Military Reform

The U.S. government must take steps to modernize how it keeps track of its nuclear weapons to help prevent mistakes, Air Force Chief of Staff Norton A. Schwartz said Tuesday on a visit to part of his service's nuclear force. Schwartz visited Barksdale Air Force Base, one of the installations housing the nation's nuclear-capable B-52 bombers, in a trip designed to emphasize the importance of reforms in how weapons are handled.

Absorbing the lessons of a troubled war, U.S. military officials have begun an intense debate over proposals for a sweeping reorganization of the Army to address shortcomings that have plagued the force in Iraq and to abandon some war-fighting principles that have prevailed since the Cold War. On one side of the widening debate are officers who want many Army units to become specialized, so that entire units or even divisions are dedicated to training foreign militaries.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged Indonesia on Wednesday to make greater efforts to reform its armed forces, echoing calls from critics of Washington's decision to restore military ties last year. In an address to Indonesia's World Affairs Council, Rice stressed that a "reformed and effective" Indonesian military was in the interests of everyone in a region beset by terrorism and unrest.

The Army has a message for the growing legions of flamboyantly tattooed American teens: Uncle Sam even wants \o7you\f7. Facing one of the worst recruiting climates in the allvolunteer military's history, the Army has decided to relax standards that dictate which parts of a soldier can be festooned with body art. Specifically, the service will accept recruits with tattoos on their neck and hands.

For a service usually stationed so far from the front lines that it has earned the sobriquet "Chair Force," some of the scenes now unfolding at the Air Force's primary training base almost seem blasphemous. New recruits are being trained to use rifles. They are being taught hand-to-hand combat skills. They are being prepped as battlefield medics.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld suggested Tuesday that recent criticism from retired senior officers stemmed from long-standing disagreements over modernizing the U.S. military, saying a series of organizational shake-ups had provoked antagonism within the armed forces.

The remains of Marines killed in Iraq or Afghanistan will be met by at least two Marines to "render appropriate honors" when the caskets arrive as cargo aboard civilian airlines, under a policy issued this week. Camp Pendleton has had more personnel killed in Iraq -- nearly 290 -- than any U.S. military base. The old policy required only one Marine. But amid a congressional probe into how all services are treating the remains of those killed overseas, the Marine Corps has changed its policy.

A winter fog rolled in off the Persian Gulf, coiling around searchlights and 12-foot-high fences rimmed with razor wire. Dozens of listless Iraqi men lingered near the edges of one compound, wearing winter coats over dishdasha gowns and wool socks under plastic flip-flops. One sat wrapped in a plastic garbage bag as another prisoner trimmed his beard with an electric clipper. It seems an unlikely setting for a hearts-and-minds campaign, but commanders at this fast-growing U.S.

For former soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who might be toying with the idea of getting back into uniform, the Army has a new offer: Join up and regain your old rank without repeating basic training. It's the latest twist in the Army's pitch for recruits as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan make it increasingly difficult to enlist young people and meet the Army's need for 80,000 new soldiers a year. "It's common sense," said Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty, an Army spokesman.

Even as he touted a host of reforms to help shield Iraqi prisoners from further cases of abuse, the Army's new detention chief in Iraq found himself on the defensive Saturday over his role in a proposal last year that guards take a more active role in the interrogation process at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison. Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, who headed an expert team that visited the U.S.