Army Times

A helicopter attack that killed at least 15 civilians in Afghanistan’s Oruzgan province was called in by a Special Forces A-team that did not have “eyes on” their target and resulted in a 48-hour standdown for U.S. special operations forces, said an Army officer familiar with the incident.

In the wake of the incident, the commander of coalition and U.S. forces in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, apologized to Afghan President Hamid Karzai and then to the Afghan people in a Feb. 23 television address. “I have instituted a thorough investigation to prevent this from happening again,” McChrystal said.

The Army officer familiar with the incident described a confusing situation involving multiple special operations task forces and aerial platforms that descended into tragedy in part due to “a miscommunication, unfortunately a fatal one.”

The events that led to the attack began early in the morning of Feb. 21 while, together with Afghan security forces, the A-team was clearing a bazaar in the town of Khod. “They found Taliban IED-making materials and stuff like that,” the Army officer said.

The A-team involved in the incident was Operational Detachment Alpha 3124, a team that specializes in high-altitude, low-opening parachute operations, and which is based at Firebase Tinsley in Oruzgan. (Firebase Tinsley was known as Firebase Cobra until recently, when it was renamed in honor of Capt. John Tinsley of 7th Special Forces Group, who was killed near there Aug. 12.)

The team leader received word that a Predator unmanned aerial vehicle flying overhead had spotted a convoy of vehicles that appeared to be heading toward the team. The A-team did not have a Remotely Operated Video Enhanced Receiver, or ROVER, which would have enabled the team leader, a captain, to view the Predator footage in real time.

“There’s maybe one per base, and if it goes down you’re out of luck,” the Army officer said. Instead, the team leader relied on the word of the Predator pilot, flying the aircraft remotely. “The bottom line is he didn’t have access to the footage in the field, and so at that point then he’s kind of taking the Predator on his word,” the officer said.

The Predator pilot said he had positively identified weapons in the convoy, the Army officer added.

However, while the A-team leader had no real-time access to the Predator feed, the three levels of command above him did, the Army officer said. The next higher level of command was the company, or B-team — in this case B Company, 3rd Special Forces Group — based at the large coalition headquarters in Tarin Kowt, the capital of Oruzgan. But while the B-team has a Predator feed, it lacks the staff to monitor it full time. “That is not their responsibility,” the Army officer said.

Responsibility for commanding and controlling the A-team’s actions, and monitoring the Predator feed, rested at the battalion, or special operations task force, level and at the group, or combined joint special operations task force, level, he said. “It begins at the SOTF and then the CJSOTF,” he said. “My understanding is that both those levels were watching it.”

Col. Tim Nye, a spokesman for Combined Forces Special Operations Component Command-Afghanistan, which commands all U.S. special operations forces in country except those working for the highly secretive Joint Special Operations Command, declined to answer any questions about the incident. But the Army officer said the battalion-level command was SOTF 12, formed around 2nd Battalion, 1st Special Forces Group, and based at Kandahar Airfield. The CJSOTF is led by 3rd Special Forces Group commander Col. Gus Benton, who is on a 60-day deployment before Col. Don Bolduc takes command in April.

When a “scout-weapons team” of two OH-58D Kiowa Warrior helicopters arrived to monitor and possibly attack the convoy, there was a misunderstanding between the pilots and the team leader, the Army officer said. “In the communication and the radio traffic, the team leader came under the impression that they had [also] seen weapons,” he said. “In the after-action [review] of the whole thing, apparently they were communicating that they either understood that the Predator had seen weapons or they were basically relaying that information back, and so there was a miscommunication, unfortunately a fatal one.”

It is unclear what orders, if any, Benton or Lt. Col. Brian Petit, the SOTF 12 commander, gave in relation to the convoy as it was tracked by the Predator.

But after a lengthy delay, the A-team leader eventually decided to call an airstrike on the convoy from the Kiowa Warriors, the Army officer said. At about 9 a.m., the helicopters attacked. The Kiowa Warrior can carry Hellfire missiles, 2.75-inch Hydra rockets and a .50-caliber machine gun. It is not clear which weapons were used in the attack.

The first sign that something might be amiss came when the pilots wheeled around to attack again and noticed “a flash of color” in the clothing of those in the vehicles. Because Pashtun men rarely wear anything but earth-toned garments, “this kind of turned them on to the fact that there might be women on the convoy, and so they checked fire,” the Army officer said.

After getting the word from the pilots, the team leader, who had prior enlisted service as a Special Forces sergeant, relayed the information to the SOTF tactical operations center using an Iridium satellite phone.

Further confusing the situation, a Joint Special Operations Command element combining ground troops and helicopters launched from Kandahar Airfield landed at Tarin Kowt, with the apparent intention of attacking the same convoy, the Army officer said. “They were en route and then the strike occurred, so they stopped the operation,” he said. It is unclear why two U.S. forces were launching to attack the same target.

After the attack, commanders debated which coalition element to send to the site of the attack. Eventually they decided to send ODA 3124 — the team that had called in the strike. It was four hours after the attack by the time the team arrived at the scene, the Army officer said. “There apparently was quite a bit of pondering of what to do after this strike,” he said. “The team leader apparently called up fast. ... The call went up and then it did not get transmitted above the SOTF in a timely manner. That’s one of the things that’s being investigated now.”

Also complicating the investigation, he said, was the fact that “supposedly for some reason they don’t have any Predator footage after the actual engagement,” even though it’s not unusual in Afghanistan for a Predator to stay on station after a strike to conduct battle damage assessment and to track anyone returning to or arriving at the target site.

When the A-team got there, the soldiers found that “two of the vehicles were completely shot up.”

News accounts have said as many as 27 civilians were killed in the attack, but the Army officer said that those numbers may be exaggerated. “My understanding is that it was 15 guys that they confirmed on the ground had been killed [and] there was a wounded woman and a wounded child. ... They lived,” the officer said.

