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WASHINGTON- A private security company sued by the families of four employees slain in Iraq, including one from Tennessee, suffered a setback Monday when the Supreme Court refused to intervene in the case.

Blackwater Security Consulting LLC has been trying unsuccessfully to have the wrongful death lawsuit against it transferred from the North Carolina state court system to the federal courts.

Now that the Supreme Court has declined to consider it, the families are entitled to a trial by jury in Raleigh, N.C., where the case remains, said attorney Daniel Callahan, an attorney for the estates of the four.

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BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. and Iraqi forces staged raids in Baghdad's main Shiite militant stronghold Tuesday as part of politically sensitive forays into areas loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

Troops have held back on broad sweeps through the teeming Sadr City slums since a major security operation began earlier this month, targeting militant factions and sectarian death squads that have ruled Baghdad's streets.

Al-Sadr withdrew his powerful Mahdi Army militia from checkpoints and bases under intense government pressure to let the neighbor-by-neighbor security sweeps move ahead. But Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and others have opposed extensive U.S.-led patrols through Sadr City, fearing a violent backlash could derail the security effort.

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WASHINGTON - Strained by the demands of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, there is a significant risk that the U.S. military won't be able to quickly and fully respond to yet another crisis, according to a new report to Congress.

The assessment, done by the nation's top military officer, Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, represents a worsening from a year ago, when that risk was rated as moderate.

The report is classified, but on Monday senior defense officials, speaking on condition on anonymity, confirmed the decline in overall military readiness. And a report that accompanied Pace's review concluded that while the Pentagon is working to improve its warfighting abilities, it "may take several years to reduce risk to acceptable levels."

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WASHINGTON - While held incommunicado for more than two years by the U.S. and Pakistan, accused jihadist Marwan Jabour claims he was beaten, burned with an iron, held naked for a month and chained to the wall of his cell so tightly that he could not stand up.

His rare account of the secret world of terror detentions - provided in a new report from Human Rights Watch - ended last summer when the United States flew him to Jordan from a secret detention facility that he believed to be in Afghanistan. By September, the Jordanians turned him over to the Israelis. Six weeks later, he was let go in the Gaza Strip, where the 30-year-old Palestinian had family.

U.S. counterterrorism officials would not confirm Jabour's account, but they say they still view Jabour as one of al-Qaida's most dangerous. One official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the information's sensitivity, said Jabour was in direct contact with al-Qaida's operational leaders, had ties to al-Qaida's chemical and biological programs and plotted to attack U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

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CHICAGO - Jared Perry was headed toward a college degree when a military call-up to Iraq interrupted his junior year.

"I figured my education would be set back," said Perry, who was part of the Illinois National Guard's 1544th Transportation Company. "After all, you can't be thousands of miles away in war and still go to school."

Then he found a way.

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WASHINGTON — Strained by the demands of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, there is a significant risk that the U.S. military won't be able to quickly and fully respond to yet another crisis, according to a new report to Congress.

The assessment, done by the nation's top military officer, Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, represents a worsening from a year ago, when that risk was rated as moderate.

The report is classified, but on Monday senior defense officials, speaking on condition on anonymity, confirmed the decline in overall military readiness. And a report that accompanied Pace's review concluded that while the Pentagon is working to improve its warfighting abilities, it "may take several years to reduce risk to acceptable levels."

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Revenue for Costa Mesa-based Ceradyne has soared as it battles to keep up with Pentagon orders for protective plating.

February 27, 2007

Joel Moskowitz, founder and chief executive of Ceradyne Inc., has filled his office with such corporate mementos as an original $1.25 stock certificate and the gold scissors that cut the ribbons to a new plant in Kentucky.

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WASHINGTON (AP) A private security company sued by the families of four employees slain in Iraq suffered a setback Monday when the Supreme Court refused to intervene in the case.

Blackwater Security Consulting LLC has been trying unsuccessfully to have the wrongful death lawsuit against it transferred from the North Carolina state court system to the federal courts.

