Actor Jeremy Renner in a scene from "The Hurt Locker," directed by Kathryn Bigelow, which won the Oscar for Best Picture and Best Director at the Academy Awards on Sunday. (AP)

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Six Academy Awards for “The Hurt Locker” Sunday night, including an Oscar for Best Picture. Then the cast and crew went off to party.

But the bomb-defusing work depicted so powerfully in the film never ends in Iraq and Afghanistan.

IEDs — “improvised explosive devices” — have been the number-one killer of American troops in both wars. They make every step a potential last step. They slow and enervate soldiers ready to charge and fight.

This hour, On Point: Beyond “The Hurt Locker” to the real battle against IEDs.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, or on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Joining us from Fredricksburg, Va., is Kevin Lutz, retired Army Colonel who was the top officer overseeing the military’s EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) work in Iraq from 2006 to 2009. He led the 52nd Explosive Ordnance Disposal Group, members of which are portrayed in “The Hurt Locker,” and led Task Force Troy, fighting IEDs at the height of the Iraq War. He’s served three combat tours, in Iraq and Afghanistan, and has been awarded two Bronze Stars. He’s now executive vice president of A-T Solutions, a company focusing on global counter-terrorism efforts.

You can read about what Lutz faced in Iraq in a series written by The Washington Post’s Rick Atkinson.

Also from Fredricksburg is Jonathan Hunter, retired Army Captain who served as an Explosive Ordnance Disposal officer in Afghanistan, primarily in the Khost and Kandahar areas. He served with Kevin Lutz in Afghanistan and now works for Allen Vanguard, the company that makes the bomb suits featured in “The Hurt Locker.” He works on anti-IED systems and briefs Congress on the latest technologies.

From Arlington, Va., is Command Sergeant Major Todd Burnett, the military’s senior enlisted advisor to the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization (JIEDDO). He is the recipient of the Purple Heart, the Bronze Star Medal, and the Legion of Merit. He has served in Iraq and Afghanistan and has endured 44 IED attacks, 23 of which were direct hits.

More:

We’ve posted statistics on IEDs in Afghanistan from the Department of Defense.

A special thanks today to the EOD Memorial Foundation, which is dedicated to the memory of troops who have served in this line of work. Our gratitude to executive director Jim O’Neil.

President Barack Obama shakes hands with health care professionals after speaking about health care reform, Wednesday, March 3, 2010, in the East Room of the White House. (AP)

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And so, President Barack Obama has gone all in for health reform.

All the chips, on the table. All the persuasion he can muster. And, starting now, the fastest march he can command for Democrats ramming it through. If they can ram it through.

Elsewhere this week, the jobless rate holds steady, and that brings a sigh of relief. Democrats struggle with ethics charges. Republicans plan a fear campaign for the midterm elections.

Chile struggles with aftershocks. And a kid takes the control tower.

This hour, On Point: our weekly news roundtable goes behind the headlines. 

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Joining us from Washington is Margaret Talev, White House correspondent for McClatchy Newspapers.

From New York we’re joined by Michael Crowley, senior editor at The New Republic.

And from Hanover, N.H., is Jack Beatty, On Point news analyst and senior editor at The Atlantic.

Hill said that the plan to withdraw U.S. combat troops by Sept. 1, and to leave only a residual advisory force of 50,000 or fewer, remains “very much on schedule.” Observers worry that a spike in violence could derail that timeline.

The elections over the next few days, Hill said, will “help pave the way for a long-term diplomatic and kind of normal relationship that the United States would have with Iraq.”

You can listen to Hill’s interview here (transcript excerpts below):

TOM ASHBROOK: Ambassador Hill, what’s the biggest challenge you see first for Iraq here? Is it the kind of violence we’ve already seen in the early voting today? Or are the challenges bigger than that?

AMB. CHRISTOPHER HILL: Well, you know, there’s no shortage of challenges here. I would say so far, notwithstanding the incidents your listeners have probably heard of – the fact that there were a couple of bombings in Baghdad, I think there was one hand grenade attack up in Mosul. But notwithstanding those reports, it’s been a pretty quiet day so far. Now we’re still waiting to hear more from our 18 American Embassy teams that are spread out around all the provinces reporting in. So far it’s been O.K. So we have to see how the violence goes and make sure it isn’t a major problem. So I would say violence is an issue we focus on. I would say in terms of things that people often worry about, fraud and that sort of thing, that there are really have been very strong efforts to deal with questions of fraud. For example, the ballot paper is a very special type of paper. There’s been a lot of good technical work done by the U.N. office here, and so I think we’re going to be O.K. on that.

