Iraq – News Stories About Iraq - Page 94

Apr 12, 2007 7:39 AM CDT

Explosion Rocks Iraqi Parliament

Blast in Green Zone, killiing two MPs, comes hours after bridge attack

(Newser) - An explosion hit a restaurant inside the Iraqi parliament in Baghdad today, killing two members of parliament, wounding dozens and creating chaos in the capitol. The blast occurred when many MPs were having lunch, on a day when parliament was in session. The parliament building is deep within Baghdad's heavily...

Troops to Serve Longer in Iraq

Apr 12, 2007 6:46 AM CDT

Troops to Serve Longer in Iraq

Many will spend more time in combat zones than the boys of World War II

(Newser) - Army units in Iraq and Afghanistan will have their tours of duty extended to 15 months, from the standard one year, the military said yesterday. The policy—enacted to alleviate troop shortages—allows soldiers to remain at home for at least one year between assignments. “Our forces are...

Mosque Raid Ignites Baghdad Battle

Apr 11, 2007 5:48 AM CDT

Mosque Raid Ignites Baghdad Battle

Residents backed militants in Sunni stronghold

(Newser) - Iraqi soldiers who raided a Baghdad mosque during worship set off an all-day battle yesterday the New York Times calls the most sustained fighting since the start of the new security plan. US troops and Iraqi soldiers fought Sunni militants joined by residents in the largely Sunni Ineighborhood of Fadhil.

Iran Raises Nuclear Stakes

Apr 10, 2007 6:16 AM CDT

Iran Raises Nuclear Stakes

'Can Produce Uranium on Industrial Scale'

(Newser) - Iran claims to have scaled up its nuclear capability by enriching uranium "on an industrial scale, " the Guardian reports, in defiance of U.S. and U.N. pressure to dimantle the program. The announcement from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is sure to heighten conflict with the White House and...

Baghdad No Safer 2 Months Into Surge

Apr 9, 2007 1:40 PM CDT

Baghdad No Safer 2 Months Into Surge

As insurgents adapt, the body count is rising again

(Newser) - Baghdad is no more stable than it was before the American troop surge, the Times reports. With death squads trying to stay off the radar, sectarian executions have dropped in some corners of the city. But executions have given way to increased car bombings, chlorine gas attacks, and the burning...

Anti-American Protests
Mark Iraqi Anniversary

Apr 9, 2007 6:49 AM CDT

Anti-American Protests Mark Iraqi Anniversary

Al-Sadr demonstrations draw tens of thousands

(Newser) - Tens of thousands of Iraqis converged today on the southern city of Najaf, a Shia shrine, to mark the fourth anniversary of the fall of Baghdad. Waving Iraqi flags and chanting anti-U.S. slogans, demonstators marched from Kufa to neighboring Najaf. AP reports that two cordons of Iraqi...

Al-Sadr Preaches Peace — But Not
Toward U.S.

Apr 8, 2007 5:56 PM CDT

Al-Sadr Preaches Peace — But Not Toward U.S.

Urges Iraqis to unite against "occupiers"

(Newser) - Firebrand cleric Muqtada al-Sadr called on Iraqis Sunday to stop killing each other—and join together to rid their country of Americans. On the eve of the fourth anniversary of the fall of Baghdad, he urged both Iraqi forces and insurgents to direct their fight against "the occupiers,"...

Islamic Scholars Need U.S.

Apr 6, 2007 4:27 PM CDT

Islamic Scholars Need U.S.

Freedom fosters faith and scholarship

(Newser) - The Iraq war may be unforgiveable, but America has given Islam a priceless gift: a haven for Muslim scholarship, says a professor at the University of Deleware. "Muslim scholars have always maintained that true happiness comes from the pursuit and dissemination of knowledge," writes M. A. Muqtedar Khan....

Insuring Against Political Risks

Apr 6, 2007 1:45 PM CDT

Insuring Against Political Risks

Coups, riots, civil wars: Companies buy huge policies covering political upheaval

(Newser) - Political-risk insurance has quietly become a billion-dollar industry, the Economist reports, as Western corporations doing business in the developing world crave protection against coups, embargoes and civil wars. The Berne Union, a syndicate of 30 of the field's biggest insurers, says members have $113 billion in outstanding policies in some...

Iraq Is Breaking the Army

Apr 6, 2007 8:47 AM CDT

Iraq Is Breaking the Army

Inadequate training, gear, hobbles troops

(Newser) - The U.S. Army is stretched so thin in Iraq and Afghanistan that it's sending ill-prepared and ill-equipped young people into harm’s way, Time reports. And the surge in troops is only deepening the crisis: Two of the five new brigades bound for the Middle East will skip vital...

