While the Bush administration had defended its program of wiretapping without warrants as a vital tool that saved lives, a new government review released Friday said the program's effectiveness in fighting terrorism was unclear.

The report, mandated by Congress last year and produced by the inspectors general of five federal agencies, found that other intelligence tools used in assessing security threats posed by terrorists provided more timely and detailed information.

Most intelligence officials interviewed "had difficulty citing specific instances" when the National Security Agency's wiretapping program contributed to successes against terrorists, the report said.

While the program obtained information that "had value in some counterterrorism investigations, it generally played a limited role in the F.B.I.'s overall counterterrorism efforts," the report concluded. The Central Intelligence Agency and other intelligence branches also viewed the program, which allowed eavesdropping without warrants on the international communications of Americans, as a useful tool but could not link it directly to counterterrorism successes, presumably arrests or thwarted plots.

( Read the entire article here)

From the NSA Inspector General assessment (pages 31-32):

In May 2009 [former NSA head Michael] Hayden told NSA OIG that the value of the program was in knowing that the NSA signals intelligence activities under the PSP covered an important quadrant of terrorist communications.

From the Department of Justice Inspector General assessment (pages 32-33):

The DOJ OIG sought as part of its review to assess the role of PSP-derived information and its value to the FBI's overall counterterrorism efforts. Director Mueller told the DOJ OIG that he believes the PSP was useful....

The DOJ OIG also examined several cases that have frequently been cited as examples of the PSP's contribution to the IC [Intelligence Community]'s counterterrorism efforts. These assessments, more fully described in Chapter Six of the DOJ's [classified] OIG report, generally were supportive of the program as "one tool of many" in the FBI's anti-terrorism efforts.

From the CIA Inspector General assessment (pages 33-35):

Senior CIA officials told the CIA OIG that they had received PSP reporting with information that was previously unavailable.

From the ODNI assessment (pages 35-36):

[Former DNI Michael] Hayden said the PSP information allowed IC leaders to make valuable judgments regarding the allocation of scarce national security resources. Hayden described the PSP as an "early warning system" for terrorist threats. Hayden told the ODNI OIG that the PSP was extremely valuable in protecting the United States from an al-Qaida attack. He cited several examples of where he said the PSP information was used to disrupt al-Qaida operatives or assist in terrorism investigations.
(Read the full document here)

What’s left is a tremendous opportunity -- and a tremendous choice -- for President Obama. He can use his great rhetorical skills and the resources of the American government to buttress the courage shown by the protestors in the Iranian streets, or he can use them to betray them.

He can seize this moment to help bring about the end of the planet’s number one state sponsor of terrorism, or he can let it pass him by.

But he can’t go back and negotiate with a leadership that stole an election and turned its thugs loose on the citizens who protested. He can’t give legitimacy to a thoroughly illegitimate regime.

Here’s a quick story by Bill Gertz of the Washington Times regarding the Iranian nuclear program.

A private nuclear-arms watchdog group issued a report this week that concludes that Iran will have the capability of creating a "virtual" nuclear weapon in January.

The assessment by the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control states that Iran has a bank of centrifuges that are producing low-enriched uranium that can be used for nuclear reactors but that also can be recirculated through the centrifuges to make bomb fuel.

"The re-circulation raises the concentration of the uranium isotope U-235, which fissions in nuclear weapons such as the one dropped on Hiroshima," the group stated in a report made public Wednesday.

"Based on the amount of low-enriched uranium Iran has stockpiled, and the amount it is believed to be producing each month, the Wisconsin Project estimates that by inauguration day, Iran could have enough U-235 to fuel one bomb quickly," the report said, noting that the time frame would be two to three months to raise the level of U-235 from 3.8 percent enrichment to 90 percent.Iran's government has denied that its uranium-enrichment program is directed toward building weapons, and there is no firm evidence that the country has mastered the technology to weaponize enriched uranium.

From the Washington Times, a Bill Gertz story that defies logic:  Dangerous move for NORAD?  In an age of heightened geopolitical tensions, Bill exposes a plan that essentially takes NORAD offline, decreasing its effectiveness at a time we should be prepared for anything.

