by Aamer Madhani

The ongoing and increasingly sharp rhetorical exchange between Washington and Moscow escalated on Wednesday as the Bush administration moved one step closer to completing a deal to build an American missile shield in Poland, paving the way for the U.S. to set up its first missile system in a former Soviet bloc nation.

The formal signing of the agreement by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her Polish counterpart comes days after top Russian officials threatened that the Poles could face an attack if Warsaw goes through with its plan to host 10 U.S. missile interceptors.

Russian leaders are convinced that the weapons system, which would sit in northern Poland about 115 miles from its borders, would be a threat against their country despite the assurances of U.S. officials that it is a defensive system to protect Europe and parts of the United States from a potential Iranian nuclear strike.

To operate the proposed missile defense system, the U.S. military would have to base a small number of troops in Poland as well as the Czech Republic. It's a move Russia says would violate post-Cold War agreements that the U.S. would not base its troops in former Soviet bloc states.

Russia also has previously proposed a joint global missile defense system that would include Russia, the United States and others, but U.S. officials have been unreceptive to the proposal.

Within hours of Rice and Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski signing the agreement in Warsaw, the Russians notified Norway's Embassy in Moscow that it was freezing military ties with NATO, the Associated Press reported.

The Russian pledge to suspend its relationship with NATO comes a day after NATO Secretary Gen. Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said there could not be "business as usual" with the Kremlin until the 13-day-old crisis in Georgia is resolved.

Some analysts said it is meaningful that the U.S. and Poland closed the agreement on the proposed missile defense system in the midst of the unsuccessful effort by White House and NATO officials to push Russia to withdraw its troops from Georgia.

"The timing of the conclusion of the missile defense deal is anything but accidental," said Charles Kupchan, a senior fellow for Europe studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. "Now that the missile system is going forward, the deal takes on much sharper overtones from the Russian perspective."

by Frank James

Russians will no doubt view it as a Polish poke in the eye; top Russian officials have said as much.

But in the wake of Russia's invasion of the Republic of Georgia, the Republic of Poland has officially sided with the U.S. on a key issue that had previously found it uneasily poised between the Bush Administration and the Russian government led by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and signed a pact to allow U.S. missile interceptors on Polish soil. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was in Warsaw today to sign the agreement at a very well-publicized ceremony.

Polish officials had been slow-walking discussions with the U.S. over the missiles for months. Even though the U.S. has insisted that it wanted the interceptors in Poland to counter the potential threat of Iranian ballistic missiles, the Russians have adamantly opposed the U.S. missiles, saying they viewed them as a threat because the missiles could weaken Russia's deterrent force of nuclear missiles.

Despite official Polish denials, the fact that the deal was finally reached with great alacrity after Russia's Georgia invasion has been interpreted by U.S. foreign affairs analysts as a direct result of Russia's aggression against a former Soviet satellite state.

In this instance, the Russians apparently are being reacquainted with the law of unintended consequences. Their actions in Georgia hastened the very consequences they found so undesirable, American interceptors in Poland.

by Aamer Madhani

In the wake of Russian threats against Poland for agreeing to host part of a proposed U.S. missile shield, Defense Secretary Robert Gates today said the Russians are singing "an old song" in their attempts to intimidate the Polish government.

After the Poles announced their intention to host 10 U.S. missile interceptors in Poland last week, the deputy chief of the Russian general staff told the Interfax news agency that Russian military could consider a possible nuclear strike against the Poles.

Russian President Dimitri Medvedev also repeated his country's stance that the American plan to build a missile shield as a threat against Russia. U.S. military officials say the system is not an offensive weapon and would help defend against a potential strike on Europe and the U.S. by Iran, but the Russians have remained steadfast in their opposition.

"It is a fairy tale that the U.S. defense shield missiles would be aimed at pariah states," said Medvedev, repeating the oft-voiced Russian concern about the Bush administration's desire to place interceptors in Poland and a satellite battery in the Czech Republic. "The missiles will be aimed at Russia."

