Iraq

06/09/2008 -- WASHINGTON, D.C. – Sens. John Kerry, Bob Menendez, Byron Dorgan, and Frank Lautenberg today introduced legislation that will prohibit the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) from using appropriated funds for propaganda and will require the DoD Inspector General and the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to deliver reports to Congress within 90 days.    » read more »

WASHINGTON, June 9, 2008 – Negotiations continue on the strategic framework agreement between the United States and Iraq that will allow military operations in Iraq to continue after the United Nations mandate runs out Dec. 31, U.S. officials said today.

U.S. Army Soldiers and Air Force Airmen participate in a combative tournament in Kirkuk, Iraq: Feb. 24, 2008. Soldiers with 10th Mountain Division hosted the event at Forward Operating Base Warrior for Soldiers and Air Force Airmen. The Army won in all three weight classes. U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Samuel Bendet.    » read more »

09 June 2008 .-- Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has told Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki that the presence of the U.S. military is Iraq's main problem.

Iranian state media report the two leaders met Monday in Tehran as part of Mr. Maliki's visit to Iran, his third since he became prime minister.

The Iranian reports quote the ayatollah as saying he is certain the Iraqi people will get through these difficult times and that the American dreams for Iraq will not materialize.

U.S. and Iraqi officials are negotiating a security deal that would allow American forces to remain in Iraq beyond December 31, when their U.N. mandate expires.    » read more »

08 June 2008 -- U.S. and Iraqi officials say a suicide truck bomber has killed an American soldier and wounded 18 others at a military base in northern Iraq.

The bomber blew up his vehicle Sunday near the patrol base in the town of Rashad in Kirkuk province. Two Iraqi contractors also were wounded in the attack. Gunmen killed three U.S. soldiers in the same province last Wednesday.

Iraqi officials say attacks elsewhere in the country killed at least 12 Iraqis on Sunday. In one incident, five shepherds were shot dead east of the capital, Baghdad.

In another incident, a bomb exploded outside a police center in western Baghdad, killing four police recruits and wounding 23 other people.    » read more »

Sydney -- 02 June 2008 -- Australian combat troops have begun leaving Iraq. Their departure fulfills an election promise by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who pledged to pull his country's out of Iraq by the middle of 2008. For Australia's 550 combat soldiers, the war in Iraq is over.

Australian Army Sgt. helps a wounded US Army soldier: Australian Regular Army Sgt. Tarese Heath cuts the boot off an U.S. Army Soldier with broken toes in the emergency department at Air Force Theater Hospital in Balad, Iraq, on June 22, 2005. Photo by Pattie A. (CC)

They have begun leaving their base at Tallil, 300 kilometers south of Baghdad, where they have been helping to train Iraqi security forces.    » read more »

WASHINGTON, June 2, 2008 – President Bush presented the Medal of Honor to fallen Army hero Spc. Ross A. McGinnis’ parents during a White House ceremony here today.

“The Medal of Honor is the nation’s highest military distinction; it is given for valor beyond anything that duty could require or a superior could command,” Bush said, before presenting the medal to McGinnis’ father and mother, Tom and Romayne McGinnis, during the East Room ceremony.

George W. Bush presents the Medal of Honor to the parents of a soldier killed in Iraq: White House photo by Chris Greenberg.    » read more »

WASHINGTON, June 2, 2008 – Four years ago, Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison was center-stage amid allegations of detainee abuse, and coalition forces suddenly cast as conquerors instead of liberators, losing the trust of the Iraqi people.

Protest against Bush-Cheney torture policies at Abu Ghraib: Photo by takomabibelot (CC)

Conscientious decisions and new detainee programs have helped the coalition turn the corner on the road to regaining that lost trust, Multinational Force Iraq’s commander of detainee operations said yesterday in a Baghdad news conference.    » read more »

WASHINGTON, June 2, 2008 – The U.S. general responsible for operations in Baghdad announced today that he is taking proactive measures to prevent soldiers in his command from taking their own lives.

