. governments to conduct military operations against the terrorist group, which is holed up in the mountainous regions in the Kurdish provinces. The Kurds are adamantly opposed to allowing the Turkish military to conduct operations in Iraqi territory to root out the PKK.

A US soldier from the 1st Battalion 28th Infantry
Regiment, Delta Company takes a look on the roof of an
Iraqi home during a random check in the southwestern
Bayaa neighbourhood of Baghdad. AFP/Roslan Rahman

The impact of last week's battles in Amiriyah, between Iraqi residents, insurgent groups, elements of the Anbar Salvation Council, and U.S. and Iraq security forces on one side, and al Qaeda on the other, is still being sorted out. U.S. forces are now conducting joint patrols with the Amiriyah "freedom fighters," who oppose al Qaeda's presence. Reports on jihadist websites indicate al Qaeda in Iraq and the Islamic Army in Iraq have patched up their differences. The Islamic Army is one of the groups that fought al Qaeda in Amiriyah. It is unclear exactly who makes up the "freedom fighters," but it should be remembered that groups like the Islamic Army in Iraq have been split, with some elements supporting al Qaeda and others supporting the anti-al Qaeda Anbar Salvation Council.

The raids against al Qaeda in Iraq's network and insurgent cells continue. Today, Coalition forces captured 16 al Qaeda during raids in Fallujah, Hit, and Baghdad. Wednesday's raids in Anbar province and Mosul resulted in one al Qaeda killed and six captured. Also on Wednesday, Coalition forces killed two terrorists and captured ten others while working to dismantle car bomb cells in Baghdad. "Intelligence reports also indicate that the VBIED cell is responsible for chlorine attacks, assassination attempts against Iraqi officials and other high-profile attacks in Baghdad," noted Multinational Forces Iraq. In a separate raid, Coalition forces killed an al Qaeda emir and captured three of his associates. Muhammad Mahmud ‘Abd Kazim Husayn al-Mashadani was identified as the "al-Qaeda emir in the Hay al-Jamah area of Baghdad and part of a deadly vehicle-borne improvised explosive device cell."

Earlier in the week, Iraqi Special Operations Forces captured "four suspects believed to be coordinating and conducting extra judicial killings in the Baghdad area." Coalition forces captured six insurgents southwest of Radwaniyah and two terrorists were killed and eleven captured during a three day operation northeast of Balad.

The U.S. and Iraqi security forces continue to target the Iranian backed "secret cell terrorist network." Today's raid inside Sadr City resulted in the capture of 16 members of the "secret cell terrorist network known for facilitating the transport of weapons and explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs, from Iran to Iraq, as well as bringing militants from Iraq to Iran for terrorist training." One of the members targeted "is a key leader in the secret cell terrorist network that has ties to Iranian intelligence and is believed to be responsible for attacks on Iraqi civilians as well as Iraqi and Coalition Forces in Baghdad." Eighteen members of this network have been killed and 63 captured during numerous raids over the past three weeks.

Al Qaeda and Sunni insurgents continue to attack Shia targets and the Iraqi Security Forces, launching a series of small scale bombings inside Baghdad and beyond over the past two days. On Wednesday, two car bombs were detonated near a Shia shrine in the Khadimiya district, killing seven and wounding 25. Today, a pair of bombs "exploded almost simultaneously in the majority Shi'ite districts of Talibiya and Sadr City," killing five and wounding 15. Also, "an explosive charge detonated this afternoon near an outdoor market in al-Mansour neighborhood, western Baghdad, killing two civilians and wounding eight," Voice of Iraq reported. A suicide truck bomber killed nine and wounded 22 in an attack on a police headquarters in the town of Rabia, a border town west of Mosul.

From the New York Times: Defeat's Killing Fields, by Peter W. Rodman and William Shawcross.

From RealClearPolitics: The Lessons of D-Day, by Victor Davis Hanson.

From the Wall Street Journal ($): '68 Redux, by Robert McFarlane.

From Defense Tech: Dragon Skin Takes a Beating on the Hill, by Christian Lowe.

From Op-For: Died on the Field of Honor, by John.

Dr. Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia writes on 15 bellwether races that will help determine control of the House of Representatives in 2008. Although 14 of the seats are held by Democrats, he gives the Democrat an edge in just 5 of them. But Sabato stresses that while this means the GOP has plenty of targets to go after in 2008, history suggests that only a small minority of the Democratic freshmen are likely to be defeated next year:

The strong anti-GOP waves we witnessed in 2006 may be somewhat tempered by the time of the next slate of elections. So it follows that several freshman Democrats in districts that are essentially toss-ups--or even normally favor Republicans--could be in grave danger if political winds shift. Still, keep this in mind: in 1976, just two of the 76 Democratic freshmen (3 percent) were defeated in the first election after the anti-Nixon Democratic wave in 1974. In 1996, two years after the Republican wave of 1994, 12 of the 73 Republican freshmen (16 percent) went down in defeat.

Still other factors that must be considered: the margin of control is just 15 seats, presidential coattails could have a significant effect, and the Democrats are currently raising boatloads of money for 2008.

But one should also keep in mind that this list of 15 seats is only the start of the GOP target list in 2008. There are 28 seats that Democrats won with less than 55 percent of the vote in 2006, and House Democrats currently represent about 60 districts that were won by George Bush in 2004. If the Republican presidential candidate runs a good race in 2008, there's a strong possibility that we will see Republican gains in the House. If the nominee wins and shows significant coattails, a shift back to a Republican majority is a distinct possibility.

The vulnerability of freshman Democrats in GOP-leaning seats is reflected in the fact that 12 of the Democrats who stray from the party line most consistently fall into this category. One of the major goals of the House Republican leadership is to keep its Members 'in line' on tough votes, so that these potential 2008 targets are forced to cast votes that come back to haunt them in their re-election bids. We'll see how well they do when the House votes on tax increases and immigration measures, in particular.

Our friends over at Ares are weighing the merits of the F-22 versus the Su-37, and others. The discussion was prompted by the video that's been posted here and elsewhere of the F-22's recent performance at Langley, AFB. Here's a taste:

This demonstration is interesting, particularly the low-speed, low-altitude 360 degree somersault, but it was nowhere near as exciting as the Russian displays I saw at the Moscow air show a few years ago. The reverse sweep Su-47 Berkat, was literally doing somersault after somersault at low speed and low altitude. (That's where the Russian air defense engineers told us they had the pieces of the F-117 that was shot down in Serbia.) I know the F-22 can do some incredible maneuvering, but most of their work is done at altitude and involves quick vertical and horizontal changes in direction (see Aviation Week & Space Technology Jan.8, 2007 special report on J-turns, high-alpha turns and the Cobra with the F-22). They're not doing that at the air shows -- so far, anyway. In the operational squadrons there is a lot of emphasis on doing what the aircraft is supposed to do operationally and not on developing an air show routine. Also, you won't see what the F-22 is capable of as long as it's at low altitude.

