Iraq

Stories 1061 - 1080 | << Prev   Next >>

Military Blocks Iraq Casualty Photos

Journalists complain war is being sanitized

(Newser) - Over 4,000 US troops have died in Iraq but only a handful of photographs of dead Americans have reached the media, the New York Times reports. Military regulations do not forbid taking photographs of casualties, but access to death sites is often denied. Photographers who do publish grim images...

Obama's Antiwar Stance: That Was Then, This Is Now

2002 state vote not enough to hang a campaign on

(Newser) - There's no reason to assume that Barack Obama would have voted against the war if he’d been in the Senate in 2002, James Kirchick writes for Politico. As a state senator, Obama was aligned with his liberal constituency in opposing the Iraq invasion; as a thoroughly briefed US senator...

Maliki Pegs Obama as the Most Pliant: Krauthammer

Iraq PM thinks Dem can be manipulated, writes Krauthammer

(Newser) - Nouri al-Maliki's endorsement of Barack Obama's timetable for withdrawal from Iraq this week was "the earliest and most ostentatious absentee ballot of this presidential election," writes Charles Krauthammer. The Washington Post columnist thinks that the Iraqi PM gave Obama an electorial assist for a clear reason: between him...

US Expands Visa Program for Iraqis Tenfold

5,000 allies, plus families, can come to America annually

(Newser) - The US embassy in Baghdad announced a major expansion of its visa program for Iraqi employees of the American government, raising tenforld the number of work permits it currently offers. The move is the latest step by the Bush administration to answer criticism that it has neglected the Iraqis, particularly...

Iraq Barred From Beijing Games
 Iraq Barred From Beijing Games 

Iraq Barred From Beijing Games

Olympic bosses not happy with government dissolution of country's committee

(Newser) - Iraq has been banned from next month’s Beijing Olympics because of what the International Olympic Committee calls government interference in the Olympic process, MSNBC reports. The Iraqi leadership dissolved the country’s Olympic committee, which is supposed to be an independent body of elected officials, and replaced it with...

McCain: I Didn't Mix Up Surge Timeline

Counterinsurgency tactic began before it began, he says

(Newser) - John McCain insists that he did, indeed, have his facts straight when he said Tuesday that the US troop surge had made the Sunni Awakening movement possible. Barack Obama’s camp was quick to point out that Sunni tribesman had begun their revolt against al-Qaeda months before Bush announced his...

Obama Appears Cocky, Presidential
 Obama Appears
 Cocky, Presidential 
Opinion

Obama Appears Cocky, Presidential

The media fawns, McCain glowers, but Obama gets raves: Dowd

(Newser) - The better Barack Obama’s foreign excursion goes, the more nervous Republicans get,  Maureen Dowd writes in the New York Times. Images of John McCain happily sharing a golf cart with Bush 41 don’t contrast well with images of Obama happily sharing a helicopter with David Petraeus. But...

Best Iraq Policy Would Mix Mac, Obama Plans
Best Iraq Policy Would Mix Mac, Obama Plans
Opinion

Best Iraq Policy Would Mix Mac, Obama Plans

Friedman: Timetable is a political must, but with a little wiggle room

(Newser) - John McCain was right about the surge, so it’s natural he’s eager to talk about it. But thanks to that very success, Barack Obama finds himself, by luck or cunning, positioned perfectly, Thomas Friedman writes in the New York Times. As security improves, Iraqis want Americans to leave....

McCain's Long-Shot Status Slips Into No-Shot Territory

In a change year, odds looks stacked too heavily against Republican

(Newser) - The presidential race has broken so hard in Barack Obama’s direction that Michael Grunwald asks “the question the horse-race-loving media are never supposed to ask” in Time: “Is McCain a no-shot?” The Republican is in dire straits, having lost advantage on Iran (Bush is moving toward negotiation),...

Obama Meets With Jordan King
 Obama Meets With Jordan King 

Obama Meets With Jordan King

Abdullah II shares youth—both are 46—with Democratic candidate

(Newser) - Barack Obama sat down tonight for a meeting and dinner with Jordan’s King Abdullah II, a leader much like the Democratic candidate (both are 46) in being seen as crossing age and societal gaps, USA Today reports. Abdullah’s Jordan is the most Western-friendly of Arab countries, but is...

