U.S. Marine Corps Lance Cpl. William Frick, 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines, provides security during a foot patrol through the town of Barwanah, Iraq, Dec. 2, 2006. The 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines, is deployed with Regimental Combat Team 7, 1st Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward), in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom in the Al Anbar Province of Iraq. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Andrew D. Young


U.S. Marines from 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines, conducts a foot patrol through the town of Barwanah, Iraq, on Dec. 2, 2006. The 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines, is deployed with Regimental Combat Team 7, 1st Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward), in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom in the Al Anbar Province of Iraq. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Andrew D. Young


U.S. Navy Petty Officer Andrew Simmons, with 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines, provides security during a foot patrol through the town of Barwanah, Iraq, Dec. 2, 2006. The 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines, is deployed with Regimental Combat Team 7, 1st Marine Expeditionary Force( Forward), in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom in the Al Anbar Province of Iraq. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Andrew D. Young


U.S. Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Mark Funk, with 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines, searches an Iraqi citizen in the town of Barwanah, Iraq, Dec. 2, 2006. The 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines, is deployed with Regimental Combat Team 7, 1st Marine Expeditionary Force( Forward), in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom in the Al Anbar Province of Iraq. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Andrew D. Young


U.S. Marines with 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines, speak with Iraqi citizens while conducting a foot patrol through the town of Barwanah, Iraq, Dec. 2, 2006. The 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines, is deployed with Regimental Combat Team 7, 1st Marine Expeditionary Force ( Forward), in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom in the Al Anbar Province of Iraq. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Andrew D. Young


U.S. Marines Corps Lance Cpl. William Frick and Lance Cpl. Dunn Dakota, with 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines, provide security during a foot patrol through the town of Barwanah, Iraq, Dec. 2, 2006. The 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines, is deployed with Regimental Combat Team 7, 1st Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward), in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, in the Al Anbar Province of Iraq. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Andrew D. Young


U.S. Marine Corps Cpl. Patrick Trinkle, with 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines, gathers the grid coordinates inside a house that will be established as an observation post during a foot patrol through the town of Barwanah, Iraq, Dec. 2, 2006. The 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines, is deployed with Regimental Combat Team 7, 1st Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward), in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom in the Al Anbar Province of Iraq. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Andrew D. Young


U.S. Marines with 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines speak with Iraqi children during a foot patrol through the town of Barwanah, Iraq, Dec. 2, 2006. The 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines is deployed with Regimental Combat Team 7, 1st Marine Expeditionary Force Forward in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom in the Al Anbar Province of Iraq. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Andrew D. Young

TASK FORCE TROY — Defense Secretary Robert Gates speaks with U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Joseph Burke of Task Force Troy, a unit which handles improvised explosive devices, at Camp Victory, Baghdad, Iraq, Dec. 22, 2006. Defense Dept. photo by Cherie A. Thurlby

News of Note
Operation Iraqi Freedom
Bush, Gates confer on Iraq amid talk of troop surge
Bush Considers $10 Billion 'New Deal' To Accompany Troop Surge in Iraq
Suicide bomber kills 7 police in Iraq

Operation Enduring Freedom
Top Taliban Commander Reportedly Killed
Slain Taliban leader's ID confirmed
Flower shops bring Christmas to Kabul

Homeland Security / War on Terror / Hamas - Hezbollah Happenings
Christmas Terror Plot
Report: CIA tips off Brits to Channel Tunnel threat
Israel's $100M Peace Bid
Israeli PM plans meeting with Abbas
Prime minister makes goodwill moves
Ethiopia attacks Somalia Islamic council

Troops on Trial
Haditha Marine home for Pa. Christmas

Other Military News
Wiccan lawsuit's goal: Acceptance

'Tis the Season
Ho, Ho, No! Cops Report Christmas Crime Wave
Sand-a Claus
Christmas Brings Recovery to New Orleans
Christmas brings strange seasonal crimes
Christmas tree stands sell out in N.O.

Worldwide Wackos
U.N. Hits Iran With Sanctions
Iran Accuses U.N. Security Council of Hypocrisy
Iran vows to continue uranium enrichment

Homegrown Moonbats
Detainees at Guantanamo Get Holiday Greetings

Politics / Government
Schwarzenegger Breaks Leg in Skiing Mishap
Candidates turn to Web to reach voters

U.N. News
Oil-For-Food Documents to be Released in 2007
U.N. issues plea to protect journalists in war zones

Science / Nature
San Francisco Zoo probes tiger attack
Floods kill 94 in Indonesia, Malaysia
Storm cuts power to thousands in Wis.

