NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer was in Iraq this week to help open the new NATO training mission center in Baghdad. The NATO chief said that Iraq is “primarily responsible for the security of its people, but the alliance is pledged to assist in the training and equipping of Iraq’s security forces.” The new center, he continued, will “dramatically expand our options.” A NATO news statement said the alliance training mission in Iraq this year would train “around 700 officers” and “several hundred” in facilities in Europe. Yahoo.
The Pentagon announced its latest drawdown package for Ukraine, valued at $1 billion and mainly comprising of munitions for key systems. But any decision on whether to provide the Ukrainian Air Force with Western combat jets is still to be made, a key Defense Department official told reporters—and it could…