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NYTimes Nuclear Winter RetroReport

Fact Check: Did Obama Withdraw From Iraq Too Soon, Allowing ISIS To Grow?

Like everyone else, the Republican candidates talk about ISIS a lot. And what they — at least Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush — charge is that ISIS is President Obama's fault, because he withdrew troops from Iraq in 2011 — when he should have kept them there to keep a lid on the insurgency.

Let's Break It Down:

The Claim:

"Barack Obama became president, and he abandoned Iraq. He left, and when he left al Qaida was done for. ISIS was created because of the void that we left, and that void now exists as a caliphate the size of Indiana." — former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush

The Big Question:

OK, maybe it's actually two questions:

1. Is Obama responsible for the timing of the troop withdrawal from Iraq?

1. Did that withdrawal cause the rise of ISIS?

And there are answers for both, though not simple ones.

The Long Answer:

First, we have to decide on a starting point.

Many Democrats, and even a few Republicans, say we should look back to the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. That, and the dismantling of the entire security force, created an angry, mainly Sunni demographic, which fueled the insurgency that would later become ISIS.

Others go back further, pointing out the strong links between Saddam Hussein's brutal Baathist regime, and the structure, methods and, indeed, commanders of ISIS.

But if we take the invasion as a given, and Saddam Hussein as history, we can begin the answer to the first question —

Was Obama responsible for the timing of the withdrawal?

It was President George W. Bush who signed the Status of Forces agreement in 2008, which planned for all American troops to be out of Iraq by the end of 2011.

"The agreement lays out a framework for the withdrawal of American forces in Iraq — a withdrawal that is possible because of the success of the surge," he said in a joint press conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki at the time.

Moments later, an Iraqi journalist threw his shoes at the president. It is important to remember most Iraqis saw the Americans as occupiers and blame them for civilian deaths.

Maliki summed up the sentiment at the time, thus:

"The incomplete sovereignty and the presence of foreign troops are the most dangerous, most complicated and most burdensome legacy we have faced since the time of dictatorship. Iraq should get rid of them to protect its young democratic experiment."

Thousands of American troops had died, and by the time Obama announced the withdrawal, fully three-quarters of Americans supported the withdrawal (though a majority of Republicans did not).

Still, many had real concerns al Qaeda wasn't done for. And there were some, including U.S. senators, saying the troops should stay just in case things went downhill. They say Obama should have sold the idea, hard, to Maliki.

Iraq analyst Kirk Sowell said Obama never really tried.

"This is one of the criticisms of Obama — that he sort of wanted the negotiations to fail," Sowell said, "and, so, he didn't even talk to Maliki until it was basically all over."

The State Department's lawyers said troops couldn't stay in Iraq unless the Iraqi parliament authorized them to do so, including granting them immunity from Iraqi law. The Iraqi parliamentarians would never OK such a decision, with Iraqi popular opinion staunchly against U.S. troops staying.

Sowell saw State's decision as a deliberately insurmountable obstacle.

"It was a barrier that was very high," he said, "and there was no way it was going to be jumped over."

But, does Obama bear responsibility for the timing of the troop withdrawal? On balance, no.

He was following through on an agreement made by Bush and abiding by the will of the Iraqi and American people.

Alright so, onto the next question —

Did the withdrawal of troops lead to the rise of ISIS?

Back then, in 2011, there was no ISIS. The group didn't exist under that name yet. There was just their predecessor, al Qaeda in Iraq, which had been at the forefront of the terrible insurgency in Iraq. But many thought it was licked.

"All of the intelligence that we had gathered, all of the results of the surge, all of the detainees we had in our detention system, all of the information we had coming to us from people on the ground, from the tribes indicated that al Qaeda in Iraq was defeated," said Ret. Col. Peter Mansoor, who served in Iraq.

That surge was the influx of American soldiers, and the way the U.S. military organized Sunni tribes to fight against insurgents. The Americans paid them, helped arm them and gave them air cover.

