“Our strong presence in the Middle East endures,” Obama said. “And the United States will never waver in the defense of our allies, our partners and our interests.”

Speaking after a morning of meetings with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, Obama said other nations must not interfere with Iraq’s sovereignty. While he stopped short of mentioning any countries by name, U.S. officials are closely watching how neighboring Iran may seek to influence Baghdad after U.S. troops withdraw.

Early signs of how Iraq may orient itself could come from how it handles troubles in Syria, where the United Nations says 4,000 people have been killed in a government crackdown on protesters. While Obama has called for Syrian President Bashar Assad to step down, Iraq has been more circumspect, with al-Maliki warning of civil war if Assad falls and abstaining from Arab League votes suspending Syria’s membership and imposing sanctions. Those positions align Iraq more closely with Iran, a key Syrian ally.

Obama said he and al-Maliki were both deeply concerned by the Syrian government’s assault on its own people. And Obama said he was confident that the Iraqi leader’s approach to dealing with Syria was based on his own nation’s interests.

“Even if there are tactical disagreements I have no doubt those decisions are made based on what’s best for Iraq, not considerations of what Iran would like to see,” Obama said.

Al-Maliki’s trip to Washington came as the last American troops were preparing to leave Iraq ahead of a Dec. 31 deadline. Just 6,000 U.S. forces remain, down from a high of 170,000 at the war’s peak in 2007.

About 1 million U.S. troops have cycled through Iraq since the war began nearly nine years ago. Obama said the military can officially withdraw from Iraq “with honor and with their heads held high.”

Following their meetings at the White House, Obama and al-Maliki traveled to nearby Arlington National Cemetery, where some of the nearly 4,500 Americans killed in Iraq are buried. The two leaders stood solemnly as their nations’ national anthems were played. Then together, they placed a large wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns, a monument dedicated to U.S. service members who died without their remains being identified.

Mindful of what he called America’s “enormous investment of blood and treasure,” Obama said Monday the U.S. would seek to build a comprehensive relationship with Iraq, with the goal of making the war-weary nation a model of democracy in the region.

Al-Maliki said Iraq will still need U.S. help on security issues, combating terrorism, and training and equipping the Iraqi military, as well as other areas including education and developing its wealth. He said there were “very high aspirations” for the relationship between the two nations.”

Yet significant questions remain over the details of the security relationship between the U.S. and Iraq once all Americans troops are withdrawn. Iraqi leaders have said they want U.S. military training assistance for their security forces but have been unable to agree on what type of help they’d like or what protections they would be willing to give American trainers.

The U.S. will be selling Iraq weapons, including the sale of 18 F-16 fighter jets announced Monday.

And the U.S. will maintain a significant presence in Iraq, with about 16,000 people working at the embassy in Baghdad. The size of the embassy has been a point of contention among some in Iraq, who see the massive mission as another way for the U.S. to wield influence in their country.

Obama defended the embassy’s scope, saying there were special security needs required in a country fresh off a protracted war.

“As president of the United States I have to make sure that anybody who is in Iraq trying to help Iraqi people is protected,” he said. “I’m putting civilians in the field. I want to make sure that they come home, because they are not soldiers.”

The White House has been eager to promote the end of the Iraq war as a promise kept for Obama. He was an early opponent of conflict, and pledged to bring the war to a close when he ran for the White House.

Obama thanked service members and their families for their sacrifices when he attended the annual Army-Navy football game Saturday, and will mark the milestone again on Wednesday when he speaks to troops at Fort Bragg in North Carolina.

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“President Obama’s astonishing failure to secure an orderly transition in Iraq has unnecessarily put at risk the victories that were won through the blood and sacrifice of thousands of American men and women,” Romney said in a statement. “The unavoidable question is whether this decision is the result of a naked political calculation or simply sheer ineptitude in negotiations with the Iraqi government.”

Read more at MSNBC

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The Guardian newspaper published an interview Wednesday with Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, who has been identified as the informer called “Curveball,” whose claims about weapon labs formed part of then-U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell’s speech to the U.N. Security Council in 2003, shortly before the war began.

The Guardian quoted al-Janabi as saying: “I had the chance to fabricate something to topple the regime. I and my sons are proud of that.”

Although some intelligence agents were skeptical of Curveball’s story, the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee reported in 2004 that the Central Intelligence Agency “withheld important information about Curveball’s reliability” from analysts dealing with the case.

The Guardian interviewed al-Janabi in Karlsruhe, Germany in a mixture of Arabic and German. The U.S. Senate panel’s report said Curveball spoke in English and Arabic when he was interrogated by intelligence officers.

