U.S. Army soldiers from the 4th Brigade, 1st National Police Division Transition Team, attached to the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, and Iraqi police officers from the 4th Brigade, 1st National Police Division, begin training at the marksmanship range at Camp Rustamiyah, Iraq, Dec. 2, 2006. U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Bronco Suzuki


Iraqi police officers from the 4th Brigade, 1st National Police Division, locate their targets during training at the marksmanship range at Camp Rustamiyah, Iraq, Dec. 2, 2006. U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Bronco Suzuki


U.S. Army Sgt. Shane Carpenter demonstrates rifle techniques to Iraqi police officers from the 4th Brigade, 1st National Police Division, during training at the marksmanship range at Camp Rustamiyah, Iraq, Dec. 2, 2006. U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Bronco Suzuki


U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Keith McDonald, right, congratulates an Iraqi police officer from the 4th Brigade, 1st National Police Division, on his shooting during training at the marksmanship range at Camp Rustamiyah, Iraq, Dec. 2, 2006. U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Bronco Suzuki


U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Keith McDonald demonstrates rifle techniques to Iraqi police officers from the 4th Brigade, 1st National Police Division, during training at the marksmanship range at Camp Rustamiyah, Iraq, Dec. 2, 2006. U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Bronco Suzuki



More photo essays at DefendAmerica

RUMSFELD VISITS TROOPS - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld meets with troops assigned to Al Asad Air Base during a surprise visit to Iraq, Dec. 9, 2006. Defense Dept. photo by Cherie A. Thurlby

News of Note
Operation Iraqi Freedom
Iraqi President Calls U.S. Report 'Dangerous'
U.S. troops must defeat enemy in Iraq: Rumsfeld
Gunmen kill Shi'ite families in Baghdad: police

Homeland Security / War on Terror
Spanish Banks Attacked With Molotov Cocktails
Throng gathers in Beirut to pressurize government - Video ("pressurize??")
Palestinian PM says elections would lead to unrest - Video

Supporting Our Heroes
Hero Hugs Delivering Holiday Cheer

Other Military News
Clint Eastwood's Iwo Jima film resonates in Japan

Worldwide Wackos
Germany Condemns Iran's Holocaust Conference
Iran sees no sign of change in U.S. policy (...and the U.S. sees no sign of change in Iran lunacy...)

Politics / Government
Congress Does Something Right
Rep. McKinney Introduces Bush Impeachment Bill (Hang on folks; here we go....)
Democratic Incumbent William Jefferson Wins House Runoff Election Despite Federal Bribery Probe (Unreal...)
Obama hits New Hampshire in possible 2008 preview
Congress ends with a flurry of legislation
Congress seeks to prevent overfishing in U.S. waters
Congress approves offshore drilling bill
Dems vow change as Congress ends session

Immigration / Border Control
Smugglers Kidnap 1-Month-Old Baby

U.N. News
Gunmen kill 22 people in West Darfur: AU

Media in the Media / Bloggers in the News
Fox, Viacom, CBS and NBC discuss YouTube rival: WSJ

Science / Nature
Discovery Crew to Examine Shuttle's Heat Shield
Antarctica works as living global warming laboratory

Oddities
Di Report Says U.S. Bugged Her Phone Night of Crash
Cops: Gunman Felt Cheated Out of Toilet Invention
Married archbishop backed by Moon

Other News of Note
Germans Link Radiation Sites to Ex-Russian Spy
Litvinenko's widow says he had Russian enemies
Holocaust exhibits link faces, horrors
Calif. man walked 16 miles before dying

Fox News
British Lawyer, Wife Allegedly Cheat Arab Prince
Video: Blast in Pennsylvania Destroys 3 Houses

