Under the Radar

IRAQ -- RETIRED GENERAL CONCLUDES IRAQ IS 'IN DESPAIR': Late yesterday, retired Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey released a report based on a recent trip to Iraq that included meetings with Gen. David Petraeus and 16 other senior U.S. commanders. McCaffrey -- who previously served in Vietnam and commanded a division in the first Iraq war -- described the situation in Iraq as a "low grade civil war" that has "worsened to catastrophic levels." Contradicting statements made by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) yesterday, McCaffrey found that "no Iraqi government official, coalition soldier, diplomat, report, foreign NGO, nor contractor can walk the streets of Baghdad, nor Mosul, nor Kirkuk, nor Basra, nor Tikrit, nor Najaf, nor Ramadi, without heavily armed protection." The report, which was presented to White House officials late yesterday, stands in "sharp contrast" to his previous assessments which include a statement after a trip just last year calling the "progress" in Iraq "very encouraging." As the Washington Post reports, McCaffrey found his "bottom line" in this most recent report to be that "the U.S. military is in 'strategic peril.'" The retired general, who is opposed the President's continuing escalation plan, called the insurgent militias "'in some ways more capable of independent operations' than the Iraqi army." In concluding the report, he said the "vocal opposition" of Congress could "actually provide a helpful framework" for the U.S. government to help the Maliki administration "understand their diminishing options." But he added that "we have very little time left."

IRAQ -- MILITARY ANALYSTS RESPOND TO McCAIN ESCALATION REMARK WITH 'LAUGHTER DOWN THE LINE': On Monday, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) told radio host Bill Bennett that President Bush’s escalation is working. “There are neighborhoods in Baghdad where you and I could walk through those neighborhoods, today,” he said. Yesterday, when CNN’s Wolf Blitzer asked McCain why Americans still aren’t able to safely leave the Green Zone in Iraq, the senator replied that Blitzer was giving three-month-old talking points: "General Petraeus goes out there almost every day in an unarmed humvee," McCain said. "I think you oughta catch up. You are giving the old line of three months ago. I understand it. We certainly don’t get it through the filter of some of the media." But according to CNN reporter Michael Ware, who has been in Iraq for four years, McCain is “way off base.” He stated, “To suggest that there’s any neighborhood in this city where an American can walk freely is beyond ludicrous. I’d love Sen. McCain to tell me where that neighborhood is and he and I can go for a stroll.” Ware also rebutted McCain’s assertion that Petraeus travels in an unarmed humvee: “[I]n the hour since Sen. McCain’s said this, I’ve spoken to military sources and there was laughter down the line. I mean, certainly the general travels in a humvee. There’s multiple humvees around it, heavily armed.” Watch the video.

SCIENCE -- REPORT HIGHLIGHTS BUSH ADMINISTRATION'S ATTEMPTS TO BLOCK SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH: The House Science and Technology Committee will hold a hearing this week on the Bush administration's alleged efforts to stifle scientific research "that casts the White House or its policies in a bad light." "Guiding the discussion will be a new report from the Government Accountability Project that details incidents of scientific suppression across several federal agencies. The document, to be released at the hearing Thursday, is a follow-up to a report GAP released last month...that examined reported Bush administration interference in climate science and included a survey of government climatologists." Earlier hearings in the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee featured scientists who charged that the government officials, many of whom had no scientific background, rewrote and redacted statements in official documents that referred to global warming. GAP reports that the alleged interference further extends to "'delaying, monitoring, screening, and denying interviews' between government scientists and media outlets, as well as delaying, denying or 'inappropriate[ly] editing' press releases conveying scientific findings to the public." The Bush administration's attempts to stifle research it disagrees with poses a potential legal battle. "In some cases, the policies and practices the group says were enacted to squelch damaging scientific information 'constitute constitutional and statutory infringements of the federal climate science employees' free speech and whistle-blower rights,'" the report states.