Iranian Missile Tests

A reader emails: The government is playing down Iran's missile tests as scantly more than "provocative," while some political pundits are calling them gravely serious. What's the real story? Just how far along are they in [missile] development? Short skinny: It's serious. Iran's test provides some useful insight into where the regime sees itself in 6-8 years -- as a proven nuclear power with full deterrence capabilities. The fuel they used, for example, is in itself destabilizing. Iran has traditionally powered their rockets with volatile liquid fuel. Because liquid rocket fuel is unstable, their rockets required significant preparation immediately before the ignition sequence. That's why you see headlines screaming about a North Korean missile launches weeks before they actually happen -- intelligence services can detect activity at launch sites well ahead of scheduled tests. Liquid fuel also "sloshes" in its tank, which destabilizes trajectory. Solid fuel burns evenly and remains steady during flight, which is why Russia, China, and the United States all use it in their various ICBM booster systems. Full deployment of solid-fuel boosters would give Iran a "launch-on-warning" capability that they've never had before, as it's stable enough to store without significant prep time. That means the old paradigm, where Middle East tensions would escalate to the point that Iran started fueling their rockets in response to a tactical or strategic threat, is gone. Now, if the United States or Israel were to hit Iran conventionally, we'd have to hit 100 percent of their rockets with an initial, coordinated surprise attack -- an unlikely scenario, even considering the unmatched abilities of our Navy and Air Force. The second concerning aspect of the test is Iran's further use of staging technology. The Minuteman III ICBM uses three solid fuel stages to boost the missile into orbit, then a manageable amount of liquid fuel to guide the nuclear reentry system into a safe release point. The hybrid system optimizes both range and accuracy. Iran's not quite there yet, but they've got the basics down with the first and second stages. Yesterday's test proves that Iran has figured out both staging and solid fuel technology. The next logical step is to combine the two, yielding a fully functional ICBM. Couple that with a nuclear reentry system (thankfully not an easy technology to master), and Iran will have a full nuclear deterrent similar to the United States and Russia during the Cold War. The idea of Iran using its terrorist proxies under the aegis of nuclear ICBMs and MRMBs is chilling. And President Obama has now cut a critical component of our contingency plan against this scenario -- European missile defense.

Arrest in Case of Murdered Athletes in Iraq from 2006

September 27, 2009 BAGHDAD — The United States military said Sunday that American and Iraqi troops had arrested a suspect in the murders of at least 13 members of the Iraqi national tae kwon do team in 2006, in a possible resolution of a case that was among the more vexing crimes at the height of Iraq’s sectarian warfare. The team and its coaches were traveling from Baghdad to Jordan in May 2006 to attend a training camp and try to get visas to the United States for a tournament in Las Vegas. All 15 people, and the two sport utility vehicles they were in, vanished between the cities of Falluja and Ramadi in Anbar Province, which at the time was at the center of the Sunni Arab insurgency. The team members were all Shiites from the Baghdad neighborhood of Sadr City. More than a year later, in June 2007, the skeletal remains of 13 people, along with tattered track suits and identification cards, were discovered in the desert between Falluja and Ramadi. Iraqi officials later announced that the bodies were those of the athletes. The bodies of two people have never been found. The suspect, whose name has not been released, was arrested on Thursday by members of the Iraqi special forces and their American military advisers, according to a statement by the United States military in Iraq. It was not clear what had led the authorities to him, but security forces had obtained a warrant for the man’s arrest in a magistrate court in Karma, another city in Anbar, the military said. The suspect is believed to have taken part in other crimes as well, the statement said. In another development, a suicide car bomber killed 3 policemen and wounded 10 others in Ramadi on Sunday morning when he drove his vehicle into a checkpoint outside the city’s main police station and detonated his explosives, said an Iraqi police officer who requested anonymity because he was not permitted to speak to reporters.

Iraq and European Union agree to Paragraphs of Bilateral Partnership

http://www.iraqdirectory.com/DisplayNews.aspx?id=10428 IRAQdirectory.com - [9/22/2009] Iraq and the European Union have settled most of the paragraphs of the partnership and bilateral cooperation agreement between the two sides. This came during a meeting between Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal Affairs and Multilateral Relations, Dr. Mohammed Al-Haj Hamoud, and head of the European Union mission in Baghdad, ambassador Aleka Usitalo. According to a statement of the Foreign Ministry, the two sides reviewed a copy of the suspended paragraphs of the partnership and cooperation agreement between Iraq and the European Union and they came up with final versions to some of these paragraphs; both sides had already held eight rounds of negotiations on Partnership and Cooperation Agreement. The ambassador Usitalo said that a technical delegation from the European Union will visit Iraq during the month of October to discuss ways to develop relations between the two sides and the long-term strategic cooperation between the sides. Iraqi Speaker Samarraie wraps up visit to Paris http://en.aswataliraq.info/?p=119441 September 24, 2009 BAGHDAD / Aswat al-Iraq: Iraq’s parliamentary delegation led by Speaker Iyad al-Samarraie concluded a visit to France on Thursday by separate meetings with French National Assembly President Bernard Accoyer and Senate President Gérard Larcher, according to an official statement. “The discussions focused on ways to activate the role of the Iraqi parliament in the legislative field and France’s experience in this sphere,” read the statement as received by Aswat al-Iraq news agency. “The key point we were keen to stress was that Iraq’s fledgling democracy needs to be strengthened and powerful democratic institutions be built,” Samarraie was quoted as saying. Commerce Department Schedules U.S.-Iraq Business and Investment Conference in Washington, DC www.trade.gov/iraq The U.S. Department of Commerce’s International Trade Administration (Commerce/ITA) is organizing a U.S.-Iraq Business and Investment Conference, to be held in Washington, DC, on October 20th and 21st, 2009. The goal of the conference is to encourage U.S. private investment in Iraq by promoting current business opportunities, providing matchmaking opportunities for U.S. and Iraqi firms, providing opportunities for dialogue with Iraqi Ministers and other senior Government of Iraq (GOI) officials, and holding bilateral meetings with U.S. and Iraqi government officials to address commercial policy. The conference will cover twelve sectors – agriculture, banking/finance, defense, electricity, health, education, housing/construction, industry, oil/gas, telecommunications, tourism and transportation – and, while it will be open to all U.S. companies, those operating in these sectors are especially encouraged to participate. The Iraqi delegation will include several Iraqi Ministers and other senior GOI officials, many provincial government officials, and representatives from over 100 private-sector firms. Interested parties will be able to register online for the investment conference at 74 Fed. Reg. 48222 Ministry supervises rebuilding two bridges in Baghdad September 24, 2009 http://en.aswataliraq.info/?p=119445 BAGHDAD / Aswat al-Iraq: The Iraqi minister of reconstruction & housing ratified a memorandum of understanding with the United States to coordinate the rebuilding of the two bridges of al-Rudwaniya on the highway, according to a statement by the ministry’s information office on Thursday.“Minister Bayan Daza Yi endorsed the MoU between the Iraqi general roads & bridges organization and the U.S. side to reconstruct the two bridges of al-Rudwaniya at the 15th kilometer on Highway 1,” read the statement as received by Aswat al-Iraq news agency. First Undersecretary of Reconstruction & Housing, Estabraq al-Shawk, said the two bridges are on the highway that links al-Yousufiya Intersection, south of Baghdad, to Abu Ghraib Intersection, West of Baghdad. “The bridges had been damaged as a result of armed and military operations. The finance for the project is provided by the U.S. side,” said Shawk

