Slide presentation The Life of Kim Jong Il A pictorial look at the North Korean leader through the years
Abstract
A remote psychological assessment of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il was conducted mining open-source data in the public domain. Information concerning Kim was collected from media reports and synthesized into a personality profile using the second edition of the Millon Inventory of Diagnostic Criteria (MIDC), which yields 34 normal and maladaptive personality classifications congruent with Axis II of DSM–IV.
The personality profile yielded by the MIDC was analyzed on the basis of interpretive guidelines provided in the MIDC and Millon Index of Personality Styles manuals. Kim’s primary personality patterns were found to be Ambitious/self-serving (narcissistic) and Outgoing/gregarious (histrionic), with a secondary Dauntless/dissenting (antisocial) pattern. In addition, the personality profile contained subsidiary but relatively unremarkable Dominant/asserting (sadistic), Contentious/resolute (passive-aggressive), and Erratic/unstable (borderline) features.
The amalgam of Ambitious (narcissistic) and Outgoing (histrionic) patterns in Kim’s profile suggests the presence of a syndrome that Theodore Millon has labeled the “amorous narcissist” (relabeled hedonistic narcissist in the context of political leadership studies). These personalities have an indifferent conscience and aloofness to the truth, are facile in the ways of social seduction, feign an air of dignity and confidence, and are skilled in the art of deception.
Characteristically, these personalities fabricate stories to enhance their worth and leave behind a trail of broken promises and outrageous acts, including swindling, sexual indiscretions, pathological lying, and fraud. However, the hedonistic narcissist’s disregard for truth and talents for exploitation and deception are rarely hostile or malicious in intent; fundamentally, they are not malevolent. Having never learned to restrain their fantasies, and unconcerned with matters of social integrity, hedonistic narcissists maintain their beguiling ways through deception, fraud, lying, and by charming others through craft and wit. Instead of applying their talents toward the goals of tangible achievements and genuine relationships, they selfishly devote their energies to the construction of intricate lies, cleverly exploiting others and slyly extracting from them what they believe is their due.
In summary, Kim Jong-Il may be characterized as fraudulent, self-indulgent, and conflict averse — preferring guile, craft, and cunning rather than force or confrontation in extracting or extorting from others what he considers his due; he is not a “malignant narcissist.”
The major political implications of the study are the following: First, although North Korea’s military capability undeniably poses a legitimate threat to regional stability, any claim by Kim Jong-Il with regard to his military capabilities are not to be taken at face value, but should be called into question and verified; second, Kim is relatively conflict averse and unlikely to employ military force without provocation; and third, Kim is relatively open to influence by carefully crafted diplomatic and economic means subjectively perceived as bolstering his self-serving ambitions.
My 2003 threat assessment should be read in the context of August 2008 reports that Kim Jong-Il had suffered a stroke.
Although I did not find Kim to be paranoid or delusional in my 2003 assessment, it is possible for stroke patients to undergo personality changes, including an increase in suspiciousness, or to develop psychiatric syndromes such as post-stroke depression or post-stroke dementia, which may impair the patient’s mental state and cognitive functioning.
Should that be the case with Kim Jong-Il, it may exacerbate a prior siege mentality, resulting in increasingly self-defeating, erratic behaviors patterns.
Despite remaining convinced that Kim is fundamentally risk-averse, I do have a heightened concern that a possible recent-onset organic brain syndrome could impair his insight, judgment, and decision-making capacity.
In the event Kim’s medical condition should color his pre-existing, premorbid personality with paranoid ideation or delusional thinking, he is likely to become increasingly mistrustful and vigilant; irritable and thin-skinned (hypersensitive to perceived slights and easily enraged by narcissistic injury); defiant, hostile, belligerent, and vengeful (determined to “balance the books” with respect to what he perceives as past wrongs); dichotomous (“us versus them” social perception); insular (impervious to corrective action in response to sound advice and new information); self-righteous (arrogant and acting with a sense of entitlement); and self-justifying (viewing his own transgressions either as defensive necessity or as “payback” for the malevolence or wrongs of others).
Finally, no threat assessment would be complete without verifying who is currently “calling the shots” in North Korea, so to speak. Considering Kim’s recent medical history, it could be risky to respond to North Korean provocation under the assumption that Kim Jong-Il is fully in charge.
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June 2009 Update
South Korean protesters hold pictures of the North’s Kim Jong-Il and a boy believed to be his annointed successor, Kim Jong-Un, 26, in Seoul, February 2009. (Photo credit: Jung Yeon-je / AFP – Getty Images)
South Korean protesters with portraits of North Korean Kim Jong Il, right, and his alleged third son Kim Jong Un, shout a slogan during a rally against North Korea’s recent military policy in Seoul, on March 9, 2009. (Photo credit: Ahn Young-joon / AP file)
June 2, 2009
SEOUL, South Korea – One photo shows a chubby-cheeked boy with an impish grin. Former classmates at a Swiss boarding school describe a shy student who loved basketball and Jean-Claude Van Damme. Recent reports describe him as overweight and a heavy drinker.
Now 26, Kim Jong Un has reportedly been tapped to become the next leader of nuclear-armed North Korea. …
Kim Jong Il, seen in an undated state-issued photo, has made only two public appearances since August 2008.
July 8, 2009
North Korea’s reclusive leader appeared in public Wednesday for the first time in months to commemorate the 15th anniversary of his father’s death.
Kim Jong Il, 67, seemed frail and gaunt as he walked into the service flanked by senior party and military officials.
It was his second public appearance since he was widely reported to have suffered a stroke in August.
He was seen in April when he was reappointed as chairman of North Korea’s military board.
His recent health problems and long absence from public functions have prompted speculation on whether he was ready to groom an heir to the world’s only communist dynasty.
Wednesday’s service was held to honor Kim Il Sung, who died July 8, 1994 — paving the way for Kim Jong Il’s rise to power.
The elder Kim, known as “Great Leader,” is still considered to be the country’s “eternal president.” Kim Jong Il is called “Dear Leader.”
The rules governing transfer of power in the secretive communist nation are unclear, but it is widely believed that Kim Jong Il’s youngest son, Kim Jong Un, will succeed him.
In April, the North Korean leader named Kim Jong Un and brother-in-law Chang Sung Taek to the country’s powerful National Defense Commission.
Chang, who is married to Kim Jong Il’s sister, has effectively run the country after the leader’s health problems, according to Time magazine.
Chang is “the bridge from Kim Jong Il to Kim Jong Un,” according to Baek Seung Joo, who watches North Korea at the Korea Institute for Defense Analysis and spoke to Time magazine last month.
This July 8, 2009, image from TV footage shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, center, arriving at the 15th anniversary of the death of his father Kim Il-sung in Pyongyang. Television footage showed him markedly thinner and with less hair — only the second state event he has attended in person since a reported stroke last year. (Photo credit: Associated Press file)
July 12, 2009
SEOUL, South Korea – North Korean leader Kim Jong Il has life-threatening pancreatic cancer, a news report said Monday, days after new images of him looking gaunt spurred speculation that his health might be worsening following a reported stroke last year.
The 67-year-old Kim was diagnosed with the cancer around the time he was felled by a stroke last summer, Seoul’s YTN television reported, citing unidentified intelligence officials in South Korea and China.
The report cited the officials saying the disease is “threatening” Kim’s life.
Pancreatic cancer is usually found in its final stage, and considering Kim’s age, he is expected to live no more than five years, the report said.
South Korea’s spy agency said it could not confirm the report. Unification Ministry spokesman Chun Hae-sung told reporters he knows of nothing of the report.
Kim’s health is a focus of intense media speculation due to concerns about instability and a power struggle if he were to die without naming a successor. His third and youngest son, Kim Jong Un, has widely been reported as being groomed as heir, but the regime has made no announcement to the outside world.
Rare appearance
Monday’s report came after Kim last week made a rare public appearance, in an annual memorial for his late father and North Korea’s founder, Kim Il Sung.
Television footage showed him markedly thinner and with less hair — only the second state event he has attended in person since the reported stroke. He also limped slightly, and the sides of his tightlipped mouth looked imbalanced in what were believed to be the effects of a stroke.
The images touched off speculation that he could have other health problems.
South Korea’s spy agency has long suspected that Kim has diabetes and heart disease.
Medical doctor and professor Min Yang-ki of Seoul’s Hallym University Medical Center has said diabetes usually leads to weight loss. The neurologist also said Kim’s limping appears to be a result of a stroke. However, he said, overall it appeared Kim has recovered from that reported illness.
Kim walked on his own into a Pyongyang auditorium for last week’s memorial at a normal pace and bowed while standing during a moment of silence.
North Korea experts said the latest images of Kim show he is still fit enough to rule.
The totalitarian leader, whose rule is buttressed by an intense cult of personality, knew that the people of North Korea would pay great attention to the memorial, and his appearance there is a message that he is in charge, Yang Moo-jin, a professor at Seoul’s University of North Korean Studies, said last week.
Kim Jong Il took over North Korea after his father died in 1994 of heart failure at age 82, though he did not take on his father’s title of president. He runs the North from his post as chairman of the National Defense Commission.
In early April, he presided over a parliamentary meeting where he was re-elected as leader.
Son in line to take over?
The South’s spy agency believes that Kim’s 26-year-old youngest son, Jong Un, is sure to inherit North Korea, Seoul’s Chosun Ilbo daily reported Monday, citing a recent report to the National Assembly by the National Intelligence Service.
The agency also reported that Kim Jong Il is expected to officially designate the son as his successor in 2012, the centennial anniversary of late national founder Kim Il Sung’s birth, the paper said.
But the regime under the son is expected to be unstable and vulnerable to internal political strife as Kim Jong Il’s brother-in-law, Jang Song Thaek, could attempt to snatch power, the paper said.
The spy agency declined to confirm the report.
Video Kim Jong Il reportedly ill with pancreatic cancer (NBC Nightly News, July 13) — South Korean television reported on Monday that North Korea’s leader is not expected to live more than five years. NBC’s Brian Williams reports. (00:22)
Recollections of teachers and former students at a state school in Switzerland may offer a glimpse of the young man some say is destined to lead North Korea.