Now that the Supreme Court has declined to consider it, the families are entitled to a trial by jury in Raleigh, N.C., where the case remains, said attorney Daniel Callahan, an attorney for the estates of the four.

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Cheney visited Afghanistan and Pakistan on Monday to discuss with officials there a planned spring offensive against the Taliban after the most violent year since the hard-line group was ousted in 2001.Monday, February 26, 2007

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KABUL (Reuters) - Vice President Dick Cheney visited Afghanistan and Pakistan on Monday to discuss with officials there a planned spring offensive against the Taliban after the most violent year since the hard-line group was ousted in 2001.

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Iran said it had "no brake and no reverse gear," prompting Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to say Tehran needed a "stop button" for a program the West fears is geared to producing nuclear arms.Monday, February 26, 2007

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LONDON (Reuters) - Western powers meet in London on Monday to discuss tightening U.N. sanctions on Iran amid a flurry of tough and sometimes colorful talk between Washington and Tehran over the Islamic Republic's nuclear program.

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Governors concerned about the demands the war in Iraq is placing on their National Guard forces met with a top Guard official Sunday and said they were closely monitoring deployment of their troops, worn-out equipment and how ready they would be for domestic emergencies.

Governors also hoped to convince Congress to reverse a step taken last year in response to Hurricane Katrina that gave the president greater power to deploy troops for problems at home, a power previously reserved for the states' top leaders.

Several governors met privately on Sunday with Lt. Gen. H. Steven Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau.

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WASHINGTON ? Many Iraq war soldiers, veterans and their families are not getting needed psychological help because a stressed military's mental health system is overwhelmed and understaffed, a task force of psychologists found.

The panel's 67-page report calls for the immediate strengthening of the military mental health system. It cites a 40 percent vacancy rate in active duty psychologists in the Army and Navy, resources diverted from family counselors and a weak transition for veterans leaving the military.

The findings were released Sunday by the American Psychological Association.

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If you live in a glass house you shouldn?t throw rocks. You can always tell a Republican, trouble is you can?t tell them much. The letter, "Dems prove their hypocrisy" proves my point. The Republican Party cannot operate without fear, hate, ignorance and prejudice.

The writer cites Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama more than likely forming the 2008 ticket for the gay rights party; what tree did he fall out of? He goes on to say that neither has a record of accomplishment to run on nor has solutions to our current problems, but can run only because of their last name.

Where do you reckon "W." would be if his last name was not Bush? I cannot think of a single accomplishment he had to his record when he ran and and was "selected." Nor can I think of one single accomplishment since; you cannot name one thing that he has done that he hasn?t made a mess out of.

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WASHINGTON -- Many Iraq war troops, veterans and their families aren't getting needed psychological help because the military's mental health system is overwhelmed and understaffed, according to a report released Sunday by the American Psychological Association.

The report, by a task force of psychologists, calls for the immediate strengthening of the military mental health system. It cites a 40% vacancy rate in active duty psychologists in the Army and Navy, resources diverted from family counselors and a weak transition for veterans leaving the military.

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A task force of the nation's largest group of mental health professionals warns that the U.S. military is not fully addressing the needs of troops and family members traumatized by war.

In a report issued Sunday, the American Psychological Association task force said families are particularly at risk. It noted that 700,000 children have had a parent sent overseas since Sept. 11, 2001, and estimated that 2,733 children have lost a parent killed in Iraq or Afghanistan.

"Many service personnel and their family members are going without mental health care because of the limited availability of such care and the barriers to accessing care," a news release accompanying the study said.

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WASHINGTON -- The moldy walls and leaking ceilings in Walter Reed Army Medical Center's Building 18 are being repaired, and officials say the tangled evaluation process that determines whether troops who have suffered war wounds can return to duty will be streamlined.

But the reassuring words from Lt. Gen. Kevin Kiley, the Army surgeon general, didn't do much to lessen the Army's initial embarrassment over published reports about recovering vets who live in substandard conditions and face long delays dealing with pay, benefits and evaluations.

