What are 'combat troops'? Iraq withdrawal depends on answer

All U.S. forces will leave Iraq by Dec. 31, 2011, but how that withdrawal will happen is still being negotiated by Iraqi and American officials, the top U.S. commander in Iraq said Tuesday. | 12/23/08 18:01:00 By - Adam Ashton and Laith Hammoudi

Baghdad's silent theaters reflect a cultural darkness

Most of the theaters on Sadoon Street, the strip that housed Baghdad's movie scene before the war, closed because of the violence that made catching a film after dark too dangerous a risk for most people. The theaters that remain have a reputation for playing old American action movies with pornography spliced into some scenes. | 12/23/08 15:41:00 By - Jenan Hussein

Iraqis hope to sue U.S. troops under new accord

The families of three men who were killed last week during a search of a grain warehouse want to press charges against American soldiers under the terms of a new security agreement between the U.S. and Iraq. | 12/22/08 16:06:00 By - Adam Ashton

Iraqi farmers are back in business, and Iraqis love local produce

Mansour Abdul Khadim's mix of winter crops gives every impression of abundance, despite the double threat of drought and violence that has plagued Iraqi agriculture since Saddam Hussein's fall in 2003. Rows of red potatoes and green beans grow together in one lot. Winter wheat sprouts in adjacent fields. Tomatoes for the spring already are incubating in mounds of fertilizer. | 12/20/08 14:26:00 By - Adam Ashton

More Iraqis rally to cause of reporter who threw shoes at Bush

Iraqis in different cities have demonstrated every day this week on behalf of Muntathar al Zaidi, and Friday's rally brought together a handful of politicians, Zaidi's siblings and a mix of protesters from several provinces outside of Baghdad. Even Sunni Muslim leaders are lionizing the Shiite journalist. | 12/19/08 17:58:00 By - Sahar Issa

Iraqi government plays down arrests of 23 police officers

Twenty-three mostly low-ranking police and security officials were detained this week as part of an investigation into attempts to revive Saddam Hussein's banned Baath Party, government officials said Thursday. | 12/18/08 18:23:00 By - Hussein Kadhim

Did the shoe cause rebellion at Baghdad's July 14 Bridge?

In the many times that I have been at the square that leads to the July 14 Bridge and the Green Zone, I had never seen anyone object to soldiers closing off the road whle a convoy of some official passes by. But Wednesday was different. The drivers refused to stop, even when the soldiers pointed their rifles at them. Did Muntathar al Zaidi's shoe-throwing cause this? | 12/17/08 18:30:14 By - Mohammed al Dulaimy

U.S. troops confront Iraqis rallying in favor of shoe-thrower

U.S. troops in Fallujah reportedly fired over the heads of demonstrators rallying in favor of the Iraqi journalist who hurled his shoes at President Bush. The journalist appeared before an Iraqi investigative judge Wednesday and was told he'll face charges of attacking a head of state. | 12/17/08 11:04:00 By - Jenan Hussein and Laith Hammoudi

Shoe-throwing reporter a hero to some Iraqi colleagues

In the U.S., hurling an object at another country's visiting leader wouldn't earn a journalist much respect among his peers. In Iraq, television journalist Muntathar al Zaidi is somewhere between a hero and an outcast after he threw his shoes at President George W. Bush during a news conference Sunday. | 12/16/08 18:24:00 By - Jenan Hussein and Adam Ashton

Bush shoe incident caught Secret Service flatfooted

Although the Secret Service put everyone who attended President George W. Bush's Baghdad news conference through several layers of security Sunday, the agency appeared to be caught off guard when an Iraqi journalist hurled his shoes at the president. Agents were forced to the side of the room, which was so crowded that Iraqi journalists added a chair to the front row, then crammed in two additional bodies. There was no room for Army Gen. Ray Odierno's security detail either. | 12/15/08 18:56:00 By - Greg Gordon and Adam Ashton

Iraqis doubt U.S. can, or will, honor withdrawal dates

The deadlines sound clear enough in the security agreement: U.S. combat troops must be out of Iraqi urban areas by June, and all Americans should withdraw from the country by Dec. 31, 2011. However, those deadlines have appeared anything but firm to Iraqis over the past week | 12/15/08 17:05:00 By - Adam Ashton

Iraqi who threw shoes covered U.S. bombing of Shiite area

Friends said that the Iraqi television journalist who hurled two shoes at President Bush on Sunday during a joint news conference Bush was holding with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki had been deeply affected by the carnage he saw earlier this year when U.S. aircraft bombed Baghdad's Sadr City neighborhood. The journalist was wrestled to the ground and detained. Bush was unhurt. | 12/14/08 15:53:57 By - Adam Ashton and Mohammed al Dulaimy

Human rights inquiry set for warehoused Asians in Iraq

The U.S. military and defense contractor KBR are investigating possible human-rights abuses at a compound near the Baghdad airport where, McClatchy and The Times of London revealed last week, a Kuwaiti company housed about 1,000 Asian men it recruited for jobs in Iraq that didn't materialize. | 12/12/08 15:42:00 By - Adam Ashton

Iraq official says U.S. troops might be needed for a decade

The assertion by Ali al Dabbagh, Iraq's official government spokesman, in Washington set off a clamor in Baghdad and undermines Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki's pledge that the agreement will end the presence of American forces in his country by the beginning of 2012. The pact faces a popular referendum in the summer. | 12/12/08 11:02:00 By - Adam Ashton

Bombing at posh Kirkuk restaurant kills 47, injures more

A suicide attack at a posh restaurant in the northern city of Kirkuk on Thursday killed 47 people and injured more than 100, shattering a calm that had settled over Iraq during the four-day Eid al Adha holiday. | 12/11/08 13:27:44 By - Yaseen Taha and Adam Ashton

Prices for sacrificial lambs skyrocket as Iraqis honor dead

The sheep markets looked different this year: They were packed with customers buying animals to sacrifice in memory of recently lost relatives, but many people went home empty-handed due to the enormous demand and steeply rising prices. | 12/10/08 17:17:00 By - Jenan Hussein and Adam Ashton

VIDEO REPORT, Part 1: Iraqis suspicious of U.S. troop accord

McClatchy Baghdad Bureau Chief Leila Fadel talks about the implications of the U.S.-Iraq troop agreement signed last month. | 12/10/08 13:35:02 By -

Pentagon ignored danger of roadside bombs, report finds

The military ignored steps before the invasion of Iraq that could have prevented the staggering number of casualties from roadside bombs, the Pentagon's acting inspector general charged Tuesday. The IG's report says that the military knew years before the war that mines and homemade bombs " would be a "threat . . . in low-intensity conflicts." | 12/09/08 18:52:00 By - David Goldstein

With violence down, Iraqis travel for big religious holiday

BAGHDAD — For the past few years, Nawal Abdulla Hadi of Baghdad couldn't travel to see her family for the Eid al Adha, giving up the traditional reunion during the annual Muslim holiday because the roads weren't safe. | 12/09/08 16:53:00 By - Adam Ashton

Law's unclear if U.S. can prosecute Blackwater guards

The indictment of five Blackwater security guards, unsealed this week, is pinned to the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act. The question now becomes: does the law apply to the Blackwater guards? They were technically under contract to the State Department. Were they acting to support Pentagon operations? | 12/09/08 15:13:20 By - Mike Doyle

Future of U.S.-Iraq relations? Teamwork

The role of the U.S. military in Iraq over the next year could look a lot like the scene of a joint U.S.-Iraqi military patrol in a northwest Baghdad rail yard this weekend. Iraqi police talked with property owners, broke locks and led the way through about 40 buildings at the compound. The Americans followed with tools the Iraqis lacked, such as bomb-sniffing dogs and an explosives team. | 12/08/08 19:15:03 By - Adam Ashton

Death in Baghdad: How a troubled teen found himself in Iraq

The facts about the life and death of Alex Funcheon are these: As a Wichita teen he was a screw-up and a jerk. He got drunk, got high, got arrested for possession, dropped out, bedded girls and bragged about it, cursed at his parents, bullied his little sister to tears, and ticked off friends so much that a roommate, one of his closest friends, told Alex one day to find some other place to live. | 12/07/08 10:06:48 By - Roy Wenzl

Round-up of Daily Violence in Iraq - Saturday 6 December 2008

A sticky bomb stuck to a civilian pickup truck targeted civilians in al-Rasheed wholesale grocery market in Doura, southern Baghdad at 11 a.m. Saturday killing one civilian, injuring three others.

