Latest Occupation of Iraq Stories
By Nancy A. Youssef and Jonathan S. Landay WASHINGTON - 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. "Here is the bottom line: While the enemy in Iraq is still dangerous, we have seized the offensive, and the Iraqi forces are becoming increasingly capable...
Some 8,000 U.S. military personnel will be rotated out of Iraq without replacement during the next several months, U.S. President George Bush said Tuesday. "Over the next several months, we will bring home about 3,400 combat support forces -- including aviation personnel, explosive ordnance teams, combat and construction engineers, military police and logistical support forces," Bush said in remarks to the National Defense University. A U.S. marine battalion serving in Anbar province would...
Some 8,000 U.S. troops will be returning home from Iraq without replacement during the next several months, U.S. President George Bush said Tuesday. "Over the next several months, we will bring home about 3,400 combat support forces -- including aviation personnel, explosive ordnance teams, combat and construction engineers, military police, and logistical support forces," Bush said in remarks prepared for delivery to the National Defense University. A U.S. marine battalion serving...
By Ben Feller Associated Press WASHINGTON -- President Bush will keep roughly the same number of U.S. forces in Iraq through the end of the year and pull about 8,000 troops home by February, a drawdown that's both slower and smaller than long anticipated. In a speech to be delivered today, Bush says more forces could withdraw in the first half of 2009. But for now, the situation isn't changing significantly. By the time the troops return home on the timeline Bush is proposing, someone else...
By Patrick Cockburn THE UNITED States has spied extensively on Iraq's Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, and other Iraqi government leaders, the American investigative journalist Bob Woodward has revealed. "We know everything he says," the journalist quotes one source as saying, in his fourth book on George Bush's presidency. The US administration's decision to spy continually on Mr Maliki - a close US ally- shows deep distrust of the Iraqi leadership by the US. The surveillance took place...
A newspaper article about Bob Woodward's new book on U.S. President George W. Bush that cites spying on Iraqi leaders was "incomplete," the White House said. "While the book itself is not yet public, the picture of Iraq policy that is presented in the Washington Post article is at least incomplete," National Security Adviser Steve Hadley said in a statement issued by the White House Friday. The book, "The War Within: A Secret White House History, 2006-2008," due out Monday, offers a new...
Baghdad Al-Iraqiyah Television in Arabic - government-sponsored television station, run by the Iraqi Media Network - carries a 25- minute live news conference by Iraqi Oil Minister Husayn al- Shahrastani at the Council of Ministers' Press Centre in Baghdad. Al-Shahrastani begins by saying that "the Council of Ministers has agreed to sign a contract with a Chinese company to develop the Al-Ahdab oil field in Wasit Governorate." The Iraqi Oil Ministry "insists that companies signing oil...
By Charles Levinson BAGHDAD -- The U.S. military turned over control of Iraq's Anbar province, once the country's most dangerous, to the Iraqi government Monday in a landmark step toward the withdrawal of more American troops. President Bush declared in a statement that al-Qaeda had been defeated in the western desert province, which was on the brink of collapse to the Islamic militant group two years ago. There have been signs of trouble in Anbar recently as local Sunni leaders have...
By Chelsea J Carter SAN DIEGO - The drawdown of Marines from the former Sunni insurgent stronghold of Anbar will take time because there is still much work to be done, a top U.S. commander said Sunday on the eve of the once-violent province's transfer to Iraqi security control. Today's handover of Anbar, scene of some of the bloodiest battles of the Iraq war, marks a major milestone in America's strategy of turning security responsibility over to the Iraqis so that U.S. troops can...
By CHELSEA J CARTER By Chelsea J. Carter The Associated Press The drawdown of Marines from the former Sunni insurgent stronghold of Anbar will take time because there is still much work to be done, a top U.S. commander said Sunday. He spoke on the eve of the once violent province's transfer to Iraqi security control. Today's handover of Anbar, scene of some of the bloodiest battles of the Iraq war, is a milestone in America's strategy of turning security responsibility over to the Iraqis...