Kiley on Thursday called recent reports in The Washington Post "one-sided" but acknowledged the problems, emphatically underlined last week by Gen. Richard Cody, the Army's chief of staff.

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As six world powers prepared for a meeting Monday to respond to Tehran's defiant nuclear enrichment activities, the Iranian president remained undeterred Sunday, saying the nuclear program had no reverse gear.

That comment, by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, drew a simple retort from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who said: "They don't need a reverse gear. They need a stop button."

Rice emphasized that she remained personally ready for high-level talks--anytime, anywhere, on any topic--if Tehran would simply halt its nuclear work.

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ATHENS, Greece The latest international row over oil is just one more episode in the black stuff's long and continuing entanglement with power politics.

The internationally recognized Greek Cypriot-ruled Cyprus Republic, a European Union member, is taking bids from multinational energy firms to drill for oil and natural gas offshore. Large, though still unproven reserves, are believed to be at stake.

Turkey and its dependent "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus" (which is recognized only by Ankara since invading Turkish troops created it in 1974) object. They insist that both the Nicosia Cypriot regime and its ally, the Greek government in Athens, should desist until final settlement of the 33-year-old partition of Cyprus. The Turkish side insists it will drill in the same locations, and even implies possible military backup for its own efforts.

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Americans are very good at addressing symptoms rather than problems.

Installing cameras at intersections is addressing the symptom. The problem is, people are running red lights because the traffic signals are obnoxious. To begin with, the lights aren't synchronized. This is a fairly expensive problem to address, but if just the major streets had synchronized signals it would alleviate a lot of the problem. Garden Street, for example desperately needs synchronized lights.

Secondly, almost every intersection has left-turn arrows whether they are needed or not. When there is a left-turn arrow you get a green light somewhat less than half of the cycle, sometimes as little as a quarter of the cycle. This means you are going to catch a red light more often than not and in heavy traffic conditions you will catch three red lights for every green one.

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The soldiers who play the enemy at the Army?s two big combat training centers have a reputation for inflicting heavy losses on their home turf.

At Fort Irwin, Calif., and Fort Polk, La., they stand in as Iraqi insurgents and al-Qaida and Taliban fighters, and they dish out lumps to units coming through for exercises.

The opposing force ? ?opfor,? in Army-speak ? is pretty tough on the road, too. Soldiers at Fort Lewis learned that this month while preparing for an early deployment to Iraq on a shortened training schedule.

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Many Iraq war soldiers, veterans and their families are not getting needed psychological help because a stressed military's mental health system is overwhelmed and understaffed, a task force of psychologists found.

The panel's 67-page report calls for the immediate strengthening of the military mental health system. It cites a 40 percent vacancy rate in active duty psychologists in the Army and Navy, resources diverted from family counselors and a weak transition for veterans leaving the military.

The findings were released Sunday by the American Psychological Association.

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WASHINGTON A new report says many Iraq war soldiers, veterans and their families aren't getting needed psychological help because the military's mental health system is overwhelmed and understaffed.The report from a task force of psychologists calls for the immediate strengthening of the stressed system.The panel says there's no evidence of a "well-coordinated or well-disseminated approach to providing behavioral health care to service members and their families."The task force says "relatively ...

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WASHINGTON (AP) Governors concerned about the demands the war in Iraq is placing on their National Guard forces met with a top Guard official Sunday and said they were closely monitoring deployment of their troops, worn-out equipment and how ready they would be for domestic emergencies.

Governors also hoped to convince Congress to reverse a step taken last year in response to Hurricane Katrina that gave the president greater power to deploy troops for problems at home, a power previously reserved for the states' top leaders.

Several governors met privately on Sunday with Lt. Gen. H. Steven Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau.

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What began as misgivings about Iraq by a dovecote of military officers, mostly retired, has expanded now -- with the Democratic takeover -- into a full-blown revolt of the generals in Congress.

