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With U.N. coalition forces bombarding Libyan leader Muammar el-Qaddafi from the sea and air, the United States’ part in the operation could ultimately hit several billion dollars -- and require the Pentagon to request emergency funding from Congress to pay for it. The first day of Operation Odyssey Dawn had a price tag that was well over $100 million for the U.S. in missiles alone. And the U.S. military, which remains in the lead now in its third day, has pumped millions more into air- and sea-launched strikes targeting air-defense sites and ground-force positions along Libya’s coastline....

Libyan forces struck Saturday at the heart of the rebellion against Muammar al-Qaddafi, shelling the outskirts of the rebel capital and launching airstrikes in defiance of international demands for a halt to the fighting. Muammar al-Qadhafi called the United Nations resolution authorizing international military intervention in Libya as "invalid." The Libyan leader says he sent a message to President Barack Obama defending his decision to attack rebel cities: "If you found them taking over American cities by the force of arms, tell me what you would do." Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/03/19/plane-shot-rebel-held-city-libya-113932449/#ixzz1H3aK7mze

CSPAN coverage of Governor Christie's 2011 State of the Union Address.

CSPAN video featuring Defense Secretary Gates on revamping the US Export Control System in a very big way. The video may be viewed Here

EO DAS and Related Information: AN/AAQ-37 EO DAS AN/APG-81 AESA Radar for the F-35 F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Looks like we have a real winner. I will soon be hitting the rack. Please just enjoy the video and do understand if all they claim is true we still have the edge in dog fights, and air to ground elimination of potential AA defenses. And as some have seen today here and elsewhere, it appears the production F-35 can demonstrate safe hovering. Don't blast me please. I as some are still angry the F22 was dropped. I cannot offer any educated...

Dems Cancel Copenhagen Trip Socializing another huge chunk of the U.S. economy is more important than saving the planet: Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts and chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, told colleagues on Saturday that Democrats could not send a delegation to the United Nations climate change conference in Copenhagen. “It doesn’t look like we’re going -– not as a delegation,” Mr. Kerry told colleagues as a he left the Senate chamber after a vote on a package of spending measures. “Harry needs the people here on health care.” Harry is the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of...

November 9, 2007 -- 'EDUCATIONAL": That's how President Vladimir Putin's entourage described the Russian's recent whirlwind trip to Tehran. Islamic Republic President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hyped the 36-hour visit as a "historic event." Some Western commentators even suggested that Putin and Ahmadinejad planned to create an axis to counter Western influence in the Middle East. In fact, the visit seems to have persuaded Putin and his closest advisers that the Tehran leadership is culturally and temperamentally incapable of playing the classical Cold War-style power games that the Russians are interested in.

Iraq's leaders grappled Thursday over the death sentences for three former Saddam Hussein regime heavyweights - including the notorious enforcer known as "Chemical Ali" - amid warnings the hangings could enflame sectarian violence and derail efforts at reconciliation. But any serious delays in carrying out the executions also risk backlash from the victims of Saddam's attacks, including Kurds who faced a brutal crackdown in the 1980s that led to the death sentences. he bind grew more difficult as Sunni leaders pressed to delay the hangings, saying they could incite violence and cripple already fragile bids to improve ties between Iraq's...

“The al Qaeda that’s here is not guys … from Syria or Somalia. They are local people who grew up here,” Adgie said. “They were bad, bad teenagers who stole cars, and (with) the lure of fast money from al Qaeda … they joined al Qaeda, and they carry out al Qaeda’s bidding.” These home-grown terrorists employed “ultra-violence” against their fellow villagers to “strike fear in their hearts,” the colonel explained. Coalition forces from the final phase of the U.S. troop surge streamed into the region earlier this summer.

0723dv-saddam-hospitalized Saddam Hussein's half brother argued with the chief judge Monday and accused a court employee of shaking down a relative for money as the trial entered its final phase without the hospitalized former president. Barzan Ibrahim, a former intelligence chief, was the only one of the eight defendants in court when the trial resumed after a two-week break to continue hearing final summations. After summations, the five-judge panel will adjourn to consider a verdict, which could include death by hanging for Saddam and two co-defendants, including Barzan. Saddam, 69, remained hospitalized Monday, taking nutrition through a feeding tube, court...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (June 8, 2006) – Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki finalized his cabinet today with the Iraqi parliament’s vote on the three remaining security ministry positions. Abdul Qadir Muhammed Jasim, a Sunni Arab, was confirmed as the new Minister of Defense. Jawad al-Bolani, a Shiite, was confirmed for the Minister of Interior. The final position of state minister of national security was put in the hands of Sherwan al-Waily, also a Shiite. The top positions of defense and interior were filled by former generals, both under the former regime. Neither Jasim nor al-Bolani are said to not have any...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - 0425dv-zarqawi-tape Iraqis condemned terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as a foreigner determined to destroy their country, saying Wednesday his new video threatening more attacks may have surfaced in response to the formation of a unity government. Al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born head of al-Qaida in Iraq, made an unprecedented appearance on a video Tuesday, dismissing the new Iraqi government as an American "stooge" and a "poisoned dagger" in the heart of the Muslim world. He also warned of more attacks to come. Sheik Khalid al-Attiyah, the Iraqi parliament's newly appointed first deputy speaker, said the video shows al-Zarqawi...

