Bergdahl to face disappearance inquiries
WASHINGTON – Bowe Bergdahl, the Army sergeant who spent nearly five years as a Taliban captive in Afghanistan, was returned to regular Army duty Monday and will be made available to Army investigators for questioning about his disappearance in 2009.
He is now assigned to U.S. Army North at Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston in Texas. That is the same location where he has been decompressing from the effects of his lengthy captivity.
His exact duties were not immediately disclosed. A brief Army announcement said in his assignment to U.S. Army North that he “can contribute to the mission” of homeland defense. It said the Army investigation into the circumstances of his disappearance and capture by the Taliban will continue.
Bergdahl was released from captivity on May 31 in exchange for five top Taliban commanders imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay.
Perry, Paul launch foreign-policy debate
NEW YORK – Two leading Republicans have begun an unusually personal war of words over foreign policy, highlighting a broader divide within the GOP over international affairs in one of the first public clashes of the Republican Party’s presidential primary process.
Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul on Monday lashed out at his Republican colleague Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s weekend charge that Paul’s “isolationist” views are dangerous. Paul, a tea party favorite, responded by taking a swipe at Perry’s fashion accessories in an article published in Politico Magazine entitled, “Rick Perry is dead wrong.”
“Apparently his new glasses haven’t altered his perception of the world, or allowed him to see it any more clearly,” Paul wrote.
Both men are seriously considering running for president in 2016.
World events intrude on Iranian nuclear talks
VIENNA – The top U.S. and Iranian diplomats searched Monday for a breakthrough in nuclear talks, their efforts complicated by crises across the Middle East and beyond that have Washington and Tehran aligned in some places but often opposed.
The state of U.S.-Iranian relations was adding a new wrinkle to the long negotiation aimed at curbing the Islamic republic’s uranium and plutonium programs.
While the two sides are arguably fighting proxy wars in Israel, Gaza and Syria, they’re talking cooperation in Iraq and Afghanistan. And, perhaps in a first, the nuclear matter is battling for full attention.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif spoke for about two hours around midday Monday, the second day of talks in Vienna. They gathered again in the afternoon, hoping to make progress before Sunday’s initial deadline for a comprehensive nuclear agreement. An extension of the deadline is possible, though there are opponents of that idea on both sides.
Associated Press
