Military Training

The U.S. military's top uniformed officer on Saturday urged the armed forces to rebuild combat capabilities that have atrophied during the protracted counter-insurgency campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. The focus by Adm. Michael G. Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on major-combat skills contrasts with recent speeches by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates.

The basic rule for Marine boot camp is simple: Keep your mouth shut and mind your own business. But it's different when the subject is suicide. Drill instructors encourage recruits to share their feelings in "guided discussions" and tell them to watch out for, and promptly report, warning signs in their buddies. The suicide rate in the active-duty Marine Corps was 16.5 per 100,000 in 2007 -- below both the active-duty Army and a similar demographic in the civilian population.

The U.S. Navy will restrict the use of low-frequency active sonar during training to prevent possible harm to whales and other creatures, under an agreement reached with environmental groups Tuesday. The accord, approved by a federal court in San Francisco, would restrict the use of a type of sonar in areas in the Pacific Ocean that are known to be whale breeding grounds and key habitat, such as the Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary off Hawaii.

On a sandy promontory overlooking the desert that stretches to Syria and Jordan in western Iraq, U.S. Army officers and Iraqi police officials were discussing the future. The Americans' concept of the future involved the Iraqis taking responsibility for catching insurgent smugglers and bomb-makers along the two freeways that stretch from the border region to Baghdad. The future starts now, Capt. Ian Lauer told Iraqi police Col.

Every morning on this aging metal hulk, an Iraqi naval officer reads the weather report over the radio so it can be heard by dozens of civilian boats. It's a job that used to be done by an American sailor. Here and elsewhere in the Persian Gulf off Iraq's shores, Iraqis are gradually taking over jobs once done by U.S. Marines and sailors. They stand guard on terminals such as this one, which is often compared to the bizarre structures of the movie "Waterworld."

The head of Israel's domestic intelligence agency said Monday that Iran was giving advanced military training to members of Hamas, a move he called a "strategic danger" to the Jewish state. Yuval Diskin, the director of Shin Bet, said that the militant movement had dispatched "tens" of fighters from the Gaza Strip to Iran for "months, maybe years" of instruction, and that Iran had promised to train hundreds more. A Hamas spokesman denied the assertion.

American military planners have begun plotting a fallback strategy for Iraq that includes a gradual withdrawal of forces and a renewed emphasis on training Iraqi fighters in case the current troop buildup fails or is derailed by Congress. Such a strategy, based in part on the U.S.

With its isolation and rustic ambience, this sparsely populated hamlet in eastern San Diego County offers the privacy and quiet its residents crave. "It's perfect: nobody here but us rural souls," Will Lee said as he headed to the Potrero General Store on a recent afternoon. But Lee's solitude and sense of being far from the madding crowd may soon be ruffled.

The U.S. military on Wednesday renewed its accusations that Iran is providing arms, training and other unspecified "support" to Shiite and Sunni Muslim factions in this country's ongoing civil war. Meanwhile, violence in Baghdad continued today with the bombing of a bridge that resulted in at least 10 deaths, authorities said. Police said a truck loaded with explosives blew up on the Sarafiya bridge shortly after 7 a.m., severing the middle portion of the iron-frame structure.

In a video shown on national television, an army instructor orders a soldier to envision himself in the Bronx facing hostile blacks while firing his machine gun, prompting a Defense Ministry investigation of training tactics in Germany's conscript army. The New York borough president demanded an apology from the German military.