A boy identified by South Korean TV station KBS as Kim Jong Un, the third son of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, is seen in this photo. Kenji Fujimoto, who claims to have worked as a cook for the family for 13 years, says Kim Jong Un was aged 11 when the photo was taken. (Photo credit: Kenji Fujimoto / Reuters)
By Andrew Higgins July 16, 2009
LIEBEFELD, Switzerland — In August 1998, as famine reached a terrible climax in North Korea, the destitute Asian nation enrolled a shy teenager in a Swiss state school. He arrived with a fake name, a collection of genuine, top-of-the-line Nike sneakers and a passion for American basketball.
“We only dreamed about having such shoes. He was wearing them,” recalled Nikola Kovacevic, a former schoolmate of the curiously well-heeled North Korean. Each pair, estimates Kovacevic, cost more than $200 — at least four times the average monthly salary in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, where perhaps 1 million people died as a result of food shortages in the mid- and late 1990s.
Today, the student — who vanished from this sleepy Swiss district as mysteriously as he appeared — is a key figure in a puzzle that U.S. and Asian intelligence services are scrambling to solve: Who will lead nuclear-armed North Korea — and where to — once its gravely ill leader, Kim Jong Il, passes from the scene?
The answer is of vital importance to Washington, which has about 25,000 troops in South Korea, on guard against any resumption of a conflict frozen — but never formally ended — by a Korean War armistice accord in 1953. Who rules North Korea will decide whether Seoul, Tokyo and perhaps even Hawaii risk attack from a nation that has tested two nuclear devices, the most recent in May, and built up an arsenal of missiles and long-range artillery. The Pentagon has sent missile-defense systems to Hawaii just in case. North Korea marked July 4 this year by test-firing seven more rockets.
North Korea shrouds the biographies of its rulers and their offspring in a fog of fiction and silence. “It is pretty amazing how very little real information we have,” said Victor Cha, who served as a Korea expert on the National Security Council in the Bush administration.
A rare insight into this sealed world is offered by Swiss recollections of the young North Korean who, from 1998 until late 2000, lived here in Liebefeld at No. 10 Kirchstrasse, a sedate suburban street with two pizza joints, a Credit Suisse bank and a Coop supermarket. He was around 17 when he abruptly left in the middle of the school year, apparently to return to Pyongyang.
There are many signs that he may now be the next leader of North Korea — 26-year-old Kim Jong Un, the third and youngest son of Kim Jong Il.
Known as “Pak Un” to his teachers at Liebefeld-Steinhölzli Schule, a German-speaking state school, he was registered with Swiss authorities as the son of an employee at North Korea’s embassy in the nearby city of Bern, Switzerland’s capital, according to Ueli Studer, director of education in the local administration.
Throughout Pak Un’s time in Liebefeld, however, neither friends nor teachers ever met the parents. “I never saw his father or mother,” said the school’s principal, Peter Burri, recalling how they repeatedly failed to show up for parents’ night. Attending in their place, Burri said, were assorted North Koreans who apologized for the parents’ absence and said this was due to their inability to speak German.
A more likely reason: The boy’s father didn’t work in Bern at the embassy but was more than 5,000 miles away in Pyongyang.
Maria Micaelo, the mother of one of Pak Un’s closest school friends, said the North Korean teenager once confided to her son, Joao, that his father was the leader of North Korea. She recalled that she dismissed the claim as a fanciful teenage boast, but had second thoughts when her son saw pictures of Kim Jong Il on television and told her that he’d seen the same man in a photograph with Pak Un. Joao Micaelo, now a cook in Vienna, did not respond to repeated e-mail messages seeking comment.
Kongdan Oh Hassig, an expert on North Korea at the Alexandria-based Institute for Defense Analyses, which does research for the Pentagon, says Pak Un certainly appears to be Kim Jong Il’s third son, Kim Jong Un, adding that members of North Korea’s elite usually use bogus names outside their homeland. Pak is a very common Korean surname akin to Smith.
When reports of a Pyongyang succession plan began to leak out of North Korea this year, heir apparent Kim Jong Un was widely reported to have attended the International School of Berne, a private, English-speaking establishment near the North Korean Embassy in the Swiss capital.
But, North Korea watchers say, that student — who went by the name “Pak Chol” — was most likely Kim Jong Un’s older brother, Kim Jong Chol. Both were born to Kim Jong Il’s third wife, a former dancer who died in 2004. The North Korean leader has another son, his oldest, by another wife. He also has four daughters. The oldest son, Kim Jong Nam, also studied for a time in Switzerland under an alias, as well as in the Soviet Union.
[...]
Question of Culture’
The Swiss education of North Korea’s apparent future leader raises a tantalizing question: Did it open his horizons beyond the narrow, xenophobic worldview of his homeland, where schools bombard pupils with the evils of “U.S. imperialism” and instill unquestioning obedience to a highly centralized state headed by a leader-for-life? This is in stark contrast to Switzerland, a democratic federal state in which power is widely diffused, where all laws can be challenged by citizens through referendum, and where the presidency is a rotating position that changes every year.
“There is a big difference between attending a school in a free country and a school where everyone has to salute,” said Studer, the local education director. Schooling, he added, is a “question of culture,” and a North Korean schooled in Liebefeld “will take something away that will have an effect on his life.” Pak Un, along with fellow students, had three classes a week on Swiss history from 1291 and the evolution of the country’s modern system of governance known as “direct democracy,” as well as current events, which in 2000 included the U.S. election campaign.
The North Korean Embassy in Bern, housed in an elegant villa festooned with geraniums in the capital’s most expensive neighborhood, declined to comment. Some analysts in South Korea have expressed uncertainty about whether Kim Jong Un has definitely been selected as successor, noting that no official announcement has yet been made by Pyongyang.
A propaganda display on the embassy’s ivy-covered wall obliquely addresses the issue of succession, stressing the reinvigorating vitality of youth, a frequent theme of North Korean propaganda in recent months as the regime prepares for a transfer of power. Featuring photographs of young soldiers, young athletes and Youth League zealots, it shows Kim Jong Il as he “hands over the torch of revolution to young vanguards of Juche,” the regime’s idiosyncratic state ideology.
Since North Korea’s founding in 1945, power has passed exclusively from father to son. A hereditary dynasty, it mixes communist cant with Confucian emphasis on the primacy of family ties. Its founder, Kim Il Sung, known as the Great Leader, fabricated a patriotic lineage stretching back to the mid-19th century. After his death in 1994, power passed to his eldest son, the Dear Leader Kim Jong Il, who, according to his own falsified biography, was born on a Mount Paektu, a sacred mountain. He was really born in the Soviet Union, where he was known as Yuri.
With Kim Jong Il, 67, now ailing, North Korea is preparing to hand the baton to the third generation — and gearing up for a new round of hagiography and mythmaking. [...]
Last month, according to Open Radio for North Korea, a Seoul-based group with extensive contacts in North Korea, Pyongyang began holding lectures for selected audiences to trumpet the “greatness” of Kim Jong Un, the heir apparent. He was celebrated as a “genius of literary arts” and tireless patriot who “is working without sleep or rest” to promote North Korea as a nuclear superpower, according to the organization’s account of the sessions. Among his purported feats: He so inspired North Korea’s national soccer squad that it recently qualified for the World Cup finals, the first time the team has done so since 1966.
A confidential report prepared in May by the Open Source Center, a U.S. agency that monitors foreign media outlets, said North Korea began to prepare the way for a hereditary successor to Kim Jong Il in 2001 with an essay in a party newspaper titled “A Brilliant Succession.” It didn’t name anyone but defined father-son succession as a “pure” tradition, and warned that any revolution that doesn’t follow tradition is “dead.”
This subtle campaign accelerated sharply, according to the report, after Kim Jong Il fell seriously ill, possibly suffering a stroke, last August and vanished for months. U.S. analysts, seeking clues in mountains of North Korean propaganda, noted increasingly frequent mentions of the importance of “bloodlines” and detected veiled endorsements of Kim Jong Un.
Kim Jong Il’s eldest son, Jong Nam, was for a time viewed as a likely heir but apparently bungled his chances in 2001 by trying to sneak into Japan under a fake Chinese name on a bogus Dominican Republic passport. He told Japanese immigration officials he wanted to visit Tokyo Disneyland. Interviewed briefly last month in the Chinese gambling enclave of Macau by Japanese television, Jong Nam said he had heard reports that his younger brother, Jong Un, had been chosen as successor but couldn’t comment because that “is a very sensitive question.”
Focused and Competitive
Kim Jong Un has not been seen in public since his apparent time in Switzerland. Neither his name nor his photograph has ever appeared in North Korean media. After leaving Europe, he is reported to have attended Pyongyang’s Kim Il Sung Military University, an officer training school, but virtually nothing else is known about him.
A senior U.S. official says he appears to have “the same interests as most 26-year-olds,” noting that these do not generally involve nuclear strategy.
If Liebefeld’s former student Pak Un is indeed Kim Jong Un, the memories of his former friends and teachers here offer a sketch of his character. He first started school after the summer holidays in 1998, a time when it looked as if North Korea might soon collapse. At about the same time, Kim Jong Il launched a secret program to produce highly enriched uranium for a nuclear bomb.
During his first few months in Liebefeld, Pak Un attended a remedial language course for foreign students with poor German. A swift learner, he soon switched to a regular class, said Studer, the education official, who described the boy as “well-integrated, diligent and ambitious.” Friends recalled that Pak Un spoke fluent, if sometimes ungrammatical, German but struggled with the Swiss dialect. He also knew English.
A video of a school music class he attended shows a lithe, intense-looking Asian boy wearing black sweat pants, Nike Air Jordan shoes and a long-sleeved black sports shirt. He sways uncomfortably while classmates pound African drums and beat tambourines. Though generally quiet in class and sometimes awkward, particularly around girls, Pak Un showed a different personality on the basketball court, former friends recalled. He fell in with a group of mostly immigrant kids who shared his love of the National Basketball Association. Kovacevic, who shot hoops with the North Korean most days, said Pak Un was a fiercely competitive player.
