Iraq Goals Out Of Reach?
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Top U.S. military officials say the main goals set last year by President Bush when he announced a troop buildup in Iraq are unlikely to be met before a crucial September report to Congress.
The Los Angeles Times reports military officials are increasingly convinced the three major U.S. objectives – sharing of oil revenues, provincial elections and a deal to integrate more Sunni Arabs into the Iraqi government – will be not be achieved before Gen. David Petraeus sends Congress an assessment of progress in Iraq.
Of the three goals, only the sharing of Iraq's oil revenues among Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds is considered achievable – and even that's rated a long shot.
The officials told the Times they understood that a report that major goals had not been met would only add to skepticism about the war among Democrats in Congress. However, some "counterinsurgency advisors to Petraeus" said it was never realistic to expect the Iraqis to resolve such major disagreements after only a few months of the U.S. troop buildup.
Instead, military officials are seeking to redefine success, pointing to smaller, local deals that have been achieved, which they say "can be building blocks of wider sectarian reconciliation."
Secret Service Stressed Out By Campaign
The unusually large field of 2008 presidential contenders and the unusually early start to the campaign are putting an added stress on the already strained U.S. Secret Service.
According to a report in the Washington Post, the Secret Service "expects to borrow more than 2,000 immigration officers and federal airport screeners next year" to provide security for the ever-growing crop of candidates. Another 250 Secret Service agents will need to be shifted from investigations to security details.
The Post says the Secret Service, already burdened by the White House's security needs and the unrelenting threat of terrorist attack, was showing strain even before it was ordered to provide protection for Sen. Barack Obama on May 3 – the earliest a security detail was ever ordered for a presidential candidate.
The $110 million Secret Service budget for campaign protection – two-thirds more than the record $65 million for the 2004 campaign – was prepared when the agency was not expecting to be guarding any of the candidates until January.
The Post says the service has already had to cut back on resources devoted to battling counterfeiting and cybercrime.
Digital War In Estonia
What some are calling the first war in cyberspace was fought last month in Estonia, reports The New York Times, after the government's decision to remove a World War II-era Soviet statue set off a series of data-flooding attacks by opponents.
The Web sites of parliament, the prime minister and the president, as well as the Baltic nation's biggest bank and major newspapers were targeted, allegedly by Estonians of Russian descent. Estonian officials claim the Russian government was involved in the well-organized attacks that almost shut down the digital infrastructure of the extremely Internet-dependent country.
With help from other countries, the technically savvy Estonian government was eventually able to withstand the assault. The Times says computer security experts from around the world, including the U.S., have since converged on Estonia to "learn what they can about cyberwar in the digital age."
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