Iraq – News Stories About Iraq - Page 63

Army Allowing Spouses
to Live Together in Iraq

Mar 31, 2008 4:48 PM CDT

Army Allowing Spouses to Live Together in Iraq

Long-standing policy gives way in name of boosting morale, re-enlistment

(Newser) - Desperate to combat sagging morale from repeated deployments to Iraq, the US Army has quietly eased rules against married soldiers living together at war, the AP reports. Wedded soldiers in certain camps can now cohabitate in private trailers. "It makes a lot of things easier," said soldier and...

Next Prez's To-Do: Fix Military

OPINION

Mar 31, 2008 3:39 PM CDT

Next Prez's To-Do: Fix Military

Budget woes aren't the only defense issue facing White House's next denizen

(Newser) - Has President Bush done irreparable damage to our armed forces? Not necessarily, Phillip Carter and Fred Kaplan write in Slate, offering a to-do list for the next president to tackle as he or she begins the process of fixing a military "in strange shambles."

Overhaul the budget: "

...

Al-Sadr Orders His Militia Off Streets of Basra

Updated

Mar 30, 2008 5:15 PM CDT

Al-Sadr Orders His Militia Off Streets of Basra

He offers weakened Maliki a truce deal as violence continues

(Newser) - Iraqi Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr ordered his fighters to leave the streets of Basra and other cities, reports the BBC, in an effort to end clashes with security forces. “Anyone carrying a weapon and targeting government institutions will not be one of us,” Sadr said, but minutes after...

Brits Join the Fight in Basra

Mar 29, 2008 11:27 AM CDT

Brits Join the Fight in Basra

US widens its airstrikes, and Sadr tells followers to keep their weapons

(Newser) - As the Iraqi army struggles to combat militias in Basra, British troops for the first time directly joined the fight, and American forces expanded their bombing beyond the militia stronghold. The Brits, who had previously provided only logistical and air support to the Iraqis, fired on an insurgent mortar team...

New US Mideast Commander Installed

Mar 29, 2008 8:58 AM CDT

New US Mideast Commander Installed

Out with the Navy, in with the Army as head of CentCom

(Newser) - A new commander has taken temporary charge of US military operations in the Mideast, after a quiet ceremony at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida yesterday. Lt. Gen Martin Dempsey will run CentCom while the administration seeks a permanent replacement for Adm. William Fallon, who quit abruptly earlier this month...

Criticism Dogs Basra Battle

Mar 29, 2008 5:33 AM CDT

Criticism Dogs Basra Battle

US influence limited in potential quagmire, fight likely to drag on: military officials

(Newser) - As US troops are drawn deeper into the four-day-old Iraqi crackdown on militants in Basra, critics see a long and difficult road ahead. While President Bush praised the operation as a "defining moment in the history of a free Iraq," military officials murmured that the battle "...

US Joins Basra Battle;
Maliki Extends Deadline

Mar 28, 2008 8:18 AM CDT

US Joins Basra Battle; Maliki Extends Deadline

Maliki extends deadline as fighting continues

(Newser) - Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki today gave Shia militants in Basra 10 more days to turn over their weapons, as fighting continued in Iraq’s third largest city. The US, meanwhile, made its first moves in the fight, bombing Mahdi Army positions, the BBC reports. Muqtada al Sadr, the radical...

Iraqi Lawmakers to Meet
as Violence Escalates

Mar 27, 2008 9:45 PM CDT

Iraqi Lawmakers to Meet as Violence Escalates

Baghdad under curfew as militants in Basra hold their ground

(Newser) - Iraqi lawmakers will hold an emergency session in Baghdad tomorrow to try to find a way to resolve the escalating violence in Basra and the capital, Reuters reports. Baghdad, its Green Zone rocked by steady rocket and mortar fire, is now under a three-day curfew, and the State Department ordered...

Bush Praises Iraqi Offensive

Mar 27, 2008 4:47 PM CDT

Bush Praises Iraqi Offensive

President scolds Congress' calls for withdrawal

(Newser) - President Bush praised the government of Iraq today for the offensive launched three days ago against militias in Basra, painting it as a sign of progress toward the goals of the US war, the AP reports. Bush also criticized Congress for calling for troop withdrawals so the military’s attention...

Saddam's Last Days Revealed

Mar 27, 2008 2:10 PM CDT

Saddam's Last Days Revealed

CNN tours the former dictator's US detention cell

(Newser) - The dictator who ruled with a murderous fist spent his time writing in his journal and tending to a small garden his captors allowed him in the prison courtyard. And on his execution day, the man known as "Vic" told guards to tell his daughter he was going to...

