War in Context

Ex-CIA aide won’t testify on tapes without immunity
By Scott Shane, New York Times, January 10, 2008
A lawyer for Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., the former Central Intelligence Agency official who in 2005 ordered the destruction of videotapes of harsh interrogations of prisoners at a secret site overseas, has told Congress that Mr. Rodriguez will not testify […]

Justice Dept. sets criminal inquiry on CIA tapes
By Mark Mazzetti and David Johnston, New York Times, January 3, 2008
Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey said Wednesday that the Justice Department had elevated its inquiry into the destruction of Central Intelligence Agency interrogation videotapes to a formal criminal investigation headed by a career federal prosecutor.
The announcement is […]

CIA to cooperate with House on tapes
By Scott Shane, New York Times, December 20, 2007
The Central Intelligence Agency has agreed to make documents related to the destruction of interrogation videotapes available to the House Intelligence Committee and to allow the agency’s top lawyer, John A. Rizzo, to testify about the matter, Congressional and intelligence officials […]

North Korea may have aided Hezbollah: U.S. report
By Arshad Mohammed, Reuters, December 13, 2007
North Korea may have given arms to Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tigers, according to a report compiled for Congress that could complicate U.S. plans to drop Pyongyang from its terrorism blacklist.
The report obtained on Wednesday by Reuters was written by […]

Review of Iran intelligence to be sought
By Robin Wright and Glenn Kessler, Washington Post, December 7, 2007
Senate Republicans are planning to call for a congressional commission to investigate the conclusions of the new National Intelligence Estimate on Iran as well as the specific intelligence that went into it, according to congressional sources.
The move is the […]

Pentagon is left scrambling to pay for war
By Gordon Lubold, Christian Science Monitor, November 19, 2007
Congress’s failure last week to agree whether and how to fund the war puts the onus on the Pentagon, at least for now, to find a way to cover expenses in Iraq, potentially forcing the Defense Department to close dozens […]

Bush administration blocked waterboarding critic
By Jan Crawford Greenburg and Ariane de Vogue, ABC News, November 2, 2007
A senior Justice Department official, charged with reworking the administration’s legal position on torture in 2004 became so concerned about the controversial interrogation technique of waterboarding that he decided to experience it firsthand, sources told ABC News.
Daniel Levin, then […]

White House feels Waxman’s oversight gaze
By Jonathan Weisman, Washington Post, October 25, 2007
For months, Rep. Henry A. Waxman, chairman of the House oversight committee, has been threatening, subpoenaing and just plain badgering Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to come before his panel to answer questions about the run-up to the Iraq war, corruption and State […]

Mukasey faces tough questions on torture
By Philip Shenon, New York Times, October 19, 2007
President Bush’s nominee for attorney general, Michael B. Mukasey, declined today to say if he considered harsh interrogation techniques like waterboarding, which simulates drowning, to constitute torture or to be illegal if used on terrorism suspects.
On the second day of confirmation hearings […]

Turkish general warns of irreversible damage to U.S. ties if genocide resolution passes
AP, October 14, 2007
Turkey’s top general warned that ties with the U.S., already strained by attacks from rebels hiding in Iraq, will be irreversibly damaged if Congress passes a resolution that labels the World War I-era killings of Armenians a genocide.
Turkey, which is […]

Worried Iraqi officials urge calm as Turkish-Kurdish conflict escalates
By Joshua Partlow, Washington Post, October 11, 2007
Turkish armed forces’ escalation of bombing and shelling in northern Iraq, along with threats of a broad ground incursion across the border, has alarmed and surprised Iraqi officials, who say the problems Turkey faces from rebel groups can be solved […]

A different strategy actual Iraqis support
By Reidar Visser, Delawareonline, October 7, 2007
Sept. 30 saw a rare display of Iraqi-American unity in Baghdad: The U.S. embassy as well as scores of Iraqi politicians joined forces in condemning a U.S. Senate resolution to impose a federal state structure on all parts of Iraq.
In general, there was agreement […]

Senate urges Bush to declare Iran Guard a terrorist group
By David M. Herszenhorn, New York Times, September 27, 2007
The Senate approved a resolution on Wednesday urging the Bush administration to designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign terrorist organization, and lawmakers briefly set aside partisan differences to approve a measure calling for stepped-up […]

Senate backs separating Iraq into 3 regions
By Noam N. Levey, Los Angeles Times, September 27, 2007
Implicitly criticizing the Bush administration’s reliance on the Iraqi central government to unify the country, the U.S. Senate on Wednesday overwhelmingly endorsed the decentralization of Iraq into semi-autonomous regions.
The nonbinding measure sponsored by Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) — […]