By Thomas Joscelyn

When Ghaleb Nassar al Bihani traveled to Afghanistan to fight alongside al Qaeda and the Taliban, he probably never imagined that he would be captured and his detention would be turned into a legal fight over what role, if any, international law plays in restricting the president of the United States’s wartime powers.

Amazingly, that is precisely what happened.

A federal appeals court in Washington yesterday denied a request from al Bihani’s attorneys to rehear the Gitmo detainee’s case. In January 2009, a D.C. district judge denied al Bihani’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus. Al Bihani’s attorneys appealed, but a D.C. Circuit Court panel of three judges upheld the district judge’s ruling.

Al Bihani’s attorneys appealed again, requesting that the full court hear the case. But in Tuesday’s ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit declined “to en banc this case to determine the role of international law-of-war principles in interpreting the AUMF [the 2001 Authorization for use of Military Force] because, as the various opinions issued in the case indicate, the panel’s discussion of that question is not necessary to the disposition of the merits.”

That is, the judges believe it has nothing to do with whether or not Ghaleb Nassar al Bihani is properly detained at Gitmo.

What really happened here is that al Bihani’s lawyers tried to use his detention as a means to litigate their pet legal theories. This has nothing to do with determining whether detainees are properly held, let alone fighting al Qaeda or winning a war. Instead, it was part of a push to obtain more power for the courts to interfere in the other branches of government’s conduct of the war.

The transnational legal community wants the courts to have the power to reject acts of Congress and military decisions made by the executive branch based on international law, which may or may not have anything to do with the will of the American people as expressed at the ballot box.

As Judge Janice Rogers Brown wrote on Tuesday, this isn’t a good idea. Under the U.S. Constitution, the president “retains the leeway to implement his authority as broadly or narrowly as he believes appropriate—consistent with international law or not—and the legislature, in turn, may add whatever limits or constraints it deems wise as the war progresses,” Judge Brown wrote. “This ensures that wartime decisions will be informed by the expertise of the political branches, stated in a clear fashion, and that the decision makers will be accountable to the electorate.”

If al Bihani’s lawyers’ vision is enacted, however, a Pandora’s box of problems would be opened. Judge Brown writes:

Such an approach would place ultimate control of the war in the one branch insulated from both the battlefield and the ballot box. That would add further illegitimacy to the unpredictable and ad hoc rules judges would draw from the primordial stew of treaties, state practice, tribunal decisions, scholarly opinion, and foreign law that swirls beyond our borders.

Other judges denied al Bihani’s request because it had nothing to do with the merits of the case, but they seemed to leave the door open for the possibility that international law will one day trump America’s national security agenda as set forth by the president and Congress. Thus, Judge Brown contributed a scathing critique of her fellow judges’ opinions, using words such as “grotesque” to describe their opinions. And one judge, Judge Brown writes, “contributes a separate opinion that conceives of a brave new role for judges in wartime: that of supervisors of the battlefield.”

The Obama administration did not fight the transnational argument. Instead, the administration embraced it, arguing only that it was owed “substantial deference” in this instance.

“The government responds ambivalently, adopting the questionable strategy of conceding Al-Bihani’s point, but nonetheless urging denial of rehearing,” Judge Brown writes. Elsewhere, Brown says the Obama administration’s lawyers made an “eager concession that international law does in fact limit the AUMF.”

This demonstrates the degree to which the Obama administration is committed to some very radical notions of the law. The AUMF was Congress’s response to the most devastating terrorist attack in history, and rightly gave the presidency substantial power to hunt down the al Qaeda terror network. But the administration believes that even the AUMF is subject to an amorphous body of international law and standards and should be interpreted through that transnational prism.

All of this goes to a more central point. Legal gamesmanship long ago trumped national security concerns when it comes to litigating the cases of Guantanamo detainees. This entire argument is taking place in the context of the U.S. government’s proper detention of a known al Qaeda operative.

Some press accounts have called Ghaleb Nassar al Bihani a mere cook for al Qaeda. That is his lawyers’ spin. Al Bihani was much more than that. He comes from a family of al Qaeda terrorists. Several of his brothers served Osama bin Laden in various capacities. Al Bihani received extensive terrorist training in Afghanistan, and became a member of al Qaeda’s elite Arab 055 brigade, which fought alongside the Taliban. He served al Qaeda right up until the time of his capture.

Despite this and more, al Bihani’s lawyers thought that international law should free al Bihani from Gitmo. Their arguments are a good illustration of why the transnational legal framework is fraught with danger.

The Osborns long ago accepted the risks faced by their son, an Army specialist. But what they can’t accept now are the military rules of engagement, which they contend made it possible for the Taliban to kill him.

“We let the enemy fire first, and they took my son from us,” Beverly Osborn said of the rules, which in most instances require U.S. forces to identify an enemy threat before firing, and to withhold fire if civilians are close by. The rules also place restrictions on close air support and artillery, prompting complaints from some service members that their lives are put at risk against an enemy that fights by no rules at all.

As American combat deaths have reached record levels this summer, public support is eroding for the 9-year-old conflict. Several recent opinion polls found that more than half of those surveyed oppose the war, with the high casualty rate among concerns most often cited. American combat deaths reached 60 in June, 65 in July, and 55 in August, according to icasualties.org. That is by far the highest three-month total of the war.

