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...The White House and State Department have maintained that they hold leverage over the Taliban... but a senior congressional source told CBS News that the Taliban is basically holding the planes "hostage" so they can "get more out of the Americans."... ...Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Tex.), the ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, agrees. He told Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday that he's concerned that U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad will come away from the talks recommending that the Biden administration acknowledge the Taliban as the legitimate government...

WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Sunday that Taliban “overreached” with a car bomb attack in Kabul that killed an American soldier, leading President Donald Trump to call off closely-held Afghanistan peace talks planned for Camp David. Pompeo said the Trump administration has recalled envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, who has been negotiating with Taliban leaders for months in Qatar, and it will be up to the insurgent group whether talks will resume. Pompeo said Trump wanted to look the Taliban leaders “in the eye” while Khalilzad worked to finalize an agreement that would allow the U.S. to start withdrawing...

Friday, President Donald Trump met in New Jersey with his national security advisers and envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, who is negotiating with the Taliban to bring about peace, and a U.S. withdrawal from America's longest war. U.S. troops have been fighting in Afghanistan since 2001, in a war that has cost 2,400 American lives. Following the meeting, Trump tweeted, "Many on the opposite sides of this 19 year war, and us, are looking to make a deal -- if possible!" Some, however, want no deal; they are fighting for absolute power. Saturday, a wedding in Kabul with a thousand guests was...

Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad is a counselor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and president of Khalilzad Associates, an international business consulting firm based in Washington, DC. He was the United States Ambassador to the United Nations under President George W. Bush. He has been involved with U.S. policy makers at the White House, State Department and Pentagon since the mid-1980s, and was the highest-ranking Muslim American in the Administration of U.S. President George W. Bush. Khalilzad's previous assignments in the Administration include U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq. President Bush in 2002 appointed Khalilzad...

A former U.S. ambassador is being investigated for laundering, according to papers found in a garbage container in Vienna. Zalmay Khalilzad, a former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan and Iraq, is being investigated for money laundering, and several of his wife's bank accounts have been frozen in connection with the probe. The Justice Department investigation only became public on Sunday, when a blogger found relevant documents in a garbage container used by a state prosecutor's office in Vienna and posted them online. A day later, Austrian magazine Profil reported on the case.

A former ambassador to Iraq and Afghanistan was being investigated by U.S. authorities for suspected money laundering through his wife's bank account. The suspicions center on Zalmay Khalilzad's alleged transfer of $1.5 million in May 2013 to an account in Vienna owned by Cheryl Benard.

The United Nations Security Council has passed another resolution concerning Iran because its nuclear program is an unacceptable threat. Iran's violations of Security Council resolutions not only continue, but are deepening. Instead of suspending its proliferation-sensitive activities as the council has required, Iran is dramatically expanding the number of operating centrifuges and developing a new generation of centrifuges, testing one of them with nuclear fuel. Once again, Iran has not made the choice the world had hoped for; once again, the Security Council has no choice but to act. At stake is the security of a vital region of the...

Hailed as the cure for ill will toward Washington and other diplomatic problems at the United Nations, the American ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, was taken down a peg over the weekend, as his own — and his country's — prestige were thrown into question. What will one of President Bush's favorite operators do now? Mr. Khalilzad sold to the 15 members of the Security Council a resolution in support of the Palestinian Arab-Israeli negotiations at Annapolis. But he acted like a star quarterback who botched the signals, ran ahead with the football, got the backs and coaches all confused, and ended...

UNITED NATIONS, (AP) -- Zalmay Khalilzad started his new job Monday as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, with one ambassador on the Security Council saying he 'can't be as bad' as his controversial predecessor — John Bolton. Khalilzad was confirmed by the Senate on March 29 by unanimous voice vote to replace Bolton, whose nomination by President Bush sparked a bruising Senate debate. Bolton resigned in December, weeks before his recess appointment was to expire. When asked about Khalilzad as he headed into a Security Council meeting Monday, South Africa's U.N. Ambassador Dumisani Kumalo said with a smile,...

WASHINGTON -- Zalmay Khalilzad, who was announced this week as leaving as U.S. ambassador to Iraq, is the leading prospect to replace John Bolton as envoy to the United Nations. President Bush was reported by aides as looking for someone who approximates Bolton's combination of toughness and diplomatic skill and has tentatively decided on Khalilzad. A native of Afghanistan, he has served in government posts dating back to 1985 and is the highest-ranking Muslim in the Bush administration. Speculation on a new U.S. ambassador to the United Nations to succeed John Bolton is focusing on the current U.S. ambassador in...