Other News of Note
Trump sues town in American flag flap
Phoenix slayings informant speaks out

Fox News
'Teddy Bear Attack' Students to Be Reinstated
Macy's Pulls P. Diddy Coats Over Dog Fur
Rosie Beats Trump, By Numbers
Disgraced Miss Nevada USA Katie Rees Asks for a Second Chance After Being Stripped of Her Crown

Reuters: Top News
Condemned killer claims innocence 25 years later
N.Korea says it is not afraid of war after impasse
Thousands turn out for funeral of Turkmen leader
Myanmar rebel leader dies after long illness
Knight joins Smith atop all-time win list
U.S. says U.N. Iran resolution not enough
Video game console shortage could linger into '07
Amateurs reach for high-end digital cameras
Bono receives honorary British knighthood

AP World News
Report: Italy makes arrest in spy case
Man who inspired hit film skips opening
L.J. carries Chiefs past Raiders 20-9
Report: Health care suffers at LA jails
JonBenet: 10 years, no end to mystery
Ex-Miss Nevada USA apologizes for photos
Knight ties Smith with 879th victory
NYC disc jockey shot 13 times dies
Company develops virtual meal technology

Military.com
Blog: Operation Santa Helps Wounded
Defense Tech: Top 20 Posts of '06
Podcast: Truth From Al Anbar
Advisors: Books for Military Kids
Last Minute Shopping Made Easy
Military Travel Benefits Explained

CENTCOM: News Releases
SOLDIER KILLED BY ROAD SIDE BOMB

HUNTING FOR TERRORISTS ROADSIDE BOMB STRIKES MND-B PATROL

COALITION FORCES COMPENSATE FAMILY OF INJURED IRAQI CHILD

COALITION FORCES KILL SENIOR TALIBAN LEADER

IRAQI ARMY, POLICE WITH CAVALRY KEEP PRESSURE ON TERRORISTS

2ND IA ASSUMES CONTROL OF SECURITY OPERATIONS IN MOSUL

INSURGENTS ATTACK IRAQI VILLAGE, INJURE CIVILIANS INCLUDING 10-YEAR-OLD BOY

IA DETAINS 13 DURING OPERATION AGAINST MURDER, KIDNAPPING CELL

SOLDIERS, IRAQI NATIONAL POLICE FIND WEAPON CACHE IN ABU DISCHIR

1ST INFANTRY DIVISION TROOPS RESCUE KIDNAP VICTIMS IN WESTERN BAGHDAD

IA CONDUCT OPERATIONS AGAINST ILLEGAL ARMED GROUP

COUNTER IED OPERATIONS IN KIRKUK PROVINCE

ISF CAPTURES TERRORISTS DURING RAID

IA CAPTURES LEADER OF INSURGENT CELL

USJFCOM
USJFCOM gets approval to connect U.S., Australian networks - podcast
USJFCOM’s new super computer to enhance joint experimentation, training - podcast

Department of Defense
NEWS UPDATES
Secretary, Chairman Thank Troops - Story
Secretary Gates' Holiday Message
Stability & Security in Iraq Report (pdf)
For Top News Visit DefenseLink

ON THE GROUND
Trainers Tell Gates They're Pleased With Progress - Story
Residents Take Pride in Market Renovations - Story
Soldiers, Mayor Discuss Progress of City Cleanup - Story
Iraqi Police, Coalition Forces Deliver Supplies - Story
Afghan Officials, U.S. Troops Open Runway - Story

IN IRAQ
Najaf Teaching Hospital Nears Completion
Soldiers Work 24/7 to Keep Supplies Flowing
U.S. Army Engineers Help Ramp Up Oil Production
Iraq Officials Assume Security Control in An Najaf
Moody Welcomes Airmen Home for Holidays
Village Blocks Insurgents; Gains Jobs, Revenue

IN AFGHANISTAN
Chief of Chaplains Brings Support to Region
Buccaneers Return from Afghanistan Tour

DefendAmerica Week in Review
Sunday - Monday - Tuesday - Wednesday - Thursday - Friday - Saturday

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
Afghanistan
Bost/Laskar Ghurian Herat Kabul Qandahar