Nestled a half mile inside a hardened rock tunnel, the CheyenneMountainOperationsCenter buzzed with excitement on July 4, 2006, as the shuttle Discovery prepared to launch.

Then, at approximately 1:30 p.m. during the final countdown at Florida's KennedySpaceCenter, the center's alarms and strobes shrieked to life. Defense satellites had picked up a heat-related signature half a world away. An expert crew at the mountain quickly identified it as a missile, pinpointing its type, location and telemetry. It had been launched from North Korea and was headed east. Several more missile launches were detected including a long-range Taepodong II capable of striking the western United States.

As the missiles advanced, the op center alerted top defense officials. President Bush was just a phone call away and if contacted might have had only minutes to decide whether to engage America's nuclear arsenal. Fortunately, the missiles fell far from U.S. shores in North Korea, the Sea of Japan and the Pacific Ocean.

Still, the episode marked the end of an era. A few weeks later, CheyenneMountain's commander, Brig. Gen. Rosanne Bailey, retired and the once highly sought command was downgraded to a "directorate."

Critics say a decision two years ago to move the operations center of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) to the basement of an office building on Peterson Air Force Base in nearby Colorado Springs and to disperse other missions at the mountain could undermine U.S. national security.

According to military and defense sources familiar with the missions and U.S. government documents obtained by The Washington Times, the move - billed as a cost-cutting measure - received insufficient government review, violated previous Pentagon directives, may have broken U.S. law and has left the United States less able to track potential threats and the operations center more vulnerable to attack.

"We see decisions like closing Cheyenne Mountain that are driven for cost purposes only, not military requirements," said Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas G. McInerney. "CheyenneMountain should remain an active facility but cost pressures are driving combatant commanders to make riskier decisions."

The decision to move the op center originated with Adm. Timothy Keating, in 2006 head of both NORAD and U.S. Northern Command, created after 9/11 to safeguard further the U.S. homeland. Adm. Keating apparently convinced the nation's top military leaders that moving the center would save taxpayers millions of dollars.

Other government officials tried to slow the process to ensure that safeguards would be incorporated at the new site. But they were marginalized in what critics argue was a needlessly quick campaign to place the mountain on "warm standby" while scattering critical elements of the mission to several air bases.

Adm. Keating's mantra was "faster, quicker and cheaper," said one military official familiar with CheyenneMountain's recent transition who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue. "He would not let anything stand in his way." 

 Click this link to read the entire article

Punctuating post-surge successes in Iraq, and much to the chagrin of the anti-war Left, Anbar Province has been returned to Iraqi military control.  An Iht.com story by Dexter Filkins documents the joyous occasion for Iraqis and confirms the wisdom of U.S. policy there since 2006.  There are still problems, to be sure, but just as sovereignty was returned to Japan in 1952 and Germany in 1955, it will eventually be returned in whole to a new Iraq.

On Monday, U.S. commanders formally returned responsibility for keeping order in Anbar Province, once the heartland of the Sunni insurgency, to the Iraqi Army and police. The ceremony, including a parade on a freshly paved street, capped one of the most significant turnabouts in the country since the war began five and a half years ago.

Over the past two years, the number of insurgent attacks against Iraqis and Americans has dropped by more than 90 percent. Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia has been severely degraded, if not crushed altogether, in large part because many local Sunnis, including former insurgents, have taken up arms against it.

Since February, as the security situation improved, U.S. commanders have cut the number of marines and soldiers operating in the province by 40 percent.

The transfer of authority codified a situation that Iraqi and American officers say has been in effect since April: The Iraqi Army and police operate independently and retain primary responsibility for battling the insurgency and crime in Anbar. The United States, which had long done the bulk of the fighting, has stepped into a backup role, going into the streets only when accompanied by Iraqi forces.

Here’s another brief article from Bill Gertz (gertzfile.com) regarding influence peddling in the United States through lobbyists and corporate interests.  Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) pursues what appears to be an elusive truth from a consultant who doesn’t seem to connect being paid by a corporation with working for the corporation, and that company’s ties to Chinese interests. 

Chinese influence questionedKenneth Lieberthal, a former Clinton White House National Security Council staff member, came under some sharp questioning recently before Congress about his business ties to China.

