Archive for June, 2009
Obama: Iraq has ‘difficult days ahead’ despite U.S. pullback (USA Today)
As Iraq celebrated Tuesday’s deadline for U.S. troops to depart from the nation’s cities, a car bomb killed at least 33 people in the city of Kirkuk, spotlighting the fragile security as Iraqi forces take control.
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Iraq regains control of cities as U.S. pulls back (Reuters via Yahoo! News)
Iraq regained full control if its towns and cities on Tuesday as U.S. troops pulled back, six years after the invasion to topple Saddam Hussein.
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Al-Maliki: Iraq ready to take over (USA Today)
Iraq’s prime minister said Saturday that the full withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from cities and towns was a message that his country was ready to take over its own security, even as he appealed for national unity after a week of attacks left more than 250 people dead.
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Obama: Solving factional split big issue in Iraq (AP via Yahoo! News)
Despite continuing violence in Iraq, President Barack Obama says he thinks the bigger challenge there is finding political agreement among Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds.
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Iraq’s Maliki Issues Clear Message on January Vote: Cooperate or Risk His Wrath (Washington Post)
BAQUBAH, Iraq — At 11 a.m. one day in May, eight Iraqi army Humvees barreled into government headquarters of fractious Diyala province, clouds of dust billowing behind them. They had orders to arrest a council member who belonged to a party that had run afoul of Nouri al-Maliki, Iraq’s increasin…
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US military deaths in Iraq war at 4,316 (AP via Yahoo! News)
As of Tuesday, June 23, 2009, at least 4,316 members of the U.S. military had died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
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Shiite lawmakers complain about Iraq army action (AP via Yahoo! News)
Shiite lawmakers loyal to an anti-U.S. cleric demanded Tuesday that parliament summon Iraq’s defense minister to answer allegations that four men were killed by attackers in Iraqi army uniforms in Baghdad’s former militia stronghold of Sadr City.
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Review: `Hurt Locker’ strongest Iraq war film yet (AP via Yahoo! News)
Despite their admirable intentions and acclaimed names on both sides of the camera, the vast majority of movies made about the Iraq war have failed to hit the mark. Either they felt too preachy, like “Rendition” and “In the Valley of Elah,” or they were rather standard action pictures like “The Kingdom.”
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U.S. sends dogs to search for victims in Iraq (USA Today)
The U.S. military sent search dogs Sunday to help find more than a dozen people still missing and feared dead after the country’s worst bombing this year devastated a northern Iraqi town just over a week before U.S. troops are due to leave Iraq’s cities.
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Death toll from Iraq’s Kirkuk blast rises to 73 (Reuters via Yahoo! News)
The death toll from Iraq’s deadliest bombing in more than a year rose to 73, police said on Sunday, a day after a suicide bomber detonated a truck packed with explosives outside a mosque in the north of the country.
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