“He was very explosive. He could make things happen. He was the playmaker,” said Kovacevic, who now works as a tech specialist in the Swiss army. “If I wasn’t sure I could make a shot, I always knew he could.”
Marco Imhof, another Swiss basketball buddy, said the Korean was tough and fast, good at both shooting and dribbling. “He hated to lose. Winning was very important,” recalled Imhof. Pak Un also liked action films featuring hand-to-hand fighting, particularly those starring the Hong Kong kung fu star Jackie Chan, and played combat games on a Sony PlayStation.
This picture of a focused, competitive young man matches what until now has been the only firsthand account of Kim Jong Un. That was provided by a Japanese sushi chef who claims to have worked in Pyongyang as a cook for the Kim family. The chef, who wrote a book on his experiences in Japanese under the pseudonym Kenji Fujimoto, described the boy as strong-willed, proud and “boss-like.”
During his time in Liebefeld, friends remembered, Pak Un showed scant interest in politics and never vented publicly against Americans. Instead, he worshiped American basketball stars. He spent hours doing meticulous pencil drawings of Chicago Bulls superstar Michael Jordan.
At his spacious apartment on Kirchstrasse, said one friend who visited, Pak Un had a room filled with American basketball paraphernalia. He proudly showed off photographs of himself standing with Toni Kukoc of the Chicago Bulls and Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers. It is unclear where the pictures were taken. On at least one occasion, a car from the North Korean Embassy drove Pak Un to Paris to watch an NBA exhibition game.
With no parents in sight, Pak Un was watched over and waited on by North Koreans who appeared to combine the duties of servants, guardians and guards. A pair of Korean women, says Imhof, often observed him playing basketball and sometimes videotaped the action. A Korean-speaking man frequently hovered nearby. “It was a bit strange,” Imhof said. But he figured this was just “a Korean thing.”
Pak Un’s ultimate guardian in Switzerland was Ri Tcheul, North Korea ’s veteran ambassador in Bern. Ri has served in the Swiss capital for 21 years, making him the city’s longest-serving foreign envoy. Over the years, he has turned the embassy into the nerve center for Pyongyang’s sometimes furtive contacts with businessmen, bankers, officials and aid workers from across Europe.
Studer, the local education official, said school authorities never had reason to question whether Pak Un really was the son of an embassy employee. Now that he’s gone, he added, “there is no need to go into the matter.”
Pak Un’s former friends are more curious and say they’d like to know the real identity of the teenager they used to hang out with. They last saw him in 2000, when he suddenly vanished. He left no address and didn’t tell anyone where he was going.
“We thought he was ill or something and would soon be back. He never came to school again. He totally disappeared,” said Kovacevic, his former friend. He and others asked teachers what had happened. They had no idea either. “We were just playing basketball — now he is going to be a dictator,” said Kovacevic. “I hope he is a good leader, but dictators are usually not that good.”
Related story
My three sons (Newsweek, July 18/27, 2009) — The Dear Leader may not be quite on his deathbed, but he has become “more angry and impatient,” according to Nam Sung Wook, director of the Institute for National Security Strategy, a government think tank in Seoul. Kim rushed a nuclear test in May and directed harsh criticism toward Moscow and Beijing after those capitals, normally friendly, denounced the test. Some sources in Seoul even linked a recent cyberattack on South Korea and the United States to the Dear Leader’s new round of adventurism. …
U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates at the Asia Security Summit in Singapore on Saturday. (Photo credit: Wong Maye-E / AP)
May 29, 2009
SINGAPORE – U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned North Korea on Saturday that the United States would respond quickly if moves by the communist government threaten America or its Asian allies.
“We will not stand idly by as North Korea builds the capability to wreak destruction on any target in the region — or on us,” Gates told an annual international meeting of defense and security officials from Asia and the Pacific Rim.
Gates called North Korea’s nuclear program a “harbinger of a dark future” but said he does not consider it a direct military threat to the United States “at this point.” …
Gates offered no specifics on how the U.S. might respond to North Korea, militarily or otherwise, and has said there are no current plans to deploy more U.S. forces to the region. …
North Korea preparing for another missile test (MSNBC, May 29) — U.S. military officials tell NBC News that North Korea appears to be preparing for another long-range missile test. Jim Miklaszewski reports. (03:01)
BAGHDAD – An American soldier was killed in a grenade attack in northern Iraq, the military said Friday.
That raises the number of American troop deaths so far in May to at least 21 — the deadliest month for American forces in Iraq since September, when 25 died.
A military statement said the grenade detonated Friday near a patrol in the northern province of Ninevah.
At least 4,303 members of the U.S. military have died in Iraq since the war began in March 2003. …
As of Friday, May 29, 2009, at least 4,304 members of the U.S. military had died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. …
Since the start of U.S. military operations in Iraq, 31,285 U.S. service members have been wounded in hostile action, according to the Defense Department’s weekly tally.
The Latest Identifications Reported by the Military
Spc. Chad A. Edmundson, 20, Williamsburg, Pa., died May 27 in Baghdad of wounds suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near his unit while on a dismounted patrol. He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 112th Infantry, 56th Stryker Brigade, Pennsylvania Army National Guard.
Cmdr. Duane G. Wolfe, 54, Port Hueneme, Calif., died May 25 from injuries suffered as a result of an improvised explosive device attack on his convoy southeast of Fallujah. Wolfe was assigned to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Gulf Region Division in Iraq.
Maged M. Hussein, 43, Cairo, Egypt, died May 25 in Al Taqaddum, Iraq, of wounds suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near his convoy vehicle in Fallujah, Iraq.He was employed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Jacksonville District, Jacksonville, Fla.
Spc. David A. Schaefer Jr., 27, Belleville, Ill., died May 16 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near his unit. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 2nd Infantry Regiment, 172nd Infantry Brigade, Schweinfurt, Germany.
Maj. Jason E. George, 38, Tehachapi, Calif., died May 21 near Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds sustained when his unit was attacked by enemy forces using improvise explosive devices while on dismounted patrol. He was an Army Reservist assigned to the 252nd Combined Arms Battalion, Fayetteville, North Carolina.
1st Lt. Leevi K. Barnard, 28, Mount Airy, N.C., died May 21 near Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds sustained when his unit was attacked by enemy forces using improvise explosive devices while on dismounted patrol. He was a National Guardsman assigned to the 252nd Combined Arms Battalion, Fayetteville, North Carolina.
Sgt. Paul F. Brooks, 34, Joplin, Mo., died May 21 near Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds sustained when his unit was attacked by enemy forces using improvise explosive devices while on dismounted patrol. He was a National Guardsman assigned to the 935th Aviation Support Battalion, Springfield, Missouri.
Sgt. 1st Class Brian Naseman, 36, New Bremen, Ohio, died May 22 in Taji, Iraq of a non-combat related incident. He was assigned to the 108th Forward Support Company, attached to 2nd Battalion, 127th Infantry, 32nd Infantry Brigade Combat Team, Sussex, Wis.
Following are security developments in Iraq on Friday, May 29, 2009 as reported by Reuters.
MOSUL – A U.S soldier died after a grenade blew up near a patrol in Nineveh province, northern Iraq, the U.S military said. Iraqi police said one civilian was wounded in the attack in western Mosul, 240 miles north of Baghdad.
KHALIS – A bomb attached to a minibus killed six civilians in Khalis, 50 miles north of Baghdad, police said.
KHALIS – A bomb attached to a car in Khalis killed one person and wounded three others, police said.
MOSUL – Gunmen stormed a family home and shot dead a woman and her daughter on Thursday in eastern Mosul, police said.
TELKEIF – Police on Thursday said they found the body of man in Telkeif, north of Mosul, adding that the man had been dead for at least a few days.
MOSUL – Gunmen shot and killed a woman on Thursday in northern Mosul, police said.
KIRKUK – A joint Iraqi army and U.S military forces operation resulted in the detention of 20 suspected insurgents on Thursday in southwest Kirkuk, 155 miles north of Baghdad, police said.
BAQUBA – A bomb planted on a motorbike killed a leader of a state-backed anti-insurgent militia and wounded three other militia men, as well as two civilians in northeast Baquba, 40 miles northeast of Baghdad, police said.
Following are security developments in Iraq on Thursday, May 28, 2009 as reported by Reuters.
FALLUJA – The U.S. military identified one of its members killed alongside two U.S. government employees in a roadside bomb blast in Falluja, 32 miles west of Baghdad, as U.S. Navy commander Duane G. Wolfe. Wolfe was in charge of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in western Anbar province.
KERBALA – Iraqi forces arrested an Iraqi official of the Kuwaiti firm Zain, which has operations in Iraq, with four members of his family in Kerbala, 50 miles southwest of Baghdad, police said.
BAQUBA – The Iraqi army arrested a leader of a state-backed anti-insurgent militia from his home in Baquba, 40 miles northeast of Baghdad, police said. The militiamen are mostly Sunni Muslims.
MOSUL – A roadside bomb wounded a woman member of Mosul’s provincial council, her driver and three civilians in northern Mosul, 240 miles north of Baghdad, police said.
KIRKUK – Police found the body of man killed a few days ago in northern Kirkuk, 155 miles north of Baghdad.
Following are security developments in Iraq on Wednesday, May 27, 2009 as reported by Reuters.
BAGHDAD – A U.S. soldier died of wounds sustained after a roadside bomb detonated near a U.S. patrol in western Baghdad, the U.S. military said.
BAGHDAD – A car bomb targeting a U.S. military patrol killed four civilians and wounded 12 others in Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib district, on the western outskirts of the capital, police said.
MOSUL – Gunmen shot dead a man in a drive-by shooting near his house in eastern Mosul, police said.
BAGHDAD – A mortar shell killed three people and wounded eight at a busy intersection in southeastern Baghdad’s Fedhaliya neighborhood on Tuesday, police said.