Go over and read the whole thing, which includes a link to this spectacular video of the Su-37 performing at a Russian air show. And while we're on the subject of airshows...make sure you keep an eye on THE WORLDWIDE STANDARD during the week of June 18-22, we're headed to Paris!

We've chronicled before the Democratic retreat on promises to limit and fully disclose the lists of pork-barrel projects included in appropriations bills. Now House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey has clarified that even though pork-barrel projects won't be added to bills until immediately before they are voted on, Members will be given 'plenty of time' to review them before a vote. If one or more of those projects is a particularly egregious waste of taxpayer money... well, too bad. Because you still won't be able to eliminate them--or even get a vote on them:

Obey has been criticized for his plan to advance the fiscal 2008 appropriations bills through his committee and the House floor without earmarks. Obey said funding for these projects can be added later in conference with the Senate...

“Members will be able to write this committee if they have any objection to an earmark the conference committee is putting in, and the sponsor of that earmark will have an opportunity to respond to any criticism,” Obey said today.

How will such criticisms be handled? Well, you can't be too optimistic when you realize that you're writing to a Chairman who has previously argued that an earmark isn't an earmark if it's put in the bill by him.

I've been called dorkofascist for pointing out that the complaints we hear in the Star Wars films about the Galactic Republic aren't particularly beyond the pale: Namely that the Republic had grown too big and sclerotic to be governable and responsive to the needs of individual planets.

Now here's a hippie Vermonster talking about why Vermont should secede from the United States: "The argument for secession is that the U.S. has become an empire that is essentially ungovernable--it's too big, it's too corrupt and it no longer serves the needs of its citizens."

Sounds like someone is channeling the "evil" Count Dooku, Senator Palpatine's insidious Dark Side apprentice. In Attack of the Clones we are told of Dooku, a former Jedi, that

In the end, I think he left because he lost faith in the Republic. He believed that politics were corrupt, and he felt the Jedi betrayed themselves by serving the politicians. He always had very high expectations of government. He disappeared for nine or ten years, then he just showed up recently as the head of the separatist movement.

Later in the movie, Dooku argues about secession with Senator Amidala, saying:

I don't wish to make you to join our cause against your will, Senator, but you are a rational, honest representative of your people and I assume you want to do what's in their best interest. Aren't you fed up with the corruption, the bureaucrats, the hypocrisy of it all?... Aren't you? Be honest, Senator…

The Chancellor means well, M'Lady but he is incompetent. He has promised to cut the bureaucracy, but the bureaucrats are stronger than ever, no? Senator, the Republic cannot be fixed. It is time to start over. The democratic process in the Republic is a sham, a shell game played on the voters. It will not be long before the cult of greed, called the Republic, will lose even the pretext of democracy and freedom.

It's a little hard to tell the fictional fascists from the real hippies.

Foreign Affairs takes a whack at everyone's favorite alternative fuel: ethanol. Loved by Republicans and Democrats alike because it curries favor in farm states and shows 'bona fides' on global warming, both parties have pushed to expand its use. Increased ethanol use however, presents significant problems--not least that it tends to force food prices higher:

The push for ethanol and other biofuels has spawned an industry that depends on billions of dollars of taxpayer subsidies, and not only in the United States. In 2005, global ethanol production was 9.66 billion gallons, of which Brazil produced 45.2 percent (from sugar cane) and the United States 44.5 percent (from corn). Global production of biodiesel (most of it in Europe), made from oilseeds, was almost one billion gallons.

The industry's growth has meant that a larger and larger share of corn production is being used to feed the huge mills that produce ethanol. According to some estimates, ethanol plants will burn up to half of U.S. domestic corn supplies within a few years. Ethanol demand will bring 2007 inventories of corn to their lowest levels since 1995 (a drought year), even though 2006 yielded the third-largest corn crop on record. Iowa may soon become a net corn importer.

The enormous volume of corn required by the ethanol industry is sending shock waves through the food system. (The United States accounts for some 40 percent of the world's total corn production and over half of all corn exports.) In March 2007, corn futures rose to over $4.38 a bushel, the highest level in ten years. Wheat and rice prices have also surged to decade highs, because even as those grains are increasingly being used as substitutes for corn, farmers are planting more acres with corn and fewer acres with other crops.

Production of ethanol is costly to taxpayers and to consumers. It is not particularly 'green,' and it's no solution to the problem of dependence on foreign oil. Apart from everything else, it's extremely difficult to ship by pipeline, making it difficult to distribute nationally. Many economists argue that a better and more direct way to encourage the development of alternatives to gasoline, to reduce dependence on foreign oil, and to limit emission of greenhouse gases would be a pigouvian carbon tax. Of course that presents a huge downside for the eco-warriors--Americans would be able to see clearly the costs of reducing greenhouse emissions, rather than just paying the hidden costs of ethanol production.

Energy legislation will be a priority for Congress in the weeks ahead, but the fact that the label is so broad ('energy legislation') tells you that the effort lacks focus. What should be done about energy? Consumers want lower prices--as do the Democrats, apparently. Yet there's no doubt that lower prices for gasoline and other carbon fuels increases the emission of greenhouse gases. Further, some Democrats want to promote clean alternatives, others wish to protect parochial interests such as coal, while there are even a few who want to encourage greater supply. And don't even get started on the rift between those who want to promote renewable energy and those who oppose windmills for aesthetic reasons.

How do Senate Democrats intend to resolve these conflicting goals? Giving something to everybody seems to be the solution. Their bill includes provisions to:

* Promote biofuels and renewable fuels (including a 'fuel tank cap labeling requirement');
* Promote advanced lighting technologies;
* Expedite energy efficiency standards;
* Advance battery technology;
* Subsidize 'weatherization;'
* Capture carbon;
* Raise fuel economy standards;
* Stop 'price gouging;' and,
* Improve our 'energy diplomacy.'

II don't think our energy problems can be solved with a silver bullet; but I'm not sure if a laundry list will be effective, either.

From today's Australian:

ALEXANDER Downer has distanced Australia from US and Japanese complaints about China's rapid military build-up, saying the concerns are exaggerated.