New leadership at Defense and Central Command has failed to satisfy these congressional generals. Smelling blood, they want the neck of the commander-in-chief himself, whom they have bludgeoned relentlessly since his 2000 election.

On Iraq, most voted to support the U.S. going in. Now most say it was all a mistake. Many wanted different strategies and more troops. Now many oppose more troops, sanctimoniously contending that neither new troops inserted between the warring factions nor new strategies will work. The congressional generals in effect have joined Cindy Sheehan and Jane Fonda at the barricades. Nothing will satisfy but to declare defeat and bring the boys and girls home ahead of the advancing jihadists.

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WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the U.S. would hold direct talks with Iran if Tehran suspended its nuclear program. Iran's president, however, pledged to move ahead with enrichment activity that Washington contends masks weapons development.

"I am prepared to meet my counterpart or an Iranian representative at any time if Iran will suspend its enrichment and reprocessing activities. That should be a clear signal," Rice said in Washington.

Earlier Sunday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad comparing his nation's nuclear drive to a train without a reverse gear or brakes. "We dismantled the rear gear and brakes of the train and threw them away sometime ago," he was quoted on the radio as telling Islamic clerics.

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Doris Turner remembers attending the Oscars numerous times, in the days when Hollywood glamour meant elbow-length gloves, hair piled to the sky, and acres of silk and chiffon.

Dressed to the nines in a gown borrowed from famed designer Edith Head, Turner was there the night that Mike Todd?s ?Around the World in Eighty Days? beat out Cecil B. DeMille?s ?The Ten Commandments? for Best Picture, and she still has the official program from the evening.

Turner, who?s 81 now, lives in Greenville with her daughter, Kim. But during the 1950s and ?60s, she had a front-row seat to the inner workings of Hollywood. For eight years, Turner worked as a secretary to acclaimed director DeMille.

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FORT HOOD ? Anyone interested in learning what Fort Carson, Colo., and its surrounding communities have to offer is invited to attend an event this week bringing together dozens of agencies from the area.

The Mountain Post Welcome II is scheduled for 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday and from 6 to 9 p.m. Tuesday at the Phantom Warrior Center.

Representatives from half a dozen chambers of commerce, city and county officials, real estate and housing organizations, school districts, medical care and community services from the greater Colorado Springs area are scheduled to attend, according to a flier about the event.

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BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) ? A suicide bomber struck Sunday outside a college campus in Baghdad, killing at least 38 people and injuring dozens as a string of other blasts and rocket attacks left bloodshed around the city.

Most of the victims were students at the college, a business studies annex of Mustansiriyah University that was hit by a series of deadly explosions last month. At least 44 people were injured in Sunday's blast.

The wave of attacks around Baghdad came a day after Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki lauded the progress of an ongoing U.S.-Iraqi security operation seeking to cripple militant factions and sectarian killings in the capital.

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BAGHDAD, Iraq ? A suicide bomber struck Sunday outside a college campus in Baghdad, killing at least 22 people and injuring dozens as a string of other blasts and rocket attacks left bloodshed around the city.

Most of the victims near the College of Business Administration and Economics were students, police said. At least 31 people were injured.

The wave of attacks came a day after Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki praised the progress of an ongoing U.S.-Iraqi security operation seeking to cripple militant factions and sectarian killings in the capital.

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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - Vice President Dick Cheney landed in the U.S.-allied Arab monarchy of Oman on Sunday and went directly to talks with its foreign minister, Omani government officials said.

A U.S. embassy spokesman in Oman declined to detail Cheney's plans or the focus of his visit to the sparsely populated oil-producing state, which allows the United States use of four air bases. But an Omani government official said Cheney was to discuss regional security issues, including the U.S. standoff with Iran over its nuclear program. The official, in the capital Muscat, spoke on condition of anonymity because he was unauthorized to speak to the press.

Oman sits across the strategically important Strait of Hormuz from Iran, through which two-fifths of the world's oil passes.

