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WASHINGTON, June 16, 2006 – Coalition soldiers in Baghdad are committed to helping Iraqi forces take control of their own security and curb violence in the city, the U.S. commander in the region said today. "The security of Baghdad is about Iraqis," Army Maj. Gen. James D. Thurman, commander of Multinational Division Baghdad, said in a news conference from Baghdad. "This is about the Iraqi government stepping forward and taking action to lower this violence. This is not about the coalition." Iraqi security forces, with the assistance of the coalition, launched Operation Together Forward June 14, which is designed to...

WASHINGTON, June 14, 2006 – President Bush's visit to Iraq and the historic joint meeting of the U.S. and Iraqi Cabinets yesterday represent an important sign of solid U.S. support for Iraq's new government, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said. "It's important that this government be supportive. The president wanted them to know we wanted to be supportive of them and that we wished them well," Rumsfeld told reporters on Capitol Hill yesterday following briefings with the Senate and House of Representatives on the day's events. Rumsfeld, Joint Chiefs Chairman Marine Gen. Peter Pace, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and Director...

RUSTAMIYAH, Iraq, May 26, 2006 – The man chosen to lead the Iraqi military's Center for Military Values, Principles and Leadership said he is "completely committed" to reforming the Iraqi armed forces. "We have witnessed five decades of hardships, and the Iraqi personality in general has changed enormously because of them," retired Army Maj. Gen. Nabil Abdul Kadir said. The general has 46 years of service in the Iraqi army. He has commanded at all levels from platoon through division, he said, and has maintained strict professional behavior in a time of turmoil and repression. The general came from a...

HOUSTON - Enron Corp. founder Kenneth Lay and former Chief Executive Jeffrey Skilling instigated a massive fraud before the company collapsed in one of the biggest corporate scandals in U.S. history, a federal prosecutor said on Monday. Lay and Skilling committed crimes "through accounting tricks, fiction, hocus-pocus, trickery, misleading statements, half-truths, omissions and outright lies," prosecutor Kathryn Ruemmler told jurors and a packed courtroom in closing arguments. "In this courtroom, ladies and gentlemen, the cover stories have been blown. Mr. Lay and Mr. Skilling are still clinging to the cover stories," she said. On a large screen, Ruemmler displayed for...

4/14/2006 - WASHINGTON (AFPN) -- Unmanned aerial vehicles are successfully transforming the way the Air Force does business, and the service is committed to supporting and developing more of them. Innovative UAV tactics have transformed the battle space as witnessed in Iraq and Afghanistan, said Maj. Gen. Stanley Gorenc, Air Force deputy chief of staff for air and space operations, at testimony before the House Armed Services Committee subcommittee on tactical air and land forces April 6. "UAVs are transforming the way Air Force and the joint team fight, and are a critical component of the future joint force," the...

WASHINGTON, March 30, 2006 – The Defense Department is taking a new approach to combat the threat of weapons of mass destruction in a complex and uncertain world, a DoD official said here yesterday. "This approach is reflected in our strategic guidance, in our realigned operational structure, and in the way we carry out our day-to-day activities, Peter Flory, assistant secretary of defense for international security policy, said in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee's emerging threats and capabilities subcommittee. Strategically, DoD is focused on three pillars of combating weapons of mass destruction: nonproliferation, counterproliferation and consequence management, Flory...

3/6/2006 - WASHINGTON (AFPN) -- The Air Force continues its pledge to be a leader in energy stewardship. For the last six months, the Air Force has been working on a strategy to have energy as a consideration in nearly all of its activities, from operations to acquisition. The Air Force is increasing efforts to reduce the demand for energy using good building design, advanced planning tools for operations, more efficient jet engines and better conservation practices, said Undersecretary of the Air Force Dr. Ronald Sega. According to Dr. Sega, the Air Force is also looking at alternative sources of...

August 6th marked the 60th anniversary of America’s use of an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. While some still argue that President Truman’s decision to use the A-bomb was “controversial,” they are afflicted with the scourge of our time, the loss of a sense of moral proportion and certainty. Unfortunately, those with relativistic morals will lead us to see the day when nuclear weapons are used again – this time to end once and for all the barbaric savagery of Islamism. Green Left Weekly (GLW) calls the U.S. putting a swift end to WWII – using atomic...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Her voice wavered, the emotion coming through loud and clear, as a California woman spoke of her son who committed suicide after using steroids. "There is no doubt in our minds that steroids killed our son," Denise Garibaldi told a House committee during Thursday's hearing on steroids in baseball. An hour or so later, Garibaldi and her husband were seated in the gallery directly behind Mark McGwire, one of Rob Garibaldi's baseball heroes. The young Garibaldi would tape McGwire on television and break down McGwire's swing "frame by frame," said father Raymond Garibaldi. The Garibaldis, of Petaluma,...

If the Oklahoma City bombers refused to participate in a U.S. election, would the final results be considered “illegitimate?” What if the Nation of Islam, the Black Panthers, the Communist Party USA, or the Southern Indiana Regional Militia refused to vote in American elections? Would it matter and, really, who gives a damn? The Left-Wing, e.g. the New York Times, has been trying to hold the Iraqi elections to this type of ridiculous standard regarding Sunni participation. Granted: Sunnis make up 32-37% of Iraq’s population. While their representation is important, the majority of terrorist attacks aimed at destabilizing Iraq have...

In April 2004, followers of Iraqi Shi‘ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr launched a well-coordinated uprising across southern Iraq. While Western media focused on events in Sadr City, Najaf, and Karbala, violence occurred elsewhere as well. A Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) source forwarded the following after-action report regarding violence in the town of Al-Kut, the capital of the Wassit governorate and home to the Ukrainian contingent.The unclassified report, written by a coalition security contractor, highlights dysfunction between regional coalition offices and the Coalition Provisional Authority headquarters in Baghdad, as well as tension between diplomats and security officers. The summary faulted a British...

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, speaking before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee today, has called the Sudanese rampage against Black Africans a “genocide:” We concluded that genocide has been committed in Darfur and that the government of Sudan and the Janjaweed [Arab militia] bear responsibility and genocide may still be occurring. The Sudanese government has been sponsoring a campaign of mass rape, mass murder, forced relocations, and forced starvation against Black Africans in Darfur. The BBC today tried to spin the usual “the U.S. is damned if it does and damned if it doesn’t” argument today: Critics point out...