The US and Japanese Governments have complained about the escalation and "opaqueness" of Beijing's military spending, but Mr Downer said Australia viewed growing military strength as "an inevitable function" of China's economic growth. China was interested in secure supplies of resources and free markets for its products, he said in Tokyo yesterday, not expanding its territory or exporting its ideology, except possibly in the case of Taiwan.

"I don't think anything drives the Chinese leadership more than their desire to lift their people out of poverty and about making China a prosperous country," he said. "That is the true driving force of Chinese public policy, so I don't think any of us need be unduly concerned about Chinese military expenditure. I think expressions of concern are much exaggerated."

This might seem like a strange sentiment for a government that has been one of the Bush administration's staunchest allies on matters of democracy promotion. But, according to THE WEEKLY STANDARD's own Duncan Currie, this view of China runs deep in the Howard government, which has presided over an unprecedented economic boom that has been given a recent lift by increased trade with the Chinese mainland. Unlike the United States, which runs an enormous trade deficit with China, Australia's deficit was only $3.5 billion last year, and exports rose 46.4 percent while imports climbed just 16.5 percent compared with the year before.

Currie says the Australians see themselves as an honest broker between the Chinese and the United States, a mediator that both sides can trust. Still, it seems unbelievably naive to think that China's Communist party is primarily driven by the desire to lift the country's masses out of poverty...and to the extent that it is driven by such considerations, it's unlikely that prosperity is, in and of itself, an end, but rather a means to greater stability and military power. Either way, helping the Chinese get rich, and helping oneself in the process, shouldn't blind developed countries to the nature of the regime in Beijing. Currie says that Howard, for his part, has promoted a “calm and constructive dialogue” between the U.S. and China. But the Australian premier has also emphasized that he has “no illusions--that China remains an authoritarian country” and “no false illusions about the nature of China’s society.” He made those remarks at a press conference with Dick Cheney this past February in Sydney.

And when Howard signed a security pact with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in March, he made it quite clear that Australia would not soon ink such a deal with Beijing. As he told a reporter: “There are a lot of things we have in common with China, but China is not a democracy. Japan is.”

This speech offers a good distillation of Howard’s views on China (and on Asia generally).

From THE DAILY STANDARD: Nice Guys in New Hampshire, by Fred Barnes.

From Contentions: Three Interrogators, by Max Boot.

From Armed Forces Journal: Peril in Pakistan, by Peter Brookes.

From the Daily Mail: PC brigade ban pin-ups on RAF jets, by staff.

From Defense Review: New Defense Against Explosively Formed Projectiles (EFPs)? by David Crane.

Bonus Audio File: Developing Iraq Security Forces an American Priority, by Anne Garrels.

Extra Bonus Audio File: The Boys of Pointe Du Hoc, by Ronald Reagan.

Watercolor by Navy Combat Artist Dwight Shepler, 1944, showing USS Emmons (DD-457) bombarding in support
of the "Omaha" Beach landings, on "D-Day" of the Normandy invasion, 6 June 1944.

Drudge is linking the story, and we've been trying to get more information on the situation, but as yet all we've heard from the military is that more information will be coming out soon and that "it appears this incident has been misreported."

We'll see. The U.S. commanders in northern Iraq sure didn't seem too concerned about the possibility of a Turkish incursion during their blogger conference call last week. But the Turks have been sending some not-so-subtle signals that the situation in Kurdistan had become intolerable from their perspective. And the recent handover of security in the region's three provinces likely didn't make the Turks any more comfortable with the situation there.

In any case, we'll keep you posted, but I just got off the phone with Bill Roggio, who says that if the Turks do move in "it's unlikely to derail the Baghdad Security Plan...it's an issue that will have to be dealt with, but it can be managed in the long-term...we know how to work out problems with the Turks."

Update: An MNF-I press release:

Turkish Press has reported Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul denied that Turkish troops had entered neighboring northern Iraq in a cross-border operation to hunt down Kurdish terrorists.

"There is no incursion into any other country at the moment," Gul told reporters here.

Additionally Reuters has also reported Iraq's Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari said on Wednesday there was no evidence that Turkish troops had crossed the Iraqi border to launch a military operation against Turkish rebels hiding in the mountains.

"We have checked all along the border and there hasn't been any incursion or military operation inside Iraqi territory," he told Reuters.

"Iraq will not tolerate any military incursion. There is always room for dialogue," he said.

There are reports that a small force might have temporarily crossed the border in pursuit of PKK fighters, but there was certainly no large-scale incursion. Still, this seems like a let-that-be-a-lesson moment for the Coalition--crackdown on the PKK or the Turks will make us wish we had.

Al Qaeda continues to attack tribal leaders in opposition to its Islamic State. "Attacks on tribal chiefs in Iraq, particularly in the Sunni-dominated areas of central and northern Iraq have increased recently," Azzaman reported. Yesterday, three prominent tribal leaders were murdered. "The attacks come following reports that certain tribes were no longer willing to provide refuge for al-Qaeda-linked insurgents and some had mobilized their armed men to have them flushed from their areas," the report noted.

In Anbar province, where the Sunni tribes openly fight al Qaeda in Iraq, Reuters reported a car bomb exploded "just outside Iraq's western city of Falluja on Tuesday, killing 19 people and wounding 25." A military sourced informed us that the location of the bombing was actually in Amiriyah, a town south of Fallujah where al Qaeda in Iraq and the Anbar Salvation Council have fought numerous battles.

The search for the the two missing soldiers captured after an attack near Mahmudiyah south of Baghdad on May 12 has stalled. On Monday, the Islamic State of Iraq, al Qaeda's political front, issued a video showing the ID cards and other items belonging to the two missing soldiers, and claimed the two had been killed. The video did not contain images of their bodies. On Sunday, the Iraqi Army killed two insurgents and captured one during the search for the missing soldiers south of Balad, which is far north of the capture site. Nineteen other suspects were captured during search operations near Rushdi Mullah. Multinational Forces Iraq is operating on the assumption the soldiers are still alive.

The Iraqi government is attempting to move forward on the reconciliation front. The government announced it plans to pardon prisoners as part of its revitalized reconciliation initiative. The plan is sure to create controversy as there is the strong possibility that insurgents "with American blood on their hands" will be released. Al Qaeda in Iraq fighters are to be excluded from the list of those pardoned.

Yesterday''s raids against al Qaeda in Iraq operatives in Taji, Mosul, and Fallujah resulted in the capture of 18 terrorists. The Taji raid led to the capture of a "key leader in the Rusafa [Baghdad] vehicle-borne improvised explosive device network." Monday's raids in Mosul and Karma resulted in the capture of 14 operatives, including the "senior terrorist leader in Mosul connected to the al-Qaeda in Iraq network" and "12 suspected terrorists tied to the al-Qaeda in Iraq senior leader network in Karmah."