“It seems that these guys were legitimate civilians,” the officer said. They were members of Afghanistan’s Hazara minority “coming out of Daikundi [province] and were ... going to go down through Helmand and then into Iran.” (However, a March 3 McClatchy Newspapers account based on telephone interviews with survivors of the attack said the convoy included “more than three dozen relatives heading to Kandahar for supplies and Kabul for medical treatment.”)

In the wake of the incident, all CFSOCC-A forces were ordered to stand down for 48 hours beginning Feb. 22, said International Security Assistance Force spokesman Air Force Lt. Col. Tadd Sholtis. “They literally pulled everybody off the battlefield and told them that they had to reread all of the tactical directives and the ROE [rules of engagement] and everything,” the Army officer said. The standdown meant “pulling teams that were literally in the middle of operations. They had to leave what they were doing and go back to base,” the Army officer said.

“It is not unusual for forces to review their existing guidance and procedures after a major event of this nature — regardless of whether or not anything went wrong, which only the investigation will tell us,” Sholtis said.

That investigation is being led by Army Maj. Gen. Timothy McHale, the deputy commander of U.S. Forces-Afghanistan. “The investigation led by Maj. Gen. McHale is ongoing,” Sholtis said March 5. “Because of that, it’s inappropriate for us to provide or confirm details on the incident at this time or provide a timeline for its completion and review.”

Military family members who are ineligible for family and medical leave still could get time off for deployment-related issues under potentially controversial legislation pending before two congressional committees.

The Military Family Leave Act would provide up to two weeks of leave — unpaid if an employer chooses — to people not covered by the military leave provisions of the existing FMLA.

Under current law, employees can be excluded if they have not worked for a year or longer for their current employer, have not worked a minimum of 1,250 hours for their current employer in the last 12 months, or work for a business that has fewer than 50 employees in a 75-mile radius.

The two weeks off under the pending bill would be available to spouses, children or parents of anyone deployed on a contingency operation or mobilized in support of a contingency operation.

While endorsed by Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America and Veterans of Foreign Wars, the proposal is not supported by the Military Coalition, a group of more than 30 military-related organizations.

“We worry that forcing small businesses [to grant the time off] could be a disincentive to hiring that would work against families,” said a coalition member who works on family issues and asked not to be named.

“There was good reason that the original Family and Medical Leave Act is established the way it is, with small businesses exempt. Having even a few employees away can hurt a small business far more than a large one,” the family policy expert said.

The effect on businesses was not mentioned during a Feb. 25 hearing of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee’s economic opportunity panel when the House version of the bill, HR 3247, was discussed.

Bill sponsor Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., said he is trying to extend to people exempt from the FMLA some of the benefits provided last year, when military provisions were approved that grant up to 26 weeks of unpaid leave for families of deployed or seriously injured troops, and up to 12 weeks for other deployment-related issues.

“A significant number of military spouses work for small businesses, work part time ... or have less than one year with a company due to recent moves or reassignments,” Smith said.

The Senate version of the bill, S 1441, sponsored by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., was referred to the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which has taken no action. That is one of the panels responsible for the Family and Medical Leave Act, and it pays close attention to the concerns of businesses.

NEW LONDON, Wis. — The Army says a soldier who returned to a hero’s welcome in Wisconsin misrepresented his rank, badges and the origin of his injuries.

About 60 veterans and well-wishers greeted Spc. Jordan Olson with American flags and balloons at the Outagamie County Regional Airport Saturday. Olson was back in the Fox Valley to be treated for injuries he said he received in a roadside explosion in Afghanistan. But, the Army says Olson was not injured in combat.

When Olson returned he told the Appleton Post-Crescent that he was a sergeant. The Army says Olson is a specialist and has not been authorized to wear the Combat Action Badge he had, or a Parachutist Badge from the 82nd Airborne Division.

A phone number for Olson has been disconnected.

Despite plans to give the Veterans Affairs Department a 7 percent budget increase at a time when most federal spending is frozen, key congressional committees are pushing for even bigger veterans budgets.

They just can’t agree on how much more to give.

At the low end, Democrats on the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee are recommending a $380 million increase in the $56.9 billion VA budget proposed by the Obama administration. At the high end, Republicans on the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee are recommending a $2.6 billion increase. Democrats on the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee fall in between, proposing a $571 million increase over the administration budget.

Republicans on the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee have not yet released their recommendations on the 2011 budget.

The recommendations are being sent to the House and Senate budget committees, which are responsible for drawing up a 2011 federal budget guideline, known as a concurrent budget resolution, that sets spending levels for various federal agencies and revenue targets to be used in preparing tax-related legislation. The resolution, while not legally binding, is used as a guide as Congress works on annual agency budgets.

It is unclear whether the budget committees will go along with the idea of giving an even bigger increase to VA, while other federal agencies would get no increase under the Obama administration plan after adjusting for inflation.

In appealing for extra money, the veterans’ committees are saying that scrimping on care for combat veterans unwise given the sacrifices being made in Iraq and Afghanistan. “Caring for veterans is an ongoing cost of war,” Democrats on the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee said in their March 4 recommendations to the House Budget Committee.

“Our recommendations are for stronger funding to help disabled veterans train for new careers, provide support to family caregivers, and invest in medical and prosthetic research,” said Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee chairman.

WASHINGTON — For a guy who professes to have no interest in running for president, Gen. David Petraeus can come off as surprisingly eager to talk about it — sometimes without even being asked.

In a recent appearance at the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia he turned a question about his retirement plans into an opportunity to deny he has political ambitions. An audience member asked if he planned to write a book when he left the Army. He responded by saying he'd feared the politics question.

"The answer is 'no,'” he said — and he didn't mean no book; he meant no race for the White House.

Part of his stock reply to the politics question — even when it's not asked — is to cite lyrics from a Lorrie Morgan country-western song about rejecting an unwanted suitor: "What part of 'no' don't you understand?"

Then he chuckles as if to suggest he's a bit embarrassed by the fuss — fuss sometimes of his own making.

Is he keeping his options open?

