Progress.

U.N. Security Council members yesterday embraced a delegation from Iraq's new Governing Council, a step toward international legitimacy, but did not name it the successor to Saddam Hussein's government.

The three-member delegation from the Governing Council made its debut at the United Nations yesterday, nine days after the U.S. administrator of Iraq appointed the council's 25 members.

Council spokesman Adnan Pachachi, a foreign minister before Saddam took power, pledged his country would never return to totalitarianism.

WHO KNEW?

Establishing that detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba - for all its bad press, may actually be our most brilliant move in getting folks to talk.

The path to the top targets on the U.S. government's list of most-wanted Iraqi fugitives — such as former President Saddam Hussein's sons, who were killed Tuesday in an Army raid in the northern city of Mosul — has come through the lower-ranking Baath Party operatives who were protecting them, according to U.S. military officials.

For more than two months, U.S. forces had been trying in vain to zero in on the location of Saddam and his sons, Odai and Qusai.

Then, two weeks ago, U.S. military commanders switched the emphasis of their major operations by carrying out raids and gathering intelligence from captured lower-level members of Saddam's Baath Party who were attacking U.S. forces with sniper fire, mortar shells, rocket-propelled grenades and mines...

"In the past two weeks, we have been getting the midlevel leadership in a way that is effective," Abizaid later told reporters in Baghdad.

An unexpected benefit of that crackdown was the flood of information that captured Baathists provided about their organization and contacts.

Some gave details about their financing and their means of communication, officials said. Others identified members of their networks. Some described the routes and contacts that fugitive leaders were using.

Threats to ship the recalcitrant captives to the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay on the eastern end of Cuba were especially helpful in encouraging them to talk, officials said.

"You get a tip, you pull a couple of guys in, they start to talk," a Central Command official said. Then, based on that information, he continued, "you do a raid, you confiscate some documents, you start building the tree" of contacts and "you start doing signals intercepts, and then you're into the network."

Read it all here.

FIRST GLIMPSE OF THE ROTATION PLAN.

And it is a year, dammit.

U.S. Army leaders are preparing to announce as early as Wednesday a plan to start relieving exhausted troops in Iraq with thousands of soldiers from U.S.-based units and an additional 10,000 National Guardsmen who will be called to active duty.

The deployments will be part of a detailed, two-year plan to make certain that units in Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries where the United States has peacekeeping forces are rotated home after one year.

Military informants told Knight Ridder that Acting Army Chief of Staff Gen. John Keane will designate both active-duty and Army National Guard units to be placed on the list to deploy to Iraq. The informants spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The plan will require the call-up of two specially trained "enhanced brigades" of the Army National Guard for one-year tours in Iraq, in addition to three active-duty brigades also destined for Iraq as replacements. The 1st Cavalry Division at Fort Hood, Texas, will play a key part in Keane's rotation and assignment plans.

The three active-duty brigades likely to be tapped for Iraq duty this year are a brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, N.C., a new experimental Stryker armored vehicle-equipped brigade of the 2nd Division based at Fort Lewis, Wash., and a brigade of the 1st Armored Division based at Fort Riley, Kan...

The scramble to find replacement units for Iraq duty is stark evidence of how thin the 480,000-strong American Army is stretched.

Of its 33 active-duty brigades, 21 are deployed overseas: 16 in Iraq, two in Afghanistan, two in South Korea and one in Bosnia. All but three of the rest either are preparing for one of those missions, recovering and retraining after one of those missions, or held in reserve.

AN AMERICAN SOLDIER TOO

Photo credit Lew Stamp/Akron Beacon Journal.

This is how a war hero comes home: transformed forever, to a place that never again will be the same for her.

"I've read thousands of stories that said when I was captured, I said, `I'm an American soldier too.' Those stories were right," Lynch said Tuesday afternoon in her first public statement since her capture March 23 by Iraqi forces and subsequent rescue by U.S. troops — an ordeal that made her an icon of the war.