Military officials' frustration rises over Afghan plans

Associated Press Sept. 22, 2009, 8:22PM — Military officials voiced frustration and congressional leaders urged caution Tuesday over what they described as President Barack Obama's shifting strategy in Afghanistan, six months after he committed thousands more U.S. troops. Administration officials maintained they were looking at all options — including more drones — to protect the U.S. and its allies by shutting down al-Qaida in bordering areas of Pakistan. Meanwhile, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is to affirm support for Afghanistan in a speech to the General Assembly today. “We are committed to seeing the Afghans through their long night,” he says in prepared remarks released Tuesday. Appearing on NBC's Today show Tuesday, former President Bill Clinton said he believes Obama is wise to rethink U.S. policy and should wait to send more troops until there is a resolution of the presidential election there. Critics at the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill said Tuesday the White House was in danger of taking its eye off the fight. They called on Obama to fulfill an anticipated request for more troops from the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal. “This leads me to urge you to waste no time in providing a clear direction to our commanders and civilian leaders, along with the resources necessary to achieve their mission,” House Armed Services Chairman Ike Skelton, D-Mo., wrote to Obama Tuesday. Skelton is the highest-ranking Democrat so far to support sending more troops to Afghanistan. Arizona Sen. John McCain, who has urged Obama to send more troops to Afghanistan, said Tuesday, “I've never seen a disconnect like this between the military leadership and the White House on an issue.”

U.S. says Pakistan, Iran helping Taliban

Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, in particular cites the ISI and the Quds Force. By Greg Miller September 22, 2009 Reporting from Washington The U.S. military commander in Afghanistan says he has evidence that factions of Pakistani and Iranian spy services are supporting insurgent groups that carry out attacks on coalition troops. Taliban fighters in Afghanistan are being aided by "elements of some intelligence agencies," Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal wrote in a detailed analysis of the military situation delivered to the White House earlier this month. McChrystal went on to single out Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency as well as the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as contributing to the external forces working to undermine U.S. interests and destabilize the government in Kabul. The remarks reflect long-running U.S. concerns about Pakistan and Iran, but it is rare that they have been voiced so prominently by a top U.S. official. McChrystal submitted his assessment last month, and a declassified version was published Sunday on the Washington Post website. The criticism of Pakistan is a particularly delicate issue because of the United States' close cooperation with Islamabad in pursuing militants and carrying out drone airstrikes in the nation's rugged east. "Afghanistan's insurgency is clearly supported from Pakistan," McChrystal wrote, adding that senior leaders of the major Taliban groups are "reportedly aided by some elements of Pakistan's ISI." The ISI has long-standing ties to the Taliban, but Pakistani officials have repeatedly claimed to have severed those relationships in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks. More recently, the ISI has been a key U.S. partner in the capture of a number of high-level Al Qaeda operatives, including alleged Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. But U.S. officials have also complained of ongoing contacts between the spy service and Taliban groups. U.S. frustration peaked last year when Adm. Michael G. Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and other U.S. officials secretly confronted Pakistan with evidence of ISI involvement in the suicide bombing of the Indian Embassy in Kabul. Since then, U.S. officials have sought to avoid public criticism of the Pakistani service as part of an effort to defuse tensions in the relationship. Indeed, U.S. officials in recent months have said that the ISI had become more committed to the counter-terrorism cause after one of the service's own facilities in Lahore was the target of a suicide bombing. McChrystal's comments are the first public indication in months that the United States continues to see signs of ISI support for insurgent groups. Experts said elements of the ISI maintain those ties to hedge against a U.S. withdrawal from the region and rising Indian influence in Afghanistan. "There is a mixture of motives and concerns within the ISI that have accounted for the dalliances that have gone on for years" with insurgent groups, said Paul Pillar, a former senior CIA counter-terrorism official. Iran has traditionally had an adversarial relationship with the Taliban, and McChrystal's report says that Tehran has played "an ambiguous role in Afghanistan," providing developmental assistance to the government even as it flirts with insurgent groups that target U.S. troops. "The Iranian Quds Force is reportedly training fighters for certain Taliban groups and providing other forms of military assistance to insurgents," McChrystal said in the report. The Quds Force is an elite wing of the Revolutionary Guard that carries out operations in other countries. McChrystal did not elaborate on the nature of the assistance, but Iran has been a transit point for foreign fighters entering Pakistan. Experts also cited evidence that Iran has provided training and technology in the use of roadside bombs. U.S. intelligence officials said Iran appears to calibrate its involvement to tie down U.S. and coalition troops without provoking direct retaliation. Iran's aim "is to make sure the U.S. is tied down and preoccupied in yet another theater," said Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at Georgetown University. "From Iran's point of view, it's an historical area of interest and too good an opportunity to pass up."

