In an interview today on NBC, President Barack Obama was asked whether a "substantial number" of troops would be home in time for next year's Super Bowl (to be held on February 7, 2010). Obama replied "Yes. We are going to roll out in a very formal fashion what our...
Early (and unofficial) projections show Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and allies gaining at the expense of the rival Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council. If this holds though the final count, which will not be available until likely late in the week, it will...
The Iraqi government has informed the US embassy today that it will decline to renew Blackwater Worldwide's license to operate in the nation. This will require the security contractors, still being used by the State Department, to leave the nation once the joint...
The Iraqi government is quite satisfied that President Barack Obama will not make any dramatic moves to withdraw troops in 2009, in spite of his campaign promise to have all American troops out of the nation within 16 months of taking office. "We are sure that the...
"The time is right for Marines to leave Iraq," US Marine Corps Commandant General James Conway told reporters today, complaining that the situation in Iraq is "a nation-building kind of environment" and "that is not what we do." Instead Conway believes the roughly...
As recently as yesterday, Obama aides were treating the president's campaign promise for a 16-month timetable to withdraw from Iraq as a working plan. It didn't take long for what many voters assumed was a firm commitment to become, in the parlance of the previous...
President Barack Obama met with top military commanders today to get a full update on the situation in Iraq and to ask them to begin drawing up an Iraq exit strategy. "I asked the military leadership to engage in additional planning necessary to execute a responsible...
While President Barack Obama has already pledged that the United States will "responsibly leave Iraq to its people," and is planning to ask the military to draft a plan to get troops out in 16 months, but comments from General Ray Odierno, the top US commander in...
The Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) between the United States and Iraq requires all American forces to withdraw from Iraq's cities and villages by the end of June. According to US Major General Jeffery Hammond, they may just keep their promise, if things go well....
Remember Muntadar al-Zeidi? The intrepid Iraqi journalist last month went from obscure reporter to international celebrity after hurling his shoes at visiting US President George Bush. He was arrested, beaten, and charged with assaulting a foreign dignitary, facing...