One of those tribal leaders, Sheikh Hamid Taees, told me: "In May of 2006, I worked closely with the American side to rid Anbar of terrorism and al Qaeda, and actually we killed a large number of al Qaeda fighters."

But by the time of that comment, early in 2014, al Qaeda was beginning to get a grip on Sunni areas again, including that province of Anbar.

Many Sunni sheikhs say once the American soldiers left, the minority Sunni population of Iraq suffered under a government dominated by the Shiite majority. That government stopped paying most of them, and even arrested many.

(As an aside, we should note that there was a political, as well as a military, dimension to American influence in Iraq: Obama continued to support the government even as Sunni fear and anger grew. "We were encouraged," he said in 2013, "by the work that Prime Minister Maliki has done in the past to ensure that all people inside of Iraq — Sunni, Shia and Kurd — feel that they have a voice in their government."

(But they did not feel that. Sheikh Zeidan al-Jabri led a series of Sunni protests and sit-ins in Anbar, which were eventually violently dispersed by security forces at the end of 2013.

("For a year, we did not attack anyone; we were an example of democracy on an international level," he told me from exile in Jordan. "And what did the world do? The world simply turned its face from us and gave Maliki the permission to attack the demonstrations and kill hundreds of innocent demonstrators.")

So some Sunnis were drawn back to the insurgency. ISIS found supporters and gained ground. And, yes, much of that could have been prevented by a big U.S. troop presence.

The other thing that happened after the American military left was that the Iraqi army deteriorated dramatically.

"They really did become relatively complacent, and then flat out just didn't train," said Major-General Paul E. Funk II, speaking after abruptly returning to Iraq on a training mission 2014. "Just didn't spend the money to do it, didn't maintain the systems and therein lies the problem."

And corruption was running rampant. Supplies were stolen; soldiers were paid, who never reported for duty. And, so, when ISIS came rushing into the city of Mosul last year, the military collapsed.

I met one of the defeated Iraqi troops, named Bahr Ibrahim, shortly afterward, sitting dejectedly next to an injured friend in a hospital not far from Mosul.

"We fought," he said. But ISIS had more men and bigger weapons.

So, yes, the withdrawal of U.S. troops helped ISIS. If they'd stayed, they could have bolstered Iraq's security forces and tamped down Sunni anger.

But the Republicans' claim that ISIS grew because Obama withdrew troops from Iraq still glosses over many other factors beyond America's control — like the fact that the rift between Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq has been going on for centuries. And that wasn't going to be permanently solved by American troops.

Another crucial thing is Syria. For reasons completely beyond Obama's control, after 2011, Syria sank into civil war. Suddenly, just over Iraq's borders were vast ungoverned spaces and lots of weapons. It became a safe haven for ISIS to grow in.

The Republican candidates have the benefit of hindsight now, but they couldn't have predicted all the things that contributed to the growth of ISIS back then. And neither could Obama.

The Short Answer:

1. No, Obama shouldn't shoulder the full burden for the timing of the withdrawal of troops;

2. Yes, a significant American troop presence would have helped slow the growth of ISIS

But with the significant caveat that there were many other factors that enabled ISIS to become strong — and they weren't all predictable in 2011. npr

This story is part of NPR's fact-checking series, "Break It Down," in which we try to cut through the spin and put things in context. Have something you want us to fact check? Put it in the comments section or send us an email at nprpolitics@npr.org.

How Jurassic World Should Have Ended

Black Rhino Is Killed By U.S. Hunter Who Won Controversial Auction

An endangered black rhino is seen in this file photo from the Etosha National Park in northern Namibia last year. An American hunter has killed one of the animals, under a special permit he bought for $350,000.

A Texas hunter who paid $350,000 for the right to hunt a rare black rhino in Namibia has killed the animal. The hunt has drawn controversy and spurred debate over the best way to manage endangered wildlife.

Corey Knowlton won an auction last January for a hunting permit that would allow him to kill a black rhino weighing around 3,000 pounds.