TOM ASHBROOK: Ambassador, what would it take in the aftermath of this election, from the election itself, to slow down the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops?

AMB. HILL: Well, look, you know the President about a year ago at Camp Lejeune laid out a schedule for the withdrawal of U.S. troops, down to 50,000, and I think that’s very much on schedule. But you know today is an important day not so much from the point of view of getting our troops out, but today is the beginning of a democratic election which will seat a new parliament, put in a new government, and I think really help pave the way for a long-term diplomatic and kind of normal relationship that the United States would have with Iraq. So we’re kind of looking at this day in terms of the quality of Iraq’s democracy. And as for the troop withdrawals, we believe they’re on schedule. And I don’t want to start speculating or going into hypotheticals of what could conceivably change that.

Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Michael Mullen, right, accompanied by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, testifies on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, Feb. 2, 2010, before a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. (AP)

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Pulitzer Prize-winning military writer Tom Ricks wrote the book that left its name on the U.S. intervention in Iraq. He called it “Fiasco.”

Now Ricks is watching two wars continue to unfold in Iraq and Afghanistan; a drone war and American presence in Pakistan that this week saw three U.S. casualties; and a debate in Washington and beyond over “don’t ask, don’t tell” and gays in the military.

This hour, On Point: a conversation with Tom Ricks on America’s wars, American strategy, and the U.S. military now.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guest:

Thomas Ricks, senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security and contributing editor at Foreign Policy magazine, where he writes the blog The Best Defense. He is the author of “Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2003-2005″ and “The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008.”

President Barack Obama delivers his State of the Union address on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2010. (AP)

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The state of the union looked difficult, to be honest, this week. On Wednesday, the president gave his big address. By week’s end, the way forward looked tough.

Republicans, declining to vote for lifting the debt ceiling or for pay-as-you-go restraints. Democrats, uncertain how to advance President Obama’s call to stick with health care reform.

Tim Geithner got an epic grilling. Ben Bernanke got another term. The economy got 5.7 percent growth at the end of ’09. That sounds good.

iPad’s out. Toyota’s in trouble.

This hour, On Point: Our weekly news roundtable goes behind the headlines.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Joining us from Washington is Dana Milbank, columnist for The Washington Post, where he writes Washington Sketch. His lastest book is “Homo Politicus: The Strange and Scary Tribes That Run Our Government.”

Also from Washington we’re joined by Liz Halloran, Washington correspondent for NPR.org.

And from Hanover, N.H., we’re joined by Jack Beatty, On Point news analyst and senior editor at The Atlantic.

Blackwater security contractors are seen inside a helicopter above central Baghdad, Iraq, in a Sept. 25, 2007 file photo. (AP)

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It’s changed its name to Xe. But the Blackwater brand is still the name that stands for the privatization and outsourcing of American military power.

We got to know them as the burly guys with killer sunglasses guarding American diplomats. Then came infamy for killing Iraqi civilians.

Now, the Blackwater boys are under pressure on many fronts. But they also appear to have stepped far beyond guarding embassies, into the heart of American covert ops, “black” ops, spying. And their boss is in the pages of Vanity Fair.

This hour, On Point: Catching up with Blackwater.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Joining us from New York is Jeremy Scahill, investigative journalist and author of “Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army.” He writes for The Nation and blogs at RebelReports.

From Middlebury, Vermont, we’re joined by Kateri Carmola, professor of political science at Middlebury College and author of the forthcoming book, “Private Security Contractors and New Wars: Risk, Law, and Ethics.”

P.W. Singer

Our show today with military robotics expert P.W. Singer took a hard look at the implications of the U.S. military’s increasingly wide push to use cutting-edge technology to defend troops, survey areas, and kill enemies.

Singer told Tom Ashbrook that a revolution is now underway, comparable to the World War I era when mechanized warfare overturned the whole notion of conflict. And this latest technological revolution, Singer warned, profoundly changes the way society relates to war, accelerating trends that were already unfolding:

We no longer declare war anymore. We no longer have a draft. We no longer buy war bonds. So the barriers to war in our society were already dropping. And now we have this technology that allows us to carry out these acts of war without having to send people into harm’s way. And so it allows  you to go to war, it allows the nation to go to war, really without reflecting on it.

