IRAQ popularity and IRAQ trends

Katie Brickman is both Ian Welch's girlfriend and his government-paid caregiver. Mr. Welch, a former Marine, is dealing with post-traumatic shock from his service in Iraq.

Soldier charged with biggest leak of classified information in US history to face 22 counts, including aiding the enemyA US army officer has ordered a court martial for Bradley Manning, the soldier charged in the biggest leak of classified information in American history.Military district of Washington commander Major General Michael Linnington referred all charges against Manning to a general ...

Anonymous has struck — and struck again. Early Friday, the FBI said that hackers from the well-known collective had intercepted and released a confidential conference call between the FBI and Scotland Yard. Read full article >>

The ticker-tape parade is a slice of Americana as old as the Statue of Liberty. It's an honor reserved for a select few (sort of),...

HAGERSTOWN, Md. (AP) -- A discharged Marine private who slit his wrists in a suicide attempt is fighting his military conviction for deliberately injuring himself, arguing the punishment is inconsistent with the armed forces' efforts to battle a rise in suicides during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan....

Yesterday, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta stated that the United States would begin transitioning to an ATA (advise, train, assist) mission in Afghanistan, from our current...

The timeline fits neatly into the U.S. political calendar, enabling President Obama to declare on the campaign trail this year that in addition to bringing all U.S. troops home from Iraq and beginning a troop drawdown in Afghanistan

On a candlelit patio in Beverly Hills, Michelle Obama praised her husbands many accomplishments over the last three years to Hollywood bigwigs! With everyone's attention on her, she made sure to note President Obama's biggest changes: healthcare reform, the removal of troops from Iraq, the proposal to reduce taxes for the middle class, and the [...]

A U.S. Army veteran of both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars is suing the federal government, claiming she and her wife are being denied military benefits that are available to heterosexual married couples.

Discounted Iranian rials and Syrian pounds pour into Iraq as Western sanctions make trade difficult.

Terrorist group vowed more attacks on the Shiite-led government as it tries to bond with its Sunni-backed members.

Iraq announces the execution of another 17 people, days after the UN condemned Baghdad for carrying out a large number of executions.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange appealed to Britain’s Supreme Court on Wednesday not to extradite him to Sweden over accusations of sex crimes

As reported in The Nation on January 31, US Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction informed the US Congress that based on audit conducted by it,  approximately $ 2 billion have remained unaccounted for, which is a polite way of saying that the amount has been misappropriated, rather stolen to be b exact. The offence seems far more serious when one considers that the amount ...

Gary Pedelty, 24, right, who had toured Iraq wit the 3rd Battalion Yorkshire Regiment, was killed when Richard Mail, left, smashed into his car in Huddersfield in November 2010.

The new Nasiriya physical rehabilitation centre opened today will treat 500 patients a year, providing them with artificial limbs and rehabilitation services. The ICRC has built the centre in coordination with the Iraqi health authorities.

United Nations refugee and human rights officials said today that they have confirmed that the infrastructure and facilities at a new camp in Iraq for residents of the settlement formerly known as Camp Ashraf meet international standards, as stipulated in last month’s agreement on voluntary relocation between the UN and the Iraqi Government.

Headline Title:  Iraq: Vice-president's aides held incommunicado 30 January 2012 Amnesty International has called on the Iraqi authorities to reveal the whereabouts of two women arrested earlier this month, apparently for their connection to the country's vice-president.Rasha ...

IRAQI officials have expressed outrage at the United States' use of a small fleet of surveillance drones to help protect the US embassy, consulates and American personnel in Iraq, The New York Times reports.

The use of unarmed craft to protect American buildings and personnel may foreshadow an expansion of such operations to the United States government’s diplomatic arm.

Iraqiya, which won most seats in March 2010 vote will end boycott it began in mid-December, easing a political crisis.

BAGHDAD (AP) -- Iraqi officials say a roadside bomb targeting a police patrol has killed one person in southeastern Baghdad, two days after a blast in the same area claimed the lives of 33 people....

Unless Washington lives up to its moral obligation and authorizes special immigration visas to Iraqis who worked with Americans, many will suffer or be killed.

Thousands of people have turned out in St. Louis for the nation's first big parade welcoming home Iraq War veterans.

The collapse of the prosecution of a Marine for a civilian massacre in Haditha, Iraq, follows a trend by the military of an unwillingness to second-guess fighters in fog-of-war cases.

