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There is nothing wrong with setting broad goals for withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq. The U.S. wants to leave as soon as this is feasible, and Iraqis have long wanted us to leave. At least since 2004, Iraq’s Kurds have been the only group in Iraq that showed a consistent desire for the U.S. to stay. It also is impossible to be certain that the risks of early withdrawal will really be greater from the risks of staying. It is at least possible that acting on early timelines will force Iraqis to move towards political accommodation, to take hard decisions,...

Obama Argues He's More Open-border Than McCain: "The 12 million people living in the shadows, communities taking immigration enforcement into their own hands...they're counting on us to stop the hateful rhetoric filling the airwaves. Yes, they broke the law and we should require them to learn English, pay a fine and go to the back of the line." CIS notes: These oft-repeated "penalties" are not serious. As for the fine, immigrant rights attorneys will cry discrimination and those aliens who don't pay it will never be deported. The English language requirement would be impossible to regulate and likely never enforced....

Iran’s Other Leader by: Rachel Paulk, July 14, 2008 As Iran continues to develop its nuclear facilities and to demonstrate its missile capabilities, foreign policy analysts are scrambling to determine the best American response to the rogue nation’s militaristic threats. None seem to agree on how to best approach the hostile Islamic state because its leaders prove difficult to predict on the escalating nuclear crisis. Karim Sadjadpour, author of the report “Reading Khamenei: The World View of Iran’s Most Powerful Leader,” stated in a lecture at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali...

Senator John McCain delivered remarks yesterday to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) at the Ronald Reagan Building & International Trade Center in Washington D.C. Below are Senator McCain's remarks, as prepared for delivery: Thank you. I appreciate the invitation to talk with you about a great and urgent challenge - breaking our nation's critical dependence on foreign sources of oil, and making America safer, stronger and more prosperous by modernizing the way we generate and employ energy. Oil is often called the lifeblood of our economy-the indispensable commodity that keeps commerce humming and America on the move....

Clock ticking for Kim's Korea 24 January 2008 Kim Jong-Il's regime could collapse within six months, bringing chaos to North Korea, observers and intelligence sources in Asia have told Jane's. A joint United States report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the US Institute for Peace has also revealed that China has "contingency plans" in the event of North Korea's implosion. The report, entitled 'Keeping an Eye on an Unruly Neighbor', said that China was prepared to "take the initiative" and had a military strategy for securing North Korea's "loose nukes" should Kim Jong-Il's rule fail.

A government committee has concluded that Mohammed Mansour Jabarah was "arbitrarily detained" by CSIS when it helped the admitted al-Qaeda member surrender to FBI agents five years ago. The Security Intelligence Review Committee also found his right to silence as protected under the Charter of Rights was violated as well as his right to counsel. "Furthermore, his right to remain in Canada as protected by section 6 of the Charter [mobility rights] was violated," says a report from the committee. The committee, chaired by former Manitoba premier Gary Filmon, made six recommendations, principal among them the need to obtain formal...

Those who seek to understand what's behind the chatter about President George W. Bush's Security and Prosperity Partnership as a possible prelude to a North American Union, similar to the European Union, should read the 35-page White Paper published recently by the Hudson Institute called "Negotiating North America: The Security and Prosperity Partnership." The Washington, D.C., think tank is blunt and detailed in describing where the Security and Prosperity Partnership is heading. Here's how Hudson defines the Security and Prosperity Partnership's goal: "The SPP process is the vehicle for the discussion of future arrangements for economic integration to create a...

Hateful chatter behind the veil Key suspects' wives held radical views, Web postings revealMISSISSAUGA — When it came time to write up the premarital agreement between Zakaria Amara and Nada Farooq, Ms. Farooq briefly considered adding a clause that would allow her to ask for a divorce. She said that Mr. Amara (now accused of being a leader of the alleged terror plot that led to the arrests of 17 Muslim men early this month) had to aspire to take part in jihad. "[And] if he ever refuses a clear opportunity to leave for jihad, then i want the choice...

prominent environmentalist is sounding the alarm about a closed-door trilateral meeting to discuss, among other things, large-scale water transfers to combat future shortages in the United States and Mexico despite Canada's standing objection to such a plan. Next week, government officials and academics from the three countries will gather in Calgary for the two-day North American Future 2025 Project where they'll brainstorm ideas on how the continent should implement policies to deal with various challenges - including security, energy and labour. But it's the agenda on water that has activists concerned, given that the discussions will be held behind closed...

