In which we scour the transcript of the State Department's daily presser so you don't have to. These are the highlights of Friday's briefing by spokesman P.J. Crowley:

• Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is in San Francisco Friday night to give a speech at the Commonwealth Club. "The secretary will discuss her 21st century statecraft agenda, which leverages new tools and technologies to advance our nation's interests and values around the world," Crowley said. Special Representative Richard Holbrooke was in Brussels today for the Friends of a Democratic Pakistan meeting and moves to Rome tomorrow.
• The U.S. is "disappointed" at Israel's decision to move forward on 238 new housing units in East Jerusalem. "It is contrary to our efforts to resume direct negotiations between the parties. We will continue to work, as we have, to try to create conditions for direct negotiations to resume," Crowley said. "The Netanyahu government is determined to thwart any chance of resuming direct negotiations," Sa'eb Erekat, the top Palestinian negotiator said in response.
• Crowley said Israel had notified Washington in advance and the State Department had said the U.S. was unhappy with the move. "The government of Israel is well aware of our concerns about this." He also said that the U.S. government was working furiously to save the peace process. "We are doing everything in our power, and we are making clear to the parties that we want to see this direct negotiation continue." The planned trip to the region by Special Envoy George Mitchell is up in the air, Crowley said.
• No formal objection to Russia's announcement that it will expand nuclear cooperation with Venezuela. "Any new nuclear program or activity should be conducted in accordance with the highest standard of nonproliferation, safety and security, including IAEA safeguards," Crowley said. "So you know, whatever happens with this announcement today, Venezuela and Russia have international obligations, and we expect them to meet those obligations... This is something that we will watch very, very closely."
• Crowley wouldn't say exactly how the U.S. is "facilitating" ongoing talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban, except for that it includes helping move everybody to the meeting. "The facilitation really involves the movement of people to meeting locations. But beyond that, we are just simply doing what the Afghan government, you know, has asked us to do to promote this process. We are supporting this process and we think it's critical to resolving the conflict that is ongoing," he said.
• Crowley didn't seem too concerned about Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit to Lebanon this week. "Last month he made a trip to the United States and had some crazy things to say, and yesterday he made a trip to Lebanon and again had some crazy things to say," Crowley said. The U.S. is telling Beirut that Iran's real intention is to help Hizbollah and not the whole of Lebanese people. "I think that was clear yesterday by the tenor of Mr. Ahmadinejad's trip to Lebanon," he added.
• Crowley praised Japanese oil company Inpex for ending its business involvement in Iran. "Inpex's decision today once again underscores that there are risks in dealing with Iran," Crowley said, referring also to the four European companies that have made similar announcements recently. "These actions, now complemented by INPEX, are further evidence that sanctions are having a major impact on Iran."
• U.S. and Turkish officials met Thursday in Brussels to discuss missile defense cooperation but that idea seems to be in peril after Turkish National Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul told reporters that the system shouldn't target Syria or Iran. "The basis of our proposed phased adaptive approach defense concept for Europe is expressly to address the emerging missile threat from Iran," Crowley said. "I think our European allies recognize the clear threat that Iranian missiles pose to Europe."
• Resumption of the 6 Party Talks any time in the near future isn't looking good. The State Department won't lift sanctions against Pyongyang in exchange for talks, as North Korean negotiator Kim Gye Gwan demanded when visiting Beijing this week. Those sanctions exist for very good reason -- because North Korea consistently has failed to live up to its international obligations. We have no intention of removing those sanctions as an enticement for dialogue," Crowley said.

Visitors from most EU countries can come to the United States for short stays without applying for a visa from the State Department, but Poland can't get that special status -- and it is not at all happy about it.

"Maybe one day the American Congress will find a good reason to finally lift the visa restrictions which we think are very unfair and completely unjustified," Mikolaj Dowgielewicz, Poland's Secretary of State for European Affairs, told The Cable in an interview.

He's referring to Poland's longstanding request to be included in the State Department's Visa Waiver Program, which currently allows citizens from 36 countries to enter the United States and stay for up to 90 days without first obtaining a visa. This is among the top agenda items for Polish officials dealing with the United States, and a leading irritant in the otherwise positive U.S.-Polish relationship.