Obama faces battle with Pentagon hawks to achieve nuclear-free goal

Military chiefs argue that cuts in America's arsenal would spur proliferation Julian Borger guardian.co.uk, Sunday 20 September 2009 23.56 Five months ago in Prague, Barack Obama used one of his first foreign policy speeches to call for a world free of nuclear weapons. Ever since then the White House has been engaged in a race to turn that declaration into real-world policy. The first obstacle is the Pentagon. According to officials with knowledge of the inter-agency bargaining, the US defence department produced a draft nuclear posture review that did not just fall short of Obama's vision. In some ways it appeared to be moving in the opposite direction. The current Pentagon take on US nuclear doctrine envisages maintaining a stockpile of thousands of weapons for the foreseeable future, partly in the name of "extended deterrence". Supporters of that doctrine argue that without a large arsenal, allies abroad will lose confidence in Washington's willingness and capacity to defend them from attack. The US currently has a deployed arsenal of some 2,600 warheads, with a 2,500-strong reserve and another 4,000 awaiting dismantlement. Significant cuts in the operational warheads would, the argument goes, lead countries like Japan to build a nuclear force of their own. Cuts would paradoxically spur proliferation. A recent British parliamentary delegation to Washington was surprised to be told in the Pentagon that Britain was one of those countries that would lose faith in the transatlantic alliance if the stockpiles were cut, even though British policy is to encourage those cuts. The Pentagon, under the leadership of the defence secretary, Robert Gates, is also wedded to the idea of building a new generation of warheads, arguing that only that can guarantee that US nuclear weapons will work, and so allow for deeper cuts and a permanent ban on tests. The arms control teams in the White House and state department, led by Gary Samore and Ellen Tauscher respectively, argue that there are other ways of ensuring reliability, and that developing new nuclear weapons is the worst possible sign to send to the non-proliferation treaty (NPT) review conference next year. Joseph Cirincione, head of the Ploughshares Fund which sponsors debate on nuclear policy, said Obama was not just up against existing doctrine, but against a huge industry. "There is $54bn spent [annually in the US] on nuclear weapons and weapons-related programmes. That's a lot of contracts and a lot of jobs, and right now it's a battle for budgets," Cirincione said. "The new weapons programmes are seen as a way of guaranteeing funding and jobs in the infrastructure. Obama is trying to convince [the weapons establishment] that he is going to look after them in ways other than building new weapons." This is a difficult time for Obama to enter a gruelling bureaucratic battle with the Pentagon, since he is already in a fight over troop deployments to Afghanistan. But his arms control advisers are aware they only have a narrow window of opportunity to bring about radical change before their agenda gets bogged down in Congress. "There's a strong commitment to live up to Obama's Prague speech, but Afghanistan is dragging all the oxygen out of the room," said a European official. The looming deadline is next May, when the world's government are supposed to come together to review the non-proliferation treaty, which has succeeded over the past four decades in keeping the number of nuclear weapons states in single figures. But with North Korea's departure from the treaty to build an arsenal, and rising suspicions over Iran's intentions, the NPT is under extreme pressure. If, as in 2005, May's review conference fails to find common ground between states with nuclear weapons and those who do not have them, many fear that the barriers to untrammelled proliferation could fall away. About a dozen Middle Eastern states are exploring the creation of civil nuclear power programmes, which will give them the option of building weapons at a later date. "If Obama can't rescue the NPT at this conference you might be looking at the end of the treaty," Cirincione said. "It's already on shaky ground. If you can't shore it up in 2010, you face the real possibility that it won't be there in 2015." Iran led the resistance to new anti-proliferation measures in 2005, rallying developing countries behind the claim that the weapons states were trying to impose double standards – keeping their weapons while denying nuclear technology to the have-not nations. The strategy being pursued by Obama, with the support of Gordon Brown, is to make such significant strides towards disarmament that Iran can no longer credibly make that argument next May. "This is about isolating the Iranians, and denuding them of the arguments they made in 2005," a British official said. Stopping Iran's enrichment of uranium – which Tehran insists is for civil power generation and which the west alleges is ultimately for building a bomb – is an even harder task. Many officials in western capitals privately fear nothing can prevent the increasingly autocratic regime in Tehran from developing an arsenal, or at least the capacity to put together weapons at short notice. If diplomacy has any chance of succeeding, they say, it will have to backed up by the credible threat of international sanctions. That requires Russian backing, and one of the reasons Obama sacrificed US plans for missile defence in eastern Europe last week was to win that support. Whether he has succeeded may become clear in the next few days, as the focus shifts to the United Nations assembly in New York. A second treaty at stake is the comprehensive test ban treaty. But Obama's hopes of winning long-awaited Senate support for a treaty first agreed internationally more than 13 years ago, have had to be put on hold, at least until Congress has debated his healthcare reforms, the budget, and at least two other pending treaties, on the law of the sea and the International Criminal Court. US ratification of the test ban would be represent a significant step towards bringing it into force, but the White House says it will not bring the treaty to the floor of the Senate before it is sure of the 67 votes needed to ratify. Interviews blitz Facing a perfect storm of a week, as his big foreign policy challenges threaten to collide while his principal domestic healthcare problem remains unresolved, Barack Obama embarked on an unprecedented media blitz today, with five separate morning television interviews. During a marathon session in the White House's Roosevelt Room, Obama recorded interviews with CNN, CBS, NBC, ABC and the Spanish-language network Univision. But he snubbed Rupert Murdoch's conservative-leaning Fox, which he accused earlier this year of being "entirely devoted to attacking my administration", prompting one Fox host to describe the administration as a bunch of "crybabies". In the interviews, Obama reprised the same themes - healthcare, Afghanistan and the need for a strategic review, race, the economy and prospects for resumed growth, Kim Jong-il and his apparent revival. ("He's reasserted himself".) Obama hasn't finished re-asserting himself though. His attempt to seize back the initiative will culminate tomorrow night in an encounter with the late night chat show host David Letterman, his first appearance on the show as president.

Biden, on Iraq Trip, Will Meet Maliki

By GINA CHON BAGHDAD -- Joe Biden, on his third trip to Iraq as U.S. vice president, said that a successful parliamentary election -- slated for January -- would go a long way toward resolving lingering political tensions here. In a meeting with reporters, Mr. Biden said he was assessing how he could help resolve political issues so that the U.S. leaves behind a stable Iraq. He also said the U.S. could play the role of an interlocutor among Iraqi officials who have disputes with each other. He identified Iraq's parliamentary vote as a key benchmark. "That's when the real bargaining will begin," Mr. Biden said of the postelection period. "That's the context in which they would need to drill down in some of the more difficult outstanding political issues." Underscoring the still-tentative nature of recent security gains, several mortars slammed into an apartment complex near the U.S. Embassy during his visit. Mr. Biden is set to meet with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and travel to Irbil, in Iraq's north, to meet with Kurdish regional President Masoud Barzani during his three-day visit. Meanwhile, the prime minister has been in the south of Iraq, embarking on a charm offensive among Shiites in the region, a crucial but fickle electorate, in his bid to hold on to power in the January vote. On the face of it, Iraq's southern provinces would seem like Maliki strongholds. His State of Law electoral list wrested power from Shiite rivals there during local elections in January. Voters rewarded Mr. Maliki for big improvements in security, especially in the oil-rich region of Basra. His popularity soared as he took charge of a military operation against militants and criminals who had effectively taken over the city, Iraq's second largest. But since then, residents have soured on Mr. Maliki's government. "We thank Maliki for saving Basra in the security operations last year, but now our most important issue is services, especially the water supply," says government employee Eptisam al-Zubaidi. Iraq is facing its worst drought in years, and Baghdad has accused neighboring countries such as Turkey of exacerbating the problem by limiting the flow of water into Iraq, through dams, for instance. Also, water flowing from the Karoon River in Iran into Iraq is being diverted, increasing the salt content of the Shattal al-Arab waterway, the main source of water in Basra. As a result, residents in Iraq's second-largest city are buying their drinking water. In a visit over the weekend, Mr. Maliki announced a $20 million water-pipeline project aimed at increasing the supply of clean water to Basra. He is visiting Dhi Qar and other provinces in southern Iraq this week. During his visit, Mr. Maliki privately rebuked provincial-council officials, a majority of whom are in his party, and Basra's governor, who is part of his electoral ballot, for not doing enough to provide the basic services, such as electricity and sewage, the public is demanding. He told them to shape up or risk losing the elections, according to one council official. "Maliki asked us to change our policies and the situation because if we continue this way, we will lose Basra," the provincial council official said. Mr. Maliki has so far declined to rejoin an umbrella Shiite coalition that elevated him to the prime ministership in the first place. Instead, he plans to form a coalition under his State of Law ballot that includes Sunnis and other groups in a broad-based allaince. The Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, Mr. Maliki's chief Shiite rival, is a leading member of that coalition. While it lost control of provincial councils in southern Iraq to Mr. Maliki's slate, it retains a deep organizational network there. Another coalition member is a political movement associated with anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who still enjoys grass-roots support in the region. In the holy Shiite city of Najaf, however, the prime minister's standing is holding up, thanks in part to a new, hard-charging governor aligned to the prime minister. The governor, Adnan Zurfi, held the same job right after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. He was replaced after elections in 2005, but was renamed governor by Mr. Maliki's party after it edged out opponents in local elections early this year. During his last visit to Iraq in July, Mr. Biden said Americans would have little patience if political disputes turned violent. Mr. Maliki said then that he welcomed U.S. assistance, but that Iraq's internal issues needed to be solved by Iraqis.