"There are only an estimated 4,000 to 5,000 black rhinos living in the wild," Mark wrote for the Two-Way last year. "Namibian authorities issue five kill permits per year."

The permit came from Namibia's Ministry of Environment and Tourism; each year, it targets several older rhinos that are no longer able to breed – but still pose a deadly threat to younger males. The proceeds are meant to go toward anti-poaching and conservation efforts.

Namibia is facing a surge in poaching — last week, the country's New Era newspaper said that 60 rhinos have been poached so far in 2015, leading Namibia's environmental ministry to double its reward for information about the killings.

After winning the auction, Knowlton then had to get special permission from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to bring the carcass back to America. The agency, which gave its approval in March, writes:

"The removal of limited numbers of males has been shown to stimulate population growth in some areas. Removing specific individuals from a population can result in reduced male fighting, shorter calving intervals, and reduced juvenile mortality."

Black rhinos have "the highest combat mortality rates of any mammal," Namibia's Oshili 24 reports. "Approximately 50 percent of males and 30 percent of females die from combat-related injuries."

But, the news site adds, "Many in Namibia opposed the auction." Protests against the hunt came from international groups; demonstrators also picketed the auction held by the Dallas Safari Club.

As Knowlton told CNN, the rhino hunt could have ended in three possible scenarios – including one in which the wrong rhino could be killed:

"If it charges at us and we are already sure it's the right one, we are going to kill it," Knowlton said. "If we aren't sure if it's the right one, we are going to try and get out of the way. If we don't feel like we can get out of the way, we got to kill it."

Knowlton invited CNN to join him on the hunt; the network's Ed Lavandera spent several days with the hunter and a team of trackers, documenting their walk through the bush. A sample:

"The rhino is close. Knowlton's hands firmly grip his high-powered 500 Nitro Express rifle. Moments later, I see a massive flash of gray leap up over the bushes some 50 feet in front of us. It disappears and you can't tell which direction the rhino is running.

"It's jarring to see this close how quickly these massive creatures can move."

The hunting party picked up the rhino's trail near a watering hole early in the morning. When they finally got close to it, the rhino charged – and was shot several times.

"Any time you take an animal's life it's an emotional thing," Knowlton tells CNN.

"I felt like from day one it was something benefiting the black rhino," Knowlton tells Lavandera shortly after the hunt. "Being on this hunt, with the amount of criticism it brought and the amount of praise it brought from both sides, I don't think it could have brought more awareness to the black rhino."

If you're wondering how the 36-year-old Knowlton could afford the steep hunting fee, we're seeing that he's a hunting consultant based in Dallas, as well as a personality on an Outdoor Channel hunting show, Jim Shockey's The Professionals. He's also a son of Lary Knowlton, the co-founder of BASA Resources, which was characterized last year as one of "the top 20 oil producers in the state of Texas." npr

The Terror Strategist: Secret Files Reveal the Structure of Islamic State By Christoph Reuter

An Iraqi officer planned Islamic State's takeover in Syria and SPIEGEL has been given exclusive access to his papers. They portray an organization that, while seemingly driven by religious fanaticism, is actually coldly calculating.

Listen to it here: npr

...not even those who shot and killed him (Haji Bakr) after a brief firefight in the town of Tal Rifaat on a January morning in 2014 knew the true identity of the tall man in his late fifties. 

They were unaware that they had killed the strategic head of the group calling itself "Islamic State" (IS). The fact that this could have happened at all was the result of a rare but fatal miscalculation by the brilliant planner. The local rebels placed the body into a refrigerator, in which they intended to bury him. Only later, when they realized how important the man was, did they lift his body out again.

Samir Abd Muhammad al-Khlifawi was the real name of the Iraqi, whose bony features were softened by a white beard. But no one knew him by that name. Even his best-known pseudonym, Haji Bakr, wasn't widely known. But that was precisely part of the plan. The former colonel in the intelligence service of Saddam Hussein's air defense force had been secretly pulling the strings at IS for years. Former members of the group had repeatedly mentioned him as one of its leading figures. Still, it was never clear what exactly his role was.