Criticism is mounting among military families too. An antiwar group of families of service members in Afghanistan and Iraq has called for an end to the Afghanistan war. At the same time, families like the Osborns, who describe themselves as conservative, are questioning the way the war is being waged.

After Bill Osborn publicly criticized the rules of engagement just before his son’s wake, he said, other families of service members killed or serving in Afghanistan contacted him to express similar concerns. They don’t want to end the war, Osborn said, but to change the way it’s being fought.

“Our soldiers are forced to fight with one hand tied behind their backs. They’re not allowed to take care of business — and they know it,” Bill Osborn said in his living room, where his son’s Bronze Star, Purple Heart and campaign ribbons are on display.

Debbie Morris of Arnold, Calif., who lost her son in Afghanistan on June 10, said the rules of engagement protect Afghan civilians at the expense of American troops. She blames the rules, in part, for the death of her son, Marine Lance Cpl. Gavin Brummund, 22, from a roadside bomb.

If the rules prevent troops from aggressively pursuing Afghan militants who plot attacks against them while posing as civilians, “then the rules aren’t working, and why are we even there?” Morris said.

Brummund’s widow, Michaela, said Marines in her husband’s unit told her they were frustrated by the rules. Protecting civilians, many of whom are hostile to U.S. forces, “isn’t worth our guys’ lives,” she said.

On June 27, the Osborns wrote an impassioned e-mail to Gen. David H. Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan. They described how Ben, 27, volunteered to man the machine gun on an armored vehicle headed out on a patrol in Kunar province on June 15.

Their son’s unit of 20 men was ambushed by a Taliban force of 70 to 100 fighters, the e-mail said. According to the Osborns, who said they talked with members of their son’s unit, Ben had to wait to return fire until ordered to do so. He got off 10 rounds before he was shot and killed, they said.

The rules of engagement “led to the demise of our son … and other warriors like him,” the e-mail said. The Osborns asked Petraeus to revise the rules and lift restrictions.

“Winning the hearts and minds of the Afghans is not what’s best for America,” they wrote. “We are at war. The rules of engagement must be to empower our soldiers, not to give aid and comfort to the enemy.”

Petraeus responded within minutes, the Osborns said. His e-mail offered condolences, and noted that “commanders have a moral imperative to ensure that we provide every possible element of support to our troopers when they get into a tight spot.”

The general added: “And I will ensure that we meet that imperative.”

Petraeus, who wrote the military’s counter-insurgency doctrine with a focus on minimizing civilian casualties, has said he is reviewing the rules of engagement. Petraeus assumed command July 4 after the ouster of Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, who had tightened the rules when he took command in June 2009.

Military Families Speak Out, the antiwar group, has long demanded an end to the war in Iraq but for years refrained from demanding an end to the Afghanistan conflict — which many members considered “the good war.” After U.S. combat deaths in Afghanistan rose early last year, the group formally called for ending that war and bringing troops home.

More families have joined the group since casualties jumped this summer, said Nancy Lessin, the organization’s co-founder. Military Families Speak Out, founded in 2002, represents 4,000 military families, with 25 to 30 chapters nationwide, Lessin said.

The group has no formal position on the rules of engagement, said Paula Rogovin, whose son is a Marine captain who served in Iraq. But bringing the troops home would eliminate any dangers they face as a result of the restrictions, she said.

By contrast, the Osborns say they believe the war in Afghanistan must be fought — and won. But they want it waged more aggressively.

Soon after Ben deployed in April, he began telling his parents that the rules of engagement were too restrictive and were putting him and his fellow soldiers at risk.

“He said he felt more like a Peace Corps worker than a warrior,” his father said. After Ben’s death, his comrades told his father they had the same concerns.

“I don’t know that if Ben had been able to fire spontaneously, he’d be alive today,” Bill Osborn added. “But I do know that he would have had a much better chance of surviving by being able to defend himself quickly.”

“It almost appears that our civilian leaders and military command think more of the natives than our own troops,” he said. “That’s a disturbing thought, and I don’t want to believe it.”

Ben left behind three brothers, a sister and a widow, Nicole, whom he had married in February.

“It’s too late for us and for Ben,” Bill Osborn said, sitting next to photos of his son in uniform. “But there are other families out there, and if we can help save just one soldier, it’ll be worth it.”

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This is exactly the outcome Obama was banking on: if enough of our Soldiers perish, their families will speak out to end the war. Never mind that Obama’s new ROE is killing our Soldiers, he will be heralded for ending the war and bringing what’s left of our troops home.

Bob Uda, Ph.D. (ABD)

• The pretense that this [Afghanistan] war must continue under the current strategy and that we are achieving results…the facts appear each day to refute that.
• A self-destructive and self-defeating strategy of “counter-insurgency” (COIN) doctrine and nation building.
• The COIN principle is not based on winning; it is based on political whims and is not a true tenet of warfare.
• Warfare is, and always should be, about WINNING or do not go to War.
• There is no reason to order massive armies that require large and extensive bases and massive logistical support to fight them on their home turf.
• Protect and secure our American troops before we continue sparing the lives of the Taliban and civilians with bizarre, restrictive rules of engagement (ROE).
• Where are the common sense and rational senior General and Admiral Strategists that we have trained and schooled to be innovative, aggressive and win our nation’s wars quickly and decisively?
• “Victory” in war appears lost in the world of political correctness and appeasement.
• The vast majority of goals can be accomplished through quick, decisive joint strike military operations from selected “Lily Pad” friendly bases.
• This is the driving point: why are we so worried about what others think?
• The U.S. must adopt a national military strategy that heavily leverages the core capability to break enemy states, target and destroy the enemy’s capability to bring harm to America.
• Achieve the success that is necessary; wiping out and neutralizing radical Islamism and nation states that support it.
• The American experience in Iraq and Afghanistan…calls into question the ability of occupying forces to root out terror networks without hitting the sources and sanctuaries that supply them like Iran.
• The only way to stop that threat is to give them what they respect; pure force of arms and will.
• We must stop thinking like westerners and understand the way our enemy thinks.

