Bush to Name a New General to Oversee Iraq  —  President Bush has decided to name Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus as the top American military commander in Iraq, part of a broad revamping of the military team that will carry out the administration's new Iraq strategy, administration officials said Thursday.

American Passports Found on Bodies of Al Qaeda Fighters in Somalia  —  Alexis Debat Reports:  —  A senior official in the Somali government's new Ministry of the Interior told ABC News government forces had recovered "dozens of foreign passports," including several American passports …

Congressional Leaders Call on President to Reject Flawed Iraq Troop Surge  —  Washington, DC—Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Speaker Nancy Pelosi today sent the following letter to President Bush urging him to reject his reported plan to escalate the war in Iraq by increasing troop levels …

AP's Iraqi Source Is Real: Now What Do Conservative Bloggers Say?  —  NEW YORK As reported elsewhere on this late this afternoon, Iraq's Interior Ministry acknowledged Thursday that an Iraqi police officer whose existence had been denied by the Iraqis and the U.S. military …

Barney Frank accuses Bush of genocide "ethnic cleansing" Major Update  —  There's no other way around it: When you accuse someone of perpetrating "ethnic cleansing" in any way, shape or form, you are accusing them of genocide.  —  Genocide.  Let that word work its way around your mind for an moment.

In which I annoy you once again with the asssertion that I'm a moderate.  —  I took this test — recommended by Andrew Sullivan — and scored a 21 on a political scale that ran from 0 (100% liberal) to 40 (100% conservative).  Sullivan scored 26, by the way.

Lott: I May Oppose Troop Escalation  —  Yesterday on MSNBC, Trent Lott (R-MS), the second ranking Republican in the Senate, said that he may oppose troop escalation in Iraq.  Watch it:  —  Lott's comments are particularly significant because, as the Minority Whip, he's responsible for bringing …

Reid Takes Center Stage, but He's Hardly the Star of the Show  —  Harry Reid is often called the man from Searchlight, Nevada.  Nobody has ever called him the man from Spotlight.  —  The soft-spoken Democrat became the most powerful figure in the United States Senate yesterday.

White House visitor records closed  —  WASHINGTON - The White House and the Secret Service quietly signed an agreement last spring in the midst of the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal declaring that records identifying visitors to the White House are not open to the public.

The Lonely Senator, Update  —  Via InstaPundit, the intrepid reporter whose site insinuated that the photo of John Kerry sitting alone in a chow hall in Iraq was itself bogus, has now verified that the photo is real, but the absence of troops in it is misleading: … And he backs it up by talking to the reporters involved.

CBS: Military Tells Bush It Has Only 9,000 Troops Available For 'Surge'  —  A State Department official leaked word this week that President Bush is considering sending "no more than 15,000 to 20,000 U.S. troops" to Iraq.  "Instead of a surge, it is a bump," the official said.

Senate Regrets the Vote to Enter Iraq  —  ABC News Survey Shows That Knowing Then What It Knows Now, 2002 Senate Would Vote Against Giving President War Powers  —  As the new Democrat-controlled House and Senate take power this month, the Iraq war will be the front-and-center issue.

Grit and guts for Navy corpsmen in a Fallujah police station  —  WASHINGTON - Editor's note: Blogger Bill Ardolino is embedded with a U.S. Marine unit in Iraq.  He's there to find out the truth about the U.S. war effort on the ground in Iraq.  Unlike the vast majority of mainstream media journalists …