"The dramatic drop in violence in Iraq is due in large part to a secret programme the US military has used to kill terrorists, according to a new book by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Bob Woodward," CNN reported. "The programme - which Woodward compares to the World War II era Manhattan Project that developed the atomic bomb - must remain secret for now or it would 'get people killed,' Woodward said Monday on CNN's Larry King Live. " 'It is a wonderful example of American ingenuity solving a problem in war, as we often have,' Woodward said. "In The War Within: Secret White House History 2006-2008, Woodward disclosed the existence of secret operational capabilities ['fusion cells'] developed by the military to locate, target and kill leaders of al Qa'eda in Iraq and other insurgent leaders." The Washington Post reported: "Headquartered in an old concrete hangar on the Balad Air Base, which once housed Saddam Hussein's fighter aircraft, about 45 miles north of Baghdad, the Joint Task Force in Iraq runs fusion cells in the north, west and south and in Baghdad, US officials said. "The headquarters bustles like the New York Stock Exchange, with long-haired computer experts working alongside wizened intelligence agents and crisply clad military officers, say officials who have worked there or visited. "Huge computer screens hang from the ceiling, displaying aerial surveillance images relayed from Predator, Schweizer and tiny Gnat spycraft. The Bush administration's 2009 supplementary budget request included $1.3 billion to fund 28 unmanned aircraft, officials said, and all will go to the interagency teams in Iraq and Afghanistan, not the Air Force. "For the Joint Task Force, the CIA provides intelligence analysts and spycraft with sensors and cameras that can track targets, vehicles or equipment for up to 14 hours. FBI forensic experts dissect data, from cellphone information to the 'pocket litter' found on extremists. Treasury officials track funds flowing among extremists and from governments. National Security Agency staffers intercept conversations or computer data, and members of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency use high-tech equipment to pinpoint where suspected extremists are using phones or computers." In a separate report on what appears to be the same secret programme, The Sunday Telegraph recently reported that hundreds of terrorist suspects in Iraq have been killed by British special forces. "More than 3,500 insurgents have been 'taken off the streets of Baghdad' by the elite British force in a series of audacious 'Black Ops' over the past two years. "It is understood that while the majority of the terrorists were captured, several hundred, who were mainly members of the organisation known as 'al-Qa'eda in Iraq' have been killed by the SAS. "The SAS is part of a highly secretive unit called 'Task Force Black' which also includes Delta Force, the US equivalent of the SAS." One of the earliest references to the operation of fusion cells in Iraq says that they came into being during the first year of the war in Iraq. In their book, Hope is Not a Plan, Thomas S Mowle and Larry Diamond said that the US Army's chief intelligence officer in Iraq in 2003, Maj Gen Barbara Fast, established "an intelligence fusion cell manned by Americans, British, and Australians... The fusion cell dealt with targeting, counterterrorism, interrogation support, political-military matters, and the insurgency." Maj Gen Fast was the most senior military intelligence officer serving in Iraq at the time the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse occurred. Critics said she and other senior officials should have been held accountable for the abuse. In A Question of Torture, by Alfred W McCoy, she is quoted as having told the commanding officer of the Abu Ghraib prison, "We're going to run interrogations the way we want them run." In an interview on CNN, Baghdad correspondent Michael Ware questioned Bob Woodward's assessment of the impact of the terrorist assassination programme. He said that the key to the downturn in violence has been: "the segregation of Baghdad into [Sunni and Shiite] enclaves. It's been cutting a deal with Muqtada al-Sadr, the leader of the Iranian-backed militia. And primarily it's been putting your enemy on your payroll - the Sunni insurgents and many members of al Qa'eda. That's what's brought down the violence. This is your American militia, the counterbalance to the Iranian militias." Meanwhile, The New York Times reported on the concerns of members of the Sunni Awakening patrol members in and around Baghdad as responsibility for paying and directing them is transferred from the Americans to the Iraqi government. "Many American military officers say the [Awakening] councils have done as much to reduce violence in Iraq as the surge in American troops has, and maybe more. After the transfer is complete, it is unclear how much leverage the Americans will have with the Iraqi government in how it deals with the councils. "Tensions in Adhamiya, a Sunni stronghold, have been increasing as news of the pending transfer spreads. Some Awakening leaders have expressed fears that the Iraqi government may dissolve the councils and that their members will not be allowed to join the Iraqi security forces. "Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has said that about 20 per cent of the roughly 99,000 Awakening members on the American payroll would be incorporated into the Iraqi Army, the national police and other security forces."
Obama's problem with white women
"When John McCain's campaign manager said last week that this presidential election 'is not about issues,' it wasn't a Freudian slip. It was an unvarnished preview of McCain's new campaign plan," Politico reported. "In the past week, McCain - with new running mate Sarah Palin always close by his side - has transformed the Republican campaign narrative into what amounts to a running biography of this new political odd couple. "In the duo's new stump speech and their first post-convention ad, the impression campaign strategists hope to leave is unmistakable. McCain is the war hero. Palin is the Everymom. And together, they will rattle Washington." In The Guardian, Simon Tisdall said that Barack Obama: "urgently needs to ride the McCain post-convention bounce and wrest back the initiative as the race enters the final stretch. "The Republicans have their tails up, mostly thanks to 'mother-governor-moose-shooter' Palin, as Obama described her. Polls today showed McCain with an average national lead of 2.9 per cent and pulling away. And the Democrat's campaign could soon run short of funds. "Obama's advisers say he will make Americans' economic and job worries his central theme, aping James Carville's winning 1992 maxim, 'It's the economy, stupid'. But the Republicans are not standing still as November 4 approaches. All that has gone before counts for little now. These next eight weeks are the killing ground of the 2008 election. And this is where McCain and his backers plan to take Obama down. "The Republicans' main lines of attack are already clear, although plenty of room has been left for below-the-radar, backroom improvisation. Up front, McCain and Palin will paint Obama as an untried, old-fashioned tax-and-spend liberal who cares little for 'ordinary' Americans." Writing for CNN, Alexander Mooney said: "The pick of Palin, the first female Republican VP candidate, was designed in part to lure women voters to the GOP ticket, with McCain aides hoping a significant proportion of that voting bloc would identify with Palin's working-mom credentials. "But in a CNN/ORC survey released Monday, McCain drew 56 per cent of support from registered white women - a statistically insignificant 3 points more than his support among that demographic in the week before he picked Palin as his VP. " 'In CNN/Opinion Research Corporation polls, Barack Obama was losing white women before the conventions, and he's losing them now,' CNN Polling Director Keating Holland said. 'His problems with this important voting bloc didn't start when Sarah Palin joined the GOP ticket.' "
