6 March 2009

Early Bird summary
Friday’s Early Bird leads with a piece from Agence France Press reporting that US and Canadian defense chiefs on Thursday discussed a new strategy for the war in Afghanistan days after Canada's prime minister warned the insurgency could not be defeated through military force.US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said a strategy review ordered by President Barack Obama was still underway and that he had sought the advice of his Canadian counterpart, Peter MacKay.
The New York Times reports, and the Washington Post as well, that the Obama administration has proposed a major conference on Afghanistan this month that would include Iran among the invited countries, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Thursday.“We presented the idea of what is being called a big-tent meeting, with all the parties who have a stake and an interest in Afghanistan,” she said at a news conference here after a meeting of NATO foreign ministers. “If we move forward with such a meeting, it is expected that Iran would be invited, as a neighbor of Afghanistan.”Prodded by the United States, NATO’s 26 members also agreed to resume high-level relations with Russia, which were suspended in August after the war between Russia and Georgia.
The Guardian (UK) reports that a highly critical analysis of the US-led coalition's counterinsurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan has raised serious questions about combat operations in both countries - and the intelligence underpinning them.The confidential document presents a bleak picture of a counterinsurgency effort undermined by intelligence failures that at times border on the absurd.Based on scores of interviews with British, US, Canadian and Dutch military, intelligence and diplomatic officials - and marked for "official use only" - the book-length report is damning of a US military often unwilling to share intelligence among its military allies. It depicts commanders in the field being overwhelmed by information on hundreds of contradictory databases, and sometimes resistant to intelligence generated by its own agents in the CIA.
The U.S. military is laboring to shore up a vulnerable supply chain through Pakistan and Central Asia as it seeks to expand the flow of supplies into Afghanistan by at least 50 percent to support an influx of tens of thousands of troops, according to defense officials and experts, according to the Washington Post.One new link is now undergoing testing with the first shipment of U.S. military nonlethal cargo through Russia, officials said. That cargo has already crossed into Kazakhstan on its way to Afghanistan, according to the Russian news agency Interfax.
The government of Kyrgyzstan is showing signs of waffling on its decision last month to close a U.S. air base that is a major supply hub for troops in Afghanistan, the Wall Street Journal says.The mixed signals come as Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev is coming under heightened pressure from domestic allies over the decision to close the base. While Russia has promised a $2.15 billion aid package to his government, people close to Mr. Bakiyev wonder whether Kyrgyzstan will ever see much of the money.
The Christian Science Monitor reports that, as President Barack Obama announces plans to withdraw US troops from Iraq, thousands of young Ugandans are increasingly desperate to be sent to the war-torn country. Already, the Ugandan government says there are more than 10,000 men and women from this poverty-stricken East African nation working as private security guards in Iraq. Hired out to multibillion-dollar companies for hundreds of dollars a month, they risk their lives seeking fortunes protecting US Army bases, airports, and oil firms.The war in Iraq is the most privatized conflict in history. Since the invasion in 2003, the US Department of Defense has doled out contracts worth an estimated $100 billion to private firms. Covering a vast range of services from catering to dry cleaning to security, one in every five dollars the US spends in Iraq ends up in the pockets of the contractors, according to a report by the Congressional Budget Office. Increasingly these jobs have been outsourced to developing countries.
The House Armed Services Committee has created a seven-member bipartisan panel to take a stab at reforming the Pentagon's weapons-buying process, Rep. John McHugh, the committee's top Republican, said in an interview Thursday, according to National Journal’s Congress Daily publication.Problems with defense weapons development and procurement contracts have been receiving top-level attention, most recently from President Obama, who announced Wednesday that he wants to change the way the government -- the Defense Department and military services, in particular -- does business to save as much as $40 billion annually.
The New York Times reports that as the Taliban and the Pakistani Army signed a truce last month in Swat, the once popular tourist area just an hour north of the capital. But far from establishing peace, the pact seems to have allowed the Taliban free rein to expand their harsh religious rule.Just days after the truce was signed, a member of a prominent anti-Taliban family returned to his mountain village, having received assurances from the government that it was safe. He was promptly kidnapped by the Taliban, tortured and murdered.
The United States should extend its nuclear umbrella to its Middle East allies and offer enriched civilian-use uranium to Iran and other countries in the region to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, two respected former presidential national-security advisors told senators Thursday, according to the Miami Herald.Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Zbigniew Brzezinski, who advised President Jimmy Carter, and Brent Scowcroft, an advisor to President George H.W. Bush, offered an outline of what they thought President Barack Obama's approach to Iran should be.
The Obama administration is reviewing whether to revive support for a U.S.-Russia nuclear-cooperation agreement that former President George W. Bush pulled last year after Moscow's troops entered Georgia, according to senior U.S. officials, the Wall Street Journal reports.The rethink of the nuclear pact, these officials said, is part of a broader U.S. review of Russia policy under President Barack Obama, which includes seeking ways to better cooperate with Moscow on arms control, counterterrorism and missile defense.The U.S. review coincides with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's decision Thursday to re-establish ministerial engagement with Moscow through the NATO-Russia Council. High-level NATO contacts with Russia were frozen following Moscow's move in August to send troops into Georgia in a dispute over the territory of South Ossetia.
