The accused are: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarek Bin ‘Attash, Ramzi Binalshibh, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi, and Mohamed al Kahtani.

Each of the defendants is charged with conspiracy and the separate, substantive offenses of: murder in violation of the law of war, attacking civilians, attacking civilian objects, intentionally causing serious bodily injury, destruction of property in violation of the law of war, terrorism and providing material support for terrorism.

The first four defendants, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarek Bin ‘Attash, Ramzi Binalshibh, and Ali Abdul Aziz Ali are also charged with the substantive offense of hijacking or hazarding a vessel.

All of the charges are alleged to have been in support of the attacks on the United States on Sept. 11, 2001.

Now that sworn charges have been received, the convening authority will review the charges and supporting evidence to determine whether probable cause exists to refer the case for trial by military commission. The chief prosecutor has requested that charges to be tried jointly and be referred as capital for each defendant. If the convening authority, Susan Crawford, in her sole discretion, decides to refer the cases as capital, the defendants will face the possibility of being sentenced to death.

The charge sheet details 169 overt acts allegedly committed by the defendants in furtherance of the Sept. 11 events.

For Col. Lawrence J. Morris, the newly installed Guantanamo chief prosecutor, the day is a long time coming. Six years ago, as head of the Army's criminal-law branch, he had been assigned to plan the first military commissions -- a process designed to prosecute suspected terrorists captured around the world. At that time, he proposed a high-profile public trial that would lay bare the scope of al Qaeda's alleged conspiracy while burnishing the ideals of American justice.

Instead, people familiar with the process say, he was sidelined by the Bush administration. Senior officials had decided to interrogate captured al Qaeda leaders in secrecy rather than swiftly bringing them to justice -- a tactic they figured might help stave off future attacks. That left Guantanamo prosecutors to pursue minor characters who might quickly plead guilty.

But instead of racking up rapid convictions, the prosecution effort stumbled through internal disarray and legal setbacks. Meanwhile, Guantanamo's reputation was stained by allegations of inmate abuse, erroneous detentions and a sense that the U.S. saw itself free to act outside existing law.

Whether the outcome would have been different if Col. Morris had prevailed in 2001 and 2002 is hard to know. But the Bush administration, after being hit with a series of adverse legal decisions, including one landmark Supreme Court case in 2006, decided the time had come to bring the big cases to trial.

Col. Morris returned in November to oversee the prosecutions, and in the process potentially rescue a central part of the president's legacy.

* * *
Col. Morris says that like the epic 1945 Nuremberg trials, which documented the Nazi regime's crimes, the Guantanamo proceedings will reveal the scope of the al Qaeda conspiracy.

"The biggest thing you will see is the sophistication of the al Qaeda operation," says Col. Morris, 51 years old. If anyone still thinks the 9/11 terrorists just happened to be lucky amateurs, they will see "the methodical, military-like fashion" by which al Qaeda planned and executed the attacks.

Part of Gates’s appeal may be that he seems to come from an earlier era — one that was in some ways deadlier but in other ways calmer, more predictable. “My view of how foreign policy gets made was very much shaped by the fact that I’ve spent most of my career during the cold war, where the fundamental strategy was embraced under nine different presidents,” Gates told me in his Pentagon office. It was a time when political leaders understood that “if you’re to have any enduring goals, they have to have bipartisan support. And that’s shaped my approach to Iraq and a whole bunch of other things.”

It was easier to forge consensus when the world was divided into the realms of two superpowers and America’s main task was to stand guard on the border and keep the Russians at bay. It is much harder when power is dispersed and achieving our “enduring goals” is said to require intervening — and taking casualties — in a faction-frayed Iraq. Can counterinsurgency, which by its nature involves long, twilight struggles against murky foes, be a lasting legacy for Gates or a viable centerpiece for U.S. policy? Can the Army be persuaded to embrace it? Can the public?

When the next president takes the oath on Jan. 20, 2009, Gates will be just 65 years old, but he insists he will retire from public life, this time for good. A friend recently gave him an electronic key chain, inscribed “The Gates Countdown,” with a small screen reading out how many days remain till the end of the term. He carries it everywhere, in part as a joke but not entirely. Told that those screens can be reset, he replied, “Not this one.” When I mentioned that some lawmakers would like him to stay on in the next administration, he replied, “I am very wary of saying, ‘Never,’ ” but added, “The circumstances under which I would do that are inconceivable to me.”