Singer went on to suggest that this is what we now see playing out in Pakistan, where the number of airstrikes by U.S. drones would qualify as war.  “We’ve had more drone strikes into Pakistan than we had manned bomber strikes in the opening round of the Kosovo War,” Singer said. “But we don’t call it a war, because we view it differently for some reason.”

He decried the notion of society celebrating “YouTube war,” where flashy video clips of robotic killing and combat are put up on the Internet to be viewed for “fun.” We’ll avoid posting any of those, but we thought it might be instructive to look up close at the technologies that Singer is talking about.

The Predator drone is perhaps the best-known unmanned/robotic vehicle used by the U.S. military. Here’s an interesting test and analysis of its capabilities:

Here’s the “Talon,” an attack robot that Singer discusses in his new book:

Singer also looks at the “Packbot,” a tiny rover made by iRobot for reconnaissance, and for defusing bombs:

The CRAM, or Counter-Rocket, Artillery and Mortar, has been used against insurgent attacks in Iraq. It’s sometimes referred to as “R2 D2,” after the Star Wars droid, given its round, turret shape. It spots incoming shells and uses a spray of fire to shoot them down. Developed by Raytheon, here it is in its test phase:

Wired magazine’s Danger Room blog is a clearinghouse for all kinds of stories on new military experiments and technological developments. Here’s a video the blog highlighted on a hummingbird-style “nano” drone that is being explored:

The Pentagon’s own news service reports occasionally on its latest high-tech gadgets and robotic technologies. This is a report last year on its “Mule,” a robotic transport vehicle developed by Lockheed Martin:

Along those lines, here’s what the “Crusher” looks like, a rugged ground vehicle developed by Carnegie Mellon University:

Finally, here’s the MQ-9 Reaper unmanned aerial drone, a bigger, faster version of its military cousin, the Predator. The two have been in the air in Iraq, and in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region:

Saad Eskander (Photo: Flickr/americanlibraries)

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For years, Afghanistan was the “forgotten war,” the forgotten country — even as American soldiers walked its ridges and alleys.

Now, that forgotten country, incredibly, is Iraq.

120,000 U.S. troops are still in Iraq. Combat troops are supposed to be out by next August. But Iraq’s fate and future is still unclear.

Saad Eskander was there in the chaos after the U.S. invasion, as director-general of Iraq’s National Library and Archives. He’s stayed through car bombs, mortar fire, plunder, kidnapping, assassinations and — maybe — rebirth.

This hour, On Point: Iraq now, with Saad Eskander.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guest:

Joining us first from Baghdad is Rod Nordland, foreign correspondent for The New York Times.

Saad Eskander joins us in our studio. He is director-general of the Iraq National Library and Archives. A former fighter in the Kurdish resistance movement, he was born in Baghdad and educated in London, where he received his Ph.D. from the London School of Economics. He returned to Iraq in 2003 to take leadership of the devastated National Library.

More links:

Saad Eskander speaks today at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School, which has posted this biographical note about him.

In 2006 and 2007, Eskander wrote an online diary for the British National Library on his experiences rebuilding the Library in the midst of Baghdad’s brutal sectarian violence.

The Guardian profiled him earlier this year in a piece titled “Books, tears, and blood.”

US Ambassador to Iraq Christopher Hill

In our first hour today, we reached out to the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and spoke with Ambassador Christopher Hill. He’s been President Obama’s diplomatic point man in Iraq since April.

Hill said that the key to progress in that country remains reconciling the various political factions. Recent violence has inflamed tensions among them. The Ambassador was candid about the difficult environment.

“Now ironically, it’s the security situation that hits the headlines, the various hideous bombings that one sees,” he said. “But it’s the political situation that I think worries a lot of people, because this idea of working together and trying to have rules of the road for the political process is a bit of an elusive concept here.”

Hill also commented on the recent formation of a new Shiite alliance, which Prime Minister Maliki has decided to opt out of. He said Maliki is playing a “dating game”:

I want to emphasize that, you know, we have elections coming up. And while Iraqis may have not totally embraced democracy, they sure have embraced politics…So recently you had a sort of Shia grouping put together. Those are people mainly in the South. But interestingly the Shia prime minister, Maliki, put a condition in there that he knew the others would not accept. And so he’s out there playing a sort of dating game with Kurdish partners and Sunni tribal partners. So there’s a lot of politics going on. That’s the good news. The bad news is they sometimes, you know, don’t get to the real homework of reconciliation and working some of these problems.