U.S. forces continue to hunt the Iranian backed EFP cells. A raid against a "secret cell terrorist network known for facilitating the transport of weapons and explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs, from Iran to Iraq, as well as bringing militants from Iraq to Iran for terrorist training" resulted in the capture of four terrorists, including a cell leader. A raid on the same network resulted in one terrorist killed and two captured. One of those captured "is an integral member of the improvised explosive devises and EFP facilitation network... also believed to be responsible for numerous attacks against Coalition Forces, including heavy involvement in mortar attacks, personally observing and adjusting fire in the past two days."

In Baghdad, the construction on the Adhamiyah "wall"--the concrete barriers and fence designed to secure the neighborhood from death squads and which caused a media outcry when it was compared to the fence separating Israel from the Palestinian territories--has been completed. "So far, the results have been positive," Multinational Iraq reported. "Murders are down 61 percent in Adhamiyah between the beginning of April, when construction began, and May 28, when it ended, according to reports compiled by the 2nd BCT."

A picture shows a wall made of concrete blocks, which separates Baghdad's
al-Adhamiyah district from a neighboring Shiite area in east Baghdad.
Wisam Sami/AFP

Congressman Bill Jefferson (D-LA) has been indicted on 16 count--including a first-ever indictment of a federal official for violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Republicans and Democrats moved quickly to champion an investigation into the charges by the House Ethics Committee :

Actually, the House voted twice to do the same thing - once on a resolution by Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) ordering the ethics panel to look into the charges against Jefferson and report back to the body within 30 days on whether to expel him, and secondly on a resolution by Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) ordering the ethics committee to begin an investigation within 30 days into any member "indicted or formally charged with criminal conduct" in a federal, state, or local court. Jefferson would be covered under the measure.

Both resolutions passed by huge margins. The Boehner proposal was approved by a vote of 373-26, with 13 members voting present. The Hoyer resolution passed by a 387-10 margin. 15 lawmakers voted present on the Hoyer measure. All 10 members of the ethics committee voted present on both proposals.

The Christian Science Monitor notes that a source of dissension within the House Democratic caucus is the fact that Representative Alan Mollohan is currently the subject of an FBI criminal investigation, and has not only retained his seat on the powerful Appropriations Committee, but was allowed to chair the subcommittee that funds the agency investigating him:

An aggressive move against Jefferson by House leaders, at least now, risks alienating African-Americans in the congressional delegation and in the Democratic base. Many see Democrats as applying a double standard regarding how they treat allegations of corruption. Speaker Pelosi forced Jefferson to give up his seat on the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee but allowed Rep. Alan Mollohan (D) of West Virginia, who was also facing a federal investigation, to keep his seat on the Appropriations Committee.

"The allegations leveled against Mr. Jefferson are serious. But they are allegations and in our system must not be treated as guilt," says House majority whip James Clyburn (D) of South Carolina, a former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus. "We must allow the judicial process to run its course, after which there will be plenty enough time to express our political will."

The Majority Accountability Project reports that Jefferson has donated tens of thousands to a whole range of his Democratic colleagues--money that they will be pressured to return in the wake of this indictment. With Congress unable to accomplish much in the way of actual legislation, this news is likely to cause additional agita. And with their retreat on earmark reform, and the Democrats' inability to address major policy challenges in an effective way, this might be a summer of discontent for the new majority.

Refresh your memory about Jefferson's visit to his swamped home with this clip from ABC News:

We've covered here before the inter-service debate over the role of airpower in counterinsurgency operations. For some background information, check out this article in Air Force magazine, and this post at Small Wars Journal. There seemed to be a pretty good consensus that the counterinsurgency model laid out by the Petraeus Doctrine would see airpower demoted to a supporting role--transport, surveillance, reconnaissance, but only very rarely direct engagement with the enemy.

Last month David Kilcullen, COIN adviser to General Petraeus, spoke on the issues surrounding this debate:

I think here in Iraq, there's a number of sort of airpower writ-large functions--air reconnaissance very important, aerial surveillance, both by manned and unmanned vehicles, is critical, it gives us this, if you like, unblinking eye that allows us to understand what's going on in the environment; the use of fast air combat power for interdiction and strike is important, it's more important in desert areas and underpopulated rural areas than it is in cluttered, sort of target-rich environments like in cities, where you can really do a lot of damage to the civilian population. So we don't tend to use airpower heavily inside cities. Having said that, if we do need to, we certainly do draw on that capability. And we do tend to use sort of cannon and direct strafing activity, rather than necessarily going straight for the kill-box approach, where you deluge an area in high-explosive. I think the other really important function is transport and mobility....

That comment seemed to confirm the suspicions of the Air Force that the new team in Baghdad did not see airpower as critical to combat operations there.

But now the Tank points to this story from the AP:

Four years into the war that opened with "shock and awe," U.S. warplanes have again stepped up attacks in Iraq, dropping bombs at more than twice the rate of a year ago.

The airpower escalation parallels a nearly four-month-old security crackdown that is bringing 30,000 additional U.S. troops into Baghdad and its surroundings - an urban campaign aimed at restoring order to an area riven with sectarian violence.

It also reflects increased availability of planes from U.S. aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf. And it appears to be accompanied by a rise in Iraqi civilian casualties....

In the first 4 1/2 months of 2007, American aircraft dropped 237 bombs and missiles in support of ground forces in Iraq, already surpassing the 229 expended in all of 2006, according to U.S. Air Force figures obtained by The Associated Press....

Air Force figures show that, after the thousands of bombs and missiles used in the 2003 "shock and awe" invasion, U.S. airpower settled down to a slow bombing pace: 285 munitions dropped in 2004, 404 in 2005 and 229 in 2006, totals that don't include warplanes' often-devastating 20mm and 30mm cannon or rocket fire, or Marine Corps aircraft.

What to make of this? I asked Brig. Gen. Robert Holmes, deputy director of Operations at CENTCOM, during a conference call this morning:

HOLMES: I read that article this morning. That was no real surprise as you track the numbers. As we continue the presence of our force there and working with the Iraqis and the need for very precise fire and effects on the adversary, particularly when it comes to troops in contact, this becomes a weapon of choice. And airpower is a very good way to deliver that. You've got the means and capability and I think that we're using it. So, I think if you look at the increase connected with the levels of violence and the effectiveness of Coalition forces partnered with the Iraqi Security Forces, that this is just a means of doing what needs to be done to continue to go after the anti-Coalition militias and the terrorist elements there.