MOSUL – A roadside bomb targeting an Iraqi army patrol killed one soldier in Mosul, 240 miles north of Baghdad on Tuesday, police said.
MOSUL – A woman was killed in crossfire between the Iraqi army and gunmen in Mosul on Tuesday, police said.
Following are security developments in Iraq on Tuesday, May 26, 2009 as reported by Reuters.
MOSUL – A roadside bomb wounded two policemen when it struck their patrol in western Mosul, 240 miles north of Baghdad, police said.
ISKANDARIYA – A bomb attached to a parked car wounded two bankers as they were leaving a government bank in Iskandariya, 25 miles, south of Baghdad, police said.
BAGHDAD – A bomb killed three people and wounded another two when it struck a convoy carrying U.S. officials and civilian contractors visiting a construction site in Falluja, 30 miles west of Baghdad, on Monday, the U.S. military said.
JALAWLA – Iraqi police captured the brother of Omar al- Baghdadi, the alleged head of the Islamic State of Iraq, an al Qaeda linked group, in Jalawla, 70 miles, northeast of Baghdad, said Diyala province police chief Major-General Abdul-Hussein al-Shammari. A man police say is Baghdadi is currently also in detention, although his identity is unverified.
KIRKUK – A roadside bomb wounded two Iraqi army officers and a soldier when it struck their convoy in southern Kirkuk, 155 miles, north of Baghdad, police said.
KIRKUK – Gunmen shot dead a taxi driver in front of his house in southeastern Kirkuk, north of Baghdad, police said.
KIRKUK – Gunmen killed three members of a family during a raid on their house in a village southwest of Kirkuk, north of Baghdad on Monday, police said.
Following are security developments in Iraq on Monday, May 25, 2009 as reported by Reuters.
MOSUL – A sniper shot dead an Iraqi soldier who was standing at a checkpoint in eastern Mosul, 240 miles north of Baghdad, police said.
MOSUL – Gunmen in a car killed a civilian in western Mosul, police said.
BAGHDAD – Iraqi security forces killed two militants and wounded two others during a raid on their house in eastern Baghdad, police said.
Following are security developments in Iraq on Sunday, May 24, 2009 as reported by Reuters.
MOSUL – Gunmen stormed a family home and shot dead a woman and her daughter in western Mosul, 240 miles north of Baghdad, police said.
MOSUL – Gunmen shot dead a Kurdish woman in her home in eastern Mosul, police said.
ISKANDARIYA – Gunmen opened fire on a government-backed Sunni militia checkpoint on Saturday night, wounding one fighter in Iskandariya, 25 miles south of Baghdad, police said.
BAGHDAD – A roadside bomb targeting an Iraqi police patrol wounded one policeman and two civilians in Adhamiya district, northern Baghdad, police said.
U.S., South Korea Raise Military Alert on North Korea
South Korean marines at an anti-aircraft gun position.
(Photo credit: Byun Yeong-Wool / AFP – Getty Images)
May 28, 2009
SEOUL, South Korea – South Korean and U.S. troops raised their alert Thursday to the highest level since 2006 after North Korea renounced its truce with the allied forces and threatened to strike any ships trying to intercept its vessels.
The move was a sign of heightened tensions on the peninsula following the North’s underground nuclear test and its firing of a series of short-range missiles earlier this week.
In response, Seoul decided to join more than 90 nations that have agreed to stop and inspect vessels suspected of transporting banned weapons.
North Korea says South Korea’s participation in the U.S.-led Proliferation Security Initiative is a prelude to a naval blockade and raises the prospect of a naval skirmish in its western waters.
On Wednesday, it renounced the 1953 truce that halted fighting in the Korean War. It said Thursday through its official media that it was preparing for an American-led attack. The U.S. has repeatedly denied it is planning military action.
“The northward invasion scheme by the U.S. and the South Korean puppet regime has exceeded the alarming level,” the North’s main Rodong Sinmun newspaper said in a commentary carried by the official Korean Central News Agency. “A minor accidental skirmish can lead to a nuclear war.” …
Alert level
South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman Won Tae-jae said the South Korea—U.S. combined forces command raised its surveillance from the third to the second-highest level on a scale of 5. He said the last time the alert level was that high was in 2006, when the North conducted its first nuclear test.
A South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff officer, speaking on condition of anonymity citing department policy, said the South’s military has also bolstered “personnel and equipment deployment” along its land and sea borders.
He said, however, that there has been no particular movement of North Korean troops along the heavily fortified border areas.
There are 28,500 U.S. troops in South Korea and another 50,000 in Japan. All are within striking range of North Korea’s missiles.
Though the officer refused to give details, South Korea’s mass-circulation JoongAng Ilbo newspaper reported Thursday that Seoul has recently deployed more anti-air missiles and artillery at its military bases on islands near the disputed western sea border with North Korea.
A South Korean destroyer also has been deployed near the sea border to prepare for any provocations, the newspaper said.
Seoul has said its military is prepared to “respond sternly” to any North Korean provocation, and would be able to contain the North with the help of U.S. troops.
The U.N. Command on Korea issued a statement defending the armistice and said it would continue to observe it.
“The armistice has served as the legal basis for the cease-fire in Korea for over 55 years and significantly contributes to stability in the region,” it said. “The armistice remains in force and is binding on all signatories, including North Korea.”
Testing Obama
Experts said the recent flurry of belligerence from North Korea may reflect an effort by leader Kim Jong Il, who is reportedly grooming one of his sons as his successor, to boost his standing among his impoverished people by generating fear and claiming to be strong in the face of outside threats.
It was also seen as testing the new administration of President Barack Obama.
North Korea has announced it was abandoning the armistice several times before — most recently in 2003 and 2006.
The truce doesn’t cover the waters off the west coast, and North Korea has used the maritime border dispute to provoke two deadly naval skirmishes — in 1999 and 2002.
Diplomats, meanwhile, discussed further what measures should be taken to punish the North.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton warned of “consequences” but it remained unclear what action the U.N. .Security Council would take.
The five permanent veto-wielding council members — the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France — and the two countries most closely affected by the nuclear test, Japan and South Korea, discussed possible U.N. sanctions and other measures for a new Security Council resolution on Tuesday. …
Reporter: North Korea has long history of selling weapons (MSNBC, May 28) — David Sanger of the New York Times talks about the possibility of North Korea selling a nuclear weapon to terrorist groups as well as past arms deals made by the country. (04:33)
May 28, 2009
ABOARD A U.S. MILITARY JET – While worrisome, North Korea’s nuclear and missile tests have not reached a crisis level that would warrant additional U.S. troops in the region, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said.
Gates, flying to Singapore to meet with Asian defense ministers, said he has not seen any moves by North Korea’s military that would prompt the United States to add to the roughly 28,000 troops already in South Korea. He said any military actions would need to be decided upon, and carried out, by broad international agreement.
“I don’t think that anybody in the (Obama) administration thinks there is a crisis,” Gates told reporters aboard his military jet early Friday morning, still Thursday night in Washington.
“What we do have, though, are two new developments that are very provocative, that are aggressive, accompanied by very aggressive rhetoric,” he said. “And I think it brings home the reality of the challenge that North Korea poses to the region and to the international community.”
Gates appeared to try to tamp down some of the tough rhetoric that has flown between Washington and Pyongyang this week, since North Korea said it successfully detonated a nuclear device in its northeast on Monday and followed with a series of short-range missile launches. …
He cited North Korean exports of missile and nuclear technology as a top worry, and said the United Nations, and Russia and China in particular, need to be part of any efforts to curb them.
SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea’s second underground nuclear test has shown the world that it’s only a matter of time before the secretive regime develops the ability to mount an atomic weapon on a missile, analysts say.
Video
North Korea raises tensions with new threats May 27: North Korea defiantly raised its military rhetoric Wednesday in the wake of more underground nuclear tests. NBC’s Andrea Mitchell reports on Nightly News. (02:34)
Monday’s blast — by all accounts larger than its first one in 2006 — indicates the impoverished country will keep using nuclear development in efforts to bolster its regime and raise its stature against its main perceived adversary, the United States. The test has also raised fears of increased proliferation.
North Korea’s defiance in carrying out the explosion, which followed its first test in October 2006 that resulted in censure and sanctions by the United Nations, has met widespread condemnation and cast more doubt over prospects for stalled talks aimed at the country’s denuclearization.
President Barack Obama said the blast and North Korea’s test firings of short-range missiles off its coast “pose a grave threat to the peace and security of the world,” while the North responded Tuesday by launching more missiles. And on Wednesday, the North warned South Korea that its decision to participate in a U.S.-led program to intercept ships suspected of carrying weapons of mass destruction is equal to a declaration of war.
North Korea is believed to have processed enough plutonium over the years for at least a half dozen nuclear bombs.
That is paltry compared to the massive arsenals of nuclear powers such as the United States, Russia and China or even newer members of the atomic club like Pakistan.
Moving with determination
Still, North Korea is making measurable progress and showing its determination to posses a credible enough threat to protect its regime, and is unlikely to back down anytime soon given its increasingly strident tone on the world stage.
The North is now “more of a threat because they have more data and information about their bomb design,” said Daniel Pinkston, a Seoul-based analyst for the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think tank devoted to conflict resolution. “They’re demonstrating this decisiveness.”
The size of the explosion is still under debate and will require more analysis to determine. Initial estimates have ranged from a few kilotons to a Russian figure of between 10 kilotons and 20 kilotons.
The latter range, considered way too high by analysts including Pinkston and David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington, would be comparable to the U.S. weapons that destroyed the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II.
Evidence suggests North Korea’s ultimate goal is to mount a nuclear warhead on a missile, but analysts vary in their assessment of how close the country is to achieving that objective.
“It’s a weapons program aimed at putting something on a missile to create a credible deterrent,” Albright said. He said he thinks North Korea has the ability to mount a weapon now, though he added that questions remain about how reliable it would be.
‘A matter of time’
Yoon Deok-min, a professor at South Korea’s state-run Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security, said North Korea appears to still be in the process of mastering the miniaturization technology required to place a warhead on a missile, though he called its ultimate success just “a matter of time.”
