Summary: Deputy national security adviser John Brennan tells NBC’s David Gregory on “Meet the Press” that politicians are using national security to score political points and that he’s exasperated with partisan political football over counterterrorism professionals’ handling of failed airline bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on February 8, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that defense contractor KBR Inc. had been awarded a $35 million Pentagon contract involving major electrical work, even as it was under criminal investigation in the electrocution deaths of at least two U.S. soldiers in Iraq.

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Summary: Complete Super Bowl coverage … Tim Tebow — the Heisman Trophy winner who almost wasn’t … New York Times editorial: Super Bowl censorship … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on February 7, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that Gen. Martin Dempsey, commander of the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command, said that the Army, to battle a growing suicide rate, may have to start teaching soldiers how to handle stress from the first day they take their service oath.

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Summary: Nearly 3,000 pages of e-mails that Todd Palin, husband of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, exchanged with state officials have been released to MSNBC.com and NBC News by the state of Alaska under its public records law. The e-mails draw a picture of a Palin administration where the governor’s husband got involved in a judicial appointment, monitored contract negotiations with public employee unions, received background checks on a corporate CEO, added his approval or disapproval to state board appointments, and passed financial information marked “confidential” from his oil company employer to a state attorney. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on February 6, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that the Army was investigating an unexplained and stunning spike in suicides in January 2009. The count was said to be likely to surpass the number of combat deaths during the same period reported by all branches of the armed forces in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere in the fight against terrorism.

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Summary: The U.S. is preparing a major attack on the Taliban, the militants are being squeezed in their Pakistani sanctuaries, and the Afghan government is trying to draw them into peace talks. … NATO is sending reinforcements to Kandahar, 260 miles southwest of Kabul, ahead of a major offensive to reverse Taliban gains in southern Afghanistan. … Suicide bomb kills 6 in Afghan south. A bomb on a parked motorcycle exploded on the outskirts of the holy city of Karbala, killing at least 20 Shiite pilgrims and wounding 110. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on February 5, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that with the reduction of violence in Iraq following a U.S. troop “surge” and other measures, foreign militants were flooding into Afghanistan to join Taliban insurgents battling Afghan and international troops. He also reported that Father Bruce Wollmering OSB, monk and priest, died suddenly on February 4, 2009 at Saint John’s Abbey in Collegeville, Minn. Subsequently, on December 9, 2009, it was reported that former student Jeramiah (Jerry) McCarthy had filed a fraud lawsuit against St. John’s Prep School and Abbey for allegedly covering up sexual misconduct by Fr. Bruce Wollmering since the mid-1960s.

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Summary: Three U.S. special operations soldiers have been killed in a roadside bombing in northwest Pakistan, drawing unwanted attention to a U.S. program for intelligence gathering and training Pakistani Frontier Corps paramilitary forces to fight the Taliban and al-Qaida — a little-publicized mission because of local opposition to American boots on the ground in Pakistani. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on February 4, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that a classified Pentagon report urged President Barack Obama to shift U.S. military strategy in Afghanistan, de-emphasizing democracy-building and concentrating more on targeting Taliban and al-Qaida sanctuaries inside Pakistan with the aid of Pakistani military forces.

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Summary: At a political forum in Rochester, Minn., U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann makes the wild claim that the president’s health reform proposals, beyond being “the crown jewel of socialism,” could lead to “gangster government” and “absolute abject corruption,” with people terrified to speak out against the government for fear of being blacklisted for denial of health care. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on February 3, 2009, Aubrey Immelman highlighted some Afghanistan-Vietnam parallels: A president, eager to show his toughness, vows to do what it takes to “win”; the nation we’re supposedly rescuing is no nation at all but rather a deeply divided, semi-failed state with an incompetent, corrupt government held to be illegitimate by a significant portion of its population; the enemy is well accustomed to resisting foreign invaders and can escape into convenient refuges across the border; there are constraints on America striking those sanctuaries; neighboring countries may see a chance to bog America down in a costly war; and there is no easy way out.

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Summary: Weekly report of U.S. military deaths in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan), compiled from U.S. Department of Defense News Releases. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on February 2, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that provincial election results in northern Iraq could heighten ethnic tensions between Sunnis and Kurds.

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Summary: A female suicide bomber walking among Shiite pilgrims in northern Baghdad detonated an explosives belt, killing at least 54 people and wounding around 117. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on February 1, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that three recent U.S. Special Forces operations in Afghanistan killed 50 people — the vast majority civilians, according to Afghan officials — raising the ire of villagers and President Hamid Karzai. The problem, Afghan officials say, comes when ordinary villagers hear the commotion of Special Forces nighttime raids and, fearing robbers or an attack from a hostile tribe, grab their guns and run outside or fire from their homes. U.S. forces then fire back and end up killing civilians.

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