NEWS OF THE DAY/JFS  April 1, 2010

According to Department of Defense statistics cited in press reports, 36,904 U.S. soldiers have been “wounded” in Iraq and Afghanistan. But according to information obtained by Veterans for Common Sense from the VA under FOIA, 508,152 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have been patients at the VA, and there have been 442,412 disability claims. 
There is a glaring contradiction between McChrystal’s counterinsurgency rhetoric and his actual policy toward the issue of night raids on private homes by Special Operations Forces, writes Gareth Porter for Inter Press Service. After he took over as top commander in Afghanistan, McChrystal approved an increase in those operations, from 20 in May to 90 in November. Night raids caused more than half of the civilian deaths attributed to coalition forces in 2009. McChrystal’s January directive has done nothing to curb civilian deaths.

Pakistan
11) Pakistani General: Al Qaida-Taliban Haven To Be Cleared By June
Saeed Shah, McClatchy, Wed, Mar. 31, 2010


Peshawar, Pakistan – The Pakistani army has launched a military operation to clear insurgents from North Waziristan – long a haven for al Qaida and the Afghan Taliban – and hopes to wind up offensive actions in all its tribal areas by June, according to the Pakistani general who’s in charge of the special paramilitary force for the area.

Maj. Gen. Tariq Khan said the main Pakistani army was leading the assault in North Waziristan with a series of small operations, while his Frontier Corps was leading a major offensive in Orakzai, to which insurgents have fled after operations in other tribal areas.

The Pakistani army hadn’t previously announced a North Waziristan operation.

In an interview with McClatchy, Khan said that five of the seven “agencies” of what formerly was called the Federally Administered Tribal Area were now under government control, with only Orakzai and North Waziristan remaining to be “cleared.” The military then plans to send ground troops to sweep through all of the tribal area.

“This will finish in a couple of months. We’ll take care of all of them. We’re just waiting for the major operations – like Orakzai and North Waziristan – to finish, to spare us the troops to start changing our methodology. Instead of kinetic, concentrateAd operations, we start search and cordon and sting operations, for which actually you need more boots on the ground,” said Khan, a swashbuckling general who has a reputation for taking extremists head-on.

Khan warned Pakistan’s international partners that the region, which runs along the border with Afghanistan and includes Waziristan and the Khyber Pass, desperately needs development to prevent a resurgence by al Qaida and the Taliban. He said the minimal level of development needed would cost $1 billion.