Reuters: Top News
Nobel laureate urges world to fight poverty
Kashmiris protest "atrocities" on human rights day
Taco Bell declares restaurants free of E. coli
"Oblivion" big winner at Spike TV video game awards
Panel says wide use of drug-coated stents risky
Oops, Grammys erred with two nominees
Dollar may gain even with U.S. hard landing: Lombard
China says 8 foreign banks apply for registration
Smith & Nephew close to bidding for Biomet: papers
UK's Prudential says has rejected approach for Egg
Citi shares rise amid rumors about break-up, execs
McDonald's Nov. same-store sales up 6.2 pct
FDA, Baxter warns of clots after ending Heparin
EU opens in-depth probe into Universal/BMG deal
Stocks on short leash with Fed, CPI
Stocks gain on robust job growth
Yum shares battered by more E. coli cases
Allegiant Travel shares climb in debut
Heelys shares jump 85 pct in market debut
Calculated earnings

AP World News
U.S. panel busy reviewing business deals
2 Hollywood chimps head to sanctuary
Nicolas Cage plans to cut back on acting
OSU quarterback Troy Smith wins Heisman
Velvet Underground rarity sells on eBay
Cities face life without 16 Ford plants
School shuns tech, teaches fountain pen
Pilots in Brazil crash return to U.S.
76ers coach: Iverson not a distraction
Science casts doubt on arson convictions
Tax protester linked to Snipes convicted
Newly co-ed Va. college chooses new name
2 adults, 3 children die in W.Va. fire
Death Row Prisoners Glance
Fiancee of shooting victim changes name

Military.com
Blog: On Patrol in Fallujah
Oliver North Back in Iraq
Ten Steps to Joining the Military

CENTCOM: News Releases
IA, CF DISCOVER, DESTROY IED FACTORY

USJFCOM
C4 program to deliver joint training set to begin - podcast

Department of Defense
For Top News Visit DefenseLink

IN IRAQ
Learning, Teaching and Growing in Iraq
Baghdad Counts on Local Improvements
Coalition Works to Help Iraqis Move Forward
Bulgarian Minister of Defense Visits Troops
Doctors, Corpsmen Practice Hand-to-Hand Combat
Newly Arrived Troops Make Safety Priority
Army Engineers Aid Iraq Reconstruction Efforts

IN AFGHANISTAN
Afghan Farming Communities to Receive Tractors
Reconstruction Team Hosts First Vendor Fair
Reconstruction Team Brings Supplies to Orphans
Infantry Soldiers Help to Rebuild Afghanistan
Operation Season's Greetings Stops at Bagram

BACKGROUND
IRAQ
Renewal In Iraq
Iraq: Security, Stability
Fact Sheet: Progress and Work Ahead
Report: Strategy for Victory in Iraq
Iraq Daily Update
This Week in Iraq
Multinational Force Iraq
State Dept. Weekly Iraq Report (PDF)
'Boots on the Ground' Audio Archive
Weekly Reconstruction Report (PDF)
Iraq Reconstruction
Maps

AFGHANISTAN
Afghanistan Update
Maps

WAR ON TERRORISM
Fact Sheet: Budget Request
Fact Sheet: War on Terror
Fact Sheet: Terror Plots Disrupted
Waging and Winning the War on Terror
Terrorism Timeline
Terrorism Knowledge Base

Weather
Iraq
Al Azamiyah Al Basrah Al Hillah Al Karkh Al Kazimiyah Al Kut
An Nasiriyah Baghdad Baqubah Mosul Najaf Nineveh Tall Kayf