• Rules of Engagement. In real asymmetrical warfare, there is no such thing as rules of engagement. Asymmetrical warfare is “free-for-all” warfare. Islamo-fascist terrorists are unhampered by morals, ethics, and legalities. Islamo-fascists are amoral. If we are to prevail against them, we must do likewise. We must be unshackled and unhampered by conventional warfare rules of engagement. To triumph over the Isfasts [short for Islamo-fascists], we must use every possible unconventional warfare strategy, tactic, means, technology, weaponry, tools, techniques, and methods.

• Political Correctness. The only language that Isfasts understand pertains to words such as force, power, kill, control, decapitate, humiliate, and pain. Hence, we should apply everything within our power and means to use these tools on them. When we inflict these tools on them, they understand when we have the upper hand. When we apply the “political correctness” tools on them, they see us as weak. Hence, they become emboldened to keep pursuing their main goal in life, which is to achieve world domination and their idea of utopia.

• Fight Fire with Fire. We should use the language they understand. The only language the Isfasts understand is what they do. We need to do the same things that they do. If they kill, we need to kill. If they bomb us, we need to bomb them. We must fight fire with fire. Let us not kid ourselves. They are out to eradicate democracy, freedom, liberty, and the free-enterprise system. It is them or us. It is better to be them.

• Never Negotiate with Terrorists. If they kill a hostage, we go after them with vengeance and wipe them off the map without delay. Teach them lessons they will never forget. That is the only language they understand. Send them to their twisted concept of heaven where they will live with 72 virgins. I am sorry, but that belief will never come to pass.

• Kill or Be Killed? It is either kill or be killed. If given that choice, I would rather kill first than be killed first. Wouldn’t you? General George S. Patton said, “May God have mercy upon my enemies because I won’t.” We must do as General Patton said, “We as attackers have the initiative; we must retain this tremendous advantage by always attacking rapidly, ruthlessly, viciously, and without rest.” If we want to survive, that is what we must do! We must listen to the good general’s words and put it into practice. I am sure that General Patton had read Sun Tzu. Sun Tzu said, “Therefore, the good fighter will be terrible in his onset, and prompt in his decision.”

• All Bets are Off! If the terrorists (i.e., al-Qaida, Hezbollah, Hamas, Taliban, and other Isfasts) will bomb and wantonly kill innocent civilian men, women, children, the aged, the infirm, reporters, UN personnel, and Red Cross personnel, then all of their similar people are fair game for us. “The sword without, and terror within, shall destroy both the young man and the virgin, the suckling also with the man of gray hairs” (Deut. 32:25). All bets are off! What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. Thus, we will let the world know that we will not fight with one hand tied behind our backs any longer. We shall fight ruthlessness with ruthlessness. We shall fight fire with fire…only two orders of magnitude more.

• A Tit-for-Tat War. If the terrorists will not adhere to any rules of engagement, then we too will not adhere to any rules of engagement. If the terrorists do not recognize and adhere to the tenets of the Geneva Convention, then we are not bound by the tenets of the Geneva Convention. We will fight a tit-for-tat war. Whatever the terrorists dish out, we will dish back to them an order-of-magnitude greater (even two orders of magnitude greater) retaliatory force and firepower.

• No Such Thing as Collateral Damage. If the Isfasts poison our water supplies, we poison their water supplies. If the Isfasts use germ warfare (anthrax or whatever) on our people, we use germ warfare on their people. If the Isfasts use poison gas, we use poison gas. If the Isfasts blow up our power stations, we retaliate by blowing up their entire infrastructure of power stations, utilities, dams, bridges, highways, farms, airports, military bases, government buildings, and other infrastructure. Forget about collateral damage! There is no such thing as collateral damage when we are fighting for our survival.

• War is not a game. Hence, there is no such thing as “fair play” in war. There is no fairness. There is no “time out.” There are no referees or umpires. You never go into the penalty box. In war, you destroy. You kill. You injure. You maim. You disable. You crush. You annihilate. You wipe out. Those are the rules of the game (if you want to call it a game). Therefore, the Pendleton 8 did nothing wrong as we fight a war against Isfasts. Moreover, remember this: General George S. Patton said, “You’re never beaten until you admit it.” We will never lose because we will never admit it.

By Dan Weil

By Rowan Scarborough

As U.S. military forces continue to stream out of Iraq, formally ending combat operations on Tuesday, one of the most effective elements of those forces missed the drawdown completely.

There are as many special operations forces in the country now as there were when the exit began last year.