Two Iraqi Army servicemen were killed by sniper fire in Abu Ghraib, late Thursday afternoon. | 12/06/08 08:44:35 By - Sahar Issa

Reporter reflects: 'Their grief is my last remembrance of Iraq'

For all the stories of reduced violence and political and social successes there, Iraq remains, for the most part, a devastated country. It's OK to revel in what's been achieved, but only for a moment. Because the real story of Iraq, the one that deserves thoughtful attention, is about everything that's still left to accomplish there. | 12/05/08 15:12:00 By - Corinne Reilly

Warehoused Asian workers in Iraq will be sent home

Asian men who've been living in warehouses near the Baghdad airport while awaiting promised jobs with a military subcontractor now are in line to be sent home, and they're still not sure how they'll be paid for their time in Iraq. | 12/04/08 17:09:00 By - Adam Ashton

Tonga, most other coalition countries leaving Iraq

The Tongan marines left with a song, their vowel-rich war choruses echoing in the marble halls of a palace built for Saddam Hussein but now occupied by the U.S. military. | 12/04/08 16:46:00 By - Adam Ashton

Suicide bombings in Iraq hit Fallujah, prompt lockdown

The city of Fallujah is on lockdown following two suicide bombings Thursday that killed 15 people and wounded more than 100, Iraqi police said. | 12/04/08 07:40:14 By - McClatchy Newspapers

North Carolinian seeks a kind of peace in return to war

Sgt. 1st Class Chad Stephens is returning to Iraq after four years of a hard civilian life, where nightmares plagued him, jolting him awake in the bedroom of his home in rural Ahoskie, N.C. He retreated to a converted barn behind his home. He didn't go into stores or crowds or even downtown Ahoskie. For him, a return to military life offers a hope of relief from his jumpiness. In the military life, he told his psychiatrists, I'm good. | 12/03/08 19:17:37 By - Barbara Barrett

Gates walks fine line between two administrations

In his first news conference since President-elect Barack Obama asked him to stay on, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that he and Obama agree on the U.S. course in Iraq, but he couldn't commit to Obama's pledge of a 16-month withdrawal. Instead, Gates said the pace of the drawdown would be one of several discussions in which he'll participate during the new administration. | 12/02/08 19:40:00 By - Nancy A. Youssef

Military contractor in Iraq holds foreign workers in warehouses

About 1,000 Asian men hired by a Kuwaiti subcontractor to the U.S. military have been confined as virtual prisoners in windowless warehouses near the Baghdad airport, many for as long as three months. Najlaa International Catering Services, a subcontractor to KBR, the Texas-based former subsidiary of Halliburton, hired the men for contracts that fell through. | 12/02/08 19:13:59 By - Adam Ashton

Dozens killed, scores wounded in spate of Iraq attacks

As many as 38 people were killed and more than 100 were wounded Monday in multiple attacks across Iraq, including one in which a man detonated a suicide vest near a convoy of coalition vehicles in Mosul, killing up to 16. | 12/01/08 17:32:00 By - Laith Hammoudi

Iraq, with U.N. help, seeks to improve elections

There's big change coming to the ballot in Iraq's January provincial elections: This time, candidates names will appear on the ballot instead of lists of political parties. Iraq concealed the identities of candidates in the 2005 election as a safety measure. Security has improved significantly since then -- though elections can still be a dangerous for candidates and election workers. | 11/30/08 16:24:00 By - Adam Ashton

Iraq's religious leaders criticize security agreement

Influential religious leaders across Iraq are voicing reservations about a U.S.-Iraq security agreement that allows Americans to remain in the country for another three years. Their comments filtered out Saturday as Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki met with U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker and Gen. Ray Odierno, commander of multinational forces in Iraq, to plan for the treaty's implementation. | 11/29/08 15:51:00 By - Adam Ashton

With Iraqi parliament approving pact, Maliki's stature grows

In a country where agreements are hard to reach, Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki built a broad political coalition to muscle through a divisive U.S.-Iraq security pact that could set his place in his nation’s history as the man who ended the American occupation. | 11/27/08 16:48:11 By - Adam Ashton

Iraqi parliament approves pact to end U.S. occupation

A resounding majority of Iraqi parliament members on Thursday approved a security pact that calls for an end to the U.S. occupation by 2012, giving the measure a mandate of national unity that was considered critical for its long-term success. | 11/27/08 08:45:07 By - Adam Ashton

Iraqi parliament delays troop pact vote over unrelated issues

The security pact, which sets the end of 2011 for U.S. withdrawal, likely has enough pledged votes to pass, but the government is trying to come up with policy pledges that will persuade a bloc of Sunni Muslim lawmakers to vote for the pact. Sunni backing would demonstrate national support for the agreement. | 11/26/08 17:10:00 By - Adam Ashton

Iraq's parliament puts off vote on U.S. troop accord

Iraq's parliament was expected to vote today on a U.S.-Iraq security pact that calls for the withdrawal of American forces within the next three years. But parliament put the vote off until Thursday as legislative leaders worked to find a compromise that would set a national referendum on the issue for next year. | 11/26/08 10:38:35 By - Adam Ashton

Vast U.S. Embassy in Baghdad: A monument to what?

The United States has built a vast embassy complex in Baghdad. But three years from now, when U.S. troops are gone, will it be seen as a monument to success or a reminder of a fiasco? | 11/24/08 19:27:17 By - Roy Gutman

3 bombs kill at least 16 Iraqis in attacks in Baghdad

Three explosions killed at least 16 Iraqis on Monday, including 14 who were in a bus to a government ministry and an Iraqi soldier at a heavily guarded checkpoint leading to the U.S.-controlled International Zone. The checkpoint bombing appeared to be carried out by a mentally unstable woman wearing a suicide vest. | 11/24/08 12:42:44 By - Adam Ashton and Hussein Kadhim

Sunni sheiks air grievances, but will work with Shiite-led government

The meeting was billed as a routine press conference to show off a new government center in this town west of Baghdad — known to Iraqis for the infamous prison as well as for the deep distrust between the Shiite-led central government and the Sunni tribes that reside here. But tribal leaders had something they wanted to say, and they weren't going to follow the day's script. | 11/22/08 16:36:00 By - Adam Ashton

Sadr followers protest Iraqi-U.S. pact in huge rally

Tens of thousands of followers of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr packed a central Baghdad square Friday, where they protested a U.S.-Iraq security agreement and likened Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki to fallen dictator Saddam Hussein. | 11/21/08 10:24:00 By - Adam Ashton

Contractors in Iraq could face charges in earlier incidents

Private security contractors operating in Iraq could face Iraqi prosecution for acts committed when they supposedly had immunity from Iraqi law, U.S. officials said Thursday. | 11/20/08 20:06:00 By - Nancy A. Youssef

Why the U.S. blinked on its troop agreement with Iraq

The Pentagon has welcomed a new accord on U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq. But privately, senior officials are criticizing President Bush for giving Iraq more control over U.S. military operations than had ever been contemplated. They blame U.S. negotiators for not understanding how upcoming elections would make Iraqi officials unwilling to compromise. | 11/19/08 19:43:00 By - Nancy A. Youssef

Iraqis doubt security agreement will end U.S. presence

Iraqi and American leaders say that a new security pact will have all U.S. forces and military contractors out of Iraq by 2012, but 14th Ramadan Street is skeptical. | 11/19/08 16:21:00 By - Adam Ashton

Unofficial Translation of U.S.-Iraq Troop Agreement from the Arabic Text

This is an unofficial translation from the Arabic of the agreement between Iraq and the United States for the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq. It was translated by the staff of the McClatchy Baghdad Bureau. | 11/18/08 19:03:00 By - McClatchy Newspapers

Under Iraq troop pact, U.S. can't leave any forces behind

The status of forces of agreement between the United States and Iraq goes further than most people in the United States realize. It contains no provisions for the U.S. to leave behind a residual force recently mentioned by Barack Obama or the trainers that have long been part of the withdrawal discussions in the United States. | 11/18/08 18:30:00 By - Leila Fadel

Maliki on Iraq TV calls for passage of troop pact with U.S.

Maliki's nationally televised address marked his first clear, public endorsement of the treaty after nine months of what he called "difficult and complicated" negotiations with U.S. officials. In May, Maliki declared that the negotiations were at an impasse, and he'd remained lukewarm this fall, neither endorsing nor rejecting the agreement. | 11/18/08 16:38:00 By - Adam Ashton

Gulf War syndrome a real illness, panel concludes

Federal research into the causes behind the mysterious malady that's affected at least 175,000 combat veterans of the 1991 Persian Gulf war has "not been effective," and the report by the congressionally mandated panel suggested that politics or financial concerns might have played a role. | 11/17/08 20:10:01 By - David Goldstein

Company that bungled Baghdad embassy repeats in Gabon

A year after problems emerged in the construction of the new U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, another State Department post being built largely by the same Kuwaiti-based company is engulfed by delays, recriminations, and an Inspector General's probe. The embassy building, in the central African nation of Gabon, was supposed to be finished by April 2009. Instead, it's only 7 percent complete. | 11/17/08 19:01:00 By - Warren P. Strobel

Iran softens resistance to U.S.-Iraq troop pact

Iran on Monday softened its resistance to a pact that calls for withdrawing American forces from Iraq by the end of 2011, a shift that could make it easier for Iraq's ruling Shiite Muslim government to secure parliamentary approval. U.S. officials said they doubted that Tehran had altered its stance, however. | 11/17/08 16:21:00 By - Adam Ashton

Iraqi cabinet approves accord setting U.S. troop withdrawal

Iraq's cabinet on Sunday approved an agreement with the United States that sets a timetable for the nearly complete withdrawal of American forces within three years — a date Iraqi officials said cannot be extended. It also lifts the immunity that U.S. soldiers and contractors have had from Iraqi prosecution. The agreement faces an uncertain future in the Iraqi parliament. | 11/16/08 14:47:00 By - Adam Ashton and Leila Fadel

Iraq cabinet approves troop agreement with U.S.