During a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on China and the Olympics, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, California Republican, pressed Mr. Lieberthal, who testified as a University of Michigan professor, about his connection to Stonebridge International, a Washington consulting firm that works with businesses in China.

Mr. Rohrabacher noted that China is buying influence in the United States through "people who are making billions of dollars allying themselves and doing the bidding of a dictatorship that fundamentally hates everything this country's all about."

Asked if his company represents the Chinese, Mr. Lieberthal said, "I'm not with a company. I'm at the University of Michigan."

Mr. Rohrabacher had asked if Mr. Lieberthal had sought to press Chinese officials to release imprisoned Chinese dissidents.

Mr. Lieberthal said he had done so when he worked in government, but apparently not recently or as part of his role as a Stonebridge board member.

"I think corporations try to stay out of political issues as much as they can, but I think on balance the opening of the Chinese economy to Western corporate participation has been a positive for [the] standard of living in China and, let me say also, for the quality of life in China," he said.

Mr. Rohrabacher returned to questioning Mr. Lieberthal later in the hearing, stating that "corporate America seems to have what I consider to be an unholy relationship with that clique that runs China with an iron fist." He then asked Mr. Lieberthal about his relationship with Stonebridge and whether it was a corporation doing business in China.

"Let me clarify, sir. What I was reacting to was you said 'your company....,'" Mr. Lieberthal said.

Mr. Rohrabacher: "So you're not associated with Stonebridge?"

Mr. Lieberthal: "No. I am a senior director at Stonebridge. I'm not..."

Mr. Rohrabacher: "Is that a corporation?"

"Yes. I'm not an employee," Mr. Lieberthal said.

"So your company, you are on the board of directors. Are you paid by Stonebridge?"

"Yes, I am."

"All right. So I wasn't incorrect in saying 'your company.' You're paid by a corporation. And does it have a major economic interaction with China?"

"Stonebridge is a consulting company, and some of the consulting it does is on, you know, advising on operations in China," Mr. Lieberthal said.

Mr. Rohrabacher then announced to the committee that Mr. Lieberthal's business ties to China should be considered as the committee listened to his opinion.

"What we're seeing here is a perfect example of where we have corporate interest ... making billions of dollars, who actually have an influence on public opinion here and governmental opinion here in the nation's capital of the United States of America," Mr. Rohrabacher said. "That doesn't mean your opinions are wrong, just - we need to know about that."

Mr. Rohrabacher stated that there needs to be a clear distinction between "the people of China" and "a dictatorship... a small group of people who repress them."

Mr. Lieberthal did not return phone calls seeking comment on the exchange

The Chinese people do not enjoy the liberty to speak freely, and that policy apparently extends to entertainers from around the world. An International Herald Tribune story by Edward Wong reports on the latest crackdownfrom the Ministry of Culture in Beijing:

Foreign entertainers who have taken part in activities that China deems a threat to its sovereignty will not be allowed to perform here, according to new rules posted Thursday on the Web site of the Ministry of Culture.

The rules say that the background credentials of performers from foreign countries, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan will be scrutinized.  "Those who used to take part in activities that harm our nation's sovereignty are firmly not allowed to perform in China," the rules say.

China had promised a more open atmosphere this summer and had told the International Olympic Committee that it would adhere to strict standards for human rights.  Many people outside China now doubt its commitment to those pledges.

The communist regime in China seems little different from the Kremlin in the old Soviet Union, save for its tolerance of capitalism and Third Way reforms, and is something we should keep in mind as China blossoms into an economic power.  

Our consumer driven economy is largely responsible for the economic gains made in China, and we should continue to use that relationship to encourage Beijing to become more open so that the people of China can one day enjoy the same freedoms that made America the torch bearer of Liberty for the entire world.

In a Washington Times story by Rowan Scarborough, Suicide recruits dropping in Iraq we once again see our persistence and patience pay off, in spite of the setbacks experienced in the past.

The United States is seeing a sharp drop in the number of foreigners entering Iraq to become al Qaeda suicide bombers, according to intelligence and Bush administration sources.