A suicide car bomb comes as violence has increased in Iraq during the past six weeks, in the wake of the withdrawal of US troops

My recent post on the overstatement of American decline has probably been my most popular single non-zombie item since moving the blog to Foreign Policy.  It has also attracted some useful observations on Michael Beckley's International Security essay in particular -- see Phil Arena and Erik Voeten for some trenchant criticisms.  My FP co-blogger Steve Walt has also weighed in, howev...

At least 200 people have been killed across Iraq in a wave of attacks by suspected insurgents since the beginning of the year

A suicide bomber killed at least 29 people on Friday by driving an explosives-laden vehicle into a Shia Muslim funeral procession in Baghdad, heightening fears that Iraq is in the grips of sectarian conflict.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States has warned Iraq not to "blow this opportunity" to become a prosperous, unified nation, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Thursday, saying it must start to act like a democracy and embrace compromise.

A State of the Union address is often difficult to fact check, no matter who is president. The speech is a product of many hands and is carefully vetted, so major errors of fact are so relatively rare that they sometimes can become big news (think of George W. Bush’s “sixteen little words” about Iraq seeking uranium in Niger). At the same time, State of the Union addresses are very political s...

Release Time:  For Immediate Release United States Capitol Washington, D.C. 9:10 P.M. EST THE PRESIDENT:  Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, members of Congress, distinguished guests, and fellow Americans: Last month, I went to Andrews Air Force Base and welcomed home some of our last troops to serve in Iraq.  Together, we of...

News that a Marine had avoided jail time in the 2005 massacre in Haditha was met with outrage in Iraq on Tuesday.

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif (Reuters) - A U.S. Marine accused of leading a 2005 massacre of 24 civilians in the Iraqi city of Haditha was spared jail time when he was sentenced on Tuesday for his role in killings that brought international condemnation on U.S. troops.

Iraq cracked down harshly during 2011 on freedom of expression and assembly by intimidating, beating, and detaining activists, demonstrators, and journalists, according to the Human Rights Watch World Report 2012.   (Baghdad) – Iraq cracked down harshly during 2011 on freedom of expression and assembly by intimidating, beating,...

Conrad Black: It is time this country recognized its debt to Jean Chrétien for taking a pass on the Iraq debacle — and I was one who disagreed with him at the time

The body of a British hostage abducted in Iraq in 2007 and killed by Shiite militants has been handed to embassy staff in Baghdad.

The British Embassy in Baghdad has confirmed that a body handed over to them is that of Alan McMenemy, who was kidnapped in Iraq in 2007.

BAQUBA, Iraq - Security forces detained a Sunni Arab politician in central Iraq on Friday while a second escaped in the latest round of detentions to hit the minority group amid a political row. The arrest took place in the central province of Diyala, north of Baghdad, after a majority of its provincial council members signed a document last month calling for greater autonomy from the central ....

Gen. Martin E. Dempsey is expected to focus on Iran’s nuclear program, as well as the challenges posed by the past year’s regional upheavals and the American military exit from Iraq.

Iraq's political crisis escalated Wednesday as two groups within the government's ruling coalition met to discuss the possibility of ousting Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, amid a surge in violence.

An Iraq war veteran is charged with stabbing four homeless people to death in southern California - and police say he had planned more attacks.

A former director of international chemicals group Innospec has pleaded guilty to three charges relating to bribery in Iraq and Indonesia.

"Iraqi state security officers are systematically arresting people on trumped-up charges, torturing them and extorting bribes from their families for their release." Guardian UK via Richard Engel.

Imagine for a moment that the United States never invaded Iraq. Would the Arab Spring have toppled Saddam anyway?  

Martin Ely, from Derby, ripped off a part of the tyrant's buttock after using a hammer and crowbar to prise off the piece after American soldiers ripped down the monument in Baghdad.

An anonymous reader writes "The Stanford Law Review Online has just published an Essay by Yale's Stephen L. Carter entitled 'The Iraq War, the Next War, and the Future of the Fat Man.' He provides a retrospective on the War in Iraq and discusses the ethical and legal implications of the War on Terror and 'anticipatory self-defense' in the form of drones and targeted killings going forward. He w...

At least 12 people were killed and 35 wounded in two car bombings in Iraq.

(Medical Xpress) -- Women who served in the U.S. Army in Iraq and Afghanistan were involved in combat at significantly higher rates than in previous conflicts, and screened positive for post-traumatic stress disorder at the same rate as men, according to a study led by researchers at the San Francisco VA Medical Center and the University of California, San Francisco.