He said its development of a nuclear-tipped missile is the “worst case” security scenario, noting the country has already deployed intermediate-range ballistic missiles that can travel as far as 1,860 miles. That would easily put South Korea and Japan into range and almost reach the U.S. island of Guam.
What is disturbing, Yoon said, is that the country is conducting missile and nuclear tests in close proximity. Monday’s blast came less than two months after the North fired an intermediate-range rocket over Japan and into the Pacific. Though North Korea claimed it launched a satellite, the U.S. and other countries said it was meant to test ballistic missile technology.
Proliferation fears
Still, other analysts do not think the North will quickly master the delivery of a nuclear warhead. Cha Du-hyeogn, a research fellow at the state-run Korea Institute for Defense Analyses, estimates it may take about four years to accomplish.
Pinkston said if analysis of the blast ultimately reveals that it was at the lower end of the yield range given so far, perhaps as small as three kilotons, that might suggest “they are working on miniaturization.”
Ivan Oerlich, vice president of the Strategic Security Program at the Federation of American Scientists, said early signs indicate the test was much larger than the one in 2006, though far smaller than the Russian estimate.
Proliferation fears have also increased as a result of the North’s test, analysts said.
“The proliferation part of this is more worrisome than being hit by a North Korean nuclear weapon,” Albright said, noting the North will likely have no qualms about selling its technology.
Bargaining chip
Some, however, see proliferation as a card the North might be willing to bargain away, provided it can achieve a satisfactory deal with Washington.
“North Korea wants to normalize their relations with the U.S. while they keep their nuclear weapons,” said Kim Tae-woo, vice president of the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses. “North Korea will promise not to proliferate” if it can achieve that, he said.
For Washington, that is unlikely to be acceptable. The United States, besides vocally condemning North Korea’s nuclear tests, has consistently demanded that the country verifiably abandon its nuclear programs if it wants formal relations.
Given the growing chasm over its nuclear program — North Korea pulled out of six-nation talks aimed at its denuclearization last month after the U.N. Security Council condemned its rocket launch — and the North’s increasingly strident tone, pessimism is growing for any quick end to tensions.
“The hawks tend to be in the driver’s seat and I think that’s the case in Pyongyang,” said the ICG’s Pinkston. “The prospects are quite bleak.”
Image of Kim Jong-Il on North Korean television, April 9, 2009.
A remote psychological assessment of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il was conducted mining open-source data in the public domain. Information concerning Kim was collected from media reports and synthesized into a personality profile using the second edition of the Millon Inventory of Diagnostic Criteria (MIDC), which yields 34 normal and maladaptive personality classifications congruent with Axis II of DSM–IV.
The personality profile yielded by the MIDC was analyzed on the basis of interpretive guidelines provided in the MIDC and Millon Index of Personality Styles manuals. Kim’s primary personality patterns were found to be Ambitious/self-serving (narcissistic) and Outgoing/gregarious (histrionic), with a secondary Dauntless/dissenting (antisocial) pattern. In addition, the personality profile contained subsidiary but relatively unremarkable Dominant/asserting (sadistic), Contentious/resolute (passive-aggressive), and Erratic/unstable (borderline) features.
The amalgam of Ambitious (narcissistic) and Outgoing (histrionic) patterns in Kim’s profile suggests the presence of a syndrome that Theodore Millon has labeled the “amorous narcissist” (relabeled hedonistic narcissist in the context of political leadership studies). These personalities have an indifferent conscience and aloofness to the truth, are facile in the ways of social seduction, feign an air of dignity and confidence, and are skilled in the art of deception.
Characteristically, these personalities fabricate stories to enhance their worth and leave behind a trail of broken promises and outrageous acts, including swindling, sexual indiscretions, pathological lying, and fraud. However, the hedonistic narcissist’s disregard for truth and talents for exploitation and deception are rarely hostile or malicious in intent; fundamentally, they are not malevolent. Having never learned to restrain their fantasies, and unconcerned with matters of social integrity, hedonistic narcissists maintain their beguiling ways through deception, fraud, lying, and by charming others through craft and wit. Instead of applying their talents toward the goals of tangible achievements and genuine relationships, they selfishly devote their energies to the construction of intricate lies, cleverly exploiting others and slyly extracting from them what they believe is their due.
In summary, Kim Jong-Il may be characterized as fraudulent, self-indulgent, and conflict averse — preferring guile, craft, and cunning rather than force or confrontation in extracting or extorting from others what he considers his due; he is not a “malignant narcissist.”
The major political implications of the study are the following: First, although North Korea’s military capability undeniably poses a legitimate threat to regional stability, any claim by Kim Jong-Il with regard to his military capabilities are not to be taken at face value, but should be called into question and verified; second, Kim is relatively conflict averse and unlikely to employ military force without provocation; and third, Kim is relatively open to influence by carefully crafted diplomatic and economic means subjectively perceived as bolstering his self-serving ambitions.
May 2009 update
My 2003 threat assessment should be read in the context of August 2008 reports that Kim Jong-Il had suffered a stroke.
Although I did not find Kim to be paranoid or delusional in my 2003 assessment, it is possible for stroke patients to undergo personality changes, including an increase in suspiciousness, or to develop psychiatric syndromes such as post-stroke depression or post-stroke dementia, which may impair the patient’s mental state and cognitive functioning.
Should that be the case with Kim Jong-Il, it may exacerbate a prior siege mentality, resulting in increasingly self-defeating, erratic behaviors patterns.
Despite remaining convinced that Kim is fundamentally risk-averse, I do have a heightened concern that a possible recent-onset organic brain syndrome could impair his insight, judgment, and decision-making capacity.
In the event Kim’s medical condition should color his pre-existing, premorbid personality with paranoid ideation or delusional thinking, he is likely to become increasingly mistrustful and vigilant; irritable and thin-skinned (hypersensitive to perceived slights and easily enraged by narcissistic injury); defiant, hostile, belligerent, and vengeful (determined to “balance the books” with respect to what he perceives as past wrongs); dichotomous (“us versus them” social perception); insular (impervious to corrective action in response to sound advice and new information); self-righteous (arrogant and acting with a sense of entitlement); and self-justifying (viewing his own transgressions either as defensive necessity or as “payback” for the malevolence or wrongs of others).
A man visits section 60, where many of the soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan are buried, Monday, May 25, 2009, at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va., on Memorial Day. (Photo credit: Jacquelyn Martin / AP)
May 26, 2009
WASHINGTON – The Pentagon is prepared to leave fighting forces in Iraq for as long as a decade despite an agreement between the United States and Iraq that would bring all American troops home by 2012, the top U.S. Army officer said Tuesday.
Gen. George Casey, the Army chief of staff, said the world remains dangerous and unpredictable, and the Pentagon must plan for extended U.S. combat and stability operations in two wars. “Global trends are pushing in the wrong direction,” Casey said. “They fundamentally will change how the Army works.”
He spoke at an invitation-only briefing to a dozen journalists and policy analysts from Washington-based think-tanks. He said his planning envisions combat troops in Iraq and Afghanistan for a decade as part of a sustained U.S. commitment to fighting extremism and terrorism in the Middle East.
Casey’s calculations about force levels are related to his attempt to ease the brutal deployment calendar that he said would “bring the Army to its knees.”
Casey would not specify how many combat units would be split between Iraq and Afghanistan. He said U.S. ground commander Gen. Ray Odierno is leading a study to determine how far U.S. forces could be cut back in Iraq and still be effective. …
The United States currently has about 139,000 troops in Iraq and 52,000 in Afghanistan.
[Barack] Obama campaigned on ending the Iraq war as quickly as possible and refocusing U.S. resources on what he called the more important fight in Afghanistan. …
[President] Obama has agreed to send about 21,000 combat forces and trainers to Afghanistan this year. Combined with additional forces approved before former President George W. Bush left office, the United States is expected to have about 68,000 troops in Afghanistan by the end of this year.
That’s about double the total at the end of 2008, but Obama’s top military and civilian advisers have indicated the number is unlikely to grow much beyond that.
Military preparing for long deployments
Casey said several times that he wasn’t the person making policy, but the military was preparing to have a fighting force deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan for years to come. Casey said his planning envisions 10 combat brigades plus command and support forces committed to the two wars.
When asked whether the Army had any measurement for knowing how big it should be, Casey responded, “How about the reality scenario?” This scenario, he said, must take into account that “we’re going to have 10 Army and Marine units deployed for a decade in Iraq and Afghanistan.” …
North Korea fires more missiles May 26: Just one day after conducting a nuclear test, North Korea reportedly fires short-range missiles overnight. NBC’s Andrea Mitchell reports. (02:49)
May 26, 2009
SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea has fired one more short-range missile from an east coast launch pad, a South Korean news agency said Wednesday.
Yonhap news agency quoted an unnamed South Korean government official as saying the short-range, ground-to-ship missile was fired into waters off its east coast Tuesday night.
Two missiles — one ground-to-air, the other ground-to-ship — with a range of about 80 miles were test-fired from an east coast launch pad earlier Tuesday, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported.
The missile launches came as leaders around the world condemned North Korea for its underground nuclear test on Monday. …
North Korea is “trying to test whether they can intimidate the international community” with its nuclear and missile activity, said Susan Rice, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
“But we are united, North Korea is isolated, and pressure on North Korea will increase,” Rice said. On Monday, President Barack Obama assailed Pyongyang, accusing it of engaging in “reckless” actions that have endangered the region, and the North accused Washington of hostility.
Analysis May 26: U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice talks with NBC Today’s Matt Lauer about ways President Obama may choose to deal with North Korea. (04:05)
North Korea appeared to be displaying its might following its underground atomic test that the U.N. Security Council condemned as a “clear violation” of a 2006 resolution banning the regime from developing its nuclear program.
France called for new sanctions, while the U.S. and Japan pushed for strong action against North Korea for testing a bomb that Russian officials said was comparable in power to those dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II.
China said it “resolutely opposed” North Korea’s test and urged Pyongyang to return to talks on ending its atomic programs.