President Obama, who as a U.S. senator opposed a 2007 troop surge and called for withdrawing all troops from Iraq, is set Tuesday to tell the nation that combat missions by Americans are officially over. There are now fewer than 50,000 American troops in Iraq, down from a surge-high of 168,000 in late 2007.

New challenges begin. An Iraqi security force of about 670,000 troops will have to shoulder the brunt of attacking insurgents, while Iraqi politicians seek an elusive deal to form a new parliamentary government.

“In reality, the Iraqis have been doing the majority of the security work for some time now,” Army Gen. Raymond Odierno, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, told PBS last week. “And so I feel very confident that they will be able to continue. There will be ups and downs. There will be bad days, but they will continue to provide adequate security.”

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki underscored the “bad days” on Sunday, as he put the fledgling democracy on its highest terror-alert level. Stepped-up attacks are expected from al Qaeda and groups still loyal to the Iraqi Ba’ath Party regime of Saddam Hussein to show that government forces cannot contain violence.

“The lack of a government obviously makes people nervous, and it provides some uncertainty,” Gen. Odierno said. “But what I’ve been proud of is the Iraqis’ security forces have remained neutral. They’ve done their job according to the constitution.”

There is wiggle room in the status-of-forces agreement with Baghdad that was worked out in 2008, in the waning days of the George W. Bush administration. Pentagon officials expect some U.S. forces to remain, even though the agreement calls for all troops to be out of Iraq by Dec. 31, 2011.

Those holdovers may include some of the 3,000 Army Green Berets, Navy SEALs, Army Delta Force and other specialized warriors who remain locked in combat.

With regular U.S. ground combat brigades leaving, special forces commandos have become the key to successfully handing over all military duties to the Iraqis 15 months from now.

The commandos train Iraqis to do the jobs of American soldiers. They also make up joint terrorist-hunting units with government troops to rid the country of al Qaeda operatives tied to Osama bin Laden in Pakistan.

The U.S. no longer conducts any unilateral operations, said Army Lt. Col. Terry Conder, a spokesman for special operations force units in Iraq.

“There was no reduction of SOF during the drawdown,” Col. Conder said. “The U.S. special operations mission has not changed.”

Special operations troops working in the background have been credited with capturing and killing scores of al Qaeda terrorists in Iraq, including the 2006 raid that killed al Qaeda leader Abu Musab Zarqawi.

The burden is falling not only on special operators. The Iraqis will rely heavily on CIA officers, who will remain for the foreseeable future to help identify and eradicate insurgents.

A big part of the 2007 troop surge was an emphasis on intelligence collection to locate and then kill or capture insurgent leaders.

“Challenges are substantial, and I suspected they will increase,” said Bart Bechtel, a former CIA operations officer in the region.

Mr. Bechtel said that if CIA officers lack protection from the U.S. military, it will be more difficult to find human intelligence sources.

“As we draw down our troops, one effect will be fewer eyes and ears on the ground and out in the countryside,” Mr. Bechtel said. “I fear that [recruited spies and informants] will suffer greatly, if our intel collectors are significantly confined within the Green Zone. Already, there are substantial threats to any asset cooperating with the U.S. Those threats can only increase. Validating intelligence from human sources becomes more difficult if our officers are unable to get out amongst the population obtaining ground truth directly themselves.”

He added that “a great deal will depend on how unstable the country becomes as we withdraw. Increasing instability means less freedom of operating. It is not impossible to operate in very hostile environments, it is just very limiting. I only hope that management [at CIA headquarters] in Langley, Va., and in the field do not become risk-averse to the extent that it is unwilling to do what is needed to succeed in our missions.”

The State Department is taking steps to make sure its contingent of some 5,000 diplomats and staff is protected. It plans to hire more private-security bodyguards to replace its military protectors, in effect creating its own army of protectors.

And there is a second enemy: Iran.

Gen. Odierno said that Iran’s intelligence and special operations agents continue to help insurgent Shiites launch attacks.

“I would just say they continue to be involved in violence specifically directed at U.S. forces, in direct-fire attacks, things like that,” he said. “In some areas where there are some intra-Shia issues, I believe they’re … influencing some action by intimidation. So they are behind this. They are training people. They are supplying people with weapons. They continue to be involved in this.”

John Pike, who directs Globalsecurity.org, said the challenges remain daunting, as they did before the surge.

“Iraq faces pretty much the same challenges post 31 August as it has for the past couple of years,” he said. “Al Qaeda has not been suppressed, corruption is rampant, the political system is deadlocked, Iran has significant political influence, high levels of violence persist, their military remains incapable of either operating without U.S. support or defending the country against external enemies.”

But Baghdad can persevere.

“Belgium’s government is also deadlocked,” Mr. Pike said. “Caracas has violence comparable to Baghdad, and yet the sun still comes up in the east every day. Seriously dysfunctional countries can muddle through somehow, even if they are not attractive vacation destinations.”

By Christopher Leake

Four deadly foreign mercenary snipers hired by the Taliban have been killed after being tracked down by British Special Forces in Afghanistan.

They were among at least three pairs of crackshots recruited by the Taliban from Pakistan, Egypt and Chechnya.

The mercenaries – who can kill troops at a range of up to 650 yards – are understood to have shot dead up to ten British soldiers in recent weeks.

The victims include Sapper Darren Foster, 20, from Whitehaven, Cumbria. He was picked off from long distance by a single shot which went through a gap just 9in wide in a protected look-out post in Sangin valley, Helmand Province.