An administration official and a military adviser to Iraqi commanders attribute the decline to a fairly new phenomenon: Al Qaeda's call for mass killings in the name of Islam is losing some of its appeal with the young Arabs in North Africa and Saudi Arabia, where most of the bombers originate.

The decline also parallels the battlefield losses al Qaeda has suffered in the past 12 months in Iraq's Anbar province and the greater Baghdad region.  This has made it more difficult for al Qaeda in Iraq to facilitate the secret movement of foreigners from the Syrian border to safe houses where they are trained and assigned a target.

Al Qaeda's original selling point to young jihadists was that America was a paper tiger, or the weaker horse, and would run away once it bled a few times.  For the last seven years we have "stayed the course," thereby taking away that argument and weakening the resolve of our enemies.  The Iraqis have also noticed our resolve and turned against the terrorists.  Like a puzzle that once befuddled everyone involved, all the pieces seem to be falling into place these days.  Suicide bombings are down by over two thirds since this time last year, the economy is booming, and Iraqis can finally see the glimmer of a brighter future promised the day the statue of Saddam was toppled.

We remain cautiously optimistic on Iraq.  There are many obstacles yet to overcome in this troubled nation and region, but with each day bringing progress it gives us hope that the vision of a free and democratic Iraq is closer to becoming a reality.

For several years now, rumors and innuendo have asserted that Chinese "hackers," either on their own behalf or at the behest of the Chinese government or military, have been attempting to breach computer systems in the United States.  In a frightening NationalJournal.com  story, China's Cyber-Militia, Shane Harris lays out some startling information that, if true, shows American infrastructure to be woefully unprotected.

Computer hackers in China, including those working on behalf of the Chinese government and military, have penetrated deeply into the information systems of U.S. companies and government agencies, stolen proprietary information from American executives in advance of their business meetings in China, and, in a few cases, gained access to electric power plants in the United States, possibly triggering two recent and widespread blackouts in Florida and the Northeast, according to U.S. government officials and computer-security experts.

While state sponsored terrorism is far more sensational (with 9/11 its pinnacle), state sponsored cyber-terrorism is incredibly dangerous.  It is ongoing, and reaches into every corner of our digital world.  Take the following snippet as an example:

During a trip to Beijing in December 2007, spyware programs designed to clandestinely remove information from personal computers and other electronic equipment were discovered on devices used by Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez and possibly other members of a U.S. trade delegation, according to a computer-security expert with firsthand knowledge of the spyware used. Gutierrez was in China with the Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade, a high-level delegation that includes the U.S. trade representative and that meets with Chinese officials to discuss such matters as intellectual-property rights, market access, and consumer product safety. According to the computer-security expert, the spyware programs were designed to open communications channels to an outside system, and to download the contents of the infected devices at regular intervals. The source said that the computer codes were identical to those found in the laptop computers and other devices of several senior executives of U.S. corporations who also had their electronics "slurped" while on business in China.

These attacks are worsening, and Americans are doing little to stop them.  While we take our technology for granted, China has only recently emerged from third-world status and wants it all, now.

"This has been a growing wave in recent years," Brenner said, attributing China's cyber-tactics to its global economic and political ambitions. "The Chinese are out to develop a modern economy and society in one generation.... There is much about their determination that is admirable. But they're also willing to steal a lot of proprietary information to do it, and that's not admirable. And we've got to stop it as best we can."

Fortunately, there are those within our government who see the threat, and the benefits of developing our own cyber-warfare systems.

The military is not waiting for China, or any other nation or hacker group, to strike a lethal cyber-blow. In March, Air Force Gen. Kevin Chilton, the chief of U.S. Strategic Command, said that the Pentagon has its own cyberwar plans. "Our challenge is to define, shape, develop, deliver, and sustain a cyber-force second to none," Chilton told the Senate Armed Services Committee. He asked appropriators for an "increased emphasis" on the Defense Department's cyber-capabilities to help train personnel to "conduct network warfare."

The Air Force is in the process of setting up a Cyberspace Command, headed by a two-star general and comprising about 160 individuals assigned to a handful of bases. As Wired noted in a recent profile, Cyberspace Command "is dedicated to the proposition that the next war will be fought in the electromagnetic spectrum and that computers are military weapons." The Air Force has launched a TV ad campaign to drum up support for the new command, and to call attention to cyberwar. "You used to need an army to wage a war," a narrator in the TV spot declares. "Now all you need is an Internet connection

What do you think?