US, Iraqi forces kill insurgent firing at American helicopter

Gun battle near Mosul reflects conflicts in North BAGHDAD - US and Iraqi forces killed one fighter, captured another, and seized a truck loaded with weapons in an area of northern Iraq that remains an insurgent stronghold, the American military said yesterday. American and Iraqi ground forces backed by a US helicopter attempted to stop a suspicious truck on Sunday near Tal Abta, about 50 miles west of the volatile city of Mosul, when insurgents in the truck opened fire at the helicopter, said US military spokesman Major Derrick Cheng. The helicopter responded with rocket and small arms fire that disabled the vehicle and killed one of the gunmen, Cheng said. A second insurgent was captured and a third escaped, he said. The truck was found to be carrying a load of weapons. The American military says Mosul - in an area of northern Iraq riven by conflict between Sunnis and Kurds - is the last urban battleground of Al Qaeda in Iraq and other Sunni extremist groups. The level of violence in and around the city remains high even as it has significantly dropped elsewhere in the country. Yesterday, a roadside bomb targeting Mosul police killed a woman and her daughter, and another bomb planted in a central part of the city killed a police lieutenant and seven other policemen who were trying to defuse it, a local police officer said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to divulge details of the attacks. After Sunday’s incident, Iraqi police searching for the gunman who escaped the truck clashed with insurgents in a gun battle that left two officers and two insurgents dead, a local police officer said. He also spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to make that information public. Local police said the gunman detained Sunday is believed to be Yemeni. Cheng said authorities are still trying to be confirm his nationality. “While we have not yet confirmed the individual’s true status . . . any indication of foreign fighter shows clear evidence that there are external players interested in Iraq’s instability,’’ Cheng said. US and Iraqi forces have carried out many operations in Mosul and surrounding areas as they try to root out Sunni fighters. US and Iraqi officials have warned that insurgents are trying to spark a conflict between Arabs and Kurds already deeply at odds over the control of territory. American forces pulled out of populated areas earlier this year in keeping with a security pact with the Iraqi government, but US troops still regularly conduct operations alongside their Iraqi counterparts. After horrific bombings in August that targeted non-Arab minorities in the north of the country, General Ray Odierno, the top US commander in Iraq, proposed deploying American troops alongside Iraqi and Kurdish forces to help increase security.

Congressional Democrats Consider Parting With Obama on Afghanistan

By Jay Newton-Small/ Washington On May 6, after meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari at the White House, President Obama rolled out his favorite phrase, the one that usually precedes a line in the sand: "Let me be clear," Obama announced. "The United States has made a lasting commitment to defeat al-Qaeda, but also to support the democratically elected sovereign governments of both Pakistan and Afghanistan. That commitment will not waver. And that support will be sustained." If the clarity of Obama's rhetoric on Afghanistan strikes you as familiarly Bushian, it's possible you're a congressional Democrat. Obama has already committed 21,000 more troops to Afghanistan — a decision he called the toughest he's made in the Oval Office — only to see violence there increase. Fifty-one troops died in August, the bloodiest month since the U.S. invasion eight years ago. Public support for the war has plummeted and the Afghan presidential elections could not have gone worse: it will take months for the U.N. to unstuff the ballot boxes and figure out if Karzai won outright or must defend himself in a runoff. (See pictures of election day in Afghanistan.) The last of the 21,000 new troops aren't scheduled to arrive in Afghanistan until November, but already patience among congressional Democrats is wearing thin. Senator Russ Feingold has called for a withdrawal timeline. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry has expressed concern and is holding hearings this fall on the necessity of more troops, while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is holding her tongue (sort of) while she awaits the Obama Administration's definition of success in Afghanistan. In an effort to build political support, the White House is developing a series of 50 benchmarks with Congress that will be announced on Sept. 24. Pelosi isn't exactly hopeful. "Sept. 24 is fraught with meaning for us," she told reporters last Thursday, before adding, "I don't think there's a great deal of support for sending more troops to Afghanistan in the country or in the Congress." In July, understanding that the war in Afghanistan had been neglected by Bush's preoccupation with Iraq and that these troops were needed under Obama's plan to stabilize Afghanistan, 52 Senate Democrats voted to temporarily expand the army by 30,000 troops through 2012. That means Obama is already authorized to send 9,000 more troops without asking Congress' permission. But most analysts estimate an additional 25,000 to 45,000 are needed, and most Democrats in Congress know some kind of ask from the President is imminent. General Stanley McChrystal, the top American commander in Afghanistan, has held off making another troop request because he's waiting for Obama to decide what, exactly, he wants done in Afghanistan – or, as McChrystal puts it, what kind of car Obama wants to be seen in. "My position here is a little bit like a mechanic. We've got a situation with a vehicle and I've been asked to look at it and tell the owner what the situation is and what it will cost to make the vehicle run correctly," McChrystal told reporters Friday. "Now I understand that the vehicle owner has to make a decision on what the car is worth, how much longer he intends to drive it ... and whether he wants it to look good or just run." Given Obama's focus on health-care reform, global warming and overhauling the banking system — not to mention the state of the economy — it's hard to imagine the President can pimp out his ride. The strain on resources is part of what makes many Democrats leery. "I'm very nervous," said Representative Jack Murtha, the 17-term Congressman from Pennsylvania who controls the Pentagon's purse strings in the House. Murtha said he'd only support troop increases in Afghanistan if some of the 130,000 troops in Iraq start coming home ahead of schedule. Senate Armed Forces Committee Chairman Carl Levin said he'd rather see a "surge of Afghan security forces" step up, supported by more trainers and equipment. "Our support of their surge will show our commitment to the success of a mission that is clearly in our national security interest without creating a bigger U.S. military footprint that provides propaganda fodder for the Taliban," Levin said in a speech on the Senate floor. Still, when pressed by the New York Times, Levin said he wouldn't rule out eventually sending additional troops. In his anxiety — and admission of possible acquiescence — Levin may represent most of his Democratic peers. With many Republicans supporting him, including John McCain and Sarah Palin, Obama might still have the votes necessary to send more troops. "I cannot imagine a Congress of Obama's own party denying him resources for a war he has called his top priority," said Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. "But so far he apparently hasn't decided if he wants those added resources and he clearly hasn't yet made the case."

