NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer was in Iraq this week to help open the new NATO training mission center in Baghdad. The NATO chief said that Iraq is “primarily responsible for the security of its people, but the alliance is pledged to assist in the training and equipping of Iraq’s security forces.” The new center, he continued, will “dramatically expand our options.” A NATO news statement said the alliance training mission in Iraq this year would train “around 700 officers” and “several hundred” in facilities in Europe. Yahoo.
The U.S. continued to move a significant amount of airpower toward the Middle East in recent days as talks to forge a nuclear deal with Iran hung in the balance. Flight tracking data indicate there was unusually heavy movement of dozens of fighter jets and other assets that might be…