Bill Gertz at the Washington Times reports in a May 16th story (Passport cards called security vulnerability) that reaffirms the major tenets of Speaker Gingrich's famous Fedex video hosted on YouTube:

The State Department will soon begin production of an electronic passport card that security specialists and members of Congress fear will be vulnerable to alteration or counterfeiting.

The agency [State Department] has contracted with L-1 Identity Solutions Inc. to produce electronic-passport cards as a substitute for booklet passports for use by Americans who travel frequently by road or sea to Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean.

About the size of a credit card, the electronic-passport card displays a photo of the user and a radio frequency identification (RFID) chip containing data about the user. The State Department announced recently that it will begin producing the cards next month and issue the first ones in July.

Security specialists told The Washington Times that the electronic-passport card can be copied or altered easily by removing the photograph with solvent and replacing it with one from an unauthorized user.

Read More

Why would the State Department pursue a technology that could reportedly be breached so easily, and put it on the front line of our national defenses?  It is plain to see that, if the RFID cards are indeed insecure, "the world that fails" is still alive and well in Washington.  In their defense, they do believe it to be secure:

Steve Royster, a State Department spokesman, declined to comment. ...  Another State Department official, however, said the agency thinks the RFID passport card is secure. ...  "The passport card is the result of an interagency effort to produce the most durable, secure and tamper-resistant card for the American public using state-of-the-art, laser-engraving and security features," said the official, who spoke on the condition that he not be identified.

In the real world, it would be simple to discover how secure the cards are:  simply offer a cash incentive, or bounty, to the first person to breach one, and demonstrate exactly how they did it.  That's probably how FedEx would get it done, and how a government that works would do it.

It is always refreshing to hear balanced news coming from Iraq.  In this exceptional piece by Howard LaFranchi of the Christian Science Monitor (May 6^th edition), we find an educational story that illustrates the frustrating but positive progress being made by Iraqi citizens and defense forces with the help of American soldiers.  The story is entitled " Iraq's new gated communites: safer, mixed, walled-in " and is well worth the time to read.  Here's a few snippets and observations:

"A year ago, dead bodies lay on this street for days; no one dared to pick them up. But now we are getting lights and shops have opened back up," says Mahdi Jabbar Falah, a 40-year resident [of Saidiyah neighborhood] who has just moved himself and his family of nine back to their house. They fled last year after Mr. Jabbar received a bullet in an envelope, a sure sign he was on someone's hit list. "Last year, this was a ghost town," he says, "but now I feel we are alive again."

By anyone's standards, the situation could not have been much worse.  The US Army took steps to alleviate the situation, establishing a local security force and building a wall around the neighborhood to help limit access by terrorists and troublemakers. 

"Some of our visitors say, 'How can you live here, it feels like a prison,'" says Amer Mohsen, a retired gym teacher. "I tell them I can't see the wall from my house, but I can see its benefits."

Once security had been re-established, it was only natural that people would return, but even that was not without complications:

Many families have also returned to find themselves in the middle of property disputes. In some cases, after the families left Saidiyah, they rented out their house and now some tenants refuse to leave. In other houses, squatters have simply made themselves at home.

"There are problems. We have to sort out all these cases of whose house is really whose and who has taken advantage of the situation to move in," says Ali al-Amari, director of the Saidiyah Support Council, a committee formed to foster reconciliation and settle property disputes.

Displaying a hand-printed log of the more than 370 cases of squatting and other claims registered since February, Mr. Amari says, "The important thing is we have our security back. It's amazing," he adds, "You could say it's safer than Michigan."

The bulk of the story (pages 2 and 3) revolves around the interactions between the Saidiyah Support Council (a council of 12 Sunnis and 12 Shiites) and the Americans involved with rehabilitating the city.  There are the understandable conversations about autonomy over local decisions, and some resentment that Americans exercise a bit of control from time to time, but perhaps that is a sign of progress?  Getting the Iraqis to feel ready to handle some things on their own was the goal from the outset, was it not?  The strategy appears to be working.