Russia, once a key backer of North Korea, condemned the test. Moscow’s U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, the current Security Council president, said the 15-member council would begin work “quickly” on a new resolution.
Fears it will aid other nations, terrorists
North Korea’s nuclear test raises worries that it could act as a facilitator of the atomic ambitions of other nations and potentially even terrorists.
Its test of a long-range missile in July 2006 and its first nuclear test in October 2006 drew stiff sanctions from the Security Council and orders to refrain from engaging in ballistic missile-related activity and to stop developing its nuclear program. …
North Korea had threatened in recent weeks to carry out a nuclear test and fire long-range missiles unless the Security Council apologized for condemning Pyongyang’s April 5 launch of a rocket the U.S., Japan and other nations called a test of its long-range missile technology. The North has said it put a satellite into orbit as part of its peaceful space development program. …
Obama reiterated the U.S. commitment to defend both South Korea and Japan, U.S. and South Korean officials said.
North Korea responded by accusing the U.S. of hostility, and said its army and people were ready to defeat any American invasion.
“The current U.S. administration is following in the footsteps of the previous Bush administration’s reckless policy of militarily stifling North Korea,” the North’s main Rodong Sinmun newspaper said in commentary carried by the country’s official Korean Central News Agency. …
North Korean military officers celebrate the second successful nuclear test at the Pyongyang Indoor Stadium, on Tuesday, May 26, 2009. (Photo credit: KNS / AFP – Getty Images)
May 27, 2009
SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea launched a tirade Wednesday against world powers threatening to punish it for conducting its second nuclear test, saying it is not afraid of sanctions and calling South Korea’s decision to join an operation to prevent the spread of weapons a declaration of war.
The North also has reportedly restarted its weapons-grade nuclear plant. It staged a rally in its capital, Pyongyang, on Tuesday to celebrate the test.
The isolated communist regime said through its official news agency that it would respond with military action if South Korea tries to stop or search any of its ships as part of the U.S.-led Proliferation Security Initiative.
‘Merciless punishment’
“Those who provoke (North Korea) once will not be able to escape its unimaginable and merciless punishment,” the North’s official news agency said. …
Meanwhile, South Korea’s mass-circulation Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported Wednesday that U.S. spy satellites detected signs of steam at the North’s Yongbyon nuclear complex, an indication that it may have started reprocessing nuclear fuel. …
The move would be a major setback for efforts aimed at getting North Korea to disarm. …
Further ratcheting up tensions, North Korea has test-fired five short-range missiles over the past two days, South Korean officials confirmed. …
Choe Thae Bok, a high-ranking party official, was quoted by North Korea’s official news agency as saying that the nuclear test “was a grand undertaking” to protect the country against “the U.S. imperialists’ unabated threat to mount a pre-emptive nuclear attack and (put) sanctions and pressure upon it.” …
An image from North Korean television on April 9 shows leader Kim Jong Il in Pyongyang.
May 27, 2009
SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea threatened military action Wednesday after South Korea joined a U.S.-led effort to limit the trafficking of weapons of mass destruction, the official Korean Central News Agency said. …
Pyongyang also announced it was no longer bound by the 1953 armistice that ended the Korean War.
“The Korean Peninsula is bound to immediately return to a state of war from a legal point of view, and so our revolutionary armed forces will go over to corresponding military actions,” North Korea said through its news agency. …
KABUL – Shortly before he rammed his vehicle into an American military convoy, the young bearded suicide bomber waved at Sayed Najibullah to move away. As Najibullah sped off a huge explosion ripped through a U.S. armored vehicle, killing three American troops and three Afghan civilians.
But Najibullah lived to tell the story.
Tuesday’s attack in the northern Kapisa province, which is a stronghold of insurgents loyal to the Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar north of Kabul, follows warnings from American military officials that more suicide attacks and roadside bombings can be expected as thousands of new U.S. troops join the fight this year.
Such attacks were up 25 percent in the first four months of 2009 compared with the same period last year.
The 22-year old Najibullah was riding a motorbike on a tree-lined village road just outside the bazaar in Pul-e-Sayad when he saw the suicide attacker in a white Toyota Corolla vehicle speeding in the opposite direction.
“He was young, bearded men, wearing a white cap,” Najibullah said. “He slowed down, looked at me, and motioned with his hand and told me to get away fast.”
The bomber did the same to the passengers of a rickshaw riding behind Najibullah.
At that moment Najibullah also heard the roaring engines of military vehicles coming from behind. And than the explosion happened. …
“I turned my head only to see fire and dust,” Najibullah said. As the dust settled, he saw American soldiers running outside. Some lay on the ground.
Three U.S. troops died in the blast, said Tech. Sgt. Chuck Marsh, a U.S. military spokesman. Another was wounded. The troops served with NATO’s International Security Assistance Force.
Three civilians also died and two others were wounded, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.
Such attacks are quite common across Afghanistan. Taliban and other insurgent groups regularly use suicide and roadside bombs in assaults on foreign and Afghan troops. According to military figures, 172 coalition forces were killed in such attacks last year — and far more Afghan civilians died.
U.S. calls in airstrikes
As the conflict intensifies elsewhere in the country, U.S. troops called in airstrikes on groups of insurgents in the eastern Logar province Tuesday, killing 13 insurgents, the U.S military statement said. …
In the south, U.S. forces said they killed eight Taliban fighters in a clash in Uruzgan province on Monday. The troops were on patrol when Taliban fighters attacked with small-arms fire and heavy machine-guns.
The coalition said two of its troops and three Afghan policemen were wounded, and that they were in stable condition.
Southern Afghanistan is the center of the Taliban-led insurgency, where thousands of new American troops will join the fight this year.
President Barack Obama hopes the new troops can turn the tide of the Taliban successes in the last three years.
BAGHDAD – Three Americans, including a State Department employee, were killed by a roadside bomb that struck a convoy in Iraq’s western Anbar province, the U.S. military said Tuesday.
The blast killed a U.S. soldier, a State Department official and a civilian contractor working for the Defense Department as their convoy headed through Fallujah to a nearby construction site on Monday, the military said. Two others were wounded.
Like many cities in Iraq, Fallujah hosts a provisional reconstruction team, a joint U.S. civil-military office that carries out reconstruction projects throughout the city to improve people’s daily lives. …
As of Monday, May 25, 2009, at least 4,301 members of the U.S. military had died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. …
U.S. President Barack Obama takes part in a wreath laying ceremony with Maj. Gen. Richard J. Rowe at the Tomb of the Unknowns May 25, 2009 on Memorial Day at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia. (Photo credit: Mandel Ngan / AFP - Getty Images)
May 25, 2009
WASHINGTON – Barack Obama marked his first Memorial Day as president on Monday, saluting the men and women of America’s fighting forces, both living and dead, as “the best of America.”
The president spoke after participating in a solemn holiday tradition, laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery, the burial ground for American veterans dating to the Revolutionary War. …
“Why in an age when so many have acted only in pursuit of narrowest self-interest have the soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines of this generation volunteered all that they have on behalf of others,” he said. “Why have they been willing to bear the heaviest burden?”
“Whatever it is, they felt some tug. They answered a call. They said ‘I’ll go.’ That is why they are the best of America,” Obama said. “That is what separates them from those who have not served in uniform, their extraordinary willingness to risk their lives for people they never met.” …
Richard Blackaby stands at attention as a member of the honor guard carries the remains of a veteran during a internment ceremony at Riverside National Cemetery in Riverside, Calif. Blackaby, an Army veteran, is among more than 300 volunteers who honor veterans buried in the cemetery by reading their names leading up to Memorial Day each year. (Photo credit: Chris Carlson / AP)
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Iraq: There have been 4,619 coalition deaths — 4,302 Americans, two Australians, one Azerbaijani, 179 Britons, 13 Bulgarians, one Czech, seven Danes, two Dutch, two Estonians, one Fijian, five Georgians, one Hungarian, 33 Italians, one Kazakh, one Korean, three Latvians, 22 Poles, three Romanians, five Salvadoran, four Slovaks, 11 Spaniards, two Thai and 18 Ukrainians — in the war in Iraq as of May 25, 2009, according to a CNN count. The list below is the names of the soldiers, Marines, airmen, sailors and Coast Guardsmen whose deaths have been reported by their country’s governments. The list also includes seven employees of the U.S. Defense Department. At least 31,285 U.S. troops have been wounded in action, according to the Pentagon. View casualties in the war in Afghanistan and examine U.S. war casualties dating back to the Revolutionary War.
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The Blessings and Burdens of Liberty
By Lt. Col. James C. Fischer
Keynote Address
Memorial Day Program
St. Cloud VA Medical Center
May 25, 2009
Keynote speaker Lt. Col. James C. Fischer, professor of military science at St. John’s University, the College of St. Benedict, and St. Cloud State University, salutes as the colors pass by during the Memorial Day observance Monday, May 25, 2009, at the St. Cloud VA Medical Center. (Photo: Kimm Anderson / St. Cloud Times)
Thank you for the opportunity to address you this morning. As you understand from my biography, I have a somewhat unique distinction of being in the military, actually teaching Military History, and having experienced historically significant events first hand. In my current assignment as Professor of Military Science, I am responsible for training and developing the next generation of the Army’s leaders. Whenever I can, I cite the memory of those who have served and sacrificed so that we may stay free.
It is fitting that we set aside time to remember as Americans have formally done since 1868 when the Civil War Veterans’ organization, the Grand Army of the Republic, placed flowers on the graves of Union and Confederate dead at Arlington National Cemetery. Today, we place flags on the graves of veterans, families will place flowers, we hold parades, we wear poppies, we fly our flags, Boy and Girl Scouts place candles on civil war graves in Virginia, we hear speeches … hopefully good ones.
My comments echo a theme of remarks I regularly make to connect to that past sacrifice; to remember the blessings and burdens of Liberty that make that bond of memory worthwhile and necessary. Read the rest of this entry »
On May 5, Paul Demko reported in the Minnesota Independent (“Tinklenberg and Reed will both vie for DFL endorsement”), “There will be a battle to determine who will get the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party nod to take on Rep. Michele Bachmann in 2010.”
