Follows a series of bombings in the capital
CNN Aug 3, 08 9:58 AM CDT
(Newser)
-
Bombs ripped through a minibus this morning in Baghdad, reports CNN, killing 12 and injuring 22 after a string of similar bombings in the region. Two more roadside bombs injured nine near a hospital and two near a convoy of SUVs. Elsewhere, a soldier was killed in an unrelated accident, marking August's first US casualty.
More »
Parliement must use calm to implement necessary reforms
Economist Aug 1, 08 4:09 PM CDT
(Newser)
-
Violence in Iraq is hitting unprecedented lows, and Iraqi forces are gradually assuming command over parts of the country previously controlled by American troops. But with the summer break and Ramadan looming, politicians aren’t taking advantage of the lull in violence to pass much-needed legislation, and PM Nouri al-Maliki is consolidating his own power, the Economist reports.
More »
OPINION
Columnist punches back against Commentary campaign
Time Jul 30, 08 5:06 PM CDT
(Newser)
-
The Jewish right-wing "extremists" at Commentary can call Joe Klein anti-Semitic and intellectually unstable all they want, the columnist writes, and they can even call for Time to fire him, but he’s not going stop telling what he calls the “palpable” truth that's "unspoken in polite society": that a group of Jewish neoconservatives provided Bush with the rationale he needed for the Iraq war—and now they’re agitating for a strike on Iran.
More »
Automatic promotions are turning battlefield into a classroom, soldiers say
Salon Jul 30, 08 2:26 PM CDT
(Newser)
-
The US Army, plagued by a shortage of non-commissioned officers, has lowered the bar for promotion so much that it has produced sergeants who are not ready to lead, Salon reports in an investigation of a military stretched thin by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In some cases, soldiers have been automatically promoted although their unit commanders had found them not ready for advancement.
More »
Diyala target of big push
Associated Press Jul 29, 08 11:05 AM CDT
(Newser)
-
US and Iraqi forces have launched a major operation in Diyala province, which they consider the last major refuge for insurgents near Baghdad, the AP reports. Authorities have set up new checkpoints and banned all but official traffic as troops zero in on the capital city of Baquba, hoping to replicate their successes in Mosul, Baghdad, and Basra.
More »
Dem says he won't choose based on home region
Politico Jul 27, 08 1:09 PM CDT
(Newser)
-
Barack Obama won’t pick a veep based on trying to win a specific region, he said today on Meet the Press . Instead, he’ll focus on “somebody who can help me govern,” Politico reports. The Dem also complimented both Clintons, saying the former first lady “would be on anybody’s short list.” Meanwhile, on This Week John McCain attacked as “political” his opponent’s timeline for withdrawing from Iraq, AP notes.
More »
Journalists complain war is being sanitized
New York Times Jul 26, 08 5:07 AM CDT
(Newser)
-
Over 4,000 US troops have died in Iraq but only a handful of photographs of dead Americans have reached the media, the New York Times reports. Military regulations do not forbid taking photographs of casualties, but access to death sites is often denied. Photographers who do publish grim images often find their access to military units swiftly terminated.
More »
ANALYSIS
Maliki's endorsement
of withdrawal timetable a stroke of luck
New York Times Jul 22, 08 8:30 AM CDT
(Newser)
-
Presidential candidate Barack Obama's weeklong tour of seven countries has so far been fruitful, politically agile, and especially lucky, reports the New York Times . The Illinois senator's withdrawal plan received a timely endorsement from Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki, coinciding with President Bush's embrace of a "time horizon" for pulling troops out of the war-torn country.
More »
Candidate pledges more US troops
USA Today Jul 20, 08 1:41 PM CDT
(Newser)
-
Calling the situation in Afghanistan "precarious and urgent," Barack Obama today urged the Bush administration to make Afghanistan—rather than Iraq—"the central front in our battle against terrorism." In his first interview since arriving in the country yesterday, the Democratic candidate told Lara Logan on Face the Nation that an additional two brigades were needed to combat insurgents and the drug trade that finances them, USA Today reports.
More »
Iraq PM says a 16-month schedule to withdraw sounds about right
Der Spiegel Jul 19, 08 3:36 PM CDT
(Newser)
-
While shying away from a presidential endorsement, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki expressed support for Barack Obama’s 16-month timeline for withdrawal of American troops from Iraq, Der Spiegel reports. He expressed frustration at his country’s lack of control over US forces and said they should leave "as soon as possible, as far as we are concerned."
More »
analysis
Obama's pledged trip to Baghdad likely won't change his mind
Washington Post Jul 18, 08 11:45 AM CDT
(Newser)
-
Lawmakers have been flocking to Iraq to assess the situation on the ground, as Barack Obama is about to do, but the visits rarely result in any revelations for them, writes Karen DeYoung in the Washington Post . The itineraries are fairly routine by now—meet the generals, the troops, and some Iraqi leaders; maybe visit the front lines—and "most seem to return even more convinced of the views they held before they left."
More »
OPINION
Former Chamber of Commerce honcho has had enough foreign policy disaster
New York Daily News Jul 17, 08 7:45 PM CDT
(Newser)
-
Being a Reagan, Gingrich and Dole soldier won’t stop former Chamber of Commerce honcho Larry Hunter from voting for Barack Obama this fall, he writes in the New York Daily News . It doesn’t matter that he wholly disagrees with the Dem on every point of domestic policy; the chance to close the book on “unjustified war and unconstitutional abridgment of individual rights” is worth the price of “unreconstructed, dyed-in-the-wool, big-government” liberalism.
More »