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DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, FBI Director Christopher Wray and National Counterterrorism Director Christine Abizaid testified before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs on national security and threats to the country.

Jill Kelley is no longer welcome at MacDill AFB. The socialite who launched the David Petraeus sex scandal that's now also enveloped General John Allen, has been banned from the Tampa military base where she met both the four star military men, the Tampa Tribune is reporting. "She did have base access but does not currently because of her involvement in an ongoing investigation," a military official told the Tribune. PHOTOS: Jill Kelley Arrives At Her Tampa Bay Home The slam from her former best buddies in uniform comes on top of revelations of the Kelley family's dismal financial picture....

ASHINGTON, Nov. 14 — The head of American forces in the Middle East has summoned his senior commanders to a meeting in Tampa, Fla., next week to discuss strategy for combating the guerrilla fighters in Iraq and terrorists from Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. The officer, Gen. John P. Abizaid, is to meet with top Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps generals and admirals based in the region and the United States at the headquarters in Tampa of the Central Command, which controls American military operations from the Indian Ocean to the Red Sea. Pentagon officials insisted Friday that the...

Attention Bay Area FReepers - General Abizaid is the Nimitz Lecture series speaker this year. Tuesday, March 11 at 1900.

Gen. Abizaid: No draft please By Mike Wereschagin TRIBUNE-REVIEW Wednesday, October 31, 2007 The military is stretched thin and the tangle of problems in the Middle East will take generations to unravel, but the former top U.S. commander in that region said this morning he still thinks a draft is the wrong way to go. "Young people need to figure out how to serve the country," said retired four-star Gen. John P. Abizaid, who spoke to the Trib this morning before a speech at Carnegie Mellon University.

Every effort should be made to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, but failing that, the world could live with a nuclear-armed regime in Tehran, a recently retired commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East said Monday. John Abizaid, the retired Army general who headed Central Command for nearly four years, said he was confident that if Iran gained nuclear arms, the United States could deter it from using them. "Iran is not a suicide nation," he said. "I mean, they may have some people in charge that don't appear to be rational, but I doubt that the Iranians...

Former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, who directed the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and then resigned last November after months of mounting pressure, will join Stanford University's Hoover Institution as a visiting fellow. Rumsfeld, who also led the nation's response to Sept. 11, will participate in the institution's new task force of scholars and experts studying post-Sept. 11 ideology and terror, according to Hoover director John Raisian, in a statement released Friday afternoon. "I have asked Don to join the distinguished group of scholars that will pursue new insights on the direction of thinking that the United...

The 1st Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division (1-3ID)is currently engaged in street to street fighting in central Ramadi. The much anticipated attack follows months of hands off policy as troops were routinely sniped and attacked with orders not to retaliate. After much planning U.S. forces along with a collection of hired local tribesmen from nearby Sofia (a suburb of Ramadi) and other groups are attacking and clearing the are house by house. The tribes have been formed into paramilitary units called "Emergency Response Units" and are linked with U.S. troops. The 1st Battalion, 9th Infantry Regiment (1-9), 2nd Infantry...

Some of America’s most senior military commanders are prepared to resign if the White House orders a military strike against Iran, according to highly placed defence and intelligence sources.

Bush 'to replace top US generals' Mr Bush is to announce a new Iraq strategy soon President George W Bush is to change his military operations chief for Iraq and Afghanistan, US media reports say.Adm William Fallon will replace Gen John Abizaid as head of US Central Command and there will be a new ground commander in Iraq, ABC News reported. It also said that US ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad is to replace John Bolton as US ambassador to the UN. The reports come days before Mr Bush unveils a new strategy for Iraq that could include thousands...

President Bush is shaking up the team responsible for carrying out his military and diplomatic strategies in Iraq as he prepares to outline a new direction for the war that has raged for nearly four years. Bush will replace Gen. John P. Abizaid, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, and Gen. George Casey, the chief general in Iraq, in the coming weeks, according to media reports Thursday. A revamping of the administration's national security team was already under way. Bush wants to replace Abizaid with Adm. William Fallon, the top U.S. commander in the Pacific, and Casey's replacement...

