Mark Bowden, from the Atlantic archive:

The inside story of how the interrogators of Task Force 145 cracked Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s inner circle—without resorting to torture—and hunted down al-Qaeda’s man in Iraq

The Ploy

No matter what Israel does, the rockets from the Gaza Strip just keep coming. Young men like Abdul are the reason why. He studies by day, but at night he builds bombs for the Islamic Jihad. He and his fellow militants can produce up to 100 per night.

Graveyard Shift for Islamic Jihad: A Visit to a Gaza Rocket Factory

Richard A. Clarke:

When I left the Bush administration in 2003, it was clear to me that its strategy for defeating terrorism was leaving our nation more vulnerable and our people in a perilous place. Not only did its policies misappropriate resources, weaken the moral standing of America, and threaten long-standing legal and constitutional provisions, but the president also employed misleading and reckless rhetoric to perpetuate his agenda.

This week's State of the Union proved nothing has changed.

Bush legacy: Setting a standard in fear-mongering

Three independent reports have concluded this month that a major new effort is needed to succeed in Afghanistan. These reports - by the Afghanistan Study Group, established by the Center for the Study of the Presidency following the Iraq Study Group; the Strategic Advisors Group of the Atlantic Council of the United States; and a paper written by Dr. Harlan Ullman and others - concur that without prompt actions by the U.S. and its allies, the mission in Afghanistan may fail - causing severe consequences to U.S. strategic interests worldwide, including the war on terrorism and the future of NATO. The U.S. cannot afford to let Afghanistan continue to be the neglected, or forgotten, war.

Afghanistan Study Group Final Report, January 30, 2008

Charleston Mayor Danny Jones had a problem as he tried to get through the security gate at a California airport: He had misplaced his driver's license, and the expired one in his wallet wouldn't do.

The guards at John Wayne Airport in Orange County searched his bag.

Then he remembered picking up a copy of Charleston Magazine while on his way to the West Coast for a little rest and relaxation.

Inside was a photograph of him standing in downtown Charleston and an article Jones had written as mayor welcoming visitors to the state capital.

Only then was he allowed to board his flight home.

W.Va. mayor uses magazine to prove ID

A few days old, but no one mentioned it, did they?

Abu Laith al-Libi, a wanted al Qaeda terrorist, was killed in Pakistan by a CIA airstrike, three U.S. officials told CNN Thursday.

From the archive:

High Qaeda Aide Retracted Claim of Link With Iraq

The Man in the Snow White Cell

Report Warned Bush Team About Intelligence Suspicions

Qaeda-Iraq Link U.S. Cited Is Tied to Coercion Claim

Transcripts of Interviews of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Faraj al-Libi, & Ramzi Binalshibh

CIA kills top al Qaeda terrorist in Pakistan

In a daring ambush, insurgents blasted a U.S. patrol with a roadside bomb Monday and showered survivors with gunfire from a mosque in increasingly lawless Mosul. Five American soldiers were killed in the explosion — even as Iraqi troops moved into the northern city to challenge al-Qaida in Iraq.

5 US soldiers killed in N. Iraq

File under New Middle Ages:

A crucial Iraqi ally of the United States in its recent successes in the country is threatening to withdraw his support and allow al-Qa'ida to return if his fighters are not incorporated into the Iraqi army and police.

"If there is no change in three months there will be war again," said Abu Marouf, the commander of 13,000 fighters who formerly fought the Americans. He and his men switched sides last year to battle al-Qa'ida and defeated it in its main stronghold in and around Fallujah.

"If the Americans think they can use us to crush al-Qa'ida and then push us to one side, they are mistaken," Abu Marouf told The Independent in an interview in a scantily furnished villa beside an abandoned cemetery near the village of Khandari outside Fallujah. He said that all he and his tribal following had to do was stand aside and al-Qa'ida's fighters would automatically come back. If they did so he might have to ally himself to a resurgent al-Qa'ida in order to "protect myself and my men".