He continued, “Nancy Schumaker, chair of the Sixth Congressional District DFL, confirms that both Elwyn Tinklenberg and Maureen Reed have told local party activists that they intend to seek the endorsement.”
Maureen Reed
Then, in an aside that may have been overlooked in subsequent discussion of the looming face-off between Tinklenberg and Reed to secure the right to challenge Bachmann as the DFL-endorsed candidate in 2010, Demko noted, “Schumaker says there’s also been discussions with a third potential DFL candidate, but she won’t reveal the identity of that person.”
As Demko correctly observed in his May 5 report, “The [6th] district is the most Republican in the state and will be an extremely difficult race for any Democrat.” (He also reports that Schumaker believes Tinklenberg would have beaten Bachmann in 2008, had it not been for the presence of non-endorsed Independence Party candidate Bob Anderson, who garnered 10 percent of the vote, on the ballot – a charge Anderson and others have disputed and a question that cannot be empirically resolved.)
Elwyn Tinklenberg
Back to the issue of Minnesota’s “third man” (or woman) in the DFL 6th District primary contest. Before Reed appeared on the radar May 4 at a 6th District DFL gathering in Otsego, Demko reported as follows on April 17 (“Tinklenberg v. Bachmann redux? DFLers already eyeing 2010”) in the Minnesota Independent:
“At the top of the list of possible contenders for 2010 is her 2008 DFL opponent Elwyn Tinklenberg … [the] former state transportation commissioner, who lost to Bachmann by three percentage points. … While Tinklenberg seems the most likely to take a run at Bachmann, other names are being floated as possible contenders. At the top of the list: state Sen. Tarryl Clark. The Assistant Majority Leader is seen as a rising star in DFL circles and is frequently mentioned as a possible 2010 gubernatorial contender. But with a bloated crop of candidates eyeing the Governor’s mansion, Clark may find the 6th Congressional District race more enticing.”
Tarryl Clark
Demko reported that any future political plans for Clark would likely be on hold until the end of the legislative session. With the session now officially over, it would be interesting to hear hear Clark’s thinking about the 6th District race. Clark set up a YouTube channel on March 31, 2009, which may indicate she is taking steps to raise her profile in anticipation of a run – or, it may simply be a sign of the times that she’s using the power of the Internet to amplify her message as the state Senate’s assistant majority leader.
Demko’s Apr. 17 article also references DFL Sixth Congressional District chair Nancy Schumaker’s statement that three possible candidates have emerged as DFL contender, but that she can’t name names, because “I do not have permission to release their names.”
Demko’s April 17 report clearly conveys just how tough it will be for any Democratic contender to beat Bachmann in 2010:
The DCCC maintains that whoever ultimately emerges as the party’s candidate, it’s eager to wage a vigorous campaign against Bachmann.
“Instead of addressing the needs of the people she represents, the Congresswoman focuses her efforts on promoting far right-wing ideology and pursuing extremist rhetoric,” says Gabby Adler, Midwest Regional Press Secretary for the DCCC, in a statement to MnIndy.
“The people of the Sixth District are fed up with Congresswoman Bachmann, and we expect a strong challenger to emerge who will reflect the voters’ values and fight to protect jobs, reduce home foreclosures and promote local economic growth by promoting small business development.”
But reality may be different from the fiery rhetoric. The vast gains for House Democrats in the last two election cycles mean that the party will be defending a lot of seats in GOP-friendly areas. Couple that with the fact that historically the party controlling Congress and the White House has lost seats in the first election following a presidential campaign, and it seems likely that Democrats will utilize the bulk of their resources to defend the seats they already have.
“It’s way too early to know what seats the DCCC will target,” notes Nathan Gonzales, Political Editor of the Rothenberg Political Report. “But they will be forced to focus a lot more on defending their own seats this cycle, rather than knocking off Republican incumbents.”
Bachmann may be a figure of ridicule in liberal circles, but she’s proven herself a formidable political force in the conservative Sixth Congressional District.
“Despite all of the Democratic money and rhetoric, and even her own missteps, she keeps winning,” Gonzales adds. “Democrats love to hate Michele Bachmann, but they can’t seem to figure out how to defeat her.”
In an article in today’s St. Cloud Times (“Rail isn’t priority for Bachmann,” May 24) about Bachmann’s opposition to “earmarking” the Northstar commuter rail extension to St. Cloud as a “high-priority project” for the purpose of reauthorizing tax dollars in the Federal Highway Trust Fund for Northstar, Gannett Washington Bureau political correspondent Larry Bivens refers to Clark as “a Northstar booster and potential 2010 Democratic candidate against Bachmann.”
In calling Clark a “potential 2010 Democratic candidate against Bachmann,” I think is reasonable to assume Bivens asked Clark whether she was a candidate and that Clark declined to either deny or confirm that she intended to run.
I say that, because Bivens asked me the same quesion in an April 23 interview for an article about Bachmann.
Sen. Tarryl Clark has been telling people over recent days that she was heading that way, and now I’m confident that she will seek the DFL nomination for Congress to run for the seat held by arch-conservative Republican Michele Bachmann. I haven’t been able to speak to Clark directly about it. But since I first posted this morning, I have spoken to more DFLers, with direct knowledge of her plans, who confirm that Clark is in the race for Congress and is assembling a campaign staff.
Update: Statement from Tarryl Clark
In response to my post this a.m., Clark authorized one of her political associates to convey this statement:
“Sen. Clark is not ready to formally announce her candidacy for Congress from the Sixth District, but recently she has spent a great deal of time meeting with political leaders and key donors in the Sixth and across the state. She’s been overwhelmed by the outpouring of support she’s received. She knows how important it is to make a decision soon and wants to hit the ground running if she decides to run. She’ll formally announce her decision in the near future.”
Clark, 47, of St. Cloud, is a lawyer, a DFL state senator and assistant majority leader. She has been mentioned for seemingly every recent political opening over the past two cycles and had been rumored to be thinking about the race for governor. But she will avoid that crowded field and instead enter the also-fairly-crowded field for DFL endorsement in the 6th.
Elwyn Tinklenberg, who has run in the 6th twice before and was the Dem nominee last time, is also preparing to run. Tinklenberg, a former mayor of Blaine and state transportation commissioner during the Ventura administration, lost an endorsement fight to Patty Wetterling in 2006 when the congressional seat was open. (Wetterling went on to lose to Bachmann.)
Tinklenberg won the DFL endorsement and nomination in 2008 but his campaign did not catch fire nor receive much attention until close to Election Day when Bachmann’s crazy statements about Barack Obama being “anti-American” brought tremendous attention to the race and big money to the Tinklenberg campaign. Bachmann still won, by 46-43 percent, with the Independence Party nominee receiving 10 percent.
Until Clark’s entry, Tinklenberg had been presumed to be the likely Bachmann challenger for 2010. Tinklenberg has been criticized as a lacklustre campaigner, but some felt that if he had top national campaign help and stayed active for a full two-year cycle, he could improve. He has not announced that he will run again but he did hire Dana Houle, a national campaign operative who has helped Dem candidates defeat two House Repub incumbents in recent years.
Update: Response from Tinklenberg’s campaign manager
“We’ve recently heard that Tarryl Clark has changed her mind about running for govoernor and is now considering running for Congress. She hasn’t spoken to Elwyn, but we’ve heard the same rumors.”
[My question to Houle: Assuming Clark does get in, how does it change the race:]
“It would distract us from running full-time against Michele Bachmann, which would be unfortunate, but if we have to fight for the nomination, that’s what we’ll do.”
Dr. Maureen Reed, who was the Independence Party nominee for lieutenant governor in 2006, has announced that she will seek endorsement by both the DFL and the Independence-ites for the seat. Reed, a physician and former chair of the U of M Board of Regents, is something of an untested politician but reported an impressive start to her fundraising. It’s possible that if she fails to win the DFL endorsement, Reed could stay in the race representing the Independence Party. (Which means, given Clark’s entry, it’s possible this could be a three-way all-female contest.)
I spoke to Reed, who said Clark’s entry would not change her plans in any way: “Our race is the same, regardless of who’s in it.” Reed will seek both endorsements. When I asked whether, if she loses the Dem endorsement, she would run in a primary, Reed said: “Plan A is to get the endorsement. Plan B is to make Plan A work.”
After 2008, some DFLers concluded that if Bachmann couldn’t be defeated in 2008, with Obama-mania elevating Dem turnout everywhere and with Bachmann creating a major embarrassment in the last days of the campaign, she might be unbeatable in the Repub-leaning district, at least until the district lines are redrawn, which will occur before the 2012 cycle. Clark apparently thinks otherwise. She will have to give up her state Senate seat to run for Congress, unless she is eliminated from the race in time to seek another Senate term.
Among the reasons Clark has been considered so promising in DFL circles is that in 2005, in a special election, she won that Senate seat in a district that had been solidly Republican, then held the seat by a double-digit margin in the regular 2006 election. Articulate and attractive, Clark has often been the public face of the Senate DFL caucus.
Clark is an abortion rights supporter, which will make it easier for her to attract national Democratic financial support (Emily’s List?), but could complicate her chances in the 6th District, which is the most anti-abortion of Minnesota’s congressional districts. The district stretches from St. Cloud/Stearns County on the west, arches acorss the north metro suburbs and exurbs, including parts of Anoka County, and reaches the Wisconsin border on the east (Stillwater and Washington counties).
Clark was encouraged to run by some Washington Democrats, who have grown skeptical of Tinklenberg’s ability to win the seat.
MINNEAPOLIS/ST. PAUL (KSTP TV, June 15) — Minnesota could again have one of the most closely watched congressional races in the country in 2010.
It could be a close race if Rep. Michele Bachmann faces off against a prominent Democrat who could raise a lot of money and national support.