WASHINGTON - Zalmay Khalilzad, the plainspoken dealmaker and Republican insider who has won praise and criticism for attempts to broker Sunni political participation in Iraq's fragile government, is likely to quit his post as U.S. ambassador in Baghdad in the coming months, a senior Bush administration official said Monday. As the midterm elections approached in the United States, Khalilzad has been a public face of Bush administration attempts to project both willingness to change strategy or tactics in an unpopular war and solidarity with the increasingly fractious Shiite-led government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Khalilzad's departure has been rumored for...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A military investigation into allegations that U.S. troops intentionally killed Iraqi civilians in a March raid in Ishaqi, a village north of Baghdad, has cleared the troops of misconduct, the military said Friday — despite dramatic video footage of slain children. Meanwhile, a lawyer representing families of some of the two dozen unarmed Iraqi civilians allegedly killed by U.S. Marines in the western town of Haditha on Nov. 19 said three or four Marines carried out the shootings while 20 more waited outside the homes. He also said victims' relatives turned down a request by U.S. investigators...

THREE YEARS after U.S. Marines and Iraqis toppled the huge statue of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in Baghdad's Firdos Square, Americans and Iraqis can be proud of what our common efforts and sacrifices have achieved since that day, even as we acknowledge that challenges remain to reaching the goal of a stable and democratic Iraq. The success of Iraq is vitally important to the region and the world. In the broader Middle East, the absence of freedom, accountable systems of government and social and economic progress contributed to creating an environment in which extremism and terrorism developed and thrived....

Weekend Talk Show *Preview* for DATE HERE (not the live thread)Journal Editorial Report (Paul Gigot) - FNC show page Meme: Don't believe what the dinosaur media is telling you about November, but don't discount it, either Topics: "Runs, Hits and Errors"A discussion of GOP prospects (from OpinionJournal web site) After Tom DeLay's departure, how bad does November's election now look for Republicans, and can they do anything to stop a rout? The 2006 elections: With DeLay out of the picture, can the GOP get its mojo back? (FNC web site)Baseball steroids (from OpinionJournal web site) Major League Baseball finally confronts...

As the Bush administration's envoy for Iraqi politics, Zalmay Khalilzad had considerable experience dealing with Iraqi opponents of Saddam Hussein. Before the war, Mr. Khalilzad was the White House's point man in meetings with Iraqi exile leaders in London and Kurdistan. After the shooting started, he was a key figure at political gatherings in Baghdad and at Tallil air base to begin assembling a new Iraqi leadership. So when the White House prepared to announce the appointment of L. Paul Bremer III as the chief civilian administrator in Iraq in May 2003, Mr. Khalilzad had every expectation that he would...

Lost amid the news of all the bloodletting in Iraq is an important political development: The Kurds have switched sides. In the first parliament after the first set of elections, they allied themselves with the Shiite slate to produce the current Shiite-dominated government led by Ibrahim al-Jafari. Now the Kurds have joined with the opposition Sunni and secular parties to oppose the Shiite bloc. The result is two large competing coalitions: (a) the Kurd-Sunni-secular bloc, which controls about 140 seats in the 275-seat parliament and would constitute the barest majority, and (b) the Shiite bloc, which itself is a coalition...

Saturday ShowsCNBC'S TIM RUSSERT SHOW Meme: George Bush never really wanted to capture Osama and was really intent on going to war with Iraq all the time Topics: Former CIA agent Gary Berntsen, author of “Jawbreaker”  tells the riveting tale of how Osama bin Laden escaped at Tora Bora. Guests Former CIA agent Gary Berntsen, author of “Jawbreaker” The program airs on CNBC Saturday nights at 7 & 10 p.m. ET Journal Editorial Report (Paul Gigot) - FNC show page Meme: Is George W. Bush in control?Why is he doing inexplicable things? Topics: "Could scores of sealed documents reveal Saddam...

It used to be said that the best hope for an impoverished little country was to declare war on the United States, because the ILC would lose and then receive massive quantities of aid and assistance. Such bits of folk wisdom led to some great comic masterpieces, such as the memorable Peter Sellers movie, The Mouse that Roared, in which the ILC was unlucky enough to win...and then what? Nowadays the process from war to aid and assistance has grown much shorter, because it's no longer necessary to go through the unpleasant business of losing. And if you do have...

"Sunni Arab opposition to Iraq's draft constitution has increased the potential for instability and called into question U.S. hopes for substantial troop cuts next spring, the top U.S. Commander in Iraq said Friday (General George Casey)." _______ In my opinion, we should expect to be in Iraq a long time. I believe that we need to establish permanent bases there as we did in Japan and Germany after World War II. There would be many benefits to this strategy. Also, I advise President Bush to stay the course until the job is completed. Respectfully submitted, J. Scott Davis Veteran: U.S....

BAGRAM, Afghanistan - Vice President Dick Cheney congratulated U.S. troops for helping give democracy a chance to take root in Afghanistan. "For the first time the people of this country are looking confident about the future of freedom and peace," Cheney told a group of soldiers Tuesday morning at Bagram Air Base, just hours before a ceremony to inaugurate President Hamid Karzai. Cheney was leading a U.S. delegation that included Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad. The vice president recounted the role of U.S. forces in destroying the Taliban regime, which had harbored...