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Posts filed under 'iraq'

United States Congressional Serial Set Now Available through LexisNexis Congressional

UC Berkeley has recently acquired full-text access to the United States Congressional Serial Set (1789-1969) through LexisNexis Congressional.    The Serial Set contains the legislative history of United States, and also includes many historic agency annual reports, House and Senate Reports, and many other official government documents (for a more complete summary of what is contained in the Serial Set, click here).   Prior to this acquisition, citations to the Serial Set found in LexisNexis Congressional had to be searched in the Readex United States Congressional Serial Set database.  With this purchase, you can now search LexisNexis Congressional for all your congressional research needs.  Off-campus access to LexisNexis Congressional is restricted to current UCB student, faculty and staff,  though anyone in the Library may access the database.

Add comment May 5th, 2009

Obama Signs Executive Order to Close Gitmo!

This morning, President Barack Obama signed executive orders to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center, review military war crimes trials and ban the harshest interrogation methods.  At the time of this posting, the orders are not available on the White House website.  When they are available, they will be located on the executive orders page.

3 comments January 22nd, 2009

New Database: LexisNexis Statistical Datasets

The Library has just subscribed to LexisNexis Statistical Datasets. The database provides fast and easy one-stop shopping to more than 5.3 billion (and growing) data points from licensed and public domain datasets. Sources of data include local, state and international governments and organizations. Datasets allows you to  customize the data by selecting subjects, variable(s) of interest, and the ability to view your data in side-by-side tables, charts and even maps.  Datasets also provides quick graphs and chats for statistics in the news, and when you download or print, you are given citation information from where the data originated.  Anyone may access LexisNexis Statistical Datasets from the public computers in the Library, however,  off-campus access to is restricted to current UCB faculty, staff and students through the proxy server or VPN.

Add comment December 8th, 2008

Rice admits to White House Talks on “harsh interrogation methods”

According to an article in yesterday’s Los Angeles Times, Secretary of State Condolezza Rice participated in meetings at the White House from 2002-2003 to discuss the use of “harsh interrogation methods on Al Qaeda detainees.”  This news comes from a written statement Rice provided to Senate Armed Services Committee investing the use of torture.  Present at these meetings were Donald Rumsfeld, Alberto Gonzales, David S. Addington, the vice president’s counsel.  According to the article, the State Department “would not comment on correspondence between Rice and members of Congress.”

2 comments September 26th, 2008

GAO Report Faults Post-’Surge’ Planning

From the Washington Post:

The administration lacks an updated and comprehensive Iraq strategy to move beyond the “surge” of combat troops President Bush launched in January 2007 as an 18-month effort to curtail violence and build Iraqi democracy, government investigators said yesterday.

While agreeing with the administration that violence has decreased sharply, a report released yesterday by the Government Accountability Office concluded that many other goals Bush outlined a year and a half ago in the “New Way Forward” strategy remain unmet.

Add comment June 24th, 2008

Reports on Pre-War Intelligence Released from the U.S. Senate

The United States Senate’s Select Committee on Intelligence has just released 2 reports on pre-war intelligence activities. You can find the reports on the committee’s webpage. The reports are titled:

Report on Whether Public Statements Regarding Iraq by U.S. Government officials were Substantiated by Intelligence Information

Report on Intelligence Activities Relating to Iraq Conducted by the Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group and the Office of Special Plans Within the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense Policy.

Among other things, the reports found that officials misrepresented secret intelligence to make the case to invade Iraq.  At this point in time, UC Berkeley has not received these reports from the Government Printing Office.

Add comment June 5th, 2008

Foreign Policy Association

The Foreign Policy Association (FPA) “is a non-profit organization dedicated to inspiring the American public to learn more about the world. Founded in 1918, FPA provides independent publications, programs and forums to increase public awareness of, and foster popular participation in, matters relating to those policy issues.” Supporting the focus on key current policy issues, the FPA website features blogs that discuss international events and also daily postings from foreign policy experts. Sections such as Explore by Region (with map) and Explore by Issue are very useful. Currently the Explore by Issue section includes: Iraq, European Union, Diplomacy, Russia. Defense & Security, Latin America, China Trade, Philanthropy and more. The Latin America listings include Spring Updates (post-Fidel Cuba), Recommended Readings, and a Latin America Blog. A key item on the FPA site is the video content which features clips from the FPA’s Great Decisions television series and also lectures by prominent scholars.

Add comment April 23rd, 2008

Securing, Stabilizing, and Rebuilding Iraq: Iraqi Government Has Not Met Most Legislative, Security, and Economic Benchmarks

View GAO report

Add comment September 5th, 2007

Catalog of US Government Publications Maintenance Aug 26

The Catalog of U.S. Government Publications (CGP) at http://catalog.gpo.gov may be unavailable for a brief interval of time Sunday evening, August 26, as the Government Printing Office performs routine maintenance. If you encounter the period of down time, please try again later.

Add comment August 24th, 2007

Pakistan: Significant Recent Events

 The report, Pakistan: Significant Recent Events, March 26- June 21, 2007, provides a chronology of major recent events. Starting soon after President Musharraf suspended the chief justice (March 9th), the listing chronicles the challenges facing Pakistan’s relationships with the U.S. and neighboring countries: Afghanistan, India, Iran, and China.

Source: Secrecy News

Add comment July 31st, 2007

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