Blog post

News Summary August 18,2008
Posted by IAVA Staff on August 18 2008

Monday's News Iraq Masked gunmen ambushed a bus carrying electoral officials in southern Iraq on Monday, killing two and seriously wounding a third.  The scale of the use of contractors in Iraq is unprecedented in US history. More than three million Shiites marked the annual pilgrimage to Karbala amid tight security and attacks on the way to the holy city that killed dozens of people.  A series of bombings in this small but strategic northwestern Iraqi city is stoking fears of a return to sectarian conflict here and raising questions about a strategy of handing urban security to Iraqi police. Iraq needs around $400 billion over the next few years to rebuild its shattered infrastructure.  Iraq on Sunday said it reserves the right to put on trial six guards working for private security firm Blackwater USA for their alleged role in the killing of 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad.  Security developments in Iraq on Monday. Afghanistan The U.S.-backed Afghan government welcomed Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's resignation Monday.  Afghan authorities have deployed 7,000 police officers in Kabul to prevent attacks on ceremonies marking Afghanistan's Independence Day.  A suicide car bomb blew up Monday outside a US military base in eastern Afghanistan, killing nine civilian laborers, as the country marked Independence Day.  The top U.S. general in Afghanistan issued a rare public warning that militants are planning attacks during the country's Independence Day on Monday.  Other Military News Pfc. Vincent Hancock takes the Gold Medal for skeet shooting at the 2008 Olympics.  In the view of Jose Luis Nazario Jr., U.S. troops may begin to question whether they will be prosecuted by civilians for doing what their military superiors taught them to do in battle.  The idea that military retirees under age 65 should pay more for their Tricare benefits has become a familiar Pentagon refrain.  Hoping to avoid annual problems with veterans' health care budgets that are too late and too small, a coalition of nine veterans groups proposes a radical change in how Congress funds Department of Veterans Affairs medical programs. Washington VA Delivering Care "Outside the Box"  Defense Department officials notified Committee staff that Secretary Gates has agreed to comply with the Committee's subpoena and make Dr. Whitley available to testify. OpEds Two decades after al-Qaeda was founded in the Pakistani border city of Peshawar by Osama bin Laden and a handful of veterans of the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan, the group is more famous and feared than ever.