Germany
Ansbach Aschaffenburg Berlin Berlin-Tempelhof Berlin/Schonefeld Bremerhaven
Darmstadt Frankfurt Frankfurt/Main Freiburg/Breisgau Garmisch
Garmisch-Partenkirchen Geilenkirchen Gelnhausen Giessen Kitzingen Hanau Am Main
Heidelberg MainzMannheim Nurnberg Stuttgart Trier Wiesbaden Wurzburg

Gitmo

Guam
Agana Agana Heights Agat Andersen AFB Asan Barrigada

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

Japan
Kadena Air Base Okinawa Tokyo Yokohama

Philippines
Baler Radar Site Catanduanes Radar Site Manila

South Korea
Cheju Upper/Radar Chonju Chunchon Inch'on Kunsan Masan Mokp'o Osan
Pusan Seoul Suwon Taegu Taejon Tonghae Radar SiteUlsan Yosu

** If you're deployed, and want to see your location's weather listed here, please email me! **
Today in History
0640 - John IV begins his reign as Catholic Pope
1046 - Pope Clement II [Suitger] elected
1294 - Cardinal Benedetto Gaetani chosen as Pope Boniface VIII
1476 - 400 Burgundy soldiers freeze to death during siege of Nancy
1515 - Thomas Wolsey appointed English Lord Chancellor
1565 - Compromise of the Nobles closes against inquisition
1568 - Uprising of Morisco's in Granada
1715 - Swedish troops occupy Norway
1724 - Benjamin Franklin arrives in London
1798 - Russia & England sign Second anti-French Coalition
1799 - Jakobijns plot against Napoleon uncovered
1814 - Treaty of Ghent (end of the War of 1812) signed
1818 - "Silent Night" composed by Franz Joseph Gruber; sung for 1st time the next day
1832 - HMS Beagle anchors in Wigwam Bay at Cape Receiver
1851 - Fire devastates Library of Congress in Washington, destroys 35,000 volumes
1864 - Battle of Gordonsville, VA
1865 - Several Confederate veterans form the Ku Klux Klan in Pulaski, TN
1884 - Austria-Hungary admits King Leopold II's Congo Free State
1889 - Daniel Stover & William Hance patent bicycle with back pedal brake
1893 - Henry Ford completes his 1st useful gas motor
1904 - German SW Africa abolishes slavery of young children
1912 - Irving Fisher patents archiving system with index cards
1914 - German plane drops bombs on Dover England
1920 - Enrico Caruso gives his last public performance (New York NY)
1922 - London Coloseum opens
1924 - Albania becomes a republic (ex-premier Ahmed Zogoe's coup)
1932 - Arturo Alessandri wins presidental election in Chile
1933 - Paris express train derails & kills 160, injures 300 (France)
1936 - 1st radioactive isotope medicine administered, Berkeley CA
1937 - Dutch government recognizes Italian king Emanuel III as emperor of Abyssinia
1941 - 1st ships of Admiral Nagumo's Pearl Harbor-fleet return to Japan
1942 - 1st powered flight of V-1 buzz bomb, Peenemünde, Germany; Red army occupies German airports at Tasjinskaja & Morozowsk
1943 - FDR appoints General Eisenhower supreme commander of Allied forces
1946 - 4th French republic established; US General MacNarney gives 800,000 "minor nazis" amnesty
1948 - 1st US house completely sunheated is occupied (Dover MA); Greek government disbands due to state of war, press censorship
1951 - United Kingdom of Libya gains independence from Italy via the UN
1953 - 2 fast express trains crash head-on, killing 103 (Czechoslovakia); Wellington-Auckland (New Zealand) express train swept away in flood kills 166; René Coty elected President of France
1954 - Laos gains its independence
1956 - Ferdinand de Lesseps statue blown up in Port Said, Egypt
1963 - Greek & Turks riot in Cyprus
1966 - Luna 13 lands on Moon; USAF CL-44 military charter crashes near Binh Thai, Vietnam, killing 129
1968 - Apollo 8 astronauts' Christmas reading (Book of Genesis) while orbiting Moon
1970 - 9 Jews are convicted in Leningrad for hijacking a plane
1971 - Peruvian Airlines Electra crashes at headwaters of Amazon, killing all except Juliane Margaret Koepcke found 10 days later
1973 - Ferryboat capsized off coast of Ecuador, drowning 200
1979 - 1st Ariane-rocket launched
1980 - Americans remembered Iran hostages by shining lights for 417 seconds
1984 - Palace coup in Mauritania
1986 - French hostage Aurel Cornea, held in Lebanon for 9 months, released; Iran offensive against Iraqi islands of Shatt al-Arab
1989 - Panamá's dictator, Manual Noriega seeks asylum at the Vatican embassy; Charles Taylor enters Liberia to unseat President Samuel K Doe
1990 - Saddam says Israel will be Iraq's 1st target
1991 - Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as head of the Soviet Union
1992 - President Bush pardons Caspar Weinberger of Iran-contra affair
1994 - 4 Moslem fundamentalists capture Air France pilot in Algiers
1997 - 1st time a Channukah candle is officially lit in Vatican City

