Friday, December 15, 2006 News Update
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has rejected the idea of seeking help from Syria and Iran to resolve the conflict in Iraq.
In an interview with the Washington Post, Rice said the "compensation" required by any deal might be too high. She said Syria and Iran should not need incentives to promote stability in Iraq.
"If they have an interest in a stable Iraq, they will do it anyway," Rice told the Post.
She suggested enlisting Syria's help might involve trading away Lebanese sovereignty, and that Iran would insist on obtaining nuclear weapons as a price for helping out in Iraq, the newspaper said. Rice also said the Bush administration would not retreat from its agenda on promoting democracy in the Middle East.
She said the administration will pursue an effort announced in September by President George W. Bush to achieve peace between Palestinians and Israelis.
"Get ready," said Rice. "We are going to the Middle East a lot."
Sen. John McCain took his controversial proposal for curbing Iraq's sectarian violence to Baghdad on Thursday, calling for an additional 15,000 to 30,000 U.S. troops and joining a congressional delegation in telling Iraq's prime minister he must break his close ties with a radical Shiite cleric.
McCain's position puts him at odds with the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, which recommended withdrawing substantial number of U.S. troops over the coming year. The Army in recent days has been looking at how many additional troops could be sent to Iraq if President Bush decides a surge in forces would be helpful.
Army officials say only about 10,000 to 15,000 troops could be sent and an end to the war would have to be in sight because the deployment would drain the pool of available soldiers for combat. Further, many experts warn, there is no guarantee a surge in troops would work to settle the violence.
"We would not surge without a purpose," the Army's top general, Peter J. Schoomaker, told reporters Thursday in Washington. "And that purpose should be measurable."
McCain said he realizes that few Americans favor deploying more U.S. troops to Iraq, and that if such a move proved unsuccessful in the unpopular war it could hurt his presidential ambitions.
But the Arizona Republican said Americans must realize that if U.S. troops leave Iraq in chaos, groups such as al-Qaida "will follow us home and that we will have a large conflict and greater challenges than those that we now face here in Iraq. The American people are confused, they're frustrated, they're disappointed by the Iraq war, but they also want us to succeed if there's any way to do that," McCain told reporters in Baghdad.
The lawmakers' trip came as the bloodshed showed no signs of abating. At least 74 more people were killed or found dead, including 65 bullet-riddled bodies bearing signs of torture. And gunmen in military uniforms kidnapped as many as 70 shopkeepers and bystanders from a commercial area in central Baghdad in what was apparently an attack against Sunnis; at least 25 were later released, police said.
Hamas gunmen seized control of the Gaza Strip's border crossing with Egypt on Thursday in a ferocious gunbattle with Fatah-allied border guards after Israel blocked the Hamas prime minister from crossing with tens of millions of dollars in aid.
Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh was eventually allowed to cross without the estimated $35 million cash but on the Gaza side of the border, his convoy came under intense fire from Fatah gunmen and one of his bodyguards was killed. Hamas said the gunmen had been aiming to kill the prime minister.
"The bodyguard to Ismail Haniyeh was killed during an assassination attempt," said Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum.
More than two dozen people were wounded in the fighting, deepening factional violence that has pushed the rivals closer to civil war. One of the injured was Haniyeh's 27-year-old son, Abed. Haniyeh cut short a trip abroad and was trying to return to Gaza in a bid to quell the infighting between Hamas and Fatah. He was carrying the cash for his government which has been bankrupted by international sanctions to punish Hamas for refusing to renounce its violent, anti-Israel ideology. Other government officials before Haniyeh have carried in millions of dollars of cash in suitcases across the same border point.
Israeli officials said from the beginning that Haniyeh could cross into Gaza without the money. Egyptian mediators stepped in to help resolve the standoff and Haniyeh finally was allowed to cross into Gaza late Thursday. But Maria Telleria, spokeswoman for European border monitors at the crossing, said Haniyeh left the funds, estimated at $35 million, in Egypt.