Afghanistan
Bost/Laskar Ghurian Herat Kabul Qandahar

Gitmo

Today in History
0741 - Zacharias becomes Pope
1294 - Pope Coelestinus V becomes Pope (until Dec 13th)
1508 - League of the kingdom signed (covenant against Venice)
1520 - Martin Luther publicly burned papal edict demands he recant
1652 - Sea battle at Dungeness: Lieutenant-Admiral Maarten Tromp beats English fleet
1672 - New York Governor Lovelace announces monthly mail service between New York & Boston
1688 - King James II flees London
1690 - Massachusetts Bay becomes 1st American colonial government to borrow money
1745 - Bonnie Prince Charlies army draws into Manchester
1799 - Metric system established in France
1816 - Dutch regain Sumatra
1817 - Mississippi admitted as 20th state
1864 - General Sherman's armies reach Savannah; 12 day siege begins
1869 - Womens' suffrage (right to vote) granted in Wyoming Territory (US 1st)
1887 - Austria-Hungary/Italy/Great-Britain signs military treaty of Balkan
1898 - Spanish-American War ends; US acquires Philippines, Puerto Rico & Guam
1899 - 1st defeat of "Black Week" - Battle at Stormberg South Africa - Boers vs British army; nearly 3000 British troops killed
1901 - 1st Nobel Peace Prizes (to Jean Henri Dunant, Frederic Passy)
1903 - Nobel for physics awarded to Pierre/Marie Curie
1904 - King Peter I of Sweden named nationalist regime
1906 - 1st American awarded Nobel Peace Prize - President Theodore Roosevelt
1907 - Ruyard Kipling receives Nobel prize for literature
1910 - J.D. Van de Waals wins Nobel Prize for physics
1911 - Calbraith Rogers completes 1st crossing of US by airplane (84 days); Tobias Asser given Nobel prize for peace
1913 - Kamerlingh Onnes receives Nobel prize for physics
1914 - French government returns to Paris
1915 - 10,000,000th model T Ford assembled
1920 - President Woodrow Wilson receives Nobel Peace Prize
1922 - Pete Henry makes longest known NFL drop-kicked field goal, 45 yards; Nobel awarded to Fridtjof Nansen, Niels Bohr & Albert Einstein
1923 - Polish government of Grabski, forms
1924 - Willem Einthoven awarded Nobel for medicine
1925 - George Bernard Shaw awarded Nobel
1926 - 2nd part of Hitler's Mein Kampf published
1927 - Grand Ole Opry makes its 1st radio broadcast, in Nashville TN
1931 - Jane Addams (1st US woman) named co-recipient of Nobel Peace Prize; Manuel Azaña becomes premier/Niceto Zamora President of Spain
1932 - King Rama VII (Prajadhipok) grants Thailand a constitution
1934 - Fascist dictator of Latvia Ulmanis begins building concentration camp
1936 - England replaces King Edward VIII stamp series with King George VI, as King Edward VIII abdicates throne to marry Mrs Wallis Simpson; Stockholm: physicist P.B.J. Debije receives Nobel prize for chemistry
1940 - British anti-offensive in Libya (Sidi Barrani)
1941 - British battleship Prince of Wales sinks off Singapore; Japanese troops land on northern Luzon in the Philippines; Japanese troops overrun Guam
1942 - Hitler names Mussert "leader of Netherlands people"; North Africa: 5th German pantser army forms under Colonel-General von Arnim
1943 - British 8th Army occupies Orsogna/Ortona Italy
1944 - 9 Dutch citizens hanged by Nazis; German counter attack at Dillingen-bridgehead at Saar
1947 - USSR & Czechoslovakia sign trade agreement
1948 - UN General Assembly adopts Universal Declaration of Human Rights
1950 - 1st black American awarded Nobel Peace Prize - Ralph J Bunche
1952 - Yitzhak Ben-Zvi elected 2nd President of Israel
1954 - Albert Schweitzer receives Nobel Peace Prize
1958 - 1st domestic (New York-Miami) passenger jet flight-National 707 flew 111
1961 - USSR & Albania break diplomatic relations
1964 - Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Dr Martin Luther King Jr
1965 - Dutch ends economic boycott of Rhodesia
1966 - Israeli Shmuel Yosef Agnon wins Nobel Prize for literature; Nobel for chemistry awarded to Robert S Mulliken
1971 - William H Rehnquist confirmed as Supreme Court justice; West German union chancellor W Burns receives Nobel prize of peace
1975 - Andrei Sakharov's wife Yelena Bonner, accepts his Nobel Peace Prize
1977 - Soyuz 26 carries 2 cosmonauts to Salyut 6 space station
1978 - In Oslo, Menachem Begin & Anwar Sadat accept 1978 Nobel Peace Prize
1979 - Piet Dankert appointed as chairman of European Parliament
1980 - Soyuz T-3 returns to Earth
1981 - El Salvador army kills 900
1982 - Soyuz T-5 returns to Earth, 211 days after take-off
1983 - Danuta Walesa, wife of Lech Walesa, accepts his Nobel Peace Prize; Raul Alfonsin inaugurated as Argentina's 1st civilian president
1984 - South African Bishop Desmond Tutu received his Nobel Peace Prize; 1st "planet" outside our solar system discovered
1986 - Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel accepts 1986 Nobel Peace Prize
1987 - "Nightline" is seen in the USSR for 1st time
1988 - Massive Earthquake in Armenia kills 100,000 in cities of Leninakan & Spitak
1989 - President Gustav Husák of Czechoslovakia, resigns
1990 - Hindu-Muslim rebellion in Hyderabad-Aligargh India, 140 die; Soyuz TM-10 lands
1994 - European Campaign against Racism "All different, All equal" begins; Nobel prize awarded to Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres & Yasser Arafat
1995 - Worst snowstorm in Buffalo history, 37.9" in 24 hours (Starting Dec 9 at 7 PM, breaks previous record of 25.3" in 1982