Arrayed around his office are photos of his remote lakeside house in the Pacific Northwest — as far away from Washington, D.C., as almost any spot in the continental United States. On one wall is a painting of nearby Mount Rainier. He said that he tells visitors, “Those pictures are there to remind you I don’t have to be doing this.” Gates’s press secretary, Geoff Morrell, tried to brighten the mood: “I don’t want you to leave the impression — you’re still having fun in this job, though, aren’t you? I mean, you enjoy what you’re doing, no?” Gates stared at him, for about 10 seconds. Finally, he turned back to me and said: “I consider that, like our soldiers, I’m doing my duty. There are a lot of other things I’d rather be doing. But this is important.”

Soldiers and those medically retired who are part of the Wounded Warrior Program are eligible to participate in the new education initiative. They must already have a baccalaureate degree and must also be physically and mentally prepared to attend school.

Under the pilot program, participants will complete their master's degree at the University of Kansas, while the Army picks up the tab for that education.

"The welcome mat is out at KU," Chancellor Hemenway said.

* * *

At the completion of their degree program, graduates would take jobs as faculty or staff at the Army's Command and General Staff College or Combined Arms Center here. Those Soldiers who are still on active duty would remain on active duty, while those retired due to injury would serve as civilian instructors.

The program is one way the Army can stem the loss of military knowledge, education and experience that comes when wounded Soldiers leave the service, officials said. By helping wounded Soldiers complete their master's degree, the Army can keep some of that corporate knowledge in house.

* * *

If these wounded warriors choose to complete their education at the University of Kansas, they will take jobs at CGCS, filling positions already identified by the school and applying their own education and personal experience to benefit students enrolled there.

Those wishing to participate in the Wounded Warrior Education Initiative must have been wounded in the war on terror and have a campaign medal. They may be either active duty, or medically retired active-component or reserve-component Soldiers.

Imagine a wedding reception without food, music or Champagne, and you get an inkling of how a lot of Hollywood would view the Oscars without the Vanity Fair party. But Hollywood will no longer have to imagine it — the party is off.

In sympathy with striking writers, Vanity Fair on Tuesday canceled its annual multimillion-dollar must-attend party. There are other parties, but this is the one Oscar-related trapping that has come to rival the main event for a cast of above-the-title stars, assorted billionaires and several hundred of their closest friends.

The editor of Vanity Fair, Graydon Carter, said on Tuesday that canceling was the right thing to do, whether or not there was a breakthrough in talks between the Writers Guild of America and production companies before the Oscar ceremony on Feb. 24.

“A magazine like Vanity Fair is a group of writers and artists, and we are in solidarity with the writers and artists out there,” Mr. Carter said. “Whether the strike is over or not, there are a lot of bruised feelings. I don’t think it’s appropriate for a big magazine from the East to come in and pretend nothing happened.”

He added, “There will be something sort of liberating about ordering Chinese food and watching the Oscars in bed.”

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has pledged that the Oscars will go on, and it has asked the writers not to picket given recent progress in contract talks.

But the guild insists that it will picket, and many stars are expected to skip the event rather than cross a picket line.

NEW YORK, Feb. 2 -- Veterans for Obama converged on NYC to blanket the city with coordinated small “strikes” at many strategic locations to augment NYC Obama Director Rudi Shenk’s dedicated campaign forces. Vets are trying to target and win over many independent and undecided voters who are considering voting for Barack. Our NYC Veterans group is finding that New Yorkers and international visitors are very interested in Barack’s message of unity and hope.

In less than 24 hours, Vets and NYC volunteers distributed over 500 of Scott Allen’s (former Merchant Marine and the dedicated national syndicator of the latest installment of Veterans for Obama signs throughout the country) throughout lower Broadway, Grand Central Station with commuters heading for Westchester and Connecticut, Harlem, Brooklyn, on subways, and at various rallies throughout the City.

On 31 January, Matt Flavin (USN Iraq/Afghanistan vet) led Mike Donatelli (USAF,) Don Stanton (USN,) and Barry Junker (USN) to help fire up and speak to a Generation Obama pre-Debate rally at The Grand. Organizers had planned for 100 people, but about 700 turned up! RAI Italian TV interviewed Mike and Don.

This morning, NYC Veterans Coordinator, Jan Donatelli (USN,) participated in the Women for Obama family rally at Columbus Circle where she met John Kerry’s sister who came over and wanted a Veterans For Obama sign for her brother. Jan organized a Veterans Meet-up for Change in Union Square where many people showed interest in Obama’s message. The BBC, Huffington Post, Fox, and several local news outlets interviewed Jan and Mike about our Obama veterans efforts.

