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A White House team reviewing cybersecurity policy has completed its recommendations, including the creation of a top White House cyberpolicy official

Defense Secretary Robert Gates plans to announce the creation of a new military "cyber command" after the rollout of the White House review, according to military officials familiar with the plan.

The cyber command is likely to be led by a military official of four-star rank, according to officials familiar with the proposal. It would, at least initially, be part of the Pentagon's Strategic Command, which is currently responsible for computer-network security and other missions.

Pentagon officials said the front-runner to lead the new command is National Security Agency Director Keith Alexander, a three-star Army general.

Former President George W. Bush's top intelligence adviser, Mike McConnell, first proposed the creation of a unified cyber command last fall. The military's cybersecurity efforts are currently divided between entities like the NSA and the Defense Information Systems Agency, which is responsible for ensuring secure and reliable communications for the military. The Air Force also runs a significant cybersecurity effort.

Cyber defense is the Department of Homeland Security's responsibility, so the command would be charged with assisting that department's defense efforts. The relationship would be similar to the way Northern Command supports Homeland Security with rescue capabilities in natural disasters. The NSA, where much of the government's cybersecurity expertise is housed, established a similar relationship with Homeland Security through a cybersecurity initiative that the Bush administration began in its final year.

NSA's increasingly muscular role in domestic cybersecurity has raised alarms among some officials and on Capitol Hill. Rod Beckstrom, former chief of the National Cyber Security Center, which is charged with coordinating cybersecurity activities across the U.S. government, resigned last month after warning that the growing reliance on the NSA was a "bad strategy" that posed "threats to our democratic processes."

In a rare public appearance Tuesday at a cybersecurity conference in San Francisco, Gen. Alexander called for a "team" approach to cybersecurity that would give the NSA lead responsibility for protecting military and intelligence networks while the Department of Homeland Security worked to protect other government networks.

The Pentagon plans do not involve the Department of Homeland Security, which has responsibility for securing the government's non-military computer domain.

The Wall Street Journal first reported on the plans last night.

News of the proposal comes on the heels of a 60-day White House review of cybersecurity efforts.

The newspaper earlier reported that computer spies have repeatedly breached the Pentagon's costliest weapons program -- the $300 billion Joint Strike Fighter project.

The Journal quoted former U.S. officials as saying the attacks seemed to have originated in China, although it noted it was difficult to determine the origin because of the ease of hiding identities online.

Thousands of US soldiers pass through the Manas base every month on their way in and out of Afghanistan.

It is also home to the large tanker aircraft that are used for in-air refuelling of fighter planes on combat missions, and it serves as a key supply hub.

For Russia, on the other hand, its closure would be a diplomatic victory as it seeks to reassert its influence in former Soviet republics, analysts say.

"I think that the Russians are trying to have it both ways with respect to Afghanistan in terms of Manas," US defence secretary Robert Gates said on Thursday, on his way to Krakow to meet his Polish counterpart.

"On one hand you're making positive noises about working with us in Afghanistan and on the other hand you're working against us in terms of that airfield which is clearly important to us."

On Tuesday, the US commander for the Middle East and Central Asia, General David Petraeus, held talks in Uzbekistan, which has rail links with Afghanistan. The US has already reached deals with Russia and Kazakhstan to send non-military cargo to Afghanistan using their rail networks, but the supplies would have to go through Uzbekistan. The US used to have an air base in Uzbekistan that served troops operating in Afghanistan. But Uzbek authorities closed it in 2005 after criticism from the US and EU over a crackdown on a mass protest in the town of Andijan.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards stand to be the biggest losers if the S300 system doesn't come through, since there will be little they can do but watch the bombs fall if Western powers attack. Though Russia delivered a smaller Tor-M1 missile defense system to the Iranians last year, it's a localized weapon. The S300 system, according to Jane's Defence Weekly, is "one of the world's most effective all-altitude regional air defense systems, comparable in performance to the U.S. MIM-104 Patriot system." The latest version of the S300PMU2 Favorit has a range of up to 195 kilometers and can intercept aircraft and ballistic missiles at altitudes from 10 meters to 27 kilometers. Though it's hardly clear the S300 will pose a problem for the Israeli or U.S. air forces. The Israelis have trained in avoidance tactics on an S300 system bought by Greece and deployed on the island of Crete; the U.S. Air Force has its own S300 system, which is now deployed for training purposes in the United States. According to one senior Air Combat Command source in Washington, the U.S. Air Force has the S300 "covered."

Regardless of the system's effectiveness, delivery of the S300 will be a key bellwether of Russian relations with the West. Moscow has much less influence over Tehran than it likes to pretend when bargaining with the U.S., and the S300 is one of its few remaining chips.

For years, Russia used construction of the Bushehr reactor by the Russian nuclear company Atomenergoprom as a key element of leverage, shutting down work on the plant for long periods. But now that Atomenergoprom has completed construction and is training the Iranian staff to run it, that leverage has gone. Though Russian staff will remain on-site at Bushehr, the Iranians can now run it on their own.

Russians may have less pull with Teheran than it claims, but it still sees Iran-U.S. enmity as a strategic goal, both because it increases their own diplomatic leverage and because it keeps oil prices high. Furthermore, Russia has been trying to make itself a rallying point for anti-U.S. regimes from Venezuela to Syria and Iran in an effort to restore its status as a world strategic player—a retread of the Cold War model of forging alliances with any Third World dictator who would take Russian money. So while Russia doesn't want Iran to get nukes and historically fears Iranian influence in Central Asia, Moscow has little interest in helping a rapprochement between Iran and the West. Meanwhile, the Kremlin is, cannily or cynically, depending on one's point of view, keeping the S300s on the table, neither committing to scrapping the deal nor delivering the equipment—and reserving the right to continue to tack between Jerusalem and Tehran as self-interest dictates.

