From The Guardian UK
By Daniel Davies

When the Americans left Vietnam, they did so in such a disorganised fashion that many CIA stations failed to destroy their confidential files. Thousands of Vietnamese were killed or put into labour camps as a result; this was described by CIA analyst Frank Snepp as “one of the most shameful things the CIA had ever done”.

The British withdrawal from Basra is being planned in a much more orderly manner, so we can be reasonably confident that the files will be destroyed. However, we will still be leaving behind a significant number of Iraqis – intelligence sources, local staff, political allies – who will be placed at significant personal risk by the British pullout, and to whom we owe something approaching a debt of honour.

Even the prime minister, in his speech announcing the pullout, agreed that Basra is not a safe place, and it is not likely to have become safe by the time the British troops hand it over. The reporting of Steven Vincent, the American journalist who was killed there in 2005, suggests that Basra has become a gangster town, ruled by rival Shia militias, who all together hate the British troops.

It is therefore very likely that the departure of the troops will be taken as an opportunity to settle old scores, and that Iraqis who have worked closely with the British are particularly vulnerable to being targeted.

Read more Iraq

From Reuters
By Claudia Parsons and Ibon Villelabeitia

A fuel tanker rigged with explosives killed 40 people when it blew up near a Sunni mosque in western Iraq on Saturday, a day after the mosque’s imam had criticised al Qaeda militants, police and residents said.

The bomb exploded in a market in the town of Habaniya in the restive province of Anbar, where U.S. forces are battling Sunni Arab insurgent groups, including al Qaeda.

Local police said they believed the mosque was the target, adding that the market had been destroyed and 64 people wounded. Women and children were among the dead, they said.

In Baghdad, more than 20 loud explosions in quick succession rocked a southern district of the capital after night fell.

The U.S. military said the cause of the blasts were “indirect fire”. Brigadier Qassim Moussawi, spokesman for Iraqi forces in the capital, said the blasts were the result of military operations by Iraqi and U.S. forces conducting a major security crackdown in Baghdad.

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From Washington Post
After he was injured in Iraq, Richard Twohig found himself fighting an unexpected foe: the U.S. Army.

By Paula Span

THE SHADES IN RICHARD TWOHIG’S GARDEN APARTMENT ARE DRAWN TIGHT AGAINST THE SUMMER SUN. This is partly because it’s 94 degrees in Knoxville, Tenn., this afternoon, but also because light can trigger one of his bad headaches, the kind that make his knees buckle. His kids have grown accustomed to dimmed surroundings.

They’ve been cavorting on the living room carpet, Lizzie with her fuzzy pink dog named Princess, her little brother, Damon, with his prized jeep. Their chirpy ebullience isn’t unusual for a 6-year-old and a 3-year-old who haven’t had much chance to romp outside today but noise can bring on Twohig’s migraines, as well. “Why don’t you go up and play a while?” he suggests mildly, and they troop upstairs to their shared bedroom.

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From The Telegraph UK
By Con Coughlin

Israel is negotiating with the United States for permission to fly over Iraq as part of a plan to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, The Daily Telegraph can reveal.

To conduct surgical air strikes against Iran’s nuclear programme, Israeli war planes would need to fly across Iraq. But to do so the Israeli military authorities in Tel Aviv need permission from the Pentagon.

A senior Israeli defence official said negotiations were now underway between the two countries for the US-led coalition in Iraq to provide an “air corridor” in the event of the Israeli government deciding on unilateral military action to prevent Teheran developing nuclear weapons.

“We are planning for every eventuality, and sorting out issues such as these are crucially important,” said the official, who asked not to be named.

“The only way to do this is to fly through US-controlled air space. If we don’t sort these issues out now we could have a situation where American and Israeli war planes start shooting at each other.”

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From Salon
Vice President Cheney says the British are leaving southern Iraq because things are going so well. In the real world, Basra is a mess.

By Juan Cole

Tony Blair’s announcement that Britain would withdraw 1,600 troops from southern Iraq by May, and aim for further significant withdrawals by the end of 2007, drew praise from U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney. “What I see,” said Cheney, “is an affirmation of the fact that there are parts of Iraq where things are going pretty well.”

In reality, southern Iraq is a quagmire that has defeated all British efforts to impose order, and Blair was pressed by his military commanders to get out altogether — and quickly. The departure has only been slowed, for the moment, by the pleas of Bush administration officials like Cheney. And far from the disingenuously upbeat prognosis offered by the vice president, the British withdrawal could spell severe trouble for both the Iraqi government and for U.S. troops in that country.

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From The Huffington Post
By Rohan Sullivan

His visit was meant to thank Australia and Japan for their support in Iraq. But a series of public appearances and media interviews, Cheney’s tone was typically feisty.

Answering growing criticism in the U.S. and Australia, he defended the Iraq war as a “remarkable achievement” in one speech, and dismissed suggestions his influence in Washington is waning.

At a news conference Saturday, Cheney warned that “all options” are on the table if Iran continues to defy U.N.-led efforts to end Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, leaving the door open to military action.