Saddam Paid
for Lawmakers' Trip to Iraq

Mar 26, 2008 8:45 PM CDT

Saddam Paid for Lawmakers' Trip to Iraq

Three congressmen unaware he financed visit in 2002

(Newser) - Saddam Hussein secretly paid for a trip made by three congressmen to Iraq in 2002 just ahead of the US invasion, the AP reports. The congressmen, all of whom opposed the war, did not know Saddam financed the trip because he funneled the money through a nonprofit group in Michigan....

McCain: US Must Be Tough But Listen to Allies

Mar 26, 2008 5:19 PM CDT

McCain: US Must Be Tough But Listen to Allies

He says America must do a better job with world diplomacy

(Newser) - John McCain insisted today in a foreign policy address that the US can't abandon its "moral responsibility in Iraq” but that it must do a better job of working with its allies on the world's trouble spots. He distanced himself at times from Bush, rejecting not only brash unilateralism...

Iraq PM Threatens Sadrists as Basra Explodes

Mar 26, 2008 6:47 AM CDT

Iraq PM Threatens Sadrists as Basra Explodes

'Moment of truth' as government battles Shiite militias

(Newser) - As Iraqi government forces battle Shia militants for a second day in Basra, the Iraqi prime minister has issued a 72-hour deadline for insurgents to lay down their arms. In a television broadcast, Nouri al-Maliki warned militants, many of them loyal to the radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, to stand down...

Will the Losers Rebound,
Try Again, or Retire?

Mar 25, 2008 11:58 AM CDT

Will the Losers Rebound, Try Again, or Retire?

Clinton seen as Senate heavyweight, Obama a future contender, Mac a retiree

(Newser) - Very different futures await the two candidates who don't reach the White House, watchers say, with Barack Obama viewed as a future White House candidate, Hillary Clinton seen as a likely party leader in the Senate, and John McCain expected to retire in 2010. If Hillary doesn’t win, and...

Afghanistan Less Stable Than Iraq: Report

Mar 25, 2008 6:30 AM CDT

Afghanistan Less Stable Than Iraq: Report

Violence highest since overthrow of Taliban

(Newser) - While Iraq has grown more stable over the past year, Afghanistan has become one of the world's dangerous places, concludes a new think-tank report. Afghanistan is now the world's third most unstable country, behind the Palestinian territories and Somalia, reports Reuters. Iraq, thanks to high oil prices and a larger...

Bush: 4,000 US Lives 'Were Not Lost in Vain'

Mar 24, 2008 7:29 PM CDT

Bush: 4,000 US Lives 'Were Not Lost in Vain'

Prez suffers worse 'burden' than military families, Cheney says

(Newser) - President Bush sympathizes with the families of 4,000 Americans slain in Iraq, he said today. They "were not lost in vain. One day, people will look back at this moment in history and say, 'Thank God there were courageous people willing to serve,'" CNN reports. In an...

FBI Recovers 2
US Contractors in Iraq

Mar 24, 2008 6:28 PM CDT

FBI Recovers 2 US Contractors in Iraq

4 others still missing after severed fingers put focus on hunt

(Newser) - The FBI said today it has the bodies of two US contractors who were kidnapped in Iraq, the AP reports. John Roy Young, a security worker, and Ronald Withrow, employed by an IT firm, were two of six contractors kidnapped in Iraq over the past 2 years. Journalists shone attention...

Petraeus: Iran Behind
Green Zone Attack

Mar 24, 2008 4:37 PM CDT

Petraeus: Iran Behind Green Zone Attack

General: Tehran equipped and trained Iraqi insurgents

(Newser) - Gen. David Petraeus says Iran was behind yesterday's mortar attack on Baghdad's Green Zone, the BBC reports. Tehran trained, equipped, and funded the insurgents who carried out the attack, he said. "All of this in complete violation of promises made by President Ahmadinejad and the other most senior Iranian...

Security Comes to Fallujah With Saddam-Like Iron Fist

Mar 24, 2008 2:49 PM CDT

Security Comes to Fallujah With Saddam-Like Iron Fist

US hails progress, but top cop relies on brutal tactics, says democracy not for Iraq

(Newser) - Fallujah, a hotbed of violence that has shown signs of stability, is trumpeted by the US as a success story of the Iraq war effort. But the security achieved there, largely the work of Faial Ismail al-Zobaie, the city’s police chief and a former insurgent, is the result of...

US Death Toll
in Iraq War
Hits 4,000

Mar 24, 2008 4:30 AM CDT

US Death Toll in Iraq War Hits 4,000

Latest roadside bombing kills 4 American servicemen

(Newser) - A roadside bomb yesterday killed 4 US servicemen, hiking the American death toll in the Iraq war to at least 4,000, AP reports. Another soldier was wounded in the blast, which came less than a week after the fifth anniversary of the war. At least 61 other people died...