As the most popular and widely known general of his generation, Petraeus, 57, is approaching a new juncture in a career that catapulted him to fame when President George W. Bush sent him to Baghdad in early 2007 to carry out a long-shot "surge" strategy that arguably rescued Iraq from collapse.

Ambitious, shrewd, articulate, famously competitive — Petraeus has a three-decade record of accomplishment, a penchant for publicity and a reputation for toughness that sets him apart in today's military. Those qualities explain why he is sometimes talked about as a prospective presidential candidate — and why the talk seems to make him uncomfortable and energized at the same time.

Nearly two decades ago, similar star qualities drove a wave of public speculation about the political prospects for Colin Powell, who declared himself a Republican after he retired from the military in 1993 and was widely touted as a possible challenger to President Bill Clinton in 1996. Powell, the first black Joint Chiefs chairman, declined to run, saying he lacked the passion and commitment.

Many think Petraeus is the leading candidate to become the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, which is the pinnacle of a military career. Another possibility, generally seen as less likely, is that he would be nominated to be the next chief of staff of the Army, succeeding Gen. George Casey.

In late 2008 after returning from Baghdad he began his current assignment as chief of U.S. Central Command, overseeing U.S. military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and a wide swath of troubled territory stretching across the greater Middle East. It's a broader set of responsibilities than he managed in Iraq, but it has reduced the public spotlight on him — not so much because he's no longer in Baghdad but rather because the Obama White House has wanted him to assume a lower public profile.

It's not clear whether President Barack Obama, who opposed the Iraq surge that made Petraeus famous, would choose Petraeus as Joint Chiefs chairman, who by law is senior military adviser to the president.

Even though the outcome in Iraq is still in doubt, Petraeus is widely seen as its savior, a miracle worker. He recently was introduced at a Washington think tank as "an authentic American hero, a man of remarkable honor and valor," and "one of the finest military minds America has ever produced."

In addition to Powell, there are plenty of other examples in American history of a popular general turning to politics, beginning with George Washington and including Ulysses S. Grant and Dwight D. Eisenhower. Among four-star Army generals who made a failed bid for the White House are Alexander Haig (1988) and Wesley K. Clark (2004).

A Petraeus watcher, Ray DuBois, sees him either becoming the next Joint Chiefs chairman, replacing Adm. Mike Mullen, whose term expires next year, or retiring. He does not see a political future for Petraeus.

"My hunch is that he will appropriately avoid any consideration of an elective political career, and that he would be well advised to dampen any aspiration in that regard," DuBois said in an interview. DuBois is a former senior civilian Army official and adviser to former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

It is a strongly held consensus in today's military that top leaders like Petraeus are obliged while in uniform to focus fully on their military duties, setting aside any personal ambitions they might pursue after retirement — especially those in positions of wartime command. Petraeus is known to share that view.

DuBois thinks Petraeus is a natural choice to be chairman of the Joint Chiefs, given his extensive wartime experience and proven ability to negotiate the corridors of power on Capitol Hill and across the government. And although there is no formal requirement for rotating the chairmanship among the services, the Army has gone the longest — nine years so far — without having one of its generals at the top.

Petraeus, whose Army career began in 1974 when he graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., has a doctorate in international relations from Princeton. Coincidentally, in the late 1990s he served as executive assistant to the last Army general to be chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Hugh Shelton.

The ascendancy of Petraeus has come during a period in American military history in which generals have acquired influence well beyond the battlefield. Petraeus and his counterpart commanders in the Pacific, in Europe and in Latin America are regular visitors to the halls of political power in foreign capitals. Some point to the commanders' clout as evidence that U.S. foreign policy has become militarized.

In Petraeus's case, Bush deliberately elevated his Iraq commander to a position of pivotal importance, saying in effect that Petraeus knew best and that the president was just following his general's lead. That reflected a Bush calculation that Petraeus had more credibility on Iraq than did he.

Peter Mansoor, a retired Army colonel who was Petraeus's executive officer in Baghdad during the surge, doubts Petraeus intends to run for president in 2012 but does not rule out the possibility of him considering it later.

"He adamantly states he's not interested in politics," Mansoor said in an interview. "Privately he's never mentioned anything different to me, so I think you have to take him at his word on that, even though no one is really convinced."

In a Petraeus appearance at Georgetown Law Center in January, an audience member raised the matter of the military's role in society, prompting Petraeus to point to the talk about his own political aspirations.

"I've said 'no' about as many different ways as I possibly could. And I truly mean it," he said earnestly. And then he invoked the memory of William T. Sherman, the Civil War general who famously said of his interest in presidential politics: If nominated I will not run, if elected I will not serve.

"I am Shermanesque in my response to those particular questions," Petraeus said.

SEATTLE — A former Army Ranger originally sentenced to 24 years for leading a 2006 military-style bank robbery in Washington state has been given another 20 years for assault and trying to hire a hit man to kill a federal prosecutor.

After his sentencing Monday in federal court, 23-year-old Luke Sommer faces 44 years in prison.

The former Peachland, British Columbia, resident pleaded guilty in January to assault for attacking a robbery co-defendant behind bars and to offering an undercover FBI agent as much as $20,000 to kill an assistant U.S. attorney.

Sommer masterminded the 2006 robbery of a Bank of America branch in Tacoma. The five robbers wore soft body armor in case of a shootout with police. Several carried AK-47 machine guns.

They escaped with more than $50,000, but arrests came quickly after a witness noted their license plate.

BAGHDAD — The military says two soldiers have died in a vehicle accident in Iraq.

A statement says the soldiers died Monday. It says two other soldiers were injured in the same accident, which is under investigation.

The names of the soldiers are being withheld pending notification of next of kin.

JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, Wash. — An Army specialist accused of killing two fellow soldiers and taking their baby in Washington state could face the death penalty if convicted in her upcoming court-martial.

The Army said Monday it has referred charges including premeditated murder, kidnapping and burglary to a general court-martial in the case of 24-year-old Spc. Ivette Davila of Bakersfield, Calif.

