Iraq Panel to Urge Pullout Of Combat Troops by '08  —  The bipartisan Iraq Study Group plans to recommend withdrawing nearly all U.S. combat units from Iraq by early 2008 while leaving behind troops to train, advise and support the Iraqis, setting the first goal for a major drawdown of U.S. forces …

Iraq ministry forms unit to monitor news  —  BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq's Interior Ministry said Thursday it had formed a special unit to monitor news coverage and vowed to take legal action against journalists who failed to correct stories the ministry deemed to be incorrect.

THE LINEUP FOR 2008  —  Yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist announced that he will not run for President in 2008.  You can read his statement here.  Frist's announcement didn't make a very big splash; many observers hadn't taken him seriously as a Presidential candidate in any event.

Litvinenko was victim of 'Russian rogue agents'  —  British intelligence sources increasingly suspect that Alexander Litvinenko, the former spy killed with a radioactive poison, was the victim of a plot involving "rogue elements" within the Russian state, the Guardian has learned.

It's losing we hate, not war  —  Those who compare the lengths of WWII and Iraq ignore the real thing we don't like in far-flung wars.  —  ONE THOUSAND three hundred and forty seven days.  —  That's how long the United States was involved in combat in World War II, and Monday …

Obama is going to go for it  —  Bottom line: I think Sen. Barack Obama, who is seriously considering a run for president, is going to jump into the 2008 race.  I predict the freshman Illinois Democrat will announce near the end of this year or the beginning of 2007, sometime after he returns from a holiday break in his native Hawaii.

On Calling Bulls**t  —  Mainstream-media political journalism is in danger of becoming increasingly irrelevant, but not because of the Internet, or even Comedy Central.  The threat comes from inside.  It comes from journalists being afraid to do what journalists were put on this green earth to do.

Democratic Leaders Seek Special Iraq Envoy to Try to Stem the Violence  —  Leading Senate Democrats called Wednesday for President Bush to appoint a special envoy to work with Iraqi leaders to bring increasing violence in Iraq under control.  —  "Violence in Iraq has reached critical levels …

Call For Action Against Iranian Death Fatwa Upon Journalist  —  This is a call for action.  We are going to write a nice and impassioned response to the Ayatollah who has called for the death of an Azerbaijani writer (his crime was to have included some of the Danish cartoon pics in an article he wrote).

McCain Courts Crucial Support of Governors  —  Last anyone checked, Senator John McCain of Arizona is not — and has never been — a governor.  —  But no matter.  Mr. McCain turned up on Thursday morning at the Doral Golf Resort and Spa here for a guerrillalike visit to the annual meeting of the Republican Governors Association.

Do You Want the United States to Win in Iraq?  Yes or No?  —  Bill O'Reilly looks more than usually pleased with himself lately because he thinks he's found the best question since "What did the President know and when did he know it?"  (Howard Baker's classic was better.  Stay tuned.

The Road to Nerfed 'Em  —  Mark Danner's new essay review in the New York Review of Books is close to the most comprehensive account of how the Bush Administration made a iatrogenic disaster in Iraq that I have read.  It overlooks the extent to which the United States early became hostage …

'Fair Trade' Foolishness  —  We may be about to shoot ourselves in the foot — or maybe the chest — on trade.  In the name of "fair trade," we may punish our own exporters.  In 2005 worldwide exports exceeded $10 trillion.  Since 1980 they've more than tripled while the overall global economy doubled.

Focus of FBI Probe, Mollohan May Oversee FBI Budget  —  The leadership ambitions of two senior Democrats have already been deep-sixed for their murky ethics histories.  Here's a third Democrat heading for a powerful post whom folks may want to keep an eye on.  —  Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-WV) is under investigation by the FBI.

Hezbollah in Latin America  —  It's pretty rare that I have an occasion to congratulate Hugo Chavez's government on anything, especially anything related to the War on Terror.  But two cheers are in order for Venezuela's capture of the leader of an international terror organization which looks …