International:
Iraq Delays Talks, Says 3's a Crowd
In a tortured explanation backing up the Iraqi version of events, White House officials told reporters that it was decided the three-person meeting was "in the end not the optimal way to spend the president's time," and it would not have been as productive as the previously scheduled separate bilateral meetings between the leaders.

While U.S. officials were vague about the sequence of events that led to cancellation of Wednesday's meeting, they insisted that it was agreed upon by all three leaders, though the call about the change of plans was made to Air Force One while Bush was still traveling from Riga, Latvia.

"Since the King of Jordan and the prime minister had a bilateral themselves earlier today, everyone believed that it negated the purpose of the three of them to meet tonight together in a trilateral setting," White House adviser Dan Bartlett told reporters traveling with Bush.

The explanation, offered in detail several hours after the fact, resembled one given by an Iraqi lawmaker traveling with al-Maliki in Amman. Redha Jawad Taqi, a senior aide of top Shiite politician Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim said the Iraqis balked at the three-way meeting after learning that King Abdullah wanted to broaden the talks to include the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. More at FOX

Deadly radioactive polonium-210 was found on two BRITISH AIRWAYS jets tonight....
British Airways said that "very low traces of a radioactive substance" had been found on two of its three aircraft taken out of service in the probe into the death of a former Russian spy.
BA said it withdrew three Boeing 767 short-haul carriers from service "to enable forensic examination to be carried out" after it was notified Tuesday night by those probing Alexander Litvinenko's death last week. More here

What's In A Name?
According to a new Harris poll, 68 percent of Americans say they believe there is a civil war in Iraq, compared with 14 percent who disagree. Only 13 percent think new Defense nominee Robert Gates will make the situation in Iraq better, versus 42 percent who think he will make no difference. “About half of those polled would like the government to set a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. troops in Iraq, while 18% favor withdrawing all U.S. troops now and 19% favor sending more troops to stabilize the situation.”

National:

Powell says world should recognize Iraq at civil war Former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Wednesday Iraq had descended into civil war and urged world leaders to accept that "reality".

Powell's remarks came ahead of a meeting between Bush and Iraqi prime minister Nuri al-Maliki in the Jordanian capital to discuss the security developments in Iraq. "I would call it a civil war," Powell told a business forum in the United Arab Emirates. "I have been using it (civil war) because I like to face the reality," Powell added. Video here

Pentagon plans Iraq escalation.
“The Pentagon is developing plans to send four more battalions to Iraq early next year, partly to boost security in Baghdad, defense officials said Wednesday.” The AP reports that the “extra combat engineer battalions of reserves, likely to be sent to Baghdad, would total about 3,500 troops.”

Emergency Funding? The Pentagon plans to "ask for at least another $127 billion" in emergency funding for the Iraq war, military operations in Afghanistan and anti-terrorism efforts. The expected proposal, which "could be larger and broader than any since the Sept. 11 attacks," is again raising concern that the "emergency requests are increasingly being used to finance items that are not truly emergencies."

Emergency requests bypass a good deal of routine congressional oversight, and incoming congressional leaders say they had been planning to limit the emergency spending "in favor of the regular federal budget process, which affords greater oversight and congressional control." The request is expected to be larger due to new rules laid out in an Oct. 25 memo by Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England. The memo said that military services could extend requests beyond Iraq and Afghanistan costs to "include a greater number of expenses more loosely tied to the actual wars, such as new military weapons systems and training exercises," the Los Angeles Times reports.

"The England memo basically said, 'Let her rip,'" said Winslow Wheeler, director of the Straus Military Reform Project. "Anything goes, as long as you can put it under the pretext of not only Iraq or Afghanistan but the global war on terror."

In September, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service complained that "the distinction between what is war-related and what instead is part of the Department of Defense's ongoing transformation or modernization is less clear."

In Other News...

At a recent private reception, President Bush asked Sen.-elect Jim Webb (D-VA), "How's your boy?" referring to Webb's son Jimmy, who is serving in Iraq. Webb answered, "I'd like to get them out of Iraq, Mr. President," to which Bush responded, "That's not what I asked you." Webb "coldly" shot back, "That's between me and my boy, Mr. President." Webb later confessed that he was "tempted to slug" Bush.

"A December 7 summit at Riyadh may be the first venue for the Bush administration to negotiate directly with Iran and Syria in an effort to reduce the bloodshed in Iraq," the New York Sun speculates.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) said yesterday "that unless the Bush administration admits that the war in Iraq is a 'failure,' it will never develop a strategy to leave the country successfully."

"About $2 billion worth of Army and Marine Corps equipment -- from rifles to tanks -- is wearing out or being destroyed every month in Iraq and Afghanistan," USA Today reports. "The wear and tear may lead to future equipment shortages and cutbacks in more advanced weapons."

Incoming Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) promised to do away with the Do-Nothing Congress by putting in "some hours here that haven't been put in in a long time." That means "being here more days in the week and we start off this year with seven weeks without a break. That hasn't been done in many, many years here."

From The Right:

Michael Medved: Coping with middle class nightmares: The conservative imperative
Middle class insecurity is such an obvious, overwhelming factor for so many tens of millions of Americans that one can only marvel that both of our major political parties have done so little to address or temper it.

From The Left:

Julian E. Barnes and Peter Spiegel: Controversy Over Pentagon's War-Spending Plan

The Pentagon is preparing an emergency spending proposal that could be larger and broader than any since the September 11 attacks, covering not only the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan but extending to other military operations connected to the Bush administration's war on terrorism. The spending plans may push the Defense Department into conflict with Democrats as they take control of Capitol Hill in January.

Quote Of The Day:

"There's a lot of sectarian violence taking place, fomented in my opinion because of these attacks by al-Qaida, causing people to seek reprisal."

George W. Bush at a news conference with Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves

(Sources: FOXNews, DrudgeReport, Breibert, Center For American Progress, TownHall, TruthOut, HarrisPoll, ABCNews, Reuters, AP, , CNN, NY Sun, TheHill, WashingtonPost, Boston Globe, USAToday, NewsDay, PoliticalCartoons.com, LA Times, Congressional Research Service )