She is charged in the March 2008 slayings of Staff Sgt. Timothy Miller and Sgt. Randi Miller in the couple's Parkland, Wash., home. Prosecutors allege that after shooting the two, Davila poured muriatic acid over their bodies in an attempt to dispose of them. The Army also says Davila took the couple's then 6-month-old baby girl back to her Fort Lewis barracks.

Davila's attorney has called into question her mental capacity.

No trial date has been set.

FORWARD OPERATING BASE FRONTENAC, Afghanistan — U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates told a hard-hit battle unit Tuesday that its heavy losses have helped the U.S. begin to push back against the Taliban in southern Afghanistan.

Gates visited a small, remote outpost 30 miles north of Kandahar, where the Fort Lewis, Wash.-based Stryker unit has lost 22 men and suffered an additional 62 wounded since arriving here last summer.

The latest injuries came Monday night, and the latest death three days ago.

Gates praised the 800-soldier unit and told the troops that as the fight shifts toward securing Kandahar itself later this year, they will again be "at the top of the spear."

Gates flew to Kandahar early Tuesday for meetings with U.S. and British generals overseeing the current military campaign in Marjah. He presented Silver Stars for valor to two Army aviators before his visits with U.S. forces at bases elsewhere in the south.

On Monday, the Pentagon chief said the progress made in the Marjah offensive, launched last month, is encouraging, but he stopped short of saying the war is at a turning point. The Marjah campaign routed most Taliban fighters from a town they once controlled, without a high casualty toll for U.S. troops and the Afghan security forces fighting alongside them.

"People still need to understand there is some very hard fighting, very hard days ahead," Gates told reporters.

Gates met Monday in Kabul with Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan. McChrystal said preparations have begun for a crucial campaign to assert Afghan government control over Kandahar, spiritual home of the Taliban.

Gates traveled to Afghanistan to check on the progress of the war's expansion, directed late last year by President Barack Obama.

The 30,000 additional U.S. forces Obama ordered are now arriving and most will be in place by summer. Without being specific, McChrystal suggested that any heavy fighting in Kandahar will wait until more U.S. and NATO troops are ready.

WASHINGTON — President Obama on Monday nominated a former army officer with extensive intelligence experience to take the long-vacant job as head of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).

If he wins approval from the Senate, retired Maj. Gen. Robert Harding will become the first TSA chief since Obama took office more than a year ago. Obama's previous choice for the job, Los Angeles police official Erroll Southers, withdrew from consideration in January.

Southers, a former FBI agent, has said he was the victim of a political "witch hunt" after telling lawmakers in October that the FBI reprimanded him in the late 1980s for asking a San Diego police employee to run a background check on his estranged wife's boyfriend.

Harding has served for more than three decades in a variety of intelligence posts, including the Army's deputy intelligence chief and director of operations for the Defense Intelligence Agency. He also founded Harding Security Associates, a security consulting firm that he sold in July.

"I am confident that Bob's talent and expertise will make him a tremendous asset in our ongoing efforts to bolster security and screening measures at our airports," Obama said in a statement.

After a 23-year-old Nigerian student allegedly tried to detonate a bomb aboard a Northwest Airlines jet on Christmas Day, Obama said information surfaced that could have prevented the incident "but our intelligence community failed to connect those dots."

Democrats reacted positively to Monday's announcement. Sen. John Rockefeller, D-W.Va., chairman of the Commerce Committee that must vet Harding, issued a statement vowing to move the nomination "as expeditiously as possible to get him on the job."

Republicans were more cautious. Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., said that he looked forward to meeting Harding.

DeMint had blocked Southers' nomination last year because he feared that the nominee would open the doors to unionizing TSA security screeners.

The assistant secretary for the Homeland Security Department oversees the TSA's airport security program, the Federal Air Marshal Service and efforts to protect railroads, ports and mass transit from terrorist attacks.

WASHINGTON — The Veterans Affairs Department plans to announce Tuesday that it will fully automate how it pays claims for illnesses related to exposure to the chemical Agent Orange to keep an overburdened system from collapse.

It is the VA’s first effort at automating claims processing in its 80-year history, VA chief technology officer Peter Levin said. It comes as the agency struggles to cut a backlog of more than 1 million disability claims, appeals and other cases.

The system “is likely to break” if nothing is done, Levin said.

“Look, the bottom line is why the hell they didn’t do [automation] 30 years ago,” said John Rowan, national president of Vietnam Veterans of America. “The question is whether they will do it right.”

VA Secretary Eric Shinseki took office last year and said no disability claim should take longer than four months to process. However, department records show that almost 40 percent take an average of 161 days to process, VA records show, and that will increase to 190 days without automation.

The increase is largely the result of Shinseki’s efforts to allow more Agent Orange disability claims.

The military used Agent Orange to defoliate plants and trees in which Vietnamese insurgents hid during the Vietnam War. It was later shown to cause cancer, birth defects and other ailments.

After years of debate and medical research, Veterans Affairs began compensating veterans for illnesses linked to Agent Orange with non-taxable, monthly payments to veterans. For those without dependents, the payments range from $123 to $2,673.

In October, Shinseki added three more illnesses to those linked to the herbicide: Parkinson’s disease, B-cell leukemia and heart disease. He told Congress this would generate 228,000 more claims in the next two years.

The automated claims system will apply only to veterans filing these new Agent Orange claims. If it works, the VA hopes to expand automated claims processing through the department, said Roger Baker, an assistant secretary for information and technology.

Shinseki said in a statement that veterans harmed during military service deserve the “best this nation has to offer.”

Old, incomplete or complicated records have hampered the VA’s move to automation, said former VA Secretary James Peake, who applauded Shinseki’s move. Many records require hands-on investigation, said Peake, who led the department from 2007 to 2009.

Agent Orange cases, however, may be a good place to start, Peake said. Once the information from a veteran’s discharge papers is entered into a computer, the VA can quickly verify service in Vietnam in many cases — a key factor in determining eligibility for Agent Orange benefits.

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — A wind-driven grass fire at Fort Carson has spread across about 700 acres of a training range north of Butts Airfield.

Army officials say the fire was 80 percent contained Monday afternoon, and no structures are threatened.