WASHINGTON — Army Gen. John P. Abizaid, commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, has submitted plans to retire and will leave his post in March, a step likely to make way for a change in military strategy at a time the Bush administration is seeking a new plan for Iraq. Abizaid has been the primary architect of U.S. military strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan since becoming head of the U.S. Central Command more than three years ago. He has strenuously resisted calls to increase troop levels to quell rising violence in Baghdad, arguing it would increase Iraqi dependence...

By Peter Spiegel, Los Angeles Times | December 20, 2006 WASHINGTON -- Army General John P. Abizaid, commander of US forces in the Middle East, has submitted plans to retire and will leave his post in March, a step likely to make way for a change in military strategy at a time the Bush administration is seeking a new plan for Iraq.

Speaking over the faint chants of a small group of protesters outside, US Army General John P. Abizaid told an audience at Harvard University yesterday that the war in Iraq was winnable despite the gathering dissent at home. "I think we can win this fight," he said. "I think we are winning this fight." At his address at the Kennedy School forum, Abizaid was asked on several occasions why American public opinion had turned so decidedly against the war, and he consistently said that the despair he felt in Washington was not reflected in the field among American or Iraqi...

CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts (Reuters) - The top U.S. general in the Middle East said on Friday that if the world does not find a way to stem the rise of Islamic militancy, it will face a third world war. Army Gen. John Abizaid compared the rise of militant ideologies, such as the force driving al Qaeda, to the rise of fascism in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s that set the stage for World War Two. "If we don't have guts enough to confront this ideology today, we'll go through World War Three tomorrow," Abizaid said in a speech titled "The...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 15, 2006 -- Both Iraqi and American leaders believe the Iraqi government can take control of its country and develop a stable nation that is at peace with its neighbors and an ally in the war on terror, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East said here today. Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Army Gen. John P. Abizaid, commander of U.S. Central Command, outlined the current situation in Iraq and the way forward. Violence remains high across Iraq, Abizaid acknowledged, but the Iraqi security forces consistently perform well and, with strong support from the...

The United States has developed a grudging respect for Iran's military. Officials said the Defense Department and Joint Chiefs of Staff have assessed that Iran's military was the second most powerful in the Middle East. They said that unlike Iraq, Iran was capable of sustaining a long war against the United States. "Right now Iran is the most powerful military force in the region, except for the United States of America," U.S. Central Command chief Gen. John Abizaid said. Abizaid said he was referring only to those countries in Central Command. The command contains such Arab countries as Egypt and...

TAMPA, Fla. - Gen. John Abizaid, the head of U.S. Central Command, was briefly hospitalized over the weekend for a stomach illness that appeared to be food poisoning, the military said Monday. Abizaid, who spent Friday night in the hospital, was back at work Monday at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, command spokesman Maj. Matthew McLaughin said. The Tampa-based command oversees U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan . "The best we can tell he had symptoms consistent with food poisoning," McLaughin said. He said Abizaid did not eat fresh spinach, which has been linked to an outbreak of E....

WASHINGTON - In a new sign of mounting strain from the war in Iraq, the Army has extended the combat tours of about 4,000 soldiers who would otherwise be returning home, defense officials said Monday. The 1st Brigade of 1st Armored Division, which is operating in the vicinity of Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, will be kept in place for several weeks beyond its scheduled departure, the officials said. The officials spoke only on condition of anonymity because the decision has not been formally announced by the Pentagon. The brigade's home base is in Germany. The soldiers' families were...

BAGHDAD — Iraqi security forces are becoming more capable every day, fighting and dying for their country because the future depends on them, U.S. Central Command’s commander said this week. “I come to the conclusion that Iraqis are fighting and dying for their country, that the government has pledged their sacred honor and their future to making this work,” Army Gen. John Abizaid said in an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. “Their lives are on the line.” Iraqi forces now number more than 300,000, and while they still have some bad days and challenges to overcome, they are steadily improving,...