For weeks, the political blogoshpere has been full of speculation that Assistant Senate Majority Leader Tarryl Clark might challenge Bachmann. On Wednesday, sources close to Clark tell 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS she will run. …
BAGHDAD — A Katyusha rocket blasted Baghdad’s fortified government and military Green Zone compound overnight, killing a civilian working for the U.S. Department of Defence, the U.S. military said on Saturday.
They gave no further details, except to say that the attack occurred at around 8.15 pm (1715 GMT) on Friday night.
Earlier, an Iraqi police official said the rocket had hit a munitions store in the compound, causing an explosion and a fire but no casualties. …
At the end of November, a rocket or mortar attack on the Green Zone killed at least two foreign workers and wounded many.
BAGHDAD – Two Americans have been killed in separate incidents inside Baghdad’s highly fortified Green Zone, U.S. and Iraqi officials said Saturday, raising concerns about its security as Iraq’s forces assume more control.
The body of an American civilian was found Friday in a vehicle in the Green Zone, and another contractor was killed by a rocket attack that night near the American Embassy, U.S. military officials said.
The body was believed to be that of a civilian working for the Department of Defense, said Lt. Col. Brian Maka, adding that the death was under investigation and no other details were immediately available.
An Iraqi police official, however, told The Associated Press that the American appeared to have been killed. …
The second American was killed when a rocket struck the Green Zone Friday night at 8:15 p.m. local time, said military spokesman Maj. Jose A. Lopez.
The rocket attack and discovery of the body come as the Iraqi government has begun tearing down blast walls surrounding the Green Zone, which houses a number of government ministries as well as the American Embassy. …
Since the Green Zone was established shortly after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, it has been repeatedly shelled or attacked by suicide and car bombers.
In 2005, Ronald Schulz of Anchorage, Alaska, was believed to have been kidnapped from the Green Zone where he was working as an electrician. His body and that of a woman believed to be his Iraqi fiancee were found by the U.S. military in a grave in September 2008.
The Islamic Army in Iraq claimed in December 2005 that it had killed the pair.
Also Saturday, the U.S. military said an American soldier died Friday in a noncombat incident in Baghdad province. …
At least 4,300 members of the U.S. military have died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
The figure includes eight military civilians killed in action. At least 3,443 military personnel died as a result of hostile action, according to the military’s numbers.
Iraqi forces detained the contractors June 3 in connection with an investigation into the stabbing death of another American contractor, Jim Kitterman. But there have been conflicting accounts about the specific allegations against them. …
June 10, 2009
BAGHDAD – Five detained U.S. contractors will be freed after a week in Iraqi custody due to insufficient evidence against them, the Iraqi government said Wednesday.
U.S.-backed Iraqi forces detained the contractors June 3 in connection with an investigation into the stabbing death of another American contractor, Jim Kitterman. But there have been conflicting accounts about the specific allegations against them. …
The Iraqi government has said those detained were four Americans and an Iraqi, but the U.S. Embassy maintains that all five are Americans. …
Kitterman, a 60-year-old construction company owner from Houston, was found dead in his car on May 22 in Baghdad’s protected Green Zone. He had been blindfolded, bound and stabbed.
BAGHDAD – The U.S. Embassy says two American contractors have been transferred from Iraqi to U.S. custody at the request of the Iraqi government. …
The other three have been released on bond. But embassy spokesman James Fennell told The Associated Press that the two others were transferred Sunday to a U.S. military facility and “remain in custody pursuant to Iraqi judicial orders.”
Fennell says the five have been cleared of any link to James Kitterman’s killing but face an ongoing investigation into unrelated charges.
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Security Developments in Iraq
Following are security developments in Iraq on Saturday, May 23, 2009 as reported by Reuters.
MOSUL – A roadside bomb targeting a police patrol wounded three policemen in central Mosul, 240 miles north of Baghdad, police said.
BAGHDAD – A Katyusha rocket blasted Baghdad’s fortified government and military Green Zone compound overnight, killing a civilian working for the U.S. Department of Defense, the U.S. military said. An Iraqi police official had earlier said the rocket hit a munitions store, causing an explosion and a fire but no casualties.
BAGHDAD – The body of a U.S. civilian was found in the Green Zone on Friday, the U.S. military said, but gave no further details on the attack or a possible motive. A witness on the scene, which had been cordoned off, said the victim’s body bore stab wounds.
Following are security developments in Iraq on Friday, May 22, 2009 as reported by Reuters.
MOSUL – Gunmen stormed a family home and shot dead a woman and her daughter in northern Mosul, 240 miles north of Baghdad, on Thursday, police said.
KIRKUK – A raid by the Iraqi army and a Sunni Arab militia force freed a Christian teacher who had been held hostage for a week in southwest Kirkuk, 155 miles north of Baghdad, on Thursday, police said. The kidnappers had demanded a ransom.
MOSUL – A roadside bomb targeting a police patrol killed a policeman and wounded six others in central Mosul on Thursday night, police said.
MOSUL – A roadside bomb targeting a police patrol wounded a woman in western Mosul on Thursday night, police said.
MOSUL – Police found the body of a woman with bullet wounds to the head and chest in eastern Mosul on Thursday, Police said.
MOSUL – Police found the body of a man with bullet wounds to the head and chest in northern Mosul on Thursday, police said, adding that he had been kidnapped a day earlier.
Transcript of the president’s May 21, 2009 speech as prepared for delivery
Obama tries to reframe Gitmo debate (NBC Nightly News, May 21) – A day after being dealt his most severe Congressional setback since taking office, President Obama set out to reframe his position how and why to shut down the terrorist prison at Guantanamo Bay. The day became political theater thanks to a response delivered by former Vice President Dick Cheney. (04:55)
President Obama and Dick Cheney conspired on Thursday to propagate a myth. The myth is that we lived through an eight-year period of Bush-Cheney anti-terror policy and now we have entered a very different period called the Obama-Biden anti-terror policy. As both Obama and Cheney understand, this is a completely bogus distortion of history.
The reality is that after Sept. 11, we entered a two- or three-year period of what you might call Bush-Cheney policy. The country was blindsided. Intelligence officials knew next to nothing about the threats arrayed against them. The Bush administration tried just about everything to discover and prevent threats. The Bush people believed they were operating within the law but they did things most of us now find morally offensive and counterproductive.
The Bush-Cheney period lasted maybe three years. For Dick Cheney those might be the golden years. For Democrats, it is surely the period they want to forever hang around the necks of the Republican Party. But that period ended long ago.
By 2005, what you might call the Bush-Rice-Hadley era had begun. Gradually, in fits and starts, a series of Bush administration officials — including Condoleezza Rice, Stephen Hadley, Jack Goldsmith and John Bellinger — tried to rein in the excesses of the Bush-Cheney period. They didn’t win every fight, and they were prodded by court decisions and public outrage, but the gradual evolution of policy was clear.
From 2003 onward, people like Bellinger and Goldsmith were fighting against legal judgments that allowed enhanced interrogation techniques. By 2006, Rice and Hadley brought Khalid Shaikh Mohammed in from a secret foreign prison to regularize detainee procedures. In 2007, Rice refused to support an executive order reviving the interrogation program. Throughout the second Bush term, officials were trying to close Guantánamo, pleading with foreign governments to take some prisoners, begging senators to allow the transfer of prisoners onto American soil. (It didn’t occur to them that they could announce the closure of Gitmo first, then figure out what to do with prisoners.)
Cheney and Obama might pretend otherwise, but it wasn’t the Obama administration that halted the practice of waterboarding. It was a succession of C.I.A. directors starting in March 2003, even before a devastating report by the C.I.A. inspector general in 2004.
When Cheney lambastes the change in security policy, he’s not really attacking the Obama administration. He’s attacking the Bush administration. In his speech on Thursday, he repeated in public a lot of the same arguments he had been making within the Bush White House as the policy decisions went more and more the other way.
The inauguration of Barack Obama has simply not marked a dramatic shift in the substance of American anti-terror policy. It has marked a shift in the public credibility of that policy.
In the first place, it is absurd to say this administration doesn’t take terrorism seriously. Obama has embraced the Afghan surge, a strategy that was brewing at the end of the Bush years. He has stepped up drone activity in Pakistan. He has promoted aggressive counterinsurgency fighters and racked up domestic anti-terror accomplishments.
As for the treatment of terror suspects, Jack Goldsmith has a definitive piece called “The Cheney Fallacy” online at The New Republic. He lists a broad range of policies — Guantánamo, habeas corpus, military commissions, rendition, interrogation and so on. He shows how, in most cases, the Obama policy represents a continuation of or a gradual evolution from the final Bush policy.
What Obama gets, and what President Bush never got, is that other people’s opinions matter. Goldsmith puts it well: “The main difference between the Obama and Bush administrations concerns not the substance of terrorism policy, but rather its packaging. The Bush administration shot itself in the foot time and time again, to the detriment of the legitimacy and efficacy of its policies, by indifference to process and presentation. The Obama administration, by contrast, is intensely focused on these issues.”
Obama has taken many of the same policies Bush ended up with, and he has made them credible to the country and the world. In his speech, Obama explained his decisions in a subtle and coherent way. He admitted that some problems are tough and allow no easy solution. He treated Americans as adults, and will have won their respect.
Do I wish he had been more gracious with and honest about the Bush administration officials whose policies he is benefiting from? Yes. But the bottom line is that Obama has taken a series of moderate and time-tested policy compromises. He has preserved and reformed them intelligently. He has fit them into a persuasive framework. By doing that, he has not made us less safe. He has made us more secure.
Since leaving office, Dick Cheney has become a vocal critic of the Obama administration. Take a look at some of the comments the former vice president has made. (NBC News interactive report)
(Program starts at 7:45 into the above audio file)
New York Times columnist David Brooks, speaking at the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business. Brooks, a New York Times columnist since 2003, is a regular commentator on NPR and PBS. He formerly served as editor at The Weekly Standard, the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, and The Atlantic.
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Coming soon: “The Personality Profile of Dick Cheney”
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MINNEAPOLIS/ST. PAUL (KSTP TV, June 15) — Minnesota could again have one of the most closely watched congressional races in the country in 2010.