Soldiers are his “top priority,” Army Maj. Gen. Jeffery W. Hammond, commander of Multinational Division Baghdad and the 4th Infantry Division, told Pentagon reporters during a satellite-carried news conference from his Baghdad headquarters.

“We take proactive measures to improve soldier access to mental health care and prevent suicides and identify early symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder,” Hammond pointed out.    » read more »

June 2, 2008 -- Washington, DC – Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-DE) issued the following statement in response to Senator John McCain’s speech at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) annual meeting earlier today.

John McCain: Photo by Wigwam Jones (CC)

“Today, Senator McCain made clear that he would continue the policies of George Bush – policies that have made the entire Middle East more dangerous and left the United States and our allies, including Israel, less secure.    » read more »

01 June 2008 -- Scott McClellan, former spokesman for U.S. President George Bush, says he should have spoken up sooner about his doubts about the leak of the identity of a U.S. intelligence agent and about the rationale for invading Iraq.

Scott McClellan (left): White House photo

McClellan said on U.S. television Sunday that he blames his failure to do so on youth and inexperience. He says he believes White House staffers should resign if they have a strong disagreement with the president.

McClellan wrote about his doubts about the Bush administration in his new memoir, which says the White House relied on "innuendo and implication" to bolster its claim that Iraq was producing weapons of mass destruction.    » read more »

29 May 2008 -- Iraqi officials say two suicide bombings have killed at least 26 people in northern Iraq.

In the deadliest attack Thursday, officials say a bomber blew himself up at a police recruiting center, killing 16 people and wounding 14 others. Police and hospital officials in the northwestern town of Sinjar say 14 of the dead were police recruits, and the other two were police officers.

In Mosul, U.S. forces say a suicide bomber driving a police vehicle killed two Iraqi policemen and eight bystanders. Sixteen other people were wounded in that attack.

Separately, police say members of a U.S.-backed Iraqi neighborhood patrol killed at least 12 insurgents during a clash near the northern city of Tikrit.    » read more »

29 May 2008 -- Iran's foreign minister has blamed the United States and its allies for the grave security situation in Iraq, which he says has "cast a shadow" on the lives of Iraqis.

Manouchehr Mottaki told a United Nations conference in Stockholm that Iraq's security problems are a result of what he called the "mistaken policies" of the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq.

He stressed Iran's commitment to rebuilding its war-torn neighbor. U.S officials have accused Iran of arming and training Shi'ite insurgents in Iraq.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki opened the conference Thursday by urging the international community to cancel his country's debt.

Mr. Maliki also called for an end to compensation that Iraq is required to pay due to Saddam Hussein's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.    » read more »

Irbil, Iraq -- 28 May 2008 -- An Amnesty International report on worldwide human rights says violence against women is widespread in northern Iraq.

In its report, Amnesty International says women and girls throughout the world suffer disproportionately from violence - in times of both peace and conflict - at the hands of their governments, their communities and their families.

Iraqi woman, Kurdistan: Photo by James Gordon (CC)

The report highlights the issue of violence against women as a major problem in northern Iraq. That is an assessment that the Kurdistan regional government's human-rights minister, Yousif Aziz, has already reached.    » read more »

26 May 2008 -- Iraqi police say a suicide bomber on a motorcycle has killed six people in an attack on members of a U.S.-backed security force north of Baghdad.

Police say the bomber detonated his explosives Monday near the checkpoint manned by members of the Awakening Council in the town of Tarmiya. At least 16 people were wounded.

Car bomb aftermath Baghdad, Iraq, December 2007: US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) photograph by ACoE photographer Jim Gordon

The Awakening Councils are funded by the United States and consist mostly of Sunni fighters who have joined U.S. soldiers in the battle against al-Qaida in Iraq. The groups have been a key factor in a recent drop in violence.    » read more »

May 22, 2008 -- WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) released the following statement today after voting against the supplemental appropriations bill for the Iraq War:

“Handing a blank check to President Bush for Iraq gives him a green light to continue his endless, disastrous stay-the-course plan. Meanwhile American sons and daughters continue to be killed, the masterminds of 9/11 have their own safe zone and our economy at home is tanking.    » read more »