For the Poles, the Visa Waiver Program status is a matter of pride for a country that sees itself on par with other Western European giants. Poland also sees itself as a reliable ally of the United States that has constantly deepened cooperation on a range of matters, including ballistic missile defense, and the deployment of a proportionally large contingent of troops to Afghanistan.

"Maybe one day here in Washington people will treat Poland as a reliable and important partner in the European Union, not just some country with sentimental links," Dowgielewicz said.

Polish officials are quick to point out that Poland is the only country in what's known as the "Schengen Area" not to have the preferred visa status. The Schengen Agreement basically removed internal travel borders between the 25 European states that have signed it, meaning that Poles can travel almost anywhere in the West freely, besides the United States.

In April, Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski discussed the matter with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and the issue came again up during Deputy Secretary of State Jim Steinberg's visit to Poland Oct. 7 to participate in the Wroclaw Global Forum. When asked about the issue by the Polish Press Agency, Steinberg said that the United States wanted to welome Polish visitors into the country, but that Poland had not met congressionally mandated standards for entering the Visa Waiver Program.

An administration official told The Cable that, according to the rules, Poland has to drastically lower the number of its visa applicants who get rejected when they apply for entry to the United States. Around 10 percent of Poles get rejected for visas, the official said, while the threshold for entry is that less than 3 percent must be rejected by the American consular officials who review their applications.

The administration official suggested that, in the long term, Poland might reach that threshold. "The trend in Poland is very positive, it's now hovering at 10 percent and it is in the downward direction," the official said.

But this rationale only frustrates the Poles more because, until recently, 10 percent would have been good enough. Under the 9/11 implementation bill, countries could be added to the program when they reached 10 percent. But because the Homeland Security Department failed to meet a deadline to add a related biometric program, the threshold shot back down to 3 percent last year.

The Czech Republic, Slovakia, Estonia, and Latvia all joined the program when 10 percent was the threshold, leaving the Poles feeling even more left out of the party.

Privately, there is still some concern in the U.S. government that Polish visitors are more likely to overstay their visas and remain in the United States illegally. Polish officials reject this reasoning as well.

"We can travel freely around the globe. For example, we can travel to Canada and there doesn't seem to be a big invasion of Poles in Canada," Dowgielewicz said.

Israel's ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, who laid down a marker by arguing in Thursday's New York Times that the Palestinians must recognize Israel as a Jewish state now, met with a host of Arab American leaders the night before to explain recent Israeli decisions regarding the peace process and assure them of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's commitment to the end goal.

Hosted by the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace, which is led by rumored future U.S. ambassador to Israel, Robert Wexler, Oren responded to questions from a range of groups, including the American Task Force on Palestine, the Assembly of Turkish American Associations, the Palestinian Business Committee for Peace and Reform, AMIDEAST, the American Task Force on Lebanon, the El-Bireh Palestine Society, and others.

Here are some excerpts of what Oren said:

On the Israeli attitude to the peace process:

To understand [the Israeli] perspective you need to understand that first of all Israel, and Israelis, have been through a great deal over the course of the last decade, since 2000, certainly... What is extraordinary, I believe, is that in spite of all this upheaval and violence and trauma, that a significant majority of Israelis still support a two-state solution... That's the good news. The less-than-good news is that as a result of all these disappointments and setbacks in violence, many Israelis, a significant majority, almost the same majority that supports a two-state solution, is skeptical about the ability to achieve that solution; skeptical of the Palestinian leadership's willingness to step up and make that historical peace; skeptical of the willingness of the Palestinian people specifically, and of the broader Arab world to accept a permanent and Jewish state in the Middle East; skeptical about an end of violence.

On the current status of the talks:

I won't dissemble the fact, I don't think I could dissemble the fact, that we are at an impasse tonight. We are each in our own corner -- the Palestinians, the Israelis, the Arab League, I think the administration also -- and we're looking for the right bell that will get us out of these corners and get us to the middle but not swinging, talking. And I would be misleading you to indicate in any way that I have the magic formula, that anybody has the magic formula for this. I can only assure you, again, that this government and the Prime Minister are deeply and unequivocally committed to this process.

