Here’s a question: if it turns out the culprits behind the Karbala raid were not Iranian-trained but US-trained, should we attack ourselves? This just out from Fox of all places: “Several Iraqis have been detained for questioning in the ongoing investigation of at least two senior Iraqi generals suspected of involvement in an insurgent attack that killed five American soldiers on Jan. 20, U.S. officials told FOX News on Thursday.”
(ed.note: In the original version of this post I incorrectly referred to Najaf rather than Karbala. It’s hard for me to keep all the shady surge-era incidents straight sometimes. My bad.)
Encouraging news! The man nominated to be the Director of National Intelligence says there’ll be no cherry-picking on his watch.
Symbolic Resolution Watch…
Sens. Biden (D-DE), Hagel (R-NE), Levin (D-MI), Collins (R-ME) and Nelson (D-NE) jump onto Sen. John Warner’s (R-VA) bandwagon. But Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) won’t get on.
Update: And here’s Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) with a big, fat no.
Later Update: A spokesperson for Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) tells us he’s “inclined to support it.”
Regarding when the bombs might start falling in Iran, a few different pieces of evidence point to a time frame in early March. More on this later this evening.
Late Update: I don’t make a practice of pulling posts. But this one, in its first writing, sounded a lot more definitive than I meant it to. What I’m talking about is an overlap between the naval deployments in the Gulf and the nuclear developments in Iran. I’ll provide more details later.
The new Iraq NIE won’t be public? Spencer Ackerman brings us the latest.
In one of our editorial meetings today we were speculating about how the networks would spin the compromise surge resolution. Here’s how ABC is casting it on their website: “A compromise resolution opposing the president’s Iraq troop buildup is gathering steam. But it preserves funding for the troops, so it may not mean much.”
Today’s Must Read: McClatchy on how the U.S. is fighting a militia trained and equipped by the U.S.