Up to two million march to US Capitol to protest against Obama's spending in 'tea-party' demonstration

By Mail Foreign Service Last updated at 9:39 PM on 12th September 2009 Comments (0) Add to My Stories Up to two million people marched to the U.S. Capitol today, carrying signs with slogans such as "Obamacare makes me sick" as they protested the president's health care plan and what they say is out-of-control spending. The line of protesters spread across Pennsylvania Avenue for blocks, all the way to the capitol, according to the Washington Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency. People were chanting "enough, enough" and "We the People." Others yelled "You lie, you lie!" and "Pelosi has to go," referring to California congresswoman Nancy Pelosi. Tens of thousands of people converged on Capitol Hill on Saturday to protest against government spending Demonstrators waved U.S. flags and held signs reading "Go Green Recycle Congress" and "I'm Not Your ATM." Men wore colonial costumes as they listened to speakers who warned of "judgment day" - Election Day 2010. Richard Brigle, 57, a Vietnam War veteran and former Teamster, came from Michigan. He said health care needs to be reformed - but not according to President Barack Obama's plan. "My grandkids are going to be paying for this. It's going to cost too much money that we don't have," he said while marching, bracing himself with a wooden cane as he walked. FreedomWorks Foundation, a conservative organization led by former House of Representatives Majority Leader Dick Armey, organized several groups from across the country for what they billed as a "March on Washington." Organizers say they built on momentum from the April "tea party" demonstrations held nationwide to protest tax policies, along with growing resentment over the economic stimulus packages and bank bailouts. US President Barack Obama sports a mustache famously worn by German dictator Adolf Hitler Demonstrators hold up banners on Capitol Hill in Washington on Saturday Many protesters said they paid their own way to the event - an ethic they believe should be applied to the government. They say unchecked spending on things like a government-run health insurance option could increase inflation and lead to economic ruin. Terri Hall, 45, of Florida, said she felt compelled to become political for the first time this year because she was upset by government spending. "Our government has lost sight of the powers they were granted," she said. She added that the deficit spending was out of control, and said she thought it was putting the country at risk. Anna Hayes, 58, a nurse from Fairfax County, stood on the Mall in 1981 for Reagan's inauguration. "The same people were celebrating freedom," she said. "The president was fighting for the people then. I remember those years very well and fondly." Saying she was worried about "Obamacare," Hayes explained: "This is the first rally I've been to that demonstrates against something, the first in my life. I just couldn't stay home anymore." The heated demonstrations were organized by a Conservative group called the Tea Party Patriots Like countless others at the rally, Joan Wright, 78, of Ocean Pines, Md., sounded angry. "I'm not taking this crap anymore," said Wright, who came by bus to Washington with 150 like-minded residents of Maryland's Eastern Shore. "I don't like the health-care [plan]. I don't like the czars. And I don't like the elitists telling us what we should do or eat." Republican lawmakers also supported the rally. "Republicans, Democrats and independents are stepping up and demanding we put our fiscal house in order," Rep. Mike Pence, chairman of the House Republican Conference, said. "I think the overriding message after years of borrowing, spending and bailouts is enough is enough." Other sponsors of the rally include the Heartland Institute, Americans for Tax Reform and the Ayn Rand Center for Individuals Rights. Recent polls illustrate how difficult recent weeks have been for a president who, besides tackling health care, has been battling to end a devastatingly deep recession. Fifty percent approve and 49 percent disapprove of the overall job he is doing as president, compared to July, when those approving his performance clearly outnumbered those who were unhappy with it, 55 percent to 42 percent. Just 42 percent approve of the president's work on the high-profile health issue. The poll was taken over five days just before Obama's speech to Congress. That speech reflected Obama's determination to push ahead despite growing obstacles. "I will not waste time with those who have made the calculation that it's better politics to kill this plan than to improve it," Obama said on Wednesday night. "I won't stand by while the special interests use the same old tactics to keep things exactly the way they are. "If you misrepresent what's in the plan, we'll call you out. And I will not accept the status quo as a solution." Prior to Obama's speech before Congress U.S. Capitol Police arrested a man they say tried to get into a secure area near the Capitol with a gun in his car as President Barack Obama was speaking. Police spokeswoman Sgt. Kimberly Schneider said Thursday that 28-year-old Joshua Bowman of suburban Falls Church, Virginia, was arrested around 8 p.m. Wednesday when Obama was due to speak. 'Parasite-in-chief': The title given to the American President during the demonstrations on Saturday Bowman's intentions were unclear, police said. Today's protests imitated the original Boston Tea Party of 1773, when colonists threw three shiploads of taxed tea into Boston Harbour in protest against the British government under the slogan 'No taxation without representation'. The group first began rising to prominence in April, when the governor of Texas threatened to secede from the union in protest against government spending. Waves of tea party protests have crossed America since. Today's rally, the largest grouping of fiscal conservatives to march on Washington, comes on the heels of heated town halls held during the congressional August recess when some Democratic lawmakers were confronted, disrupted and shouted down by angry protestors who oppose President Obama's plan to overhaul the health care system.

Gulf Airlines expands its network in Iraq

Translated by IRAQdirectory.com Gulf Airlines, the national carrier of the Kingdom of Bahrain, has announced that it will expand its network in Iraq to include the cities of Najaf and Erbil. The company will start flights to the city of Najaf in September 26 with four flights a week, rising after that to become one flight per day in October 26, 2009; also, the company will begin flights to the northern city of Arbil in October 26, 2009 with three flights per week, which will then become a daily flight when the time is right. Gulf Airlines will run flights to the city of Najaf in southern Iraq on Saturday, Monday, Wednesday and Thursday, using the model of the Airbus A320; as for its flights to Arbil in northern Ira, it will be on Monday, Wednesday and Friday using the Airbus A320 too. Following the successful launch of flights to the Iraqi capital Baghdad last week, Gulf Airlines aims, during the next two months, to become the market leader in operating regular flights to three major cities in Iraq, using its extensive experience and knowledge after working many years in the Iraqi market. Chief Executive of Gulf Airlines, Samir Almajali, said, "We expect that requests to travel to these Iraqi cities will be very large; the city of Najaf is one of the most important religious sites for many Muslims and an Islamic centre where many people come to visit. As for Arbil, it is the capital of Kurdistan region and the most important commercial centre in Iraq. Kurdistan Region has great abilities and large reserves of oil and gas; many giant companies are working in the area after signing contracts for oil exploration and development works with the Kurdistan Regional Government, estimated at more than 35 companies coming from over 20 countries." Almajali confirmed that Kurdistan Regional Government is paying great attention to development, attracting many companies to the region and taking care of the environment; it is also seeking to attract tourists and to invest heavily in its infrastructure to expand the capacity of the tourism sector. Gulf Airlines has developed a schedule of flights to the cities of Najaf and Arbil to be added to the lines of its extensive network in the Middle East, thereby providing excellent communications to many destinations in addition to its flights on major routes in Asia and Europe.

