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This week at the U.S. Naval base at Guantanamo a military court will hear key pre-trial motions in the terrorism case against Salim Ahmed Hamdan, the onetime driver of Osama bin Laden. Among the defense witnesses will be Air Force Col. Morris Davis, who resigned in protest last fall as Gitmo's chief prosecutor. His allegation: that top Pentagon officials - who are legally required to remain neutral - have tried to exert political influence on the conduct and outcomes of a whole series of high-profile trials scheduled for later this year...
...Conversely, enhancing the Iraqi population’s sense of autonomy has led to positive security results. In Ramadi, for example, Col. Sean MacFarland, commander of the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division, consulted sheiks and discovered that a major concern of potential police recruits was the safety of their families, whom al-Qaida frequently intimidated and threatened to murder. MacFarland’s brigade proposed that if tribal leaders encouraged locals to join the police force, the army could construct police stations in the locals’ neighborhoods. This active collaboration expanded the autonomy of tribal leaders...
...Wars are these extended periods of nothingness punctuated by periods of chaos,” said Lt. Col. Darry C. Johnson, a 27-year army veteran who is now a national security fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School. “The tension is palpable, the danger is palpable…You’re very much on edge—it’s very difficult to relax...
...Col. Michael Bills, the commander for U.S. forces in Mosul, has ruled out using so-called Concerned Local Citizens (CLC), bands of irregulars working alongside American and Iraqi troops in parts of Baghdad, Anbar Province and other areas of Iraq. "You got such a melting pot it's difficult to even fathom trying to do a CLC up here," Bills said of the Mosul area, where the population is complex mix of Iraq's ethnic and sectarian groups. The territory around Mosul has long been home to Kurds, Sunnis, Christians, Shi'ites, Yazidis and Turkmens. Bills fears any efforts...
...across Iraq is a knowledge of who exactly the insurgents in their areas were. U.S. military officials estimate that roughly 300 hard-core fighters operate in Mosul, chiefly on the predominately Sunnni west side of the city. Attacks there are 50% higher than elsewhere in Mosul, according to Lt. Col. Michael Simmering, a commander at the main U.S. outpost in Mosul, Forward Operating Base Marez. But so far U.S. and Iraqi forces have failed to rein in the fighters, who stage daily attacks around the city. "The insurgents do have the ability to move around the city freely," said Simmering...