Cheney’s support for the Iraq war _ he is considered one of the key proponents of the 2003 invasion _ drew protesters into Sydney’s streets for two days.

But the crowds were small and the clashes brief, and Cheney enjoyed a generally warm welcome, including lunch at Australian Prime Minister John Howard’s harborside mansion and a cruise past the Sydney Opera House.

On Saturday, he held talks with Howard _ who at one point felt compelled to defend his friendly relations with the White House.

In Japan, Cheney asserted that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s opposition to President Bush’s troop buildup in Iraq would “validate the al-Qaida strategy.”

A furious Pelosi complained to the White House that Cheney was impugning the patriotism of critics of the war. Cheney refused to back down: “I said it and I meant it,” he told ABC News. “I didn’t question her patriotism, I questioned her judgment.”

Read More Dick

From Indianapolis Star
By Ken Bode

Two of the Clinton family’s most famous spear-carriers have put a cat among the pigeons. They have offered an answer to one of the most intriguing questions about the Hillary candidacy, one that she, or they, will eventually have to answer. If Sen. Clinton were to win the presidency, what happens to Bill?

Could he be satisfied to be America’s “first gentleman,” performing in a supportingrole, on deck for state dinners, in charge of redecorating and supervising the White House staff? With his wife in the Oval Office it would be unseemly for the former president to continue traveling the world making speeches at $200,000 a pop.
Let’s remember how Bill used Hillary. When he was elected in 1992, Mrs. Clinton envisioned something approaching a co-presidency. She wanted an office in the West Wing with a kind of unlimited portfolio, watching over everything and everybody. A mild struggle ensued over office space and Vice President Al Gore ultimately got the one Hillary was eying. Nevertheless, she became a constant White House presence, with her own staff and a domain called “Hillaryland.” Eventually, Bill put her in charge of health-care reform, the biggest domestic policy initiative of his administration, and all did not go well.
Glenn Thrush, a reporter from Newsday, the Long Island daily tabloid, called me this week to say that two of President Bill Clinton’s top advisers from the 1990s have ventured an interesting answer to the question, “What about Bill?”

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From Think Progress
By Nico

National Journal’s Hotline reports that a recent fundraising letter issued by Scooter Libby’s Legal Defense Trust includes the following quote from former Cheney aide Mary Matalin:

This loyal soldier in the War on Terror doesn’t have to go at it alone.

Scooter Libby knowingly exposed the cover of a CIA operative. He did it to exact political revenge on Joseph Wilson, who had revealed that intelligence was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat. The damage from the leak was serious enough to warrant a CIA investigation. Arthur Brown, a CIA division chief who retired in 1995, described Libby’s action as the moral equivalent to exposing forward deployed military units.

Libby is no soldier, let alone a loyal soldier. A different label for him was offered by President George H. W. Bush: I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray the trust by exposing the name of our sources. They are, in my view, the most insidious of traitors.

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From AlterNet
By Philip Barron

There once was a young woman from a St. Louis suburb. She was an honor roll student, she played the violin, she donated blood and volunteered for American Heart Association walks. She elected to put off college for a while and joined the Army once out of school. At Fort Campbell, KY, she was assigned as a weapons supply manager to the 129th Corps Support Battalion.

She was LaVena Johnson, private first class, and she died near Balad, Iraq, on July 19, 2005, just eight days shy of her twentieth birthday. She was the first woman soldier from Missouri to die while serving in Iraq or Afghanistan.

The tragedy of her story begins there.

An Army representative initially told LaVena’s father, Dr. John Johnson, that his daughter died of “died of self-inflicted, noncombat injuries” and initially added it was not a suicide — in other words, an accidental death caused by LaVena herself. The subsequent Army investigation reversed this finding and declared LaVena’s death a suicide, a finding refuted by the soldier’s family. In an article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Dr. Johnson pointed to indications that his daughter had endured a physical struggle before she died — two loose front teeth, a “busted lip” that had to be reconstructed by the funeral home — suggesting that “someone might have punched her in the mouth.”

A promise by the office of Representative William Lacy Clay to look into the matter produced nothing. The military said that the matter was closed.

Read more Cover-Up

From Wired
By Ryan Singel

A powerful congressional committee is investigating a Transportation Security Administration website that promised to help air travelers caught up in terrorist watch lists, after a Wired News blog revealed that the site was potentially exposing user’s personal information to eavesdroppers.

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform asked the TSA on Friday to turn over documents related to the Traveler Verification Identity Program website to determine how the site was designed, and whether government security and privacy regulations were violated.

That site was intended to allow domestic airline travelers whose names are similar to entries on the government’s No Fly List and other watchlists to submit a complaint online, instead of calling TSA and requesting a form be sent to them by mail.

However, the site was full of misspellings and nonsensical directions, and asked travelers to provide sensitive personal information on an unencrypted page. Travelers in an airport using a wireless connection would be at risk of having their personal information stolen and used to commit identity fraud.

Read more Gaffe