Birthdays
3 BC- Servius Sulpicius Galba. 6th Roman emperor (68-69)
1167 - John "without a land," King of England (1199-1216)
1745 - Benjamin Rush, physician/general (Continental Army, signed Declaration of Independence)
1761 - SelŒm III, poet/composer/sultan of Turkey (1789-1808)
1809 - Christopher "Kit" Carson, Union Brigadier-General/Indian fighter
1837 - Sissi, Emperor of Austria
1894 - Georges Guynemer, French WWI pilot
1904 - Herbert D. Riley, US vice-admiral (WWII, Guadalcanal, Okinawa)
1905 - Anna "Ans" van Dike ("the Young"), Jewish nazi collaborator
1909 - Adam Rapacki, Polish minister of Foreign Affairs (1956-68)
1918 - Anwar El Sadat, President of Egypt (1970-81)
1923 - Wilton S. Mkwayi, South African ANC leader
1927 - Mary Higgins Clark, author (A Cry in the Night, Stillwatch)
1940 - Paul Tagliabue. NFL commissioner; Anthony Fauci. US health official
1943 - Tatton Sykes, English baron/large landowner

Passings
1069 - Godfried II with the Beard, duke of Neder-Lutherans
1380 - John von Neumarkt, German bishop/Chancellor Karel IV
1524 - Vasco da Gama, Portuguese explorer/viceroy of Cochin India, dies at about 55
1548 - Maximilian of Egmond, Dutch count/stadholder of Frisia
1660 - Mary I. princess of England, dies at 29
1869 - Edwin M. Stanton, US Secretary of War (1861-65), dies at 55
1942 - Admiral Jean Darlan French naval officer, murdered by gaullists
1972 - Charles Atlas [Angelo Siciliano], body builder, dies at 79
1975 - Otto A.P. Fürst von Bismarck-Schönhausen, German diplomat, dies at 78
1979 - Dirk Uipko Stikker, Dutch CEO (Heineken)/Secretary-General NATO, dies at 82
1980 - Karl Dönitz, German great admiral/Führer (1945), dies at 89
1987 - John M "Joop" de Uyl, Dutch social-democratic premier (1973-77), dies at 68
1992 - Abdulkadir Widjojoatmodjo, Java diplomat; Pierre Culliford [Peyo], Belgian cartoonist (Smurfs), dies at 64
1993 - Yen Chia-kan, PM/President of Taiwan (1963-72, 75-78), dies
1994 - John Keith Wright, English Assistant Secretary of State (1971-84), dies at 66; Rossano Brazzi, Italian resistance fight/actor (Final Justice), dies at 78
1995 - Harry McLevy trade unionist, dies at 59
1996 - Edward Leadbitter politician, dies at 77; Nguyen Huu Tho President of Vietnam (1980-81)

Reported Missing in Action
1965
The following USAF personnel reported missing when their AC47D was shot down:
Christiano, Joseph (NY)

Colwell, William K. (NY)

Eilers, Dennis L. (IA)

Hassenger, Arden K. (OR)

Jeffords, Derrell B. (AZ)

Thornton, Larry C. (ID)

1967
Powers, Vernie H., US Army (MD); KIA, body not recovered

1968
Brownlee, Charles R., USAF (CO); F105D shot down

1970
Lundy, Albro L., Jr., USAF (CA); A1E shot down, KIA, body not recovered

1971
Finn, William R., USAF (LA); OV10A shot down (w/Tucker)

Tucker, Timothy M., USAF (CO); OV10A shot down (w/Finn)

1972
Clark, Phillip S., Jr., USN (WA); A7A shot down, remains returend March, 1988

Jackson, Paul V. III, USAF (VA); O1G shot down (w/Riess)

Riess, Charles F., USAF (IL); released March, 1973