Iraq's cabinet today approved a security pact that calls for Americans to withdraw from the country within three years, setting up a final vote on the agreement in Iraq’s parliament. The agreement also limits Americans' ability to conduct raids without Iraqi permission and requires them to withdraw from Iraq's cities by the middle of next year. | 11/16/08 08:11:23 By - Adam Ashton

Iraqi soldier shoots and kills U.S. troops

An Iraqi soldier shot and killed two U.S. soldiers and wounded at least six others Wednesday in Mosul, the American military said. As the shootings occurred in northern Iraq, violence continued in Baghdad, with at least 25 people killed in bombings across the capital. | 11/12/08 17:18:00 By - Leila Fadel

Opening of bridge reconnects Shiite, Sunni Iraqis

The Shiites approached the Aimma bridge from Baghdad's Shiite district of Kadhimiyah, and the Sunnis came from the Sunni side of Adhamiyah on Tuesday. When they met in the middle, they hugged and then cried over the waters of the Tigris River. | 11/11/08 19:07:00 By - Laith Hammoudi

Kurdish expansion squeezes northern Iraq's minorities

Murad Kashtu al Asi is a member of the ancient Yazidi sect, most of whom consider themselves Kurdish. In the complex and often violent landscape of Iraq, the community, estimated at a few hundred thousand, is at the center of a tug of war over land between mostly Arab Iraq to the south and mostly Kurdish Iraq to the north. | 11/11/08 16:08:00 By - Leila Fadel

Baghdad street sweepers clear bodies after bombings

Three or more explosions Monday ripped through a busy shopping district in northern Baghdad's Adhamiyah neighborhood, at killing at least 28 people and wounding at least 68. | 11/10/08 19:04:39 By - Hussein Kadhim and Leila Fadel

Need a job? Kentuckian suggests you consider Iraq

"Iraq is open for business," says Maurey Bond. He should know. He's been there since February. The 31-year-old Lexington native and University of Kentucky graduate is general manager of the Iraqi Airways International Business Center near the Baghdad International Airport. | 11/10/08 07:44:50 By - Jim Jordan

Iraqi refugees get help in adapting to U.S. life

It didn't take long for parishioners at St. Matthew Church in Ceres, Calif., to launch a plan to help a wave of Iraqi refugees who began settling in Stanislaus County last summer. Their church is a natural magnet for Iraqi Christians because many of its members are Iraqi immigrants themselves. | 11/10/08 07:43:56 By - Adam Ashton

Iraqis seek more 'withdrawal' talks; U.S. says they're over

The United States delivered Thursday what it said was the final text of the controversial accord on the stationing of U.S. forces in Iraq, but Iraq said more talks are needed before the government can accept it. "We have gotten back to the Iraqi government with a final text. Through this step, we have concluded the process on the U.S. side," said Susan Ziadeh, the U.S. Embassy spokeswoman in Baghdad. "Iraq will now need to take it forward through their own process." | 11/06/08 17:53:00 By - Leila Fadel, Nancy A. Youssef and Warren P. Strobel

Iraqis worry about Obama, while many GIs celebrate

Iraqis didn't dance in the streets or hold late-night viewing parties to herald the election of a new president of the United States. Many didn't have electricity to follow the television coverage of Barack Obama's ascent to president-elect. | 11/05/08 16:22:00 By - Leila Fadel and Corinne Reilly

Iraqi minorities 'insulted' by new provincial assemblies law

The Iraqi parliament approved legislation Monday that allocates six seats in provinces to small ethnic and religious communities in the upcoming provincial elections, but Christians, Yazidis and Shabaks asked for the law to be overturned on the grounds that they remained underrepresented. | 11/03/08 17:23:00 By - Leila Fadel

Iraq still thirsting for water that's safe to drink

Violence has dropped dramatically across Iraq in recent months, but the fight for a better life is just beginning. From electricity and health care to education and the economy, Iraq has many needs, and safe drinking water is among the most urgent. | 11/03/08 14:15:00 By - Corinne Reilly

Amid Iraq's violence, a radio station gives people hope

Sumer FM is Iraq's most popular independent radio station. It broadcasts from a state-of-the-art, brightly decorated studio in Baghdad's Karrada neighborhood, and its signal reaches every corner of the country. It's been the one thing Iraqis could count on, even through the most violent months when people were too frightened to so much as leave their homes. | 11/01/08 14:02:00 By - Corinne Reilly

Petraeus confronts his next challenge: Afghanistan

Army Gen. David Petraeus, the commander who's been hailed for bringing stability to Iraq, became the 11th head of the U.S. Central Command on Friday, tasked with reshaping military efforts in America's other war, Afghanistan. | 10/31/08 16:48:00 By - Nancy A. Youssef

Another success? Iraqi mayor Bush once hailed flees to U.S.

Two years ago, President Bush hailed Najim al Jabouri as a symbol of success in the battle to curb Iraq's sectarian violence. Today, Jabouri is a symbol of how uncertain that success is. Last month, Jabouri quietly left Tal Afar, the ancient city near Iraq's desert border with Syria where he was the police chief and the mayor, collected his wife and four children and flew to safety in the United States. | 10/30/08 16:55:00 By - Jonathan S. Landay

Iraq revises draft troop deal; U.S. likely to reject changes

Among the amendments: Iraqi authorities would have the right to determine whether a U.S. service member was on- or off-duty when he or she committed an alleged crime outside American bases and to decide where the service member would be tried. It also would allow authorities to inspect all U.S. cargo entering the nation. | 10/28/08 19:45:00 By - Leila Fadel

Iraqi may hang for murders of 2 U.S. soldiers

An alleged al Qaida in Iraq member should be hanged for his role in the 2006 kidnapping, torture and execution of two American soldiers, an Iraqi court decided Tuesday. | 10/28/08 15:55:00 By - Corinne Reilly

U.S. lists services it'll cut off if Iraq rejects pact on troops

Among the items the U.S. military has told Iraqi officials the U.S. will stop if a new agreement on U.S. troops isn't approved: air traffic control, SWAT team training, advisers in government ministries, and border patrols. The U.S. military would stop employing some 200,000 Iraqis and wouldn't refurbish 8,500 Humvees it's given to the Security Forces. | 10/27/08 18:26:00 By - Leila Fadel

As clock ticks, U.S. letting thousands of Iraqi prisoners go

The United Nations mandate that's allowed the United States to operate in Iraq will expire at the end of this year. What will happen after that, both to American military operations in the country and to the way the U.S. handles its prisoners, isn't clear. U.S. officials says most of the 17,000 people they hold aren't dangerous. | 10/27/08 14:30:00 By - Corinne Reilly

CIA led mystery Syria raid that killed terrorist leader

A CIA-led raid on a compound in eastern Syria killed an al Qaida in Iraq commander who oversaw the smuggling into Iraq of foreign fighters whose attacks claimed thousands of Iraqi and American lives, three U.S. officials said Monday. The body of Badran Turki Hishan al Mazidih, an Iraqi national who used the nom de guerre Abu Ghadiya, was flown out of Syria on a U.S. helicopter. | 10/27/08 13:58:01 By - Jonathan S. Landay and Nancy A. Youssef

Iraq's prime minister won't sign U.S. troop deal

Fearing political division in the parliament and in his country, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki won't sign the just-completed agreement on the status of U.S. troops in Iraq, a leading Iraqi lawmaker told McClatchy Friday. The accord's demise would be a major setback for the Bush administration. | 10/24/08 18:07:00 By - Roy Gutman

Iraqis take over security of once-violent province

The U.S. military formally handed control over Babil province to Iraqi security forces during a ceremony Thursday morning in the once-violent central state. The Iraqi army and local police are now responsible for security in 12 of Iraq's 18 provinces, though U.S. forces continue to assist across the country. | 10/23/08 13:59:00 By - Corinne Reilly

Suicide car bomber kills at least 13 in Baghdad

A suicide car bomber aiming for a government convoy killed at least 13 people and injured two dozen more in Baghdad on Thursday morning, police and government officials said. Some of the victims died when one of the cars in the convoy, blown into the air, landed on them. | 10/23/08 06:50:03 By - Corinne Reilly and Jenan Hussein

Enough Joe the Plumber; here's to Kareem the Soldier

"Joe the Plumber" was only one of two Americans injected into the presidential election this past week. The other was Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan, whom former Secretary of State Colin Powell invoked in his endorsement Sunday of Barack Obama.Khan was a 20-year-old soldier from Manahawkin, N.J., who wanted to enlist in the Army from the time he was 10. He was an all-American boy who visited Disney World after he completed his training at Fort Benning, Ga., and made his comrades in Iraq watch "Saving Private Ryan" every week. When he died in Iraq, his father said Tuesday, he was fighting for America — and his faith. | 10/21/08 19:25:00 By - Nancy A. Youssef

Iraq's unschooled children evidence of devastation's depth

At age 14, Ahmad Razaq has worked more jobs than he can count. He's painted houses, cleaned office buildings and supervised a janitorial crew. Lately he spends his days washing cars for a few dollars a week outside a dingy hotel in Baghdad. He's never set foot inside a classroom. He's only heard about school from friends. He can't read or write, and he figures he never will. | 10/21/08 15:21:00 By - Corinne Reilly