Other Veterans outreach events for Obama included:
Harlem Victoria Theatre visibility event, where a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation film crew interviewed Don and Mike on how Veterans For Obama got started and what we were doing around the country. A Finnish TV cameraman photographed vet signs in the subway and we participated in the Brooklyn Bridge Walk for Change. Union Square Veterans rally, the MTV rally in Times Square, and Obama volunteer coverage of nightspots.

The energy for Barack is building in NYC, and the region and the media are interested in his positive message!

The situation is rooted in severe readiness problems in National Guard and reserve forces, which would otherwise be well-suited to respond to domestic crises but lack sufficient personnel and training, as well as $48 billion in equipment because of deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a report by the Commission on the National Guard and Reserves.

Guard readiness has continued to slide since last March, when the panel found that 88 percent of Army National Guard units were rated "not ready," said retired Marine Maj. Gen. Arnold L. Punaro, the commission chairman.

"We think there is an appalling gap in readiness for homeland defense, because it will be the Guard and reserve that have to respond for these things," he said in an interview, noting that the reserves are present in 3,000 U.S. communities. The commission, which was established in 2005, has 12 members, including several other former military officers.

"Because the nation has not adequately resourced its forces designated for response to weapons of mass destruction, it does not have sufficient trained, ready forces available," the report said. "This is an appalling gap that places the nation and its citizens at greater risk."

Background: An important medical concern of the Iraq war is the potential long-term effect of mild traumatic brain injury, or concussion, particularly from blast explosions. However, the epidemiology of combat-related mild traumatic brain injury is poorly understood.

Methods: We surveyed 2525 U.S. Army infantry soldiers 3 to 4 months after their return from a year-long deployment to Iraq. Validated clinical instruments were used to compare soldiers reporting mild traumatic brain injury, defined as an injury with loss of consciousness or altered mental status (e.g., dazed or confused), with soldiers who reported other injuries.

Results: Of 2525 soldiers, 124 (4.9%) reported injuries with loss of consciousness, 260 (10.3%) reported injuries with altered mental status, and 435 (17.2%) reported other injuries during deployment. Of those reporting loss of consciousness, 43.9% met criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), as compared with 27.3% of those reporting altered mental status, 16.2% with other injuries, and 9.1% with no injury. Soldiers with mild traumatic brain injury, primarily those who had loss of consciousness, were significantly more likely to report poor general health, missed workdays, medical visits, and a high number of somatic and postconcussive symptoms than were soldiers with other injuries. However, after adjustment for PTSD and depression, mild traumatic brain injury was no longer significantly associated with these physical health outcomes or symptoms, except for headache.

Conclusions: Mild traumatic brain injury (i.e., concussion) occurring among soldiers deployed in Iraq is strongly associated with PTSD and physical health problems 3 to 4 months after the soldiers return home. PTSD and depression are important mediators of the relationship between mild traumatic brain injury and physical health problems.

. . . Suicides among active-duty soldiers in 2007 reached their highest level since the Army began keeping such records in 1980, according to a draft internal study obtained by The Washington Post. Last year, 121 soldiers took their own lives, nearly 20 percent more than in 2006.

At the same time, the number of attempted suicides or self-inflicted injuries in the Army has jumped sixfold since the Iraq war began. Last year, about 2,100 soldiers injured themselves or attempted suicide, compared with about 350 in 2002, according to the U.S. Army Medical Command Suicide Prevention Action Plan.

* * *
The conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have placed severe stress on the Army, caused in part by repeated and lengthened deployments. Historically, suicide rates tend to decrease when soldiers are in conflicts overseas, but that trend has reversed in recent years. From a suicide rate of 9.8 per 100,000 active-duty soldiers in 2001 -- the lowest rate on record -- the Army reached an all-time high of 17.5 suicides per 100,000 active-duty soldiers in 2006. [emphasis added]

Last year, twice as many soldier suicides occurred in the United States than in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Col. Elspeth Cameron Ritchie, the Army's top psychiatrist and author of the study, said that suicides and attempted suicides "are continuing to rise despite a lot of things we're doing now and have been doing." Ritchie added: "We need to improve training and education. We need to improve our capacity to provide behavioral health care."

. . . as Washington wrangles over how to jumpstart the economy, there's one proven strategy for growth that no one is talking about — a new GI Bill.

President Bush should call on Congress to pass a modern GI Bill by the end of his term. A new GI Bill would significantly stimulate the U.S. economy and go a long way toward helping our newest generation of heroes build a better life.

When President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the original GI Bill in 1944, he ensured that eight million World War II veterans would be able to afford an education. Every dollar spent sending the Greatest Generation to college added seven dollars to our national economy. Educating our country's veterans was the right thing to do after World War II, and it is the right thing to do now.

