What was reported a few months ago is now official: Gen. Raymond Odierno, the U.S. commander in Iraq, will head up the Joint Forces Command, pending (a certain) Senate confirmation. In the language of JFCOM’s press release, Odierno will “oversee UFJFCOM’s roles in joint concept development and More…
That’s what Robert Gibbs suggested in his press conference today when asked about the House Armed Services Committee’s move to block the Defense Department from purchasing the Illinois prison, a necessary step in President Obama’s plan to close Guantanamo Bay.
I will say that we have always maintained that
The Obama administration’s longstanding pledge to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay just hit a major obstacle in the House, creating doubts over whether the detention facility can be closed this year — if at all.
Last night the House Armed Services Committee finished this year’s bill authorizing $567 More…
It’s official. Army Lt. Gen. Lloyd Austin, the director of the Joint Staff and a former corps commander in Iraq under Gens. David Petraeus and Raymond Odierno, has been nominated to command the final phase of the Iraq war. The respected Austin’s confirmation is pretty much certain.
If More…
GUANTANAMO BAY — A brief detour from my Guantanamo coverage, as a State Department official, speaking only on background, confirmed something else I’ve been working on. The private security company formerly known as Blackwater and now known as Xe Services, will be allowed to bid on the next generation of More…
Still lethal, if today’s coordinated bombings in Baghdad are any indication. But in the wake of last week’s surprise killings of AQI leaders Abu Ayyub al-Masri and Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, I asked Maj. Gen. Stephen Lanza, spokesman for the U.S. military command in Iraq, for a sense of More…
In a message that Iraq Veterans Against the War is helping spread, two soldiers identified as serving with the company in Wikileaks’ Iraq video — the one showing Army close air support firing on Iraqi civilians, including two Reuters journalists – have written an open letter to Iraqis expressing More…
A joint U.S.-Iraqi raid near Tikrit decapitated al-Qaeda’s Iraqi affiliate on Sunday. Two of the country’s most wanted terrorists, Abu Ayyub al Masri and Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, who have been responsible for thousands of U.S. and Iraqi deaths since 2006, were tracked by U.S. and Iraqi intelligence and special-operations More…
Last night I posted a link to investigative actions taken by the U.S. military command in Iraq in 2007 after U.S. forces in Baghdad fired upon individuals who do not appear to have been posing a threat, ultimately including two Reuters employees. I’ll be honest: We’re having formatting problems opening More…
After much of the day’s news was dominated by Wikileaks’ distribution of a graphic video purporting to show U.S. military personnel in Iraq in More…
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