International:
Iraq report may bolster surge policy Intentionally or not, a new assessment of Iraq's political and military prospects landed just in time to bolster President Bush's case that the United States should maintain its troop buildup in the country and stand by its beleaguered government.

The consensus report by U.S. spy agencies contained a veiled warning: Any move to shift U.S. troops out of their role directly combating insurgents could squander the modest security gains secured by the troop surge.

"A change of mission ... would place security improvements at risk," the report concluded. More here...

Why Russia Is Flexing Its Muscles Moscow's latest saber-rattling - flying long-range bomber patrols toward the U.S. and Britain, launching planes from its sole aircraft carrier, redeploying the Russian fleet to the Mediterranean, engaging in war games with China and several central Asian nations - doesn't mean the Cold War has returned. What it does signal is Russia's willingness, emboldened by the oil wealth once again flowing to the government, to begin re-asserting its historic role as a strategic counter-weight to Washington. And if it can't quite muster the heft to do that alone, Moscow is increasingly allying with other nations to challenge America's global hegemony. Details

Intel Report Questions Iraq's Government
The Iraqi government will become more precarious over the next six to 12 months and its security forces have not improved enough to operate without outside help, intelligence analysts conclude in a new National Intelligence Estimate.

Despite uneven improvements, the analysts concluded that the level of overall violence is high, Iraq's sectarian groups remain unreconciled, and al-Qaida in Iraq is still able to conduct its highly visible attacks.

"Iraqi political leaders remain unable to govern effectively," the 10-page document concludes. A copy was obtained by The Associated Press in advance of its release Thursday. Read on...

Western oil group eyes assets in Iraq... A large western oil company has offered $700m for oil assets in Iraqi Kurdistan owned by DNO, the small Norwegian oil company. The offer signals that international oil companies are willing to put significant amounts of money into Iraq in spite of the security problems and lack of a legal framework.

DNO refused to name the company, but industry executives speculated that Royal Dutch Shell was a possible bidder. Shell on Wednesday refused to comment.

National: Did He Just Say -Cut-n-Run Like Hell!? Sen. John Warner is recommending that President Bush take a symbolic step next month and announce plans to withdraw a small number of troops from Iraq as a message to Iraqis that the U.S. will not be there forever.

Warner suggested Thursday the president could then follow up the move with a secondary redeployment of troops out of Iraq to make sure Iraqis and the country's border states know they must ensure their own regional stability.

"We must start an orderly, carefully-planned, thought-out redeployment," said Warner, who added that "in my humble judgment, that will get everybody's attention." Read the text here...

Fed injects 17.25 billion dollars into market
The US Federal Reserve injected 17.25 billion dollars into the financial system in three actions Thursday, the latest in a series of moves designed to ease a credit squeeze in global markets.
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which handles the overnight repurchase agreements for the Fed, announced the actions on its website.

A first injection of seven billion dollars at 8:30 am was followed by another of the same amount at 9:40 am and a third of 3.25 billion at 9:55 am.

The latest injections brought the total to 120.5 billion dollars added to money markets in repurchase agreements in the past two weeks. Read on you info junkie! [DAMN...and here I am cussin' about filling up my car...again]!

In Other News…
Executive branch officials “are routinely accepting trips from companies and trade associations with a stake in their agencies’ decisions.” A USA Today investigation found more than 100 trips between April 2006 and March 2007 that “would be out of bounds for members of Congress under the recently passed ethics bill,” yet are allowed for executive officials.

Baghdad’s electricty problems, where residents are struggling with only a few hours of power a day, are being made worse by increasing control of local switching stations by armed militias across Iraq, who “often refuse to share electricity generated locally with Baghdad and other power-starved areas,” said the Iraqi electricity minister yesterday.

The Bush administration “plans to screen thousands of people who work with charities and nonprofit organizations that receive U.S. Agency for International Development funds to ensure they are not connected with individuals or groups associated with terrorism.” But the government “does not intend to tell groups deemed unacceptable why they are rejected.”

From The Right: Cal Thomas: Losing is winning George Orwell, call your office. You can add to your list of opposites ("war is peace," "ignorance is strength" and "freedom is slavery") a new one. It is the emerging plan of congressional Democrats, joined by at least one Democratic presidential candidate: "losing is winning."

From the Left: Dan Eggen: White House Declares Office Off-Limits "The Bush administration argued in court papers this week that the White House Office of Administration is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act as part of its effort to fend off a civil lawsuit seeking the release of internal documents about a large number of e-mails missing from White House servers. The claim, made in a motion filed Tuesday by the Justice Department, is at odds with a depiction of the office on the White House's own Web site."

Quote Of The Day: "Good thing we've still got politics -- finest form of free entertainment ever invented." --the late Molly Ivins

(Sources: AP, Reuters, DrudgeReport, CNN, FOXNews, ThinkProgress, NYT, TownHall, NewsMax, TIME, TruthOut, PoliticalCartoons.com, FinancialTimes, Breitbart, USAToday, WashingtonPost)