"Those were my words. I am an American soldier too."...

Signs throughout Wirt County welcomed Lynch. "Prayers for the Lynch family," read the sign at Merrill Chapel, a little cinderblock church on a wooded hillside near Slate, where the only sound was the wind as it played in the trees and rustled the faded American flags on the graves of long-dead war veterans in the church cemetery.

Yellow ribbons, some bleached white by the sun, had been tied around or fastened on almost everything in the county that would stand still long enough.

This is a ruggedly beautiful part of the world, with lush, green mountains trimmed in Queen Anne's lace, panoramic valleys and a succession of blind curves to quicken the pulse and take the breath away. Around each was another reminder of Pfc. Lynch...

Whether this little town can once again stir the imagination of Pfc. Lynch remains to be seen. Tuesday afternoon, under hot, sunny skies filled with buzzing news and state police helicopters, the courthouse clock chimed an hourly countdown to her return and the beginning of a future she almost didn't have.

Then the smallest person at the dais shifted forward in her wheelchair, leaned toward the microphone and said: "Hi. Thank you for being here.

"It's great to be home."

And it is great to have you home.

Since the inception of the All Volunteer Army certain politicians and sociologists have had much to say about the inadvertant creation of a "military class" in our nation. That the military will draw from the poor, the disadvantaged, the minorities, those without prospects. Much the same groups from which the police, the fire department and the para-rescue teams draw from.

In fact it is speculated that these groups allow the privileged to never serve a day in uniform.

And as we see that effect in Congress - where fewer and fewer members have ever served, and juxtapose that with PFC Lynch's homecoming...it raises questions in my mind.

With regard to those of privelige who never serve:

Will a 79 year old woman ever sweep the sidewalk for them?

Will anyone ever paint on the side of a barn, "Thank you God for saving "them"?

Indeed, will anyone ever call them a hero?

Unlikely.

God bless our soldiers.

LTG SANCHEZ SENDS

BAGHDAD, Iraq — U.S. troops killed two of the most feared and powerful figures of Saddam Hussein's regime — his sons Odai and Qusai — during a fierce six-hour gun battle Tuesday in the northern city of Mosul, the top U.S. commander in Iraq said.

Four U.S. troops were wounded in the fight.

The deaths of the two brothers marked an important military and morale-boosting breakthrough for U.S. troops, who for weeks have been killed in daily attacks and who sometimes appeared to be on the brink of losing control in the country they and British forces conquered three months ago...

After the gunbattle, U.S. troops searched the villa and found four men dead, Sanchez said.

"We have since confirmed that Odai and Qusai were among the dead," Sanchez said. The bodies of the other two men had not yet been identified, though there was some speculation that one was Odai's bodyguard and the other was Qusai's teenage son.

Sanchez said the raid came after a local informant tipped U.S. soldiers to the brothers' hiding place.

"It was a walk-in last night who came in and gave us the information," Sanchez said. He promised a detailed briefing on the raid Wednesday afternoon...

Sanchez said the identities of Odai and Qusai were established through "multiple sources," but added that "the bodies were in such a condition where you could identify them."

Based on my time in the Army I'd say it is probable that the average Everyman in Baghdad heard this news before the average US Soldier. So I wonder what the GIs thought when all of a sudden an unusual amount of gunfire was heard in and around Baghdad...

Meanwhile, here is some of what led to LTG Sanchez confirming on TV that we killed these two:

A U.S. official told CNN that Abid Hamid Mahmud al-Tikriti, Saddam's personal secretary, who was captured last month, helped identify the bodies.

In addition, this official said, other visual evidence helped identify the remains, including wounds on Uday's body from previous assassination attempts.



I fully expect we will hear any number of naysayers doubting aloud that we actually killed them. And I'm going to be interested to find out what serves as a standard of proof in Iraq.

I have no idea if the average Iraqi can spell DNA. So while that standard is good enough for you and me, it may be lost on Mohammed the soda vendor.