News of the Taliban deaths came as a British soldier was killed during a firefight with insurgents yesterday as he provided security for a meeting between Afghan elders and Nato forces.

The soldier, from the 1st Battalion The Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment, was killed during an exchange of fire in the Nad-e Ali district of Helmand.

Lieutenant-Colonel James Carr-Smith, spokesman for Task Force Helmand, said: ‘He died in the course of his duty. He will be sorely missed and his actions will not be forgotten. We will remember him.’ His next of kin have been informed.

The death brings to 332 the  number of British troops killed in Afghanistan since operations began in 2001.

It was in Sangin ten days ago that the first two foreign ‘dogs of war’ met their deaths. A second pair were killed on Friday.

In both cases, elite SAS and SBS troops, working with crack US and Afghan Special Forces, were involved in the covert  hunt for the snipers.They had orders to ‘take out’ the deadly riflemen who have caused havoc among coalition forces with their so-called ‘fire and run’ tactics.

Senior military sources told The Mail on Sunday that locals tipped off Afghan National Army troops of the exact locations of the snipers.

Once the identities of the sharpshooters had been confirmed through close surveillance, Special Forces teams   called in an air strike.

The pilots of US F-16 jets were sent the precise co-ordinates to target their high-explosive bombs in order to eliminate the enemy without killing or injuring innocent civilians.

A military insider said last night: ‘These foreign snipers are crackshots who work in teams of two – one spotting the target, the other firing the fatal shot.

‘Once they have hit their target, they disappear and find a new location. The trouble is that we can take two snipers out and another two will be recruited to replace them.’

British commanders have become increasingly concerned at the number of troops killed by gunfire rather than roadside bombs, and the fact that the Taliban is using specialist foreign snipers.

Major-General Gordon Messenger, an MoD spokesman for Afghanistan, said: ‘What the guys are seeing on the ground, not just in Sangin but also in  Nad-e Ali, is an increased use of the tactic of single shots at range.

‘It would be vastly overplaying the professionalism and the effect of these people to call them snipers. But, of course, we’re adjusting our tactics to counter it.’

* Six Afghan policemen were found shot dead yesterday in their station house in Helmand Province and three more were accidentally killed by friendly fire in the north of the country, a Nato spokesman said last night.

IBD Editorials

National Security: Amid setbacks in the global war on terror, Defense Secretary Robert Gates signals his coming retirement. He never should have agreed to serve under President Obama in the first place.

Fred Kaplan of Slate, writing in Foreign Policy magazine, recounts his 2007 interview with the man President George W. Bush tapped to replace the much-maligned and reviled Donald Rumsfeld.

Asked if he would stay on at the Pentagon for the next administration, Secretary Gates said it was “inconceivable to me.”

But almost three years later, Gates remains, essentially providing hawkish cover for a dovish presidency.

Now, in a new interview, Gates tells Kaplan the remark was a “covert action” to stop the next president from asking him to stay. The strategy failed; when Obama called, with two wars raging, and “kids out there getting hurt and dying, there was no way that I was going to say, ‘No,’” he told Kaplan.

Rather than saving the Pentagon from Obama and congressional Democrats intent on cutting and running in Afghanistan, reversing the work of the Iraq surge, and other mischief, Gates, who says he will retire next year, has been used as a political pawn.

Afghanistan is so troubled that we find our new commander there, Gen. David Petraeus, essentially assuring the American public that he will save the war effort from the commander-in-chief.

“The president didn’t send me over here to seek a graceful exit,” Petraeus just told the New York Times as part of an apparent PR offensive the general is undertaking. “My marching orders are to do all that is humanly possible to help us achieve our objectives.”

He told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday that he might recommend to the president that the Afghan withdrawal date of less than a year from now be delayed.

Gates, meanwhile, is intent on scrapping the positions of at least 50 admirals and generals in the name of budget savings — but it’s a few million dollars out of annual defense spending of about $535 billion a year. The alleged rationale is that it will stave off congressional Democrats bent on defunding the global war on terror.

In fact, after November’s elections those Democrats will be weakened, and perhaps deprived of the power of the purse altogether. We shouldn’t further puncture the morale of our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq by pruning their command structure in time of war, as unconventional as the war on terror may be.

Earlier this year, Gates appeared in Paris with the French defense minister and declared that sanctions against Iran were “the only path that is left to us at this point” in ending the Iranian nuclear program. It was Neville Chamberlain entering the stage when the script called for Churchill.

Look for another Republican to replace Gates when he leaves. (Former Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard Lugar of Indiana comes to mind. He helped Obama become president by working with him on a largely meaningless bill to interdict stray weapons abroad.)

It’s a neat trick that Bill Clinton made deft use of when he handed Pentagon duties to GOP Sen. William Cohen: Make the public think our defenses must be fine with a Republican in charge of them. That maxim doesn’t apply if it’s a weak Republican.

LiveLeak

Qari Yusuf Ahmadii, a Taliban spokesman, told the Volksrant newspaper that he looked forward to other countries following the “brave” Dutch example.

“We would like to offer the citizens and government of the Netherlands our heartfelt congratulations for having the courage to take this decision independently,” he said.

“We hope other countries with soldiers stationed in Afghanistan will follow the Dutch example and withdraw their troops.”