The FBI has sent a bulletin to state and local law enforcement warning of possible terrorist reprisals as the health of an incarcerated terror mastermind fails, FOX News has learned.
Although the FBI said there is no credible indication that a plan for retribution is in place, the agency sent the warning as Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman was treated in Missouri for bleeding. The blind sheik, who was the alleged architect of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, has called for revenge should he die in U.S. custody.
Bill Rosenau, a terror expert with RAND Corp, says that the death of Rahman is likely to raise his status to that of a martyr and refocus interest on the United States among radical Islamists. He says Rahman has been a lightning rod for years and his incarceration in the United States highlights the difficult problem of keeping terrorists incarcerated on American soil.
"Usama bin Laden has talked frequently about him and repeatedly expressed his interest in seeing him free. He has been a lightning rod for jihadists for a decade," Rosenau said.
South Korea's Ban Ki-moon was sworn in as the eighth U.N. secretary-general on Thursday and vowed to restore trust in an institution tainted by scandal and a growing divide between rich and poor nations.
The former South Korean foreign minister, 62, takes over on January 1, succeeding Ghanaian Kofi Annan, 68, who steps down at the end of the month after 10 years as U.N. leader.
"You could say that I am a man on a mission. And my mission could be dubbed 'Operation Restore Trust': Trust in the organization and trust between member-states and the secretariat," Ban said.
Annan's tenure was stained by findings of corruption and mismanagement in the $64 billion oil-for-food program for Iraq and in U.N. procurement, infuriating Washington, the world body's biggest dues-payer. At the same time, developing nations revolted against Annan's reform plans and a U.S.-led effort to streamline the U.N. bureaucracy, a campaign they saw as a grab by the rich for more control over U.N. programs and priorities.
"The time has come for a new day in relations between the secretariat and member states," Ban said in an indirect criticism of Annan. "The dark night of distrust and disrespect has lasted far too long."
The Army, strained by operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, is considering ways it can speed up the creation of two combat brigades while shifting personnel and equipment from other military units.
Under the plan being developed, the new brigades could be formed next year and be ready to be sent to Iraq in 2008, defense officials told The Associated Press. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the plans were not final. The Army's chief of staff, Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, told a commission Thursday that he wants to increase the half-million-member force beyond the 30,000 troops authorized in recent years. And he warned that the Army "will break" without thousands more active duty troops and greater use of the reserves.
Though Schoomaker didn't give an exact number, he said it would take significant time, saying 6,000 to 7,000 soldiers could be added per year. Schoomaker has said it costs roughly $1.2 billion to increase the Army by 10,000 soldiers. Officials also need greater authority to tap into the National Guard and Reserve, long ago set up as a strategic reserve but now needed as an integral part of the nation's deployed forces, Schoomaker told a commission studying possible changes in those two forces.
Accelerating the creation of two combat brigades would give the Army greater flexibility to allow units to return home for at least a year before having to go back to the battlefront. Brigades average 3,500 troops.
Since 2003, the Army has been restructuring in order to increase the number of brigades in each combat division from three to four. The purpose is to increase the pool of brigades available for troop rotations into Iraq and Afghanistan and to make each brigade more self-sustaining.
White House spokesman Tony Snow declined to characterize President Bush's response to Schoomaker's comments, but he said Bush "takes seriously any of the requests from the service branch chiefs."
U.S. Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., was "appropriately responsive" Thursday following surgery at a Washington hospital to stop bleeding in his brain.
Johnson, 59, was taken to George Washington University Hospital by ambulance Wednesday after exhibiting signs of a stroke, including slurred speech and problems with his right arm. U.S. Navy Rear Adm. John Eisold, attending physician of the U.S. Capitol, issued a statement Thursday morning, saying that Johnson had "an intracerebral bleed" caused by a congenital condition. He said surgery had drained the blood, leaving the senator in critical but stable condition, The New York Times reported.
"He has been appropriately responsive to both word and touch," he said in a statement later Thursday. "No further surgical intervention has been required."
Commentary: Panned in Baghdad; Iraqis reject the Baker-Hamilton report.
