Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has abruptly called off his plans to compromise with the White House on Iraq withdrawal proposals:

The Democratic leader said he will call for a vote this month on several anti-war proposals, including one by Sen. Carl Levin that would insist President Bush end U.S. combat next summer. The proposals would be mandatory and not leave Bush wiggle room, said Reid, D-Nev.

“There (are) no goals. It’s all definite timelines,” he told reporters of the planned legislation.

Greg Sargent has more at Election Central.

Sen. Jim Webb’s proposal to ease the rotation schedule pressure on troops in Iraq looked like it might muster enough GOP support to pass, but his fellow Virginian, Sen. John Warner, an initial supporter, may pull back.

US suspends all land travel by US diplomats and other civilian officials in Iraq over Blackwater incident.

A semi-rhetorical question: why do we need Blackwater, a ‘private security’ firm, to provide security for US officials in Iraq when we have the US Army and US Marine Corps? Not to mention the various security agencies connected to the State Department and the paramilitary arms of our intelligence services?

I say it’s a rhetorical question because I know most of the answers experts in the field would give. But none of them are very good answers. And many are very, very bad.

Will Bunch has some very interesting background on that guy who got tased down at the Kerry event.

Fascinating article the Times about new and dramatic data from the Iraqi Red Crescent on the internal refugee crisis in Iraq.

More on the new investigation into cronyfied Minneapolis US Attorney Rachel Paulose, from the Star-Tribune.

Am I objectively pro-Islamofascist if I don’t have high hopes for this approach (from WaPo)?

The U.S. military has introduced “religious enlightenment” and other education programs for Iraqi detainees, some of whom are as young as 11, Marine Maj. Gen. Douglas M. Stone, the commander of U.S. detention facilities in Iraq, said yesterday.

Stone said such efforts, aimed mainly at Iraqis who have been held for more than a year, are intended to “bend them back to our will” and are part of waging war in what he called “the battlefield of the mind.” Most of the younger detainees are held in a facility that the military calls the “House of Wisdom.”

The religious courses are led by Muslim clerics who “teach out of a moderate doctrine,” Stone said, according to the transcript of a conference call he held from Baghdad with a group of defense bloggers. Such schooling “tears apart” the arguments of al-Qaeda, such as “Let’s kill innocents,” and helps to “bring some of the edge off” the detainees, he said.

…

Stone said his staff conducts polygraph tests for detainees who promise to change after undergoing the religious training program. “We were trying to figure out if they’re messing with us. . . . You’re not talking about radicals going to choirboys.” But he also added that they’re succeeding in countering extremists in the facilities. “We’re busting them down, we’re making whole moderate compounds that didn’t exist before.”

…

Stone described a sort of religious insurgency that occurred at one detention facility on Sept. 2. “We had a compound of moderates for the first time overtake . . . extremists. It’s never happened before. Found them, identified them, threw them up against the fence and shaved their frickin’ beards off of them. . . . I mean, that is historic.”

House of Wisdom

It’s unmistakable. John McCain does appear bouncing back in the polls. It’s hard to go anywhere but up, his numbers had flatlined so badly. And the first tier field is made up of three utter goofs. But still.

More details are emerging on the weekend shootout in Iraq involving Blackwater personnel which led the Iraqi government to try to bar the company from operating in the country.

Late Update: Spencer Ackerman talked to Robert Young Pelton, author of Licensed To Kill, about the Blackwater incident and the company’s rules of engagement.

Condi denied audience with Pope Benedict over foreign policy issues, says Corriere Della Sera.