Asked about his feeling’s about the deaths and destruction during the war and in the years following, The Guardian said al-Janabi said there was no other way.

“I tell you something when I hear anybody not just in Iraq but in any war (is) killed, I am very sad. But give me another solution. Can you give me another solution?” the newspaper quoted him as saying.

“Saddam did not (allow) freedom in our land,” the Iraqi said. “There are no other political parties. You have to believe what Saddam says, and do what Saddam wants. And I don’t accept that. I have to do something for my country. So I did this and I am satisfied, because there is no dictator in Iraq any more.”

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Obama Announces The End Of America’s Combat Mission In Iraq

President Obama speaks to the nation Tuesday from the Oval Office on the end of the U.S. combat role in Iraq. Here are three key questions the president could answer in his speech:

Q: How will Obama relate the Iraq experience to the ongoing war in Afghanistan?

Obama pretty much made the war in Afghanistan his when he made the decision to send 30,000 more troops to fight what has become the longest U.S. war — which soon will be nine years. And he had to replace his handpicked commander after he and his staff were portrayed as having a less than favorable view of their civilian leaders.

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Obama wants to start withdrawing U.S. troops in less than a year but hasn’t defined the pace at which they’ll leave the country. And his military leaders, including Gen. David Petraeus, his new commander, have expressed concern about meeting that deadline.

Q: Will Obama address his opposition to the troop “surge,” which some cite as a turning point for the better in the Iraq war?

Both Obama and Vice President Joe Biden opposed the surge when they were members of the Senate and on the 2008 campaign trail — it was a key issue between the Democratic ticket and Republican nominee Sen. John McCain, one of the leading advocates of the surge.

Read entire article at CNN.com

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As President Barack Obama prepares to officially end the lengthy and divisive U.S. combat operation in Iraq, he’ll personally thank some of the soldiers who fought there for their service to a mission he forcefully opposed from the start.

Many of those soldiers deployed from Fort Bliss, the sprawling Army base in El Paso, Texas, that Obama will visit Tuesday. After speaking with the troops, Obama will return to Washington to address the nation and formally end a combat mission in Iraq that lasted more than seven years, leaving more than 4,400 U.S. troops dead and thousands more wounded.

Obama was an early critic of the war, speaking out against it during the U.S. invasion in early 2003 and promising during his presidential campaign to bring the conflict to an end. The White House sees Tuesday’s benchmark as a promise kept and has gone to great lengths to promote it as such, dispatching Vice President Joe Biden to Iraq to preside over a formal change-of-command ceremony and raising Tuesday night’s remarks to the level of an Oval Office address, something Obama has only done once before.

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Among Obama’s goals on Tuesday is honoring those who have served in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion, many returning to the battlefield for multiple tours of duty. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Monday that while the Iraq war would have never happened had Obama been commander in chief at the time, the president holds the service and sacrifice of the troops in high regard.

Appearing on nationally broadcast interviews Tuesday morning, Gibbs repeatedly brushed aside questions about whether Obama would credit President George W. Bush’s troop surge with helping to pave the way for the withdrawal.

Top Republicans, however, were in no doubt. “Some leaders who opposed, criticized, and fought tooth-and-nail to stop the surge strategy now proudly claim credit for the results,” House GOP leader John Boehner said, in excerpts of a speech he was to give to the American Legion convention in Milwaukee. “Today we mark not the defeat those voices anticipated — but progress.”

In Gibbs’ appearances, he said it’s “not up for question” that candidate Obama agreed sending 30,000 more troops to Iraq would bolster security. But “a number of things” brought the United States to this point, including the move toward greatrer political accommodation among the Sunni, Shia and Kurdish factions, the spokesman said.

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President Says Iraq Is Free to Chart its Own Course; Pledges Government Will Fulfill “Moral Obligation” to Wounded Vets.

President Barack Obama said Saturday the end of combat operations in Iraq doesn’t just reaffirm that country’s sovereignty, but also makes good on one of his principle campaign pledges.

Mr. Obama used his weekly radio and Internet address to highlight Tuesday’s formal end to U.S. combat missions in Iraq – the realization of a promise he made as a candidate in the 2008 election.

Remaining troops will assume a backup and training role, a shift President Obama will underscore with a visit to Fort Bliss, Texas, and an Oval Office address to the nation on Aug. 31, the date he targeted last year for the change in focus.

U.S. troop strength in Iraq dropped below 50,000 this week, a milestone also highlighted by the administration.

“In the months ahead, our troops will continue to support and train Iraqi forces, partner with Iraqis in counterterrorism missions and protect our civilian and military efforts,” President Obama said, a day before ending his 10-day Martha’s Vineyard vacation to travel to New Orleans and mark another somber date: the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.

