Army

The Bush administration's plan to increase the size of the Army and the Marine Corps by 92,000 troops over the next five years is running into trouble. In January, Defense Secretary Robert Gates proposed adding 65,000 soldiers and 27,000 marines to bring the Army's total to 547,000 troops and the Marines' to 202,000. The idea was to relieve pressure on today's overstressed ground forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and to better equip the military to deal with similar unconventional wars in the future. The move, designed to provide six more combat brigade teams and their support units, complements President Bush's order late last year to boost U.S. troop strength temporarily for the current "surge" in Iraq.

In one of the longest-held secrets of the Cold War, the U.S. Army explored the potential for using radioactive poisons to assassinate "important individuals" such as military or civilian leaders, according to newly declassified documents obtained by The Associated Press.

WASHINGTON - The Army and Marine Corps are letting in more recruits with criminal records, including some with felony convictions, reflecting the increased pressure of five years of war and its mounting casualties.

The press reports the existence in Plainfield of a young National Guard trooper with a silver tongue. He has the ability to persuade his contemporaries to sign up for military duty. What with a nasty war going on and frequent removal of most Guard personnel from home and hearth, he must be a talented guy indeed.

RESOLUTION Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that a United Nations Emergency Peace Service capable of intervening in the early stages of a humanitarian crisis could save millions of lives, billions of dollars, and is in the interests of the United States. Whereas genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity have occurred repeatedly in Rwanda, Cambodia, the former Yugoslavia, East Timor, Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia, and elsewhere; Whereas the House of Representatives has found that genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity are occurring in the Darfur region of Sudan;