The Washington Times reports that North Korea threatened South Korean passenger planes flying near its airspace on Thursday and accused the U.S. and South Korea of attempting to provoke a nuclear war with upcoming joint military exercises.In response, South Korea's airliners, Korean Air and Asiana, rerouted their flights to stay clear of North Korean airspace, the Yonhap news agency reported.The threat from North Korea's Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland comes four days before annual U.S.-South Korean exercises are to begin across South Korea and amid concerns the North is preparing to test-fire a long-range ballistic missile.
The defense contractor building a fleet of new presidential helicopters has privately advised the Pentagon that its total cost has gone up by at least $1.8 billion in the past year to $13 billion, several government officials said. The development makes the embattled program less likely to be completed, according to the Washington Post.President Obama last month ordered a Pentagon review of the program, which was already under scrutiny because of last year's estimate that the cost had risen from $6 billion to $11.2 billion. Lockheed Martin's new estimate was passed along to lawmakers by the Navy, the officials said.



Media summary
1. Leading newspaper headlines: The Washington Post and New York Times lead with the continuing pains in the stock markets. (Slate Magazine)
2. Official release by 22nd MEU regarding bus crash: Thirteen Marines from the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit were injured in a vehicle accident (Thursday) morning involving three civilian-contracted tour buses that were transporting the Marines from Camp Lejeune, N.C. to Norfolk, Va. (WCNT, North Carolina)
3. Ideas as Weapons: Click the link highlighted in this sentence to hear an interview from Federal Radio News about the book “Ideas as Weapons,” a book which includes a piece authored by Col. Eric Walters, MARFORCOM G-2.
Leading newspaper headlines
The Washington Post and New York Times lead with the continuing pains in the stock markets. The WP has a two-story lead, one looking at the general dismal state of the economy and another that examines how some of the country's largest companies have plunged in value, which is also the focus of the NYT's lead. The White House has been trying to sound optimistic on the economy this week, but it doesn't seem to be working. Markets around the world were down yesterday, and the Dow Jones industrial average plunged another 4 percent. The Dow has now fallen 25 percent this year, compared with 33 percent for the whole of 2008. More bad news is expected today, as the Labor Department will release February's unemployment numbers, which will almost certainly mark an increase from the 7.6 percent jobless level in January.
USA Today leads with a look at how more than half of the foreclosures last year were in 35 counties. More than 1.5 million foreclosures took place in these 35 counties that are spread out across 12 states, suggesting that the ongoing crisis "may have begun with collapsing home loans in only a few corners of the country," notes the paper. The Wall Street Journal leads its world-wide newsbox with the White House Forum on Health Reform, where President Obama vowed to make a major push to overhaul the nation's health care system this year. The president insisted he is open to compromise on the issue but emphasized that the focus should be on bringing down health care costs. The Los Angeles Times leads with the California Supreme Court making it pretty clear that it won't overturn Proposition 8, the measure that took away the right of gay men and lesbians to marry in the state. But the court is likely to rule that marriages performed before Proposition 8 was approved will remain valid. Even advocates of gay marriage, who hoped the court would rule that the measure amounted to an impermissible constitutional revision, seemed to acknowledge that they will be defeated.
The huge companies that were once considered safe investments and the foundation of the American economy are suffering, and their decline has come at a break-neck speed. "Blue-chip companies," notes the NYT, "are akin to penny stocks." It's gotten so bad that the New York Stock Exchange has suspended its rule that all listed companies must have a minimum share price of $1. The comparisons are incredible. You can now buy a share of General Motors stock for less than a gallon of gas and a share of Citigroup—worth $55.12 less than two years ago—for about half of what you'd pay to use an ATM. "The rout highlighted the apathy and pessimism that have seeped into all corners of the market as the global economic downturn deepens," declares the NYT.
The WP points out that the main reasons that people once saw these large companies as safe have actually sped up their demise. These companies had become reliant on providing their own financing to customers and are highly exposed to global markets. This diversification was once seen as a good way to minimize risk, but they're now suffering through the effects of a global downturn.
There are growing concerns that the economy still has a long way to fall before it stabilizes, mainly due to the continuing job losses. "Ninety-nine percent of the people I talk to are pessimistic," an analyst tells the NYT. "Everyone is sitting back and waiting for one more big implosion." There was a tiny bit of good news from retailers, which reported slightly better numbers in February than in January, but that was largely thanks to Wal-Mart's 5.1 percent increase in sales, its best performance in nine months. In a front-page piece, the WSJ says there is cautious optimism among some retailers that their losses are beginning to stabilize. No one is ready to declare that things have turned around, but "it seems that we are starting to see less negative trends," as one retail analyst put it. The WP isn't as optimistic and says that some analysts believe there might be "an even sharper contraction this quarter."