And so, will it mean publishing photos of the corpses? Well, if that is the standard of proof in Iraq, then, yes, it just might. And make no mistake about it...we MUST prove to the Iraqis that these two thugs are dead. Iraq cannot move forward if still shackled to the fears of yesterday.

And so - be prepared. We may need to see some gruesome photos. And when we do, there will be voices crying loud and long that we are brutes, that we have no respect for the sensibilities of Muslims, that we desecrate the dead and that we violate the Geneva Convention.

Prepare for it, because it will happen.

But then ignore it, because it is all apologistic claptrap. War isn't pretty. Nor is doing what it takes to win.

But win we must.

HAVING TROUBLE ACCESSING THE CENTCOM NEWS RELEASES AT THE MOMENT.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 23d. The 73d day of CPT Patti's deployment.

The day after we showed the world the Husseins are not invulnerable.

IT AIN'T THREE OF A KIND, BUT THIS PAIR WILL DO JUST FINE.

And while the internet stories still say "were believed to have been killed", NPR news at 2:00 EDT reported that the deaths have been confirmed.

MOSUL, Iraq (AP) - Saddam Hussein's sons Odai and Qusai were believed to have been killed Tuesday in a firefight with U.S. forces at the home of a cousin, a senior U.S. official said. Two other Iraqis also were killed. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said investigators were "awaiting positive DNA testing" to confirm the identities.

The battle took place in this northern city, where residents told an Associated Press Television News cameraman that American soldiers had come to the house looking for Saddam's elder sons.

Members of the 101st Airborne Division had surrounded the house when the fighting broke out. The stone, columned building was left charred and smoldering, its high facade riddled with gaping holes from bullets and heavy weaponry. Kiowa helicopters roamed the sky. Some Iraqi civilians in Mosul appeared to have been caught in the crossfire. It was not known how many people were injured, but several were taken to a hospital.

Go, you Screamin' Eagles.

Folks, if our methods and intelligence are good enough to find these two, well, its only a matter of time before we get the Butcher of Baghdad himself.

Hallejujah!

PLAYING POLITICS WITH THE WAR.

It is not that these critics are wrong, which they are. It is that they know they are wrong. The former State Department official — Greg Thielmann — and I spoke about his charges that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld committed fraud both in his 1998 commission report on ballistic missile threats to the United States and more recently about the nature of the threat from Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

I noted to him that not once did the administration say the Iraqi threat was imminent. The president said repeatedly that if the threat became imminent, it would essentially be too late — National Security adviser Condoleezza Rice said the "smoking gun" of an Iraqi nuclear weapon might well be a mushroom cloud over New York. Mr. Thielmann told me that Miss Rice’s comments "were the worst kind of warmongering" but admitted that the administration had never claimed an attack was imminent. At his press conference, he repeated the charge anyway.

He also admitted the United Nations prior to 1998 had indeed found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq that were not now accounted for — proving that it is the critics of the administration who are guilty of a "faith-based" assumption that Saddam would not use such weapons during whatever period inspections might have continued, or once inspections were ended.

He also repeatedly claimed that the 1998 Rumsfeld report made irresponsible predictions that rogue states would develop long-range missiles in five years from the date of the report. When I read him a quote from one of the Democratic members of the commission, Dr. Richard Garwin, that the commission report made no such predictions about the future deployment dates of long-range missiles, Mr. Thielmann again conceded the point, only to again argue in public the exact opposite...

In the one area where the administration relied on British intelligence that was not backed up by separate U.S. intelligence sources — the belief that Niger was approached in an Iraqi attempt to purchase uranium — I asked Mr. Thielmann what members of Congress were persuaded by that piece of information, whose support for the Iraqi war resolulion would have been reversed should the administration never have made such a claim.

Of course, Mr. Thielmann could not name a single member of Congress whose support was based on the uranium claim.