Thousands rally in Iraq against proposed U.S troop deal

Muqtada al Sadr, a widely influential Shiite cleric who called for the demonstration, issued a statement demanding that Iraq's parliament reject the deal that would allow U.S. troops to stay in Iraq until the end of 2011. The deal still must be approved by Iraq's parliament. | 10/18/08 14:11:00 By - Hussein Kadhim and Corinne Reilly

Deal on U.S. troops faces possibly fatal objections in Iraq

A draft agreement by U.S. and Iraqi negotiators that calls for withdrawing Amercan troops by 2012 appears to be facing obstacles in Iraq that could kill the deal before it's implemented, lawmakers in Baghdad said. Negotiators completed the draft this week. Now both governments are reviewing it. | 10/17/08 18:24:00 By - Corinne Reilly and Nancy A. Youssef

Al Qaida in Iraq leader killed in raid, U.S. says

A suspected terrorist killed by American troops in a raid earlier this month has been identified as al Qaida in Iraq's No. 2 leader, the U.S. military said Wednesday. Abu Qaswarah, also known as Abu Sara, died Oct. 5 in the northern city of Mosul during a firefight between suspected al Qaida members and American soldiers raiding a building where they believed Qaswarah was hiding. | 10/15/08 18:44:00 By - Corinne Reilly and Hussein Kadhim

3 Iraqis charged in torture and killing of 2 U.S. soldiers

U.S. and Iraqi authorities have gathered physical evidence and eyewitness statements linking three alleged al Qaida in Iraq members to the 2006 kidnapping, torture and execution of two American soldiers, American officials close to the case said Wednesday. | 10/15/08 17:38:00 By - Corinne Reilly

Iraqi VP: U.S., Iraq won't reach accord on troops this year

With the United Nations mandate authorizing U.S. forces to be in Iraq expiring on Dec. 31, that means the U.S. may not have a legitimate right to remain in the country, Tariq al Hashimi, Iraq's Sunni Muslim vice president, told McClatchy. Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki told a London newspaper that if there were no agreement "U.S. forces will be confined to their bases." | 10/13/08 19:12:00 By - Leila Fadel

Iraqis are being attacked and killed for returning to their homes

Haj Ali's family had been home for less than a month when a makeshift bomb blew off part of his garage. The message was clear: Go back to wherever you came from. In Baghdad, where most of the sectarian cleansing has taken place, about 8 percent of the people who moved within the country have gone back to their neighborhoods, according to the International Organization for Migration. | 10/13/08 17:33:00 By - Corinne Reilly

U.S. troops now serve as welcome wagon in Baghdad

It was dark, just after 8 p.m. in Ghazaliyah, a sprawling neighborhood in west Baghdad, and a platoon of American soldiers was out knocking on doors. Lucas Stump, a 26-year-old Army lieutenant from Michigan, pulled out a typed list of addresses. "I think it's here," he said, pointing to a gated house in one of Ghazaliyah's nicer, cleaner corners. The Iraqi Army officer accompanying the Americans nodded in agreement. | 10/13/08 16:52:00 By - Corinne Reilly

Thousands of Christians flee killings in Mosul

Christians in Mosul are fleeing their homes after a spate of killings this week that left 12 Christians dead in one of the largest Christian communities in Iraq. The killings follow large protests by the community last month against the passage of the provincial elections law. An article that would give representation to Christians and other minorities was removed from the law before its passage. | 10/11/08 18:43:00 By - Leila Fadel

Economy's bust is a boon for military's recruiting effort

The economic crisis could help the military recruit and retain troops, Pentagon officials said Friday, potentially ending years of extraordinary bonuses and waivers that have become necessary to keep enough troops to fight two wars. The U.S. military spent $750 million on recruiting bonuses in the past year. | 10/10/08 17:55:00 By - Nancy A. Youssef

Assassinations replacing car bombs in Iraq

U.S. and Iraqi officials are seeing a shift in violence in Iraq from mass car bombings to assassinations using magnetic bombs, weapons with silencers and bicycle bombs. As provincial elections approach, some officials worry that assassinations will increase as political parties try to eradicate their competitors. | 10/09/08 17:56:00 By - Leila Fadel

Iraqi provincial elections likely to be held early next year

Iraq's presidency council passed a critical law Wednesday to organize provincial elections that were originally scheduled for Oct. 1 and now are likely to be held sometime early next year. | 10/08/08 16:21:00 By - Leila Fadel

New U.S. intelligence report warns 'victory' not certain in Iraq

A nearly completed high-level U.S. intelligence analysis warns that unresolved ethnic and sectarian tensions in Iraq could unleash a new wave of violence, potentially reversing the major security and political gains achieved over the last year. | 10/07/08 17:15:00 By - Jonathan S. Landay, Warren P. Strobel and Nancy A. Youssef

Saddam now seen as 'Father of Martyrs' by visitors to his grave

In the hometown of Saddam Hussein, they still call the late dictator The President. Inside a hall that once held an office Saddam used once or twice a year lies his tomb. A sheet embroidered with gold covers the burial site: "There is no God but God and Mohammed is his messenger." | 10/07/08 16:14:00 By - Leila Fadel

Fewer black funeral banners blanket Baghdad

When a loved one dies in Iraq, hanging a black banner is the first order of business. It is a custom that existed here long before the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, but over the last five and a half years, the banners have taken on new meaning. They are an informal measure of security, a way for residents to gauge whether their neighborhood is becoming more or less dangerous. | 10/05/08 14:47:00 By - Corinne Reilly

11 Iraqis killed in U.S. raid in Mosul

Eleven members of an Iraqi family were killed Sunday during a U.S. raid in Mosul, including three women and three children, officials said. Neighbors told Iraqi police in Mosul that the family was peaceful, but the U.S. military said five of the dead were terrorists who had targeted American soldiers. | 10/05/08 14:46:00 By - Corinne Reilly and Yasseem Taha

Displaced Iraqis, now told to go home, fear for their lives

For all the debate in the United States about whether the surge has succeeded, there's no debate in the camps of displaced people throughout Iraq. Forced from their homes by the years of sectarian violence, they've now been told to go home by Iraq's Ministry of Displacement and Migration. But many are unwilling, saying friends and family have told them it would mean death. | 10/05/08 11:09:52 By - Leila Fadel

Iraq's presidency agrees to provincial-elections law

Iraq's presidency council has agreed to approve a long-delayed law that sets provincial elections for early next year. Iraq's parliament passed the elections law late last month, and approval from Iraq's three-man presidency council is the last formal hurdle the measure must clear. | 10/03/08 13:52:00 By - Corinne Reilly

Blasts kill 20 Shiite worshippers in Iraq on Muslim holiday

Two suicide bombers targeting Shiite worshipers killed at least 20 people and injured dozens more at Baghdad mosques Thursday morning, officials said. Both attacks took place around 8 a.m. in south east Baghdad, about four miles apart. They came as Shiites marked the first day of Eid, a three-day celebration that follows Ramadan, Islam's holy month. | 10/02/08 06:45:30 By - Corinne Reilly, Sahar Issa and Jenan Hussein

Surge test: Will Iraq's government back Sunni militias?

The success of the U.S. troop surge in Iraq was possible in large part because of the creation of Sunni Muslim militias that rose up against Islamic extremists and allied themslves with U.S. forces. Now the control of those forces is passing to the Shiite-led government of Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki. American officials are watching closely, worried that the transition won't go well. | 09/30/08 17:27:00 By - Leila Fadel

Cost of massive unemployment in Iraq could be paid in blood

For Raad Abdulsada, every day starts the same way. He wakes up at sunrise, heads to a busy, dusty corner in Baghdad's Karrada neighborhood and waits for work. Most days, the waiting is in vain. Abdulsada's struggle is anything but rare here in Baghdad. | 09/30/08 15:52:00 By - Corinne Reilly

A bloody Sunday in Baghdad, in spite of the surge

The five explosions that ripped through central and southwestern Baghdad Sunday, killing at least 33 and injuring at least 111, were a bloody reminder that despite the drop in violence in Iraq the bloodshed is hardly over. | 09/30/08 07:42:48 By - Mohammed al Dulaimy and Leila Fadel

Once again, Iraq's Ramadan ends in violence

Every year since the U.S.-led invasion, violence has spiked across Iraq during Ramadan, the ninth month of lunar calendar, when the Koran is said to have been revealed to the prophet Muhammad. Muslims celebrate Ramadan, which ends this week, by fasting from dawn to dusk, asking forgiveness for their sins and doing good deeds. They break the fast with iftar, an evening meal. | 09/29/08 17:36:00 By - Corinne Reilly

Al Qaida gunmen kill dozens of Iraqi policemen in Diyala province

Gunmen thought to be affiliated with Al Qaida in Iraq ambushed and killed 27 Iraqi policemen and eight anti-Qaida fighters near Baqouba on Wednesday, police and hospital officials said. | 09/24/08 18:17:00 By - Corinne Reilly and Hussein Kadhim

Iraqi parliament approves crucial election law

After months of infighting, Iraq's parliament unanimously passed a crucial law Wednesday governing provincial elections. | 09/24/08 10:32:00 By - Corinne Reilly

Army ordered to discharge soldier who found religion in Iraq

A federal judge in Alaska has ordered the U.S. Army to grant conscientious objector status and an honorable discharge to Pfc. Michael Barnes, a Fort Richardson-based paratrooper who said he experienced a religious awakening in Iraq two years ago that left him opposed to war in any form. The decision by U.S. District Judge John Sedwick supersedes the Army's decision last year to deny Barnes' request. | 09/23/08 08:02:26 By - George Bryson

