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To: T L Comiskey who wrote (38158)	2/20/2004 8:09:07 AM
From: T L Comiskey	Respond to of 89467

U.S. Expects Troops in Iraq for Years 2 hours, 34 minutes ago By ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer WASHINGTON - American officials say U.S. forces will be needed in Iraq (news - web sites) long after a sovereign government is restored this summer, but they have yet to work out the terms of a continued presence. Senior Pentagon (news - web sites) officials said Thursday they were confident that the Iraqis, once given political control, would agree U.S. troops should stay. But some outside the government question whether that would hold true once an elected Iraqi government took over. Anthony Cordesman, a close observer of the Iraq situation as a strategist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that if political control was turned over on July 1 to an Iraqi body that is not elected, it likely would align itself with U.S. objectives and therefore welcome a continued U.S. military presence. But once elections were held, the U.S. role would be in doubt, he said. If the new Iraqi government decided it wanted American forces to leave, "We would certainly be obligated to leave, under international law," Cordesman said. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's chief spokesman, Larry Di Rita, told reporters at the Pentagon that there is a "fairly confident belief" that most Iraqis accept the U.S. view that American troops will be needed over the long haul to ensure a stable transition to democracy. The basis for a continued U.S. military presence under the authority of a transitional Iraqi government is "being developed," Di Rita said without elaborating. "I think there's a fairly comfortable understanding that the coalition has a lot to offer with respect to continued security in Iraq," Di Rita said, and "that people in Iraq understand that (and) want the coalition to continue to be involved in security in some way." Di Rita did not define the roles that U.S. troops would play once the occupation ended. Other officials have said troops will be needed to guide the development of Iraqi internal security forces as well as build an Iraqi army that is capable of defending against external threats. U.S. troops also will be engaged in combat as long as the insurgency remains active. The legal basis for U.S. troops operating in any foreign country is normally spelled out in a legal arrangement called a status of forces agreement, which defines legal protections for U.S. troops accused of crimes in that country. Without it, U.S. troops in Iraq would be subject to local Iraqi law, once the U.S. occupation authority is ended and a government is restored. "That would be untenable," Cordesman said. At this point it is unclear whether American authorities can work out such a complex legal agreement by June 30, when some form of transitional Iraqi government is due to take control. Cordesman said U.S. officials at one time had hoped to have such an agreement worked out by this month, but that proved impossible because "there is no clear government to work with." The U.S. plan is to gradually move responsibility for security into the hands of the Iraqis, thereby reducing the U.S. military's role. But senior officials say that process will take many months, if not years. Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the Bush administration has a plan to accelerate the building of viable Iraqi security forces, which now number over 200,000 and include police, border guards, a civil defense corps and guards for certain key facilities. "We're going to focus on Iraqi security forces like we've never really focused on them before, and you'll see some of that come out in the next week or so as we try to ensure we have unity of effort on the equipping and training and mentoring of Iraqi security forces," he said. Even while the Bush administration works toward its goal of restoring Iraqi sovereignty by July 1, U.S. troops are dying at a rate of more than one a day. They are opposed by an insurgency that U.S. commanders say is aimed at preventing a stable Iraqi government from taking root. Myers said he could not estimate with confidence how long U.S. troops will be needed in Iraq. "I really do believe it's unknowable," he said. "If I gave a good professional estimate, then that would be a standard that people would point to and, knowing that we can't know it perfectly, we'd get hammered." For planning purposes, the Army is assuming it will have to keep roughly 100,000 troops in Iraq for at least another two years, the Army chief of staff, Gen. Peter Schoomaker, told Congress recently.

To: T L Comiskey who wrote (38158)	2/20/2004 8:11:27 AM
From: T L Comiskey	Respond to of 89467

