GCOM Summary (only) 2010 Aug 31

[Felix The Assassin]

GCOM Summary 2010 Aug 31
U.S. Joint Forces Command
Global Current Operations Media Summary
Operations Iraqi Freedom/Enduring Freedom/Noble Eagle
Current as of August 31, 2010

New Developments
•Petraeus Finishes Rules For Afghan Security Transition. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top commander in Afghanistan, has completed work on new guidelines for turning some security duties over to Afghan forces in the months ahead, calling for American and allied troops to step back gradually from areas as they are pacified rather than handing off the task all at once to local units, according to senior NATO and Pentagon officials. The guidelines envision that while some troops would leave the country when their current areas were secured, others could be reassigned new missions within Afghanistan, giving General Petraeus flexibility in troop deployments as he confronts pressure from some allies and some Democrats in Washington to begin winding down the war next year. (New York Times – see attached)

•Biden To Meet With Top Iraqi Politicians Amid End Of Combat Operations. Vice President Biden arrived in Baghdad Monday, planning to meet with senior politicians as Iraqis worry about the impact of the official end of U.S. combat operations in the country Tuesday. Biden's visit comes as the U.S. military fulfills an Obama administration pledge to drop to 50,000 troops in Iraq by Sept. 1. Already, troop levels have declined to just under 50,000, from more than 140,000 at the beginning of 2009. Many Iraqis say they are concerned that the U.S. drawdown comes in the midst of a political impasse that has continued for nearly six months since national parliamentary elections and an increase in violence across the country. Biden arrived to commemorate the change of mission in Iraq but also urge Iraqi leaders to form a government at this "critical time." (Washington Post – see attached)

•Mysterious Killings Spread Panic In Iraq. As the U.S. ends combat operations in Iraq and politicians seem unable to break a deadlock over forming a new government nearly six months after national elections, every attack rattles the general population and fans the panic that the "bad men," the "terrorists," are back. Dozens of security officers, ministry officials, judges and clerics have been killed or wounded this year. From March through the end of June, at least 354 people across Iraq died from explosives planted on their cars. "2010 is worse than 2008 and 2009. We hope and pray to God that security will improve," said Ghazi Abdul Aziz Essa, director-general of Baghdad's main power plant. (Los Angeles Times – see attached)

•NATO Chief Hopes For Nov. Afghanistan Handover Deal: Report. The head of NATO said on Monday he hoped alliance states would agree at a Lisbon summit to start handing over security responsibility in Afghanistan to local authorities next year. Allied military and civilian deaths have hit record levels in recent months, with violence at its worst since the Taliban were ousted in 2001. "I do not say that the security situation in Afghanistan is satisfactory, because it definitely isn't. But there is progress," Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told Danish TV2 News. "And I hope that we at the NATO summit in November will be able to decide to begin to gradually hand over responsibility in 2011," he said on the eve of an official visit to his home country Denmark. Afghanistan has set a target of 2014 for the country to take over complete security responsibility from NATO and the United States, which is ramping up efforts to train Afghanistan's army and police. (Reuters)

Military Coverage
•Army Revises Training To Deal With Unfit Recruits. Dawn breaks at Fort Jackson, S.C. with the reliable sound of fresh recruits marching to their morning exercise. But these days, something looks different. That familiar standby, the situp, is gone, or almost gone. Exercises that look like pilates or yoga routines are in. And the traditional bane of the new private, the long run, has been downgraded. This is the Army’s new physical-training program, which has been rolled out this year at its five basic training posts that handle 145,000 recruits a year. Nearly a decade in the making, its official goal is to reduce injuries and better prepare soldiers for the rigors of combat in rough terrain like Afghanistan. But as much as anything, the program was created to help address one of the most pressing issues facing the military today: overweight and unfit recruits. (New York Times – see attached)

Homeland Security
•Yemeni Men Arrested In Amsterdam On Terror Charges After Flight From U.S. Two Yemeni men arriving in Amsterdam on a flight from Chicago were arrested Monday on suspicion of preparing a terrorist attack after peculiar items turned up in their luggage, Dutch officials said. U.S. authorities asked the Dutch to make the arrests after discovering that one of the men had checked his luggage from Chicago to Dulles International Airport in Virginia, then taken a flight to Amsterdam, said a Dutch official, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitive nature of the case. The luggage sent to Virginia on Sunday night contained a cellphone taped to a bottle of Pepto-Bismol, three cellphones taped together and several watches taped together, Dutch and U.S. officials said. (Chicago Tribune – see attached)

•Jury Hears Bomb Plot Tapes. The alleged ringleader in a plot to blow up a Bronx synagogue last year ranted about wanting to kill Jewish people and about his frustration with Muslims being killed by U.S. soldiers overseas, in a videotape played for jurors on Monday. James Cromitie was secretly recorded by Shahed Hussain, a paid government informant, over several months in 2008 and 2009. As part of Mr. Hussain's testimony, prosecutors are playing excerpts of the conversations. In one videotaped conversation played for jurors Monday, Mr. Cromitie said, "They're taking down Islamic countries. What do we do to make it stop, we start taking things down here, you understand?" The conversation was recorded in 2008 at a home rented by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Newburgh, N.Y. (Wall Street Journal – see attached)