On Netanyahu's offer to extend the settlement freeze only if Palestinians accept Israel as a "Jewish state":

The situation was created where there was a complete impasse in the talks. The PM felt that with the level of skepticism - that some measure had to be given by the Palestinians that would reassure the Israeli public, the Israeli public that feels they have made concession after concession whether it is recognition of the two state solution, the support from the bottom up, the security in the West Bank-they needed to hear something from the Palestinians that the Palestinians were serious about peace. And the Prime Minister felt that if he had that from the Palestinians-and once again this was only created by the end of the moratorium issue-that he could go to the government and try to persuade them on the extension. He did not.

On the right of return for Palestinian refugees:

We also understand that here is a final status issue, a classic one that recognizing Israel as a Jewish state means that Palestinian refugees will not be resettled there. They will be resettled in the Palestinian state and not in the Jewish statme or in any other state but not in the Jewish state. The demographic integrity of Israel will be preserved. Recognizing Israel as a Jewish state is not a tactical issue for us. It is the most fundamental issue for us. It's the absolute core of the conflict. It's what created the conflict to begin with.

On the idea of an American plan for Middle East peace:

I don't want to in any way imply that they can quickly reach this without bridging proposals by the U.S. There is a big difference between a bridging proposal and an overarching comprehensive agreement. And our fears relating to an overarching comprehensive agreement -- "this is our American version of peace" -- is that it will not meet our vital security needs, as we were talking about here earlier. And secondly that it could lead to an imposed solution. Because once it's on that table you don't know where it goes or how the tables are going to find itself. It could find itself in an international organization that could say that if the two parties do not accept this proposal they could sanctioned. That's a real fear. And in which that would put us in a very adversarial position.

On why Israel doesn't want to discuss settlements now:

Settlements -- from our perspective -- is a final status issue. It is way down the list of final status issues because settlements from our perspective are a subcategory of borders which are a subcategory of security. And so we are a long way from discussing settlements. By putting them up front, it creates a difficultly -- a political difficulty. And it further augments the skepticism that many Israelis feel about the seriousness of a Palestinian interlocutor if they're making the issue of settlements -- something that the government cannot do right now.

On the Arab Peace Initiative:

The Israeli government welcomes the Arab Peace Initiative. We welcome it as a positive contribution to the peace process. We think it's a single component of a future possible peace. We feel that it's not enough. And that the promise of normalization for withdrawal to the '67 borders would have far greater wave, and have far greater persuasive powers in the Israeli public, if the Arab world was willing to take even the minutest steps towards normalization... Israelis are generally not aware of what is in the Arab Peace Initiative. But they are aware that the Arab world is not taking any steps, even symbolic steps towards normalization. And those steps would have immense impact on Israeli public opinion.

In which we scour the transcript of the State Department's daily presser so you don't have to. These are the highlights of Thursday's briefing by spokesman P.J. Crowley:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton left Brussels late Thursday and returned to Washington follow her European tour. The last leg included the NATO ministerial conference, where she was joined by Defense Secretary Bob Gates and warned about the risks of British defense cuts. Clinton also had several meetings, including with EU Council President Van Rompuy, EU Parliament President Jerzy Buzek, and EU High Representative Catherine Ashton.

Ashton and Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi will host the Friends of Democratic Pakistan meeting Friday in Brussels, where the U.S. will be represented by Special Representative Richard Holbrooke. They will also be preparing for the third round of the U.S.-Pakistan Strategic Dialogue consultations, which will take place late next week here in Washington.

Crowley didn't get into the details of reports of U.S. and NATO involvement in new talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban, but said, "We recognize that, not always, but insurgencies frequently are resolved not by military means alone, but a combination of military means and a viable political process. That is precisely -- it is incorporated in our strategy. We are following that strategy. We are supporting the government of Afghanistan in pursuing reconciliation with those elements that are currently part of the insurgency."

Crowley said the U.S. still wants to see referendum votes both in South Sudan and in Abyei go off on time and as scheduled, despite that the last round of preparation talks ended last week with resolution of key issues and now some top Sudanese officials are openly calling for a delay. "We recognize that this is a challenge. But the parties themselves are committed to hold referenda on southern Sudan and Abyei on January 9th, and they clearly have work to do to be able to accomplish that on time," Crowley said. Talks resume Oct. 27.