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Driving home his point, the president said, “The bottom line is this: The war is ending. Like any sovereign, independent nation, Iraq is free to chart its own course. And by the end of next year, all of our troops will be home.”

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said while “much hard work remains” in Iraq, “U.S. combat forces in Iraq have done everything their country asked of them over the past seven years. We owe them our deepest gratitude for all they have done, are doing, and will continue to do in defense of our nation.”

Yet, the end to U.S. combat action in Iraq falls short of the “mission accomplished” moment that bedeviled former President George W. Bush, given the continuing violence and political instability in Iraq and the ongoing commitment of remaining U.S. troops.

But President Obama seized on it as an opportunity to show he’s making good on a promise that was a driving force for his presidential campaign, before his term in the White House was overtaken by economic issues.

(AP/Faye Murman, Camden Courier-Post)
“As a candidate for this office, I pledged I would end this war. As president, that is what I am doing,” Mr. Obama said. “We have brought home more than 90,000 troops since I took office. We have closed or turned over to Iraq hundreds of bases. In many parts of the country, Iraqis have already taken the lead for security.”

(Left: Soldiers carry the coffin of Sgt. Jamal M. Rhett out of the Evergreen Baptist Church in Palmyra, N.J. on Wednesday, Aug. 25, 2010. Rhett, 24, was killed on Aug. 15 while serving a second tour of duty in Iraq.)

President Obama also pledged continued support for veterans and the Veterans Affairs Department, noting that the Iraq and Afghanistan wars produce different injuries than past conflicts.

“Too many suffer from traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder – the signature injuries of today’s wars – and too few receive proper screening or care. We’re changing that,” Mr. Obama said, calling it a “moral obligation.”

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KHABARI CROSSING, Kuwait — A line of heavily armored American military vehicles, their headlights twinkling in the pre-dawn desert, lumbered past the barbed wire and metal gates marking the border between Iraq and Kuwait early Thursday and rolled into history.

For the troops of the 4th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, it was a moment of relief fraught with symbolism but lightened by the whoops and cheers of soldiers one step closer to going home. Seven years and five months after the U.S.-led invasion, the last American combat brigade was leaving Iraq, well ahead of President Barack Obama’s Aug. 31 deadline for ending U.S. combat operations there.

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President Barack Obama will describe his plan to en U.S. combat operations in a speech today to the national convention of disabled veterans. Here is an excerpt.

Now, one of those chapters is nearing an end. As a candidate for President, I pledged to bring the war in Iraq to a responsible end. Shortly after taking office, I announced our new strategy for Iraq and for a transition to full Iraqi responsibility. And I made it clear that by August 31, 2010 America’s combat mission in Iraq would end. And that is exactly what we are doing — as promised, on schedule.

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The package arrived at Cindy Lohman’s home in Great Mills, Maryland, just two weeks after she learned that her son, Ryan, a 24-year-old Army sergeant, had been killed by a bomb in Afghanistan. It was a thick, 9-inch-by- 12-inch envelope from Prudential Financial Inc., which handles life insurance for the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Inside was a letter from Prudential about Ryan’s $400,000 policy. And there was something else, which looked like a checkbook. The letter told Lohman that the full amount of her payout would be placed in a convenient interest-bearing account, allowing her time to decide how to use the benefit.

Click here to read more

Click here to see gallery of weapons of mass destruction

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While our sister site asks if a bad husband can be a good father, I’m convinced that a good man has been perhaps the worst president of all time.

George W. Bush is a good man. All evidence suggests he’s been faithful to his wife. He’s raised two beautiful daughters. He’s been true to his Christian Faith. He is honest.

But when you take over a country that has no debt, no war and turn it into a nation in extreme debt with two wars, you didn’t do a good job. Say what you want about that pig Bill Clinton, he ran an effective nation. The country was in the black when he left. Nobody wanted it with us.

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When W left, we were tussling with Iraq and Afghanistan (of all people!) and we were deep in the hole to Red China. Barack Obama must have felt like he was coming in on the losing side of a fourth quarter blowout. But the Christians wanted a Christian. A real one. Not some guy that would forever sully the definition of “intern,” making it something vile and degenerate to the point now when even males under such title are looked at strangely and regarded with suspicion.

So the people elected Bush (actually, the people didn’t—Bush had the Supreme Court tell them that they did).

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And as soon as W gets in office, New York City is looking like a war zone. The only good news is that David Dinkins wasn’t mayor at the time and David Paterson wasn’t governor.

But I give W credit.

