CORRESPONDENTS

Warren Strobel

Obama's Mideast talks fall short of expectations

President Barack Obama, expressing impatience with stalled Middle East peace talks, told Israeli and Palestinian leaders Tuesday that "it is past time to talk about starting negotiations — it is time to move forward." His meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was the highest-level Middle East diplomacy of his presidency, but it fell short of expectations. | 09/22/09 18:48:00 By - Warren P. Strobel

China, U.S. promise bold steps to protect climate

Presidents Barack Obama and Hu Jintao of China - the leaders of the two countries that emit the most greenhouse gases - pledged at a United Nations summit Tuesday that their countries would take bold actions to protect the Earth's future climate from irreversible damages. | 09/22/09 18:44:00 By - Warren P. Strobel and Renee Schoof

U.N. session will test whether Obama can deliver

President Barack Obama is about to make his first pilgrimage to the United Nations, where he'll be under scrutiny from fellow world leaders, much as he is domestically, to see whether he can deliver results as well as rhetoric. | 09/18/09 18:57:00 By - Warren P. Strobel

Obama scraps controversial long-range missile defense shield

President Barack Obama announced Thursday that he is scrapping the Bush administration's controversial missile defense shield, citing new intelligence showing a diminished threat from long-range Iranian missiles the system was supposed to guard against. | 09/17/09 11:01:00 By - Warren P. Strobel and Margaret Talev

Democrats in Congress growing antsy over Afghanistan

Congress will examine next week the future of American military involvement in Afghanistan, a future that many key lawmakers hope won't include sending more U.S. troops than President Barack Obama already has committed. | 09/11/09 18:13:00 By - David Lightman and Warren P. Strobel

Obama's outreach to Iran could stall over nuclear issue

In its latest offer for talks with the leading world powers, Iran makes no promise to negotiate on its suspected nuclear weapons program, further complicating President Barack Obama's hopes of starting negotiations with Tehran before the end of the month, the State Department and European diplomats said Thursday. | 09/10/09 20:40:00 By - Warren P. Strobel

U.S. says Iran soon may be able to build one nuclear bomb

U.S. ambassador Glyn Davies told the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency that Iran's suspected nuclear weapons program is nearing a "dangerous and destabilizing possible breakout capacity." | 09/09/09 19:48:00 By - Warren P. Strobel

Military leery of Afghanistan escalation with no clear goals

Military observers, soldiers on the ground in Afghanistan and some top Pentagon officials are warning that dispatching tens of thousands more soldiers and Marines to Afghanistan might not ensure success. The heart of the problem, they say, is that neither Barack Obama's White House nor the Pentagon has clearly defined America's mission in Afghanistan. | 09/07/09 15:20:00 By - Nancy A. Youssef, Jonathan S. Landay and Warren P. Strobel

Assessing CIA culpability in detainee deaths will be tricky

With the appointment of special prosecutor John Durham, critics of the Bush administration's interrogation policies are hoping that the CIA's role in the alleged mistreatment of detainees finally will be revealed. | 09/03/09 18:29:00 By - Marisa Taylor and Warren P. Strobel

Cheney condemns Obama's probe of CIA interrogations

CIA interrogators were justified in exceeding even the broad authorizations the Justice Department gave them to handle terrorist suspects, former Vice President Dick Cheney said in an interview for broadcast Sunday, suggesting that any aggressive tactic was justified in the goal of preventing another terrorist attack. | 08/28/09 18:46:00 By - Warren P. Strobel

CIA sacked Baghdad station chief after deaths of 2 detainees

The CIA removed its station chief in Iraq and reorganized its operations there in late 2003 following "potentially very serious leadership lapses" that included the deaths of detainees in U.S. custody, according to a newly released document and former senior officials. | 08/25/09 19:44:08 By - Warren P. Strobel

Obama creates new agency to oversee terrorist interrogations

The Obama administration, moving to break with Bush-era interrogation policies, announced Monday that it would create a new interagency group to manage the questioning and transfers of terrorist detainees. The new High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group would be housed within the FBI, whose agents were among the most vocal opponents of harsh interrogation techniques used by the CIA during the Bush years. | 08/24/09 20:19:06 By - Margaret Talev, Marisa Taylor and Warren P. Strobel

Special prosecutor named to probe CIA interrogations

Attorney General Eric Holder's appointment of a special prosecutor Monday to investigate CIA interrogation practices seems certain to reignite a vitriolic national debate over whether low-level interrogators — not high-level former Bush administration officials — should be held accountable for interrogation abuses. | 08/24/09 13:07:50 By - Marisa Taylor, Warren P. Strobel and Margaret Talev

McChrystal wants huge boost in U.S. civilians in Afghanistan

In addition to possibly requesting thousands of additional U.S. troops in Afghanistan, the top American military commander in Afghanistan will ask the Obama administration to double the number of U.S. government civilian workers who are in the country. The request for additional civilian resources will be part of a 60-day assessment of U.S. Afghan strategy now being conducted by Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal. The plan will also propose revamping the relationship between civilians and the military so that soldiers shift economic and political development work to civilians. | 08/10/09 17:59:00 By - Nancy A. Youssef and Warren P. Strobel

U.S. officials: Strike may have killed Pakistan Taliban leader

U.S. and Pakistani officials Thursday said they were investigating what they called credible reports that the leader of Pakistan's Taliban, a man both countries consider a significant enemy, was killed in a U.S. missile strike earlier this week. | 08/06/09 20:44:00 By - Warren P. Strobel

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