International:

How the US sent $12bn in cash to Iraq. And watched it vanish (Special flights brought in tons of banknotes which disappeared into the war zone )

The US flew nearly $12bn in shrink-wrapped $100 bills into Iraq, then distributed the cash with no proper control over who was receiving it and how it was being spent.

The staggering scale of the biggest transfer of cash in the history of the Federal Reserve has been graphically laid bare by a US congressional committee. Full story here

Security Crackdown Under Way in Baghdad

Baghdad's streets were electric with tension Wednesday as U.S. officials confirmed the new security operation was under way. U.S. armor rushed through streets, and Iraqi armored personnel carriers guarded bridges and major intersections.

New coils of barbed-wire and blast barriers marked checkpoints that caused traffic bottlenecks. U.S. Apache helicopters whipped the air over parts of the capital where they hadn't been seen before.

But gunfire still rang out across the city, and some residents said they doubted life would get better. "Nothing will work, it's too late," said Hashem al-Moussawi, a resident of the Sadr City Shiite enclave who was badly wounded in a bombing in December. Read more here

National:

Top Reconstruction Official Flown To Baghdad To Avoid Oversight Hearing

For the first time since the war began, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) is holding aggressive oversight hearings into the billions in waste, fraud, and abuse of U.S. funds in Iraq. On Jan. 10, when President Bush first made his plans for escalation public, he also announced plans to "appoint a reconstruction coordinator in Baghdad to ensure better results for economic assistance being spent in Iraq." The next day, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice named career diplomat Timothy Carney to the position. During yesterday's hearings, Waxman revealed that the State Department has blocked Carney from appearing at the hearing, despite the fact that Carney personally told Waxman he "was willing to come." Moreover, the Bush administration has apparently rushed him to Baghdad despite claiming that the reason he could not appear at the hearing was because he "did not yet know what he was going to do in Iraq." Waxman added that the State Department has "now told us that they may make him available to Congress in six months."

Blackwater e-mail outlines gear shortage

A day before four of the company's security guards died in Iraq a Blackwater USA employee wrote company officials that it was time to stop the "smoke and mirror show" and provide crucial equipment for the private army in the field.

"I need Comms (communications equipment). ... I need ammo. ... I need Glocks and M4s. ... Guys are in the field with borrowed stuff and in harm's way," said the e-mail, released at a House hearing Wednesday. Read more here

In Other News…

On grand jury audiotapes played at his trial yesterday, Scooter Libby claimed he learned about Valerie Plame's CIA identity from Vice President Cheney, "forgot it, then learned it again" from Tim Russert "a month later."

Lawmakers are unhappy about the 110th Congress's five-day work week. A "visibly annoyed" Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS) said, "I just told [Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid] I won't be back by 4:30" for the vote Monday, "even though I'm catching a 1:55 flight." Both Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) have said they will keep the full work week, despite the complaints.

"Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ) says he's optimistic about achieving his longstanding legislative priority this year -- requiring electronic voting machines to have paper backups so election results can be verified." Hold reintroduced his paper trail bill on Monday, and it is "widely expected to become law."

The fifth chopper in just over two weeks has been downed. The first four were shot down; the latest crash is still being investigated.

From The Right: Michelle Malkin: The Left's Definition of a "Hero" Angry, left-wing Washington Post blogger William Arkin considers American troops in Iraq who believe in their mission "mercenaries" who are "naive" and should be thankful they haven't been spit upon yet. Curdled Democrat Sen. John Kerry thinks those soldiers, who volunteer for service, didn't "make an effort to be smart" and are "stuck in Iraq" because of their intellectual deficiencies.

From The Left: Leopold and Ash: Libby Testimony Points Directly to Bush, Cheney According to trial transcripts obtained by Truthout, former White House staffer I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby testified before a grand jury in 2004 that Vice President Dick Cheney instructed him to divulge portions of a then-classified report to New York Times reporter Judith Miller. Libby testified that Cheney said authorization to leak a section of the report had come directly from President George W. Bush, the court transcripts state.

Quote Of The Day: "After 10 years and $1.7 billion, this is what the Marines Corps got for its investment in a new amphibious vehicle: A craft that breaks down about an average of once every 4 1/2 hours, leaks and sometimes veers off course," Renae Merle Washington Post Staff Writer

(Sources: HouseOfRepresentatives, AP, FOXNews, CenterForAmericanProgress, WhiteHouse website, DrudgeReport, ThinkProgress, NYT, WashingtonTimes, GovExec, BostonGlobe, WashingtonPost, USAToday, MyDD, Reuters, ThePolitico, TownHall, Guardian UK, TruthOut)