Big U.S. Bases Are Part of Iraq, but a World Apart

By MARC SANTORA JOINT BASE BALAD, Iraq — It takes the masseuse, Mila from Kyrgyzstan, an hour to commute to work by bus on this sprawling American base. Her massage parlor is one of three on the base’s 6,300 acres and sits next to a Subway sandwich shop in a trailer, surrounded by blast walls, sand and rock. At the Subway, workers from India and Bangladesh make sandwiches for American soldiers looking for a taste of home. When the sandwich makers’ shifts end, the journey home takes them past a power plant, an ice-making plant, a sewage treatment center, a hospital and dozens of other facilities one would expect to find in a small city. And in more than six years, that is what Americans have created here: cities in the sand. With American troops moved out of Iraq’s cities and more than 100 bases across the country continuing to close or to be turned over to Iraq, the 130,000 American troops here will increasingly fall back to these larger bases. While some are technically called camps or bases, they are commonly referred to as forward operating bases, or F.O.B.’s. The F.O.B. is so ingrained in the language of this war that soldiers who stayed mainly on base were once derisively called Fobbits by those outside the wire. But increasingly, the encampments are the way many Americans experience the war. To be sure, thousands of Americans are with Iraqis at small bases, where they play an advisory role, and thousands more are on the roads and highways providing the protection needed to carry out the withdrawal. But the F.O.B. has become an iconic part of the war, both for those fighting it and for the Iraqis, who have been largely kept out of them during the war. They are in some ways a world apart from Iraq, with working lights, proper sanitation, clean streets and strictly observed rules and codes of conduct. Some bases have populations of more than 20,000, with thousands of contractors and third-country citizens to keep them running. But the bases are also part of the Iraqi landscape. Mortar shells still occasionally fall inside the wire, and soldiers fall asleep to the constant sounds of helicopters, controlled detonations and gunfire from firing ranges. “It is definitely a strange place,” said Capt. Brian Neese, an Air Force physician. “I’ve asked the Civil Affairs guy if there is anything that I can do off base, and there just isn’t anything for me to do. What kills is not the difficulty of the job but the monotony.” At the height of the war, more than 300 bases were scattered across Iraq. Over the next few months, Americans hope to be at six huge bases, with 13 others being used for staging and preparing for a complete withdrawal. The first people you encounter when driving up to an American base are not actually American. They are usually Ugandans, employed by a private security company, Triple Canopy, and those at Balad had enough authority to delay for five hours an American Air Force captain escorting an American reporter onto the base. The Ugandans make up only one nationality of a diverse group of workers from developing nations who sustain life on the F.O.B.’s for American soldiers. The largest contingents come from the Philippines, Bangladesh and India. They live apart from both Western contractors and soldiers on base, interacting with them only as much as their jobs demand. “Everyone stays pretty much separate,” said Mila, the massage therapist, whose last name could not be used out of security concerns. She has been in Iraq a year, but she said other workers had been here as long as six years, some never taking a break to go home. “You miss nature, trees and grass,” she said. The base has two power plants, and two water treatment plants that purify 1.9 million gallons of water a day for showers and other uses. The water the soldiers drink comes from yet another plant, run by a bottling company, which provides seven million bottles of water a month for those on base. Fifteen bus routes crisscross the complex, with 80 to 100 buses on the roads at any given moment. The Air Force officers who run the base have meetings to discuss road safety; with large, heavily armored vehicles competing for space with sedans, there are bound to be collisions. There are two fire stations as well, and because Balad has the single busiest landing strip in the entire Defense Department, they can handle everything from an electrical fire in a trailer to a burning airplane. The Americans also installed two sewage treatment plants, given how deeply troubled Iraq’s sewage system remains. The facilities, like much in Iraq, are run by KBR, a company based in Houston. But as Americans prepare to turn bases over to Iraqis, they are working to bring in Iraqi companies to run some facilities, a process that has been slow and complex largely because of safety concerns. One of the few places Iraqis can be seen, in fact, is the “Iraqi Free Zone,” a fenced-in area enclosed with barbed wire and blast walls. There, Iraqis sell pirated movies, discount cigarettes, electronics and Iraqi tchotchkes. Each large base in Iraq takes on its own distinct flavor. Most large American bases were once Iraqi bases, but some, like Camp Bucca in southern Iraq near the Kuwaiti border, were created where there was only sand. An Iraqi interpreter at Bucca who was living in Texas with his family when the war started said that when a contracting firm approached him, he asked where he would be working. “They told me, ‘You would be going to a place called Bucca,’ ” said the interpreter, whose name the military asked not to be printed for security reasons. “I said, ‘There is no city called Bucca.’ They showed me it on the map and I said, ‘I am from Iraq and there is no city called Bucca.’ ” It turned out that the interpreter was correct. Bucca, which would house the largest American-run prison in Iraq, was named after Ronald Bucca, a soldier with the 800th Military Police Brigade and a fire marshal in New York who was killed in the Sept. 11 attacks. Entertainers come to American bases here, the most frequent being N.F.L. cheerleaders. When the Minnesota Vikings cheerleaders visited Bucca this spring, one could only wonder what the thousands of detainees, among them Muslim extremists for whom the flash of an ankle is cause for severe punishment, would have made of the spectacle less than a mile from their cells.

Air Force Would Cancel Boeing C-130 Upgrade, 15 Other Programs

By Tony Capaccio Sept. 2 (Bloomberg) -- The Air Force in its new five-year budget plan proposes canceling a Boeing Co. program to build and install upgraded software in the cockpits of C-130 transports. Ending the program Chicago-based Boeing won in 2001 would save about $345 million in fiscal 2011 and a total of $2.8 billion through 2015, according to unreleased budget documents. The savings would be the largest from 16 programs the service proposed to cancel as discussions opened on the new long-range plan. The review will continue until December with the goal of submitting it to the White House along with the military’s detailed fiscal 2011 budget in January. Other programs that would be cut include a radio communications system Lockheed Martin Corp. is building and a Boeing satellite communications system. The Pentagon directed the Air Force to cut about $24.2 billion, or about 3.8 percent, from the current $632 billion five-year plan, according to charts prepared and presented to senior Pentagon officials Aug. 18 by Lieutenant General Raymond Johns, deputy chief of staff for strategic plans and programs. The service “terminated programs with issues in performance, cost or rationale,” Johns wrote. The proposed budget, Johns stated, aims to protect “to the greatest degree possible” funding for the three top aircraft programs: the Lockheed Martin Corp. F-35, the military’s most expensive weapons program; the Air Force version of the V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft being built by Textron Inc. and Boeing; and the program to build a new aerial refueling tanker. Gates’s Guidance The service’s 2011-2015 plan is influenced by Defense Secretary Robert Gates’s guidance calling for modest growth in defense spending with emphasis on improving the security of nuclear weapons and building capabilities to conduct irregular warfare and cyber defense. President Barack Obama assigned Gates to rein in defense spending, which now consumes about 19 cents of every dollar of the federal budget. Adjusted for inflation, defense spending has grown about 43 percent since fiscal 2000. When war costs are included, the number increases to 72 percent. A study by the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that of the $1.7 trillion spent on new weapons in the last decade, 54 percent, or $919 billion, was attributable to cost increases. The Air Force was told it couldn’t reduce spending on military pay and benefits, family housing, science and technology or funds to sustain building infrastructure, according to the briefing charts made available to Bloomberg News. Air Force spokeswoman Colonel Marcella Adams said the service would not comment on the proposed budget. Other Terminations The largest other programs proposed for terminations and the potential 5-year savings include: -- $1.8 billion saved by canceling the Joint Tactical Radio program, a communications system that Lockheed is building for the Air Force and Navy. The Navy also proposes terminating the program, according to budget documents. -- $1.6 billion saved by ending the Wideband Global high- speed communications satellite system after a constellation of six satellites already on contract with Boeing is built. -- $641 million saved by canceling the Northrop Grumman Corp. program to build new engines for E-8 Jstars reconnaissance aircraft; -- $407 million saved by curtailing Boeing’s Small Diameter Bomb program. The 250-pound satellite-guided bombs are now being used in Iraq. --- $292 million saved by cutting to eight from about 22 the number of advanced Block 40 Global Hawk drones that Northrop Grumman is building. The Air Force in its 2011 budget would see savings of $212 million, $115 million and $110 million respectively from canceling the purchases of the Northrop E-8 engine and Global Hawk and the Lockheed joint radio. Upgrade Program The C-130 Hercules is the world’s most widely used short- and medium-range transport with over 2,200 built since the 1950s. The Air Force has about 427, including newer model C-103Js, which have the upgraded cockpit electronics. The plane is used in all military theaters including Iraq and Afghanistan. The program to install 222 upgrade kits on older C-130s was to run through 2017. Congress through this year has approved $1.7 billion for the program, and Boeing is producing the first 22 kits. Boeing has modified and completed test flights of three aircraft, spokeswoman Jennifer Hogan said. She said the company has not been notified of the proposed termination and the program “is production-ready.” The C-130 upgrade program has seen cost growth that pushed it to $5.8 billion from $4.1 billion. The Air Force “probably sees” canceling the C-130 program as “an easy target” because of increased J-model production, pressure on defense spending and the program’s cost growth, said Richard Aboulafia, a military aircraft analyst with Fairfax, Virginia-based Teal Group. Still, “with an aging and overtaxed” C-130 fleet, the Air Force “still needs to create and fund a life-extension program of some kind,” Aboulafia said.