•Rights Groups Challenge Obama On Targeted Killings. Civil liberties groups sued the Obama administration on Monday over a program they said illegally tries to kill U.S. citizens believed to be militants living abroad, like the anti-American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki. The American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights filed a lawsuit on behalf of Nasser al-Awlaki, the father of the Muslim cleric, arguing targeted killings violate the U.S. Constitution and international law. U.S. authorities have tied the cleric to the failed bombing attempt of a U.S. commercial jet on Christmas Day in 2009 and to an Army major who went on a shooting spree that killed 13 people last year at Fort Hood in Texas. No charges have been publicly filed against al-Awlaki, who was born in the United States but left in late 2001. He is believed to be in Yemen, where al Qaeda has been growing. (Reuters)

World Developments
•North Korean Pair Viewed As Key To Secret Arms Trade. A North Korean arms chief and Pyongyang's former ambassador to the United Nation's nuclear agency have emerged as key figures in an intensifying international effort to curb North Korea's weapons-trading activities. The global dealings of the two men, Chun Byung-ho and Yun Ho-jin, whom North Korea analysts believe to be related through marriage, date back to the 1980s. They have played leading roles in North Korea's development and testing of atomic weapons, according to current and former U.S. officials, Asian intelligence analysts and U.N. nonproliferation staffers. More troubling to officials, Messrs. Chun and Yun also oversee Pyongyang's vast arms-trading network, which appears to be spreading. They have shipped components for long-range missiles, nuclear reactors and conventional arms to countries including Iran, Syria and Myanmar. (Wall Street Journal – see attached)

•Obama Administration Announces New Sanctions Against North Korea. The White House announced Monday it is hitting North Korea with sanctions aimed at providers of weapons, luxury goods and various illicit financial services that benefit the elite in the closed communist country. The administration had previously said it would strengthen sanctions on Pyongyang in response to the March sinking of a South Korean warship, an attack that U.S. officials have blamed on North Korea. But the announcement came just days after former president Jimmy Carter visited North Korea and won the release of an American activist, raising speculation about a possible thaw between Washington and Pyongyang. The new sanctions sent a different signal. (Washington Post – see attached)

•Mexico Fires 3,200 Federal Police Officers. About 3,200 Mexican federal police officers, nearly a tenth of the force, have been fired this year under new rules designed to weed out crooked cops and modernize law enforcement, officials said Monday. The housecleaning is part of President Felipe Calderon's crackdown on drug cartels, which includes overhauling the 34,500-strong federal police force. An additional 465 federal officers have been charged with breaking the law, and 1,020 others face disciplinary action after failing screening tests, officials said. Facundo Rosas, a senior federal police official, said in a radio interview that the 3,200 dismissed officers were removed for substandard performance. (Los Angeles Times – see attached)

•Mexico Captures "La Barbie" Drug Trafficker. Mexico captured major drug trafficker Edgar "La Barbie" Valdez on Monday in a new victory for President Felipe Calderon's high-stakes war on murderous cartels that threatens the country's image among investors and tourists. Federal police caught Valdez, a leader of the Beltran Leyva cartel based in central Mexico, in a residential area near Mexico City, the government said. Valdez, a 37-year-old Mexican-American born in Texas, put up little resistance, a police spokesman said. "Valdez has connections with organized crime groups operating in Central and South America to smuggle drugs to the United States, where he is also wanted," national security spokesman Alejandro Poire told a news conference. Valdez is believed to have been behind a surge in bloodshed in central Mexico as he fought for leadership of his cartel. U.S. authorities put a $2 million bounty on his head but Poire did not say if Valdez would be sent to the United States. (Reuters)

•Mortar Kills AU Peacekeepers In Somalia. A mortar attack on the presidential palace in the Somali capital has killed at least four African Union peacekeepers and critically wounded nine others. For the past week, the peacekeeping force, protecting the country's U.N.-backed government in Mogadishu, has been battling a new round of attacks by al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab militants. According to the spokesman of the African Union peacekeeping mission in Somalia, Barigye Ba-Hoku, a mortar round fired from an al-Shabab position near the presidential palace exploded near a contingent of Ugandan peacekeepers guarding the palace compound, also known as Villa Somalia. Ba-Hoku called the mortar strike a "lucky hit" for the al-Qaida-linked militants, who are battling to overthrow Somalia's weak, U.N.-backed government and to force the withdrawal of the peacekeeping force. (Voice of America)

Public Opinion
•Majorities Of Americans And Britons Believe The War In Iraq Was A Mistake. People in the United States and Britain regret the decision of their respective governments to engage militarily in Iraq in 2003, and are now more likely to brand the war as a failure rather than as a success, a new Angus Reid Public Opinion poll has found. The online survey of representative national samples of 1,011 American and 2,006 British adults also finds that at least two thirds of respondents in the two countries agree with the argument that taking action against Saddam Hussein despite the absence of weapons of mass destruction was the right thing to do. Only 23% of Americans believe the war in Iraq was success, along with 12% of Britons. Conversely, two-in-five Americans (45%) and three-in-five Britons (63%) think the conflict was a failure. Half of Americans (52%) believe their government made a mistake in launching military action against Iraq in 2003. Two-thirds of Britons (66%) also chide their own government's decision to support and participate in the war. (Angus Reid Global Monitor)