Day: December 14, 2006

Gunmen in military uniforms kidnapped dozens of people Thursday from a major commercial area in Baghdad, the second mass abduction in the capital in a month, and nearly 30 people were killed or found dead elsewhere in Iraq.

The attackers drove up to the busy al-Sanak area in about 10 sport utility vehicles and began rounding up shop owners and bystanders. Two police officers said 50 to 70 people were abducted, but the Interior Ministry declined to give a number, saying it was still under investigation.

But Gates, the former CIA director who will be sworn in as defense secretary on Monday, could help heal a rift between the Pentagon and civilian intelligence agencies caused by the confrontational tactics of his predecessor, Donald Rumsfeld.

“You’re going to have a real change in tone at the top, and the watchword will be ‘practicality,”‘ said Robert Grenier, former director of the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center.

A federal judge called the Bush administration’s handling of a Hurricane Katrina housing program "a legal disaster" Wednesday and ordered officials to explain a computer system that can neither precisely count evacuees nor provide reasons why they were denied aid.

Democrats put an exclamation point on their political year, capturing a House seat in Texas as former Rep. Ciro Rodriguez ousted seven-term GOP incumbent Henry Bonilla in a runoff.

"In terms of congressional races, obviously it has been a very bad year and this is a continuation of it," Republican consultant Reggie Bashur said Wednesday from Texas. "A lot of voters were persuaded by arguments that Congress was going Democrat and it would be wise to elect a Democrat to join the majority."

The White House was cool to the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, but at the time they were the only concrete proposals on the table for solving the seemingly intractable violence in Iraq.

Perhaps to get the public to hold off its embrace of the ISG report, the White House announced a day later that President Bush would make a major address before Christmas outlining a new Iraq strategy.

New Orleans remains vulnerable to devastating flooding, a risk-analysis group has found more than one year after Hurricane Katrina submerged the city.

The report "Flood Risk in New Orleans: Implications for Future Management and Insurability" recommends city planners should prepare for a future "more hazardous" than the past, Risk Management Solutions (RMS) said.

Democratic leaders in Washington were holding their breath this morning as the health of a Senator from South Dakota could affect Democratic control of the Senate.

Sen. John McCain said Thursday that America should to deploy 15,000 to 30,000 more troops to Iraq to control its sectarian violence, and give moderate Iraqi politicians the stability they need to take the country in the right direction.

McCain made the remarks to reporters in Baghdad, where he and five other members of Congress were meeting with U.S. and Iraqi officials.

An increasingly defiant George W. Bush is standing firm on his Iraq policy, says he will "not be rushed" into making changes and has made it clear that no one, including Vice President Dick Cheney, will tell him what to do.

Bush said Wednesday he has heard both some interesting ideas and some "ideas that would lead to defeat."

Fewer than a fourth of all Americans approve of how President George W. Bush is handling his failed Iraq war and even fewer want him to be the one that decides future options on the war.

An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released on Wednesday found only 23 percent backed Bush’s Iraq strategy, an 11-point drop since the previous NBC/Journal poll in late October and Bush’s lowest mark on the question in this survey, NBC reported.