Indeed - for the Congress had voted and given the President the authorization to deal with Iraq in September of 02, four months before the State of the Union Speech.

So their complaints of the "16 words" seems a bit specious in that light, do they not?Article by Peter Huessy, Washington Times, 22 July, "Faith-based Arms Control", but for some reason I can't link to it.

PROGRESS.

The U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority said on Tuesday it had created the Trade Bank of Iraq and asked international banks for proposals to help establish it.

The CPA said in a statement the bank would provide financial and related services to help the import and export of goods and services to and from Iraq...

"Existing Iraqi banks are presently ill-equipped to support import-export trading activities. They lack sufficient expertise and international links," the CPA statement said.

"Existing financial institutions within Iraq are fully engaged in re-establishing basic banking services and have limited capacity for specialised trade services."

It said the bank, which would also help facilitate "the transition from state-owned enterprises to greater privatisation", would have an authorised capital of $100 million.

EXTRAORDINARY SERVICE AT BAGHDAD'S AL RASHEED HOTEL?

Well, it isn't quite what you think.

In the Saddam era dozens of unidentified men thronged the Al Rasheed's lobby. All belonged to the country's feared Mukhabarat internal intelligence service.

The stories recounted by journalists are legendary. One told how, shortly after asking guests whether they needed ice for their drinks, a waiter bearing an ice bucket knocked at the door. Fast work considering he had not yet called room service.

HATE IT WHEN CELL PHONE COVERAGE ISN'T WHERE IT IS SUPPOSED TO BE?

What do you make of it when it IS where it ISN'T supposed to be?

A mobile phone roaming service was mysteriously available in Baghdad on Tuesday, bringing cellular service -- banned in Saddam Hussein's secret state -- to ordinary people in the Iraqi capital for the first time...

"MTC-Vodafone wishes you a pleasant stay in Kuwait," a text message sent to roamers in Baghdad said. Other cellphone users reported they had briefly had service on a Bahraini network, Batelco. That went off the air later.

An MTC-Vodafone service representative reached via a mobile phone using his own company's network from Baghdad told Reuters he was not aware of roaming services being offered there yet.

"That's great...But they didn't tell us," he said.

"WE'RE SITTING DUCKS HERE, PRETTY MUCH"

The dangers of guarding "fixed points", and what GEN Abizaid plans to do about it.

BAGHDAD -- A bomb, tossed at mid-day from a passing car, exploded in the dirt outside a branch of the al-Rasheed Bank last Wednesday, killing a young Iraqi boy and shattering the leg of a U.S. soldier on guard duty at the bank.

The wounded soldier, Spec. Adam Zaremba, comes from a unit of soldiers trained to fire howitzers. But for several weeks they have been essentially bank security guards, like many U.S. troops who are standing guard outside hundreds of hospitals, power plants, shopping malls and other civilian sites across Iraq.

Manning a .50-caliber machine gun atop an armored personnel carrier still pock-marked from the bombing, Pfc. Thomas Poorbaugh kept an eye on passing traffic and summed up the job: "We're sitting ducks here, pretty much," he said.

Of the 39 U.S. soldiers killed in attacks in Iraq since May 1, at least seven were on guard duty at "fixed sites," and at least three more were directing traffic or manning check-points. Military commanders and soldiers on the ground say that those duties have been unavoidable given the looting and insecurity of post-war Iraq.

But now top U.S. commanders, including Army Gen. John P. Abizaid, chief of the U.S. Central Command, want to give those jobs back to Iraqis, freeing U.S. soldiers for different operations and getting them off a duty that has left them especially exposed and vulnerable...

Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, said this week that more than 8,700 Iraqis already have been trained and are working in a new Facilities Protective Services, which is providing guards for key civilian sites.

Glad to hear that. Now, lets train 8,700 more, ASAP.

A REPORTER CRITIQUES THE MEDIA.

After seeing it first hand...has some insight into how we should view the so-called reports that you hear/see in the popular media.