The government collapsed in February after Labour, a coalition member, refused to support a Nato request to extend the Dutch presence until August 2011.

“Labour has made one of the most important decisions for the Dutch government and citizens,” said the Taliban spokesman.

Twenty-four Dutch soldiers were killed and 140 injured over the last four years. American and Australian troops will take over the Dutch military role on August 1.

General Peter van Uhm, the commander in chief of the Dutch military, praised his troops for “tangible results that the Netherlands can be proud of”.

But rank-and-file soldiers are angry over the retreat, according to Jan Kleian, president of the Dutch military trade union.

“They are not happy to leave. They want to finish what they started. The mission is not completed,” he said.

MOSUL, Iraq (AP) — When the U.S. ends its combat mission in Iraq five weeks from now, the nation’s safety will be in the hands of its homegrown, American-trained security forces. The army is almost up to the job, the police are hit-and-miss, and the Kurdish militia is nowhere close to ready.

Iraq’s military chief says that without a U.S. presence, the Iraqi forces won’t be able to fully fend for themselves before 2020. Anthony Cordesman, a former director of intelligence assessment in the Pentagon, agrees it will take years.

That view has also come across in conversations on various sides of the sectarian divide in recent months as The Associated Press spent time with the military, police and Kurdish militia on the job to get a sense of their strengths and weaknesses as they prepare for the Aug. 31 deadline for the U.S. combat mission to end.

To be sure, Iraq’s security forces have made great strides since the 2003 fall of Saddam Hussein, after which his army was disbanded and the once-feared police were jeered as toothless. U.S. commanders say violence is down by more than half since a year ago, when American troops pulled out of Iraqi cities, and has dropped 90 percent since October 2007 – the peak of the U.S. military surge in Iraq.

But bombings still happen almost daily across Iraq, often targeting the security forces. Drive-by shootings and kidnappings are common. And despite at least $22 billion the U.S. has spent on training and equipping the forces since 2004, many of the problems that have long plagued the army and police remain unresolved.

The U.S. military, preparing to pull out completely by the end of 2011, has been promoting an image of a capable Iraqi security force. Barely a day passes without an announcement of the arrest or killing by homegrown security forces of insurgents, mostly suspects from al-Qaida in Iraq, as well as ordinary criminals.

“Clearly there’s still some violence, and we still need to make more progress in Iraq,” U.S. Gen. Ray Odierno, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, told reporters at the Pentagon on Wednesday. “But Iraqi security forces have taken responsibility for security throughout Iraq, and they continue to grow and improve every day.”

Yet there remain deep gaps in training and equipment for the roughly 675,000 members of the security forces. Even more important, sectarian and ethnic divisions among various security branches have been only superficially addressed and threaten to re-ignite tensions.

“We need the Americans until we get strong,” Yasser Majid, a 26-year-old Shiite army lieutenant, said last month on patrol in the Iraqi town of Jalula. “Otherwise it could go back to just like it was in 2006 with sectarian violence.”

The readiness gap means that the army is still performing some of the roles that ought to fall to the police, such as manning city checkpoints where cars are searched for bombs.

Dozens of cars wait to be checked for bombs on Palestine Street, northern Baghdad. It was at this checkpoint, according to Sgt. Maj. Ali al-Hiani, that Iraqi army soldiers in March scored a coup: Recognizing his face from a wanted poster, they nabbed Munaf Abdul-Rahim al-Rawi, a militant with al-Qaida in Iraq.

That led to the killing of two of the group’s leaders in a joint Iraqi-U.S. raid. At least 36 of al-Qaida’s 44 senior operatives in Iraq have been captured or killed this year, mostly in joint U.S.-Iraqi operations.

After seven years of working alongside the American military, the Iraqi army of about 248,000 soldiers is widely viewed as the best trained and best equipped of the security forces.

But the troops should be guarding the borders, not manning checkpoints, said Col. Maan Muhanad. “The police are supposed to do it, but the city still needs the army.”

Soldiers cruise the streets in U.S.-made Humvees and carry American rifles. But they and U.S. officials agree their hand-held explosive detectors are inferior and have often failed to flag cars used to bomb government buildings in Baghdad over the last year.

The army’s intelligence-gathering is so poor that it still largely depends on American-supplied information, one of the few functions the U.S. military still commands since pulling out of Iraq’s cities more than a year ago.

On each of three counterterror raids led by Iraqi police and army in Jalula, Mosul and al-Bailona in eastern Ninevah province over the last month, security forces accompanied by an AP reporter came up empty after expecting to capture insurgents or find weapons cashes. A U.S. military spokesman said that was not unexpected because recent al-Qaida arrests had taken many militants off the streets already, although he did not know how often it happened.

The army, like the police, is mostly Shiite, but has a Kurdish chief of staff, and since 2006 has allowed nearly 20,000 fired Sunni soldiers and officers to rejoin its ranks.

The concerns about security readiness are exacerbated by the political disarray resulting from the inconclusive March parliamentary elections. Although a Sunni-backed party narrowly topped the poll, Sunnis stand to be sidelined anew after Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki allied with other Shiites in a grab for parliamentary power.

The result: Iraq is likely to be without a new government when the American combat role ends.

To the north, in the city of Mosul, a different security headache unfolds.

