Retired Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, who clashed with the Bush administration on its Iraq war strategy, will bring qualities to the job of Veterans Affairs secretary his predecessors sometimes lacked: credibility, experience and sound judgment. ...more

December 8, 2008

President-elect Barack Obama has chosen retired Gen. Eric K. Shinseki to be the next secretary of Veterans Affairs, turning to a former Army chief of staff once vilified by the Bush administration for questioning its Iraq war strategy shortly before the U.S. invasion. ...more

December 7, 2008

"Tell me how this ends," Army Gen. David Petraeus once asked a reporter. At the time, the U.S. military effort in Iraq was mired in futility. Today, he has his answer. The Iraqi Cabinet has approved a proposed security agreement that calls for the withdrawal of all U.S. troops by the end of 2011. Most Americans would say it's about time. ...more

November 24, 2008

Camp Justice, erected six months ago for the first U.S. war-crimes trials in a half-century, already feels like a ghost town. ...more

November 4, 2008

Behind every great man or woman in Washington there is a great painting. As the Bush presidency draws to a close, portrait artists can expect a surge in business from Cabinet secretaries and other elite political appointees who want to preserve their legacies - and their images - for posterity. ...more

October 22, 2008

The U.S. Army has released a study that states that leaders in the United States were more concerned with winning the military battle in Iraq than what to do once it was concluded. That's not exactly earth-shattering news, since most of us already know that, but the historical report is interesting because it's the first major report issued by U.S. military criticizing civilian leaders. The study, "On Point II: Transition to the New Campaign" was written by Donald Wright and Col. Timothy R. Reese, along with the Army's Contemporary Operations Study Team, according to a Washington Post article. They say U.S. commanders lacked a realistic vision of what Iraq would look like after that triumph, according to the story. "The transition to a new campaign was not well thought out, planned for, and prepared for before it began," wrote Wright and Reese. "Additionally, the assumptions about the nature of post Saddam Iraq on which the transition was planned proved to be largely incorrect." ...more

June 30, 2008

The Pentagon in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks pursued abusive interrogation techniques once favored by such U.S. enemies as North Korea and Vietnam, despite stern warnings by several military lawyers that the methods were cruel and even illegal, according to a Senate investigation. ...more

June 18, 2008

It should not go unnoticed that the attacks of the president and his staff on Scott McClellan have been largely restricted to laments about his lack of loyalty, rather than challenging the truth of his charges that Bush and company had planned the invasion of Iraq long before 9-11. The reason is quite simple. McClellan's charge is correct, right on the money. Long before the attack on the twin towers, Bush and company had been working on what they called "regime change" in Iraq, forming an organization called "The Project for the New American Century" (PNAC) in 1997. Among the organizers were Dick Cheney, Lewis Libby, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, John Bolton and Richard Perle. All were given high offices with the election of George W. Bush in 2000. ...more

June 5, 2008

The military command overseeing the nation's most elite forces has moved away from a contentious plan that gave it broad control over anti-terrorism operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and other hot spots around the globe. ...more

May 11, 2008

Forty-one House members are calling on the Defense Department inspector general to investigate a public relations effort that relied on retired military officers to defend the administration's Iraq war policies. ...more

May 3, 2008