SECRETARY OF DEFENSE ROBERT GATES SWORN-IN

MANAMA, Bahrain, Dec. 16 (UPI) -- U.S. policy regarding the Middle East has always been controversial to say the least, and when the U.S. secretary of defense delivers a major policy speech in the Middle East, it is certain to raise controversy.

WASHINGTON, Dec. 12 (UPI) -- What should we think, now that the long investigation into the killings of 17 Iraqis by Blackwater contractors last year has ended with the indictment of five of them and a guilty plea by another?

WASHINGTON, Dec. 10 (UPI) -- "Opportunity cost" is a term economists use to describe the price of not doing something: the consequences of choosing one thing and thus forgoing another. Some choices are small, but every so often there are big ones with huge and lasting consequences. The U.S. military is now facing a series of such decisions. Part one of three.

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MACDILL AFB, Fla., Oct. 31 (UPI) -- U.S. Army Gen. David Petraeus took over U.S. Central Command Friday at a change of command ceremony in Florida.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 2 (UPI) -- One way to look at the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is to see them as one war with two fronts.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 6 (UPI) -- The U.S. Department of Defense is urging President George Bush to delay further drawdowns of U.S. troops in Iraq, White House officials said.

ARLINGTON, Va., Aug. 1 (UPI) -- Some of the saddest stories to come out of recent military conflicts concern children who found the unexploded remains of cluster bombs.

WASHINGTON, July 17 (UPI) -- The United States is committed, under Article 5 of the 1949 Washington Treaty, to defend its European NATO allies, including Poland, from any foreign aggression. But Poland's current leaders aren't eager to do their part in protecting the United States from thermonuclear attack.

KABUL, Afghanistan, June 27 (UPI) -- The monthly death toll of U.S. troops and their allies in Afghanistan in June was its highest since the seven-year war began.