Shell becomes first international oil firm to open Baghdad office since '70s

Royal Dutch Shell PLC opened an office Monday in Iraq, the first major oil and gas firm to set up a new operation here since the industry was nationalized in the 1970s. Iraq has some of the largest proven crude-oil reserves in the world, and other firms are expected to follow suit. | 09/22/08 18:08:00 By - Leila Fadel

U.S. strike kills civilians, Iraqis say

At least eight civilians including women were killed in a U.S. air strike near Tikrit, Friday, Iraqi police and witnesses said. The people were all from one family. The attack which a U.S. military statement said targeted a "terrorist" that is accused of running a bomb making ring happened in the town of Dawr, northwest of Baghdad. | 09/19/08 20:03:12 By - Leila Fadel and Laith Hammoudi

U.S. soldier in iraq shoots 2 American sergeants

An American soldier shot and killed two U.S. sergeants Sunday morning at a base southeast of Baghdad, a U.S. military spokesman said Thursday. The shooter's name and rank haven't been released, and the military would say only that the soldier is being held pending a review by a military magistrate. The dead men are Staff Sgt. Darris J. Dawson, of Pensacola, Fla., and Sgt. Wesley Durbin, of Dallas. | 09/18/08 16:51:00 By - Nicholas Spangler

Odierno: Former door-kicker now reflects Iraq progress

Soon after he took over as the new U.S. military commander in Iraq Tuesday, Gen. Raymond T. Oderino greeted the U.S. troops standing before him in Arabic: "As-Salam Alaikum," or peace be upon you. For a soldier once known for his aggressive tactics and his impatience with local residents, his budding Arabic marked an extraordinary evolution. | 09/16/08 19:11:00 By - Nancy A. Youssef

Suicide bomber attacks coming-home party in Iraq

A woman wearing a suicide vest blew herself up Monday at a coming-home party for an Iraqi police sergeant detained by U.S. forces for almost a year, killing 22 people and wounding 33, a high-ranking official said. | 09/15/08 18:39:00 By - Nicholas Spangler and Mohammed al Dulaimy

Petraeus, credited with Iraq progress, recalls agonizing day in '07

Nineteen months ago, when Gen. David Petraeus returned to Iraq to take command of the U.S.-led coalition, he toured Dora, a Sunni Muslim district of Baghdad that had been decimated in sectarian fighting, bombings and attacks on Americans, and wondered whether he'd made a big mistake. | 09/15/08 18:45:00 By - Leila Fadel

Iraqi lawmaker could face charges for traveling to Israel

Parliament on Sunday suspended legal immunity for secular Sunni lawmaker Mithal Alusi, opening him up to possible felony charges for traveling to Israel last week to participate in an international counter-terrorism conference. Alusi is the only Iraqi politician in recent years to publicly visit Israel, a country declared an enemy of state by Iraqi law. | 09/14/08 18:30:00 By - Nicholas Spangler and Mohammed al Dulaimy

Television crew is slain in northern Iraq

BAGHDAD - The Iraqi TV crew brought the gifts that had come to be the trademark of their reality show: some basic household appliances and a delicious supper to break the Ramadan fast for a family of little means. | 09/14/08 18:02:00 By - Nicholas Spangler and Hussein Kadhim

Iraqi government reassures the Awakening, but fighters are wary

The Iraqi government will not turn its back on the men who paid in blood for the country's fragile peace, said the officials on stage in the ballroom at Baghdad's al-Rasheed Hotel, referring to U.S.-paid Sunni militias. But the Awakening leaders listened warily. "I don't trust a word they said," said one, afterward. | 09/11/08 17:27:00 By - Nicholas Spangler and Mohammed al Dulaimy

Displaced Iraqis live under stands in soccer stadium

Qader Abdullah Rasoul visited Kirkuk Stadium the day it opened and thought it beautiful. The lush turf was newly laid, and the stands were smooth concrete, steeply tiered to seat tens of thousands of soccer fans. Now Rasoul lives in the stadium along with 2,500 others, mostly Kurds. It's a dirty, sewage-ridden slum and Rasoul is the unofficial mayor. | 09/10/08 16:31:00 By - Nicholas Spangler and Mohammed al Dulaimy

Iraqi parliament still gridlocked over provincial-election law

BAGHDAD — Iraqi lawmakers returned from their summer recess Tuesday, still gridlocked over the critical law on provincial elections and with no new vote in sight. | 09/09/08 20:20:00 By - Nicholas Spangler and Sahar Issa

Experts: Bush's Iraq withdrawal small because gains are, too

President Bush's announcement Tuesday that he'll maintain troop levels in Iraq through the end of his presidency suggests that despite his claim that the surge of additional U.S. troops in Iraq has succeeded, the security gains could be temporary, defense officials and experts said. | 09/09/08 19:23:00 By - Nancy A. Youssef and Jonathan S. Landay

Iraq signs a natural-gas deal; Iraqi guards shoot pedestrian

Under the agreement approved Sunday, Shell will build the infrastructure to capture and purify the 700 million cubic feet of gas now being burned off every day at the southern oil wells to relieve pressure on the reservoirs below. A Shell official said that's enough fuel to produce electricity for all Iraq. | 09/08/08 18:48:00 By - Nicholas Spangler and Hussein Kadhim

Is Odierno ready to be the No. 1 U.S. commander in Iraq?

Gen. David Petraeus cast such an enormous shadow the last two years that only the most fervent Army watcher could probably say who the No. 2 was during the critical "surge" period in Iraq. For the record, he is Gen. Raymond Odierno, a mountain of a man who looks straight out of central casting for a butt-kickin’ Army general. | 09/08/08 06:51:53 By - Chris Vaughn

Iraqi minister in Kuwait to seek relief from war reparations

Iraq's finance minister traveled to Kuwait on Sunday to seek relief from paying the $8.3 billion in reparations that the U.N. awarded Kuwait as compensation for Saddam Hussein's 1991 invasion of that country. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has called on Arab nations to forgive debts incurred by Saddam's regime, but they have been slow to do so. | 09/07/08 10:20:00 By - Nicholas Spangler

U.S. troops cast lines for elusive Saddam bass

By 8 in the morning it was hot, and Chief Warrant Officer Scott Henry, the custodian of the Baghdad Angler's Club and School of Fly Fishing, sat in the shadow of a palace pillar. More palaces were all around the lake, and directly across from him was al Faw Palace, bigger and uglier than the rest. | 09/03/08 17:23:00 By - Nicholas Spangler

Maliki's growing defiance of U.S. worries allies and critics

A week ago, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki at a meeting with tribal sheikhs insisted that a firm date be set for a U.S. withdrawal in a security agreement that has been under intense negotiations for months. That rankled U.S. officials, who'd publicly assured reporters that the deal was virtually done. | 09/01/08 06:00:00 By - Leila Fadel

Chalabi aide arrested on suspicion of Baghdad bombings

U.S. forces have arrested a deputy of Ahmad Chalabi, who was once the Bush administration's favorite Iraqi politician, and implicated him in bombings that killed Americans and Iraqis, Chalabi and Iraqi government officials said Thursday. | 08/28/08 19:05:00 By - Nicholas Spangler and Hussein Kadhim

Car bomb kills at least 25 in Diyala province

At least 25 people were killed and 45 injured Tuesday morning when a car bomber detonated his vehicle at a police recruitment center in Jalula, northeast of Baqouba in Diyala province, Iraqi police said. | 08/26/08 11:14:00 By - Yasseen Taha and Leila Fadel

Iraq bombing kills at least 25 police recruits in Diyala

The bomber struck in Jalowlaa, northeast of Baqouba in Diyala province, outside a recruiting center where members of the U.S-backed Sons of Iraq militia were signing up to join the Iraqi government's security forces. A doctor who'd treated the wounded said there were at least 30 dead, higher than the police death toll. | 08/26/08 10:46:01 By - Yasseen Taha and Leila Fadel

Dazed Iraqi teen suicide bomber says she didn't want to die

The 15-year-old girl had the chubby cheeks of a child when she was arrested Sunday by an alert policeman who chained her to the bars of a window, stripped off her dress, found an explosive vest and deactivated the bomb. Had he not, Rania would have been this year's 31st suicide bomber in Iraq. On Monday, she spoke about the people who put her up to it: the relatives who drugged her; her husband, whom police accuse of being a member of al Qaida in Iraq, and her mother, who seemed to play a central role in turning Rania into a human bomb.