 Do you think our patience (and theirs) is paying off?  Sound off by clicking "Comment" below.

Three more national security updates from Bill Gertz of the Washington Times, in regards to Taiwan, China, and US Counterintelligence.  Bill is one of the country's premier reporters on issues of National Security facing the United States.

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From the “can it get any more incredible” department, an article in the Daily Mail by Daniel Cochlin crossed the Newt.org desk regarding technology that will be making its way to the battlefield this year.  “Robobug goes to war: Troops to use electronic insects to spot enemy ‘by end of year’”

“British defence giant BAE Systems is creating a series of tiny electronic spiders, insects and snakes that could become the eyes and ears of soldiers on the battlefield, helping to save thousands of lives... Prototypes could be on the front line by the end of the year, scuttling into potential danger areas such as booby-trapped buildings or enemy hideouts to relay images back to troops safely positioned nearby.”  

Isn’t the development of technology such as this a wonderful statement about the value we place on human life?   Don’t stories like this provide a stark contrast to our enemies, who have openly admitted to placing value on death? 

Check out the video to see a 3d animation of the little critters in simulated action, and let us know what you think about stories like this by posting your comments below.

Check out these two recent articles from excellent National Security Reporter Bill Gertz of the Washington Times:

4 arrests in China spy cases:

...One Pentagon official said the case is potentially very damaging because Mr. Bergersen was director of the Navy's command, control, communications and intelligence office in the early 2000s. The office has access to the most sensitive information on U.S. warfighting capabilities, a key target of China's military spies...

Firms in proposed 3Com deal offer risk relief:

...Disclosure of the risk-reduction offer followed the arrest Monday of four persons on Chinese espionage-related charges, including a Pentagon official accused of passing high-technology military command and control systems to the Chinese...

It's hard to say which issue blog it would have been best to mention this article, but national security seems as good a place as any.  The struggle for freedom against authoritarianism is at its core an issue of security - personal security against the overbearing interests of the state.  And while the direct implications of this article have more to do with the personal security of the people of China, their struggle is at its core, our shared global struggle against tyranny. 

With that as a backdrop, this article in Foreign Policy lays out how the coming Olympic Games in Beijing will feature contests of will completely outside the realm of athletic competition that could alter the fate of China's 1.3 billion plus population.  Excerpt:

The athletes are not the only ones training hard for the Olympics. The Chinese government and the activists are getting ready for the battle in Beijing, too. The Associated Press reports that China’s intelligence services, police, and government think tanks are compiling lists of foreign organizations and individuals in what has been described as one of the “broadest intelligence-collection drives Beijing has taken against foreign activist groups.” According to Xinhua, China’s official news agency, Zhou Yongkang, the minister of public security, has ordered the police during the games to “strictly guard against and strike hard at hostile forces at home and abroad.”

The Washington Post has an ecouraging article suggesting that al-queada in Iraq is crippled. 

The U.S. military believes it has dealt devastating and perhaps irreversible blows to al-Qaeda in Iraq in recent months, leading some generals to advocate a declaration of victory over the group, which the Bush administration has long described as the most lethal U.S. adversary in Iraq.

But as the White House and its military commanders plan the next phase of the war, other officials have cautioned against taking what they see as a premature step that could create strategic and political difficulties for the United States. Such a declaration could fuel criticism that the Iraq conflict has become a civil war in which U.S. combat forces should not be involved. At the same time, the intelligence community, and some in the military itself, worry about underestimating an enemy that has shown great resilience in the past.

More

However, the attack yesterday in Pakistan is a sobering reminder that there is still much hard work to be done. 

A NY Times piece has a vivid forward-looking analysis of how the world will shape up in Asia in the coming years:

"While the American government has been occupied in Mesopotamia, and our European allies continue to starve their defense programs, Asian militaries — in particular those of China, India, Japan and South Korea — have been quietly modernizing and in some cases enlarging. Asian dynamism is now military as well as economic.

The military trend that is hiding in plain sight is the loss of the Pacific Ocean as an American lake after 60 years of near-total dominance. A few years down the road, according to the security analysts at the private policy group Strategic Forecasting, Americans will not to the same extent be the prime deliverers of disaster relief in a place like the Indonesian archipelago, as we were in 2005. Our ships will share the waters (and the prestige) with new "big decks" from Australia, Japan and South Korea.