Abu Marouf said he was confident that his forces controlled a swath of territory stretching east from Fallujah into Baghdad and includes what Americans called "the triangle of death" south-west of the capital. Even so his bodyguards, armed with AK-47 assault rifles, nervously watched the abandoned canals and reed beds around his temporary headquarters. Others craned over light machine guns in newly built watch towers.

'If there is no change in three months, there will be war again'

The surge's successes and limits are both plainly visible on al-Kindy today. A well-stocked pharmacy has reopened. A new cell-phone store selling the latest in high-tech gadgets opened in December. A trickle of shoppers moved along the sidewalks on a recent chilly morning as a grocer, who asked that his name not be used, surveyed the local business climate. "Things are improving slightly," he said. "But not as much as we hoped." Indeed, if al-Kindy is coming back, it is doing so slowly, unevenly—and only with a lot of well-armed help. Sandbagged checkpoints stand at either end of al-Kindy, manned by Iraqi soldiers with machine guns. Iraqi police in body armor prowl back alleys and side streets to intercept would-be car bombers. U.S. military officials often point visitors to al-Kindy Street as a metaphor for what is working—and what remains undone. "We still have some work to do," says Lieut. General Ray Odierno, the No. 2 U.S. commander in Iraq. "I tell everybody we've opened a window. There's a level of security now that would allow [Iraqi politicians] to take advantage of this window in time, pass the key legislation to bring Iraq together so they can move forward. Are they going to do that? In my mind, we don't know."

One year and 937 U.S. fatalities later, the surge is a fragile and limited success, an operation that has helped stabilize the capital and its surroundings but has yet to spark the political gains that could set the stage for a larger American withdrawal. As a result of improving security in Iraq, the war no longer is the most pressing issue in the presidential campaign, having been supplanted by the faltering U.S. economy. Voters still oppose the war by nearly 2 to 1, but Democrats sense the issue could be less galvanizing as troops begin to return home. Republicans who supported the surge, like Arizona Senator John McCain, have been trying out tiny victory laps lately, but because the hard-won stability could reverse itself, both parties are proceeding carefully. Interviews with top officials in Baghdad and Washington and on-the-ground assessments by Time reporters in Iraq reveal why the surge has produced real gains—but also why the war still has the capacity to cause collateral damage half a world away.

Why the Surge Worked - TIME

It's well-known that the Army might not have enough combat troops to conduct sustained counterinsurgency campaigns. Now it seems the problem may soon be about quality as well as quantity (brains as well as boots).

The main reason for the decline in standards is the war in Iraq and its onerous "operations tempo"—soldiers going back for third and fourth tours of duty, with no end in sight. This is well understood among senior officers, and it's a major reason why several Army generals favor a faster withdrawal rate. They worry that fewer young men and women—and now it seems fewer smart young men and women—will sign up if doing so means a guaranteed assignment to Iraq. They worry that, if these trends continue, the Army itself will start to crumble.

So, there's a double spiral in effect. The war keeps more good soldiers from enlisting. The lack of good candidates compels the Army to recruit more bad candidates. The swelling ranks of ill-suited soldiers make it harder to fight these kinds of wars effectively.

Petraeus and officers who think like him are right: We're probably not going to be fighting on the ground, toe-to-toe and tank-to-tank, with the Russian, Chinese, or North Korean armies in the foreseeable future. Yet if the trends continue, our Army might be getting less and less skilled at the "small wars" we're more likely to fight.

So, we're facing two choices. Either we change the way we recruit soldiers (and, by the way, cash bonuses are already about as bountiful as they're going to get), or we change the way we conduct foreign policy—that is, we engage more actively in diplomacy or, if war is unavoidable, we form genuine coalitions to help fight it. Otherwise, unless our most dire and direct interests are at stake, we should forget about fighting at all.

War Stories: Dumb and Dumber