Sadly, the educational benefits available to new veterans are far inferior to what their predecessors received. Today's GI Bill covers less than 70% of the average cost at a public college and even less than two years at a typical private college.

President Bush can strengthen our country's economy now by investing in our newest veterans. Every year, we can send Iraq and Afghanistan veterans to college for less than 3% of the proposed stimulus package. For the American taxpayer, this would be a fantastic return on investment. To learn more and take action, click here.

. . . Private media does not get up in the morning and say what can we do to promote the values and ideas that the free Western nations believe in? It gets up in the morning and says they're going to try to make money by selling whatever they sell... The way they decided to do that is to be dramatic and if it bleeds it leads is the common statement in the media today. They've got their job, and they have to do that, and that's what they do.

We need someone in the United States government, some entity, not like the old USIA . . . I think this agency, a new agency has to be something that would take advantage of the wonderful opportunities that exist today. There are multiple channels for information . . . The Internet is there, blogs are there, talk radio is there, e-mails are there. There are all kinds of opportunities. We do not with any systematic organized way attempt to engage the battle of ideas and talk about the idea of beheading, and what it's about and what it means. And talk about the fact that people are killing more Muslims than they are non-Muslims, these extremists. They're doing it with suicide bombs and the like. We need to engage and not simply be passive and allow that battle of competition of ideas.

BEAUFORT, S.C. -- Veteran issues were front and center for Barack Obama on Wednesday at a rally in Beaufort High School home of the Blue Dolphins. Stirring introductions by Kent Fletcher, a recent Marine combat veteran from Iraq and a powerful endorsement by retired Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps John Estrada raised the need for strong leadership in national security, demanded that the country stand behind our wounded and called for an orderly and responsible end to the war in Iraq.

When Senator Obama took the stage, he asked all veterans present to stand and be recognized. Veterans from World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq, among others, rose to thunderous applause as he thanked them for their service.

Obama returned to veterans themes several times during his forty minute stump speech that involved a well crafted call-and-response: “Are you ready for change?” as the crowd roared back “We’re ready!” His main message came across to vets: his gratitude for their service; his recognition for their sacrifice; and his desire to support the services required to make that support real.

Obama said: “Our veterans should not have to beg for the services owed to them.” He spoke against the year-long backlogs and labyrinthine applications processes at the Veterans Administration. He called top-quality service for our vets: “A sacred trust between the nation and its wounded warriors”.

With South Carolina nearing its January 26 primary, Obama’s character and values were on display in an unfailingly positive and respectful tone that warned of last minute attempts to mislead voters. He took a few minutes to identify and rebut negative attacks. He described a 20 year career of grass roots organizing, law and politics; recounted the gift of love, education and hope given to him by his family; and, talked about the importance of acting for change and not accepting the old formulations and the unsuccessful approaches of the past.

Reactions in the audience were overwhelmingly positive. Bill Dooling, a Vietnam veteran, union organizer and retired teacher of 30 years said: “I saw Bobby Kennedy in the 1960’s. Obama has the same ability to motivate and inspire young and old. We need a President who can relate to all generations.” John Hurley, a Vietnam veteran said: “Obama has a deep and sincere desire to take care of vets. He has the intelligence, candor and judgment that we need in a Commander in Chief.”

Later that evening, in a more intimate round table with voters and veterans from the Obama campaign, an Iraq war veteran exchanged views with Sergeant Major Estrada on the proper balance between politics and the military. The Sergeant Major affirmed his belief that no one on active duty should be engaged in the political process. But, he added that everyone on active duty had the responsibility as a citizen to make up their own mind and vote. And those who have retired have a duty to contribute their judgment to the public debate.

As the primary campaign draws to a close, the veterans at the event were clearly enthusiastic about Obama. They appreciated his concrete record of support on veterans issues as a member of the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs. They responded to the honor, commitment and courage that have brought him this far in the campaign. But more importantly, they shared a powerful experience as Barack Obama talked passionately about a vision for our country that touched on the core ideals every veteran has sacrificed to preserve and sparked a desire to serve anew.

-- CAPT W. Scott Gould, USNR (Ret)
Co-Chair, National Veterans Policy Committee for Obama

WASHINGTON — With its international mandate in Iraq set to expire in 11 months, the Bush administration will insist that the government in Baghdad give the United States broad authority to conduct combat operations and guarantee civilian contractors immunity from Iraqi law, according to administration and military officials.

This emerging American negotiating position faces a potential buzz saw of opposition from Iraq, with its fragmented Parliament, weak central government and deep sensitivities about being seen as a dependent state, according to these officials.