The Non-Stimulating Stimulus Bill

Seeking Alpha Blog Forgive me if I'm a bit late with this top-down analysis of last February's faux-Stimulus Bill (aka The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009), but I have been worrying a lot of late about the gargantuan deficits that are being projected not only by the White House but also by the Congressional Budget Office. As I detailed in an earlier post, they are talking about 10-year deficits of about $10 trillion, and you've got to believe they're putting all the positive spin on the numbers that they possibly can. Plus, no one is yet talking about what would happen to the numbers if healthcare reform or cap-and-trade passes. Some folks (e.g., The Concord Coalition) are saying the 10-year deficit could be $14 trillion or more. If the deficit is anything even close to $10 trillion over the next decade, this puts us in largely uncharted waters, since it would represent the biggest deficit, in both nominal terms and relative to GDP since World War II. Deficits could range from 6-10% of GDP annually, far out of the range of anything we've seen in the post-war period. So I began asking myself some tough questions, especially since I've been saying that the economy can grow 3-4% a year in spite of the ugly fiscal policy environment staring us in the face. Just how easily are these deficits going to be financed? Could they effectively absorb all or most of the savings of the private sector, leaving the economy with little or no private-sector investment? Could this be the real "crowding-out" of private borrowers that became a fashionable concern during the Reagan years but in the end proved overblown? How can the economy grow if the government—a chronically inefficient spender and investor—is commandeering nearly all the economy's savings? Annual deficits on the order of 10% of the GDP are reminiscent of Japan in recent decades, and haven't they led to a moribund economy and a crippled stock market? As a supply-sider I have learned that deficits aren't necessarily bad things. Art Laffer years ago taught me that if the government is faced with a shortfall of revenues, of the two alternatives to plugging the gap—higher taxes or increased borrowing—taxpayers should always prefer the latter, since that gives them at least some hope of getting their money back in the future. If taxes rise, however, then the money is lost forever. Milton Friedman taught us that the burden of government is best measured not by the level of taxes or the deficit, but by the level of spending, since the government uses the economy's resources less efficiently than the private sector. But these trillion-dollar deficits for as far as the eye can see are being driven primarily by a big increase in goverment spending. So that leaves us with the worst of all worlds, doesn't it? How can one be optimistic in the face of this impending disaster? My former colleague at Western Asset, Mike Bazdarich, helped me come to terms with this apparent dilemma, by reminding me that most of the additional spending we're talking about is not really new spending. To illustrate this, the Stimulus Bill can be broken down as shown in the pie chart above. (Data based on the CBO's analysis of the bill.) As should be quickly apparent, only a very small part of the spending involves government purchases of goods and services. This is the part that will commandeer the resources of the private sector inefficiently. As Mike noted in a paper last March, of the $88 billion in federal purchases of goods and services, "only about $12 billion will be spent in the current fiscal year, with only an additional $26 billion slated to be spent in 2010." So we're really talking small potatoes here. The vast bulk of the "spending" will just amount to reshuffling the distribution of income: $377 billion will be "spent" on transfers to state and local governments and individuals, and $284 bilion will be "spent" on tax breaks to individuals and corporations. Excerpts from Mike's paper: In analyzing the spending initiatives in the 2009 stimulus plan, it is important to distinguish between direct purchases of goods and services by the government and transfer payments to individuals, firms or state/local governments. Increases in purchases—procurement, hiring and the like—directly boost aggregate spending. Transfer payments merely disburse funds to recipients, where they may or may not be spent. Transfers are little different in effect from tax rebates (but with incentive effects reversed), and as the transfers in the stimulus package are also one-time payments, their prospective impact on spending is similarly small. The bulk of these transfer payments will go to state/local governments in response to the fiscal emergencies these governments are experiencing. The best this aid can do will be to prevent declines in state/local government spending. Even those prevented declines would occur only if other financing sources were utterly unavailable. If other financing avenues were available to the local governments, then the aid would merely substitute federal debt for the state and local indebted- ness that would otherwise be incurred, with no net impact on GDP at all. The story is much the same with about $100 billion of transfer payments to persons over the next two years. These are also one-time boosts and will likely elicit only slight changes in spending behavior, mostly affecting destitute households that would have no recourse to other financing sources without the temporary aid provided in the bill. From my supply-side perspective, 88% of the stimulus bill (transfers and tax breaks) will amount to taking money from one person and giving it to another, while only 12% (spending on goods and services) will involve new government spending that absorbs (inefficiently) resources from the private sector. And I should add that as of not too long ago, transfer payments (e.g., social security, medicare, unemployment insurance, welfare, subsidies) already accounted for over half of total federal spending. These transfer payments don't show up in the GDP accounts because they are not direct government payments for goods and services. Transfer payments are awful things, of course, since they can and do create perverse incentives. Taking money from Peter who makes a lot and giving it to Paul who either doesn't earn much or doesn't work much is likely to result in Peter working less, while giving Paul an incentive to work less. That's a lose-lose proposition, but it's not going to shut down the economy. It's simply going to result in a slower-growing economy than we might otherwise have enjoyed. Keynesian economists fail to appreciate this, however, since they think that demand drives growth, whereas supply-siders insist that work and investment drive growth. Almost all of the tax breaks in the stimulus bill are of the rebate variety, and that makes them not too unlike a transfer payment, since one group of taxpayers is favored with a reduced tax bill while another group will have to shoulder the burden of higher taxes in the future. The rebates are one-time, not permanent, and as such they won't do much to change behavior on the margin. Plus, a lot of the tax "rebate" money will go to those who haven't paid any taxes to begin with, so if anything, a windfall tax check could result in them working less. As supply-side theory emphasizes, the only tax cuts that can make a difference to the outlook for the economy are those that result in a positive change in behavior on the margin. Cutting the income or corporate tax would directly increase the after-tax incentive to work and invest, and likely result in more work and a faster-growing economy. Unfortunately, the stimulus bill makes no permanent cuts to income or corporate tax rates. If I had to restate the above in economic jargon, I would be saying that the "multipliers" used by the White House and the CBO are way too high. Instead of boosting economic growth by a percentage point or two per year on average, the net effect of the bill's spending will be to reduce economic growth by one or two percentage points per year compared to what it otherwise might have been. So, think about the trillion-dollar deficits mainly in terms of transfer payments. The government is not really going to be consuming a trillion extra dollars of the economy's resources every year that might otherwise be put to better use by the private sector. The wasteful spending is likely to be only a fraction of a trillion per year. There's still some room for private saving and investment, albeit less. Again, this is not going to kill the economy, but it is likely to slow it down. I've always thought Obama was a socialist at heart, and he has made it very clear that income redistribution is high on his list of priorities. As these numbers show, that is exactly what he has achieved with his stimulus bill. If he manages to get universal healthcare and cap-and-trade passed, then the redistribution will be even larger and more intrusive, while wasting some additional portion of the economy's resources in the process. It's all very unfortunate from a supply-side perspective, but it's not the end of the world. Look on the bright side: to the extent that Obama's policies lead to positive change on the margin, it will be by increasing the opposition to his policies and subtracting from the Democrats' majority in Congress in next year's elections. And that, in turn, creates more favorable conditions for positive policy changes on the margin in the future.