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) -- A top U.S. Democratic congressman met a leader of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's most powerful rival, the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, U.S. officials and the Islamist group said Saturday. Visiting House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer met with the head of the Muslim Brotherhood's parliamentary bloc, Mohammed Saad el-Katatni, twice on Thursday -- once at the parliament building and then at the home of the U.S. ambassador to Egypt, said Brotherhood spokesman Hamdi Hassan. U.S. Embassy spokesman John Berry would confirm only that Hoyer, who represents Maryland, met with el-Katatni at U.S. Ambassador Francis Ricciardone's home at a...

Today: July 13, 2002 at 10:10:14 PDT U.S. Says Iraq Would Target Troops ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON- The threat from Iraq's chemical and biological weapons is primarily to U.S. troops and to enemies of President Saddam Hussein inside and near Iraq rather than to civilians in the United States, defense and intelligence officials say. Iraq is believed to have biological weapons including anthrax spores and botulinum poison, which causes botulism. As for chemical agents, Iraq is thought to possess mustard, tabun, sarin and possibly VX gases, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Those are what U.N. inspectors had...

Canadian oil: Target of terror Al-Qaeda group calls for attacks as way to disrupt U.S. supply Ian MacLeod, The Ottawa Citizen; with files from the Calgary Herald Published: Wednesday, February 14, 2007 Al-Qaeda has called for terrorist strikes against Canada's oil and natural gas facilities to "choke the U.S. economy." An online message, posted by The Al-Qaeda Organization in the Arabian Peninsula, declares "we should strike petroleum interests in all areas which supply the United States ... like Canada," the No. 1 supplier of both fuels to the U.S. "The biggest party hurt will be the industrial nations, and...

Canada's intelligence service says a "very rapid process" is transforming some youths from angry activists into jihadist terrorists intent on killing for their religion. Enraged over what they perceive as a Western "war on Islam" and coaxed on by extremist preachers, a few have embraced terrorism with frightening speed, the service warns in a new study. "The transformation from radical to jihadist can be a very rapid process," says the "secret" report by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, obtained by the National Post. The study, released under the Access to Information Act, is the government's latest attempt to understand why...

ELEANOR HALL: A key US military strategist who counts the former Secretary of State, Colin Powell, among his students, is absolutely scathing about the current Bush administration's strategy in Iraq and says no one except the President is in any doubt that it should change. Harlan Ullman who's now at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, says the US lost control of events in Iraq almost immediately after the invasion and that far from assisting in the development of democracy, the US-led allies, including Australia, have fomented chaos. But Dr Ullman says he holds out little hope that either...

Part 2 of National Post's series: "The path to terror in Canada" Terror suspect's bride: 'I'm shocked' Stewart Bell National Post Tuesday, September 05, 2006 Three months after the RCMP began arresting 18 suspects accused of plotting terror attacks in Canada, an investigation by the National Post has uncovered a web of links to Pakistan. Today, in the second of four parts, an exclusive interview with the Pakistani bride of Toronto terror suspect Jahmaal James. LAHORE, Pakistan - There are plastic flowers on the walls, a small computer on the table beneath the window and a curtain for a door....

Khadr alleges abuse from all sides Abdullah claims CSIS, RCMP facilitated his torture in Pakistan Adrian Humphreys National Post Friday, August 18, 2006 TORONTO - Abdullah Khadr, a Canadian man accused by the United States of being an al-Qaeda weapons supplier, says he faced a revolving door of abuse from police and security agents from three countries -- including Canada -- during 14 months of imprisonment in Pakistan. In a sworn affidavit filed in a Toronto court, Mr. Khadr claims his Pakistani jailers raped him with a stick and beat him; American "spies" slapped him and threatened him and...

ST. JOHN'S, N.L. - The director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service said Tuesday that the spy agency avoids racial profiling because it is "fundamentally stupid'' and does not knowingly use information gleaned under torture offshore because the practice is "morally repugnant.'' James Judd told a gathering of Canadian judges on Tuesday that he is "acutely aware'' of complaints that the agency, along with several other organizations, targets the Muslim community in fighting the war on terror. "We don't profile because it's fundamentally stupid and we don't have enough resources,'' said Judd. "From a national security perspective, we can't afford...

