Tillman's Mom Wants Hearings On Cover-Up

Benchmarks not likely to be met, say Crocker, Petraeus

(NEWSER) - Iraq is gripped by widespread fear and is unlikely to fulfill political and security goals by the pivotal September assessment, US officials told lawmakers yesterday in a briefing from Baghdad. "One word I would use to sum up the atmosphere in Iraq is 'fear,' " said ambassador Ryan Crocker, adding that the country has a "considerable ways to go" toward political stability. More»

(NEWSER) - With Congress and the president now officially at war over Iraq, all parties scrambled yesterday to gear up for the coming firefight. The President promised to veto the spending bill with troop withdrawal deadlines attached, seeming to relish the fight ahead. Tthe newly aggressive and unified Democrats, notes the New York Times, seemed surprised at their own success at pushing for an exit strategy after years of wishy-washiness. More»

(NEWSER) - The FT catalogs a litany of the obstacles for President Bush achieving anything meaningful in his last 22 months in office. At the core of it all is the Iraq war, which has reduced Bush’s popularity to the point where he has no more political capital to spend. More»

Unmarried loved ones have no standing, get nothing from Army

(NEWSER) - To the US Army bureaucracy, love means little without a marriage certificate—so the fiancée of a man killed in Iraq was left with nothing other than what his family was willing to part with. Now, the Washington Post reports, Kyle Harper, 27, is trying to forge a path very different from what she and Sgt. Michael Hullender had planned. More»

Our playlists are for running; soldiers' are for shooting—or relaxing

(NEWSER) - Thanks to iPods, the Iraq war has a soundtrack—and it’s different for each soldier, writes Jonathan Pieslak in his new book, Sound Targets. “People can put nanos in their flak jackets and they are ready to go,” Pieslak tells the New York Post, and CDs are popular in care packages or on the black market. And though soldiers might look uniform, their taste in music is anything but. More»