Army: A body of men assembled to rectify the mistakes of the diplomats. --Josephus Daniels
In an interview with the Washington Post, Rice said the "compensation" required by any deal might be too high. She said Syria and Iran should not need incentives to promote stability in Iraq.
"If they have an interest in a stable Iraq, they will do it anyway," Rice told the Post.
She suggested enlisting Syria's help might involve trading away Lebanese sovereignty, and that Iran would insist on obtaining nuclear weapons as a price for helping out in Iraq, the newspaper said. Rice also said the Bush administration would not retreat from its agenda on promoting democracy in the Middle East.
She said the administration will pursue an effort announced in September by President George W. Bush to achieve peace between Palestinians and Israelis.
"Get ready," said Rice. "We are going to the Middle East a lot."
Sen. John McCain took his controversial proposal for curbing Iraq's sectarian violence to Baghdad on Thursday, calling for an additional 15,000 to 30,000 U.S. troops and joining a congressional delegation in telling Iraq's prime minister he must break his close ties with a radical Shiite cleric.
McCain's position puts him at odds with the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, which recommended withdrawing substantial number of U.S. troops over the coming year. The Army in recent days has been looking at how many additional troops could be sent to Iraq if President Bush decides a surge in forces would be helpful.
Army officials say only about 10,000 to 15,000 troops could be sent and an end to the war would have to be in sight because the deployment would drain the pool of available soldiers for combat. Further, many experts warn, there is no guarantee a surge in troops would work to settle the violence.
"We would not surge without a purpose," the Army's top general, Peter J. Schoomaker, told reporters Thursday in Washington. "And that purpose should be measurable."
McCain said he realizes that few Americans favor deploying more U.S. troops to Iraq, and that if such a move proved unsuccessful in the unpopular war it could hurt his presidential ambitions.
But the Arizona Republican said Americans must realize that if U.S. troops leave Iraq in chaos, groups such as al-Qaida "will follow us home and that we will have a large conflict and greater challenges than those that we now face here in Iraq. The American people are confused, they're frustrated, they're disappointed by the Iraq war, but they also want us to succeed if there's any way to do that," McCain told reporters in Baghdad.
The lawmakers' trip came as the bloodshed showed no signs of abating. At least 74 more people were killed or found dead, including 65 bullet-riddled bodies bearing signs of torture. And gunmen in military uniforms kidnapped as many as 70 shopkeepers and bystanders from a commercial area in central Baghdad in what was apparently an attack against Sunnis; at least 25 were later released, police said.
Hamas gunmen seized control of the Gaza Strip's border crossing with Egypt on Thursday in a ferocious gunbattle with Fatah-allied border guards after Israel blocked the Hamas prime minister from crossing with tens of millions of dollars in aid.
Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh was eventually allowed to cross without the estimated $35 million cash but on the Gaza side of the border, his convoy came under intense fire from Fatah gunmen and one of his bodyguards was killed. Hamas said the gunmen had been aiming to kill the prime minister.
"The bodyguard to Ismail Haniyeh was killed during an assassination attempt," said Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum.
More than two dozen people were wounded in the fighting, deepening factional violence that has pushed the rivals closer to civil war. One of the injured was Haniyeh's 27-year-old son, Abed. Haniyeh cut short a trip abroad and was trying to return to Gaza in a bid to quell the infighting between Hamas and Fatah. He was carrying the cash for his government which has been bankrupted by international sanctions to punish Hamas for refusing to renounce its violent, anti-Israel ideology. Other government officials before Haniyeh have carried in millions of dollars of cash in suitcases across the same border point.
Israeli officials said from the beginning that Haniyeh could cross into Gaza without the money. Egyptian mediators stepped in to help resolve the standoff and Haniyeh finally was allowed to cross into Gaza late Thursday. But Maria Telleria, spokeswoman for European border monitors at the crossing, said Haniyeh left the funds, estimated at $35 million, in Egypt.
The FBI has sent a bulletin to state and local law enforcement warning of possible terrorist reprisals as the health of an incarcerated terror mastermind fails, FOX News has learned.
