-
The CS Monitor reports in order To meet the June deadline, the U.S. and Iraqis redraw city borders.
On a map of Baghdad, the US Army’s Forward Operating Base Falcon is clearly within city limits.
Except that Iraqi and American military officials have decided it’s not. As the June 30 deadline for US soldiers to be out of Iraqi cities approaches, there are no plans to relocate the roughly 3,000 American troops who help maintain security in south Baghdad along what were the fault lines in the sectarian war.
“We and the Iraqis decided it wasn’t in the city,” says a US military official.
See problem solved! Just wait until 2011 when the U.S. and Iraqis redraw the borders of Iraq so American troops can remain. “If our long-term goal is strategic partnership in Iraq, I would suspect beyond 2011 we would have some kind of long-term presence here,” a senior US commander said.
-
The Washington Post reports Missile defense in Europe is
ineffectivea scam. A joint analysis done by a team of top U.S. and Russian scientists have found the planned missile shield in Europe “would be ineffective against the kinds of missiles Iran is likely to deploy”. Not only is Iran more than five years away from building any such missile and nuclear warhead that could threatten Europe, “if Iran attempted such an attack, the experts say, it would ensure its own destruction.” Duh.“If Iran were to build a nuclear-capable missile that could strike Europe, the defense shield proposed by the United States ‘could not engage that missile,’ the report says. The missile interceptors could also be easily fooled by decoys and other simple countermeasures, the report concludes.”
Four at Four continues with an update from Pakistan and an overhaul of federal emissions and fuel efficiency standards.