Obama dressed down Pentagon brass
Published:Sunday | May 16, 2010 | 12:00 AM
NEW YORK (AP): United States President Barack Obama reprimanded top Pentagon officials last year for pressing publicly for a troop increase in Afghanistan.
That's according to The Promise, a book on Obama's first year in office by Newsweek writer Jonathan Alter. It goes on sale May 19.
The book says Obama laid into Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman Mike Mullen in an Oval Office meeting last October.
Obama was irked by the leak of a confidential report by General Stanley McChrystal calling for an expanded military presence in Afghanistan, and by McChrystal saying he could not support a strategy relying on special forces and unmanned drone attacks.
Obama was conducting a lengthy review of operations in Afghanistan at the time. He largely sided with the generals and agreed to deploy 30,000 more troops.
Iran confiscates book for not calling gulf Persian
TEHRAN, Iran (AP):
Iran's semi-official ISNA news agency said autho-rities have closed the Egyptian pavilion at the Tehran International Book Fair after confiscating a work that used an alternative name for the Persian Gulf.
ISNA quoted Tehran police chief General Hossein Sajedinia last Thursday as saying authorities confiscated the Arab language book, An Encyclopedia of the Arabian Gulf. Iranians are traditionally sensitive about the historic name of the waterway between Iran and seven Arab nations.
In February, Tehran warned that airlines which do not refer to the body of water as the Persian Gulf on their flight monitors will be banned from Iranian airspace.
In 2004, Iran banned American National Geographic for using Arabian Gulf instead of Persian Gulf. In 2005, National Geographic revised its world atlas to use Persian Gulf.
Obama dressed down Pentagon brass
er to the body of water as the Persian Gulf on their flight monitors will be banned from Iranian airspace.
In 2004, Iran banned American National Geographic for using Arabian Gulf instead of Persian Gulf. In 2005, National Geographic revised its world atlas to use Persian Gulf.