“President Jalal Talabani said Wednesday that Iraqi forces will take over security of all provinces in the country by the end of the year. Currently U.S. forces handle security in 17 of Iraq’s 18 provinces.”
U.S. troops are fighting to turn around the “insurgent stronghold” in Ramadi. A sign in the U.S. headquarters advises soldiers to “be polite, be professional, and have a plan to kill everyone you meet.”
Pro-science moderates “are virtually guaranteed to win back” a majority on the Kansas Board of Education after yesterday’s election, which saw two far-right conservatives defeated in the Republican primary.
As expected, President Bush on Monday nominated anti-regulatory zealot Susan Dudley to head the obscure but “super-powerful” Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. Clean Air Watch said the move was “like naming Mel Gibson as a special Mideast Peace Envoy.”
“The last few weeks have essentially transformed Lebanese politics,” the New York Times finds, “marginalizing…democratic forces” and “instead empowering President ‰mil Lahoud, a staunch ally of Syria,” and “above all” Hezbollah-aligned Parliament speaker Nabih Berri.
Some officials on the 9/11 Commission have concluded that the Pentagon’s initial claims that it scrambled jets to apprehend United Flight 93 were “part of a deliberate effort to mislead the commission” about its bungled response to the attacks, and that the false statements may have “violated the law.”
Unions representing thousands of EPA scientists say the environmental agency is “bending to political pressure and ignoring sound science in allowing a group of toxic chemicals to be used in agricultural pesticides.” The deadline for the EPA to approve the use of the chemicals is tomorrow.
And finally: A sure-fire plan to help resolve the abortion debate. “As a shock tactic, a national group that opposes abortion plans to fly a billboard-size picture of an aborted fetus over Cleveland beginning Monday.”
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