The WSJ goes high with word that top executives at General Motors are beginning to become more open to the idea of going through government-financed bankruptcy reorganization. Of course, the company still hopes to avoid that fate, but it seems executives are not as concerned as they once were that bankruptcy would immediately mark a death sentence for the auto giant. In news that everyone covers, GM's auditor declared yesterday that there is "substantial doubt" the company can survive without more federal help. The WSJ says that after conducting lots of research, GM's executives now seem to believe that they could successfully re-emerge from what is known as a prepackaged bankruptcy, a normally quick affair because all the parties agree to concessions in advance. "We'd have 60 days of havoc and chaos, but the view is ... we would be able to manage it," said the paper's source.
The WP fronts a look at how the government will try to thaw the frozen consumer-credit markets by joining forces with hedge funds and private-equity firms, the very same organizations "that most benefited from the bonanza preceding the collapse." These outfits would be offered the chance to buy up highly rated securities that finance consumer lending. The government could lend nearly $1 trillion to investors and calls this strategy a "public-private partnership," and the private part of the equation seems to be more than willing to participate. And why wouldn't they? After all, they get to keep the profits and would be responsible for only a fraction of any losses. This strategy could be used as a model for future efforts to rescue the credit markets, but "there is vigorous debate … over how the program should evolve and at what speed." Warning: Don't confuse this with a separate program that would seek to clear toxic assets from banks' balance sheets. That program, which the WSJ outlined a few days ago, will be announced in a couple of weeks and is expected to follow a similar structure.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg tells USAT that she isn't going anywhere anytime soon and expects to be on the Supreme Court for several more years. Ginsburg, who will be 76 in a few days, underwent surgery for pancreatic cancer last month. But she seems to be "in fine form" and has now resumed her usual schedule.
In a story that will surely send a chill down the spine of any experienced journalist worried about layoffs (i.e., pretty much all of them), the LAT takes a look at Lois Draegin, a former editor at TV Guide who used to earn a six-figure salary but is now an unpaid intern at wowOwow.com. Draegin is using the opportunity to learn Web skills from her 24-year-old mentor.
The NYT's Paul Krugman declares that the plan to create a market for toxic assets "isn't going to fly." The latest version of the plan would increase the price of these assets, but that's simply because "it would offer a heads-you-win, tails-we-lose proposition." Even so, it won't actually revive the nation's financial system. It seems administration officials "still aren't willing to face the facts." The White House is reluctant to admit the extent of the problem "because it's very hard to rescue an essentially insolvent bank without, at least temporarily, taking it over," writes Krugman. "And temporary nationalization is still, apparently, considered unthinkable."
In the LAT's op-ed page, Joe Queenan notes that every time the stock markets have plunged during the crisis, financial advisers have said that people shouldn't panic and warned against selling. "The best buying opportunity in years is now 14 months old," writes Queenan, who says he started panicking when the Dow was at 9,500. "I realize that I have come late to the panic mode, but as my father always said: No matter how bad you have been burned, it is never too late to try dousing yourself with water." And even as stocks keep getting lower, the advice that this is now a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to buy cheap stocks persists. "There is a time for hysteria, and a time when cooler heads should prevail," Queenan writes. "This is the time for hysteria."





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Official release by 22nd MEU regarding bus crash
22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit 5 March 2009 Release #07-09 For Immediate Release MARINE CORPS BASE, CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. – Thirteen Marines from the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit were injured in a vehicle accident this morning involving three civilian-contracted tour buses that were transporting the Marines from Camp Lejeune, N.C. to Norfolk, Va.
The accident occurred on Route 17 North outside of Maysville, N.C., at approximately 7:45 a.m. according to Marines who were on the buses. Emergency responders arrived within 20 minutes.
The injured Marines were transported to the Camp Lejeune Naval Hospital. At the time of this release, one Marine remained in stable condition and is under observation at the Camp Lejeune Naval Hospital. One Marine was transferred to New Hanover Medical Center for observation.
The Marine at New Hanover Medical Center is in stable condition, according to Navy Lt. Joseph A. Nellis, the 22nd MEU surgeon. All other Marines have been treated and released.
The Marines were on their way to Norfolk to embark aboard the ships of the Bataan Strike Group for the MEU’s final exercise prior to deployment this spring. Marines who were uninjured in the accident continued to Norfolk aboard replacement buses.
The 22nd MEU is scheduled to deploy to the U.S. European Command Area of Operations and the U.S. Central Command Area of Operations. The unit is scheduled to serve as the Theater Reserve Force in both regions unless otherwise tasked.
The 22nd MEU is a scalable, multipurpose force of more than 2,200 Marines and sailors. Commanded by Col. Gareth F. Brandl, it consists of its Ground Combat Element, Battalion Landing Team, 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment; Aviation Combat Element, Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 263 (Reinforced); Logistics Combat Element, Combat Logistics Battalion 22; and its Command Element.
The Bataan Strike Group consists of amphibious assault ship USS Bataan (LHD 5); amphibious transport dock ship USS Ponce (LPD 15); amphibious dock landing ship USS Fort McHenry (LSD 43); guided-missile cruiser USS Anzio (CG 68); guided-missile destroyers USS Porter (DDG 78) and USS James E. Williams (DDG 95); and the Los Angeles class attack submarine USS San Juan (751).
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