Summary: For President Barack Obama, the economic cost of his Afghanistan surge plan proved troubling, after he received a private budget memo estimating that an expanded U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan would cost $1 trillion over 10 years, roughly the same as his health care reform plan. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on December 7, 2008, Aubrey Immelman reported that from Basra in the south to Irbil in the north, Iraqi activists are trying to counter the rising influence of religious fundamentalists and tribal chieftains who have insisted that women wear the veil, prevented girls from receiving education, and sanctioned killings of women accused of besmirching their family’s honor.

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