The unexpectedly short sentence came after Salim Ahmed Hamdan was acquitted Wednesday of the most serious charge against him, conspiracy, having been convicted only of material support for terrorism.

The new coalition government has summoned the national assembly, or lower house of parliament, to sit on August 11 and could begin the impeachment proceedings then, a senior official said. President Musharraf’s allies have previously said he would fight any attempt to topple him.

The rules of justice on Guantánamo are so stacked against defendants that the only surprise was that Salim Ahmed Hamdan was actually acquitted on the more serious count of conspiring (it was unclear with whom) to kill Americans during the invasion of Afghanistan after Sept. 11, 2001.

June was the second deadliest month for the military in Afghanistan since the war began, with 23 American deaths from hostilities, compared with 22 in Iraq. July was less deadly, with 20 deaths, compared with six in Iraq.

Supporters said the system’s fairness was illustrated by the careful verdict, while critics said the trial, which featured secret evidence and closed proceedings, demonstrated the injustice of the Bush administration’s military commission system.

Were it not for the anthrax attacks, most people would have assumed that the US faced just one enemy, the global terrorist network al-Qaeda, which had a base in Afghanistan and allies in some other countries.

Interviews with more than a dozen Iraqi soldiers and officers in Diyala Province, at the outset of a large-scale operation against insurgents led by Iraqis but backed by Americans, reveal a military confident of its progress but unsure of its readiness.

The unspent windfall, which covers surpluses from oil sales since 2005, appears likely to reinforce growing debate about the approximately $48 billion in American taxpayer money devoted to rebuilding Iraq since the American-led invasion.

But human rights advocates accuse the Chinese government of using the pretext of terrorism to silence dissent and clamp down on ethnic minority groups. Some security experts say many of the surveillance measures will probably stay in place after the Games, to bolster the reach of the authorities.

The objectives of the war in Afghanistan have become increasingly uncertain in a conflict where Taliban leaders say they do not feel the need to control territory, at least for now, or to outfight American and NATO forces to defeat them — only to outlast them in a region that is in any case their home.