Free Republic

U.S. troops could continue fighting the Taliban and al Qaeda and would be given explicit new permission to battle the Islamic State — but would not be authorized to attack the capabilities of any nation state, such as Syria — under updated rules of war proposed by a bipartisan group of senators Monday. Led by Sen. Bob Corker, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, the new Authorization for the Use of Military Force would replace 2001 and 2002 AUMFs that started the war on terror and paved the way for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The commander in chief —...

The director of a top American spy agency said Tuesday that he believed that material from Iraq's illicit weapons program had been transported into Syria and perhaps other countries as part of an effort by the Iraqis to disperse and destroy evidence immediately before the recent war.The official, James R. Clapper Jr., a retired lieutenant general, said satellite imagery showing a heavy flow of traffic from Iraq into Syria, just before the American invasion in March, led him to believe that illicit weapons material ''unquestionably'' had been moved out of Iraq.''I think people below the Saddam Hussein-and-his-sons level saw what...