A 12 year old Iraqi girl was killed today when US forces fired "warning shots" at a vehicle in Nineveh Province. The press release said the girl was standing about 100 meters behind the vehicle which was being warned: it was not clear if the drivers of the vehicle...
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki told the Associated Press today that he had informed top US officials, including President Obama, that any US military pullouts "must be done with our approval." And while the Iraqi government has been generally forthcoming with...
Speaking in an interview on PBS, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he believes that in the wake of the disastrous 2003 invasion of Iraq, future US presidents will be "very, very cautious" about attacking other nations, and that the "hurdle is much higher today than...
Muntadar al-Zeidi, the Iraqi journalist who went from obscurity to folk hero status in December when he threw his shoes at then-President George W. Bush, was sentenced to three years in jail today for "attempting to assault a foreign leader." Zeidi said his behavior...
A US military spokesman in Baghdad today insisted that militants "are greatly reduced in capacity and numbers," just one day after a bombing at the reconciliation conference in Iraq killed 33 people. The bombing was the second major attack in Baghdad this week - the...
Commander of US forces in Iraq General Ray Odierno said today that despite the recent violence he has yet to receive any indication that the Iraqi government was considering asking US troops to remain in the nation beyond the end of 2011. Late last month Secretary of...
The US military announced today that 12,000 troops, less than 10 percent of the overall US presence on the ground, will be leaving Iraq in the next 6 months. The announcement that the long-promised pullout will continue at a snail's pace was further marred, however,...
Most of the previous criticism of President Barack Obama's "pullout" plan from Iraq has centered around it being less a pullout plan than a plan to continue the war indefinitely. But after a week of getting used to the idea that 50,000 troops will remain on the ground...
Bloomberg is reporting today that the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has been raising its flags and deploying its military in areas outside of their official borders. One Kurdish military officer explained that “Saddam kicked out Kurds, Arabs came in. Kurds are...
Then-President George W. Bush declared "Mission Accomplished" in Iraq, and then proceeded to keep the war going for the remaining five and a half years of his presidency. In a speech today at Camp Lajeune, North Carolina took a page out of his predecessor's book when...