The plans for a fourth night out accompanying Hawk troop were canceled at the last minute due to a lack of seats in the Humvees. I was disappointed because it was my last night in Baghdad, but I was also somewhat relieved because it gave me time to finish putting this and other stories together before heading for home.

Later that night as I sat typing, the Iraqis were kind enough to bring their attacks to my doorstep. Almost at exactly midnight three dull but distinct bursts interrupted the quiet of the brigade compound. The muffled explosions were followed by the equally distinct sound of 50 caliber machine gun fire. Within seconds half dressed soldiers slinging M-16 scrambled around the compound. The culprits fled into the night having missed their target.

None of what happened on any of the four nights was reported at the time by the media, in part because no soldiers were hurt or killed and because the small numbers of journalists in Baghdad were probably safely tucked away in downtown hotels.

The events of the four nights were routine for Army soldiers in Baghdad. The events paint a better, more accurate picture of what life and possibly death can be like for soldiers in Iraq.

I was fortunate to have that opportunity to spend time with those soldiers and I was fortunate to be able to write about their lives and work. Hopefully, the folks back home have a better understanding of what they are enduring when they see the brief media summaries of the latest hostile action against soldiers just doing their jobs.

Do yourself a favor and read it all here.

I've linked to everything I've found by this reporter. Sorry it is over.

IT IS NOT ONE WORLD.

Former prisoner, released as Saddam bails, shoots soldiers and sells kidneys for cash.

After more than a week of investigation, a tip came in from a young man who claimed his uncle, Gubashi, had been drinking and started bragging about the shooting. The tip came shortly after Ambassador L. Paul Bremer announced reward money would be offered to informants whose tips led to the capture of anybody who killed or tried to kill coalition troops.

The young man gave Army investigators his uncle's name and detailed how Gubashi had agreed to kill an American for cash as part of a contracted assassination for the Fedayeen who provided Gubashi with the weapon.

From the time Sherman's soldiers learned of Gubashi, he looked like a good suspect. He had spent most of his adult life in an Iraqi prison, for murder, until he was released in January when Saddam Hussein emptied Iraq's prisons by pardoning all criminals.

While the reward money helped motivate the young man to tip off authorities, he later told investigators he hated Gubashi because he had frequently beat him when a child and when his father had died Gubashi had forced his mother into another marriage with a man the informant didn't like. The nephew gave soldiers the location of the house in a small town about 20 miles north of Baghdad where Gubashi had been since shortly after the shooting...

...Upon their return, relatives were quick to share news they had seen Gubashi. They said he had already spent all the money he received for shooting Pecotte. Short of cash and on the run, Gubashi had turned to Iraq's organ black market, agreeing to sell one of his kidneys at a Baghdad hospital for $30,000. The money, a huge amount in Iraq, would have enabled Gubashi to flee the country or hole up somewhere for years.

A half dozen soldiers quickly went to the hospital identified by relatives. When they got there hospital administrators initially denied Gubashi was one of their patients. But when an Army interpreter found Gubashi's name on an admissions roster and the kidney recipient turned up at the hospital, the soldiers knew they were on a hot trail.

They waited only about 15 minutes when Gubashi showed up to see a doctor and a trio of soldiers grabbed him up without incident. It turned out the soldiers had beaten Gubashi to the hospital. As they were leaving with their prisoner, one of the soldiers was stopped by a doctor who had a question. If it was not too much trouble, the doctor inquired, after Gubashi was executed, could the hospital please have both his kidneys?

It is a good, if gruesome story. Read it all here.

ANOTHER STORY ON THE QUESTION OF SOLDIERS SPEAKING THEIR MINDS.

Free speech has always been a sensitive issue in the military, where divulging secrets may put lives at risk or excessive complaining might undermine discipline in a unit. There are few regulations restricting the First Amendment rights of servicemembers.