The cause of the fire wasn’t immediately known. Army spokesman Randy Tisor said he did not know if there was any firing on the small arms range when the fire started.

WASHINGTON — White House aides are increasingly convinced that accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will never face trial in a civilian court and are trying to cut a deal that would still transfer Guantanamo Bay terrorism suspects to the U.S., where many would face criminal charges, a senior administration official said Monday.

President Obama is trying to keep a campaign pledge to close the military prison in Cuba, a promise that has attracted criticism from Republicans who say it would jeopardize national security. He has also lately been under fire from people within his party who say Obama should not accept any deal that would prosecute Mohammed outside the normal judicial system.

But a senior official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive negotiations, said the most important goals are closing Guantanamo Bay and ensuring that the government can prosecute some detainees in U.S. courts. To do so, the only option may be abandoning the administration’s original plan to prosecute the alleged 9/11 conspirators in civilian courts and instead send them before military tribunals.

Sen. Lindsey Graham is seen as key to the deal. Over the weekend, the South Carolina Republican expressed willingness to cut a deal that leads to closing Guantanamo Bay.

“If we could get Khalid Sheik Mohammed and the co-conspirators of 9/11 back in the military commission, it’d go down well with the public,” Graham said Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation”.

But the deal is far from done. The White House does not want to hold military commissions at Guantanamo Bay. That means the administration would need to reach a deal to close the prison and hold military commissions within the U.S.

Graham also wants to set up new court system to handle detainees who are too dangerous to be released but who, because of evidence problems or other reasons, cannot be successfully prosecuted in either tribunals or civilian courts. The White House does not favor such a plan, so a compromise would need to be reached.

It’s not at all clear the administration can muster the votes to pull together that compromise. Normally, the executive branch has broad discretion on how to wage war and prosecute criminals, but Congress has threatened not to pay for any trials inside the U.S. That has forced the White House into a difficult bargaining position.

In an election year, every day that passes makes it more difficult to reach an accord. Republicans have seized several opportunities to criticize the administration as soft on terrorism, and many Democrats appear loathe to tackle the issue themselves, particularly when the administration appears conflicted and indecisive.

Ben Wittes, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution think tank who recently rallied conservative lawyers to counter a new line of GOP attack directed at lawyers within the administration, said the political debate over terrorism is “so coarse and stupid” it ignores the complexities of the national security problem.

He said the administration has made the situation worse for itself by announcing plans — such as closing Guantanamo Bay or prosecuting Mohammed in New York — then letting opposition grow.

Underscoring what a political quagmire this has become, the American Civil Liberties Union ran a full-page advertisement in The New York Times on Sunday, criticizing Obama for even considering military tribunals for Mohammed. The ad portrayed Obama morphing into President George W. Bush, reflecting a disappointment expressed by several supporters.

“The president must know, as a constitutional scholar, that he’s making a horrible, horrible deal. I have no doubt about that,” said David Nacham, a New York attorney who handles detainee cases and who supported and donated to Obama. “And I have no doubt that the people around him believe the deal is necessary to preserve other goals of the administration.”

But he said that doesn’t excuse a compromise he sees as unprincipled.

Retired Brig. Gen. James P. Cullen, who met with Obama when he announced in January 2009 that Guantanamo Bay would be closed, said Monday that the White House should not give up on Attorney General Eric Holder’s plan to prosecute Mohammed in New York.

“Go back. Do the political groundwork that should have been done originally,” Cullen said.

One clear sign that such 9/11 criminal trial is unlikely is that Justice Department experts on Guantanamo Bay, national security and international law aren’t taking part in the negotiations over the fate of Mohammed and others, several U.S. officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the deliberations.

The Justice Department could legally prosecute Mohammed in New York, Virginia or Pennsylvania — states that were involved in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. But New York politicians already have eliminated their state as a possibility and the political sentiment doesn’t appear any friendlier in Virginia or Pennsylvania.

That leaves Obama with little or no ability to insist on a criminal case if he still wants to close Guantanamo Bay and keep criminal courts open for terrorism cases down the road. And those remain the top priorities.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court is entering an emotionally charged dispute between the grieving father of a Marine who died in Iraq and the anti-gay protesters who picket military funerals with inflammatory messages like “Thank God for dead soldiers.”

The court agreed Monday to consider whether the protesters’ message, no matter how provocative or upsetting, is protected by the First Amendment or limited by the competing privacy and religious rights of the mourners.

The justices will hear an appeal from a Marine’s father to reinstate a $5 million verdict against the protesters after they picketed outside his son’s funeral in Maryland four years ago. Members of a Kansas-based church have picketed military funerals to spread their belief that U.S. deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq are punishment for the nation’s tolerance of homosexuality.

The funeral protest dispute was one of three cases the court said it would hear in the fall. The others involve whether parents can sue drug makers when their children suffer serious side effects from vaccines and NASA’s background checks on contract employees. The government says the decision in the NASA case could throw into question the background checks routinely done on all federal government workers.

The protest lawsuit stemmed from picketing by members of the fundamentalist Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., outside the funeral for Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder in Westminster, Md. Snyder died in March 2006 when his Humvee overturned.

The funeral was one of many that have been picketed by Westboro pastor Fred Phelps and other members of his church. One of the signs at Snyder’s funeral combined the U.S. Marine Corps motto, Semper Fi, with a slur against gay men.

Other signs carried by church members read, “America is Doomed,” “God Hates the USA/Thank God for 9/11,” “Priests Rape Boys” and “Thank God for IEDs,” a reference to the roadside bombs that have killed many U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Snyder’s father, Albert, sued Phelps, his daughters and the church and won a verdict of more than $11 million for emotional distress and invasion of privacy. The judge reduced the amount to $5 million, but a federal appeals court threw out the verdict.

The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the signs contained “imaginative and hyperbolic rhetoric” protected by the First Amendment.

Shirley Phelps-Roper, a defendant in the lawsuit and one of Phelps’ daughters, said she is pleased the case is going to the Supreme Court. “We get to preach to the conscience of doomed America,” she said in an interview Monday. “I am so excited that I can’t tell you how good it is.”