Maliki demands 'specifc deadline' for U.S. troop pullout

In a direct challenge to the Bush administration, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki said there would be no security agreement with the United States without a fixed timetable for U.S. troops to leave. "There should be a specific deadline and it should not be open," Maliki said. | 08/25/08 15:17:00 By - Leila Fadel

In search of song amid sounds of war in Baghdad

"I am living between heaven and hell /My day is night and my night is day /Grief and pain" — Umm Kulthoum, the late Egyptian singer | 08/23/08 06:00:00 By - Leila Fadel

Diyala raid was rogue operation, Iraqi government says

The Iraqi paramilitary unit that stormed a government complex in Iraq's Diyala province earlier this week usually is directed by the prime minister's office. But the Iraqi government said the unit was acting without orders when it arrested a provincial official and killed another, the Iraqi government said Friday. | 08/22/08 18:02:00 By - Nicholas Spangler

Petraeus: Iraq slows hiring of former insurgents

The top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David H. Petraeus, said Thursday that the Iraqi government had been purposefully slow in absorbing into its security forces tens of thousands of mostly former Sunni insurgents who'd joined U.S.-financed militias. "This is how you end these kinds of conflicts. That's why they call it reconciliation," he said. | 08/21/08 18:55:00 By - Leila Fadel

Iraq still demanding withdrawal date, right to try U.S. troops

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made a surprise visit to Iraq Thursday in an effort to convince Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki to consent to an agreement governing the conduct of U.S. forces in Iraq that will be needed when the U.N. mandate for U.S. military operations in Iraq expires at the end of this year. | 08/21/08 18:31:00 By - Leila Fadel and Jonathan S. Landay

Key U.S. Iraq strategy in danger of collapse

The Iraqi government is failing to absorb tens of thousands of former Sunni Muslim insurgents who'd joined U.S.-allied militia groups into the country's security forces and may soon move to disarm and arrest them. Some militia members say such a move would force them into open warfare with the government again. | 08/21/08 07:58:00 By - Leila Fadel

Rice meets with Iraq's Maliki on U.S. troop agreement

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met Thursday with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki in an effort to close the gap between U.S. and Iraqi negotiators on an agreement that would govern the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq after a U.N. mandate expires at the end of the year. Iraqi officials have said Maliki has held up completion of the agreement because he is seeking greater authority over the conduct of American troops. | 08/21/08 05:00:01 By - Jonathan S. Landay

U.S. denounces chaotic Iraqi raid

The U.S. military on Wednesday denounced a chaotic raid conducted by an Iraqi special forces unit Tuesday morning that killed an Iraqi government employee and sparked a gunfight with police in Diyala province, northeast of Baghdad. | 08/20/08 15:44:00 By - Nicholas Spangler

Iraqi army seizes 2 Sunni officials in chaotic pre-dawn raid

Iraqi forces raided the provincial government compound in Diyala Province in a chaotic operation early Tuesday, killing the governor's secretary and seizing computers and cars before local police engaged them in a two-hour gun battle, police and local officials said. | 08/19/08 17:36:00 By - Nicholas Spangler and Laith Hammoudi

Iraqi army raid in Diyala leaves provincial official dead

Iraqi forces raided the provincial government compound in Diyala early Tuesday morning, killing the governor's secretary and confiscating computers and cars before local police engaged them in a two-hour gun battle, police and local officials said. | 08/19/08 12:12:40 By - Nicholas Spangler and Laith Hammoudi

Iraqi forces move en masse against insurgent hotbed

More than 600 arrests of high-level and not-so-high-level al Qaida in Iraq suspects have been made here in the last two weeks. There've been some major rough spots — insurgents have mounted at least three lethal attacks against Iraqi security forces, and they tried to kill the provincial governor Tuesday — but it seems that Operation Glad Tidings, which brought more than 30,000 Iraqi troops and policemen into Baqouba and the surrounding countryside of Diyala province, is moving from the clear-and-hold phase to the public relations phase. | 08/12/08 17:03:31 By - Nicholas Spangler and Hussein Kadhim

Jordan's King Abdullah makes first visit to post-Saddam Iraq

On Monday, King Abdullah II of Jordan became the first Arab head of state to visit Iraq since Saddam Hussein's regime collapsed in 2003. Iraqi officials heralded the brief and previously unannounced visit as a sign that their Arab neighbors finally were shedding their fear of a government that they'd seen as religiously and ethnically divided. | 08/11/08 16:29:00 By - Leila Fadel

Violence continues in Iraqi province despite amnesty offer

The Iraqi government on Monday suspended a massive military operation in Diyala province, northeast of Baghdad, offering a limited amnesty to insurgents who surrender by the end of the week. | 08/11/08 14:50:00 By - Nicholas Spangler

Sadr promises to disband militia if U.S. sets Iraq withdrawal date

| 08/08/08 16:19:00 By - Leila Fadel

Looking for suicide bombers in Iraq is no easy task

The Iraqi National Police came in the middle of the night and roused the three women from their sleep. For 14 days, they were held, suspected of preparing to carry out deadly suicide attacks and recruit other women to do the same. On Thursday, they were sent home. Were they future bombers? Maybe. Maybe not. | 08/08/08 15:39:00 By - Leila Fadel

First person: Embedded with Iraqi army, where saluting is optional

I flew into Diyala province, hoping to meet some Iraqi soldiers taking the offensive against Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias there. Instead, I got embedded with the guard company of an Iraqi general, and the closest I got to any fighting was the night when somebody fired his Kalashnikov rifle by mistake during a feast at the provincial governor's house. | 08/08/08 14:25:00 By - Nick Spangler

Iraq's Sadr offers to give up fight if U.S. withdrawal date set

Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr has agreed to disband an elite fighting force within his militant movement designed to fight Americans if negotiations between the United States and Iraq set a firm timetable for withdrawal of American troops, his top aide said Friday. The offer is a potent incentive to the government of Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki to continue to press U.S. for a firm withdrawal date in talks over a security agreement. | 08/08/08 10:16:13 By - Leila Fadel

U.S. agrees to set withdrawal date with Iraq

The United States and Iraq are nearing completion of negotiations on a security agreement that would pull American troops out of Iraqi cities by next July and foresees all U.S. combat troops gone from Iraq by 2011, according to two Iraqi officials who are familiar with the negotiations. | 08/07/08 19:03:00 By - Leila Fadel

Iraqi parliament adjourns without setting elections

After weeks of late-night negotiations and under intense U.S. pressure, Iraqi lawmakers failed to pass a much-debated provincial elections law Wednesday before adjourning for the month.The latest move by parliament underscores the great divide between security and political progress in Iraq. While violence is at a record low, progress on the political front is lagging. | 08/06/08 17:30:00 By - Leila Fadel

GAO: Iraq's oil profits huge as U.S. bears reconstruction load

Iraq has benefited handsomely from this year's surge in oil prices and is well-positioned financially to shoulder a greater share of its own economic and security needs, the GAO reported Tuesday. Yet Iraqi government expenditures have declined since 2005, even as the U.S. Congress has appropriated roughly $48 billion since 2003 for efforts to stabilize and reconstruct the invaded nation. | 08/05/08 18:41:00 By - Kevin G. Hall

Squatters in Iraqi buildings fear they'll soon be on the street

Tens of thousands of Iraqis found shelter in government and abandoned public properties after the U.S.-led invasion upended their lives. Now the government has ordered many out of their temporary homes, from Kirkuk in the north to Basra in the south, worsening Iraq's already enormous problem of displaced people. s. | 08/04/08 15:16:00 By - Leila Fadel

In Iraq, waiting for a lift to Baqouba with Tila Tequila

If you ever have a chance to hitch a ride from Baghdad to Baqouba on a Black Hawk helicopter at night in the middle of a minor sandstorm, don't take it. This isn't a knock on the pilots of the 1st Infantry Division's Combat Aviation Brigade, who are experts at their trade. But to save wear and tear on their machines from sand can mean hours on metal chairs and no snacks, unless you count Special K cereal in one-portion plastic cups. | 08/04/08 14:25:00 By - Nicholas Spangler

Battle over oil-rich city threatens to derail Iraqi elections

Despite intense U.S. pressure, Iraqi legislators Sunday failed to reach an agreement to solve an increasingly bitter dispute over the oil-rich northern city of Kirkuk. The parliament's inability to resolve the dispute over the city mirrors Iraqi political leaders' inability to make progress on other fronts despite the recent improvements in security. | 08/03/08 17:24:00 By - Leila Fadel and Sahar Issa

Iraqis no longer ask, 'Are you Sunni or Shiite?'

The deadly sectarianism that has been so much a part of Iraq in the past few years seems to be fading. Residents say they can now visit relatives in neighborhoods of opposite sects without fear. Taxi drivers can travel around blast walls to neighborhoods outside their own sect. Sunnis can get medical care at Shiite-run hospitals. Shiites who used to signal their religious affiliation at checkpoints to avoid harassment say such moves now are likely to earn a rebuke. | 08/03/08 13:14:00 By - Nancy A. Youssef

Iraq is safer, but the war isn't over, U.S. commander says

It seemed like another routine trip as the commander of U.S. ground forces in Iraq boarded his helicopter in Amara, where a battalion of U.S. troops is based. Only two months ago, however, the smuggling hub on the Iranian border was a stronghold of Shiite Muslim militants, a place that no American general without a death wish would visit. The climate has changed, said Lt. Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III. | 07/31/08 17:31:00 By - Leila Fadel

Firebrand cleric tells followers not to attack Iraqi government forces

Radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr on Wednesday offered full support for Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki's government if it refuses to sign an agreement President Bush has sought to allow semi-permanent stationing of U.S. troops in Iraq. Sadr warned at the same time that he would oppose any agreement between Iraq and the United States. | 07/30/08 19:02:00 By - Nicholas Spangler and Mohammed Al Dulaimy

