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csmonitor.com — Officials Afghanistan turned to an ambitious new American-backed program to train, uniform, and arm locals against the Taliban following the success of a similar plan in Iraq. Under the plan, members of each district shura (council) in Wardak nominate locals for the force who are then trained for three weeks by Afghans (with the involvement of American advisers). They then return to their home districts, receiving nearly $125 dollars a month in salary — more than the typical police income, which is usually less than $100 a month. If successful in Wardak, officials plan to expand the program to more than 40 other districts across the south and east. Afghan and American officials stress that the force is not a tribal militia.

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news.bbc.co.uk — U.S. President Barack Obama has asked Congress for an extra $83.4 billion to fund operations in Iraq and Afghanistan this year. In his official letter to the House, he said the request was his "last planned war supplemental [payment]". The supplementary money is needed to pay for the new Afghan strategy and the reduction of combat troops in Iraq. The sum breaks down into $75.8 billion for the Pentagon and more than $7 billion in foreign aid, including $1.8 billion for Pakistan. It would push the war money approved for 2009 to about $150 billion. The totals were $171 billion for 2007 and $188 billion for 2008, when George W Bush was in the White House.

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news.bbc.co.uk — Computer hackers have embedded software in the United States' electricity grid and other infrastructure that could potentially disrupt service or damage equipment. The code in the power grid was discovered in 2006 or 2007. Department of Homeland Security Director Janet Napolitano would not confirm such a breach, but said that there has been no known damage caused by one. The U.S. power grid isn't the only system at risk. Malicious code has been found in the computer systems of oil and gas distributors, telecommunications companies and financial services industries. Security experts say such computer hacking could be the work of a foreign government — possibly Russia or China — seeking to compromise U.S. security in the event of a future military conflict.

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politico.com — The Pentagon sponsored a first-of-its-kind war game last focused not on bullets and bombs — but on how hostile nations might seek to cripple the U.S. economy, a scenario made all the more real by the global financial crisis. The two-day event had all the earmarks of a regular war game. Participants sat along a V-shaped set of desks beneath an enormous wall of video monitors displaying economic data, according to the accounts of three participants. But instead of military brass plotting America's defense, it was hedge-fund managers, professors and executives from at least one investment bank, UBS — all invited by the Pentagon to play out global scenarios that could shift the balance of power between the world's leading economies.

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— An increase in the number of suicides among military personnel can be traced, in part, to a "stressed and tired force" made vulnerable by multiple deployments, a military leader said. "We must find ways to relieve some of this stress," said Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, vice chief of staff of the Army, in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Military Personnel Subcommittee. "I think it is the cumulative effect of deployments from 12 to 15 months," he said, adding that the longer deployments are scheduled to continue until June. He cited long deployments, lengthy separations from family and the perceived stigma associated with seeking help as factors contributing to the suicides.

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cnn.com — The military will phase out its "stop loss" program, the contentious practice of holding troops beyond the end of their enlistments, for all but extraordinary situations, Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced. Instead, the military will use incentives programs to encourage personnel to extend their service. Starting this month, the department will provide "special compensation of $500 per month" to troops whose tour has been extended, Gates said. "This special compensation will be applied retroactively to October 1, 2008, the date when Congress first made it available." The stop-loss program was put into place to ensure that units remained intact during deployment. Tours of duty could be extended for those whose enlistment was due to end in the middle of their unit's deployment.

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washingtonpost.com — The decision not to renew Blackwater Worldwide's security contract in Iraq when it expires in early May has left the State Department scrambling to fill a protection gap for U.S. diplomats and civilian officials there. Two other U.S. security contractors with a far smaller presence in Iraq -- DynCorp International and Triple Canopy — have been asked to replace the ousted company, according to State Department and company officials. To meet time, training and security-clearance pressures, one or both of the firms are likely to undertake the task by rehiring some personnel now working for Blackwater. The Iraqi government refused to issue Blackwater a license to perform security services after a 2007 incident in which company guards on a diplomatic protection mission shot and killed 17 civilians in Baghdad.

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cnn.com — President Obama will say in his speech at Camp LeJeune, North Carolina, that the U.S. combat mission in Iraq will end next year. "Let me say this as plainly as I can: By August 31, 2010, our combat mission in Iraq will end," Obama will say. Congressional officials said the president told congressional leaders of his plan. Under this plan, all combat troops will be withdrawn within 19 months of Obama's January inauguration, three months longer than his promise on the campaign trail. In a meeting at the White House, Obama also told lawmakers that he plans to keep a range of 35,000 to 50,000 support troops on the ground in Iraq after combat troops are out, the officials said.

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latimes.com — The Senate Intelligence Committee is preparing to launch an investigation of the CIA's detention and interrogation programs under President George W. Bush, setting the stage for a sweeping examination of some of most secretive and controversial operations in recent agency history. The inquiry is aimed at uncovering new information on the origins of the programs as well as scrutinizing how they were executed — including the conditions at clandestine CIA prison sites and the interrogation regimens used to break Al Qaeda suspects, according to Senate aides familiar with the investigation plans. Officials said the inquiry was not designed to determine whether CIA officials broke laws, but to learn lessons from the programs and see if there are recommendations to be made for detention and interrogations in the future.

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nytimes.com — Well over half the exhibition halls in Iraq’s National Museum are closed, darkened and in disrepair. And yet the museum, whose looting in 2003 became a symbol of the chaos that followed the American invasion, officially reopened. Thousands of works from its collection of antiquities and art — some of civilization’s earliest objects — remain lost. Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki pushed to reopen the museum as a sign of Iraqi progress. Yet the museum is only one institution in a place where little functions as it should — not electricity or even sewerage — nearly six years after the beginning of the war that toppled Saddam Hussein. The museum, like life here, may be more secure than at any other time since then, but it is not normal.

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