WWS: So this is just an organic development? This is not a strategy that's come down from above, or just the fact that there's an extra carrier there?

HOLMES: No. It's a means of providing fires and effects to forces that are engaged with the enemy. So, no. There was no deliberate plan, if you will, in my mind--maybe there's somebody out there that had it in there mind, but not in mine--that this was a deliberate, we will now double our bombings.

According to Holmes, the troops on the ground are just calling for air support more often. Given that there are more troops on the ground overall, it's not so surprising that there would be more activity in the air as well. Still, this story ought to squelch any misgivings the Air Force has about Petraeus. With Petraeus letting them put bombs on target--and at a greater rate than at anytime since 2003--the Air Force remains relevant to COIN operations and is therefore better able to justify its budget at a time when many would like to see the Pentagon spend less on warplanes and more on infantry.

The surge is failing, according to the New York Times. The U.S. has fallen short of securing Baghdad by July, and the Iraq security forces have been hopelessly infiltrated by Shiia militias.

The Times’s conclusion is based on a one-page memo. The memo, actually a status update on the situation in Baghdad, was never intended to serve as a full report on the progress of the Baghdad Security Plan. But that didn't stop the New York Times from characterizing the memo as such.

Staff Sgt. Kevin Nettnin conducts a dismounted
patrol to assess the progress of security measures in the
Al Dora market area of Baghdad, May 25.

The article’s entire premise seems to be the statement of a single, unnamed senior American military officer, who claims the architects of the Baghdad Security Plan "assumed most Baghdad neighborhoods would be under control around July... so the emphasis could shift into restoring services and rebuilding the neighborhoods as the summer progressed." As Fredrick Kagan has noted in THE DAILY STANDARD, this rosy assessment was made by General Casey, the outgoing commander of Multinational Forces Iraq. But the current military leadership in Baghdad has never made this claim.

I contacted General David Petraeus yesterday and asked him if July was a realistic target date to secure Baghdad. "I've never assumed we'd have Baghdad under control by July," he stated. He also reiterated something he has been saying since January: that it would be late summer before he and his commanders had a sense of how the surge was progressing.

The Times goes on to report, "The American assessment, completed in late May, found that American and Iraqi forces were able to 'protect the population' and ‘maintain physical influence over' only 146 of the 457 Baghdad neighborhoods." But it is unclear exactly what the Times means by "neighborhoods," since Baghdad only has 89 neighborhoods that are referred to as such. Still the overall percentages are not in dispute. Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Garver confirmed earlier today that less than a third of Baghdad can be considered "secure."

However, the context for this data in the Times article is misleading.

"In the remaining 311 neighborhoods, troops have either not begun operations aimed at rooting out insurgents or still face 'resistance,'" the Times notes. Of the 311 remaining "neighborhoods," the Times does not tell us which have a U.S. or Iraqi presence, how many have been the focus of clearing operations, the number in which security is marginal, the number in which security forces are altogether absent, or the intensity of the "resistance" where it is found.

In the proper context, that news that "less than one-third of Baghdad is secured" hardly suggests the surge is so far an abject failure. According to the military, a secure area is one where security is considered tight and where reconstruction is moving forward. This is a high-threshold definition. And saying that two-thirds of the city are less than “secure” doesn’t tell the rest of the story.

The first three months of the surge involved moving five additional combat brigades into the city and the outlying belts, from which al Qaeda is launching its attacks into the city. The final brigade is still moving into position, and the other four are just now adapting to the situation on the ground.

I had the opportunity to attend a speech by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson today at the Heritage Foundation. Paulson was highlighting the achievements of the Strategic Economic Dialogue with China. The SED was established last year, by Presidents Bush and Hu, "to provide an overarching framework for ongoing productive bilateral economic dialogues and future economic relations." You can think of that as a nice way of saying 'to allow the White House to push for concessions from China before Congress starts a trade war.'

The Secretary's theme was the importance of China speeding up its transition to market economy status. He noted that the immaturity of China's financial markets, the pegging of exchange rates, and the emphasis on low-value added export all make it more difficult to grow the high-value added economy that China needs to satisfy its growing population. The 'precautionary saving' of its people is understandable he argued, given the lack of an adequate social safety net, but it's also a major reason that China's economic rise has not coincided with the rise of a vibrant domestic consumer market. Such a development would help reduce China's trade deficit with the United States, which, for better or worse, seems to be the primary source of tension in the US-China bilateral relationship. He stated several times that China recognizes the importance of these changes, but that the regime favors stability over reform--which often puts Beijing at odds with Washington.

A primary focus of the SED has been the purported artificial weakness of the Yuan. While policymakers in both parties have pushed for a dramatic strengthening of the Yuan against the dollar--which might help reduce the bilateral trade deficit by making almost everything you buy at Target, Walmart, and KMart dramatically more expensive--China has opted for slow revaluation.

For the business and lobbying community, the months leading up to meetings such as this one are filled with constant communications to U.S. government officials in an attempt to get their priorities onto the agenda. In the case of the United States and China, intellectual property rights are a constant focus, and this meeting was no different. Along with progress on financial markets and commercial aviation, Secretary Paulson noted IP protection as one area of improvement. And the joint declaration that concluded the meetings lists that among the areas of progress.

You can watch Paulson speech in its entirety here.

From the Wall Street Journal: Realists on Iraq, by Dan Senor.

From the Chicago Sun-Times: Bush has chance to set wise policy on Russia, by John O'Sullivan.

From Haaretz: Who Deters Whom? by Moshe Arens.

From Flight: Air Forces Keep Faith With JSF, by Craig Hoyle.

From Asia Times: US Ramps Up Missile Tests in the Pacific, by John Lasker.

Bonus: Tony Soprano, the Raging Bull, by Dean Barnett.

Senator Lieberman spoke yesterday at the Conference on Democracy and Security in Prague, Czech Republic. Here's an excerpt from the speech (you can read the full text here):

“The outcome of the struggle in Iraq will go a long way towards determining whether our future in Europe, and America, and throughout much of the world belongs to these totalitarians, or to democrats who seek the consent and consensus of the governed.

Iraq is about the survival and success of the very ideal of freedom not only in Iraq, but in Iran, and Syria, and the rest of that region, and in a very real way, in the rest of the world.

There are some in America today who acknowledge the stakes at play in Iraq, but who then claim that the war there has been too costly, the burden too great, for us to continue to shoulder it. They claim that they support democracy, but just not in Iraq, just not right now.

The truth of the matter, however, is that freedom is not divisible. You cannot claim to support the spread of democracy, but profess ambivalence about its fate in Iraq.