Big Oil Shut Out
Of Iraq Deals

Apr 6, 2007 8:24 AM CDT

Big Oil Shut Out Of Iraq Deals

First new oil contracts go to China, India—even Vietnam and Indonesia

(Newser) - U.S. oil companies are far from first in line as Iraq doles out its initial oil contracts. China, India—even Vietnam and Indonesia—have the inside track instead, thanks to contracts and infrastructure dating back to the Saddam regime, and more positive Iraqi sentiment. "They have...

Officer Walls Sects Apart
in Baghdad

Apr 5, 2007 11:34 AM CDT

Officer Walls Sects Apart in Baghdad

Peace barriers defy official policy and stir controversy—but they're working

(Newser) - Lt. Col. Jeff Peterson is trying to pacify Baghdad one wall at a time, erecting concrete barriers around Sunni and Shiites neighborhoods in the sector of the city he controls. Each mini-community has its own market, mosque, and generator. It's a controversial strategy most often used during civil wars, the...

Was There
a Deal with Iran?

Apr 5, 2007 7:54 AM CDT

Was There a Deal with Iran?

Iranian prisoner in Iraq was freed before British sailors were

(Newser) - Officials deny that concessions were made to Iran for the release of the captured British sailors, but the Times speculates that there may have been a secret deal. An Iranian diplomat held in Iraq for eight weeks was freed the day before the British prisoners were. Also, American officials said...

British Sailors Come Home

Apr 5, 2007 7:43 AM CDT

British Sailors Come Home

(Newser) - The fifteen British sailors captured by Iran are back in the UK. As soon as the British Airways jet touched down as Heathrow, Blair traded his measured diplomatic tone for harsher words, warning the "elements of the Iranian regime" were still arming insurgents inside Iraq."

Support The Troops With
A War Tax

Apr 3, 2007 4:15 PM CDT

Support The Troops With A War Tax

Dems should insist on paying, not borrowing, for war

(Newser) - If the Democrats want to support the troops but call the question on the war, they should pass a "war tax," writes Richard Hall in the Detroit Free Press. They could adopt the supplemental appropriations, but attach an income tax surcharge to finance it. Would the president...

The Surge Is
Our Last Stand

Apr 3, 2007 3:37 PM CDT

The Surge Is Our Last Stand

By the beginning of the coming year, "the Army will begin to unravel"

(Newser) - "We are in a position of strategic peril," says a retired general who's just back from Bagdhad in a blunt, sobering piece in the L.A. Times. Barry McCaffrey, now at West Point, urges support of the surge and the new strategy to secure Baghdad without sugar coating...

The Letter That Launched a War

Apr 3, 2007 1:12 PM CDT

The Letter That Launched a War

The Post tracks the bogus document from an Italian journalist to the President's hands

(Newser) - How the so-called "Italian Letter"—the discredited document suggesting Saddam Hussein sought to buy uranium from Niger—made its way from the hands of an Italian journalist into the President's State of the Union speech is the subject of an irresistible piece of sleuthing by Peter Eisner in...

Bush Staying the Course on Veto

Apr 3, 2007 1:03 PM CDT

Bush Staying the Course on Veto

President refuses to compromise on Iraq funding

(Newser) - Bush is staying the course in the war with Congress, ripping into "Democrat leaders" in a press conference today, and repeating his vow to veto any bills with troop withdrawal deadlines that crossed his desk. Congress, he said, is more clearly interested in fighting political battles than real ones.

Cleric Opposes Rebaathification

Apr 3, 2007 8:17 AM CDT

Cleric Opposes Rebaathification

Sistani rejects law aimed at quelling Sunni insurgency

(Newser) - A bill allowing Saddam's party members back into power in Iraq has been rejected by that country's most powerful cleric. The law, aggressively pushed by the U.S., would allow former low-level Baathists--most of them Sunnis--to hold positions in government. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the powerful Shiite cleric, dismissed...

Baghdad Merchants
Beg to Differ
With McCain

Apr 3, 2007 7:45 AM CDT

Baghdad Merchants Beg to Differ With McCain

Say sunny security assessment is phony

(Newser) - Of course John McCain found Baghdad's central market perfectly safe during his weekend visit: He came with 100 soldiers in armored Humvees, backed by attack helicopters and sharpshooters. In a follow-up visit, Kirk Semple of the New York Times found merchants incredulous at the Congressional delegation's sunny description of the...