One of the most striking characteristics of Arab politics in recent years has been the glaring dearth of assertive political leadership. The era of autocratic strongmen who ruled over large swaths of the Arab world since the 1950s, particularly -- but not exclusively-- the military dictators, resulted in an arid political landscape bereft of functioning political institutions, emasculated tra...

PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- A New Jersey man is facing charges for his alleged role in a brawl between Flyers and Rangers fans that injured an off-duty police officer and Iraq war veteran following the Winter Classic outdoor hockey game.

Cops have arrested a man and charged him with beating an off-duty police officer and Iraq war veteran after the NHL Winter Classic in Philad ...

Israelis with roots in Iraq look toward the future with hope for better days.

An Irishman who was injured as three of his colleagues were blown up by a bomb in Iraq in 2003, while he was serving with the US army, has died in Boston.

The Iraq war is over, but the questions may never end.

(Reuters) - A wrongful death lawsuit linked to a defining moment of the Iraq war has ended with the company formerly known as Blackwater agreeing to settle with the families of four security contractors killed in a gruesome 2004 ambush.

PRESIDENT OBAMA pledged that the $489 billion in defense cuts he has proposed over 10 years would be governed by a concerted strategy, and on Thursday he delivered one. At the Pentagon, Mr. Obama unveiled a “strategic guidance,” which aides said reflected a considerable investment of his personal time and ideas. The president’s thesis is that the need for fiscal austerity coincides with a globa...

A series of attacks left at least 72 dead on Thursday in two Shiite neighborhoods of Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, raising fears of an escalation of violence. U.S. troop withdrawal was completed in December, according to most reports.

Now that we're both out of Iraq and money, the US government has to make some very important decision about how it'll kill its enemies in the future. Obama and his generals have weighed in: cheap war is getting techier. More »

In a chaotic Libya or a post-war Iraq, achieving individual safety and the most basic of health care might seem to be the best any government or aid organization could hope for. But areas in transition and those still tending to the societal wounds of war are actually well poised to combat chronic conditions, such [...]

Kurds took to the streets a day after the Turkish authorities admitted that airstrikes in northern Iraq intended to kill Kurdish militants had instead claimed the lives of 35 civilians.

Israel's attack on an Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981 caught the Americans unaware, according to official papers.

DAUGHTER granted special Christmas wish when she begs Santa to bring her dad home from Iraq

It is remarkable how Ahmad Chalabi, a Shiite exile who commanded no army and led no tribe, managed to get a superpower to wage a war it will rue for years.When Vice President Joe Biden slipped into Baghdad this month to commemorate the end of eight bloody years of war in Iraq, there was one face conspicuously absent from the host of solemn ceremonies and farewell meetings he attended: that of A...

The last convoy of US soldiers pulled out of Iraq on Dec 18, ending their occupation and nearly nine years of war and military intervention that cost almost 4,500 American and tens of thousands of Iraqi lives. [Read more]

It seemed that never a day went by without a bomb attack in Iraq after the invasion by the United States in 2003.

THE US Iraq withdrawal leaves a void.

During Christmas Day message Pope Benedict XVI condemns Syria violence, calls for stability in Iraq, Afghanistan.

Thousands of U.S. soldiers have survived powerful explosions in Iraq. Many are returning home with brain injuries that could result in long-term disabilities.

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Iraqi political leaders were set for crisis talks on Friday after the country suffered its deadliest attacks in four months amid a row that has seen its premier threaten to dissolve power-sharing.Sunni Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi, who is wanted on charges of running a death squad, blamed the crisis on Shiite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, and accused the Iraqi leader of beha...

TOKYO (Reuters) - On Benjamin Buchholz's second day in Iraq as a U.S. army officer, a young Iraqi girl was struck and killed by a military convoy while trying to catch a bottle of water thrown to...

When John Gallina returned to North Carolina after serving in Iraq with the state's National Guard in 2004, life was not the same.

Amid turmoil from Afghanistan to Iraq to Libya, it was a year of consolidation of a strategic partnership between India and the U.S. as they set out to make it "a cornerstone of an Asia-Pacific century".

Iraqis rejoice, worry about future as the last US convoy rolls out of Iraq

These debtor nations include Iraq, Indonesia, Serbia and Argentina, currently involved in a confrontation with Britain over the Falkland Islands.