Asked about the current sentiments of Iraqis toward the American occupation, Ambassador Hill said the “slow” progress remains “frustrating,” and he suggested there is only so much the U.S. can do:

We’re into the seventh year of this very difficult period. And to be sure, I think that a lot of Iraqis thought that it would go a lot better, thought that we would essentially bring America to them. And that hasn’t been the case. It’s been very tough. It’s been very tough politically. It’s been very tough to reconcile various sectarian communities. You know, there are many Sunnis who feel that they are the big losers with the demise of Saddam Hussein. Even though they didn’t like him, he was a Sunni. And then frankly there are Shia who feel they are winners, but they always worry about what comes next. So it’s a very nuanced picture. But with respect to the view of the United States, that’s also very complex. There are a lot of Iraqis who feel that it has been such a tough time, that you know, [they say], “Why hasn’t the U.S. completely rebuilt this country?” Well, we have…spent billions of dollars, but to just rebuild Iraq or to somehow turn it into something that never was, would be costing trillions. So we have really tried to work with the Iraqi authorities, tried to stand up a market economy, tried to get them to have a proper use of their natural resources so they can bring in foreign investment and that sort of thing. And there’s no question that progress is being made, but it’s very slow, and it’s very frustrating to a lot of people.

Clockwise from top left: U.S. Marines move into Afghanistan's Helmand province on Thursday; Senator-elect Al Franken on Tuesday, shortly after the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled in his favor; South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, in an interview with the Associated Press on Tuesday; people wait in line at a job fair in Seattle earlier this month. (AP)

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Jobs, jobs, jobs. And war. As Americans mark another Independence Day, the news at the end of the week reminds us where the nation stands.

In Washington, the White House responds to new unemployment numbers — now at 9.5 percent — and to critics of its stimulus plan.

In Afghanistan, 4,000 Marines move into Taliban territory. While in Iraq, U.S. troops move out of the cities — as bombings increase.

In Minnesota, the Democrats gain a 60th U.S. senator. In South Carolina, Republicans look to get rid of a governor.

This hour, On Point: Our weekly news roundtable goes behind the headlines.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Jane Clayson, guest host

Guests:

Steve Chapman, columnist and editorial writer for The Chicago Tribune.

Gebe Martinez, political columnist and contributor to Politico.

Jack Beatty, On Point news analyst and senior editor at The Atlantic.

An Iraqi Army soldier, left, and U.S. Army Sgt. Lou Rodriguez, right, from Chaos Co., 3rd Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, stand guard during a joint operation in Mosul, Iraq, on June 14, 2009. (AP)

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Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has declared tomorrow — Tuesday, June 30th — a national holiday. That’s the deadline for American combat troops to be out of Iraq’s cities.

Maliki has pushed hard for this pullout. He says Iraq’s own army and police will keep the country secure. His political future depends on it.

But questions remain about whether Iraq’s security forces are up to the task. Violence is ratcheting up. A lot of power is at stake. And the U.S. is shifting its focus to the fight in Afghanistan.

This hour, On Point: U.S. combat troops out of Iraqi cities — and where that leaves Iraqis.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Jane Clayson, guest host

Guests:

Joining us in our studio is Anthony Shadid, Baghdad bureau chief for The Washington Post. He first reported from Iraq in 1998 and won the Pulitzer Prize in 2004 for his coverage of the Iraq war. He’s the author of “Night Draws Near: Iraq’s People in the Shadow of America’s War” (2005).

Joining us from Baghdad is Sahar Issa, an Iraqi correspondent for McClatchy newspapers based in Baghdad. See McClatchy’s Inside Iraq blog, written by Iraqi journalists working for McClatchy Newspapers in Iraq.

A U.S soldier of 3rd Brigade, 10th Mountain Division patrol, seen during a search operation for members of the Taliban, in Tangi valley of Wardak province west of Kabul, Afghanistan, Sunday, April 26, 2009. (AP)

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Memorial Day is a day to honor service and sacrifice.

It is also a day, in the so-called “Long War” years that have followed what was called the “War on Terror” — with American troops still deeply deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan — for all Americans to think about what we’re doing, what we’re asking, what we’re fighting for.

Onetime soldier, now scholar, Andrew Bacevich knows service — his own in Vietnam and the Persian Gulf War. He knows sacrifice — his soldier son’s life in Iraq. And he is asking the biggest questions.