TORONTO — Canada's police and intelligence agencies, through their use of paid Muslim informants, effectively have spies in virtually every major mosque in Toronto, according to well-connected members of the Muslim community. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service does not deny operating inside Muslim religious institutions, but insists that it hires informants to report on people, not places. Those knowledgeable about mosques and the tactics of security services say it often amounts to the same thing. “If they're following certain people, an imam for example, and that imam is spending a lot of time at the mosque, then [the informant] is...

Security No. 1 Calgary Sun Friday, July 14, 2006 By LICIA CORBELLA Most Canadians would agree that if ever there was a time this country needed to boost spending on "intelligence gathering" it was five years ago after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S. Surely, working to prevent such atrocities in the future should be the federal government's No. 1 job. Think again, says Canada's most effective and hardest-working member of Parliament's upper chamber, Senator Colin Kenney. "CSIS' budget is still less than what it was in 1990," says Kenney, chair of the Standing Senate Committee on...

WASHINGTON [MENL] -- Iran lacks the capability to block the world's leading shipping route for crude oil exports. The Center for Strategic and International Studies said the Iranian Navy, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, has failed to procure the platforms or weapons required to block the Straits of Hormuz, the passage for 60 percent of the world's oil trade. In a report, the Washington-based center said the United States could block any Iranian attempt to attack Gulf shipping, particularly from the sea. "Iran could not close the Strait of Hormuz, or halt tanker traffic, and its submarines and much...

Mounties had mole in alleged terror cell Exclusive: Law prohibits publication of prominent member of Muslim community Toronto red Star Jul. 13, 2006. 05:23 AM MICHELLE SHEPHARD STAFF REPORTER A well-known member of Toronto's Muslim community worked as a police agent to infiltrate an alleged terrorism cell that police say was planning attacks in Canada, the Toronto Star has learned. Although his identity is now known within the community and also to some of the 17 terrorism suspects arrested June 2, his name cannot be published due to Canadian laws. Sources say the man worked for the Canadian Security...

Lock our doors to terrorists The London Free Press Tuesday, 20 June, 2006 By Rory Leishman In a statement at Toronto's Pearson International Airport on Friday, Prime Minister Stephen Harper confirmed that his government will spend more than $250 million over the next two years to improve passenger and baggage screening at airports, rail terminals, urban transit facilities and ports. "This is how the fight against terrorism will be won," he said. "Modernizing equipment and procedures, plugging the holes, filling the gaps and thinking one step ahead of the agents of hate and terror." Harper is right. When, though,...

A Canadian counterterrorism investigation that led to the arrests of 17 people accused of plotting bombings in Ontario is linked to probes in a half-dozen countries.Well before police tactical teams began their sweeps around Toronto on Friday, at least 18 related arrests had already taken place in Canada, the United States, Britain, Bosnia, Denmark, Sweden and Bangladesh.The six-month RCMP investigation, called Project OSage, is one of several overlapping probes that include an FBI case called Operation Northern Exposure and a British probe known as Operation Mazhar.At a news conference yesterday, the RCMP announced terrorism charges had been laid against a...

Canada has its own crop of homegrown terrorists capable of acts like the deadly attacks on London's transit system last summer, says Canada's spy agency. "I can tell you that all of the circumstances that led to the London transit bombings . . . are resident here and now in Canada,'' Jack Hooper, operations director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, told a Senate committee Monday. The threat from Canadian-bred terrorists is considered by CSIS to be on a par with external terror threats, Hooper said during an appearance with RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli. He did not, however, say how...

Shocking New Book Published "Canada's Spies Attacked Me: A True Story of CSIS Terrorizing a Canadian Abroad" Champaign, IL (PRWEB) April 23, 2006 -- Canada's Spies Attacked Me: A True Story of CSIS Terrorizing a Canadian Abroad is a autobiography about how the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) attacked the author, Mark Garzone, in America. This occurred when his family was going to complain to the SIRC, the watchdog of CSIS. The story starts back in 1998 when his father Mario Garzone, a Croatian-Canadian, telephoned the Croatian Embassy in Canada asking for a list of publishers for a book he...