Following his Dancing With the Stars win, J.R. Martinez is getting ready to take on his next challenge: fatherhood! The Iraq vet and his longtime girlfriend, Diana Gonzalez-Jones, are...

Can country really return to status as sophisticated hub of culture or is another bloody struggle just around the corner?

IT WAS altogether less triumphalist and more subdued than George Bush’s notoriously misconceived 2003 “mission accomplished” moment. But Barack Obama, who had previously described the nine-year Iraq war as “dumb” and made an election promise to bring the troops home, was still putting the best gloss on what has certainly not been the most glorious episode in the history of the US military and o...

FORT BRAGG, N.C. (AP) -- President Barack Obama on Wednesday saluted troops returning from Iraq, asserting that the nearly nine-year conflict was ending honorably, "not with a final battle, but with a final march toward home."...

As the U.S. completes its military withdrawal from Iraq, some say there are huge lessons to be learned about the limits of U.S. power.

The Donen report on allegations of illicit activities in the UN' Iraq oil for food programme has not found that any South African law was broken.

After dangerous, dusty assignments in Iraq and Afghanistan, photographer Michael Kamber has chosen a tough area of New York City as the new backdrop for his interest in war.

Staff Sgt. Marcus Gable - and more soldiers - share their emotional stories after returning from Iraq

No, a hacked HP printer can't burn down your house or office, but HP has a fix in the works anyway.

Iraq signed a multibillion-dollar deal with Royal Dutch Shell and Mitsubishi to tap natural gas in the south.

Iraq signs a $17bn deal over 25 years with Royal Dutch Shell and Mitsubishi to capture flared gas at southern oilfields.

BAGHDAD (AP) -- Iraq on Sunday signed a multibillion-dollar deal with Royal Dutch Shell PLC and Japan's Mitsubishi Corp. to tap natural gas in the south, one of the biggest agreements by the OPEC member to develop an energy sector battered by years of neglect and war....

The official under fire from Sir Alex Ferguson for awarding Newcastle a penalty on Saturday is an RAF flight sergeant who has served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

BAGHDAD (AP) -- After more than eight years in Iraq, the departing American military's legacy includes a fledgling democracy, bitter memories of war, and for the nation's youth, rap music, tattoos and slang....

LONDON, Nov 21 (Reuters) - The bid vehicle of former BP Plc Chief Executive Tony Hayward and financier Nathaniel Rothschild completed its controversial $2 billion acquisition of Kurdistan-focused...

Western oil companies are rushing to semi-autonomous Kurdistan in an unseemly scramble without regard for significant risks

BARACK Obama will use troop withdrawals in Iraq and Afghanistan to bolster forces in the Asia-Pacific - Australia at the centre of a new world order.

BARACK Obama will use troop withdrawals in Iraq and Afghanistan to bolster forces in the Asia-Pacific - Australia at the centre of a new world order.

Effort to protect lucrative investments in southern Iraq after Baghdad officials threaten to cancel existing contract with ExxonMobil

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- Oregon's "lawn-chair balloonist" has put off his flight in Iraq until next year....

Army Spec. David Hunt made it through a year of deployment in central Iraq largely unscathed. But two years after returning to the United States, he faces medical retirement from the military.from the Washington Post (Registration Required)

OIL GIANT Exxon Mobil’s confirmation at the weekend that it has entered Kurdistan is likely to boost interest in Irish explorer Petroceltic, which already has three licences in the semi-autonomous region to the north of Iraq.

The government in Baghdad considers Exxon’s deal illegal until long-awaited rules can be worked out to split revenues among Iraq’s fractious regions.

China's 2014 World Cup hopes were nearly smashed after conceding a goal in the stoppage time, losing to Iraq 1-0 in a crucial game of the Asian zone qualifying round here on Friday.

El equipo asiático perdió con Iraq en un encuentro la primera fase de clasificación para Brasil 2014

Get seriously worried about the Internets. Surround yourself with social media gurus who don't know anything about foreign policy but have a gazillion Twitter followers. Try convincing the world that U.S. technology companies are your new ambassadors, out on a noble mission to spread freedom and democracy around the globe (things not to mention: oil, Iraq, Dick Cheney). Send their CEOs to Siber...

BAGHDAD -- Chinese, Russian and European companies won the right this weekend to develop major oil fields in Iraq, while U.S. firms made a paltry showing at auctions that represent the first major incursion of foreign oil companies into Iraq in four decades.