Halliburton Falling Short in Iraq-Pentagon Thu Feb 19, 3:21 PM ET - Reuters By Khaled Yacoub Oweis BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Oil giant Halliburton is falling short in its billion-dollar commitments to supply U.S.-led forces in Iraq (news - web sites) and rebuild the country's oil industry, a senior Pentagon (news - web sites) official said on Thursday. "There is no doubt that more needs to be done. We have to make sure that we can provide the services as quickly as they are needed," Dov Zakheim, under secretary of defense and the Defense Departmant's comptroller -- chief financial officer -- told Reuters. Halliburton, mainly through its Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) subsidiary, is the biggest contractor for the U.S. military in Iraq with more than $8 billion in deals covering everything from doing laundry, building bases and providing meals to repairing oil infrastructure. A U.S. draft audit has found evidence KBR might have overcharged by $61 million for bringing oil and gas products into Iraq via the Kuwaiti subcontractor, Altanmia Commercial Marketing Co. Kuwait's parliament formed a committee on Monday with broad powers to probe the deal. The Defense Department is looking into the fuel issue and allegations that one or two KBR employees paid bribes to the subcontractor. In addition, military auditors are examining KBR's pricing for meals it served to troops in Iraq and Kuwait. Last week, Halliburton said in a Securities and Exchange Commission (news - web sites) filing it had agreed to delay billing for $34.5 million until the auditors had completed their work. "We are looking at every aspect of Halliburton and every other contract in Iraq. KBR has total contracts that can come up to $15 billion. It is largest single combination of contracts. Naturally we have to spend a lot of time on it," he said. "I would not give them a perfect score but I would not give them a terrible score either. It is a very tough job, and managing this type of operation in this difficult security environment is not easy." Zakheim made his comments after touring southern Iraq, home to the bulk of the non-U.S. forces in the country, where he visited bases for U.S., Japanese and Spanish troops, to assess the performance of all suppliers to troops in the region. Commanders told him that they lacked sanitary services and blast-proof barriers that KBR should have provided. "We have heard some concern on the part of several of the units. The troops need to get what they need whether they are our troops or whether they are our allies and friends. We do not want anybody endangered unnecessarily," Zakheim said. He said he was keen for Halliburton to employ as many Iraqi individuals and companies as possible. "We want to get Iraqis jobs. We want to get Iraq back on its feet," he said. It is very important to provide subcontracts to Iraqis so they can build up their businesses again."

To: T L Comiskey who wrote (38158)	2/20/2004 10:32:28 AM
From: Wharf Rat	Respond to of 89467

A General Intelligence Quotient Score (IQ Score) is a statistically derived number which indicates relative and comparative abilities that can be used to obtain academic skills and knowledge. You have hundreds of specific mental abilities. Some of these abilities can be measured accurately. Some of these measurements can be reliable predictors of an individual's academic achievements. Though an IQ test measures only a few of a human's mental abilities, these few abilities are targeted for measurement, because they are well known to positively correlate highly to many other human abilities. How high you score in one of these measured abilities, will strongly indicate how high you would be expected to score on the unmeasured abilities. Statistically the following statements are true about IQ scores obtained by taking this test: An IQ of 100 is higher than 50% of all persons taking this test. An IQ of 110 is higher than 75% of all persons taking this test. An IQ of 120 is higher than 93% of all persons taking this test. An IQ of 130 is higher than 98% of all persons taking this test. The best reason to know one's IQ score is to obtain an independent observation of one's probable academic potential. If your score is high, you may use that knowledge to see the possibility to achieve, easily, education that you now may feel incapable of obtaining. If your score is low, you may use that knowledge to set realistic educational goals for yourself that can be achieved using the amount of time and effort that you feel you can provide. If you purchase your Complete Personal Intelligence Profile, it will give you much greater detail about the range and variety of your mental abilities. It is very important to always keep in mind that an IQ test does not measure most kinds of human abilities such as musical talent, artistic talent, emotional stability, physical coordination, or spiritual level. A higher IQ score is not a guarantee that an individual will achieve happiness, maintain sanity, or obtain spiritual growth. A lower IQ score does not mean that an individual will be unsuccessful financially, emotionally, or morally. There are "high IQ" individuals in all walks of life, and conversely, even traditionally exalted groups such as "physicians" can have individuals who would be measured as having only "normal" intelligence. Almost all ordinary human tasks require an individual to have an IQ Score of only 50 or higher. (75% of all people have this or a higher IQ) Though a score of 50 would indicate that that individual would find educational success only with special teaching methods and more time spent studying, it should be noted that persons between 50 and 75 IQ ordinarily can obtain licenses to drive, can succeed at 71% of all jobs, can have normal or above normal IQ children, and generally can be quite capable of successful lives. History is filled with stories of humans of limited intellectual ability who have nevertheless been among humankind's most important contributors. It is also true, that all of history's worse tales are about very smart individuals who nevertheless were incapable of solving the problem of how to be a human whose actions had a positive effect on one's fellow humans. Bottom line: if you score high on this test, get out there and do the right thing. We need you. No test of human ability is capable of testing every kind of human being who takes it, and thus, you could possibly be inaccurately measured by this test. No IQ test has ever been devised that measures all human intellectual abilities. iqtest.com