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WASHINGTON - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the U.S. would hold direct talks with Iran if Tehran suspended its nuclear program. Iran's president, however, pledged to move ahead with enrichment activity that Washington contends masks weapons development.

"I am prepared to meet my counterpart or an Iranian representative at any time if Iran will suspend its enrichment and reprocessing activities. That should be a clear signal," Rice said in Washington.

Earlier Sunday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad comparing his nation's nuclear drive to a train without a reverse gear or brakes. "We dismantled the rear gear and brakes of the train and threw them away sometime ago," he was quoted on the radio as telling Islamic clerics.

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WASHINGTON - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged the Democratic-controlled Congress not to interfere in the conduct of the Iraq war and suggested President Bush would defy troop withdrawal legislation.

But Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said lawmakers would step up efforts to force Bush to change course. "The president needs a check and a balance," said Levin, D-Mich.

Rice said proposals being drafted by Senate Democrats to limit the war amounted to "the worst of micromanagement of military affairs." She said military leaders such as Gen. David Petraeus, the new U.S. commander in Iraq, believe the president's plan to send more troops is necessary.

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BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- A suicide bomber struck Sunday outside a college campus in Baghdad, killing at least 31 people and injuring dozens as a string of other blasts and rocket attacks left bloodshed around the city. Most of the victims near the College of Business Administration and Economics were students, police said. At least 42 people were injured. The wave of attacks came a day after Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki praised the progress of an ongoing U.S.-Iraqi security operation seeking ...

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BAGHDAD, Iraq - The killers started early. Just after sunrise, they tracked the imam to his modest brick mosque, where he was praying on a green carpet. Three masked gunmen muscled past a handful of worshippers and pumped four bullets into the chest of Sheik Adbul Rahman Jawhar al-Karbouli.

His murder Feb. 16 in a village near the Syrian border was barely noticed in Iraq's daily body count. But - like a vivid footnote in a dry collection of statistics - it helps bring the violence among Iraqi into sharper focus.

To much of the world, the meltdown in Iraq is a two-act spectacle: insurgents versus U.S.-led forces and Iraqi allies, and the sectarian bloodletting between Sunni Muslims and the majority Shiites. Yet out in the desert of the western Anbar province there is another story - told one attack at a time - of an internal struggle among Sunnis, between militant factions and those who have stood up against them.

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BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- A suicide bomber struck Sunday outside a college campus in Baghdad, killing at least 22 people and injuring dozens as a string of other blasts and rocket attacks left bloodshed around the city. Most of the victims near the College of Business Administration and Economics were students, police said. At least 31 people were injured. The wave of attacks came a day after Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki praised the progress of an ongoing U.S.-Iraqi security operation seeking ...

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BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) Two rockets slammed into a Shiite enclave in southern Baghdad on Sunday, killing at least 10 people, and two people died in an explosion near the heavily protected Green Zone, police said.

The attacks came following an exchange of artillery and mortar fire between U.S. troops and suspected Sunni insurgents south of the capital - where a major security operation launched earlier this month has tried to cripple militant factions and sectarian killings.

The Katyusha rockets hit Abu Dishir, a Shiite area surrounded Sunni neighborhood, during the busy morning shopping hours.

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The motive for the attack was not immediately clear. But it carried the hallmarks of an increasingly bloody struggle for control of Anbar province - a hotbed of anti-U.S. guerrillas since the uprising in Fallujah in 2004 that galvanized the insurgency.

U.S. military envoys and pro-government leaders have worked hard to sway clan chiefs and other influential Anbar figures to turn against the militants, who include foreign jihadists fighting under the banner of al-Qaida in Iraq. The extremists have fought back with targeted killings and bombings against fellow Sunnis.

The blast in Habbaniyah - in the heart of insurgent territory about 50 miles west of Baghdad - was among the deadliest against civilians in Anbar.

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The motive for the attack was not immediately clear. But it carried the hallmarks of an increasingly bloody struggle for control of Anbar province ? a hotbed of anti-U.S. guerrillas since the uprising in Fallujah in 2004 that galvanized the insurgency.

