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WASHINGTON, Jan. 12, 2007 – U.S. interests in the Middle East go well beyond Iraq, and to walk away from the commitments in Iraq would be damaging to U.S. credibility, a senior defense official said yesterday, speaking on background to reporters. “Our allies that we work with and our coalition partners that we work with are watching us very carefully,” he said. The deployments of the USS Stennis Carrier Strike Group and the 3rd Battalion, 43rd Air Defense Regiment, which the Defense Department announced yesterday, are focused on this broader, region-based strategy, a senior military official, also speaking on...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 16, 2005 – The military will have a broader role in disaster response, based on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, President Bush said in a nationally televised address Sept. 15. "It was not a normal hurricane -- and the normal disaster relief system was not equal to it," Bush said. "Many of the men and women of the Coast Guard, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the United States military, the National Guard, Homeland Security, and state and local governments performed skillfully under the worst conditions." Today, Defense Department officials reported 61,719 active duty and National Guard personnel on...

WASHINGTON - A package of energy tax breaks proposed in the Senate would give up to $2,400 to buyers of hybrid motor vehicles, subsidize the purchase of more efficient appliances and help pay for the development of clean coal technologies. The $16 billion in tax incentives is double what was proposed in the House and would commit about $6 billion over 10 years to energy efficiency, conservation and promotion of alternative fuels. The House agreed to about $8 billion, with less than $500 million for efficiency and conservation, in the energy bill it passed in April. The Senate Finance Committee...

A Justice Department lawyer may have been laying the groundwork for the Iraq invasion long before it was discussed publicly by the White House. Just two weeks after the September 11 attacks, a secret memo to White House counsel Alberto Gonzales’ office concluded that President Bush had the power to deploy military force “preemptively” against any terrorist groups or countries that supported them—regardless of whether they had any connection to the attacks on the World Trade Towers or the Pentagon. The memo, written by Justice Department lawyer John Yoo, argues that there are effectively “no limits” on the president’s...

TOKYO - (KRT) - Hours into his first trade mission abroad as California governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger diverged from his prepared script and stepped into international politics by urging President Bush to reach out to more global partners in the struggle to rebuild Iraq. Appearing on a top-rated Tokyo news program, the Republican governor said that the United States should make more of an effort to broaden the frayed coalition working to stabilize the Middle East nation. "The more countries that are participating in helping rebuild Iraq the better it will be so the whole burden is not just on the...