In the aftermath of the Russian incursion in Georgia, Gates has dropped the polite diplomatic speak that he's employed in the past to address the Russian's concerns about the proposal.

Speaking on the Sunday morning talk shows today, Gates called out the Russians for being "ridiculous" in their bluster.

"I think it's very loose rhetoric and I think it's unnecessary and frankly it's empty rhetoric," Gates said on CNN's Late Edition. "The Russians aren't going to launch nuclear missiles at anybody because 10 defensive - missile interceptors are located in Poland. So I think some of the leadership of Russia needs to get a better handle on the leadership of some of the folks there."

Gates also acknowledged that he believes Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who stepped down as president earlier this year and was replaced by Medvedev, remains politically in control of Russia.

"We just want those in Russia who seem to be willing to look to the future, people perhaps like President Medvedev, to perhaps begin to exercise more influence here and get some of these people's rhetoric under control," he said on ABC's This Week.

The Bush administration has said it will work with the Poles and Czechs to give the Russians access to the missile defense system if it is built. Gates also noted that the White House agreed not to make the interceptors operational until the Iranians have test-launched a missile with the range to hit Western Europe.

by Aamer Madhani

It didn't seem that long ago that President Bush told the world about looking Vladimir Putin in the eye and "getting a sense of his soul."

Today, Bush's defense secretary, Robert Gates, brushed aside the question of whether Putin could be trusted, but he didn't exactly give the Russian prime minister a rousing endorsement.

"I have never believed that one should make national security policy on
the basis of trust," Gates said. "I think you make national security policy based on interests and on realities."

The Bush administration appears to have few options to pressure the Russians. Gates (pictured at right with the Joint Chiefs' vice chairman, Marine Gen. James Cartwright, smiling at a reporter's question) made crystal clear that U.S. military intervention is not an option and that because of commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan--as well as political sensitivities--that the U.S. was unlikely to take part in any peacekeeping mission in the region.

In his first comments since the fighting started in Georgia, Gates warned that Russia's actions could endanger Moscow-Washington relations for years to come." Gates' remarks at a Pentagon news conference comes a day after Russian troops drove into the Georgian city of Gori despite publicly agreeing to stop its offensive.

Gates, who was in the thick of U.S. policy-making at the CIA during the Cold War, said he didn't want to see U.S.-Russia relations slip into the strained status of that era, but he added that there should be consequences for the Russians actions in Georgia.

The defense secretary went on to say that Russia was attempting "to punish Georgia for daring to try to integrate with the West." Gates noted that every August since 2004 there have been minor skirmishes between the South Ossetia and Georgian troops.

"I think that the Russians' further message was to all of the parts of the former Soviet Union, as a signal about trying to integrate with the West and move outside of the long-time Russian sphere of influence," Gates said. "So I think that they had an opportunity to make some very broad points and, I think, they seized that opportunity."

An F-16 aligns with the boom from a Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker as part of a training exercise over California. (AP Photo/Ben Margot, file)

by Aamer Madhani and Julie Johnsson, updated at 4:20 pm ET

Pentagon officials have re-opened the contentious competition to provide the Air Force with a fleet of new tankers, and worked the contest rules to favor the larger jet proposed by Northrop Grumman Corp., a Congressional aide told the Tribune.

Chicago-based Boeing Co. is battling California-based Northrop for a $35 billion contract to overhaul the Air Force's Eisenhower-era fleet of aerial tankers, essentially flying gas stations.

The Pentagon said last month it would re-open the contract to build 179 new tankers, awarded to the Northrop-EADS team in February, in light of the deep flaws found in the process by the Government Accountability Office.

Draft request for proposals, spelling out the performance guidelines sought by the government, were sent to Congress and the two aerospace companies Wednesday morning.

A source familiar with the long and complex document said that Pentagon procurement officials have added language that appears to explicitly favor the larger jet proposed by Northrop and the France-based parent of Airbus SAS.

The latest request for proposal awards points for an aircraft that exceeds the fuel and cargo thresholds previously set by government evaluators, addressing a key point of contention raised by the GAO, an investigative arm of Congress.

