A U.S. Army brigade scheduled to deploy to Iraq will now go to Afghanistan to maintain higher troop levels intended to boost operations against the Taliban, the Pentagon said on Wednesday. The 173rd Airborne Brigade, based in Vicenza, Italy, will replace another brigade that had its tour of duty extended last month to bolster Afghanistan's NATO-led security force ahead of an expected spring offensive by Taliban militants.The Pentagon said the brigade of about 3,200 troops would deploy in the spring. The decision will keep two U.S. combat brigades in Afghanistan, where 2006 was the bloodiest year since U.S.-led forces ousted the Taliban in 2001."Two U.S. brigade combat teams in Afghanistan provide military capability and combat power required for NATO to continue its initiatives in promoting stability and security in the winter and spring, while denying safe haven for the Taliban," a Pentagon statement said....
http://news.yahoo.com
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Editor - 22:52:00 02-14-07
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 Baghdad Sweep Meets Little Resistence U.S. troops meet little resistence in first major operation of Baghdad security plan four U.S. soldiers were killed |
Thousands of US troops swept house-to-house through mostly Shiite areas virtually unopposed Wed in the opening phase of the long-awaited Baghdad security crackdown. But 4 US soldiers were killed outside of the capital in an area not covered by the operation. Elsewhere in Baghdad, Iraqi soldiers & police set up new checkpoints across the city of 6 million people, snarling traffic & forcing people to walk across bridges jammed with cars & trucks. The US military said 14 suspects were detained & 4 weapons caches discovered during the day's operation _ seemingly a low tally. But US officials say they are more concerned about establishing a long-term presence in the areas so that the public will gain confidence in security forces to protect them. Outside the capital, fighting continued. Did our leaders expect the Iraq Resistance to be there? Who could guess they would leave and come back when we leave. Meantime Bush can celebrate another Glorious Victory over a few rearguards ...
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/02/14/ap/world/mainD8N9PJV80.shtml
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Editor - 17:09:00 02-14-07
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| DHS tunes out RFID |
The Homeland Gestapo Department is abandoning the idea of using radio frequency identification tags to track foreign visitors leaving the country because the technology was not proven successful in testing, according to DHS secretary Michael Chertoff. In Feb. 9 testimony to the House Homeland Gestapo Committee, Chertoff confirmed that RFID testing performed as part of the U.S. Visitor and Immigration Status Indicator Technology (U.S. Visit) program at several land border crossing points was not effective. In those tests, foreign visitors were given an I-94 document with an embedded RFID tag. When the RFID tag passed through exit lanes at the border, it was to be read wirelessly by readers suspended above the lanes. The RFID tags contained a reference number linked to a departmental database with biometric information on the visitor issued the document. The Government Accountability Office in a Jan. 31, 2007, report said the readers did not detect the tags reliably....
http://www.washingtontechnology.com/cgi-bin/udt/im.display.printable?client.id=washingtontechnology_daily&story.id=30131
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Editor - 16:14:00 02-14-07
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| Northeast Pummeled By Winter Blast as more people wonder where is that promised Global Warming |
Sleet stung the faces of pedestrians and snow and ice coated windshields and streets Wednesday as the Valentine's Day blizzard shut down schools and air travel and turned highways into skating rinks. Nearly 300,000 homes and business had lost electrical service in the cold weather. At least 12 deaths were blamed on the huge storm system. Thousands of schools were closed in states from Maine to Kentucky, some in the Midwest for a second day. In Washington, the federal government decided to open offices two hours late. Almost 1,500 flights were cancelled from the Midwest to the Northeast, reports CBS News correspondent Kelly Wallace. The FAA's command center was doing its best to sort out the mess. The slippery streets and sidewalks created a challenge for florists trying to deliver Valentine's Day flowers. ...
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/02/14/national/main2473078.shtml?source=RSSattr=U.S._2473078
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Editor - 16:09:00 02-14-07
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| 'SPRING FORWARD' MAY NOT COMPUTE Earlier daylight-saving time could foil some device calendars |
For 3 weeks this March & April, Microsoft Corp. warns that users of its calendar programs "should view any appointments … as suspect until they communicate with all meeting invitees." Wow, that's sort of jarring is something treacherous afoot? Actually, it's a potential problem in any software that was programmed before a 2005 law decreed that daylight-saving time would start 3 weeks earlier & end 1 week later, beginning this year. Congress decided that more early evening daylight would translate into energy savings. Software created earlier is set to automatically advance its timekeeping by 1 hour on the first Sunday in April, not the second Sunday in March (that's March 11 this year). The result is a glitch reminiscent of the Y2K bug, when cataclysmic crashes were feared if computers interpreted the year 2000 as 1900 & couldn't reconcile time appearing to move backward. This bug is much less threatening, but it could cause head-scratching episodes when some computers are an hour off...
http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/business/16692170.htm
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Editor - 16:01:00 02-14-07
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| Secret new US spy base to get green light |
AUSTRALIA'S close military alliance with the United States is to be further entrenched with the building of a high-tech communications base in Western Australia. The Federal Government is about to approve the base after three years of secret negotiations with Washington. The Age has been told the base, which will be built on defence land at Geraldton, will provide a crucial link for a new network of military satellites that will help the US's ability to fight wars in the Middle East and Asia. It will be the first big US military installation to be built in Australia in decades, and follows controversies over other big bases such as Pine Gap and North West Cape. The deal has come to light amid heightened political debate over the alliance with the US and in the same week that the US finally told Australia it would not allow it to buy its best fighter aircraft, the F-22 Raptor. The base, about 370 kilometres north of Perth, will control two of five geostationary satellites - ...
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/secret-new-us-spy-base-in-offing/2007/02/15/1171405303064.html
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Editor - 15:26:00 02-14-07
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