TOKYO (AP) - Top Japanese officials on Wednesday expressed shock at a U.S. estimate that put the price tag for the planned reshuffling of U.S. forces in Japan at $26 billion or more. "My impression is that's an incredibly huge amount of money," Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe told a news conference, saying he couldn't comment further because he wasn't aware of the details. "Where did you get that number? Don't tell me groundless stories," a shocked-looking Foreign Minister Taro Aso earlier said on TV Asahi. "We shouldn't overreact over one official's estimate." Japan and the United States are negotiating...

ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON (AP) - The United States and Japan have settled their differences on a payment plan to move thousands of U.S. Marines out of Japan, with Japan agreeing to contribute nearly 60 percent of the $10.3 billion cost, the Japanese defense chief said. Japanese Defense Minister Fukushiro Nukaga flew to Washington to secure the agreement, spending more than three hours in a meeting Sunday with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. Nukaga told reporters afterward that Japan wanted an appropriate sharing of the cost of transferring 8,000 Marines from Okinawa to the Pacific island of Guam. Under the arrangement,...

President Jalal Talabani expressed his concern Sunday over reported Iranian and Turkish troop concentrations on those countries' borders with Iraq. Turkey has moved thousands of troops to the border region in what its military said was an offensive against Turkish Kurd guerrillas. Iran also reportedly has moved forces to the border, and last week shelled a mountainous region inside Iraq used by Iranian Kurd fighters for infiltration into Iran, according to Iraqi Kurd officials. No casualties were reported from Friday's artillery and rocket barrage. Talabani said that so far Iranian and Turkish forces have stayed on their sides of the...

It’s become clear from the active shuttle-like movement of the rival parties and mediators that the intensity of the political crisis began to subside compared to how things looked like a week ago. In spite of the violence that disturbed Baghdad this morning, the rival parties resumed their meetings and talks with some politicians playing the role of mediators; the most prominent of whom is President Talabani and even in the two main competing camps we’re hearing moderate voices emerge to propose solutions like the Virtue Party from the UIA and al-Mutlaq from Maram.

As election day approaches close, electoral campaigning intensifies as well, these campaigns are taking several forms and unfortunately this includes violence which we were hoping we wouldn’t have to see emerge among the competing parties. Probably the worst case of violence was the one when militia men attacked an office of the communist party (running as part of Allawi’s list) in Sdar city during an electoral event and resulted in killing two of the party members. The incident is being strongly condemned and the accusation fingers are pointing at Sadr militia since they are the only militia in Sdar city...

Efforts to subdue the Sunni insurgency has three dimensions: political, economic and military. Zalmay Khalilzad, Ambassador to Iraq, in a recent interview in Newsweek, discussed the political efforts to draw elements of the Sunni population from supporting the insurgency. Ambassador Khalilzad sees very real opportunities to cleave off elements of the insurgency which are not beholden to the Saddamists or jihadists. His words should be listened to closely as he has engineered highly successful political deals in both Afghanistan and in Iraq: Hersch: Let's talk about the Sunni insurgency. It seems as if the strategy of trying to divide extremists...

MR. WHITMAN: Welcome this afternoon, and as I indicated to you earlier today, we kind of have a rare opportunity here to have a man that I think all of you know, Lieutenant General David Petraeus, who has spent the better half of the last two and a half years in Iraq, and most recently for the last 12 months as the Multi-National Security Transition Command in Iraq, the commander of that, which, of course, is responsible for training and equipping the Iraqi security forces there. He is on his way to his new assignment at the Combined Arms Center...

0924mideast-violence Israel launched a "crushing" retaliation Saturday against Hamas in the Gaza Strip with deadly airstrikes and troops massed at the border, after militants fired 35 rockets at Israeli towns - their first major attack since the Gaza pullout. The escalation threatened to derail a shaky seven-month-old truce and squashed hopes that Israel's ceding the coastal strip to the Palestinians would invigorate peacemaking. Israel's reprisals drew fresh Hamas threats of vengeance, and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas came under growing Israeli pressure to confront the militants. Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz told security chiefs in a meeting that "the ground of...