This hour, On Point: Andrew Bacevich on America and war.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Andrew Bacevich joins us in our studio. Professor of international relations and history at Boston University, he is a West Point graduate and a veteran of the Vietnam War and Persian Gulf War. His latest book is “The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism.”

People are seen in front of the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, Turkey, on Saturday, April 4, 2009. President Obama visited the mosque on Tuesday. (AP)

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There was the president of the United States, introduced as Barack Hussein Obama, standing before the Turkish parliament, reaching out to the Muslim world. The president, in Istanbul, in the midst of a town hall meeting with largely young Muslims, taking their questions one by one. The president, shoes off, walking solemnly through the great Blue Mosque.

The facts on the ground in trouble spots across the Muslim world are hard to change. But President Obama is trying hard right now, for starters at least, to change the music, the message, the tone of the United States toward the world’s Muslim populations — and mend a rocky relationship that has plagued and cost the United States, and much of the Muslim world, dearly.

Can he do it? Can put it on a new path? This hour, On Point: Obama’s message and the Muslim world.

You can join the conversation. What do you make of President Obama’s outreach? Is it the right message? Can it change the context? Tilt it toward a better day?

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Joining us from Washington is Robin Wright, longtime diplomatic correspondent for The Washington Post, currently a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. She’s the author of five books, most recently “Dreams and Shadows: The Future of the Middle East,” now out in paperback.

From London, we’re joined by Ali Allawi, Iraqi Minister of Defense and Minister of Trade from 2003 to 2004, following the U.S. invasion, and Minister of Finance in the Iraqi Transitional Government from 2005 to 2006. He’s the author of “The Crisis of Islamic Civilization” and “The Occupation of Iraq: Winning the War, Losing the Peace.”

From Washington, we’re joined by Bulent Aliriza, director of the Turkey Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and host of “Beyond the Atlantic,” a current affairs show on Turkish Radio and Television. He is also co-director of the CSIS Caspian Sea Energy Project.

And from Chicago, we’re joined by Rami Khouri. Based in Lebanon and currently traveling in the U.S., he is director of the Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at American University of Beirut and editor-at-large for the Lebanese English-language paper The Daily Star.

Marines listen as President Barack Obama speaks about combat troop reductions in Iraq as he addresses military personnel at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, N.C., Friday, Feb. 27, 2009. (AP)

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Last week when President Barack Obama laid out his plans for troop withdrawals from Iraq, his former campaign rival, Republican John McCain, of all people, was quick to voice support.

But antiwar activists and leaders who have protested the war for years were not so sure. A stretched-out exit. Maybe 50,000 troops still in Iraq for years. And a new surge in Afghanistan.

Barack Obama promised an end to the Iraq war. Many activists worked hard to support him. So, what do they think now?

This hour, On Point: Antiwar voices on Obama’s war plans.

You can join the conversation. Did you vote for Barack Obama because of his promise to end the Iraq war? Is President Obama delivering? Coming close enough for now? Or not?

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Joining us from Washington is Rep. Dennis Kucinich, Democratic congressman from Ohio. He was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004 and 2008. In 2007 he sponsored a bill  that would immediately end the Iraq war.

Also from Washington, we’re joined by Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the feminist antiwar group CODEPINK.

And with us from Washington is Tom Andrews, national director of the Win Without War coalition. He was a Democratic congressman from Maine from 1991 to 1995.

Joining us in our studio is Barry Posen, professor of political science at MIT and director of MIT’s Security Studies Program.

A U.S. Army soldier stands guard next to a poster depicting radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr during the reopening of a street in the Kazimiyah area of northern Baghdad, Iraq, on Feb. 3, 2009. (AP)

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In the depths of America’s worst days in Iraq, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Thomas Ricks laid out the origins of early failure in his bestselling book of expose, “Fiasco.”

Now, Ricks is back with the story of the insurgency within the Pentagon that brought the surge and stabilization in Iraq.

And with a tough message. Despite Barack Obama’s campaign trail promise of withdrawal, the war in Iraq may not be half over yet, says Ricks. And Afghanistan looks even tougher.

This hour, On Point: Inside the U.S. military at war on two fronts, with Tom Ricks and his new book, “The Gamble.”

You can join the conversation. What’s your question for Tom Ricks on military’s lessons from Iraq? On what U.S. troops are facing in Afghanistan?