U.S. military envoys and pro-government leaders have worked hard to sway clan chiefs and other influential Anbar figures to turn against the militants, who include foreign jihadists fighting under the banner of al-Qaida in Iraq. The extremists have fought back with targeted killings and bombings against fellow Sunnis.

The blast in Habbaniyah ? in the heart of insurgent territory about 50 miles west of Baghdad ? was among the deadliest against civilians in Anbar.

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UNDATED Nearly 800 civilian contractors to the Pentagon have been killed in Iraq.The total includes at least four men from Michigan.That's according to figures gathered by The Associated Press. More than 33-hundred have been hurt doing jobs normally handled by the U-S military.A retired Air Force reservist says the figures show "another unseen expense of the war." His brother-in-law was killed while driving a truck in Iraq, a death he says doesn't get the publicity or respect it deserves.The Pen...

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In a largely invisible cost of the war in Iraq, nearly 800 civilians working under contract to the Pentagon have been killed and more than 3,300 hurt doing jobs normally handled by the U.S. military, according to figures gathered by The Associated Press.

Exactly how many of these employees doing the Pentagon's work are Americans is uncertain. But the casualty figures make it clear that the Defense Department's count of more than 3,100 U.S. military dead does not tell the whole story.

"It's another unseen expense of the war," said Thomas Houle, a retired Air Force reservist whose brother-in-law died while driving a truck in Iraq. "It's almost disrespectful that it doesn't get the kind of publicity or respect that a soldier would."

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WASHINGTON ? Brushing aside criticism from the White House, Senate Democrats said Friday their next challenge to President Bush's Iraq war policy would require the gradual withdrawal of U.S. combat troops beginning within 120 days.

The draft legislation also declares the war "requires principally a political solution" rather than a military one.

The provisions are included in a measure that would repeal the authority that lawmakers gave Bush in 2002, months before the invasion of Iraq, and replace it with a far more limited mission.

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WASHINGTON -- If Iraq-style bombs started blowing up in the United States, would the federal government be ready to deal with it?

Members of President George W. Bush's Cabinet will find out during a drill Saturday. They'll be conducting a national disaster drill to test the government's readiness if several improvised explosive devices were detonated across the nation.

The scenario involves those infamous IEDs being set off in several locations around the country. The White House stresses it's only an exercise and not based on any actual threat.

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Despite the Bush administration's insistence it has no plans to go to war with Iran, a Pentagon panel has been created to plan a bombing attack that could be implemented within 24 hours of getting the go-ahead from President George W. Bush, The New Yorker magazine reported in its latest issue.

The special planning group was established within the office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in recent months, according to an unidentified former U.S. intelligence official cited in the article by investigative reporter Seymour Hersh in the March 4 issue.

The panel initially focused on destroying Iran's nuclear facilities and on regime change but has more recently been directed to identify targets in Iran that may be involved in supplying or aiding militants in Iraq, according to an Air Force adviser and a Pentagon consultant, who were not identified.

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CARACAS, Venezuela, Feb. 24 ? Venezuela?s arms spending has climbed to more than $4 billion in the past two years, transforming the nation into Latin America?s largest weapons buyer and placing it ahead of other major purchasers in international arms markets like Pakistan and Iran.

Venezuelan military and government officials here say the arms acquisitions, which include dozens of fighter jets and attack helicopters and 100,000 Kalashnikov assault rifles, are needed to circumvent a ban by the United States on sales of American weapons to the country.

They also argue that Venezuela must strengthen its defenses to counter potential military aggression from the United States.

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ST. LOUIS - Richard Perle has been among the most influential defense and national security figures in Washington. Chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board early in the Bush administration, he was assistant secretary of defense for international security policy in the Reagan administration and is now with the American Enterprise Institute. He strongly supported the decision to attack Iraq four years ago.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch Washington Bureau reporter Philip Dine spoke with him recently about the war.

