GWOT Media Summary Dec 6

[RAMESES the Great]

U.S. Joint Forces Command

GWOT Media Summary

Operations Iraqi Freedom/Enduring Freedom/Noble Eagle

Current as of December 6, 2007

Ø New Developments

§ Car Bombs Kill 22 As Gates Visits Baghdad. Robert Gates, U.S. defense secretary, arrived in Iraq on Wednesday for meetings with U.S. commanders and Iraqi officials about the improving security situation, as a series of car bombs killed at least 22 people. The largest bombing, which killed at least 15 people, occurred in a Shia neighborhood of Baghdad just minutes before Mr. Gates held a press conference with Abdul Qader, the Iraqi defense minister. “In recent months, there has been a dramatic change in the security situation across the nation, a decline in violence to levels not seen since the [February 2006] Samarra mosque bombing of nearly two years ago,” said Mr. Gates. “More than ever, I believe that the goal of a secure, democratic and stable Iraq is within reach.” (London Financial Times)

§ Pushed Out Of Baghdad, Insurgents Move North. Sunni insurgents pushed out of Baghdad and Anbar Provinces have migrated to the northern Iraqi city of Mosul and have been trying to turn it into a major hub for their operations, according to American commanders. A growing number of insurgents have relocated there and other places in northern Iraq as the additional forces sent by President Bush have mounted operations in the Iraqi capital and American commanders have made common cause with Sunni tribes in the western part of the country. The insurgents who have ventured north include Abu Ayyub-al Masri, the leader of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a predominantly Iraqi group that American intelligence says has foreign leadership. American officials say the insurgent leader has twice slipped in and out of Mosul in Nineveh Province to try to rally fellow militants and put end to infighting. (New York Times)

§ Patraeus Cites Violence Decline In Iraq. Citing a 60 percent decline in violence in Iraq over the last six months, Gen. David Petraeus said Thursday that maintaining security is easier than establishing it and gives him more flexibility in deploying forces. Armed with charts showing that as of Wednesday, weekly attacks and Iraqi civilian deaths have plunged to levels not seen here since early 2006, Petraeus said the reduction lets him make force adjustments to address remaining problem areas, which would include northern Iraq. Petraeus said the improved security is due to a number of factors including a ``a reduction in some of the signature attacks that are associated with weapons provide by Iran,'' as well as a key cease-fire called by radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in what had been one of the most violent areas of Baghdad. (The Guardian/AP)

§ Dems Seek Solution For Iraq War Funding. Caught between anti-war activists and an unyielding White House, congressional Democrats are struggling for a way to fund U.S. troops in Iraq without appearing to support President Bush's policies. No issue divides the party more deeply and lawmakers say it poses one of the toughest decisions that top House and Senate Democrats will make since they took control of Congress this year. At least four ideas are being floated, but none has achieved a consensus as the holiday break nears. "The president has put us in a very difficult position," said Rep. Elijah Cummings, a Maryland Democrat who opposes the Iraq war. Cummings and many colleagues say further spending for the war should be tied to troop withdrawals, a restriction Bush adamantly opposes. But some of those colleagues, Cummings said Wednesday, "think it's going to be difficult to hold the line." (Charlotte Observer/AP)

Ø Military Coverage

§ No Shift Of Marines To Afghan War. Marine Corps commandant Gen. James T. Conway told reporters at the Pentagon Wednesday that Defense Secretary Robert Gates has rejected his proposal to shift Marine forces from Iraq to Afghanistan, reflecting in part the Bush administration's concern that recent security gains in Iraq are fragile and reversible. "After discussion with the secretary and with my colleagues on the Joint Staff, there is a determination that right now the timing is not right to provide additional Marine forces to Afghanistan," Conway said. Conway's proposal gives unusual insight into the thinking of the Corps, which sees itself as offering unique capabilities, different in important ways than the Army, with which it has shared the bulk of the work in Iraq since a joint Army-Marine force invaded and toppled Baghdad in 2003. (Chicago Tribune/AP)

§ High Court Probes Guantanamo Prisoners' Rights. Supreme Court justices on Wednesday questioned whether terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay have constitutional grounds for challenging their years-long detention, in a major case spotlighting the tarnished U.S. human-rights record. Seth Waxman, the lawyer representing 37 Guantanamo inmates, argued before the highest U.S. court that Congress wrongly stripped the prisoners in 2006 of their habeas corpus rights to seek a judicial review of their detention. Justices asked whether Congress had created an adequate alternative for prisoners to contest their detention, and whether the Constitution protects the rights of foreigners held by the United States outside the country. (Reuters)

§ VA Nominee Disappoints Senate Panel. Skepticism ran high at Wednesday's hearing for Lt. Gen. James Peake, the nominee to be Secretary of Veterans Affairs. But problems at the VA and a leadership vacuum led most senators to say they would support the nomination, which is expected to go to the full Senate later this month. Peake said he knew little about the 22,000 veterans who have been discharged for "pre-existing personality disorders." He told the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee that he was "aware of the issue" but needed to look into "the individual cases." Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., a committee member and leading administration critic on the issue, said she found Peake's answers "disappointing." (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)

Ø Homeland Security

§ U.S. Says Military Notes Led To Shift On Iran. American intelligence agencies reversed their view about the status of Iran’s nuclear weapons program after they obtained notes last summer from the deliberations of Iranian military officials involved in the weapons development program, senior intelligence and government officials said on Wednesday. The notes included conversations and deliberations in which some of the military officials complained bitterly about what they termed a decision by their superiors in late 2003 to shut down a complex engineering effort to design nuclear weapons, including a warhead that could fit atop Iranian missiles. The newly obtained notes contradicted public assertions by American intelligence officials that the nuclear weapons design effort was still active. But according to officials, they give no hint of why Iran’s leadership decided to halt the covert effort. (New York Times)