Article 88 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice and other directives do forbid officers and enlisted soldiers from speaking contemptuously of a specific group of officials, though the last time a military court prosecuted someone for violating it was in 1965.

And what does the Uniform Code of Military Justice say on this topic?

“Any commissioned officer who uses contemptuous words against the President, the Vice President, Congress, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of a military department, the Secretary of Transportation, or the Governor or legislature of any State, Territory, Commonwealth, or possession in which he is on duty or present shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.”

Note that only commissioned officers can be charged with this offense.

CENTCOM NEWS RELEASES

July 21, 2003
Release Number: 03-07-63

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

TROOPS ENGAGE HOSTILE FORCES NEAR SPIN BOLDAK

Kandahar Province, Afghanistan – Special Operations Forces killed approximately 22-24 enemy soldiers when an unknown element attacked a coalition convoy in the vicinity of the fire base at Spin Boldak Saturday.

The coalition forces drove through the kill zone, requested close air support and engaged the enemy forces, killing approximately five enemy and pursuing the remaining forces into the surrounding hills.

AH-64 Apaches provided the air support, making several passes on the hill, killing approximately 17-19 more enemy.

There were no coalition casualties.


July 21, 2003
Release Number: 03-07-64

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

ONE SOLDIER KILLED, THREE WOUNDED IN BAGHDAD ATTACK

Please note: This relates to the entry of 21 July entitled "Oh Oh", involving the death of a 1AD soldier and his interpreter. - T

BAGHDAD, Iraq – One 1st Armored Division soldier was killed and three others wounded at approximately 10:30 a.m. July 21 when their vehicle hit an improvised explosive device and was subsequently engaged with small arms fire in the As Sulaykh district of Baghdad.

An Iraqi interpreter working with Coalition soldiers was also killed in the incident.

The three wounded soldiers were taken to a nearby medical facility.

The names of the soldiers are being withheld pending notification of next of kin.


July 22, 2003
Release Number: 03-07-65

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

ONE SOLDIER KILLED, 1 WOUNDED IN RPG ATTACK

AR RAMADI, Iraq – One 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment soldier was killed and one was wounded when their vehicle convoy was hit with a rocket-propelled grenade and small arms fire in an ambush at approximately 9 a.m. July 22 on the road between Balad and Ar Ramadi.

The soldiers were evacuated to 28th Combat Support Hospital.

Names of the deceased and wounded soldiers are being withheld pending notification of next of kin.


July 22, 2003
Release Number: 03-07-66

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

COALITION AND IRAQIS TEAM UP FOR HUMANITARIAN EFFORTS

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Coalition forces and Iraqis have teamed up on a variety of initiatives in areas from higher education to security to improve the quality of life for the people of Iraq.

More than 80 percent of Iraq’s university students have returned to class thanks to the efforts of Coalition commanders who have been working with university administrators to let students know the schools are open and ready to accept enrollments.

Also, during the last 48 hours Coalition and Iraqi doctors in Baghdad teamed up to save a young girl’s foot. Doctors from the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment’s Forward Surgical Team worked with two Iraqi doctors at Al Wasity hospital to repair the foot of an eight-year-old girl who severely injured her foot in a motor vehicle accident.

The team effort came about because the Coalition forward surgical team had the staff, location and equipment necessary to assist in performing the surgery to save the girl’s foot. Although the team’s primary mission is to treat U.S. soldiers injured in the line of duty, they also give medical care to Iraqi civilians when the needs are beyond the ability of local hospitals.

In Sulaymaniah, soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) completed the training of 327 Iraqi border guards. The training took place at a Kurdish Peshmerga compound.

During the four-day program volunteers from the area received training in conducting customs and security duties at border crossings with Iran. Now that classroom training is complete the border guards will begin on-the-job training under the supervision of soldiers in the 101st AAD.

In Mosul, the 101st AAD has hired nearly 4,000 Iraqis to help with key security and reconstruction programs in northern Iraq. The recent hiring helps restore order and repair infrastructure and also provides jobs for former government employees and former military personnel.

