IAVA Daily Brief 05.21.09

IAVA Daily Brief 05.21.09
Posted by Michelle McCarthy [1] on May 21 [2]

 Here are some of today’s top stories and happenings at IAVA.

MUST READS

(1) 3 soldiers killed, 9 wounded in Baghdad attack [4]

Violence swept across Baghdad and Kirkuk Thursday claiming the lives of 3 American soldiers and wounding nine others.  U.S. military officials said the blast occurred in Baghdad’s southern Dora district while the Americans were on foot patrol near a popular outdoor market.  The attack comes a day after a car bombing northwest of Baghdad killed 41 people.

(2)  Army blasted for letting drug abusers slide [5]

According to a May 8^th memo obtained USA Today, the  U.S. Army’s vice chief of staff General Peter Chiarelli said hundreds of soldiers involved in "substance abuse-related misconduct (including multiple positive urinalyses)" were not processed for possible discharge and that many were not referred to the Army Substance Abuse Program for help.  Chiarelli warned that Army commanders are failing to punish or seek treatment for a growing number of soldiers with substance abuse, possibly because they don't want to lose any more combat troops.  "I am asking you to ensure that soldiers are provided the help that they need when they need it,"Chiarelli told commanders in the memo, "and that regulatory requirements regarding the referral and initiation of separation processing of substance abusers are enforced."

(3) Addition to war spending bill raises questions [6]

USA Today reports that the House Appropriations Committee has added $20 million to the supplemental war spending bill to bail out the National Intrepid Center of Excellence, a privately built brain injury treatment center for U.S. troops, after the facility's supporters gave almost $100,000 in campaign contributions to the panel's senior Republican.  Previously, backers of Intrepid Center said they would use only private donations to build the $60 million facility to treat and rehabilitate troops at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md.  However, the organization building the center, the non-profit Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund led by New York real estate developer and philanthropist Arnold Fisher, has reportedly failed to meet its fundraising goals due to the economic downturn.

(4) 1 in 7 Freed Detainees Rejoins Fight, Report Finds [7]

A yet to be released Pentagon report indicates that about one in seven of the 534 prisoners already transferred abroad from the Guantanamo Bay detention center has returned to terrorism or militant activity.  Administration officials have told the New York Times that the report is being held up by Defense Department employees fearful of upsetting the White House as it moves to close the facility.  Previously, administration officials have stated that the plan to relocate the 240 prisoners now at the facility includes a combination of sending some overseas for release, transferring others to the custody of foreign governments, and moving the rest to facilities in the United States.  Meanwhile, President Obama is scheduled to deliver a major address [8] on the issue Thursday in which he contends the Bush administration’s policies on detainees were an “ad hoc legal approach for fighting terrorism that was neither effective nor sustainable.” 

AFGHANISTAN

According to Afghan and Pakistani leaders, some members of the Taliban and other armed groups [9] battling the Afghan government are talking to intermediaries about a potential peace agreement, with initial demands focused on a timetable for a withdrawal of American troops.  So far, the discussions have produced no agreements, and the Obama administration says it is not involved and will remain uninvolved until the Taliban agree to lay down their arms.  Taliban leaders are denying negotiations, though reports suggest the Afghan and Pakistani officials have  been talking directly to the Taliban through Mullah Muhammad Omar as well as representatives of longtime warlords Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Sirajuddin Haqqani, who have a history of sending suicide bombers into Afghanistan from the tribal regions of neighboring Pakistan.

Negotiations aside, U.S. and Afghan officials said coalition forces killed nine suspected insurgents [10] in two separate clashes in Afghanistan on Thursday.  A day earlier, seven militants were killed in a firefight and airstrikes in Ghazni province during a mission to find a Taliban subcommander responsible for coordinating attacks in eastern Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Wednesday in testimony before the Senate Appropriations Committee that the U.S. is losing the media war in Afghanistan [11] and Pakistan.  Clinton noted that militants communication strategy, largely focused on broadcasting threats to the citizenry from radio equipment on the backs of pickup trucks, is proving more effective  that the U.S. strategy.  As a result, she said the Obama administration is revamping its communications strategy - looking at new ways to directly reach people in areas where militants are active - including on their cell phones. 

IRAQ

A suicide bomber [12] killed seven members of an anti-Qaeda militia and wounded four others as they gathered to collect their salaries in Kirkuk on Thursday.  The attack comes a day after a car bombing near a group of restaurants in a Shiite neighborhood northwest of Baghdad killed 41 people and injured more than 80. 

As U.S. troops begin to withdraw from some Iraqi cities ahead of a July deadline, Iraqi troops [13] are expressing concern they will be left with inadequate supplies and equipment to keep violence from flaring in some cities.  “If our performance level now is running at 80 percent, it will be around 50 percent when you leave,” Capt. Haleem Aweid told U.S. troops at a recent meeting in Hurriyah . “We need devices that can detect explosives. Our vehicles are breaking down fast. No army in the world can do its job without the equipment it needs, regardless of how good its soldiers are.”  In Hurriyah, where U.S. troops are scheduled to withdraw a month early on May 30^th, Aweid is pleading with officials to leave behind generators so his units can combat erratic power supplies.

In other news, a Spanish court [14] has reinstated charges against three U.S. soldiers in the death of a Spanish journalist covering the invasion of Iraq in 2003.  The court said Thursday it has obtained more testimony from witnesses of the incident in which Spanish cameraman Jose Couso and Reuters cameraman Taras Portsyuk were killed in April 2003 when a US tank fired a shell at a Baghdad hotel housing western journalists.

MILITARY AFFAIRS

After weeks of delay, wounded Iraq war veteran Major Tammy L. Duckworth [15] was officially sworn in Wednesday at a ceremony at Walter Reed as an assistant secretary at the Veterans Affairs Department. Duckworth, former Illinois Veterans Affairs chief, will oversee the Office of Public Affairs and Intergovernmental Communications. Duckworth lost both her legs and partial use of her arm in a rocket-propelled grenade attack in Iraq in 2004.

INSIDE WASHINGTON

Responding to Congressional backlash over faulty electrical wiring done by his company at U.S. bases in Iraq, William P. Utt [16], Chairman of Houston-based KBR, said Wednesday that electrical codes the company used in the buildings it maintained in the war zone "were known and thought to be acceptable" by the Army.  According to Utt, the company was not expected to meet the U.S. electrical code in a wartime environment but strive to meet the British electrical code, which was more in line with the Iraqi electrical system.  At a hearing Wednesday, Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) said evidence suggests KBR is responsible for the suspected electrocutions of 3 U.S. soldiers in Iraq and raised alarms about Pentagon oversight showing documents that indicate the DoD paid $83.4 million in bonuses to KBR for its electrical work in Iraq - much of it after the military's contract management agency recognized KBR was doing shoddy electrical work.