But when the architect of the Islamic State died, he left something behind that he had intended to keep strictly confidential: the blueprint for this state. It is a folder full of handwritten organizational charts, lists and schedules, which describe how a country can be gradually subjugated. SPIEGEL has gained exclusive access to the 31 pages, some consisting of several pages pasted together. They reveal a multilayered composition and directives for action, some already tested and others newly devised for the anarchical situation in Syria's rebel-held territories. In a sense, the documents are the source code of the most successful terrorist army in recent history.

Until now, much of the information about IS has come from fighters who had defected and data sets from the IS internal administration seized in Baghdad. But none of this offered an explanation for the group's meteoric rise to prominence, before air strikes in the late summer of 2014 put a stop to its triumphal march.

For the first time, the Haji Bakr documents now make it possible to reach conclusions on how the IS leadership is organized and what role former officials in the government of ex-dictator Saddam Hussein play in it. Above all, however, they show how the takeover in northern Syria was planned, making the group's later advances into Iraq possible in the first place. In addition, months of research undertaken by SPIEGEL in Syria, as well as other newly discovered records, exclusive to SPIEGEL, show that Haji Bakr's instructions were carried out meticulously.

Bakr's documents were long hidden in a tiny addition to a house in embattled northern Syria. Reports of their existence were first made by an eyewitness who had seen them in Haji Bakr's house shortly after his death. In April 2014, a single page from the file was smuggled to Turkey, where SPIEGEL was able to examine it for the first time. It only became possible to reach Tal Rifaat to evaluate the entire set of handwritten papers in November 2014. spiegel

Last One Standing: Last Male White Rhino Under 24/7 Surveillance

The last male rhino left standing is now under strict surveillance to protect him from illegal poachers. Armed guards are keeping a watchful eye for Sudan, the rhino.

Sudan now becomes the last male rhino of its kind. He is now under protective care at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya. Belonging to a rare, white rhino sub-species, Sudan is one of the five remaining white rhinos in the world. Together with his two female companions, they are the only ones left that roam free since the other two are housed in a zoo.

Efforts have been doubled to help protect the last male species in hopes that he could breed with the other female rhinos of his kind. To ensure that Sudan is closely monitored, he wears radio transmitters and had his horns cut off to hopefully discourage poachers from hunting him.

Originally, there were four white rhinos transferred from Dvur Kralove Zoo in Czech Republic. The translocation of these creatures was carried out to let them live in a favourable breeding ground in an attempt to save the species from extinction.

The environmental conditions at Ol Pejeta are ideal for the rhinos to start breeding and hopefully raise the population of the rare species. However, late in 2014, Suni died of natural causes, pushing the species nearer to extinction.

In the 1960s, more than 2,000 northern white rhinos roam the land, according to the World Wildlife Fund, or WWF. However, due to increasing poaching activities, the number was reduced to 15 by 1980, and in 2015, only five remain alive. msn

For Young People In Rural Areas, Suicide Poses A Growing Threat

Suicide is the third leading cause of death for adolescents and young adults, and those who live in rural areas are especially at risk.

For young people between the ages of 10 and 24, the suicide rates in rural areas are nearly double those of urban areas, according to a study published Monday in JAMA Pediatrics. And that disparity is growing.

The study, which analyzed data from 1996-2010, also found over half of the young people who killed themselves during that time period themselves had used a gun. And the rates for suicide by firearm were especially high in rural areas — about three times the rates for urban areas. npr

a history of money and power at the vatican

For decades, the Catholic Church has been dogged by scandals involving money. Vatican City — a sovereign state — controls its own finances through the Vatican Bank. It developed as a cross between the Federal Reserve and an offshore bank. In a new history, God's Bankers, Gerald Posner explains that its roots go back to the mid-19th century.