In a scathing report issued earlier this summer, the GAO had found that Air Force evaluators failed to follow their own criteria in selecting the larger Airbus A330 over the Boeing 767.

By Amanda Erickson

A House subcommittee Wednesday began examining whether gay men and women should be allowed to serve openly in the armed forces for the first time in15 years.

Congress had not reconsidered the controversial 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' policy since it was approved by former President Bill Clinton in 1993. Currently, recruitment officials are not allowed to ask enlistees about their sexual orientation and service personnel may not engage in homosexual conduct or aggressively display homosexuality.

At the 2½-hour hearing, lawmakers focused on two key questions: What effect a change in the policy would have on troop unity and whether the current policy is hurting recruitment and retention of service members who are gay.

Occasionally, the debate got heated, such as when Elaine Donnelly of the Center for Military Readiness, which opposes gays in the military, suggested that allowing gays to openly serve in the military would increase the number of HIV-positive cases among service members. Rep. Vic Snyder (D-Ark.) called that contention "inappropriate" and said under that logic "you ought to recruit only lesbians to the military because they have the lowest incidence of HIV."

But the hearing mostly drew on the personal experience of openly gay former service members, retired sergeants and the head of a group that opposes allowing gays and lesbians to serve.

Capt. Joan Darrah, who served in the Navy for 30 years and won several commendations, spoke of the stress the policy caused her. Darrah had been at a meeting in the Pentagon just minutes before it was attacked on Sept. 11, 2001. Seven of her colleagues were killed.

"The reality is that if I had been killed, my partner then of 11 years, would have been the last to know," she said. "I had not dared to list her in any of my paperwork."

by Frank James

As if U.S. troops in Iraq didn't have enough to deal with -- the many tours in-country and consequent separations from family, the possibility of being killed or maimed, the heat -- there's the possibility of being electrocuted or dying in a fire caused by faulty electrical work.

Congress has heard testimony about the problem, which has resulted in deaths of and injuries to U.S. troops and contractors and which appears related to Defense Department contractors using incompetent workers to do the wiring.

For instance, Senate Democrats held a hearing last week to examine the problem. The Democratic senators heard from Debbie Crawford, a licensed electrician who worked in Iraq.

Here's an extensive excerpt from her testimony last week which provides an excellent description of the problem:

Most work done in the Green Zone was awarded to subcontractors. The subcontractors employed third-country national and local national workers who were not familiar or skilled in U.S. quality standards, U.S. safety standards, and installation techniques, or U.S. codes. It was not uncommon for KBR electricians to go in after a subcontractor had supposedly completed a job, to actually complete it or repair their work.

The construction of small, temporary man-camps was a particular problem, and I personally received several complaints from Blackwater employees that they were being shocked in their trailers. The KBR employees supervising these electrical contractors often had no electrical experience at all. It was not uncommon for a labor foreman with no electrical experience to supervise Iraqi electrical subcontractors or third-country nationals doing electrical work.

Activists wave the anti radar flag during a protest against plan to build a U.S. Missile defense shield in Czech Republic, at Wenceslas Square, center of Prague, Czech Republic, 08 July 2008. (EPA/SRDJAN SUKI)

by Aamer Madhani

With time running out on for the Bush administration to execute its plan to build a U.S. missile shield in Europe, the director of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency today criticized Russia for holding up the effort.

At a Pentagon news conference, Lt. Gen. Henry Obering said that Russia's "increasingly aggressive" rhetoric against a U.S. proposal to place 10 missile interceptors in Poland and a tracking system in the Czech Republic was unfounded.

Russia has been adamantly opposed to the U.S. plans to build a weapons system in Central Europe, which the Pentagon and Bush administration argue is necessary to protect the U.S. and its allies from Iran. U.S. intelligence officials conclude that Tehran could be able to launch an intercontinental missile as early as 2010.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said last week that his country will be forced to take "further steps in response" if Washington moves ahead with its plans for the missile shield. The Russian president's vague threat followed the Russian Foreign Ministry warning that it may launch a military response if the Czech Republic ratified an agreement to host the tracking system.