Some Iraq athletes will go to Olympics

After a seven-hour meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland, the International Olympic Committee and Iraq's interim National Olympic Committee agreed to a truce in their dispute over the legitimacy of Iraq's committee that will allow two Iraqi track and field athletes to compete in next month's Summer Games in Beijing. But five other athletes have missed the deadline for signing up for their events. | 07/29/08 19:09:00 By - Nicholas Spangler and Laith Hammoudi

Afghanistan surpasses Iraq as deadliest spot for U.S. troops

With only 11 American troops killed so far in July, the month is likely to see the lowest American death toll in Iraq since U.S. troops invaded in 2003. Troop deaths in Afghanistan stood at 23, making July the first month when more Americans died there than in Iraq. | 07/29/08 16:44:00 By - Nancy A. Youssef

Iraqi, U.S. forces meet no resistance in Diyala operation

Iraqi infantry, supported by artillery elements of the Iraqi air force and U.S. forces, began a major operation in Diyala province, northeast of Baghdad, early Tuesday morning. | 07/29/08 10:52:00 By - Nicholas Spangler and Laith Hammoudi

Iraqi bombings kill dozens, wound more than 200

Women suicide bombers targeted religious pilgrims in Baghdad and Kurdish political protesters in Kirkuk Monday in a jarring reminder of the sectarian conflicts that nearly ripped Iraq apart. At least 36 died and 182 were wounded in the four explosions, U.S. military officials said. | 07/28/08 10:52:00 By - Nicholas Spangler and Hussein Kadhim

U.S. concedes Iraq victims were law-abiding, not insurgents

The U.S. military said Sunday that the three people killed last month after U.S. soldiers shot at their car in one of the most secured areas of Iraq were civilians, not criminals as the military initially reported. A military statement said that neither the civilians who were killed nor the soldiers were at fault for the deaths. | 07/27/08 19:40:00 By - Leila Fadel

Petraeus won't join bandwagon for Iraq withdrawal timetable

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki and Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama may agree that U.S. combat troops should be gone from Iraq by the end of 2010 — and John McCain may be shifting positions. But Gen David Petraeus, the top U.S. military officer in Iraq, tells McClatchy that the situation in Iraq remains too volatile to "project out, and to then try to plant a flag on, a particular date." | 07/27/08 17:45:00 By - Nancy A. Youssef

Discus thrower's Olympic dreams are crushed

Haider Nasir knew the news was coming but it still landed like a punch to the gut. The Olympic delegation has been barred from competing, said Dr. Talib Faisal, the head of the interim Iraqi Track and Field Federation. He is the same man who'd told Nasir in February that Nasir was going to throw the discus in the Beijing 2008 Olympics. | 07/25/08 18:26:00 By - Nicholas Spangler and Sahar Issa

N.C. tigers set to go to Iraqi zoo

These big tigers, raised in captivity deep in the Caswell (N.C.) County woods, represent 500 pounds of fur-covered progress in a war that seldom brings good news. Soldiers and Iraqis describe the zoo as the rare spot in Baghdad where you can forget about war. Sitting just outside the Green Zone, it reminds visitors of normal life. | 07/25/08 18:30:50 By - Josh Shaffer

Some Guardsmen, Reservists back from Iraq didn't get benefits

The Department of Veterans Affairs failed to send benefit packages to nearly 37,000 National Guard and Reserve members who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan because it mistakenly thought they were ineligible. | 07/24/08 20:24:31 By - Les Blumenthal

Iraqi athletes banned from the Summer Games

Five Iraqi athletes invited to the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games have been barred from competing in August, the International Olympic Committee said Thursday. "We suspended (the Iraqi National Olympic Committee) back in June because of the clear interference of the government," spokeswoman Emmanuelle Moreau said. "When we did that we also invited the Iraqi government to discuss possible solutions, but we haven't received any positive response from them." | 07/24/08 17:19:00 By - Nicholas Spangler and Sahar Issa

Army begins treating PTSD in the field

Sgt. Seth "Doc" Musikant could be a recruiting poster for the Army's new approach to PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder. Last April, Musikant and his team were driving around a traffic circle in the city of Tuz. It was their second time through the roundabout that day, and between trips somebody had planted a homemade bomb. It blew up their Humvee. | 07/24/08 16:53:00 By - Mike Tharp

Iraqi forces aren't quite ready to take charge

It wasn't yet dawn, and the Iraqi army unit was already behind schedule. It was about to launch a major operation against another cluster of towns overrun by Shiite Muslim militiamen, and this time American forces would remain at the rear of the convoy, behind their Iraqi counterparts. | 07/23/08 18:15:00 By - Nancy A. Youssef

Iraqi army prepares assault in Diyala as election law vetoed

Iraqi army troops headed Wednesday into Diyala, one of Iraq's last remaining restive provinces, in preparation for the next major government offensive, as Iraqi president Jalal Talabani vetoed a long-awaited elections bill, casting into doubt provincial elections widely viewed as critical for national reconciliation. | 07/23/08 17:55:38 By - Nicholas Spangler

Kurds storm out as Iraqi parliament OKs Oct. 1 elections

The Iraqi parliament approved a bill Tuesday that calls for crucial provincial elections on Oct. 1, but the secret ballot alienated Iraqi Kurds and very likely will lead to the postponement of the process until next year, several members of parliament told McClatchy. | 07/22/08 17:47:00 By - Nancy A. Youssef

U.S. military advisers say they're treated as misfits

Standing next to a screen illuminating a long list of tips, Maj. Anthony Nichols looked out at the classroom of neophyte military trainers and began a lecture about the ways that fellow soldiers will look down at them while they serve in Iraq and Afghanistan. Top Pentagon officials say that developing a new corps of military advisers is a priority as part of the new emphasis on counterinsurgency. But the military, which continues to use the Army Special Forces to train foreign troops for combat in Iraq and elsewhere, hasn't fully embraced the program to train trainers in counterinsurgency. | 07/22/08 15:38:00 By - Nancy A. Youssef

Iraqi leader meets Obama, calls for U.S. troops out by end of 2010

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki took advantage of Barack Obama's internationally watched visit Monday to set a two-and-a-half-year timeline for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq. | 07/21/08 18:01:11 By - Nancy A. Youssef

After battling for U.S., Iraqi fights for American citizenship

Julian Polous was born in Mosul, Iraq, graduated from college and learned to speak four languages. He found asylum in the United States. He passed multiple background checks. Yet the United States is not ready to let him become a U.S. citizen. His application for citizenship has been circling in naturalization purgatory since April 2007, caught in a backlog of FBI name checks. | 07/20/08 18:36:04 By -

Sunnis rejoin Iraqi government, raising reconciliation hopes

Until now, some Iraqis questioned how well Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki's Shiite-led government represented the nation's Sunnis. But on Saturday, the Sunnis rejoined the government and were given six Cabinet ministries. | 07/19/08 16:27:00 By - Nancy A. Youssef

Sadr backers seethe over Iraqi army but avoid violence

Under sweltering heat Friday, the prayer leader urged the crowd of thousands to show forbearance and not to retaliate for what he called daily humiliations at the hands of the Iraqi army. | 07/18/08 18:30:00 By - Nancy A. Youssef

For first time, Bush agrees to 'time horizon' for Iraq pullout

The United States and Iraq have agreed to a "general time horizon" for further reductions of U.S. combat troops in Iraq, the White House said Friday, the first time the Bush administration has agreed to set any kind of timeline for U.S. troop withdrawals. The new agreement was announced after talks this week between Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki. | 07/18/08 16:29:00 By - Warren P. Strobel

HBO's Generation Kill: life governed by morons and maniacs

A seven-part miniseries that debuted Sunday on HBO, Generation Kill is adapted from the nonfiction book of the same name by Evan Wright, a Rolling Stone reporter embedded with a Marine reconnaissance platoon during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. With a cast of outstanding if mostly unknown actors, it offers an unapologetic grunt's-eye view of the military. | 07/16/08 17:51:03 By - Glenn Garvin

Calmer Iraq a big boost to non-profit's work

The sharp drop in violence across Iraq recently and a buildup of hybrid civilian-military reconstruction teams have given RTI International's long-running reconstruction project there a big boost. RTI is working under contract to the U.S. Agency for International Development. Its job is mainly to train local government workers and officials in such things as developing an annual budget, delivering clean water, collecting garbage and treating sewage. | 07/16/08 06:32:10 By - Jay Price

DeMint wants to hold Afghanistan hearings with Obama

With Barack Obama and John McCain trading blows over Afghanistan, South Carolina Sen. Jim Demint, a McCain ally, called on Obama to hold hearings. Obama is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's subcommittee on European affairs, and DeMint is its senior Republican member. The subcommittee has jurisdiction because NATO troops are fighting in Afghanistan. | 07/15/08 18:20:00 By - James Rosen

In a day of jockeying, Saddam's VP issues a call to arms

Throughout Iraq, legislators, armed factions and former members of Saddam Hussein's regime were electioneering Tuesday — some with bombs, others through vitriolic audio messages — in an effort to bolster themselves for the scheduled fall provincial elections | 07/15/08 10:17:04 By - Nancy A. Youssef and Sahar Issa

'Standup soldier' who killed Iraqi journalist had troubled past

Dr. Yasser Salihee was working for Knight Ridder Newspapers in Iraq when an American sniper shot and killed him on June 24, 2005. The Army's investigation absolved the shooter and blamed Salihee. But the investigator was never told that Sgt. Joseph J. Romero was under investigation for drug trafficking, and that three weeks after the Salihee killing those allegations would lead to his being stripped of his sniper rifle and barred from further missions. | 07/14/08 17:12:33 By - Russell Carollo

Bush officials' 'lack of recall' thwarted Tillman, Lynch probes

In a report released Monday, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform said it was thwarted in its efforts to determine whether Bush administration officials intentionally hid the details of Patrick Tillman's friendly fire death and Jessica Lynch's capture. The committee said top Bush administration officials showed "a near universal lack of recall" when asked about the incidents, which were widely misreported. | 07/14/08 14:08:22 By - Mark Seibel

Pre-service crimes often go uncited when vets claim PTSD

California and Minnesota both have passed laws that give judges leeway to lower sentences of Iraq war veterans involved in crimes. News media coverage often blames post-traumatic stress disorder for criminal problems after Iraq service. But records show that some Iraq veterans had had the same problems before they ever went to Iraq. | 07/14/08 00:11:04 By - Russell Carollo

Suspect soldiers: Did crimes in U.S. foretell violence in Iraq?