Prior to joining CSIS in August 2001, Mary O. McCarthy was a senior policy adviser to the CIA's deputy director for science and technology. Until July 2001, she served as special assistant to the president and senior director for intelligence programs on the National Security Council (NSC) Staff, under both Presidents Clinton and Bush. From 1991 until her appointment to the NSC, McCarthy served on the National Intelligence Council. She began her government service as an analyst, then manager, in CIA's Directorate of Intelligence, holding positions in both African and Latin American analysis. From 1979 to 1984 she was employed...

WASHINGTON – Crusty and unapologetic, Donald H. Rumsfeld is the public face of an unpopular war and a target of unrelenting criticism. A growing number of commanders who served under him say he has botched the Iraq operation, ignored the advice of his generals and should be replaced. The White House insists the defense secretary retains President Bush's confidence. Few close to the administration expect him to be shown the door. “The president believes Secretary Rumsfeld is doing a very fine job during a challenging period in our nation's history,” Bush spokesman Scott McClellan said Thursday as the administration circled...

How the CIA Funds Anti-Bush Propaganda By Bill Gertz The Washington Times | September 14, 2004 The CIA's Counterterrorist Center has spent more than $15 million in the past three years funding studies, reports and conferences produced by former Democratic administration officials and other critics of the Bush administration. The latest effort was a $300,000 grant by the CIA to the Atlantic Council for a study co-authored by Richard A. Clarke, the former counterterrorism official who wrote a best seller accusing the Bush administration of failing in the war on terrorism by invading Iraq.

Has cartoon rage in Denmark over the cartoons of Muhammad printed by the newspaper Jyllands Posten now taken the form of hacker attacks against that paper's website? "Denmark subject to islamic cyber-attacks," from the Dansk-Svensk blogspot, with thanks to Steen: from www.politiken.dk the 29 of jan. a German version will appear later today: New hacker attack paralyzes Jyllands-Posten The web version of Jyllands-Posten is off-line. Hackers pulled off another large attack on the website of the paper. The web version of the paper Jyllands-Posten, www.jp.dk, has again been knocked to the ground. The web paper is under attack by hackers....

Terrorists are perpetual threat, CSIS saysBy COLIN FREEZE September 10, 2005 Globe and Mail Terrorists will always be terrorists, and neither time nor prison can temper their probable plots to kill civilians, Canada's spy service says. “Individuals who have attended terrorist training camps or who have independently opted for radical Islam must be considered threats to Canadian public safety for the indefinite future,” reads a court-filed CSIS report obtained by The Globe and Mail. “It is highly unlikely that they will cast off their views on jihad and justification for the use of violence. “Given the long planning periods typical...

Anti-terror team targets imam National security squad collecting intelligence on controversial cleric based at Fraser Street mosque Amy O'Brian, with a file from Brad Badelt Vancouver Sun A counter-terrorism team of police and other national security experts is investigating a radical Muslim cleric in Vancouver who has been known to promote Islamic holy war against Jews and other non-Muslim people. Sheik Younus Kathrada, a cleric at the Dar al-Madinah mosque on Fraser Street, is being investigated by the Integrated National Security Enforcement Team, INSET, which collects intelligence on "targets that are a threat to national security," according to the RCMP...

SYDNEY, Australia (AP) - A former Canadian spymaster has backed claims by a Chinese defector that China maintains an extensive spy network in Australia. The former chief of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service's Asia-Pacific Bureau, Michel Juneau-Katsuya, backed the claims of Chen Yonglin, a former employee of the Chinese consulate in Sydney, Australia, in an interview with Australian television late Wednesday. Chen, 37, abandoned his middle-ranking diplomatic post at China's consulate in May and asked for asylum, saying he would be persecuted if he returned home because of his sympathy for the Falun Gong movement, which China brands an evil...

Chinese spies cost Canada billions: Harper CTV.ca News Staff Conservatives accused the government of not addressing the presence of Chinese industrial spies during question period Thursday. "Today the former head of the CSIS Asia desk confirmed reports from defectors that close to 1000 Chinese government agent spies have infiltrated Canada," Conservative Leader Stephen Harper said. Harper quoted the former CSIS official, Michel Juneau-Katsuya, as believing Chinese spies cost Canada $1 billion every month through industrial espionage. Juneau-Katsuya oversaw the CSIS Asia desk during the mid-1990s. He told reporters that China is a serious threat to Canadian security. Reports of Chinese...