When Misty May-Treanor, the white girl with the biggest butt in beach volley ball stuck her butt out for Bush to smack, he took a swipe at the top of her back and deliberately missed. He wasn’t gonna disrespect his wife on television. Good move, Georgie. And when that Iraqi nut Muntadhar al Zeidi tried to bean our guy with his shoes, our Prez, dipped both attempts like a dodge ball champ or a cheerleader.

Happy Trails, Mr. Bush.

It might not have even been as bad as it seemed—but it probably was.

Click here to view photos:

Many people on the right wing have called for an audit of the Federal Reserve in order to stop wasteful spending. While the Federal Reserve may have issues with spending, the Pentagon and the military industrial complex are far more of a burden on the US economy. According to warsisters.com, 54% of all income tax money goes goes to the military almost $1.7 Trillion. A lot of this money is going to companies like Halliburton and Blackwater and other contractors who spend money with out any audits from the Pentagon at all.

In an age when school budgets are being cut, social services are being cut and unemployment is at an all time high, it is time to find ways to cut the government budget without letting the poor suffer. Can we afford to be the policeman of the world while our children suffer at home? Is our defense budget really defending us and keeping us safe? The Obama administration recently used $30,000 Billion to send $30,00 troops to Afghanistan, that means that every soldier being sent overseas costs $1 million dollars, despite the fact that your average soldier makes less than $40,000 a year.

Given the outrageous amounts of sums we are paying to occupy Iraq and Afghanistan and the strong opposition against the wars it is time to audit the Pentagon. During the Bush years, defense contractors and the military industrial complex had access to whatever tax payer money without being audited, now that he is gone it is time that the wasteful defense spending goes too.

How exactly is does bombing countries overseas make us safer at home? Despite the large sums of money they military has yet to catch Bin Laden or stabilize either Iraq or Afghanistan. If the military could be used for rescue and cleanup missions like helping people out during natural disasters both at home (Katrina) and abroad (Haiti) as well as man made disasters such as the BP oil spill rather than to just attack other countries, maybe some of the spending would be justified.

Given that the military takes up half of our tax dollars, citizens have a right to know where that money is going. Contractors like Halliburton and Blackwater have been found liable of wasting tax payer money, yet they keep on getting contracts from our government. The government is spending $10 billion for a missile defense system despite the fact that the chance of someone launching a missile to the US is very slim.

The U.S. Military budget for 2009 was almost as large as the whole world military budgets combined and nine times as much as China’s, despite the face that China has four times as many people.

America must decide whether keeping its people employed, its children educated is more important than fighting unjust wars. The Pentagon should be audited for every dollar it spends. How is this money making our country safer? Are these wars necessary? The Taliban and our insurgents in Iraq don’t have access to a tenth of the money and weaponry that the U.S. military does, so why it necessary to spend billions of dollars on weapons that have not been proven effective in fighting these wars? Is killing people abroad more important than keeping people healthy, educated, housed and employed at home? It’s time to audit the Pentagon. Even those who agree with the wars must take into account the obscene amount of money being spent on them in the economically troubling times.

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From BlackVoices.com:

He served two tours in Iraq and patrolled the potentially dangerous streets of Chicago. When he wasn’t in his Chicago police uniform, he volunteered as head of an effort to improve a local park and return it to residents.
But it wasn’t overseas or in the line of duty that Thomas Wortham IV lost his life. Chicago police say Wortham was killed by three people trying to steal his new motorcycle. Wortham was at his parents’ home, when he was approached by the suspects. His father, a retired Chicago police sergeant, came to his son’s aid, killing one attacker and critically wounding another. A third was able to escape.

Click here to view photos.

“This is a tragedy. This young man survived two tours in Iraq and came home and got murdered on the streets in front of his house that he grew up in,” Alderman Freddrenna Lyle, who has known the officer and his family for years, told the Chicago Tribune. “In front of his father, it’s just unbelieveable.”

Click here to read more.

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The video provides a rare, disturbing close-up of modern urban warfare at a time when violence was near its peak in Baghdad and the U.S. death toll was mounting.

In this incident, soldiers flying attack helicopters were called in to assist ground troops who had been pinned down by small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades.

According to U.S. officials, the pilots arrived at the scene to find a group of men approaching the fight with what looked to be AK-47s slung over their shoulders and at least one rocket-propelled grenade.

A military investigation later concluded that what was thought to be an RPG was really a long-range photography lens; likewise, the camera looked like an AK-47.

Wikileaks.org posts video and documents passed along by anonymous sources. They posted the video of the July 2007 firefight at “collateralmurder.com.”

The shooters can be heard asking for permission to engage, and one says “Light ‘em up!”

