Department of professional jealosy: Danger Room’s Nathan Hodge is in Kabul, about to do some reporting about Afghanistan’s “summer of the surge,” with an emphasis on who’s taking up the civilian side of the mission, like staffing the Provincial Reconstruction Teams. So far, Nathan’s just seeing jacked contractors hanging More…
In my piece Wednesday about the Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Iraq, I quoted a senior State Department official about diplomatic culture. He was reacting to a kind-of-obnoxious question I asked about the department being somewhat hidebound and embassy-centric, too reluctant and resistant to get out into the far-flung areas More…
A key State Department program that seeks to bolster the capability of Iraqi provincial and local authorities to govern will remain in place over the next year with some modifications, its Washington-based director said. But concerns remain about whether the program will be sufficient to address the continuing political and More…
While much of the national security establishment’s attention is understandably focused on how the Obama administration handles Afghanistan — both the increase in troop levels and the forthcoming strategy review — there are some interesting Iraq-related changes underway as well.
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