"I think it's incumbent upon them when they make increasingly aggressive statements, it's incumbent upon them to justify those," Obering said. "There is absolutely no justification in our eyes for some of their statements and some of their concerns about these sites."

Russia has argued that U.S. officials are overstating the Iranian threat. Russian officials also see plans for U.S. missile defense system near their border as an attempt by Washington to gain a military edge over them.

by Aamer Madhani

Ken Robinson, a former Army Special Forces intelligence officer turned Hollywood producer, was working on a short-lived Pentagon drama for CBS aptly titled the "E-Ring" when two of the show's writers stopped by his office to discuss the details of torture and other harsh interrogation methods.

The writers, Matthew Federman and Steve Scaia, seemed intent on accurately portraying torture on an episode of the television show in which a Special Forces operator was captured by Lebanese militants.

While Robinson was pleased by the writers' desire to thoroughly research the topic, he was concerned Federman and Scaia had a sanitized concept of some of the interrogation methods, including waterboarding, an interrogation technique that makes a prisoner believe he is in imminent danger of drowning.

"I asked them both: 'Do you really want to understand waterboarding?' " said Robinson, referring to the technique prohibited by the Geneva Conventions and the U.S. Army Field Manual. "And they go, 'Absolutely, we'd love to see it.' " I go, 'Well, you know, seeing it is not going to really help you. But ... if you were waterboarded, I think you could write an excellent episode.' "

The two writers were game. Federman would be waterboarded while Scaia would take notes.

Robinson, who had been waterboarded five times as part of his military training, tied Federman to a board, forced water down his throat, and the young writer said he felt the unmistakable of sensation of drowning.

Before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the portrayal of torture on network television was a rarity. But the moment piqued interest in Hollywood and led to dozens of television and movie story lines in which American heroes deal with uncooperative antagonists who hold critical information about an imminent attack.

By 2003, the first year of the war in Iraq, there were 228 instances in which torture was portrayed on network TV, according to Human Rights First, a civil liberties group that advocates governments banning torture.

Last year, 117 scenes portrayed torture, according to the organization.

Read the rest of the story about Hollywood's portrayal of torture in the Chicago Tribune.

by Matthew Hay Brown

After a year and a half of pushing unsuccessfully for a timeable for a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, congressional Democrats have found an ally in Baghdad.

Iraq's national security adviser told reporters in Najaf today that the U.S.-backed government would not agree to the security deal it is negotiating with Washington unless it included details of a pullout.

"We will not accept any memorandum of understanding if it does not give a specific date for a complete withdrawal of foreign troops," National Security Adviser Muwaffaq al-Rubaie said. His comments echoed those made by Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to Arab diplomats in Abu Dhabi on Monday.

The State Department slapped the Iraqi demand down today.

"The U.S. government and the government of Iraq are in agreement that we, the U.S. government, we want to withdraw; we will withdraw," spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos told reporters. "However, that decision will be conditions-based."

But the demand has found a willing audience among the congressional majority.

"President Bush refuses to listen to Congress or the American people, but he cannot support Iraqi political reconciliation and security and ignore Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki's call for a timetable for the withdrawal," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said.

(Video above shows Darren Manzella in the 60 Minutes interview the Army later used as evidence the sergeant is gay.)

by Aamer Madhani

U.S. Army Sgt. Darren Manzella told his commanding officer nearly two years ago that he was gay--something he felt he had to do after receiving anonymous threatening e-mails from someone who said that people in the Army were aware of his sexual orientation.

He later provided Army investigators intimate pictures and video of him and his boyfriend--kissing, snuggling and holding each other. He said he wanted to stay in the Army, but he didn't want to hide who he was.

The Army investigated, but Manzella was told they could find no proof of his homosexuality. He would deploy to Kuwait with the rest of his unit.

Manzella, a decorated combat medic who also served in Iraq, even went on 60 Minutes in December to tell his story and speak out against the military's "don't ask, don't tell policy" that prohibits out-of-the-closet troops from serving.

