THE FULCRUM

Jihadist terrorism has always posed what strategists call an "asymmetric threat," capable of inflicting catastrophic harm against a much stronger foe. But the way it operates, they said, is changing. Students of al Qaeda used to speak of it as a network with "key nodes" that could be attacked. More recently they have described the growth of "franchises." Gordon and Falkenrath pioneered an analogy, before leaving government, with an even less encouraging prognosis.

Jihadists "metastasized into a lot of little cancers in a lot of different countries," Gordon said recently. They formed "groups, operating under the terms of a movement, who don't have to rely on al Qaeda itself for funding, for training or for authority. [They operate] at a level that doesn't require as many people, doesn't require them to be as well-trained, and it's going to be damned hard to get in front of that."

Most officials interviewed said Bush has not devised an answer to a problem then-CIA Director George J. Tenet identified publicly on Feb. 11, 2003 -- "the numbers of societies and peoples excluded from the benefits of an expanding global economy, where the daily lot is hunger, disease, and displacement -- and that produce large populations of disaffected youth who are prime recruits for our extremist foes."

The president and his most influential advisers, many officials said, do not see those factors -- or U.S. policy overseas -- as primary contributors to the terrorism threat. Bush's explanation, in private and public, is that terrorists hate America for its freedom.

But at least a dozen current and former officials who have held key positions in conducting the war now say they see diminishing returns in Bush's decapitation strategy. Current and former leaders of that effort, three of whom departed in frustration from the top White House terrorism post, said the manhunt is important but cannot defeat the threat of jihadist terrorism. Classified government tallies, moreover, suggest that Bush and Vice President Cheney have inflated the manhunt's success in their reelection bid.

So in a "new bargain with our allies" America "re-engages" in the "peace process" in return for troops and money in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The company commander of a U.S. Army Reserve unit whose soldiers refused to deliver fuel along a dangerous route in Iraq has been relieved of her duties, the U.S. military said Thursday.

The decision to relieve the commander of the 343rd Quartermaster Company came at her request and is effective immediately, according to a statement from the 13th Corps Support Command. It was authorized by Brig. Gen. James E. Chambers.

“The outgoing commander is not suspected of misconduct and this move has nothing to do with the guilt or innocence of anyone involved,” the statement said.

Let's get a few facts straight. Sinclair is a big company. It gives lots of money to politicians, almost exclusively Republicans. It ordered its stations not to run the "Nightline" program that listed the names of the dead American soldiers in Iraq. One of its top executives also doubles as a conservative commentator. It has a sad record of using its public broadcasting license -- yes, Americans, not conglomerates, still own the airwaves -- to regularly promote Republican causes.

Iran said it test fired on Wednesday a more accurate version of its Shahab-3 missile, already believed capable of hitting Israel and U.S. bases in the Gulf.

Iran has previously announced that it has increased the missile's range to 1,250 miles, an upgrade from a range pencilled in at 800 miles by military experts.

Former President Clinton will campaign for Sen. John Kerry early next week in Philadelphia, a senior Democratic official who is familiar with the former president's plans said Tuesday.

For the second straight year, U.S. Army recruiters fell short of their goal for signing up enlistees in the first month of a new recruiting cycle.

For the first 30-day period in its new recruiting year, the Army was 30% shy of its goal of signing up 7,274 recruits. The Army had a particularly hard time recruiting for the Army Reserve, on which the Pentagon has relied heavily in Iraq and Afghanistan. Enlistments for the reserves were 45% below the target.

In the same period last year, the Army came up 25% short in its goal in the first month for enlisting 6,220 regular recruits and 40% short of its reserve enlistment goal.

A Pentagon survey shows substantial doubts among many Army Reservists about their units' preparedness for wartime missions, amid intense debate in the presidential campaign about whether U.S. troops are spread too thin.

In the survey conducted in the spring, almost half of the Army Reserve soldiers who responded said their units weren't "well prepared" for their wartime missions. Army Reservists who had served in Iraq graded their units' readiness for war even lower; only 45% of those veterans said their unit was "well prepared for its wartime mission," compared with 54% of Army Reserve members overall, the survey found.

The Army Reserve soldiers who refused orders last week to drive a dangerous supply route through Iraq's Sunni triangle were members of the 343rd Quartermaster Company, one of the few units in Iraq whose trucks lack protective armor, the unit's commanding general said at a news conference over the weekend.

Brig. James E. Chambers, the commander of the 13th Corps Support Command, said concerns about the lack of armor along with vehicle maintenance led the soldiers to balk at the mission. "Not all of their trucks are completely armored. In their case, they haven't had the chance to get armored," Gen. Chambers said of the unit.

The stuff he's saying now on TV, he didn't have the guts to say to Senator Kerry's face during the debates. Now, with his cozy little ass kissing audience, he's tough and as usual, nasty. I find it so very strange that he smiles when he speaks of the most dastardly events. I also find it very strange that so damned many people actually believe the bullshit that he's saying.

In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the White House didn't like about Bush's former communications director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House's displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend -- but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.

The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

Abortion might be a crime in most states. Gay people could be thrown in prison for having sex in their homes. States might be free to become mini-theocracies, endorsing Christianity and using tax money to help spread the gospel. The Constitution might no longer protect inmates from being brutalized by prison guards. Family and medical leave and environmental protections could disappear.

The flu is the leading cause of Americans calling in sick to work, with 5% to 20% of U.S. residents contracting the flu on average each year. According to one survey, Americans miss on average 1.2 to 1.4 days of work each year as a result of the flu.

A recent study by ComPsych Corp., Chicago, found that 40% of people who don't get flu shots miss some time at work because of the flu, compared with less than 20% of people who receive flu shots.

"If we have a normal flu season and there are no shots available we're going to have a significant number of people miss work," says Richard A. Chaifetz, chairman and chief executive of ComPsych. He suggests that any labor-dependent industries that rely heavily on performance during the peak flu season in the U.S. from December through March, could be affected significantly. "In an economy that is forcing people to do more with less, this could be a tough season."