In the vaccine case, parents, drug companies and the Obama administration all asked the court to decide whether vaccine makers can be sued in state court over injuries that allegedly result from vaccines.

All but one court has held that a 1986 law limits such lawsuits and instead directs parents to a special vaccine court. The law was intended, in part, to ensure a stable vaccine supply by shielding companies from most lawsuits.

The Georgia Supreme Court is so far the only one that has ruled that families can sue in a vaccine case, and drug makers are eager for the U.S. high court to remove any uncertainty caused by the Georgia ruling.

Associated Press writers Jesse J. Holland in Washington and John Hanna in Topeka, Kan., contributed to this report.

NASIRIYAH, Iraq — American bomb disposal experts in Iraq say few people — even in armed forces — long knew what they did. But not anymore.

Now, the military’s explosive experts are basking in their job’s newfound fame after the Iraq war drama “The Hurt Locker” took home the best picture prize at Sunday’s Academy Awards in Hollywood.

But the soldiers still have to explain they are not all like the film’s arrogant, adrenaline-junkie hero.

Set in the summer of 2004, the movie tells the fictional story of an elite Army bomb squad that has 38 days to go before their members can leave Baghdad. Under enormous pressure, since one false move can kill them and everyone around them, they are itching to get the job done and head home.

Into the fray steps Staff Sgt. William James, who’s either a swaggering, brilliant, bomb disposal expert, or an egomaniacal showoff — perhaps a bit of both. The character and the screenplay both came from the screenwriter’s experience embedding with such a squad in 2004.

But James’ character earned mixed reviews from bomb experts in Iraq attached to the 4th Brigade, 1st Armored Division.

“That guy was more of a run and gun cowboy type, and that is exactly the kind of person that we’re not looking for,” said Tech. Sgt. Jeremy Phillips, a team leader in Iraq’s eastern Maysan province.

Phillips, 30, from Fayetteville, N.C., called the movie’s portrayal of a bomb expert “grossly exaggerated and not appropriate.”

Airman first class Stephen Dobbins said such swagger would put a whole team at risk.

“Our team leaders don’t have that kind of invincibility complex, and if they do, they aren’t allowed to operate,” said Dobbins, 22, of Paulden, Ariz. “A team leader’s first priority is getting his team home in one piece.”

But that doesn’t mean the movie doesn’t have it’s fans among bomb disposal experts serving in Iraq.

“While it was sexed up quite a bit, I really enjoyed it,” said Tech Sgt. William Adomeit, 31, from Las Vegas, Nev. Adomeit saw the movie for the first time at his base in the southern Iraqi town of Nasiriyah.

Other than the best picture prize, the movie earned five more Oscars, including best director honors for Kathryn Bigelow — the first woman in the 82-year history of the Academy Awards to earn Hollywood’s top prize for filmmakers.

The movie’s title can mean different things — from GI slang for severe injury to a place no one wants to go, to a tricky, locked-in space a bomb expert finds himself in when a blast goes off.

Most bomb technicians accuse the movie of taking cinematic liberties that would never occur in a war zone, such as hunting bomb-makers down dark alleys alone, or riding around Baghdad unescorted by Army vehicles.

“The one vehicle going out by itself, that would not be realistic at all,” said Senior Airman Katie Hamm, 23, of Raleigh, N.C.

Six years after the film takes place, bombings are still the primary threat to Iraqis. Bomb disposal teams are still finding weapons caches and responding to rocket attacks, but the nature of their mission has changed dramatically since 2004, when the film takes place.

With the U.S. military preparing to withdraw all combat troops from Iraq by September, American bomb teams are training up Iraqis to do a job American technicians usually spend years training for.

This new task moves American bomb technicians from the field into the classroom, where they pass on their knowledge to Iraqis who will take over the high-risk job.

“We weren’t really trained to be teachers necessarily, or advisers,” said Staff Sgt. Andrew Krueger, 24, of Greeley, Colo. “It’s something you kind of have to learn how to do as you go.”

Collecting intelligence on bomb-makers is one duty of explosive experts’ that hasn’t ebbed over the years — but trophies from disposed bombs are not exactly souvenirs you can take home.

“The Hurt Locker’s” lead character, played by actor Jeremy Renner, keeps bomb parts under his bed as keepsakes of the bombs that nearly killed him. In the real world, he would be accused of withholding evidence.

American bombs technicians take care to preserve pieces of bombs so they can use that intelligence to track down and identify bomb-makers.

“Each bomb maker has his own way of doing things, it’s like a hard-wired routine — they all have a signature, they all use a certain kind of tape, or they use a certain kind of battery,” said Phillips.

Reality is at odds with the movie when it comes to the film’s iconic bomb suit. Most of the time, it sits unused on a shelf in the teams’ vehicles. Even the robots — the workhorses of bomb-disposal teams — rarely see action nowadays in Iraq since the Americans use them only when called in for a response to a planted bomb.

The explosives experts say they never go for the suit first but use it as a last resort, preferring to do everything as remotely and safely as possible. So the movie’s idea that they show up every day and throw on the suit first thing is pretty out there, they said.

But one thing the movie got down pat, the experts in Iraq say, is a bomb disposal expert’s love for the adrenaline rush of a job well done. Now, with improved security across Iraq, their missions are rare.

“If we’re slow, and nothing’s going on, it means something is going right,” said Dobbins.

ANNAPOLIS, Md. — As cybersecurity grows in importance to national security, the nation’s three major military academies are teaching students how to be effective cyber warriors, both by defending and attacking computer systems.

The U.S. Naval Academy, which admits it has fallen behind the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., and the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo., outlined a strategy Monday to catch up quickly to best train future officers to fight in cyberspace.

Andrew Phillips, the Naval Academy’s chief academic officer, said the computer science department is running its first cybersecurity course for students who are not computer science majors.

