By Steve Clemons

The smartest guy I know in the nation-building business sent me the note that follows. It addresses my earlier post about the $1.

The U.S. government is offering $1 billion over two years to help “strategically stabilize” 10 cities in Iraq. A TWN reader involved with several important institution-building efforts in Iraq sent this to me last night.

The Guardian Newspaper has run an oped style query titled “Why Do You Want to Bomb Me, Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair?” by Al-Jazeera Managing Director Wadah Kanfar today, and it’s very interesting, particularly because it reminds us that Al-Jazeera was thought of very differently before 9/11. One point of headline confusion though.

President Bush will no doubt be talking about this new National Strategy for Victory in Iraq Report. I am reading it now but wanted to get it out quickly to TWN readers. More later.

TWN has just secured a copy of a letter from Al-Jazeera Managing Director Wadah Khanfar to Prime Minister Tony Blair about the secret memo which allegedly outlines President Bush’s intent to bomb Al-Jazeera‘s headquarters and Blair’s efforts to dissuade him.

For those of you in Washington, feel free to stop by at 4 p.m. for a program on Sino-Japanese Relations at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, organized by the Sasakawa Peace Foundation. Charles Kupchan will be moderating a session featuring University of Tokyo Professor Akio Takahara.

Former State Department Chief of Staff Col. Lawrence Wilkerson continues to hammer the White House over torture and detainee abuse revelations — but is also suggesting that as he learns more from various sources, his original views that the White House was not involved in duplicity regarding Iraq WMD intelligence is evolving.

I can’t attend today, but Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Peter Pace are giving a media briefing at 1:15 p.m.

Today in a long interview session with a number of Associated Press correspondents, former State Department Chief of Staff Lawrence Wilkerson offered important commentary on the White House’s role in establishing a permissive environment that led to detainee abuse and torture.

I thought that Frank Gaffney’s outrageous comments last week that, under certain circumstances, it would be laudable for U.S. forces to bomb Al-Jazeera’s Doha headquarters were the first time he had suggested destroying this important Arab media network.