Central Command

TAMPA, Fla. -- Gen. Tommy Franks, who led U.S. forces to bold, swift victories in America's most recent military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq, relinquished his command Monday, praising his troops for their feats in distant lands but warning that more battles and dangers for the country certainly lie in the future. "Rough road behind, rough road ahead," said the four-star general, 58, famously a man of plain, if few, words.

TAMPA, Fla. - When Jill Kelley believed a reporter was trespassing at her white-columned mansion in a wealthy neighborhood this week, the Tampa socialite called 911 and claimed diplomatic immunity. "I'm an honorary consul general, so I have inviolability," an exasperated Kelley told the dispatcher in recordings released by police. "I don't know if you want to get diplomatic protection involved as well. " Kelley isn't a diplomat; she holds the ceremonial title of "honorary consul" for South Korea, one of many informal ties to prestige and power that the energetic 37-year-old mother of three has brandished to climb to the top rungs of the social ladder in this conservative military community.

U.S. military experts will visit a looted Iraqi nuclear facility in the wake of reports that residents near the site showed signs of radiation sickness, U.S. Central Command said Friday. Central Command said a specially trained Army team of 11 experts would assess the quantity and the condition of the nuclear material at the facility in Tuwaitha, south of the capital, Baghdad. It gave no specific date for the visit. U.S.

Arnett states that news reporters, during the Persian Gulf War, were "no match for the propaganda machine of the U.S. Central Command and the Pentagon." Alas this is true in a general sense whose implications far transcend this particular instance. With diabolical skill and no shortage of funds in its bloated budgets, the Pentagon steadily spews self-serving propaganda intended above all else to protect excessive military spending from the common sense of an informed citizenry.

U.S. officials on Thursday admitted that they had in custody, and then released, the main suspect in the worst single known massacre of Shiite civilians -- including men, women and children -- that took place near Hillah in central Iraq. The release of Mohammed Jawad Neifus is sure to bring outrage against the United States among Shiite Muslims, some of whom have already alleged that the U.S. government was not serious about prosecuting war crimes suspects from the regime of Saddam Hussein.

Tommy Franks, the Army general who commanded U.S. forces to battlefield victories in Afghanistan and Iraq, has decided to retire after 36 years in uniform. Franks, 57, made no announcement, but Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld issued a brief statement Thursday saying that Franks had informed him "of his desire to step down as the commander of the U.S. Central Command in the weeks immediately ahead" and that Franks plans to retire from the Army this summer.

Army Gen. Tommy Franks, who ran the war against Iraq from a Central Command outpost in Qatar, returned with little fanfare Saturday to his headquarters in Tampa, Fla. He left Qatar on Friday, a day after President Bush declared that major combat operations in Iraq had ended and that the main focus for the U.S. military has shifted to stabilizing and rebuilding Iraq. Franks is credited with developing a war plan that efficiently defeated the Iraqis with fewer U.S.

Two laptop computers that had been missing from the military command center coordinating the war in Afghanistan were recovered Friday, and a suspect in the theft was in custody, an Air Force spokesman said. One of the computers that disappeared Thursday from U.S. Central Command contained classified information. Maj.

U.S. forces searching a car after a shootout near a checkpoint recovered two M-16 rifles belonging to American soldiers abducted and killed north of Baghdad in June, the U.S. military said Monday. Soldiers from the 4th Infantry Division found the rifles in the trunk of a car stopped after a firefight late Sunday, said U.S. Army Lt. Col. George Krivo, coalition military spokesman.

Gen. Tommy Franks, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, discussed regional security and the war on terrorism with top Ethiopian leaders Saturday, a senior Ethiopian official said. The visit by Franks, head of the U.S. military's Central Command whose sphere of responsibility includes Ethiopia and other Horn of Africa nations, came amid concerns among U.S. and Ethiopian officials that neighboring Somalia could become a center for terrorist activities.