On the contrary, we have a responsibility to support the forces of freedom not only when it is easy, but when it is hard.”

General Petraeus was interviewed by Lara Logan on the Early Show this morning. Here's the teaser video...and you can go here to see the full video. The bottom line: Petraeus says the full surge hasn't even started yet, that American forces are still moving into place, and that it won't be in any way clear what effect the surge is having until September, or later.

Fred Kagan also has a piece in today's DAILY STANDARD that does a real nice job of explaining what sets this new strategy apart from the failed strategies of Petraeus's predecessors--and why, contrary to the doom and gloom assessments coming from the New York Times, there's good reason to be optimistic about the surge's chances for success.

We're reminded so many times each day that new technology is profoundly changing the way we live. Bright people talk about how technology is empowering individuals and ad hoc networks to bring powerful institutions to heel.

In that vein, you might want to hold off on that sleek new cameraphone/IPod/Crackberry upgrade, until the bomb-sniffing version becomes available:

Putting hazardous material sensors in commercial cell phones has been discussed in scientific circles for years, according to researchers in the field. More recently, the idea gained support among government agencies, and DHS said publicly in May that it wants businesses to start coming up with proposals.

At the 2007 DHS Science and Technology Stakeholders Conference, S&T Director of Innovation Roger McGinnis outlined how the system could work. Cell phone sensors would continually test the air for harmful compounds and digitally relay any information to a central monitoring system if they find anything amiss.

“It’s a great way to get millions of detectors out there,” McGinnis said.

Like the built-in GPS function many cell phones now offer, customers would have the option of turning the sensors off, McGinnis said.

Undoubtedly some users would choose to shut off this function--uncomfortable with the idea of some big business or government agency tracking where they are and what they're doing. But it would only take a relatively small number of such phones to fundamentally change the way terrorists think. As long as there was a reasonable chance of being detected while preparing a biological, chemical, or nuclear attack, they would have to alter their approach.

In today's New York Times, David S. Cloud and Damien Cave look at the state of the Baghdad Security Plan three months in, and essentially states the operation to secure the capital has fallen short of its goal. While this issue will be addressed in a more extensive article for THE DAILY STANDARD this evening, one of the premises--that the planners of the Baghdad Security Plan expected Baghdad to be secured by July--stretches both the imagination and the expectations of the commanders in Iraq and the senior leadership at the Pentagon. The New York Times went on to say:

When planners devised the Baghdad security plan late last year, they had assumed most Baghdad neighborhoods would be under control around July, according to a senior American military officer, so the emphasis could shift into restoring services and rebuilding the neighborhoods as the summer progressed.

I contacted General David Petraeus, the commander of Multinational Forces Iraq, this morning and asked him if there is any basis in fact to the assertion that July was a target date to secure Baghdad. In an email, General Petraeus wrote "I've never assumed we'd have Baghdad under control by July," and he reiterated what he has said consistently since his confirmation hearing in January: that it would be late summer before he and his commanders had a sense of how the surge was progressing.

General Petraeus and a host of military and civilian leaders have repeatedly said the that the Baghdad Security Plan cannot be effectively evaluated before September, and some, such as Lieutenant General Raymond Odierno, the Commander of Multinational Corps Iraq, stated it may take even longer. Pushing the timeframe up to July is merely another case of moving the goalposts.

June will be a busy month in the House of Representatives as the focus shifts to passing the 12 appropriations bills that fund all discretionary programs. Congressional Quarterly reports that the House is prepared to spend $23 billion more than the president has requested--and has already exceeded the president's requests on the first four bills by some $9 billion. OMB Director Rob Portman is promising that the president will veto any spending bills that exceed his budget requests. If that's the case, the president could wind up meaning a number of vetoes:

White House budget director Rob Portman on May 31 said he would recommend that the president veto any bill that exceeds the administration’s budget request for that measure. That went a step further than a May 11 letter telling members of the House and Senate Budget committees that vetoes could be expected unless spending bills were on a “sustainable path” toward an aggregate amount of discretionary spending within the president’s overall request of $933 billion...

“I make no apology for trying to invest in things that will make this country grow more over the long haul,” House Appropriations Chairman David R. Obey, D-Wis., said before the Memorial Day recess.

Veto fights will probably occur in late summer or early fall, when the first appropriations bills are sent to the White House.

It's hard to argue that domestic spending has been shortchanged under the Bush administration. According to the Congressional Budget Office, domestic discretionary spending--which includes all outlays except entitlement programs--increased by 57 percent from 2001 (the last Clinton budget) to 2006. The Heritage Foundation's Brian Riedl reports that discretionary spending not related to defense and homeland security increased from $333 billion to $466 billion over the same time period. That's an increase of 40 percent. Now the Democratic Congress promises an additional 9 percent increase for 2008 alone?

And they call this a new era of 'fiscal responsibility.'

From this week's Scrapbook:

THE SCRAPBOOK is feeling like a proud papa these days--or maybe a doting uncle. That's because our friend and colleague Andrew Ferguson has just published Land of Lincoln: Adventures in Abe's America (Grove/Atlantic, $24), and in THE SCRAPBOOK's considered opinion, if there's one book every STANDARD reader must devour this summer, it's Land of Lincoln.

Why do we say this? First, WEEKLY STANDARD readers already know Andy's hallmarks. He's a writer of exceptional skill, incapable of producing a dull sentence. He carries wisdom, erudition, and startling insight with a lightness and finesse that must be read to be believed. There's his understated wit, discerning eye, and instinct for the absurd. His reporter's antennae are exceptionally well-tuned; Andy never fails to capture the felicitous detail. And all these talents are on display in Land of Lincoln.

So what, you ask, another Lincoln book? To which we reply: This is not just any Lincoln book. Like many Americans, Andy Ferguson (born and raised in Illinois) grew up with a fascination for the sixteenth president, whose life and death are so central to the story of America. But what intrigues him about Lincoln is not so much the familiar facts--the log cabin birthplace, the Gettysburg Address, the homely face and mordant jokes--as the shadow Lincoln casts over his countrymen. Since the assassination at Ford's Theatre in 1865, Lincoln's drama has been cast and recast, the essentials of his life have been plumbed and reinvented, the meaning of Lincoln--to politics, history, folklore, psychology--has evolved with every succeeding generation.

So Andy embarks on a road trip in search of Lincoln's America. Or America's Lincoln. We meet collectors who accumulate sacred relics, scholars who try to make Lincoln "relevant," Abe Lincoln impersonators, management gurus, and a galaxy of people whose vision of Lincoln gives meaning to their lives.