Mosul, one of the hottest fronts in the fight against the Sunni-dominated insurgency, is a prime example of the struggles of Iraq’s local and federal police. They are deeply divided over sectarian and cultural issues, turf and the question of who is better at stopping the militants.

Lt. Col. Taha Daham al-Mashhadani is a Sunni Arab in a city that is culturally split mostly among Sunnis, Kurds and Christians. Born and raised in Mosul, he oversees the 17th Tammuz neighborhood for the city police force, which is hired by local authorities and trained by Iraqis.

He seldom lets his family leave their house, fearing insurgent attacks. On a recent drive through 17th Tammuz, he refused to stop at checkpoints for fear of suicide bombers like those who killed three of his officers the week before.

Mosul people have had bad experiences with the Iraqi soldiers and police from outside the region, so Taha has tried to be the friendly neighborhood cop. “I met with the people and sent them a note: ‘To our families, to our friends, to our residents of Mosul…’ They had never heard of something like that,” he said.

That warmth, however, arouses the suspicions of the federal police tasked with counterterrorism in the city. Local police are too friendly with the people and can’t be trusted, says Gen. Mustafa Mahmood Mansour, operations officer for the 3rd Federal Police Division based in Mosul.

“You have to have a cold heart to work with the federal police,” said Mansour, a Sunni from Baghdad. “The local police do not have the capability for it. Most of them are from Mosul, and they are from the same tribes.”

Nationally, the predominantly Shiite federal police became notorious during the sectarian conflict of 2006-2007, when officers allegedly worked alongside Shiite militias that kidnapped and murdered thousands of Sunnis. Interior Minister Jawad Bolani has since purged many of the most ardently sectarian commanders. But little has been done to change the heavy Shiite dominance.

Further stoking sectarian tensions was the April discovery of a secret prison in Baghdad where Sunni terrorism suspects – mostly from Mosul – were tortured. The prison was shut under U.S. pressure.

Now, the federal force of about 46,000 is viewed as generally effective, according to a 2009 U.S. Defense Department report to Congress. The local police, now numbering about 300,000 around the country, were judged far from adequate, the report said.

Local police, according to the report, “still had low competence, showed little initiative, faced massive problems with corruption, and only about half of their assigned personnel had any real training.”

On top of all this, there are the problems of the Kurdish Peshmerga militia that fought Saddam’s dictatorship, and the Sahwa, an alliance of Sunnis who switched sides in 2006 to join the Americans in fighting the insurgency.

Peshmerga guard Whalid Mohammed Nouri stands silently at a traffic checkpoint east of Khanikin, in Diyala province, unable to talk to the Iraqi army soldier next to him. Nouri speaks Kurdish and the soldier Arabic, so they communicate almost entirely in gestures.

The Peshmerga, which translates roughly as “those who face death” and were named as guerrillas fighting Saddam’s dictatorship, are the security force of Iraq’s Kurdistan region, an estimated 127,200-strong and the only army on the borders with Turkey and Iran. They also fiercely guard a boundary along oil-rich parts of Iraq’s north that has been disputed for decades.

Fearing tensions between Kurds and Arabs could boil over into deadly violence, the U.S. this year designed checkpoints run by American, Iraqi and Kurdish forces in the disputed areas, united against a common enemy – insurgents.

But there’s no guarantee the checkpoints will remain once the remainder of U.S. forces leave in 2011, and there’s no end in sight to the disputes between the central government in Baghdad and the Kurds. The fear of Kurdish-Arab civil war so worries Odierno that he has floated the possibility of a U.N. peacekeeping force moving in.

The Peshmerga are resentful about the better pay and equipment of the Iraqi army, and “shoving matches” are not uncommon, says U.S. Army Lt. Col. Joseph Davidson.

“The pay for the Iraqi army and police is good, and they get uniforms and weapons,” said Peshmerga Lt. Azeezkhan Mohammed Tagedyn, commander at a village checkpoint. “But … we have to use our own money. I bought this AK-47, this vest, this uniform.”

Only recently has Baghdad signed an agreement with the Kurdistan regional government to give the Peshmerga training comparable to the Iraqi army’s. But the militiamen “still have a long way to go,” said Davidson. “They’ve just started getting equipment and have had no formalized training.”

Even one of the security success stories from the seven-year war is at risk as the Sahwa, or Awakening Councils, who are also known as the Sons of Iraq, largely have been benched in the fight.

The 100,000-strong Sahwa was supposed to be integrated into the security forces. But the vast majority have been relegated to desk jobs that have little to do with security, stoking resentment as scores have been killed by insurgents who see them as U.S. agents.

“These heroes are not willing to fight al-Qaida because they have not received what they deserved,” said Sheik Efan Saadoun, a provincial councilor in Anbar, the birthplace of the Sahwa militia.

U.S. officials cite opinion polls showing most Iraqis have faith in their security forces, and Lt. Gen. Michael D. Barbero, who oversees U.S. military trainers, predicts they will at least be able to protect the country – even if they are far from perfect – by the time American troops are scheduled to fully leave at the end of 2011.

Yet many Iraqis remain skeptical.

Most members of the forces “are not professional and can’t get rid of their sectarian feelings,” said Ahmed Khudier, 47, a Baghdad Sunni. “Despite all of their misdeeds and mistakes, we regard the American forces as a safety valve and we fear security will deteriorate after the U.S. withdrawal.”

