The war in Iraq has become “a major debacle” and the outcome “is in doubt” despite improvements in security from the buildup in U.S. forces, according to a highly critical study published Thursday by the Pentagon’s premier military educational institute.

The report released by the National Defense University raises fresh doubts about President Bush’s projections of a U.S. victory in Iraq just a week after Bush announced that he was suspending U.S. troop reductions.

Much to everyone’s surprise, House Democrats simply wouldn’t budge when the Bush administration demanded that Congress pass a permanent “Protect America Act” — with retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies. The law expired, the president threw a fit, and lawmakers broke for a two-week spring recess.

Despite claims that congressional inaction was responsible for increased threats against Americans, and despite demands that the president would never accept a compromise on surveillance power and telecom immunity, the White House indicated recently that the Bush gang might be willing to chat with Democratic leaders after all.

Just a few days ago, The Hill reported that House Republicans, who had been shouting that the sky was falling as a result of the PAA’s expiration, have apparently decided to accept the status quo and turn their attention elsewhere.

House Republicans are poised to shift their focus from national security to the economy, hoping to rally opposition to what they claim are Democratic plans to raise taxes amid the economic downturn.

Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) is expected to announce Thursday that the House GOP floor emphasis will transition away from passing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and earmark reform to “stop the tax hike.”

Given this, it’s worth pausing to wonder if House Dems just won the FISA/immunity fight. Glenn Greenwald makes the case that Republicans failed on this one.

(Via ABC News.)

Retired Gen. Colin Powell insists he hasn’t yet decided who he’ll back in the 2008 presidential election.

“I’m looking at all three candidates,” Powell said in an exclusive interview with Diane Sawyer for Thursday’s “Good Morning America” on ABC. “I know them all very, very well. I consider myself a friend of each and every one of them. And I have not decided who I will vote for yet.”

Powell, who served as President Bush’s first secretary of state, is a Republican, but that apparently is not enough to sway him toward Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the GOP’s presumptive nominee.

McCain has staked much of his presidential prospects on the success of the surge strategy in Iraq, a subject of great debate in Washington this week as Gen. David Petraeus took his case to Capitol Hill.

“The United States Armed Forces are very, very stretched. It appears that after the surge is over, we’re going to go down to 140,000 troops in Iraq. That’s 10,000 more than we had before the surge,” Powell observed, reacting to the testimony Petraeus delivered over two days.

Full story ABC Newshere.

Technorati Tags: obama, powell

(Via ABC News.)

Retired Gen. Colin Powell insists he hasn’t yet decided who he’ll back in the 2008 presidential election.

“I’m looking at all three candidates,” Powell said in an exclusive interview with Diane Sawyer for Thursday’s “Good Morning America” on ABC. “I know them all very, very well. I consider myself a friend of each and every one of them. And I have not decided who I will vote for yet.”

Powell, who served as President Bush’s first secretary of state, is a Republican, but that apparently is not enough to sway him toward Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the GOP’s presumptive nominee.

McCain has staked much of his presidential prospects on the success of the surge strategy in Iraq, a subject of great debate in Washington this week as Gen. David Petraeus took his case to Capitol Hill.

“The United States Armed Forces are very, very stretched. It appears that after the surge is over, we’re going to go down to 140,000 troops in Iraq. That’s 10,000 more than we had before the surge,” Powell observed, reacting to the testimony Petraeus delivered over two days.

Full story ABC Newshere.

Technorati Tags: obama, powell

decade after al-Qaeda issued a global declaration of war against America, U.S. spy agencies have had little luck recruiting well-placed informants and are finding the upper reaches of the network tougher to penetrate than the Kremlin during the Cold War, according to U.S. and European intelligence officials.

Some counterterrorism officials say their agencies missed early opportunities to attack the network from within. Relying on Cold War tactics such as cash rewards for tips failed to take into account the religious motivations of Islamist radicals and produced few results.

Since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, officials said, al-Qaeda has tightened its internal security at the top, placing an even greater emphasis on personal and tribal loyalties to determine who can gain access to its leaders.

Alain Chouet, former chief of the security intelligence service of the DGSE, France’s foreign spy agency, said it can take years for informants to burrow their way into radical Islamist networks. Even if they’re successful at first, he said, new al-Qaeda members are often “highly disposable” — prime candidates for suicide missions.

He said it might be too late for Western intelligence agencies, having missed earlier chances, to redouble efforts to infiltrate the network. “I think you cannot penetrate such a movement now,” he said.

In the first insider account of Pentagon decision-making on Iraq, one of the key architects of the war blasts former secretary of state Colin Powell, the CIA, retired Gen. Tommy R. Franks and former Iraq occupation chief L. Paul Bremer for mishandling the run-up to the invasion and the subsequent occupation of the country.

Douglas J. Feith, in a massive score-settling work, portrays an intelligence community and a State Department that repeatedly undermined plans he developed as undersecretary of defense for policy and conspired to undercut President Bush’s policies.

White House Press Secretary Dana Perino was on “Fox & Friends” this morning and host Brian Kilmeade asked her when the last time she’d been asked about Iraq in the White House press briefing. Perino said, “I don’t remember having sustained questions on Iraq” and said she hadn’t had to respond to questioning on the Iraq war “probably since early December.” Wow. Go get ‘em, D.C. Press Corps! Kilmeade also asked her about John McCain’s “100 years” in Iraq comment, and asked about the planned long-term relationship; Perio sidestepped neatly by instead invoking America’s long-term relationships with Japan and Germany. She also noted that the White House was going to be requesting an additional $108 billion in Iraq War funding soon. Amazing what a lame duck prez can put on the agenda, ain’t it?

FLIGHT SCHOOL FIASCO: Homeland Security remains a mess.

The Bush administration yesterday advanced a new argument for why it does not require congressional approval to strike a long-term security agreement with Iraq, stating that Congress had already endorsed such an initiative through its 2002 resolution authorizing the use of force against Saddam Hussein.

The 2002 measure, along with the congressional resolution passed one week after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks authorizing military action “to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States,” permits indefinite combat operations in Iraq, according to a statement by the State Department’s Bureau of Legislative Affairs.