Land of Lincoln is about a journalist's quest, but it's also a matchless portrait of our times, certain places, the national character (both hilarious and poignant), the complex life of a deceptively simple man, and the meeting of the present and past in our country. THE SCRAPBOOK cannot think of a better introduction to the great subject of Abraham Lincoln, or a funnier, more trenchant and affecting postcard from America.

Ferguson will begin his book tour on June 9 in Naperville, Illinois. Click here to see the full schedule, and click here to purchase your very own copy.

The Washington Post ran a piece yesterday that described an increase in Iranian assistance to the Taliban.

Iran has increased arms shipments to both Iraq's Shiite extremists and Afghanistan's Taliban in recent weeks in an apparent attempt to pressure American and other Western troops operating in its two strategic neighbors, according to senior U.S. and European officials....

In Afghanistan, British forces have intercepted at least two arms shipments from Iran to Afghanistan's Helmand province since late April, the officials said. Such shipments reflect an unlikely liaison between two historic rivals, the Shiite theocrats in Iran and the Sunni Taliban in Afghanistan, they said.

Both shipments were carried out after Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, publicly put Iran on notice in mid-April that the United States was aware it was sending arms to the Taliban.

The intercepted shipments to Afghanistan included 107mm mortars, rocket-propelled grenades, C-4 explosives and small arms, identical to shipments to Iraqi militias around Basra in March, according to the U.S. and European sources, who track arms movements. The C-4 explosives in both shipments have fake U.S. markings, a common deceptive tactic, the sources added.

"We're concerned about what appears to be an escalating flow of Iranian arms shipments to extremists operating in Iraq and about Iran's stepped-up efforts to supply weapons to Taliban militants in Afghanistan," said a senior U.S. official who monitors Iranian activity in the region.

The new arms supplies reflect an increasing boldness by Iran, according to U.S. officials and officials from NATO countries. The secretive Quds Force, the branch of the elite Revolutionary Guard in charge of Iran's special operations abroad, is said by the U.S. officials to be behind the arms flow to militants in both countries.

Somehow, though, the article never mentions al Qaeda. If the Iranians are willing to supply weapons to the Taliban, which was, and remains, al Qaeda's closest ally, why assume that Iran's support for Sunni militants doesn't extend to Iraq as well?

The article goes on to say that,

Iran's goal is to prevent the return of stability in Iraq because it would be associated with an American victory, a senior administration official said.

Iran is after "managed chaos" that benefits its long-term interests, according to a recent report by the independent British American Security Information Council. "Iran's interest lies in supporting and training allies to influence their political positioning in a post-war, post-occupation Iraq."

This sounds a lot like the editorial in this week's issue of THE WEEKLY STANDARD:

An assumption of the Iraq Study Group was that the clerical regime wants stability next door in Iraq. Hence it might be willing to work with Americans. Yet Iran has benefited enormously from Iraqi instability. Traditional, moderate clerics like Iraq's Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, who have been willing to work with Americans, have been battered and bruised by the violence. The radical Moktada al-Sadr, a little-known and little-admired scion of a famous clerical family, skyrocketed to prominence because of the strife and thanks to critical Iranian aid to him. The Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq and its more radical military wing, the Badr Organization, has also benefited enormously from the violence. SCIRI is a key Iraqi player that has received substantial assistance from Tehran. What is particularly regrettable about SCIRI is that the bloodletting has made life more difficult for moderates within the organization. And the violence has made it harder for SCIRI to pull away from Iranian patronage.

Does Iran want to stop this process? Iraq's Arab Sunni community--detested by the Iranians--has been routed from much of Baghdad, badly bloodied, and put to flight by the hundreds of thousands. This is a bad thing in the eyes of Tehran? Where does Iran have the most influence in Iraq? In Basra, where Shiite-versus-Shiite violence is at its worst. This is not a coincidence. Tehran has benefited massively from Iraqi Shiite division and internecine strife. What the United States should expect from Iran is that it will continue to ship its deadly explosives to Iraq and, through violence, feed the radicalization of the Shiite community. Success through Hezbollah in civil-war-torn Lebanon is the model to remember. Until now, it's been Iran's only successful foray abroad. "Stability" in Iraq means only one thing to Tehran: an American success.

What does it mean for American foreign policy if there is a consensus that a) Iran has no interest in seeing stability return to Iraq, and b) Iran is actively supporting Sunni militants, aka al Qaeda, in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

From the Times: "I’m a pure and absolute democrat." An interview with Vladimir Putin.

From the Ottawa Citizen: The Case for Bombing Iran, by David Harris.

From the Honolulu Advertiser: U.S.-Japan Defense Alliance Strengthens, by Richard Halloran.

From Wired: The Military's Next-Gen Water Gun, by David Hambling.

From Ares: Congress with a Two-Drink Minimum, by Bill Sweetman.

Bonus Video: F-22 Raptor’s power and agility displayed at airshow.

A candlelight vigil in Hong Kong this evening to mark the 18th anniversary of the military crackdown on the Tiananmen Square demonstrations drew an unusually large crowd. Bobby Yip/Reuters

Official Chinese media have given considerable coverage to the growing tension between Washington and Moscow. A headline in Friday’s People’s Daily asks "At What Direction is the Russian Missile Test Targeted?" After noting that "Russia has expressed strong opposition to U.S. plans to extend its missile defense shield to Poland and the Czech Republic," the article concludes that "the answer is self-evident."

People’s Daily also ran a series of commentaries in May on what it characterizes as the "saliva war" between the United States and Russia. The paper takes a shot at American democracy in this commentary published May 23:

…ever since the end of the Cold War, Washington has been methodically containing Russia… the “jungle law” still plays a role in the management of international affairs. Doesn’t this reveal that the self-proclaimed democracy by some powers is in fact a crippled democracy?

And a May 22nd commentary cautions that the U.S. missile shield is likely to result in a "wrong distribution of resources":

…throughout U.S. history, allies and enemies switch roles, as many of today’s U.S. enemy target[sic] such as Noriega, Hussein and Bin Laden were once recipients of U.S. support.

Further, a May 18th opinion piece brings China into the equation and, alongside Russia, China is portrayed as a victim of American missile defense:

Although the U.S. reason for seeking overseas anti-missile bases is to prevent or stem missile attacks by the DPRK and Iran, the existing layout is, nevertheless, targeted directly and entirely at both Russia and China, and this is precisely the reason it has aroused the strong opposition of Russia.

A Chinese General reviews Russia's Pacific Fleet at Peace Mission 2005.