Former NBA player now with Army in Iraq

By Tim Reynolds - The Associated Press Posted : Monday Aug 31, 2009 7:30:51 EDT MIAMI — Tim James apologized for being late. A rough day at work, said the Miami Heat’s 1999 first-round draft pick. Vehicles broke down, problems flared up, and he simply fell behind. “It happens,” James said. “Even here.” Even here — on the front line of the Iraq war. A former NBA player who often wondered about his true calling, Tim James is now a soldier, a transformation that even many of the people closest to him never saw coming. “I got my degree, lived the life I was able, have my freedom and became a professional athlete,” James said last week from Iraq. “I’m the example of the American dream.” James is at Camp Speicher, the massive base near Tikrit, 85 miles north of Baghdad, not far from Saddam Hussein’s hometown and where insurgents still are a perpetual threat. For Miami Northwestern High, the Miami Hurricanes, three NBA teams and some foreign clubs, he was forward Tim James. For the Army, he’s Spc. Tim James of Task Force ODIN — short for Observe, Detect, Identify, Neutralize. In layman’s terms, he’s part of the unit tasked with watching and catching the bad guys before they plant bombs. So long, charter jets, enormous paychecks and Ritz-Carlton hotel stays. Hello, 130-degree afternoons, 12-hour work days, $2,600 a month and 50-caliber machine guns. “In life, we all have different desires and needs,” said Leonard Hamilton, James’ college coach and now the coach at Florida State. “With the passion he has, he had to go fulfill this. I’m in total support of Tim and what he’s doing. He’s at peace. All we can do is hope he comes back safely.” James spent years thinking about the prospects of a military career. Drafted 25th overall by the Heat, James’ NBA career barely registered a basketball blip: He appeared in 43 games for Miami, Charlotte and Philadelphia, never starting and never scoring more than seven points in a game. So he went to play overseas, making a fine living in Japan, Turkey and Israel. By 2007, his playing days were done. After months of deliberating, he made the difficult decision that would take him away from his family and 5-year-old son, whom James still tries to talk with by phone every night. Even so, Tim James Jr. doesn’t understand where his dad is. “I think of myself as a patriot,” James said. “I wanted to give back to a country that gave so much to me.” On Sept. 12, 2008, he enlisted. The training was brutal, even for a 6-foot-8 basketball player whose athleticism had drawn raves since junior high school. James slept outside in frigid night air, scaled seven-story towers, endured 10-mile marches (“with full battle rattle, as they say,” he said), and learned how to take apart and reassemble his weapon. He never questioned if he was making the right decision. “I have no doubts,” James said. “I have no regrets. Not one bit.” His 12-month deployment to Iraq started in late July. On his second night there, James was awoken from a sound sleep, completely startled. Machine gun fire. The sound of war. Understandably, it took a while for him to fall back asleep. “It’s a pretty impressive thing that he’s doing, making the transition from where he was then to where he is now,” said James’ captain, Curtis Byron. “Such a small percentage of U.S. citizens are in the military or are veterans, doing their part to protect the nation’s freedom. Putting that life behind you, setting aside any thoughts you had before about the military, that’s impressive.” Byron said James didn’t tell most members of his unit that he used to be an NBA player. James not only didn’t want the attention, he didn’t want to be treated differently than anyone else. “He’s very humble,” Byron said. “To him, it’s not a big deal at all.” Oh, but it’s a very big deal to the Heat. They preach family inside the Heat complex, and even though James played only four games, he’s forever part of the Heat family. Rob Wilson, the team’s director of sports media relations, helped arrange for two boxes of T-shirts and posters to be sent to Iraq as a morale booster. They should get there this week, unless sandstorms delay the arrival of mail — a common occurrence. Included in that package is an 8-minute, 31-second DVD, with greetings to James from several members of the organization. Another DVD from the Heat is already in the works, and the team is already planning to honor James at a home game this season. “I just want to wish you good luck, man,” Heat captain Udonis Haslem, who wears No. 40 to honor two of his idols who had that number — his father and James — said on the DVD. “God bless you and keep doing what you’re doing.” “Stay focused,” said Heat center Jamaal Magloire, a former James teammate. “Never let your guard down and get back to us safe.” “You’re not like any other basketball player out there,” Heat assistant coach Keith Askins said. Since 2006, Miami has given a center-court tribute to soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan at every home game, a program Heat president Pat Riley developed and called the HomeStrong initiative. He said he cannot wait for James to get his due. “The work we do, while being important to us, is made possible by the efforts of our soldiers in the Middle East,” said Riley, who coached James in his lone season with the team. James can’t discuss specifics of his mission, although Byron said the unit should not face “the direct threat” of enemy action. The stakes are higher than any basketball game, for certain, but James says he can still draw the parallel between fighting on the court and fighting for his country. “I’ve been in the heat of the moment on the court in the fourth quarter, tie game, and yes, you would think that’s a battle,” James said. “There’s nothing I hate more than losing. To be here, risking your life, it’s definitely another level. It’s like a scouting report for a game. All you can do is try to execute your mission. A loss here, that could be a lost life.”