Reid Morden, the Canadian spy working with Paul Volcker on the independent UN inquiry into the oil-for-food scandal, is the CEO who was at the helm of the Canadian Security Investigation Services (CSIS) when most of the 300 tapes and wiretaps, collected both before and after the 1985 crash of Air India Flight 182, were destroyed. Some feel that the destroyed tapes and wiretaps were crucial evidence that could have led to a guilty charge in the trial of the accused on the crash of Flight 182. CSIS, Canada’s top spy agency, has always maintained that the destroyed tapes had...

Operation Sidewinder. It sounds like a Hollywood spy movie starring Harrison Ford. For a long time, Sidewinder moldered on the shelf as just another conspiracy theory. In reality, Sidewinder was a controversial report put together by a small but hard-working team of RCMP and CSIS (Canadian Security & Intelligence Service) officials. It was Sidewinder that sounded the first alarm bells that China is one of the greatest ongoing threats to Canada’s national security and Canadian industry. But even after Sidewinder was side swiped by former Prime Minister Jean Chretien, intelligence proves that there is no doubt that an active Chinese...

WASHINGTON - Americans' fingerprints should be added to their passports, outgoing Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said Wednesday, hoping to include the United States in a growing global security standard but risking a privacy fight at home. Ridge said passports could ideally include biometric finger scans — for all 10 fingers — to help customs officials quickly and accurately identify U.S. travelers. He offered no details on how the plan might deal with privacy concerns or guard against international identity theft. "If we're going to ask the rest of the world to put fingerprints on their passports, we ought to...

A national security probe has been launched into the office of Immigration Minister Judy Sgro after a senior staffer was quietly fired for suspicion of being a threat to the country, government officials say. The staffer, a Canadian of Sri Lankan origin, had worked for several weeks in Sgro's Ottawa office, according to sources close to the case. Sources said the Toronto man, whose identity hasn't been released, was given a top position because he was a tireless recruiter of South Asians for the Liberal Party of Canada (Ontario). Six sources, including police, a Liberal and Conservative MPs and immigration...

A new director was named Tuesday for Canada's spy service, which has been without a permanent head since Ward Elcock ended his 10-year term in the spring. Prime Minister Paul Martin said Tuesday that the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service will be headed by Jim Judd, who has formerly served as the highest-ranking bureaucrat with the Department of National Defence. Coincidentally, Mr. Elcock was named in August to the defence post Mr. Judd once held. "Jim Judd brings proven and sound leadership to his new position," Mr. Martin said in a statement. "His unique combination of foreign and defence policy...

Judges approve more than 99 per cent of the requests by CSIS to spy on people in Canada, according to records obtained by The Globe and Mail. While the government says espionage is one of its most intrusive powers, records show that Federal Court judges almost never disagree with Canadian Security Intelligence Service agents who ask for permission to take extraordinary steps so they can discover more about suspected terrorists or foreign spies. CSIS officials say this speaks to the fact that they run a highly disciplined spy service, whereas critics suggest judges are giving carte blanche to intelligence operations....

One of the more amusing spectacles of these less-than- amusing times is the emergence of a Kerry fan club among European anti-war enthusiasts. The letter-writing campaign of The Guardian to the voters of Clark County, Ohio, is especially silly, but is only one of many examples. Of course many people support John Kerry for the next president of the United States for a variety of reasons - he is credible when he promises to cut the Federal deficit, for example. But to support him in the hope that he would make American military policy more doveish is absurd. All the...

BRUSSELS, Belgium -- European officials conducted a simulation showing how al-Qaida could kill 40,000 people and plunge the continent into chaos if a crude nuclear device were detonated outside NATO headquarters in Brussels. In first part of the scenario, European officials were asked how they would respond to intelligence that al-Qaida had obtained enough highly enriched uranium to build a nuclear bomb. In the second, they were confronted with computer projections and video displays illustrating the impact of terrorists exploding the device at NATO's headquarters on the outskirts of Brussels, immediately killing 40,000 people, overwhelming hospitals with hundreds of thousands...