“The course is something of a pilot test to determine what sorts of topics in cybersecurity and information warfare can realistically be taught to midshipmen who have no prior computing background,” Phillips told the school’s Board of Visitors during a meeting Monday.

In December, the Naval Academy created the Center for Cyber Security Studies. The center was quick to coordinate with the National Security Agency, headquartered nearby, and set up a six-week internship program for 14 students. That’s a 50 percent increase from last year.

The Naval Academy is testing two new elective courses in computer science: Cryptography and Network Security and Computer Forensics. The Naval Academy also is founding a new club which will use hands-on activities and contests to increase cyberwarfare awareness for the entire student body.

U.S. officials and computer experts have repeatedly warned that the nation is not adequately prepared for a cyber attack.

Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Md., chairs a congressional subcommittee that oversees cybersecurity issues and is a member of the academy’s Board of Visitors. He said, “Our future military leaders need to really understand that this is a major threat to the United States and we have to be prepared.”

Cybersecurity education has become even more important to the Navy, which established the U.S. Fleet Cyber Command and recommissioned the U.S. 10th Fleet at Fort Meade in Maryland in January. They have been put together to enhance cybersecurity in military operations.

Phillips said the new command so close to the academy has underscored the importance of teaching cyber skills.

“The Navy really is stepping into this with both feet, and they’re doing it very quickly,” Phillips said.

The other two academies have made cybersecurity a part of the curriculum taken by all students for years.

Lt. Col. Robert Fanelli, a computer science professor at West Point, said information technology has been required for about 10 years for all cadets who don’t test out of the class.

“I think that the emphasis on these issues is only going to increase, at least over the short term, and I think longer-term it’s not going to go away,” Fanelli said.

The Air Force Academy created an emphasis in the subject in 2004 by adding classes in Cryptology, Computer Security and Information Warfare and Network Security. Since then, the school has graduated more than 80 students with the cyberwarfare emphasis.

The Air Force Academy’s Cyber Warfare Club, founded last year, includes 124 members from all classes from 12 academic majors.

Every freshman at the Air Force Academy takes a class that includes some aspects of cyberwarfare.

“Everybody has some exposure,” said Lt. Col. Jeff Boleng, deputy head of the Air Force Academy’s department of computer sciences, noting that the school has seen interest grow in the last five years.

FULTON, Texas — A former Air Force sentry dog handler in Vietnam has one last mission.

He’s working with others to honor military canines with a national monument.

“Our war dogs deserve recognition for the lives they saved,” said Larry Chilcoat, who patrolled the combat perimeter of Camp Cameron, Vietnam, throughout 1969 with a German shepherd named Geisha.

“It’s been 40 years, and I have a beautiful wife and granddaughter, but I don’t carry their pictures,” said Chilcoat, 62. “But I still carry a photo of Geisha; she changed my life.”

“I love my family,” Chilcoat said, “but Geisha was my lifeblood in a jungle nightmare, and we both relied on each other day and night to survive.

“She heard things I didn’t and let me know, and I knew she would die to protect me.”

Military dogs saved more than 10,000 lives in Vietnam, according to the U.S. War Dog Association. More than 200 of about 4,000 dogs that served in Vietnam died while on duty, Chilcoat said.

Chilcoat is one of three former military dog handlers who received Pentagon approval in January for a proposed Military Working Dog National Monument.

The veterans presented plans for a bronze pedestal with a soldier and four dogs, designed by Brian Rich of Fairfax Va. He’s the uncle of a Marine dog handler, Cpl. Dustin Jerome Lee, who was killed by a rocket-propelled grenade March 21, 2007, in Fallujah, Iraq.

Lee’s bomb sniffing dog, Lex, was wounded and later was adopted by Lee’s family, said Rich, 35, a graphic artist and former Marine.

“It’s helped my family with the loss of my nephew, and motivated me to design the monument,” Rich said.

Chilcoat said Pentagon officials loved the design.

Chilcoat, project founder John Burnam of Bethesda, Md., and Richard Deggans of Plano are taking back a clay model in mid-April being made by bronze sculptor Paula Slater of Hidden Valley Lake, Calif.

Chilcoat, Burnam and Deggans, who are among more than 10,000 Vietnam War dog handlers, met through the Vietnam Dog Handlers Association. Their push to honor their dogs led to President Bush signing legislation in 2008 for a monument, to be built and maintained with private donations. The location is tentatively planned for Fort Belvoir, Va. They have raised about $20,000 of an estimated cost of about $850,000.

Pigeons, dolphins, horses and other animals have served in wars since World War I, said Burnam, 62, who served in the Army from 1966-68. But no animals have done as much as dogs, which have served as sentries, scouts, trackers and patrol leaders, he said.

Burnam and his scout dog led infantry patrols.

Burnam knows first-hand that the dogs, like his scout dog, deserve recognition.

“We were the tip of the spear, detecting sounds and movement in the jungles that led to ammunition caches, underground tunnel complexes and entrenched enemies,” he said.

“If the dog’s body goes rigid, they cock their head, perk ears, fix their eyes, you know it’s dangerous,” he said. “You certainly don’t want to go where the dog doesn’t want to go. They saved my butt from enemy fire several times.”

In one incident, his dog alerted him as they led a patrol into a clearing, he said.

“We hit the ground — ambushed by enemies in bunkers,” he said. “We laid behind a 10-inch-diameter tree trunk, with enemies firing in front of us, and our guys firing over our heads. If we would have moved either direction, they would have blown the hell out of us.”

BAGHDAD — Millions of Iraqis voted in national elections on Sunday despite bomb and grenade attacks in a test of democracy and Iraq's ability to take over security from U.S. troops.

Election observers said the most open and competitive election since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein went smoothly. People emerged smiling from polling stations with purple-stained fingers, the signature Iraqi method to prevent vote fraud, and said they hoped for a better future.

"We have suffered from the security situation, the lack of jobs and poor basic services," said Usra Abdullah, 48, in Baghdad. "If it means that I die while casting my vote then I die."

President Obama praised the Iraqis' stand against violence. "The Iraqi people have chosen to shape their future through the political process," he said.

