NewsCloud.com Mideast News

t r u t h o u t | US General Accuses Bush Administration of War Crimes

Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba (now retired) served as the deputy commanding general for support for the Third Army for ten months in Kuwait during the early days of the Iraq occupation. In a statement released today, he bluntly accuses the Bush administration of war crimes and lays down a challenge for prosecution.

Mr. Bush v. the Bill of Rights - Editorial - NYTimes.com

In the waning months of his tenure, President Bush and his allies are once again trying to scare Congress into expanding the president's powers to spy on Americans without a court order.

Right Web | Pentagon Reined in Cheney's Plans for Iran Strikes

Pentagon officials firmly opposed a proposal by Vice President Dick Cheney last summer for airstrikes against Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) bases by insisting that the administration would have to make clear decisions about how far the United States would go in escalating the conflict with Iran, according to a former George W. Bush administration official.

Institute for Policy Studies: Iraq War Entering Year Six: Multiple Crises Rising in Middle East

Gaza is under murderous assault and the United States is escalating regional threats while pushing new sanctions against Iran.

National security agencies have failed in Iraq, Afghanistan (3/10/08) -- www.GovernmentExecutive.com

America's national security institutions have failed and the military has been left holding the bag in places such as Iraq and Afghanistan, conducting nation-building tasks for which it is ill-suited, according to the final report of a House Armed Services Committee panel established in 2007 to examine military roles and missions.

Rapid Pentagon Report on Saddam's Iraq Censored?

ABC News' Jonathan Karl Reports: The Bush Administration apparently does not want a U.S. military study that found no direct connection between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda to get any attention. This morning, the Pentagon cancelled plans to send out a press release announcing the report's release and will no longer make the report available online.

Trial by Fire: How Military Commissions Work and Why They Fail - Brookings Institution

More than six years after the Bush administration first introduced military commissions, finally we will learn whether they offer a plausible means of trying terrorists or whether the system really is the total flop it has seemed to be so far.

UK apology over rendition flights

David Miliband has admitted two US "extraordinary rendition" flights landed on UK territory in 2002. The foreign secretary said in both cases US planes refuelled on the UK dependent territory of Diego Garcia.

Rigged Trials at Guantanamo

The litany of complaints about the legal treatment of prisoners at Guant namo Bay is long, disturbing and by now familiar. Nonetheless, a new wave of shock and criticism greeted the Pentagon's announcement on February 11 that it was charging six Guant namo detainees, including alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, with war crimes - and seeking the death penalty for all of them.

Reason Magazine - Open-Source Warfare

Let the world make its own choice between life and death. Why should we be saddled with the responsibility?

RAND | News Release | United States Lacks the Capability to Counter Insurgency in the Muslim World

Recognizing that the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan will not be the last of their kind, a new RAND Corporation study issued today finds that U.S. capabilities to meet the threat of Islamist insurgencies are seriously deficient and out of balance.

Iran: Certainty Declines in U.S. Intelligence Reports

Throughout the 1990s and into the early 2000s, the U.S. government regularly stated in a variety of forums that Iran possessed a large undeclared stockpile of chemical weapons (CW) and a substantial production capability. . .

Britain releases secret file from before Iraq war| Reuters

The British government released a once-secret draft document on Monday that was drawn up to justify going to war in Iraq, succumbing to three years of pressure from freedom of information campaigners

US 'surge' likely to end with more troops in Iraq than before: general

The US "surge" is likely to end in July with more troops in Iraq than the 132,000 that were there before five extra combat brigades were sent in more than a year ago, a senior Pentagon official said.

Mideast crisis keeps growing

To try and better understand the Middle East, it helps to take in a broader perspective of the situation -- to step back and examine the problem with some distance.