From 2003 to 2007, the percentage of Army recruits receiving so-called "moral conduct" waivers more than doubled, from 4.6 percent to 11.2 percent, as the U.S. military desperately sought to fill the demand for troops to send to Iraq. How that increase has affected the military is open to debate. But an examination of civilian and military records show that many soldiers and Marines involved in controversial incidents in Iraq had histories that should have made recruiters suspicious of how they would perform in the military. | 07/13/08 06:00:00 By - Russell Carollo

A soldier's tale: Wounded in Iraq, struggling for a life

Staff Sgt. Victor Dominguez was a gifted Army Ranger two years ago when the Bradley Fighting Vehicle he commanded rolled over a roadside bomb in Iraq's Diyala province. Now, out of the Army and facing years more plastic surgery, Dominguez is finding that good days may mean nothing more than playing game of ball with his son. | 07/12/08 23:55:09 By - Nicholas Spangler

2 kidnapped U.S. soldiers found dead in Iraqi desert

The remains of the two soldiers were found after a U.S.-captured suspect led soldiers to their location. Spc. Alex R. Jimenez, 25, and Pvt. Byron W. Fouty, 19, were members of the 10th Mountain Division whose observation post was overrun in the early morning hours of May 12, 2007. Four other U.S. soldiers and an Iraqi interpreter were killed in the attack. | 07/11/08 18:00:00 By - Nancy A. Youssef and Sahar al-Issa

Father who joined after sniper killed son deploys to Iraq

In a few days, Francisco Martinez will land in Iraq. When Martinez steps off the airplane, he will be in the country that took his only son, a 20-year-old skateboarder and budding graphic artist whose loss is felt every single day of his father's life. | 07/11/08 07:38:09 By - Chris Vaughn

U.S. commander in Kirkuk lowers profile, raises popularity

For the past 11 months Col. David Paschal has back-slapped, noogied and high-fived his soldiers. He's been kissed on both cheeks by local Iraqis, and he's upbraided or atta-boyed his counterparts in the Iraqi army and police. He's sent his gunfighters after the "bad guys." He's balanced that with a reconciliation program for about 350 former insurgents, a six-step process that's becoming something of a model for other provinces. | 07/07/08 16:14:00 By - Mike Tharp

U.S. military in Iraq celebrates the 4th with reenlistments

One thousands two hundred and fifteen soldiers, Marines, sailors and airmen raised their hands and re-upped in what was called the largest re-enlistment ceremony ever. Gen. David Petraeus administered the oath amid John Phillip Sousa marches. Patriotism — and big reenlistment bonuses — drove the fervor. | 07/04/08 16:41:00 By - Mike Tharp

After 42 months in Iraq, soldier still feels guilty he's not there

As Command Sgt. Maj. Philip Johndrow was getting off the airplane at the end of his third tour in Iraq, his wife, Vickie, simply said: "We have to talk." Johndrow had served 42 months, about three-fourths of the Iraq war, on the ground, more combat time than almost any other American soldier. | 07/04/08 06:00:00 By - Nancy A. Youssef

U.S., Iraq narrow differences over forces pact, Iraq says

Iraq's foreign minister said Wednesday that the wide gap between Iraq and the United States over the future of U.S. forces in Iraq had narrowed after the American side had shown "excellent flexibility" on some key issues that had threatened to derail or postpone the accord. | 07/02/08 18:34:00 By - Mike Tharp

Alcohol is flowing again in Baghdad

Iraqis no longer have to settle just for thick Turkish coffee, cardamom-laced tea, strawberry-flavored milk or bottled water to quench their summertime thirst. Beer and alcoholic beverages are readily available once again. There are no bars outside the American-controlled Green Zone and parts of Kurdish territory in northern Iraq, for booze is sold retail only. But more shop owners are reopening behind iron gates. | 07/01/08 15:38:00 By - Laith Hammoudi

In Maliki's hometown, grief and questions after deadly U.S. raid

U.S. troops who Friday struck the town of Janaja, Iraq, where Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki grew up, killed a cousin who was serving as Maliki's sister's bodyguard, family members at the bodyguard's funeral said Sunday. U.S. officials acknowledged that "a local security guard" was killed, but did not identify him or explain why American forces had been operating so close to Maliki's sister's house. | 06/29/08 16:11:00 By - Qassim Zein and Hannah Allam

Crisis grows in Iraq over U.S. raid that killed Maliki relative

A U.S. Special Forces counterterrorism unit conducted the raid apparently without telling Iraqi officials even though the U.S. had handed control of security in Karbala province to Iraq forces in October 2007. Iraqis said the raid, which killed a relative of Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki, deepened their reluctance over Iraqi-U.S. talks on a continued U.S. presence in Iraq. | 06/28/08 19:29:01 By - Hannah Allam

Iraqi officials outraged by U.S. raid in prime minister's hometown

Outraged Iraqi officials demanded an investigation into an early morning U.S. military raid Friday near the birthplace of Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki, saying the operation violated the terms of the handover of Karbala province to Iraqi security forces. An Iraqi killed in the operation reportedly was a relative of the U.S.-backed prime minister. | 06/27/08 18:05:09 By - Hannah Allam

3 Marines among dead in attack on Iraqi tribal leaders

An explosion ripped through a gathering of U.S military officials and allied Sunni Muslim tribesmen Thursday, killing three Marines, two interpreters and 20 Iraqis in the rural western town of Karmah, U.S. and Iraqi authorities said. | 06/26/08 12:14:16 By - Hannah Allam and Jamal Naji

Blast kills 11, including 4 Americans, in Sadr City building

The explosion struck a municipal building in Baghdad's Sadr City just as the local council was about to select a chairman. Among the four Americans killed was a civilian who was part of a team advising local officials. It was the third incident in two days of violence involving members of local town councils. | 06/24/08 07:58:12 By - Hannah Allam

U.S.-allied Iraqi politician kills 2 U.S. troops, wounds 4

A U.S.-allied Iraqi council member sprayed American troops with gunfire Monday, killing two soldiers and wounding three and an interpreter, Iraqi authorities and witnesses said. The attack occurred minutes after they emerged from a weekly joint meeting on reconstruction. | 06/23/08 10:28:00 By - Mohammed al Dulaimy and Hannah Allam

Iraqis' drubbing of U.S. troops shows who rules the soccer field

A soccer game on a dirt field between two amateur teams — one made up of U.S. soldiers, the other, local Iraqis — may not seem like a big deal in the scope of the wider war. But the recent match between members of the 87th Infantry's 1st battalion and several young men from the Sons of Iraq meant much more than the Iraqis' 9-0 victory. For one, the U.S. side wasn't wearing body armor. | 06/22/08 14:35:00 By - Mike Tharp

Haditha victims' kin outraged as Marines go free

Khadija Hassan still shrouds her body in black, nearly three years after the deaths of her four sons. They were killed on Nov. 19, 2005, along with 20 other people in the deadliest documented case of U.S. troops killing civilians since the Vietnam War. Eight Marines were charged in the case, but in the intervening years, criminal charges have been dismissed against six. A seventh Marine was acquitted. The residents of Haditha, after being told they could depend on U.S. justice, feel betrayed. | 06/21/08 15:38:00 By - Leila Fadel

New Iraqi operation against militants produces scant resistance

Iraqi security forces met little resistance Thursday on Day 1 of the government's crackdown in the southern city of Amarah as they sought to disarm gunmen loyal to the militant Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al Sadr. Iraqi defense officials said there were no casualties or gun battles as military and national police units easily spread through northern Amarah, a mostly Shiite oil and agricultural city that borders Iran and for decades has served as a smuggling hub. | 06/19/08 19:47:16 By - Hannah Allam and Ali al Basri

Vehicle bombing in crowded Baghdad marketplace kills 51

The explosion struck in Hurriyah, a Baghdad neighborhood that is now predominantly Shiite Muslim after some of the worst ethnic cleansing in the last two years. Still, U.S. officials blamed Shiite rebels, not Sunni insurgents, for the attack, which also wounded another 75 in the deadliest bombing in the capital in months. | 06/17/08 17:46:17 By - Hannah Allam

U.S., Iraqi forces claim big weapons cache

BAGHDAD -- In a weekend blitz that U.S. military officials said "severe