Sum It Up In A Word? Ineptitude

International:
Afghanistan
Five years after the fall of the Taliban, a joint report by the Pentagon and the State Department has found that the American-trained police force in Afghanistan is largely incapable of carrying out routine law enforcement work, and that managers of the $1.1 billion training program cannot say how many officers are actually on duty or where thousands of trucks and other equipment issued to police units have gone.

Bolton Resigns
“President Bush has accepted the resignation of U.N. Ambassador John Bolton when his recess appointment expires,” CBS News reports. A copy of Bolton’s resignation letter is here.
Here is President Bush's releases a statement

Bush meets Shiite leader as Iraq toll mounts
US President George W. Bush told Iraqi Shiite leader Abdel Aziz al-Hakim that Iran and Syria must halt their "destructive activity" in Iraq, a Bush aide said, as the toll from sectarian violence jumped and US casualties also rose sharply.

The powerful political and religious leader met Bush as police in Baghdad on Monday recovered 52 corpses of men killed execution-style in apparent sectarian attacks, taking the number of dead over the past two days to nearly 150, according to a security official. Read full story

National:
Katrina
The Army Corps of Engineers for months "frantically" prepared for hurricane season, "patching broken levees and building floodgates." "That repair work is essentially complete and the corps has moved on to the task of strengthening flood protection in New Orleans beyond its pre-Hurricane Katrina level, hoping to entice residents back," the New York Times reports. "But lately the bulldozers have been idle, and the trucks motionless." "To save money, the corps will skip interim steps on some projects and go straight for the higher, 100-year level of protection." The move "will leave the city at risk until 2010 at least." The corps "has also scaled back plans to armor the levees against being scoured away when water flows over the top." Meanwhile, "Louisiana's largest commercial insurance provider" has announced it has plans to "cancel all its commercial property policies in the New Orleans area next year, sparking fears that other insurers will follow and slow the region's economic recovery." "This is sending a shock wave through the business community," said one economic development official. "We cannot exist as a business community without insurance." Another commentator says the announcement could be "disastrous to the recovery of New Orleans."

The Resignation You DIDN’T Hear About
Pentagon intelligence chief Stephen Cambone, a close ally of outgoing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, "will step down at the end of the year, becoming the first key department member to leave in the wake of Rumsfeld's resignation." Cambone was a strong advocate for war against Iraq. He shared "Rumsfeld’s disdain for the analysis and assessments proffered by the C.I.A., viewing them as too cautious, and chafed, as did Rumsfeld, at the C.I.A.’s inability, before the Iraq war, to state conclusively that Saddam Hussein harbored weapons of mass destruction."

E. Coli Outbreak Hits Long Island.; 8 Taco Bells Closed At least 14 people in two counties on Long Island have been affected by the recent E. coli outbreak that was first reported in central New Jersey. Officials say three people in Nassau County and 11 people in Suffolk County are being treated in the outbreak, though there is no confirmation yet as to whether the outbreak in New Jersey and the one in New York are related. More here

Host of Trouble Over Koran A Muslim-American advocacy group has called on radio talk show host Dennis Prager to be removed from the governing board of the federally funded U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum after Prager last week blasted a representative-elect for planning to use the Koran at his swearing-in next month. Full story here...

Exclusive for FOX (again) President Bush sits down with Brit Hume to discuss Iraq, Bolton's departure, Rumsfeld memo and presidential legacy. Peep the video here ...Hmmmm...Iraq is in a civil war, the administration’s domestic agenda has stalled and Bush’s approval ratings are mired in the the thirties. But Brit Hume interviewed the president and he wants you to know that none of it has affected his mood.

Previewing the interview, Hume reported that “His spirits are good, his atmosphere is — you know, his attitude is confident. He seems confortable, he seems to enjoy the work.” Watch it here

In Other News…
"The Pentagon is invoking emergency authority to fast-track funding of a comprehensive war-crimes court compound at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba," the Miami Herald reports. Pentagon spokesmen "would not say when -- if ever -- the Pentagon had last invoked similar authority."

Iraqi president Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, "yesterday rejected suggestions that an international conference be held to address the violence wracking his country, echoing sentiments expressed" by other leading Iraqi politicians.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), the incoming Senate Rules and Administration Chairwoman, will push for "legislation to require that there be an independent paper record of every ballot." See a summary of the Ballot Integrity Act here.

The Iraq situation is 'much worse' than civil war, according to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan. "We had the strife in Lebanon and other places, we called that a civil war," Annan said, "this is much worse."

From The Right:
Jeff Jacoby: Fighting to win in Iraq
If Bush the Elder is remembered for a rather heartless and cynical foreign policy, then much of the credit must go to Baker. And what Baker did for the father, he is now poised to do for the son.

From The Left:
Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff : Israel's Defense Forces Warn of Pending Mideast War Haaretz reports that there will be a war next summer. The atmosphere in the Israel Defense Forces in the past month has been very pessimistic. The IDF's operative assumption is that during the coming summer months, a war will break out against Hezbollah and perhaps against Syria as well.

Quote Of The Day:
"America does not invade countries with weapons of mass destruction, that shit is dangerous!"
Dave Chappelle

(Sources: SF Chronicle, FOXNews, Center For American progress, TownHall, TruthOut, US Senate website, Boston Globe, Miami Herald, Forbes, NewYorker, NYT, NOLA, FirstDraft.com, DrudgeReport, WCBS, AFP, PoliticalCartoons.com)