QUESTION: Some say the administration has made major strategic errors in prosecuting the war in Iraq. Do you agree?

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WASHINGTON - Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Friday that those found to have been responsible for allowing substandard living conditions for soldier outpatients at Walter Reed Army Medical Center will be "held accountable."

However, no one in the Army chain of command has so far offered to resign.

Gates spoke to reporters after visiting the medical compound, whose reputation as a premier caregiver for soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan has taken a hit following a Washington Post series of reports last weekend that documented problems in soldiers' housing and in the medical bureaucracy at Walter Reed.

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The motive for the attack was not immediately clear. But it carried the hallmarks of an increasingly bloody struggle for control of Anbar province - a hotbed of anti-U.S. guerrillas since the uprising in Fallujah in 2004 that galvanized the insurgency.

U.S. military envoys and pro-government leaders have worked hard to sway clan chiefs and other influential Anbar figures to turn against the militants, who include foreign jihadists fighting under the banner of al-Qaida in Iraq. The extremists have fought back with targeted killings and bombings against fellow Sunnis.

The blast in Habbaniyah - in the heart of insurgent territory about 50 miles west of Baghdad - was among the deadliest against civilians in Anbar.

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WASHINGTON - Lockheed Martin Corp. and Boeing Co. will vie this spring for a multibillion-dollar contract to supply the Air Force with up to 32 next-generation global positioning satellites.

The Air Force will replace 24 satellites in orbit with a new system, dubbed Global Positioning System III, that is intended to improve navigation by air, land and sea, and be more difficult for enemies of the U.S. military to disable. Both Lockheed and Boeing already supply the Air Force with satellites in use.

The Pentagon is expected to seek bids for the first phase of the contract in mid-to-late March and announce a single winning team by late August, Candrea Thomas, a spokeswoman for the Air Force's Los Angeles-based Space and Missile Systems Center, said Friday.

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The motive for the attack was not immediately clear. But it carried the hallmarks of an increasingly bloody struggle for control of Anbar province — a hotbed of anti-U.S. guerrillas since the uprising in Fallujah in 2004 that galvanized the insurgency.

U.S. military envoys and pro-government leaders have worked hard to sway clan chiefs and other influential Anbar figures to turn against the militants, who include foreign jihadists fighting under the banner of al-Qaida in Iraq. The extremists have fought back with targeted killings and bombings against fellow Sunnis.

The blast in Habbaniyah — in the heart of insurgent territory about 50 miles west of Baghdad — was among the deadliest against civilians in Anbar.

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WASHINGTON If Iraq-style bombs started blowing up in the U-S, would the federal government be ready to deal with it?Members of President Bush's Cabinet will find out during a drill today. The scenario involves improvised explosive devices -- those infamous I-E-Ds -- being set off in several locations around the country. The White House stresses it's only an exercise and not based on any actual threat.The president himself won't be taking part in the drill. But the exercise will include represent...

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In a largely invisible cost of the war in Iraq, nearly 800 civilians working under contract to the Pentagon have been killed and more than 3,300 hurt doing jobs normally handled by the U.S. military, according to figures gathered by The Associated Press.

Exactly how many of these employees doing the Pentagon's work are Americans is uncertain. But the casualty figures make it clear that the Defense Department's count of more than 3,100 U.S. military dead does not tell the whole story.

"It's another unseen expense of the war," said Thomas Houle, a retired Air Force reservist whose brother-in-law died while driving a truck in Iraq. "It's almost disrespectful that it doesn't get the kind of publicity or respect that a soldier would."

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WASHINGTON - Brushing aside criticism from the White House, Senate Democrats said Friday their next challenge to President Bush's Iraq war policy would require the gradual withdrawal of U.S. combat troops beginning within 120 days.

The draft legislation also declares the war "requires principally a political solution" rather than a military one.

The provisions are included in a measure that would repeal the authority that lawmakers gave Bush in 2002, months before the invasion of Iraq, and replace it with a far more limited mission.

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