-Tom Ashbrook

Guest:

Thomas Ricks joins us from New York.  A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, he’s the author of the 2006 New York Times bestseller “Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2003 to 2005″ and its follow-up, just published, “The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008.” He’s covered the U.S. military for more than 25 years, most recently for The Washington Post. He is now a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, a bipartisan think tank, and a contributing editor at Foreign Policy magazine, where he writes the blog The Best Defense.

More links:

“The Generals’ Insurgency: The Story Behind the U.S. Troop Surge in Iraq,” a two-part series this week in The Washington Post, adapted from “The Gamble,” with web-only features including video, key documents, and a timeline.

“Stop Commuting to War” — an excerpt from “The Gamble,” at The Daily Beast.

On his blog, Ricks recently wrote a penetrating series analyzing lessons learned, or unlearned, from the costly battle between U.S. troops and Taliban fighters last July at Wanat, in eastern Afghanistan.

Iraqi election officials check the seals on a ballot box after the polls closed in the country's provincial elections in central Baghdad on Saturday, Jan. 31, 2009.(AP)

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Iraqis have voted. Again. Provincial elections. A candidate’s house blown up here, some mortar fire there — but overall, a remarkably orderly democratic process in a country not long ago soaked in blood.

And once again, Americans look to the exits and ask: “Can we go now?”

Barack Obama promised combat troops out in 16 months. That’s summer, 2010. The Bush administration committed to an exit by the end of 2011. Meanwhile, it’s costing $10 billion a month, and we’ve got other problems.

This hour, On Point: Iraq — when can we go?

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Sudarsan Raghavan, Baghdad bureau chief of The Washington Post.

Stephen Biddle, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. His most recent piece for Foreign Affairs is called “How to Leave a Stable Iraq.”

Judith Yaphe, senior research fellow at the National Defense University and a former CIA analyst. She testified before Congress on Iran-Iraq dynamics.

Adm. William J. Fallon in February 2007. (AP)

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Four-star Admiral William J. Fallon had a brilliant Navy career and a mouth, it was said, that could peel paint off the walls.

He flew fighter missions over Vietnam, rose to head of the Pacific Command, then was named by George W. Bush Combatant Commander of U.S. Central Command — Centcom — the U.S. military’s top commander in the white-hot region from Egypt to Pakistan.

He oversaw the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and abruptly retired after Esquire magazine called him the last man standing between Washington and war with Iran.

This hour, On Point: The admiral who spoke his mind.

You can join the conversation. What’s your question for the fighter-pilot admiral who once ran your country’s wars? What’s your question for William Fallon today on Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Gaza? On “smart power”? On Al Qaeda?

-Tom Ashbrook

Guest:

Adm. William J. (“Fox”) Fallon, retired four-star Navy admiral, Commander of CENTCOM from March 2007 to March 2008, Commander of PACOM (Pacific Command) from Feb 2005 to March 2007, and currently a Robert E. Wilhelm fellow at MIT’s Center for International Studies.

More links:

“The Man Between War and Peace,” the Esquire profile by Thomas P.M. Barnett that caused so much controversy.

Slate’s Fred Kaplan, writing in March 2008,  looked at the context surrounding Fallon’s departure.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates speaks as Vice President-elect Joe Biden, far left, President-elect Barack Obama, and Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton listen at a news conference in Chicago, Dec. 1, 2008. (AP)

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Barack Obama keeps rolling out the heavyweights in Chicago. Last week, on the economy. This week, on national security, defense, diplomacy.

Yesterday, the president-elect officially named Hillary Clinton his pick for secretary of state; President Bush’s defense secretary, Robert Gates, as his defense secretary; big Jim Jones, Marine general, former NATO chief, and John McCain friend, as national security adviser; and more.

Big characters. Rivals. A-Team players. Not exactly anti-war. So what’s the bottom line? The “change”?

This hour, On Point: Reading Obama’s national security team.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Joining us from Washington is David Ignatius, columnist for The Washington Post. His latest piece is “Obama’s All-Star Roster.” He is also co-moderator of PostGlobal, an online forum on international affairs at washingtonpost.com, and author of many books, including the novel “Body of Lies.”

From New York, we’re joined by Katrina vanden Heuvel, publisher and editor of The Nation, where she writes the Editor’s Cut blog. Her latest entry is “Robert Gates: Wrong Man for the Job.”

And from Monterey, California, we’re joined by John Arquilla, professor of defense analysis at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School , specializing in unconventional warfare and terrorism. He’s the author of, most recently, “Worst Enemy: The Reluctant Transformation of the American Military.”