In addition, the injection of money into the local economies helps stimulate commerce and improves the overall quality of life in the region. The money used to pay the workers came from seized Iraqi funds and discretionary funds provided by the Coalition’s unit commanders.

TUESDAY, JULY 22d. The 72d day of CPT Patti's deployment.

I'm a bit late today...I spoiled a perfectly good morning by going to the golf course.

THE DEBATE BEGINS.

It includes how large the Army should be. But that answer comes only after a host of other questions have been answered.

You can bet the Pentagon planners are pulling all nighters on this one.

Mr. Rumsfeld has been telling Congress in recent days that before the Pentagon takes the major step of asking for money to enlarge the military, he hopes to cut back on less urgent foreign assignments, to move people in uniform out of administrative tasks and back into combat units and to change the balance of assignments between active-duty forces and those in the National Guard and Reserves.

A senior adviser to the defense secretary said that while it was easy enough to identify how many Army or Marine Corps troops the Pentagon needed for the global campaign against terror and for extended tours of duty on the ground in Iraq, Mr. Rumsfeld made no final decisions over the weekend. He waits for a larger blueprint from the military that would make new troop rotations more predictable.

"We are not fighting in a knife fight here — we're looking out long term," said one Pentagon official involved full time in planning force rotations for Iraq.

But the military is struggling with what another Pentagon planning official called "the tyranny of fixed numbers," which is especially critical for the Army.

Of the Army's 33 active-duty combat brigades, only three are described as free now for a new mission: the Stryker Brigade Combat Team at Fort Lewis, Wash., built around a new, lightly armored vehicle called Stryker; a brigade of the First Infantry Division at Fort Riley, Kan.; and a brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division that returned to Fort Bragg, N.C., from Afghanistan six months ago.

Twenty-one brigades are now assigned overseas — 16 of them in Iraq. Of those not abroad, most are already earmarked as replacement forces for other missions, like the one in Afghanistan, are rebuilding their ranks or are on emergency standby in case of a crisis with North Korea.

Officials said the National Guard and Reserves, which as of Wednesday had 201,099 members on active duty, would probably have to shoulder some of the burden of any additional missions as well.

The Marine Corps could also be asked to share long-term peacekeeping duties, which traditionally have fallen to the Army.

Read it all here (free registration required)

THE BAGHDAD POLICE COMMISIONER SPEAKS.

"I don't have the words to explain that stuff. For me, the war in Iraq was very personal, removing Saddam was very personal," Kerik said during a brief break in his hectic workday.

"My coming here was because this whole war started with the first battleground where the World Trade Center once stood. I lost 22 men and one woman there. They died defending the freedom of the United States, along with 430 other public servants in New York City and 2,400 civilians. "

The night Kerik first arrived in Iraq provided a rude awakening to the reality of life in Baghdad.

He was assigned a basic trailer home inside the palace grounds without water and electrical power. All night he had to swat "big-ass mosquitoes."

Seven weeks later, Kerik is proud of the progress he and his small group have made...

As he goes about his work, Kerik is angry with those critics, at home and elsewhere, who hammer on about the slow rate of progress in the new Iraq.

"You know what frustrates me most?" he asks.

"It's the guys who criticize the president of the United States when they're just sitting on a golf course or in the chambers of Congress or the Senate. They have no clue of what reality is here.

"I tell 'em, 'Walk in my shoes, walk in the shoes of the GIs that are standing at these checkpoints 12 hours a day, day in, day out. Walk through the markets and shops downtown, look at the smiles and listen to the clapping.'

"We had an Iraqi police unit go out the night before last and take out an enormous amount of weapons, 15 or 16 RPGs [rocket-propelled grenades], a bunch of AK-47s. When they took these guys outta there, the whole block was clapping and yelling support. Now that's what we're doing here."

Amen, brother.