i wish i could find a .swf file of a huge red flag that waves wildly so i could headline this post properly.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) admitted he is worried about the future of Iraq (news - web sites) but said the United States could consider its mission there accomplished once a representative government and an Iraqi security force are in place.

WaPo

American Army soldiers are deserting and fleeing to Canada rather than fight in Iraq, rekindling memories of the thousands of draft-dodgers who flooded north to avoid service in Vietnam.

An estimated 5,500 men and women have deserted since the invasion of Iraq, reflecting Washington's growing problems with troop morale.

U.K. Telegraph

Several US officials have privately admitted that it may be better to keep Bin Laden pinned down on the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan rather than make him a martyr or put him on trial. But Krongard is the most senior figure to acknowledge publicly that his capture might prove counter-productive.

London Times

PARIS, Jan 7 (AFP) - French President Jacques Chirac on Friday warned journalists to stay out of Iraq, two days after a reporter went missing in Baghdad and two weeks after the release of two correspondents held hostage for months.

Expatica

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, a leading architect of the Iraq war, said on Friday he had been asked to remain in the Bush administration and will do so.

NY Times

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States has still only spent a small portion of the $18.4 billion it set aside for rebuilding Iraq, a new government report shows.

According to a copy of the Bush administration's latest quarterly update to Congress on Iraq obtained by Reuters on Thursday, as of Dec. 29 only $2.2 billion of the funds has actually been spent.

This is up from $1.2 billion in the previous report that detailed reconstruction spending as of Sept. 22.

The portion of the money promised to companies for projects has risen to $10.5 billion from $7.1 billion in the previous report.

NY Times

NEW YORK As Iraq moves closer to its first democratic elections later this month, the number of news organizations requesting embedded slots with military units there is on the rise, according to officials. But those new embeds better watch their step. E&P has learned that five journalists have been kicked out of embed slots in the past three months for reporting secure information.

"They were all for operational security reasons, (revealing) something that would have been of use to the enemy," Maj. Kris Meyle, who runs the embed program, told E&P from Baghdad this morning. "Generally, it gets done very quickly. Usually it was something that was not done intentionally by the reporter."

Meyle would not disclose the identities of those who were "disembedded" or the news organizations for which they worked. But she did not recall any from newspapers. "I remember them being broadcast," she said.

She also warned that those seeking slots in an effort to get close coverage of the Iraqi elections later this month may be wasting their time. "We are telling people who request an embed during elections that they will not necessarily be near a polling place," Major Meyle said. "That is not our role."

Editor & Publisher

and now we hear that george is going to spend $50,000,000.00 on his coronation. disgusting to all hell.