At the same time, the administration faces opposition from Democrats at home, who warn that the agreements the White House seeks would bind the next president by locking in Mr. Bush’s policies and a long-term military presence.

The American negotiating position for a formal military-to-military relationship, one that would replace the current United Nations mandate, is laid out in a draft proposal that was described by a range of White House, Pentagon, State Department and military officials on ground rules of anonymity. It also includes less-controversial demands that American troops be immune from Iraqi prosecution, and that they maintain the power to detain Iraqi prisoners.

* * *
Administration officials are describing their draft proposal in terms of a traditional status-of-forces agreement, an accord that has historically been negotiated by the executive branch and signed by the executive branch without a Senate vote.

“I think it’s pretty clear that such an agreement would not talk about force levels,” Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Thursday. “We have no interest in permanent bases. I think the way to think about the framework agreement is an approach to normalizing the relationship between the United States and Iraq.”

At least 100 predominantly Sunni militiamen, known as Awakening Council members or Concerned Local Citizens, have been killed in the past month, mostly around Baghdad and the provincial capital of Baquba, urban areas with mixed Sunni and Shiite populations, according to Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani. At least six of the victims were senior Awakening leaders, Iraqi officials said.

Violence is also shaking up the Awakening movement, many of whose members are former insurgents, in its birthplace in the Sunni heartland of Anbar Province. On Sunday, a teenage suicide bomber exploded at a gathering of Awakening leaders, killing Hadi Hussein al-Issawi, a midlevel sheik, and three other tribesmen.

Born nearly two years ago in Iraq’s western deserts, the Awakening movement has grown to an 80,000-member nationwide force, four-fifths of whose members are Sunnis. American military officials credit that force, along with the surge in United States troops, the Mahdi Army’s self-imposed cease-fire and an increase in Iraqi security forces, for a precipitous drop in civilian and military fatalities since July.

But the recent onslaught is jeopardizing that relative security and raising the prospect that the groups’ members might disperse, with many rejoining the insurgency, American officials said.

“There’s a recognition that sustained attacks cannot continue,” said a United States official who was not authorized to speak publicly. “We’ve got to break that.” The official said that American military and intelligence officials were taking the threat to the Awakening movement “very seriously.”

American and Iraqi officials blame Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia for most of the killings, which spiked after the Dec. 29 release of an audio recording in which Osama bin Laden called the volunteer tribesmen “traitors” and “infidels.” While the organization is overwhelmingly Iraqi and Sunni, American military officials say it has foreign leadership, though its links with Mr. bin Laden himself are unclear.

Officials say that Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia has a two-pronged strategy: directing strikes against Awakening members to intimidate and punish them for cooperating with the Americans, and infiltrating the groups to glean intelligence and discredit the movement in the eyes of an already wary Shiite-led government. “Al Qaeda is trying to assassinate all the Awakening members that support the government, but I believe that criminal militias are also doing this,” Mr. Bolani said during a recent interview in Taji.

1) Standing up the Iraqi security forces to replace departing U.S. troops.
2) Enlisting "Concerned Local Citizens" (read: former insurgents and militias) to secure their neighborhoods.
3) Brokering local political deals with Sunni and Shiite leaders to preserve the peace, and national political deals with former militants like Moqtada al-Sadr.
4) Pouring resources into reconstruction to develop Iraq's civil society, economy, etc., to capitalize on the security gains thus far.

The study by the National Priorities Project concluded that slightly more than 70 percent of new recruits joining the active-duty Army last year had a high school diploma, nearly 20 percentage points lower than the Army's goal of at least 90 percent.

The National Priorities Project, a Massachusetts-based research group that examines the impact of federal budget policies and has been outspoken against the Iraq war, said the number of high school graduates among new recruits fell from 83.5 percent in 2005 to 70.7 percent last year.

"The trend is clear," said Anita Dancs, the project's research director, who based the report on Defense Department data released via the Freedom of Information Act. "They're missing their benchmarks, and I think it's strongly linked to the impact [of] the Iraq war."

The study also found that the number of "high quality" recruits — those with both a high school diploma and a score in the upper half on the military's qualification test — has dropped more than 15 percent from 2004 to 2007. After linking the recruiting data to Zip codes and median incomes, it found that low- and middle-income families are supplying far more Army recruits than families with incomes greater than $60,000 a year.

"Once again, we're staring at the painful story of young people with fewer options bearing the greatest burden," said Greg Speeter, the project's executive director.

