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IAVA Daily Brief 7.26.10
Posted by Blake Henderson on July 26

Here are some of today's top stories and happenings at IAVA.  Prefer to receive real-time updates about major stories and legislation that IAVA is tracking?  Follow us on Twitter @IAVAPressRoom or subscribe at www.IAVA.org/DailyNewsBrief.

NOTE: Please be advised the IAVA Daily News Brief will be on hiatus from Wednesday, July 28th through Friday, July 30th.

MUST READS

1) Taliban Captures 2 Americans Near Kabul
 
Taliban militants captured two American service members who were driving a civilian vehicle in a particularly dangerous region south of Kabul on Friday. The capture prompted a wide manhunt by the American military, including searches by military helicopters and radio broadcasts of a $20,000 reward for information leading to the Americans' return. The Taliban claims that one is dead - and are offering to return the body in exchange for insurgent prisoners.
 
2) Inside the Fog of War: Reports From the Ground in Afghanistan
 
Wikileaks, the organization that made headlines earlier this year after leaking classified video footage from Iraq, released a six-year archive of classified military documents chronicling the war in Afghanistan. The New York Times describes the the 92,000 documents are something of a "daily diary of an American-led force often starved for resources and attention as it struggled against an insurgency that grew larger, better coordinated and more deadly each year." The documents also assert that Pakistan's spy service has guided the Afghan insurgency with a hidden hand, even as Pakistan receives more than $1 billion a year from the U.S. for its help combating the militants. The White House has condemned the leaks.
 
3) Top Insurgents Escaped Prison Days After Iraq Took Over
 
Camp Cropper, the last jail in Iraq that had been under American control, was transferred to Iraqi control last week. Five days after the handover, four prisoners, high-ranking members in the nation's most violent insurgent group, escaped. The warden and several guards are nowhere to be found.
 
4) The War: A Trillion Can Be Cheap
 
The conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost Americans a staggering $1 trillion to date, second only in inflation-adjusted dollars to the $4 trillion price tag for World War II, when the United States put 16 million men and women into uniform and fought on three continents.
 
AFGHANISTAN

• President Hamid Karzai's former top intelligence official has begun to tour the country, claiming that Karzai has lost conviction in the fight against the Taliban and is pursuing a political deal with insurgents.
• A federal auditor criticized U.S. agencies in Afghanistan for building facilities there that are too complex and expensive for the Afghan government to maintain.
• Due to the devastating destruction of IEDs in Afghanistan, humvees have been all but sidelined outside the wire and replaced by heavier armored vehicles. However, they could soon find themselves in high demand once again, this time as mobile generators that power devices like radar and air conditioning units.
• Gen. David Petraeus is "seriously considering" rescinding the order that kicked off dozens of individual eateries and shops, including fast food restaurants, from U.S. bases in Afghanistan.

IRAQ

• Army Major General Stephen Lanza, director of strategic effects for U.S. Forces in Iraq, spoke with reporters last week and emphasized that troops are seeing a return on their investment as they prepare to drawdown after seven years of military operations in Iraq. 
• Iraq is again dangerously close to being banned from international football for alleged government meddling in the leadership of Iraqi Football Association.

MILITARY AFFAIRS

• The VA will formally allow patients treated at its hospitals and clinics to use medical marijuana in states where it is legal.
• An editorial discusses how with the suicide rates in the military rising exponentially, tens of thousands of reservists return home and fall through the cracks of the programs in place to diagnose and treat mental illness and to prevent suicide.
• Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top commander in Afghanistan until a controversial article in Rolling Stone magazine brought him down, retired Friday evening in a ceremony at Fort McNair. Over four hundred troops, family members, friends, and officials came to the retirement ceremony.

INSIDE WASHINGTON

• After years of hearings and debates about the "invisible wounds of war" - like TBI and PTSD - lawmakers met to focus on the visible wounds of war, such as amputated limbs and spinal cord injuries.  Tom Tarantino, IAVA Legislative Associate, testified on behalf of the organization.
• The Senate passed an emergency supplemental spending bill to fund the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the provisions of which include funding to address natural disasters and the economic and environmental impacts of the oil spill in the Gulf.

A wide-range of views, positions, and publications are represented in these articles. These views, positions and publications are not endorsed by nor do they necessarily represent the views of IAVA.

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