It wasn't until this spring that the Army concluded that Manzella, a 30-year-old from Upstate New York, was in fact gay and recommended him for discharge for violating don't ask, don't tell. Earlier this month, Manzella was officially kicked out of the service.

When his command at Fort Hood, Texas, notified him that they were recommending his discharge, Manzella said they offered him the 60 Minutes transcript as well as a copy of an Associated Press story about him as evidence that he was gay.

Never mind that he told his commanders the same story months before.

"I don't know if their hands were forced because of the 60 Minutes interview," Manzella said in telephone interview. "At that point it had gone up the chain of command."

by Amanda Erickson

It's official: FISA isn't going anywhere until after the Fourth of July recess.

Lawmakers will not vote on the domestic spying bill until July 8. The decision to hold the measure until then came after a day of procedural maneuvering by some senators who were upset with the bill's offer of retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies that cooperated with the federal government 's warrantless requests to eavesdrop.

When the bill comes back to the floor, Sen. Chris Dodd (D. Conn.) and Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.) will introduce an amendment that would strike the immunity clause. Civil liberty proponents say this is important because it will give them the tools they need to dig up more information about the program. Without data, they say, they aren't able to bring cases arguing the wiretapping should be illegal.

"I hope that over the July 4th holiday, Senators will take a closer look at this deeply flawed legislation," Feingold wrote in a statement. "It is possible to defend this country from terrorists while also protecting the rights and freedoms that define our nation."

When the Senate finally votes, the bill will almost certainly pass with the immunity amendment.

Until late this afternoon, some staffers had still been (optimistically, it turns out) predicting that the measure would pass before the senators fly home for their breaks. Others thought it would be held until after the holiday. An announcement on the floor by Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) around 7:15 tonight put the rumors to rest.

by Aamer Madhani updated at 6:20 p.m.

More than a week has passed since government auditors called on the Pentagon to reopen the bidding of a $35 billion contract to overhaul the Air Force's tanker fleet, but Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Thursday that he still isn't sure if he will restart the bidding process for the lucrative contract.

"I haven't made any decisions yet," said Gates, weighing in publicly for the first time since the Government Accountability Office's report was released on June 19. "But I would say that I take the GAO report very seriously. They clearly pointed out some areas where we were deficient."

Gates comment was somewhat of a departure from his stance prior to the GAO recommending that the contract be re-bid, because the Air Force made several critical mistakes in evaluating the bids from Chicago-based Boeing Co. and the winning partnership led by Northrop Grumman.

The Air Force announced in late February that it was awarding the contract to build 179 new tankers--what essentially are flying gas stations--to a consortium of Northrop Grumman and European Aeronautic Defense and Space Co., the parent of Boeing rival Airbus SAS.

After Boeing appealed the Air Force's decision to award the contract to Northrop, top Pentagon officials, including Gates, defended their decision and said that the process was fair and transparent.

Since the GAO recommendation was announced last week, Gates said he has met with top Pentagon brass to consider some of the GAO's concerns.

Among the errors the GAO said the Air Force made was not adequately evaluating whether the Northrop plane could fly faster and outmaneuver the service's fighter and transport fleet. There were also concerns that the Air Force made significant errors in calculating the military construction costs associated with the project.

By Mark Silva

The removal of North Korea from a list of states that sponsor terrorism and easing of restrictions under the Trading with Enemies Act will not "open the door" to a flood of new trade, the White House says, pointing to many more sanctions that Pyongyang still faces for human rights abuses and nuclear proliferation.

"This is not opening the door at this time for commercial relations," Steve Hadley, the president's national security adviser, said this morning. "That is one of the prospects that is open."

In exchange for North Korea's disclosure of its nuclear program - delivered today in documents for the Chinese, partners with the U.S. in six-party talks with North Korea - the Bush administration is lifting three sanctions under the Trading with Enemies Act but keeping two others. The White House also is advising Congress of its intent to remove North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terror within 45 days.

"The degree of easing of sanctions is relatively minor," Hadley said. Yet the actions should be seen as significant in dealings with North Korea.