The Army previously acknowledged that it has not met the 90 percent mark since 2004, and yesterday officials at U.S. Army Recruiting Command disputed the group's numbers but not the trend. They said that 79.1 percent of its active-duty recruits in 2007 had a high school diploma, down from 87 percent in 2005.

"It's really an indication of the difficult recruiting environment we're in, both with the impact of the ongoing wars, an economy competing for high school graduates, and a decline in the percentage of students who graduate from high school," said Douglas Smith, a spokesman for the recruiting command. "But we're not putting anyone in the Army that we don't feel is qualified to serve as a soldier."

ARAB JABOUR, Iraq — From the blast and the high, thin plume of white smoke above the tree line, it looked and sounded like any other attack. The bare details were, sadly, routine enough: a gunner was killed and three crew members were wounded Saturday when their vehicle rolled over a homemade bomb buried beneath a road southeast of Baghdad.

Yet, it was anything but routine. Over a crackling field radio came reports of injuries and then, sometime later, official confirmation of the first fatality inflicted by a roadside bomb on an MRAP, the new Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected armored vehicle that the American military is counting on to reduce casualties from roadside bombs in Iraq.

The military has been careful to point out that the new vehicle is not impervious to attack, and that a sufficiently powerful bomb can destroy any vehicle. Still, a forensic team was flown in immediately to inspect the charred wreckage, from which wires and tangled metal protruded, to determine whether the bombing had revealed a design flaw.

“It’s a great vehicle, but there is no perfect vehicle,” said Lt. Col. Kenneth Adgie, commander of the battalion that lost the soldier.

* * *
Captain Newman said that his battalions had been using the new vehicles for about two months, and that this was the first time one had been hit with a bomb.

“Unfortunately we knew our time would probably come,” he said. “It was just a very, very big amount of explosives. You can break anything with a big enough hammer.”

That sentiment was echoed by other soldiers in the area.

“Before this, lots of soldiers thought the MRAP was indestructible, but nothing is indestructible,” Specialist Matthew Gregg, 24, an MRAP gunner, said after driving past the wreckage. “To drive past it three or four times now, it reminds you that everything is unpredictable out here.” [emphasis added]

. . .The American armed forces have been increasingly turning to these Mine Resistant, Ambush Protected MRAP vehicles, to keep themselves from getting killed by roadside bombs.  Last spring, Defense Secretary Robert Gates called the MRAPs the Defense Department's "highest priority. In Iraq, soldier after soldier told me stories about how the vehicles had saved their lives.

But the vehicles were never going to be a perfect defense, as we've said over and over and over and over again here.  There is no perfect defense — even with the MRAP's bomb-deflecting hull and explosive-resistant construction.  In fact, several MRAPs have been totaled before — it's just that troops walked away from the blasts.

In certain circles, this attack may be used as fodder to get the armed forces to tone down its massive MRAP orders. But the issue, it seems to me, is whether the vehicles are actually maneuverable enough for Iraq — not whether or not they're impervious.

That said, even in this big attack, the MRAP seems to have held up fairly well.

Brothers and sisters, we cannot walk alone.

In the struggle for peace and justice, we cannot walk alone.

In the struggle for opportunity and equality, we cannot walk alone

In the struggle to heal this nation and repair this world, we cannot walk alone.

So I ask you to walk with me, and march with me, and join your voice with mine, and together we will sing the song that tears down the walls that divide us, and lift up an America that is truly indivisible, with liberty, and justice, for all. May God bless the memory of the great pastor of this church, and may God bless the United States of America.

This is the grimmest, and surely the holiest, task we have faced since D-day. Here before us lie the bodies of comrades and friends. Men who until yesterday or last week laughed with us, joked with us, trained with us. Men who were on the same ships with us, and went over the side with us as we prepared to hit the beaches of this island. Men who fought with us and feared with us. Somewhere in this plot of ground there may lie the man who could have discovered the cure for cancer. Under one of these Christian crosses, or beneath a Jewish Star of David, there may rest now a man who was destined to be a great prophet to find the way, perhaps, for all to live in plenty, with poverty and hardship for none. Now they lie silently in this sacred soil, and we gather to consecrate this earth to their, memory.

It is not easy to do so. Some of us have buried our closest friends here. We saw these men killed before our very eyes. Any one of us might have died in their places; Indeed, some of us are alive and breathing at this very moment only because the men who lie here beneath us had the courage and the strength to give their lives, for ours. To speak in memory of such men as these is not easy. Of them too it can be said with utter truth: The world will little note nor long remember what we say here. It can never forget what they did here.