More links:

The New York Times’ David Sanger writes about Obama’s national security team and a “sweeping shift in foreign policy.”

The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page considers Obama’s choice of Hillary Clinton for secretary of state.

David Corn at Congressional Quarterly weighs the importance of Obama’s pick of retired General James Jones as national security adviser.

Susan Page at USA Today explores Hillary Clinton’s future challenges running the State Department.

Sergeant Michelle Brookfield Wilmot on guard duty in Ramadi, Iraq in April 2005. (Photo by Spc. Miranda Mattingly.)

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In the American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, American women in uniform are everywhere and almost anywhere. In conflicts without clear front-lines, where old distinctions of combat and non-combat troops are hard — impossible — to uphold.

In the air over Tal Afar, in a Kiowa scout helicopter, chasing insurgents down alleyways from the sky with a .50 caliber machine gun and rockets at the ready.

On the ground, gun in hand, guarding convoys, raiding homes, saving soldiers with a medic’s pack, rumbling through the roadside bombs.

And they’re bringing what they see back home, as veterans, with more bloody, in-the-thick-of-it memories than female American vets have ever known.

This hour, On Point: On Veterans Day, American women at war.

You can join the conversation. Female veterans, tell us about your experiences at war. In Iraq. In Afghanistan. Tell us about going, fighting, surviving. Tell us about coming home.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

From Baghdad, we’re joined by Tina Susman, the Baghdad bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times. She’s recently been embedded with U.S. troops.

Joining us from Washington is Ann Scott Tyson, Pentagon and military correspondent for The Washington Post.

From Amherst, Mass., we’re joined by Sergeant Rachel McNeill, Army Reserve. She served in Iraq from December 2004 to December 2005, starting out as a heavy construction equipment operator and shifting to security for convoys out of Ramadi. She’s 24 years old, grew up in Wisconsin, and joined the Army Reserve her senior year of high school, after 9/11, when she was 17.

Also from Amherst, we’re joined by Kirsten Holmstedt, author of “Band of Sisters: American Women at War in Iraq” (2007). She’s at work on a new book about women returning home from war.

And joining us from New York is Meg McLagan, a documentary filmmaker and cultural anthropologist. She’s co-director and co-producer of the new documentary “Lioness,” which documents female soldiers of the Iraq War who took part in the Lioness program, in which women accompanied male teams on raids and house searches. The film will air nationally on the PBS series Independent Lens this Thursday, Nov. 13.

More links:

You can watch the Independent Lens “Lioness” trailer on YouTube, here:

A U.S. soldier patrols outside a Forward Operating Base near the Pakistani border in Kunar province, eastern Afghanistan, on Monday, Oct. 27, 2008. (AP)

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War — in Iraq and Afghanistan — was supposed to be the defining issue of the 2008 campaign. Instead, Americans are riveted by Wall Street’s meltdown and global financial collapse. The economy ate the wars.

But the wars go on. Just today, news of fierce Iraqi turf battles. The White House maybe ready to talk with the Taliban. Spillover American strikes into Syria and Pakistan. High costs. No resolution.

John McCain and Barack Obama talk different games on the wars. Either would be seriously challenged by them.

This hour, On Point: With one week to Election Day, a basic, brutal issue: the wars.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

From Washington, we’re joined by Tom Bowman, Pentagon reporter for National Public Radio. He recently reported on the U.S. search for a new strategy in Afghanistan.

Joining us in our studio is Joseph Nye, professor of international relations at Harvard University. He served as Assistant Secretary of Defense under President Clinton. He is the author of several books, including “Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics” (2004) and, most recently, “The Powers to Lead.”

And from McClean, Virginia, we’re joined by Robert Kagan, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, columnist for The Washington Post, and contributor to The Weekly Standard. He is an informal adviser to John McCain, and he served in the State Department under President Reagan. His new book is “The Return of History and the End of Dreams.”

More links:

Barack Obama’s campaign website spells out his positions on Iraq and defense; John McCain’s website explains his positions on Iraq and national security.

For differing views on the candidates’ foreign policy positions, see David Sanger’s recent New York Times article “Rivals Split on U.S. Power, But Ideas Defy Labels,” Nicholas Lemann’s New Yorker feature “World’s Apart,” and Robert Kaiser’s Washington Post article, “Iraq Aside, Nominees Have Like Views on Use of Force.”