Canadians will be madder than hell after they read Stewart Bell's shocking account of how the Canadian government has allowed Sikh, Tamil and Islamic terrorists to come into our home and turn it into a safe house for international terror. Bell, who writes for the National Post and is, in my view, Canada's leading reporter on national security and terrorism, has taken on the courageous task of warning Canadians about the terrorists living among us. This has stirred up a real hornets' nest. He has been threatened by many who don't like his message and has been branded as anti-Islamic...

Politicians and officials from two US administrations traded accusations last week over failures to act against terrorism before and after September 11, 2001. Their claims and counter-claims obscured a crucial weakness in the US military's readiness at the very time when al-Qaeda was at its most vulnerable. In 1998, when Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda training camps were identified as a serious threat, plans were drawn up to attack both him and them. At that time Afghanistan had no air defence perimeter, so that any aircraft could fly in and out unmolested, and it had no ground patrols along...

Spanish Rail Attack Serves Notice to U.S. By CURT ANDERSON, Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON - Despite security upgrades, new surveillance systems and tightened explosives regulations, America remains vulnerable to a terrorist attack like the deadly bombings on Spanish trains, U.S. officials and terrorism experts said Friday. The simplicity of the timed backpack bombs placed on Spanish commuter trains demonstrates that such an attack can be carried out, they said. "We can't stop terrorism. All we can do is reduce the risks to levels that people can accept," said Anthony Cordesman, a national security analyst at the Center for Strategic and...

HYDERABAD: An Indian man said he killed his family and attempted suicide in despair after being wrongly told he had Aids. "I found that my world had come crashing down" after receiving the faulty diagnosis by telephone, factory welder Madhava Rao, 35, said in a hospital. He wept over the killing of his wife, Shanta Kumari, 28, and sons, aged one and three years. "I was worried my family will have to suffer after my death and I did not want that to happen," Rao said. Meanwhile, the US Centre for Strategic and International Studies has said India was a...

EU prostitute corridor may let in terror bomb AP[ SUNDAY, DECEMBER 28, 2003 11:07:46 AM ] ROTTERDAM : Efforts to tighten security for sea-borne containers won't lessen the risk that terrorists could team up with criminal gangs to sneak a nuclear weapon into Europe by land, through the poorly policed Balkans, some security experts warn. Al-Qaeda or some other terrorist group could send a Soviet-built tactical warhead along the same, well-traveled routes that traffickers use to smuggle prostitutes and drugs into western Europe, said Tom Sanderson of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington...

This is only a part of the report; the section pertaining to the following U.S. Army division; it begins on the report's page 17: A Visit to the 4th Infantry Division/Taskforce Ironhorse --- November 6, 2003 Part One: General Observations As a preface to this report, I should note that flying into Tikrit on a Blackhawk is an experience in itself. The flight profile is a low altitude, high-speed dash, avoiding roads and populated areas, until the outskirts of Tikrit, when the helicopter must slow down and fly a more predictable path. The helipad is near the 4th ID HQ,...

The CIA's search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq has found no evidence that former president Saddam Hussein tried to transfer chemical or biological technology or weapons to terrorists, according to a military and intelligence expert. Anthony Cordesman, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, provided new details about the weapons search and Iraqi insurgency in a report released Friday. It was based on briefings over the past two weeks in Iraq from David Kay, the CIA representative who is directing the search for unconventional weapons in Iraq; L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. civil administrator...

The Bush administration's reaction to the deaths of 16 American soldiers in the downing of a helicopter on Sunday morning was the same as it was to the suicide bombings at police stations and the Red Cross headquarters in Baghdad a week earlier — and the same as it has been to every other setback the coalition has faced: insistence that there is no need for more American troops beyond the 133,000 now in Iraq. It is part of any president's job to inspire confidence under pressure, but given the true number of troops in Iraq — actual armed soldiers...

NINE ISRAELI NATIONALS --- who CSIS suspects are possible foreign agents -- were arrested by Immigration and Ottawa police tactical officers last Friday, blocks from Parliament Hill. The nine have all been charged by Immigration for working in Canada illegally. All are in their 20s and were apparently selling art in Ottawa. The arrests follow similar takedowns of Israelis in Toronto and Calgary over the past few weeks. An Ottawa police source said police were told members of the group were possible agents from Mossad, Israel's spy agency, but given no further information by CSIS. CSIS declined to comment yesterday....