Although the FBI said there is no credible indication that a plan for retribution is in place, the agency sent the warning as Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman was treated in Missouri for bleeding. The blind sheik, who was the alleged architect of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, has called for revenge should he die in U.S. custody.
Bill Rosenau, a terror expert with RAND Corp, says that the death of Rahman is likely to raise his status to that of a martyr and refocus interest on the United States among radical Islamists. He says Rahman has been a lightning rod for years and his incarceration in the United States highlights the difficult problem of keeping terrorists incarcerated on American soil.
"Usama bin Laden has talked frequently about him and repeatedly expressed his interest in seeing him free. He has been a lightning rod for jihadists for a decade," Rosenau said.
South Korea's Ban Ki-moon was sworn in as the eighth U.N. secretary-general on Thursday and vowed to restore trust in an institution tainted by scandal and a growing divide between rich and poor nations.
The former South Korean foreign minister, 62, takes over on January 1, succeeding Ghanaian Kofi Annan, 68, who steps down at the end of the month after 10 years as U.N. leader.
"You could say that I am a man on a mission. And my mission could be dubbed 'Operation Restore Trust': Trust in the organization and trust between member-states and the secretariat," Ban said.
Annan's tenure was stained by findings of corruption and mismanagement in the $64 billion oil-for-food program for Iraq and in U.N. procurement, infuriating Washington, the world body's biggest dues-payer. At the same time, developing nations revolted against Annan's reform plans and a U.S.-led effort to streamline the U.N. bureaucracy, a campaign they saw as a grab by the rich for more control over U.N. programs and priorities.
"The time has come for a new day in relations between the secretariat and member states," Ban said in an indirect criticism of Annan. "The dark night of distrust and disrespect has lasted far too long."
The Army, strained by operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, is considering ways it can speed up the creation of two combat brigades while shifting personnel and equipment from other military units.
Under the plan being developed, the new brigades could be formed next year and be ready to be sent to Iraq in 2008, defense officials told The Associated Press. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the plans were not final. The Army's chief of staff, Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, told a commission Thursday that he wants to increase the half-million-member force beyond the 30,000 troops authorized in recent years. And he warned that the Army "will break" without thousands more active duty troops and greater use of the reserves.
Though Schoomaker didn't give an exact number, he said it would take significant time, saying 6,000 to 7,000 soldiers could be added per year. Schoomaker has said it costs roughly $1.2 billion to increase the Army by 10,000 soldiers. Officials also need greater authority to tap into the National Guard and Reserve, long ago set up as a strategic reserve but now needed as an integral part of the nation's deployed forces, Schoomaker told a commission studying possible changes in those two forces.
Accelerating the creation of two combat brigades would give the Army greater flexibility to allow units to return home for at least a year before having to go back to the battlefront. Brigades average 3,500 troops.
Since 2003, the Army has been restructuring in order to increase the number of brigades in each combat division from three to four. The purpose is to increase the pool of brigades available for troop rotations into Iraq and Afghanistan and to make each brigade more self-sustaining.
White House spokesman Tony Snow declined to characterize President Bush's response to Schoomaker's comments, but he said Bush "takes seriously any of the requests from the service branch chiefs."
U.S. Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., was "appropriately responsive" Thursday following surgery at a Washington hospital to stop bleeding in his brain.
Johnson, 59, was taken to George Washington University Hospital by ambulance Wednesday after exhibiting signs of a stroke, including slurred speech and problems with his right arm. U.S. Navy Rear Adm. John Eisold, attending physician of the U.S. Capitol, issued a statement Thursday morning, saying that Johnson had "an intracerebral bleed" caused by a congenital condition. He said surgery had drained the blood, leaving the senator in critical but stable condition, The New York Times reported.
"He has been appropriately responsive to both word and touch," he said in a statement later Thursday. "No further surgical intervention has been required."
Commentary: Panned in Baghdad; Iraqis reject the Baker-Hamilton report.
Army: A body of men assembled to rectify the mistakes of the diplomats. --Josephus Daniels