That's a question being asked as the Pentagon and State Dept. scramble to revamp their approach to Afghanistan with a few weeks left in the Bush administration. The Washington Post's Karen DeYoung reports that both Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have agreed for most ...

Of all the utterances George W. Bush made in his 2000 campaign for president none have been subsequently been disregarded quite the way "no more nation-building" has. The Bush administration might tell you 9/11 changed everything, but there is evidence people like Dick Cheney had a plan all along to ...

The New York Times' Andrew E. Kramer and Campbell Robertson report that the Iraqi government has scrapped its plan to award no-bid contracts for oil exploration to Shell, Exxon Mobil, Chevron, BP, and "several smaller companies."

What does this have to do with federal ...

I always feel a bit guilty for subscribing to the New York Review of Books.  Pulling it out of the mailbox, impressed by its authoritative headlines, I step inside and put it on the front left corner of my desk, confident that I'll tackle it in a day or two and finally become a smart, thoughtful person with unassailable knowledge and intellectual confidence.  A month later, when my desktop copy is half-covered with bills and other unread magazines and the cover has taken on a slightly yellowed tinge, I realize that I may not be fated to be a true member of the intelligentsia. 

But I keep the Review around, not just to see colorful ads for all the amazing books I'll never get to read, but also because it has reporting that is different from so much else we all consume in one form or another.  Take a look at Michael Massing's excellent travelogue from today's Iraq (with most stops inside the Green Zone) and you'll realize how much we don't know about our government's continuing failures in Iraq -- the country we've been occupying for five years.  You'll also realize just how difficult it will be to extricate ourselves in the next five.

The Washington Post's Karen DeYoung has a very good follow-up on last week's U.S. airstrike in Afghanistan that killed 90 civilians -- 60 of them children. DeYoung reports that there's no protocol to investigate the airstrike, or really anything else in ...

The New York Times' Stephen Farrell lays out what could be the biggest foreign policy story of the year: the Bush administration has agreed with Iraqi officials to remove all U.S. troops from Iraq cities and villages by next June and all troops, ...

The Washington Post's Christopher Lee reports on the Peace Corps recent string of cost-saving measures-- including cutting 400 positions next year for the select service opportunity. The Peace Corps has a budget of about $330 million and hires about 8,000 volunteers a year to ...

With the U.S. economy doing great, no national deficit, the Pentagon not spread thin by two endless Middle East wars, and millions of Americans more secure than ever about their jobs and their health, doesn't the Bush administration owe it to themselves to blow $1 billion on a missile defense ...

The Washington Post's Josh White obtains emails from the State Dept. that show when representatives of foreign countries visited their citizens being held at Guantanamo Bay those visits were taped. The practice started as early as 2002, when Guantanamo opened. While detainees and the public ...

The Washington Post's Walter Pincus tells us that the State Dept. is looking to spend millions more in government contracts on the war in Afghanistan. Some of the cash will go to bolster the Afghanistan "justice sector" through a private contractor establishing an efficient case-management system and building courthouses.

This plan seems ...