Foreign Companies Cash In on Stable Iraq

Baghdad aggressively courts international investment

(Newser) - With security and stability on the rise, Iraq’s government is turning its attention, and its generous budget, toward reconstruction. That’s led to some big opportunities for Western businesses, which are scrambling to get a cut of the country’s $25 billion reconstruction budget. Iraq, which lacks the resources...

US Surge Brigades Leave Iraq
 US Surge Brigades Leave Iraq 

US Surge Brigades Leave Iraq

147K troops now in country, down from about 170K at height of effort

(Newser) - The American troop surge in Iraq has ended, Reuters reports, with the departure of the last of five brigades deployed last year in an effort to curb sectarian violence. There are now just under 147,000 US troops left in the country, according to a military spokesman, down from a...

Obama Beefs Up Foreign Policy Cred in Iraq
Obama Beefs Up Foreign Policy Cred in Iraq
ANALYSIS

Obama Beefs Up Foreign Policy Cred in Iraq

Maliki's endorsement of withdrawal timetable a stroke of luck

(Newser) - Presidential candidate Barack Obama's weeklong tour of seven countries has so far been fruitful, politically agile, and especially lucky, reports the New York Times. The Illinois senator's withdrawal plan received a timely endorsement from Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki, coinciding with President Bush's embrace of a "time horizon" for pulling...

Times Rejects McCain Op-Ed 'as Currently Written'

Editor wants piece to 'mirror' Obama's, contain new info; GOP sees politics

(Newser) - The New York Times has turned down John McCain's rebuttal to a recent Barack Obama op-ed on Iraq, telling the Republican’s campaign it isn’t “able to accept this piece as currently written.” A campaign insider tells Drudge that the Grey Lady simply doesn’t agree with...

Obama Reaps Benefits of Trip McCain Prodded Him Into

Dem superficially rebuts a superficial claim, drowns out Republican on trail, to boot

(Newser) - John McCain’s campaign made a grave miscalculation by spotlighting Barack Obama’s lack of foreign travel, Noam Scheiber writes in the New Republic, “an incredibly superficial critique” that “can be rebutted incredibly superficially”—see Obama’s current photo-op overseas tour. Hard to believe the Republicans didn’...

Iraq Sands Shifting Under McCain Position
Iraq Sands Shifting Under McCain Position
ANALYSIS

Iraq Sands Shifting Under McCain Position

Move by Bush, Maliki toward timetable is 'devastating blow'

(Newser) - Republican presidential candidate John McCain is stuck in an awkward position after both President Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki moved closer to a withdrawal timetable favored by Barack Obama, Politico notes. McCain has opposed such a measure, but in 2004 asserted that if a sovereign Iraqi government asked...

Obama, Maliki Want US Troops Out of Iraq by 2010

Democrat mum on details of meeting with Iraqi leaders, who aren't as reticent

(Newser) - Barack Obama spent nearly an hour today meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, the Washington Post reports, before meeting with President Jalal Talabani. Though the Democrat gave few details—“We had a very constructive discussion,” was all Obama would say—an Iraqi official said the government shares...

Barack: Don't Tell Europe What It Wants to Hear

Careful change is what Europe wants to believe in

(Newser) - The vast majority of Europeans are hoping Barack Obama will be elected president, according to polls that give him as much as 86% support among voters in France, Britain, and Germany. The overwhelming support reflects a hope for a new era of unity with the US, writes Roger Cohen in...

Obama Arrives in Iraq
 Obama Arrives in Iraq 

Obama Arrives in Iraq

Candidate to meet with commanders and troops on third leg of world tour

(Newser) - Barack Obama landed in Basra today and headed to Baghdad for the latest leg of his world tour, the Washington Post reports. The candidate, who made a brief stop in Kuwait last night after 2 days in Afghanistan, will meet with US commanders and Iraqi officials and speak with US...

UK Hostage in Iraq Kills Himself: Kidnappers

Captors blame Downing St. for ignoring negotiations

(Newser) - One of five British hostages seized in Baghdad last year has killed himself, according to a video made by his Shi'ite captors. Seeking the release of comrades in US captivity, they blame the British government for failing to negotiate: "Foot-dragging" has hastened the captives' "psychological deterioration, pushing one...

Stories 1061 - 1080 | << Prev   Next >>
Most Read on Newser