No, our power of speech can add nothing more to what these men and the other dead of our Division have already done. All that we can even hope to do is follow their example. To show the same selfless courage in peace that they did in war. To swear that by the grace of God and the stubborn strength and power of human will, their sons and ours shall never suffer these pains again. These men have done their job well. They have paid the ghastly price for freedom. If that freedom be once again lost, as it was after the last war, the unforgivable blame will be ours, not theirs. So it is we the living who are to be dedicated and consecrated.

We dedicate ourselves, first, to live together in peace the way we fought and are buried in this war. Here lie men who loved America because their ancestors generations ago helped in her founding, and other men who loved her with equal passion because they themselves or their own fathers escaped from oppression to her blessed shores.

Here lie officers and men, Negroes and whites, rich and poor together. Here no man prefers another because of his faith or despises him because of his color. Here there are no quotas of how many men from each group are admitted or allowed. Among these men there is no discrimination, no prejudices, no hatred. Theirs is the highest and purest Democracy.

Any man among us the living who fails to understand that will thereby betray those who lie here dead. Whoever of us lifts his hand in hate against a brother, or thinks himself superior to those who happen to be in the minority, makes of this ceremony and of the bloody sacrifice it commemorates an empty, hollow mockery.

To this, then, as our solemn, sacred duty, do we the living now dedicate ourselves: to the right of Protestants, Catholics, and Jews, of white men and Negroes alike, to enjoy the Democracy for which all of them here have paid the price.

TOOELE, Utah — Not long after Lance Cpl. Walter Rollo Smith returned from Iraq, the Marines dispatched him to Quantico, Va., for a marksmanship instructor course.

Mr. Smith, then a 21-year-old Marine Corps reservist from Utah, had been shaken to the core by the intensity of his experience during the invasion of Iraq. Once a squeaky-clean Mormon boy who aspired to serve a mission abroad, he had come home a smoker and drinker, unsure if he believed in God.

In Quantico, he reported to the firing range with a friend from Fox Company, the combined Salt Lake City-Las Vegas battalion nicknamed the Saints and Sinners. Raising his rifle, he stared through the scope and started shaking. What he saw were not the inanimate targets before him but vivid, hallucinatory images of Iraq: “the cars coming at us, the chaos, the dust, the women and children, the bodies we left behind,” he said.

Each time he squeezed the trigger, Mr. Smith cried, harder and harder until he was, in his own words, “bawling on the rifle range, which marines just do not do.” Mortified, he allowed himself to be pulled away. And not long afterward, the Marines began processing his medical discharge for post-traumatic stress disorder, severing his link to the Reserve unit that anchored him and sending him off to seek help from veterans hospitals.

The incident on the firing range was the first “red flag,” as the prosecutor in Tooele County, Utah, termed it, that Mr. Smith sent up as he gradually disintegrated psychologically. At his lowest point, in March 2006, he killed Nicole Marie Speirs, the 22-year-old mother of his twin children, drowning her in a bathtub without any evident provocation or reason.

“There was no intent,” said Gary K. Searle, the deputy Tooele County attorney. “It was almost like things kept ratcheting up, without any real intervention that I can see, until one day he snapped.”

Clearly, Mr. Smith’s descent into homicidal, and suicidal, behavior is not representative of returning veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder. But among the homicide cases involving recent war veterans examined by The New York Times, Mr. Smith’s stands out because his identity as a psychologically injured veteran shaped the way that his crime was perceived locally and handled by local authorities. [emphasis added]

Retired U.S. Army Gen. Tommy Franks, who led the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, was paid $100,000 to endorse a veterans charity that watchdog groups say is ripping off donors and wounded veterans by using only a small portion of the money raised for veterans services, according to testimony in Congress today.

Gen. Franks' involvement was revealed as members of Congress questioned Roger Chapin, who operates Help Hospitalized Veterans and the Coalition to Salute America's Heroes Foundation, charities that congressional investigators say spend only 25 percent of the money they raise on projects for wounded veterans.

The charities were graded "F" by the American Institute of Philanthropy because so little of the money is used for actual charity projects or services.

Chapin testified he approached Gen. Franks in 2005, and he agreed to let his signature be used on mass mailings seeking contributions to his charities.

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"Gen. Franks did support the Coalition to Support American Heroes back in 2004 and 2005. The General made several speeches for the organization because he supports the idea of taking care of our disabled veterans. He also premitted the use of his name in direct mailings for about a year," Michael Hayes, chief of staff for Franks & Associates LLC, said. "He ended his support for the CSAH in late 2005 when he learned that the percent of money raised that was going to the troops was less than 85 percent, a figure which was then and remains today his critertia for supporting charitable organizations."

