Summary: The Army began an investigation after being prodded by Amanda Henderson, wife of Sgt. 1st Class Patrick Henderson, an Iraq combat veteran who spent the final months of his life as an Army recruiter before hanging himself with a dog chain in his backyard shed. In all, 15 of the Army’s 8,400 recruiters have committed suicide since 2003, with more than 540 of the Army’s half-million active-duty soldiers killing themselves.

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Summary: Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other senior U.S. officials share much of the blame for detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, according to portions of a report released by the Senate Armed Services Committee. … In the deadliest attack in Iraq in nearly six months, a suicide bomber struck a crowded restaurant near the northern city of Kirkuk where Kurdish officials were meeting with Arab tribal leaders, killing at least 55 people and wounding about 120.

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Summary: Thomas Fingar, Bush administration deputy director of national intelligence for analysis, suggests the Iraq war was as much the failure of policymakers as the product of the flawed intelligence on which they relied. … Decision-making on Iraq was marred by a strong sense of time pressure, a tendency among decision makers to seek concurrence on Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction, and a directive leadership style in the White House — all of which are causes of groupthink. … According to the Gayle Report, the Department of Defense knew before the Iraq war started in 2003 of the threats of mines and roadside bombs in Iraq but did nothing to acquire Mine Resistant Ambush-Protected (MRAP) vehicles ahead of the invasion — a level of overconfidence symptomatic of groupthink.

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Summary: A study by the International Council on Security and Development (ICOS) has concluded that the Taliban insurgency is widening its presence in Afghanistan and “closing a noose around Kabul.” According to the report, titled “Struggle for Kabul: The Taliban Advance,” the Taliban “now holds a permanent presence in 72 percent of Afghanistan, up from 54 percent a year ago.”

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Summary: Taliban militants blasted their way into two transport terminals in Pakistan and torched more than 160 vehicles destined for U.S.-led troops in Afghanistan, in the biggest assault yet on a vital U.S. military supply line.

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Summary: With the number of terrorist attacks against police increasing from 113 in 2005 to 1,820 in 2007, police in northwestern Pakistan’s tribal regions bordering Afghanistan are outgunned, out-financed, and fighting a losing battle against Taliban insurgents.

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Summary: The fallout from a three-day terrorist rampage that killed nearly 200 people in Mumbai threatens to unravel India’s improving ties with Pakistan and prompted the resignation of India’s security minister. … Iraq’s influential Shi’ite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani reportedly has reservations about a status-of-forces allowing U.S. troops to stay in the country until the end of 2011, but is leaving it up to politicians to decide the value of the security pact.

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Summary: A rocket attack on a U.N. compound in Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone has killed two foreigners and wounded 15. … A suicide bomber struck Shiite worshippers at a mosque run by followers of anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, killing at least 12 people, a day after Iraqi lawmakers approved a status-of-forces agreement with the Bush administration. … The Iraqi parliament’s approval of a security pact with the U.S. has propelled Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki into a position of strength unsurpassed among Iraqi political leaders since the fall of Saddam Hussein; however, it has also set the stage for a power struggle in the run-up to the 2010 Iraqi elections, which may weaken Maliki’s dominance.

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Summary: Al-Qaida’s second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, said in an Internet video the U.S. financial crisis was caused by Washington’s military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan and taxpayers were paying the price. … Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has emerged as a nationalist strongman after reaching a status-of-forces agreement with the Bush administration requiring U.S. forces to withdraw from Iraq by the end of 2011.

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Summary: Followers of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr stomped on and burned an effigy of President George Bush in the same central Baghdad square where Iraqis beat a toppled statue of Saddam Hussein with their sandals five years earlier. Chanting and waving flags, thousands of Iraqis filled Firdous Square to protest a proposed U.S.-Iraqi security pact that would allow American troops to stay for three more years.

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