New government auditor report finds that “‘ghost soldiers’ still help fill Iraq’s army ranks and no one knows how many trained policemen remain on the job.” Out of the 136,400 soldiers the Pentagon has said are trained, the “actual number of present-for-duty soldiers is about one-half to two-thirds of the total due to scheduled leave, absence without leave, and attrition.”
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) is pressing the Justice Department on the departure of the former U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, Debra Yang, who resigned last October. “Was she asked to resign, and if so, why? We have to ferret that out,” said Feinstein.
The Wounded Warrior Assistance Act of 2007, a bill aimed at “making immediate improvements in the treatment…of wounded combat veterans passed the House Armed Services Committee by a 59-0 vote Tuesday.”
The Justice Department’s Inspector General yesterday told the House “that the FBI may have violated the law or government policies as many as 3,000 times since 2003 as agents secretly collected the telephone, bank and credit card records of U.S. citizens and foreign nationals residing here.”
The U.N. refugee agency says “there has been an ‘abject denial‘ around the world of the humanitarian impact of invading Iraq.” The agency estimates that the “number of Iraqis living beyond the country’s borders as refugees stands at two million and a further 1.7 million live within the borders as displaced people.”
Senators yesterday pressed the Bush administration to more “aggressively prosecute contracting fraud in Iraq, saying the dozen criminal cases filed aren’t enough of a deterrent.”
“An ambitious effort to bulldoze more than 9,000 rotting houses still standing [in New Orleans] after Hurricane Katrina has slowed sharply this year, prolonging the city’s attempts to rebuild blighted neighborhoods, city and federal records show.”
At least seven helicopters were downed by insurgents in Iraq between Jan. 20 and Feb. 21. The military has responded “by limiting the airspace where U.S. pilots can fly” and enlarging “several ‘no-fly zones’ north of Baghdad.”
And finally: Tom DeLay’s new book: TMI? DeLay reveals that he “lived in group houses dubbed the ‘Macho Manor’ and ‘Hot Tub Haven’ with other members of the Texas state Legislature, back when he earned the moniker ‘Hot Tub Tom.’ DeLay admits to philandering.”
What did we miss? Let us know in the comments section.
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