Furthermore, the very vitality of nation-states in the Pacific and Indian Oceans will take us back to an older world of traditional statecraft, in which we will need to tirelessly leverage allies and seek cooperation from competitors. Thus we should take advantage of the rising risk of terrorism and piracy in order to draw the Chinese and Indian Navies into joint patrols of choke points and tanker routes."

This piece gives an important look down the road not in the larger war against the Irreconcilable Wing of Islam, as Newt emphasized in his Sept 10th speech at AEI, but in the context of what other countries in this quickly growing region will be doing.

Pat Buchanan points out at Townhall.com something that the mainstream Media isn't reporting on: 

"Today, the United States has 30,000 more troops in Iraq than on the day America repudiated the Bush war policy and voted the GOP out of power. And President Bush, self-confidence surging, is now employing against Iran a bellicosity redolent of the days just prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom.

What gives Bush his new cockiness? The total collapse of the antiwar coalition on Capitol Hill and the breaking of the Congress. Last spring, Bush vetoed the congressional deadlines for troop withdrawals, then rubbed Congress' nose in its defeat by demanding and getting $100 billion to support the surge and continue the war.

Before the August recess, Democrats broke again and voted to give Bush the warrantless wiretap authority many among them had said was an unconstitutional and impeachable usurpation of power. They are a broken and frightened lot."

Also of note is what Buchanan writes on the bigger picture of the war against the irreconcilable wing of Islam:

"Confident of victory this fall on the Hill, Bush is now moving into Phase III in his War on Terror: First, Afghanistan, then Iraq, then Iran."

Does President Bush have a renewed confidence to follow the course he boldly and clearly laid forth in the weeks following 9/11?  The rejuvenated confidence from the President may allow him to simply follow through with the wider strategy of treating terrorists- and the governments who harbor them- as the same.

Is this the right strategy for the war against the irreconcilable wing of Islam?  Newt will speak on our comprehensive national strategy on Monday, September 10 at American Enterprise Institute.  Check back to Newt.org for a copy of the speech and his thoughts on how we need to fight this broader war.

In the Hartford Courant, Hal Brands writes in “The War on Terror Has Fizzled” that American foreign policy has been weakened by the Bush Administration.  A new strategy in the war is necessary.  As he writes:

“What is needed, rather, is a fundamental reassessment of American grand strategy, a reassessment that takes into account not only the very real threats posed by terrorism and WMD, but situates these issues within their proper, larger context - the need to ensure U.S. influence over the long term.

What might this new strategy look like? In broad terms, it would focus on regaining a global acceptance of American leadership that has been severely eroded by the current administration's foreign policy. It would combat terrorism using tools such as international law enforcement collaboration, rather than responding reflexively with unilateral military might.”

Interested in where we could be in the war since 9/11?  Newt’s speech at American Enterprise Institute on Monday, September 10th will also cover US grand strategy in the war against terror and the irreconcilable wing of Islam and how to get back on track in our grand strategy.  Be sure to check Newt.org for updates and a copy of the speech.

See the full article here

A new USA Today article titled "Pentagon says it acts as quickly as it can to meet needs" has a very interesting quote from a retired Marine:

The equipment failures are "a manifestation of this larger issue: doing just enough to try to win this … without mobilizing the nation for war," says retired Marine lieutenant general Paul Van Riper, a Vietnam and Desert Storm veteran.

The whole article is worth reading, but the quote raises a good question: Are we taking the war as seriously as we should?  In the book Troublesome Young Men, Lynne Olsen details how Neville Chamberlain didn't take Nazi Germany seriously, even after Britain and Germany were at war.  It wasn't until Churchill became Prime Minister that Britain began fighting at its full potential.

Newt will be giving a talk at American Enterprise Institute on Sept. 10 to detail how we could have fought of the war on terror since 9/11 knowing what we know now and how we can reset our strategic course to be on the right track from today into the future.  Be sure to check on Newt.org for the video of the speech to find out Newt's thoughts on how the war could be different today.