§ Limits Proposed On CIA Interrogators. House and Senate negotiators working on an intelligence bill have agreed to limit CIA interrogators to techniques approved by the military, which would effectively bar them from using such harsh methods as waterboarding, congressional aides said Wednesday. Members of the House and Senate intelligence committees decided to include the ban while working out differences in their respective bills authorizing 2008 spending for intelligence programs, according to the aides, who spoke anonymously. Details of the bill are to be made public Thursday. That will set the stage for another veto fight with President Bush, who last summer issued an executive ordered allowing the CIA to use "enhanced interrogation techniques" that go beyond what's allowed in the 2006 Army Field Manual. (Raleigh News & Observer/AP)

Ø World Developments

§ Bush Tells Iran To Disclose Nuclear Activities. President Bush called on Iran to "come clean" about the scope of its nuclear activities Wednesday, as the White House made it clear there will be no change in its policy toward Tehran despite new intelligence questioning his claims about the country's nuclear ambitions. Bush indicated that he still sees Iran as a serious threat. He demanded that its leaders fully disclose details of its nuclear weapons program, which the intelligence community said Monday was shut down in the fall of 2003. "The Iranians have a strategic choice to make," Bush told reporters. "They can come clean with the international community about the scope of their nuclear activities and fully accept" the U.S. offer to negotiate if they suspend their nuclear enrichment program – "or they can continue on a path of isolation." "The choice is up to the Iranian regime," the president said. (Washington Post)

§ World Court Opens Investigation In Darfur. The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court announced Wednesday that he is opening new investigations in Darfur, one targeting Sudanese government officials for alleged violence against civilians in displacement camps and the other against those who have attacked aid workers and U.N. peacekeepers. Argentine prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo also said that he would seek to hold senior Sudanese government officials accountable for protecting two suspects indicted by the ICC earlier this year. The prosecutor said he hopes the probes will ratchet up pressure on Sudan's leaders and play off diplomats' frustration at Khartoum's continued stonewalling. The investigations also put rebel groups on notice that their actions are being scrutinized. (Los Angeles Times)

§ Israel Says Army Ready For Gaza Invasion. Israel's army has completed plans for a large offensive in the Gaza Strip and is only waiting for government approval, military chief Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi said Wednesday, shortly after two Palestinian militants were killed by Israeli tank fire in the coastal area. Ashkenazi said that until he receives the go-ahead for a broad operation, Israel would continue with its policy of airstrikes and brief ground incursions to halt Palestinian rocket attacks. Defense Minister Ehud Barak has repeatedly said that the time for a widespread ground invasion of Gaza is drawing closer. But on Tuesday, he said now is not the time for a broad operation, which would likely result in heavy casualties to Israeli soldiers and Palestinian civilians in Gaza's crowded urban landscape. (Miami Herald/AP)

§ North Korean Nuclear Program Almost Ended, Hill Says. North Korea is on target to complete the dismantling of its nuclear program this month, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said. Hill gave the assessment late Wednesday after arriving in China from North Korea, where he inspected the Yongbyon complex, which made weapons-grade plutonium. The site is being shut under a 2006 accord between North Korea and the U.S., China, Japan, Russia and South Korea. North Korea vowed to scrap the program and declare all nuclear materials by Dec. 31 in exchange for aid. ``They've done a lot of work in terms of taking out the fuel, which means they can't get the facility going again,'' Hill said of the Yongbyon plant. He was chief U.S. negotiator at the six-nation talks that led to last year's agreement. (Bloomberg)

§ Attack On Sri Lanka Bus Kills 15, Military Says. A land mine explosion blamed on Tamil separatists tore through a passenger bus crowded with civilians in northern Sri Lanka on Wednesday night, killing at least 15 people and wounding 23 others, the military said. The bus blast came exactly a week after two bombings blamed on the Tamil Tigers killed 20 people in a suburb of the capital, Colombo. Those attacks followed a renewed military offensive against the rebels in their home base in the north. The military says the offensive has killed hundreds of guerrilla fighters in recent weeks. The bus had been heading north from the agricultural town of Kabithigollewa near rebel-held territory when it was hit by the blast from a claymore mine, said Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara, a military spokesman. (MSNBC/AP)

§ U.S. Presses To Defuse Interlocking African Conflicts. The United States urged leaders from across the Horn of Africa and Great Lakes region during meetings Wednesday in Addis Ababa to take rapid steps to defuse longstanding and interlocking conflicts. During talks in the Ethiopian capital, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice encouraged Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi to send "Ethiopian troops pledged to the United Nations Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) as soon as possible." In a final statement, Rice said she also urged Zenawi to work with the Arab Islamist government in Sudan to lift their opposition and "allow UNAMID deployments, including non-African troops, to move forward unhindered. Ethiopia remains in a tense stand-off with its arch-enemy Eritrea, following the dissolution last week of a commission tasked with brokering an agreement on the neighbors' disputed common border. (Agence France Presse)

Ø Public Opinion

U.S. Troop Surge In Iraq Receives A Bit More Credit. Public views of the U.S. troop surge in Iraq have improved over the past month, and Americans' outlook about winning the war is brighter than it was in September. At the same time, even this expanded number of Americans holding upbeat views about the troop surge and the war's progress remain in the minority. And none of this seems to have influenced Americans' more fundamental reaction to the war: The percentage saying it was a mistake to send U.S. troops to Iraq in the first place remains virtually unchanged, at 57%. The new USA Today/Gallup poll issuing these findings was conducted this past Friday through Sunday, Nov. 30 through Dec. 2, 2007. (Gallup)