Diyala has defied the trend toward lower violence over the past six months in Baghdad and much of central Iraq, largely because it became the new base for insurgents pushed out of Baghdad and Anbar province.

At least 273 civilians were slain in Diyala last month, compared to at least 213 in June, according to an Associated Press count. Over the same span, monthly civilian deaths in Baghdad dropped from at least 838 to at least 182. [emphasis added]

One of the Army's most prominent younger officers, whose writings have influenced the conduct of the U.S. troop buildup in Iraq, said he has decided to leave the service to study strategic issues full time at a new Washington think tank.

Lt. Col. John Nagl, 41, is a co-author of the Army's new manual on counterinsurgency operations, which has been used heavily by U.S. forces carrying out the strategy of moving off big bases, living among the population and making the protection of civilians their top priority.

A Rhodes scholar, Nagl first achieved prominence for his Oxford University doctoral dissertation, which was published in 2002 as a book titled "Learning to Eat Soup With a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons From Malaya and Vietnam." The introduction to a recent edition of the book was written by Gen. Peter Schoomaker, at the time the Army's chief of staff.

Nagl led a tank platoon in the 1991 Persian Gulf war and served in Iraq in 2003 and 2004 as the operations officer for an Army battalion in Iraq's Anbar province. "I thought I understood something about counterinsurgency," Nagl told the New York Times Magazine in January 2004, "until I started doing it."

"God Willing" -- by Capt. Eric Navarro, USMCR. The title of the book comes from the English translation of "insha'allah" -- an all-purpose saying in Iraq for "if God wills it." It can mean either hope or fatalism; optimism or determinism. Depends on the context. As a combat adviser to the Iraqi Army, I'm sure that Capt. Navarro heard it many, many times. This is the story of his time advising the Iraqi Army during the assault on Fallujah, among other engagements, and it's a great tale. Capt. Navarro is now back in Iraq on his second tour, but I look forward to reading his book and hopefully meeting him when he comes home to New York City.

"Torture and Democracy" -- by Darius Rejali, professor of political science at Reed College. This massive tome contains a comprehensive modern history of torture -- "from the late nineteenth century to the aftermath of Abu Ghraib, from slavery and the electric chair to electrotorture in American inner cities, and from French and British colonial prison cells and the Spanish-American War to the fields of Vietnam, the wars of the Middle East, and the new democracies of Latin America and Europe." It ties together a number of disparate strands of scholarship which haven't been brought together before, and provides a chilling look at what governments have sought to do in the name of security and the greater good. Rejali is a prominent scholar and public intellectual with a long c.v. of writings on the subject. I'm looking forward to reading this history.

The New York Times found 121 cases in which veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan committed a killing in this country, or were charged with one, after their return from war. In many of those cases, combat trauma and the stress of deployment — along with alcohol abuse, family discord and other attendant problems — appear to have set the stage for a tragedy that was part destruction, part self-destruction.

Three-quarters of these veterans were still in the military at the time of the killing. More than half the killings involved guns, and the rest were stabbings, beatings, strangulations and bathtub drownings. Twenty-five offenders faced murder, manslaughter or homicide charges for fatal car crashes resulting from drunken, reckless or suicidal driving.

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The Pentagon does not keep track of such killings, most of which are prosecuted not by the military justice system but by civilian courts in state after state. Neither does the Justice Department.

To compile and analyze its list, The Times conducted a search of local news reports, examined police, court and military records and interviewed the defendants, their lawyers and families, the victims’ families and military and law enforcement officials.

This reporting most likely uncovered only the minimum number of such cases, given that not all killings, especially in big cities and on military bases, are reported publicly or in detail. Also, it was often not possible to determine the deployment history of other service members arrested on homicide charges.

The Times used the same methods to research homicides involving all active-duty military personnel and new veterans for the six years before and after the present wartime period began with the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

This showed an 89 percent increase during the present wartime period, to 349 cases from 184, about three-quarters of which involved Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans. The increase occurred even though there have been fewer troops stationed in the United States in the last six years and the American homicide rate has been, on average, lower.

The Pentagon was given The Times’s roster of homicides. It declined to comment because, a spokesman, Lt. Col. Les Melnyk, said, the Department of Defense could not duplicate the newspaper’s research. Further, Colonel Melnyk questioned the validity of comparing prewar and wartime numbers based on news media reports, saying that the current increase might be explained by “an increase in awareness of military service by reporters since 9/11.” He also questioned the value of “lumping together different crimes such as involuntary manslaughter with first-degree homicide.”