All Blog Posts from Couric & Co.

The White House sent a powerful message this morning to the Afghan President Hamid Karzai: He'll get no extra U.S. troops, until he proves his government is credible.

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel says President Barack Obama must be convinced he's got a legitimate partner in Kabul.

"It would be reckless to make a decision on U.S. troop level," Emanuel said on CNN's "State of the Union," "if, in fact, you haven't done a thorough analysis of whether, in fact, there's an Afghan partner ready to fill that space that the U.S troops would create and become a true partner in governing the Afghan country."

That's a message that will reverberate in Kabul, where U.S. diplomats have been urging incumbent President Karzai to somehow legitimize an election widely believed to be fraudulent, by choosing one of two options – a runoff election between the two top candidates Karzai, and his nearest challenger Abdullah Abdullah, or a negotiation between those candidates, Emanuel said.

That Sunday morning politicking won praise from Brooking Institution's Michael O'Hanlon.

"I think a little Chicago politics could be just what this situation needs," he said, to pressure President Karzai to prove to the Americans – and more importantly to Afghan citizens – that his government is credible.

Otherwise, O'Hanlon says, the U.S. faces repeating the mistakes of Vietnam, where it poured in more troops, but had no credible partner in the South Vietnamese government to back it up.

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Kimberly Dozier is a CBS News correspondent based in Washington.

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More than a million folks are expected to gather in Times Square, New York, to ring in the first of January 2008 — just about as far away as you can get from Baghdad or Balad, Kabul or Bagram.

But on one of those glowing signs, Americans can broadcast text messages of support to those troops, thousands of miles away in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Why bother? Vets from Iraq or Afghanistan will tell you, the troops often think: A) the public has forgotten them; or B) the public is down on the war in general, and them in particular.

Rightly or wrongly, many of them take personally the media’s reports of continuing violence, or anti-war demonstrations, or congressional moves to set troop withdrawal deadlines. They perceive these acts as a negative report card on their performance, even while those reporting, marching or negotiating believe what they’re doing ultimately protects the troops. It’s one of those classic "failure to communicate" moments.

So whatever you think of the war, how it was started, how it’s being fought, what it has or will accomplish…a veteran’s group, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, is inviting you to take a moment to tell the guys and gals serving ‘over there’ what you think of them, and the sacrifice they’re making – serving in harm’s way on New Year’s Day.

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Kimberly Dozier is a CBS News correspondent based in Washington.

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It may have looked picture perfect, but this was down-to-the wire.

When President Bush’s helicopter touched down, the Palestinian and Israeli leaders still hadn’t agreed on just what they would announce here today, according to three different diplomats I spoke to, including someone close to the Palestinian talks.

So first, President Bush gave the two leaders a pep talk – and then Secretary of State Condaleeza Rice ushered them into separate rooms for some arm twisting. A Palestinian source said she told Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas that if he didn’t give some ground and agree on some of these principles, today’s summit would be perceived as a failure.
The source said he essentially folded on some key issues, making others on team not very happy.

CBS’s Mark Knoller at the White House explained, that’s why President Bush had his reading glasses on during his speech – they were so late agreeing on it, they didn’t have time to print it out for him in a slightly larger type.

The Palestinians were insisting on three things:

1. A timeline for the completion of each phase of the previously agreed American "Roadmap for Peace" which forms the backbone of the current talks. (Deadlines that must be met for each requirement like the dismantling of illegal Israeli settlements/outposts in the West Bank, with penalties incurred for everything not met. They didn't get that.)

2. Clear terms of reference included in joint statement (like UN resolutions,Road Map etc.--didn't get enough of those)

3. American Monitoring of security -- so there's an outside source monitoring compliance to road map - someone objective who is saying 'yes, the Israelis are really pulling out of enough settlements,' or 'yes, the palestinians have done all they can do to break up terrorist infrastructure.'

The Israelis agreed to the last of the Palestinians’ demands – that an American mechanism to monitor security, through a new ‘special envoy.’ One of the candidates for the job is retired general James Jones – but he hasn’t accepted the job yet, and as all involved told me, no one has agreed just what the job would entail, and how far this ‘security envoy’s’ responsibilities and powers would extend.

Stay tuned. When they have a deal, both the Israelis and the Palestinians say, the Americans will announce it.

Kimberly Dozier is a CBS News correspondent based in Washington.

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Remember that tough, unstoppable biker lady Cher played a few years back in the movie ‘Mask?’

That’s Debbie Higgins, at least in attitude. And love of bikes. And love for her whole family, especially her eldest son, Lance Corporal James Higgins Jr. The Marine was killed just over a year ago by a single sniper round, in Fallujah.

Her life now revolves around one thing: making his last wish come true, as he described it to her in their last phone call: to build a war memorial for all the Americans killed in action, since the end of the Vietnam War.

He was angry that no major memorial had yet been built to honor all those killed in the first Gulf War, or the invasion of Afghanistan, or all the other police actions or peacekeeping missions in between.

“They should not have to wait, Mom,” he told her. He said: “This is my mark in history, Mom. This is what I need to do...”

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Kimberly Dozier is a CBS News correspondent covering Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice's current trip to the Middle East.

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Our first chance to fire questions at Secretary of State Rice came mid-way across the Atlantic, bound for the Gulf. She walked back to the press end of the plane (the back end) picked up the microphone to be heard over the aircraft, and started out gracious and composed as ever. That didn’t last.

We quickly managed to tick her off, asking over and over, in several different ways: ‘It’s quid pro quo, right? You’re offering the Saudis and the other Gulf states a lot of money -- billions of dollars in defense aid and arms sales. And in return you’re going to tell them behind closed doors, to behave when it comes to meddling in Iraq, right? You’re gonna tell them to stop funding radical Sunni groups/politicians/etc. right? And you’re going to tell the Saudis in particular to stop criticizing the U.S.-led coalition, like Saudi’s King Abdullah did last March, right?”

“It’s not quid pro quo,” she shot back at us, slightly exasperated, like we were a bunch of fifth graders who couldn’t quite grasp the algebra problem. She kept saying, in different ways: They want what we want, a stable Iraq. We’re having polite discussions toward that end. You got the distinct impression that this is what the Mideast leaders are in for: being politely verbally hammered into submission...

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