China and Russia have been working to forge a closer military alliance. In 2005, the two held their first ever joint military exercises as part of Peace Mission 2005, which was to be followed by more joint exercises under the aegis of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

Iran--an unambiguous target of American missile defense efforts--was granted observer status to the SCO in 2005. At the SCO’s 2006 summit, in a thinly veiled criticism of the United States, Ahmadinejad called for closer regional cooperation: "We need a strong powerful organization to protect us from unreasonable outside interference."

Were Iran to acquire full membership, it would not only come under the formal protection of the SCO, but it would also form an axis with Russia and China that might serve as a geopolitical counterweight to the United States in resource-rich Eurasia.

But the relationships between Russia, China, and the United States are complex and fluid. At the time of Peace Mission 2005, observers noted that the joint Sino-Russian exercises not only sent a warning to the United States but also presented an opportunity for Beijing and Moscow to inform each other of their respective military capabilities.

In asserting that last week’s missile test by Russia was meant to send a signal to the United States, People’s Daily may have neglected the distinct possibility that the test was also meant to send a message to Beijing.

This Week featured interviews with Iraqi president Jalal Talabani and Democratic congressman Jack Murtha. The two offered strikingly different views of America’s role in world affairs. First, Talabani:

We are thankful to the great and glorious American people who liberated us. We think that liberating thirty million Iraqis was a big achievement. While I’m sorry for the blood of American soldiers shed there, and I present my condolences to the families who lost their beloved sons in Iraq. But I think the glorious American people have done it in history many times when they went to Europe and to Asia to liberate those peoples.

Murtha has a more limited, and somewhat less glorious, vision for American policy in Iraq:

The key in my estimation is to start redeployment, force them to change the constitution, force them to understand that America’s not going to step up; what we’ve got to do is what’s best for the American foreign policy, not what’s best for Iraq.

On Face the Nation Republican congressman Jack King gave his opinion on the state of immigration reform, and what he believes the American people want the Congress to do:

I would rather have the current law enforced. I will be introducing legislation of my own in the next several weeks. along with Congressman Smith. But this bill is worse than the current law because it weakens the enforcement provisions, and it gives amnesty to 12 million people who are here illegally. It sets the wrong precedent, it's the wrong thing to do. And even your own poll, Bob, would show that a massive number of Americans, when [asked if] they want deportation, they say yes. So that flies in the face of those first numbers that you already gave.

On Fox News Sunday Newt Gingrich echoed King’s concerns over the state of border security:

Just take this week. An American with tuberculosis shows up at the border. We're in the middle of a debate over immigration and controlling the border. He shows up at the border. The computer says do not let him enter and only deal with him in a hazardous suit. And the border patrol currently is so ill-trained, or the immigration service is so ill-trained, that the guy lets him in — looks at him with his eyeballs and says, "you know, I don't think he looks sick," and lets him in. You learn that there are three illegal terrorists in New Jersey who were in the U.S. for 23 years illegally, intercepted by the police 75 times in the last six years, and it was never indicated that they were here illegally.

President Putin is concerned that U.S. plans to deploy a missile defense system in Eastern Europe may threaten Russian security and perhaps even lead to a new arms race:

"Our partners are filling Eastern Europe with new weapons," he told reporters in Moscow in a joint news conference with Greek President Carolos Papoulias.

"What are we supposed to do? We cannot just observe all this. In our opinion, it is nothing different from 'diktat,' nothing different from imperialism."

Washington is currently discussing deployment of parts of the system with Poland and the Czech Republic.

It's clear that the system in question would not undermine Russia's deterrent capability--the Russian arsenal, the largest in the world, would easily overwhelm any defense that might be deployed in the foreseeable future. But it's not surprising that the Russians are unhappy to see any power--let alone the United States--emerge as a critical presence so close to their western border.

Interestingly, amidst all the talk of missiles and interceptors, it might be the American radar that is causing so much concern in Russia. A powerful radar is the key to effectively targeting an ICBM, but the radar the U.S. plans to deploy to the Czech Republic will also provide a superb view of just about everything west of the Urals. In this regard, the US-Russian relationship took a hit when Democrats in Congress--in the name of improving those relations--denied funding for the missile silos needed to put the system into operation. Rather, Congress elected to authorize only the radar system. This has left Russian commentators wondering why the United States needs an advanced radar so close to Russia's heartland, especially if it's not being used to target missiles.

Be sure to check out the Former Spook for salient thoughts as well.

Banner of the Islamic State of Iraq. Click to view.

The battle between al Qaeda in Iraq on one side, and the residents of the Baghdad district of Amariyah, the Islamic Army of Iraq, and the 1920 Revolution Brigades on the other, dominated the headlines late yesterday and this morning. The Washington Post reported that the battle began Wednesday “over accusations that al-Qaeda in Iraq had executed Sunnis without reason,” and portrayed the conflict as one pitting the residents of Amariyah against al Qaeda. The Associated Press stated the Islamic Army of Iraq and the 1920 Revolution Brigades had also joined the battle against al Qaeda. And, perhaps most significant, AFP reported that the Anbar Salvation Council had sent in a unit to fight al Qaeda in the neighborhood.

“We dispatched around 50 of our secret police from Anbar to Amiriyah, and started to hit Al Qaeda there. We killed a lot of them,” Sheikh Hamid al-Hais, the head of the Anbar Salvation Council, told AFP in a phone interview. “A similar operation will be launched in Al-Ghazaliyah against Al Qaeda today. We have sufficient information on places they are in, and we will punish them.”

The Anbar Salvation Council has formed a “clandestine SWAT unit” that is capable of operating outside of the western province, an American military intelligence official close to the operations of the group told us. These are the “secret police’ described by of Sheikh al-Hais.

This is not the first expeditionary engagement by the Anbar Salvation Council. In the beginning of May, this “clandestine SWAT unit” engaged al Qaeda in the town of al-Nibayi, near Taji in Salahadin province. The Anbar Salvation Council then claimed they had killed Abu Ayyub al-Masri, but they had actually killed Muharib Abdul Latif, al Qaeda's information minister, as well as Sabah Hilal al-Shihawi, Latif’s religious advisor, and Abu Ammar al-Masri, an operative that was "facilitating insurgent activity and infrastructure support for al-Qaeda in Iraq."

Back in Amariyah, Mohammed Abdul Khaliq, the neighborhood mayor, claimed al Qaeda is on the decline due to its abuse of power, but warned U.S. forces to stay out of the fighting. "I think this is going to be the end of the al-Qaeda presence here," Mr. Khaliq told the Washington Post in a telephone interview. "But if the Americans interfere, it will blow up, because they are the enemy of us both, and we will unite against them and stop fighting each other."