Birthdays
1765 - (Izaäk J.) Alexander Gogel, Dutch minister of Finance/patriot
1787 - Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, pioneer of educating the deaf
1794 - James Wolfe Ripley, Union Brevet Major General
1813 - Zachariah Chandler, merchant/politician (founder of Republican Party)
1815 - Ada Byron (Lovelace), considered the first computer programmer
1820 - Allen Russell, Union Brevet Major General
1822 - Thomas Casimer Devin, Union Brigadier-General
1851 - Melville (Louis K) Dewey, creator of Dewey Decimal System for libraries
1883 - Andrej J. Vysjinski, Russian lawyer/foreign minister/UN-ambassador
1903 - William Plomer Transvaal, author (Paper Houses, I Speak of Africa)
1904 - Antonin Novótny, President of Czechoslovakia (1957-68)
1911 - Chet Huntley, newscaster (NBC Huntley-Brinkley Report)
1918 - Professor Longhair, king of New Orleans music
1925 - Carolyn Ashley Kizer, US writer (Yin, Pulitzer 1985)
1930 - Clayton K Yeutter, US trade representative/Republican National chairman

Passings
0969 - Nicephorus II Phocas, Byzantine co-Emperor (963-69), murdered
1041 - Michael IV Paphlagonicus, emperor of Byzantine
1524 - Henry van Zutphen, Dutch Augustine/Lutheran minister, burned to death
1896 - Alfred Nobel, Swedish Nobel Prize ceremony, dies at 63
1909 - Red Cloud, Sioux Indian chief
1946 - Damon Runyon, US journalist/writer (Guys & Dolls), dies at 66
1967 - Otis Redding, singer (Dock of Bay), dies in plane crash at 26
1971 - Jozef Cals, Dutch Minister of Education/premier (1965-66), dies at 57
1982 - Freeman "Amos" Gosden, US radio actor (Amos 'n' Andy), dies at 83
1990 - Armand Hammer, CEO (Occidental Petroleum), dies at 92
1991 - Berenice Abbott, US photographer
1992 - Carlomagno Andrade, Equadorian general
1994 - Keith Joseph, British MP (C)

Reported Missing in Action
1964
Sansone, Dominick, US Army (NY); C123 shot down (w/Vaden), remains returned July, 1984

Vaden, Woodrow W., US Army (TN); C123 shot down (w/Sansone), remains possibly buried by Vietnamese

1967
Grzyb, Robert H., US Civilian; captured while riding in a Jeep, DIC September, 1968 per PRG list

1971
McIntire, Scott W., USAF (NM); F105G shot down; search and rescuer personnel believe KIA