Russia has also said it wants to link the nuclear talks to U.S. plans to deploy an anti-missile shield in Europe and has pushed for the United States to put a limit on the number of delivery systems -- the rockets or other means that deliver weapons.

On March 28, Mr. Maliki’s Shiite-led government arrested a prominent Sunni leader on charges of heading a secret armed wing of Mr. Hussein’s Baath Party. A week later, the prime minister accused Baathists of orchestrating car bombings that killed more than 40 people. On Monday, he lashed out again, saying the Baath Party was “filled with hate from head to toe.”

Mr. Maliki’s earlier effort to reunite the country was one of Washington’s primary benchmarks for measuring political progress in Iraq. The goal was to separate Baathist opponents of the government who were considered more willing to trade violence for political power from intractable extremists, many of them religious. Early last year, under intense American pressure, Mr. Maliki pushed through Parliament a law to ease restrictions on the return of Baath Party members to public life. But 15 months later, the law has yet to be put into effect.

Mr. Maliki’s retreat risks polarizing Iraqis again and eroding hard-fought security gains. One hundred sixty people died in bombings on Thursday and Friday alone. There is no evidence that Baathists were involved, but fears are rising that they and jihadi insurgents are increasingly cooperating in areas, Baghdad especially, that have been largely quiet over the last year.

The prime minister’s return to a hard line appears to be motivated by a number of factors. Despite Mr. Maliki’s success in provincial elections in January and in projecting himself as a strong nonsectarian leader, his Dawa Party recognizes that it still needs his Shiite partners to govern. And his Shiite rivals, many of whom are close to Iran, have accused him of recently orchestrating a wholesale return of Baathists to bolster his standing with the Sunni minority. Mr. Maliki, political experts say, cannot afford to alienate fellow Shiites ahead of the general elections in December.

Ahmad Chalabi, a Shiite politician who led the push six years ago to purge Iraq of the Baath Party, said that despite Mr. Maliki’s pragmatic efforts to court Sunni support, the prime minister retained a visceral hatred for everything associated with the Baath Party and the brutal former regime. Mr. Maliki is also suspicious of bringing back some of the Sunni old guard, which Mr. Chalabi says is part of an American plan “to stiffen Iraq into opposing Iran and help integrate Iraq back into the Arab fold.”

From Washington’s point of view, reconciliation with approachable Baathists would isolate extremists like Mr. Douri’s followers. There lies the fundamental difference with the Iraqi side, which is shackled by its fears. “The mere ideas of the Baath Party are dangerous because they are about conspiracies, infiltration and coups,” Kamal al-Saedi, a member of Parliament and one of Mr. Maliki’s partisans on the government’s reconciliation committee, said Wednesday.

Mr. Maliki’s adviser for reconciliation, Mohammed Salman al-Saady, said he knew nothing of those promises, but he acknowledged that Mr. Maliki’s government had “fundamental differences” with Washington over how far to extend reconciliation.

Mr. Saady said the talks with General Hamdani stalled because many of his demands were against government policy. “According to the Constitution, holding negotiations with the Baath Party is a red line that cannot be crossed,” Mr. Saady said. But he underscored the government’s readiness to engage Baathists who renounced their party affiliation and accepted accountability for crimes they might have committed.

In the past, no one US department was responsible for cyber-security, resulting in poor communication and co-ordination, he said. The new cyber-security office will be a multi-billion dollar effort designed to restrict access to government computers and to protect systems - such as those that run the stock exchange and air traffic control - that keep the country going.

The Obama administration is also expected to create a new cyber command at the Pentagon with the dual task of eradicating potential vulnerabilities in America's sensitive computer networks, while simultaneously creating ways to exploit them in the systems of potential enemies. An influential study published last year suggested that having an offensive computer warfare capability would have a deterrent effect against would-be attackers.

The Taliban advance into Buner has brought heavy pressure on the military from the United States and other Western countries. It has also fortified a growing consensus among Pakistani politicians and the public that the Taliban have gone too far and that the military should act to contain the spread of the insurgency.

At a news conference, he played three tapes of what were described as telephone intercepts of the main Taliban leader, Mullah Fazlullah, talking to one of his commanders about making a show withdrawal for the news media while telling the fighters to put away their weapons and lie low.

Several events contributed to the shift among politicians and the public. Video of the flogging of a 17-year-old woman in Swat by the Taliban several weeks ago shocked many in the country. A radical cleric who helped negotiate the peace deal in Swat, Maulana Sufi Muhammad, said recently that Pakistani institutions like Parliament and the high courts were un-Islamic, a comment that angered politicians from all parties. Finally, the militants’ move into new districts last week impelled the Pakistani Army to move against the Taliban.

The 6,000 troops to be shifted had originally been on Pakistan’s western border but were sent to the Indian border in December, after the terrorists’ attack in Mumbai in which 163 people were killed the previous month. India had responded to the attack, which Indian and American officials concluded was planned in Pakistan and carried out by Pakistanis, by massing troops on the Pakistani border.

The promised redeployment, which will essentially return Pakistan’s military presence in the northwest to pre-Mumbai levels, comes as American and Pakistani officials are preparing for what are likely to be tense meetings in Washington next week between President Obama, President Zardari and President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan.

“Neither the Taliban nor the government forces seem to care about the well-being of the residents of Lower Dir,” Sam Zarifi, Amnesty International’s Asia-Pacific director, said in a statement.