No confirmation of reports that U.N. Representative Susan Rice instructed her team not to do anything to support Canada's failed bid for a seat on the U.N. Security Council. "Our votes are secret," Crowley said, not even addressing the issue of U.S. public or private support for Canada. "We love Canada. We support Canada -- except in the Gold Medal Game," he joked.

No comment on reports that there is a plea deal in the works for Omar Khadr, the Guantanamo prisoner who has been jailed there since age 15. Your humble Cable guy attended one of Khadr's hearings during a trip to Gitmo in January, 2006.

Hady Amr, the founding director of the Brookings Institution Doha Center, will join the United States Agency for International Development, The Cable has confirmed.

Amr has been appointed as deputy assistant administrator in USAID's Middle East bureau. That bureau is currently led by George A. Laudato, who serves as special assistant to USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah on the Middle East. No one has been nominated for the assistant administrator position in the Middle East bureau, a post that requires Senate confirmation. Politico reported that Special Envoy George Mitchell's chief of staff, Mara Rudman, was slated to move to a top USAID post related to the Middle East, which could mean that she will be nominated as assistant administrator.

Over his long career as an author and analyst on Middle East diplomacy, Amr has managed projects sponsored by the World Bank, the Ford Foundation, the United Nations, USAID, and others, according to his bio on the site of his consulting firm, Amr Group. During the Clinton administration, he helped establish the Near East and South Asia center at the National Defense University. In 2004 he authored "The Need to Communicate: How to Improve U.S. Public Diplomacy with the Islamic World."

You can follow him on Twitter here.

A Democratic senator with strong ties to President Barack Obama is calling out the White House for failing to deal with a huge problem regarding oversight of the war in Afghanistan.

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO), an early supporter of Obama's presidential run, has been calling for the sacking of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) Arnie Fields since the summer of 2009. But in an interview with The Cable, she says she can't get any answers from the White House on the issue and she's not at all happy about it.

"I'm frustrated. It's not going as quickly as it should. I've been trying to move this person out of the position for over a year now," McCaskill said. "The White House needs to act. That's where the buck stops. It is way past the time when they should have removed him."

Fields has come under heavy criticism for running an oversight office that is failing to effectively monitor the allocation of billions of dollars in U.S. taxpayer funds that are being invested in infrastructure in Afghanistan. A memo circulated by Hill staffers earlier this year outlined the shortcomings of several of the organization's audits. McCaskill, along with Sens. Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Susan Collins (R-ME) wrote a letter last December calling for someone to look into SIGAR's operations.

Then, a July report by the Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE), which oversees the overseers, recommended that the Justice Department take away SIGAR's ability to carry firearms and make arrests because they lacked basic standards of investigation and management.

In reciting the case against Fields, McCaskill referred directly to the CIGIE report. "Forget about the politicians, forget about the elected officials, the independent council of auditors looked at their office and said that it is so bad that they shouldn't even be allowed to do law enforcement activities. Well, that's a problem," McCaskill said.

But despite numerous public and private pleas, McCaskill has been unable to convince the White House to move faster on replacing Fields. "I don't think the administration is reacting appropriately or aggressively as it should," McCaskill said. "The consequence is that there's important work that's not getting done well. We should have our very strongest [inspector general] overlooking Afghanistan right now."

When Obama was running for office, McCaskill was one of his campaign's leading champions, and was even rumored to be on Obama's short list for vice president. Back then, Obama was extremely appreciative.

"There are very few people who are closer to me, who I have relied on more for counsel or advice," Obama said about McCaskill in June 2008. "Should I be successful, [McCaskill] will be somebody who has the utmost access to the Obama administration."

But that was then, and this is now. McCaskill said she has met with White House staff several times on the matter but the only thing they've told her is "We're working on it."

A GOP Senate aide close to the issue told The Cable that recently, the work product coming out of the SIGAR office has been getting slightly better, but the organization has recovered only about $2 million in misspent funds, despite having spent about $30 million on its activities.

"That's a pretty poor return on investment," the aide said.

The United States has committed $51 billion to Afghanistan reconstruction since 2001, and that endowment will reach $71 billion by the end of 2011, according to the AP.