Gen. Babaker Shawkat Zebari, the Kurd who commands Iraq’s military, is said by aides to have an uneasy relationship with al-Maliki and plans to retire as soon as a replacement is found. He thinks the U.S. military should stay until Iraq proves capable of defending itself – which he said could take until 2020.

“Look at the Turks, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain,” he said in an interview last month. “All of these countries have American bases under bilateral agreements. And I don’t think we should be afraid of that idea.”

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The Taliban have offered to exchange the body of a U.S. Navy sailor they said was killed in an ambush two days ago in exchange for insurgent prisoners, an Afghan official said Sunday.

U.S. and NATO officials confirmed that two American Navy personnel went missing Friday in the eastern province of Logar, after an armored sports utility vehicle was seen driving into a Taliban-held area.

In a telephone interview Sunday with The Associated Press, Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said the pair drove into an area under insurgent control, prompting a brief gunfight in which one American was killed and the other was captured. He said both were taken to a “safe area” and “are in the hands of the Taliban.”

Mujahid did not mention any offer to exchange the pair for Taliban prisoners. A local Afghan official said the Taliban sent a message through intermediaries offering to hand over the body in exchange for jailed insurgents.

Abdul Wali, the deputy head of the provincial governing council, said local authorities responded by saying, “Let’s talk about the one that is still alive.” The insurgents said they would have to talk to superiors before making any deal.

Hundreds of posters of the two missing sailors have been hung at checkpoints throughout Logar province where NATO troops are stopping vehicles, searching people, peering inside windows and searching trunks.

The posters, with photographs of the missing sailors, state: “This American troop is missing. He was last seen in a white Land Cruiser vehicle. If you have any information about this solider, kindly contact the Logar Joint Coordination Center,” run by coalition and Afghan forces. A phone number is listed along with information about a $20,000 reward being offered for information leading to their location.

The photographs show one clean-shaven sailor wearing a soft cap and another with short-cropped hair, wearing a blue civilian shirt and a white undershirt.

“Our latest, accurate information reports are that they are still in the area,” said Din Mohammed Darwesh, spokesman for the provincial governor of Logar.

He said the governor’s office was upset because the two Americans left their base without notifying Afghan security forces in Logar.

“This was an abnormal situation,” Darwesh said.

NATO officials have offered no clear explanation why the sailors were in Logar. The two left their compound in the Afghan capital, Kabul, Friday afternoon but never returned, NATO said in a statement.

The visiting chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, told reporters Sunday that he didn’t have all the details, but “from what I know right now, this is an unusual circumstance.”

Mullen said he could not comment on the Taliban claim that one American was killed and the other was captured. He says the U.S. is doing all it can to “return to American hands anybody who has been captured or killed.”

“There’s a tremendous amount of effort going on to find them, to search, and beyond that I can’t discuss any additional details at this time. “It serves to remind of the challenges that we have and also the service and sacrifice that so many make, but that’s really all I can talk about.”

Earlier Sunday, Mujahid, the Taliban spokesman, told the AP that he had no information about U.S. sailors in Taliban hands. He said he would look into the reports. He claimed responsibility in a subsequent conversation.

That suggested that the Friday attack was a spur-of-the-moment move and that the militants are trying to figure out what to do about it.

A NATO official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the event, confirmed the two were Navy personnel, but would not identify their unit to avoid jeopardizing search operations.

Samer Gul, the chief of Logar’s Charkh district, said a four-wheel drive armored sports utility vehicle was seen Friday night by a guard working for the district chief’s office. The guard tried to flag down the vehicle, carrying a driver and a passenger, but it kept going, Gul said.

“They stopped in the main bazaar of Charkh district. The Taliban saw them in the bazaar,” Gul said. “They didn’t touch them in the bazaar, but notified other Taliban that a four-wheel vehicle was coming their way.”

The second group of Taliban tried to stop the vehicle, but when it didn’t, insurgents opened fire and the occupants in the vehicle shot back, he said.

Gul said there is a well-paved road that leads into the Taliban area and suggested the Americans may have mistaken that for the main highway – which is much older and more dilapidated

The only U.S. service member known to be in Taliban captivity is Spc. Bowe Bergdahl of Hailey, Idaho, who disappeared June 30, 2009, in Paktika province. That area is heavily infiltrated by the Haqqani network, which has deep links to al-Qaida. He has since appeared on videos posted on Taliban websites confirming his captivity.

New York Times reporter David Rohde was also kidnapped in Logar province while trying to make contact with a Taliban commander. He and an Afghan colleague escaped in June 2009 after seven months in captivity, most of it spent in Taliban sanctuaries in Pakistan.

Also, Saturday night in Logar, Afghan and coalition security forces detained two suspected insurgents in a raid, NATO said Sunday. It was unclear whether the operation was directly tied to the search for the two missing sailors.

In the northeast, meanwhile, insurgents recaptured a remote district of Nuristan province that has bounced between government and Taliban control in recent months.

Afghan police retreated from Barg-e-Matal before dawn Sunday after days of heavy fighting in which at least five officers were killed, said Interior Ministry spokesman Zemeri Bashary.

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Bonus: “Mullen on Sunday in Kabul predicted rising levels of violence in the coming months but reaffirmed the coalition’s commitment to reducing civilian casualties”