"They had 15,000 square miles of what was central Italy with thousands of subjects," Posner tells NPR's Renee Montagne. "They levied taxes and paid for this lavish lifestyle — with 700 servants and a big and growing bureaucracy around them. Then, in 1870, Italy's nationalists have a revolution. They throw the Pope out, they get rid of the papal states. The Vatican goes from being an empire — an earthly empire — to a little postage-stamp size of property called Vatican City."

By World War II, the church had sizable investments and created the Vatican Bank in order to hide its financial dealings with the Nazis from the U.S. and the U.K.

"I was surprised the extent to which the Vatican was deeply embedded with German companies," Posner says. "They bundled together life insurance policies of Jewish refugees who had been sent to Auschwitz and other death camps. They escheated these policies early on — meaning they took the cash value of them."

Later, when the surviving children or grandchildren of the victims tried to collect on the insurance policies, they were refused.

"These insurance companies would refuse to pay out saying: 'Show us a death certificate,' which they knew was impossible," Posner explains. "They would keep the money."

In God's Bankers, Posner sheds light on what he calls "the blood money" that came into the church.

On the Vatican being "equal opportunity profiteers"

It wasn't as though they did business with the Germans because they wanted the Germans to win. They did business with everyone, because they called themselves neutral and decided that somebody would win at the end of the war — and they were going to keep their business connections open to everybody. Then, when they saw the war was going against the Germans, they started to hide the connections. And after the war they said, "We didn't do anything wrong."

On how the Church knew what the Nazis were doing but were "frozen by indecision and fear"

The bank officials and those who ran the bank knew very little because, in part, all they wanted to know was what was happening in terms of the war effort and what was happening in terms of business and profits.

But on the church end, there's no doubt that they had churches, local churches in all of the countries, that were the ground zeros for the killing zones. The local priests who were not in favor of the slaughter still reported back to their bishops what was happening on the ground. That came in daily reports, and they had unfortunately a very clear sense of what was happening early on.

They were just frozen by indecision and fear. They were afraid that if they spoke out, the Nazis might in fact move against Catholics in Germany and even move against the Pope and take him back to Germany as a prisoner. But that fear meant that they abdicated their moral position as the head of the world's largest religion, especially at a time that they continued to make money with the people committing the murder. npr

Police Fire Tear Gas On Kenyan Kids Protecting A Soccer Field

Hundreds of elementary schools were protesting the illegal seizure of their playground by a private developer in Nairobi, Kenya, when police fired tear gas into the crowd.

The incident sparked outrage across the city — and on social media, where Kenyans tweeted with the hashtag #OccupyPlayGround.

But the shocking images and videos of the ordeal provoked a surprisingly proactive response. In the end, these Kenyan kids did what ordinary Kenyans are rarely able to do: Defend disappearing public space.

The process is known as "land-grabbing." A fence suddenly appears overnight around a parcel of government property. Those who protest are warded off — sometimes violently — by police. In time, a new high-rise or hotel or parking lot appears, owned by a politically connected magnate.

But this time, the land in question was next to an elementary school, Langata Road Primary School. And the protesters were kids as young as 8, who used the land to play soccer.

When developers set up a fence separating the school from the playground over the winter break, several hundred kids showed up on Monday to protest. They ended up breaking down the new fence. In response, heavily armed police fired tear gas on the kids.

"The tear gas was so bad!" Kevin Sande, 10, said Tuesday.

The gas made their eyes red and caused them to cough, other kids said.

In full disclosure, I can't be sure that Sande and his classmates I interviewed at Langata Road Primary School were the ones that got tear-gassed. In the disturbing photos from that day, it's hard to make out the faces on the green uniforms engulfed in white smoke.