Poll openings at 7 a.m. were met with numerous blasts. In an explosion near Sadr City, rescue workers said they could hear women and children under the debris screaming for help. The Interior Ministry said at least 35 people had died in the violence.

Maj. Gen. Ahmed Assadi, an Iraqi army commander, said voters were undeterred. "Ninety-nine percent believe in the political process. We cannot and will not let the other 1 percent decide for us," he said.

Iraqis living in the U.S. also voted in six U.S. cities over the weekend.

"Today is like Eid for me," Haadi Al-Bagdadi, 48, of Dearborn, Mich., said after voting, referring to the Muslim holy day. His brother and three brothers-in-law were killed by the Hussein regime.

The election comes nearly seven years after the U.S. invasion in 2003. A free and fair election plays into Obama's plan to withdraw 50,000 U.S. troops from Iraq in August — more than half of the 96,000 troops there. U.S. ambassador Christopher Hill said the implication of the vote was "enormous."

"If this goes well ... and if the government formation goes well, this could usher in a whole new beginning for this country and also U.S. relations with Iraq," he said while in a U.S. base in Tikrit.

Voters on Sunday were choosing from 6,200 candidates for 325 seats in parliament who will select the next prime minister. Four coalitions of candidates were running. None was likely to gain a majority, which means the two top vote-getters may have to form a joint government.

Results were not expected for several days, the Independent High Election Commission said.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was elected in 2005 largely from the support of Shiites, who are the majority in Iraq. Sunnis, who were the backbone of the Hussein regime, largely boycotted that election but appeared to be voting Sunday, according to the European Commission.

WILMINGTON, Del. — An Iraq veteran is in command of Delaware's Army National Guard after an emotional ceremony marking the formal retirement of his predecessor.

Brig. Gen. Terry Wiley formally turned over his command Sunday to Brig. Gen. Scott Chambers after four years in charge.

Gov. Jack Markell presented Wiley with an honorary promotion to major general during the ceremony.

Wiley served in Vietnam from 1967 to 1969. He was wounded in a rocket attack, but stayed in the country and returned to his unit. He had been in the Delaware National Guard since 1975.

Chambers served in Iraq from December 2008 to September 2009 as commander of a signal brigade running communications in the war theater. He took over last month but a snow storm delayed the ceremony.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — U.S. troops are withdrawing from the shattered capital, leaving many Haitians anxious that the most visible portion of international aid is ending even as the city is still mired in misery and vulnerable to unrest.

As troops packed their duffels and began to fly home this weekend, Haitians and some aid workers wondered whether U.N. peacekeepers and local police are up to the task of maintaining order. More than a half-million people still live in vast encampments that have grown more unpleasant in recent days with the early onset of the rainy season.

Some also fear the departure of the American troops is a sign of dwindling international interest in the plight of the Haitian people following the catastrophic Jan. 12 earthquake.

"I would like for them to stay in Haiti until they rebuild the country and everybody can go back to their house," said Marjorie Louis, a 27-year-old mother of two, as she warmed a bowl of beans for her family over a charcoal fire on the fake grass of the national stadium.

U.S. officials say the long-anticipated draw down of troops is not a sign of waning commitment to Haiti, only a change in the nature of the operation. Security will now be the responsibility of the 10,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping force and the Haitian police.

A smaller number of U.S. forces — the exact number has not yet been determined — will be needed as the U.N. and Haitian government reassert control, said Gen. Douglas Fraser, head of U.S. Southern Command, which runs the Haiti operation.

"Our mission is largely accomplished," Fraser said.

American forces arrived in the immediate aftermath of the quake to treat the wounded, provide emergency water and rations and help prevent a feared outbreak of violence among desperate survivors. They also helped reopen the airport and seaport.

There has been no widespread violence but security is a real issue. A U.N. food convoy traveling from Gonaives to Dessalines on Friday was stopped and overrun by people, who looted two trucks before peacekeepers regained control, U.N. officials said.

They managed to escort the other two back to Gonaives. There were no reports of injuries.

The military operation was criticized by some Haitian senators and foreign leaders as heavy-handed and inappropriate in a country that had been occupied by American forces for nearly two decades in the early 20th century. But ordinary Haitians largely welcomed the troops, many out of disenchantment with their own government.

"They should stay because they have been doing a good job," 35-year-old Lesly Pierre said as his family prepared dinner under a tarp at an encampment in Petionville. "If it was up to our government, we wouldn't have gotten any help at all."

U.S. soldiers said they had nothing but warm encounters with the Haitian people.

"They're real good people. They just want help," Army Pfc. Troy Sims, a 19-year-old from Fresno, Calif., said as he prepared to board a flight back to the U.S. "I feel that us being here helped a lot. If we weren't here, things probably would have gotten out of control."

There are now about 11,000 troops, more than half of them on ships just off the coast, down from a peak of around 20,000 on Feb. 1. The total is expected to drop to about 8,000 in coming days as the withdrawal gathers steam. The military said more than 700 paratroopers left this weekend.

Soldiers are now gone from the General Hospital, where they once directed traffic and kept order amid the chaos of mass casualties. There are no more Haitian patients on board the Comfort, which treated 8,600 people after the quake. At a country club in Petionville, where some 100,000 Haitians are living in rough shelters in a muddy ravine, only a few soldiers remain of the several hundred there after the disaster.

Alison Thompson said she was nervous about the smaller U.S. troop contingent.

"Soon we are not going to have any security," said Thompson, medical coordinator of the Jenkins/Penn Relief Organization, which runs a field hospital at the edge of the ravine. "Everybody is just so worried that they are pulling out because it's going to get dangerous."

It was the same concern for Louis at the national stadium.

"If the troublemakers see that there is some kind of force here, they will think twice before they do anything," she said. "They are already getting ready to stir up trouble."

But Ted Constan, chief program officer for Partners in Health, said that the way to address security is to get adequate shelter and other aid to the hundreds of thousands of people who are now stranded in squalid encampments.

"The real solution is to deliver services ... rather than turn Haiti into a military state," he said.