The Foreign Policy Initiative, a new conservative think tank that is making itself known in Washington, is taking on 20 young professionals to help groom them into the foreign policy leaders of tomorrow.

FPI announced the "inaugural class" of its future leaders program Wednesday, a program that will bring emerging stars in the field together for a series of dinners and events with leading policymakers and influence peddlers in Washington for mentoring, advice, and discussions on diplomatic relationships, the war in Afghanistan, and critical national security threats.

The group is by no means limited to conservatives. Those selected  range from members of the State Department, to the office of former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, to CNN.

And the winners are:

David Adesnik, Research Staff Member, Institute for Defense Analysis
Alexander Benard, Managing Director, Gryphon Partners
Amy Bradshaw, Associate, Goldman Sachs
Edward Burrier, Legislative Staff, Rep. Ed Royce
Ryan Crumpler, Military Legislative Assistant, Rep. Buck McKeon
Owen Graham, Research and Operations Coordinator, The Heritage Foundation
Thomas Hill, Foreign Affairs Officer, U.S. Dept. of State
Sarah Lenti, Director of State Affairs, U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Michael Mazza, Senior Research Associate, American Enterprise Institute
Blaise Misztal, Associate Director of Foreign Policy, Bipartisan Policy Center
Shannon O'Pray, 2010 Graduate, Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies
Brian Pawlowski, Senior Consultant - Intelligence, Booz Allen Hamilton 
Jennifer Rizzo, National Security Producer, CNN
Tara Rohde, Director, National Association of Foreign-Trade Zones
Brandon Sellers, Naval Aviator, United States Navy / Legislative Fellow, Senator John McCain
Kristen Soltis, Director of Policy Research, The Winston Group
Charlie Szrom, Senior Analyst and Program Manager, American Enterprise Institute
Keith Urbahn, Chief of Staff, Office of Donald Rumsfeld
Bilal Wahab, PhD Student, George Mason University
Jamie Weinstein, Deputy Editor, The Daily Caller

If there's one thing that the liberals and libertarians can agree on, it's the need for large cuts in defense spending in order to reduce the U.S. budget defecit.

55 lawmakers sent a letter Wednesday to the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, widely known as the Debt Commission, urging them to include in their final report "substantial reductions in projected levels of future spending by the Department of Defense." The letter was signed by leading liberal representatives such as Barney Frank (D-MA) and Lynn Woolsey (D-CA), but also many Democrats involved in national security matters such as Senate Appropriations Foreign Operations subcommittee chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and House Oversight and Government Reform National Security subcommittee chairman John Tierney (D-MA).

The lone Republican to sign the letter was libertarian Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX). But the libertarian Cato Institute has also campaigned aggressively in support of the movement.

"We hope that the report you release this coming December will subject military spending to the same rigorous scrutiny that non-military spending will receive, and that in so doing a consensus will be reached that significant cuts are necessary and can be made in a way that will not endanger national security," the lawmakers wrote.

On a conference call, Frank and Cato experts argued that their longstanding call for a revision of the U.S. military role in the world is more necessary than ever due to the United States' fiscal woes, particularly as political leaders search for ways to limit cuts to entitlements.

"I've been a critic for some time of America's excessive military engagement with the rest of the world," said Frank. "We have a changed situation... it is clear that we have to do something to reduce our deficit.

Cato's Benjamin Friedman argued on the call that the recent aggressive conservative efforts to defend ever-increasing defense budgets was a recognition of the libertarian wing of the Republican Party's increasing momentum in support of trimming military spending.

"Conservatives are starting to figure out that trying to run the world is not conservative," Friedman said.

Friedman participated in a bipartisan report, published in June, which spelled out exactly how $1 trillion of savings could be found in the Pentagon budget over the next 10 years by scaling back military arsenals, large weapons systems, and permanent overseas troop deployments.

Frank and Friedman both acknowledged that the issue of defense spending is highly polarized and that, politically, implementing defense budget cuts would be extremely difficult, especially in Congress. But they are nevertheless laying down a marker by going on record that there are at least 55 votes in Congress in support of such moves.

"What we are saying is that there will be a number of us that will be very unhappy if defense cuts are not part of the tradeoffs," Frank said.