"I didn't understand whether we are in Kenya or the Gaza Strip," says Rahab Mwikali, an activist, who came to the school to express sympathy. "I thought what could this be?" npr

A 9-year-old girl in Arizona on Monday accidentally killed her firing-range instructor when she lost control of an Uzi submachine gun

A 9-year-old girl in Arizona on Monday accidentally killed her firing-range instructor 

when she lost control of an Uzi submachine gun.
The news has ignited a debate in the country about access to guns and the 
wisdom of state law and parents who allow children to shoot them. It also 
brought up a host of questions. We've answered three of the main ones below:
Is it common for kids to shoot guns at ranges?
Adam Winkler, a professor of law at the University of California, Los Angeles, 
and the author ofGunfight: The Battle over the Right to Bear Arms in America, 
says children are on the range all the time.
One school of thought, which he subscribes to himself, he said, is that if 
children learn about the awesome power of guns, they will be less likely to play 
with them. Also, the thinking goes, what safer place to learn about guns than 
at a shooting range?
Winkler said that what is rare to see is a child shooting an automatic weapon 
like an Uzi at one of these places.
"To allow a 9-year-old to shoot a weapon like that is absurd," he said. "There's 
no reason that girl should have had that gun on her own." I AGREE. npr

apopo

adorable

someone in the world is maimed or killed by a landmine every hour. apopo is a not for profit ngo that has spent the last twenty years developing and implementing “hero rats” to clear affected areas of their landmines - over 1500 in tanzania, where apopo is headquartered, 2,728 in mozambique, and 657 in thailand. there also ongoing operations in angola and cambodia. 

rats are known to be amongst the most sensitive animals when it comes to smell, with more functional genes for their olfactory system than any other mammal. a rat’s nose is constantly active and moving, and is always close to ground where vapour concentrations are highest and wind speeds are lowest.

the african giant pouched rat, being highly sociable and native to sub saharan africa, is specifically trained to detect tnt and mine casing minerals. using a combination of click training and food rewarding that begins shortly after birth and lasts nine months, the rats are able to cover 100 square metres of land in 20 minutes - something a human would need an entire day to do.

weighing just over a kilogram, the rats are too light to set off a landmine, and not one has died from the work. apopo adheres to very strict animal welfare protocols, and the rats are treated with the greatest of care and attention, with most meeting their expected eight years of life. 

photos by sylvain piraux. consider adopting a rat, where you’ll get real time updates on your rat’s training and life saving work. you can also chose to instead have your rat trained to sniff out tuberculosis in sub saharan african villages (apopo has trained rats to do in ten minutes what it takes lab technicians a day to detect)

nearly bombing north carolina

"One simple, dynamo-technology, low voltage switch stood between the United States and a major catastrophe."

That is the blunt 1969 assessment of Parker F. Jones, the then supervisor of the nuclear weapons safety department at Sandia National Laboratories, in a newly declassified document that sheds light on a 1961 accident in which the United States almost nuked North Carolina.

The document was given to The Guardian today by author Eric Schlosser, who came upon the document doing research for a new book.

The story of Goldsboro, N.C. is well known. It was the Cold War and the U.S. had B-52 bombers in the air as a precaution, ready to strike if the Soviet Union made a move. As Rudolph Herzog explained it in his book A Short History of Nuclear Folly, one of the B-52s was carrying two Mark 39 hydrogen bombs, which are many times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Like the others, the B-52 flew huge circles around the U.S. and the Atlantic, needing to be refueled along the way.

The plane had reported an oil leak in its left motor.

"The third time [it was filled up], a filler neck broke off the plane ... and kerosene began pouring from its right wing," Herzog writes.

To make a long story short, the plane disintegrated and the two bombs fell from the sky onto American soil.

But this document says that in the Goldsboro incident, the U.S. was one step away from a massive nuclear disaster.

To be fair, as Herzog notes in his book, former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara did say in 1983 that the bomb had gone through six of the seven steps needed for detonation.

Of course, in his memo, Jones puts it more dramatically.

"The MK 39 Mod 2 bomb did not possess adequate safety for airborne alert role in the B-52," Jones wrote.

In its review of Schlosser's new book, Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident and the Illusion of Safety, Bloomberg reports that the North Carolina accident was one of many. npr

McCain on Syria

gun conceptions

gun nut or mass shooter?

nra should take a closer look at themselves

women in combat

Kim Jong-un and the North Korea rocket launch