Morning News Roundup (16 Mar)

• More than 50 US warplanes were today involved in the biggest air offensive launched by the Americans in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, against Sunni insurgents in the restive town of Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad. [Guardian]
  
  
• American forces have dramatically increased air strikes in Iraq during the past five months, a change of tactics that may foreshadow how the United States plans to battle a still-strong insurgency while reducing the number of US ground troops serving here. A review of military data shows that daily bombing runs and jet-missile launches have increased by more than 50 percent in the past five months, compared with the same period last year. The numbers also show that US forces dropped bombs on more cities during the last five months than they did during the same period a year ago. [Knight Ridder via Truthout]
  
  
• Three years after the Bush administration pressed the Security Council to act on Iraq's weapons programs or face independent US action against the Baghdad regime, the UN is witnessing a strikingly similar conversation. Moreover, some experts warn that dallying by the council could prompt the US to eventually act outside the UN. [CSM]
  

  "Déjà vu," said Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov of the current standoff. He was Russia's UN ambassador during the Iraq debate.
  
  "If that is déjà vu, so be it," responded US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton, who says the Iran case is about getting a country to comply with its international obligations.

• President Bush plans to issue a new national security strategy today reaffirming his doctrine of preemptive war. In his revised version, Bush offers no second thoughts about the preemption policy, saying it "remains the same" and defending it as necessary for a country in the "early years of a long struggle" akin to the Cold War. [WaPo]
  
  
• UN ambassador John Bolton compared the threat from Iran’s nuclear programs to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States. “Just like Sept. 11, only with nuclear weapons this time, that’s the threat. I think that is the threat,” Bolton told ABC News’ Nightline. “I think it’s just facing reality. It’s not a happy reality, but it’s reality and if you don’t deal with it, it will become even more unpleasant.” [MSNBC]
  
  
• Great news! Katherine Harris (former Florida Secretary of State who certified the BushCo election win over Al Gore in 2000; pictured at right) is staying in Florida's Senate race and has vowed to empty her own personal coffers of between $5 and $10 million. [NYTimes]
  
  
• Nothing snarky about this: The Missouri House voted Wednesday to ban state funding of contraceptives for low-income women and to prohibit state-funded programs from referring those women to other programs. [Kansas City Star]
  
  
• United Nations experts will today hold an emergency meeting aimed at protecting some of the world's natural wonders from the escalating threat of climate change. Melting glaciers on Mount Everest and damage to the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Australia have prompted calls for the UN to officially acknowledge that global warming poses a danger to some of its world heritage sites. [Guardian]
  
  
• Finally, you know your polling numbers are tanking (here ane here) when Jessica Simpson won't even meet with you.