Some men drop immediately, while at least one can be seen scrambling to get away.

“Ah, yeah, look at those dead bastards. Nice,” one shooter says.

The helicopters later destroy a vehicle that arrived on the scene to help a wounded man. When ground forces arrive, the video shows what looks to be a child being carried from the vehicle and U.S. troops saying the child should be sent to a local Iraqi hospital.

“Well, it’s their fault bringing their kids into the battle,” a cockpit voice can be heard saying.

Among those believed to have been killed in that attack was Reuters photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, and his driver Saeed Chmagh, 40. Two children also were wounded.

Navy Capt. Jake Hanzlik, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command, said U.S. forces in Iraq recognize many of the images in the video posted at Wikileaks.org and have no reason to believe it is a fake. However, he said, they were still comparing the video and audio to see if it matched their own.

Headquartered at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Fla., Central Command is responsible for U.S. military operations in the Middle East and Central Asia.

Reuters said it couldn’t verify that the video was of its employees dying, even though it looks like one of the men killed had a camera slung over his shoulder.

The video is “graphic evidence of the dangers involved in war journalism and the tragedies that can result,” said David Schlesinger, editor-in-chief of Reuters news.

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RALEIGH, N.C. – Two former Blackwater Worldwide employees say the security company repeatedly billed the U.S. government for excessive or inappropriate expenses, including a prostitute for workers in Afghanistan and strippers in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

In a federal lawsuit filed in Virginia, Brad and Melan Davis say Blackwater officials also deceived the government by double-billing for travel costs and creating false invoices. They say the U.S. government “has been damaged in the amount of many millions of dollars in funds.” Brad Davis also claims he witnessed acts of excessive force by company workers in Iraq.

A federal law enforcement official told The Associated Press that federal authorities in Virginia were investigating whether Blackwater had overbilled for its State Department work. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.

Blackwater or its workers have also faced federal probes for shootings in Iraq and Afghanistan and accusations of arms smuggling.

An audit released last year found that the State Department could have been able to recover $55 million from Blackwater because the company didn’t provide the personnel necessary to fulfill its contract during the months examined in 2006 and 2007.

Mark Corallo, a spokesman for the Moyock, N.C.-based company, which has since changed its name to Xe, said Thursday that the lawsuit is misguided and noted that the Justice Department declined to join the case.

“The allegations are without merit and the company will vigorously defend against this lawsuit. It is noteworthy that the government has declined to intervene in this action,” he said.

The lawsuit was filed in 2008 in the eastern district of Virginia by the Davises, a married couple, and was recently unsealed after the Justice Department passed on the case. Melan Davis, who said she handled some record-keeping and billing roles at Blackwater, said in a signed court statement that she found that a prostitute in Afghanistan had been placed on Blackwater’s payroll under the “Morale Welfare Recreation” category.

Davis, who was fired from the company and is challenging her dismissal, said she also helped with record-keeping for Blackwater’s response in Louisiana to Hurricane Katrina. Among other charges of excessive billing there, Davis said two workers paid a vendor for “cleaning services” but the vendor would instead provide strippers.

Brad Davis says in the court filing he witnessed three instances in 2005 in which company workers used excessive force in Iraq. He said the contractors involved in the shootings used unjustified force to “kill or seriously injure innocent Iraqi civilians,” but that the company did not stop to see whether the targets of the shootings were alive or injured.

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From USA Today

A Washington state soldier is accused of holding his 4-year-old daughter’s head under the water in the kitchen sink mock “waterboard-style” because she would not recite the alphabet, The News-Tribune reports.

The Tacoma newspaper says Thurston County authorities filed a charge of second-degree assault of child against Joshua Ryan Tabor, 27, from the Joint Base Lewis-McChord.

The News-Tribune said Tabor, according to court records, told a Yelm police officer that he and his girlfriend had “held (his daughter) down on the counter and submerged her head into the water three or four times until the water came around her forehead and jawline.”

He said that she was face-up during the ordeal, which she was forced to undergo for  “refusing to say her letters.”

Click Here For More

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From CNN:

Baghdad, Iraq — The U.S. military has dropped a controversial rule that called for punishing soldiers in northern Iraq for becoming pregnant or impregnating another soldier.

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The updated policy “does not include a pregnancy provision,” said Maj. Joe Scrocca, spokesman for U.S. Forces-Iraq.

The military also said that any unit must get the permission of the commander of U.S. Forces-Iraq before creating new rules restricting the activity of troops, Scrocca said.

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Maj. Gen. Anthony Cucolo created the rule about pregnancy, covering 22,000 people under his command in northern Iraq, including 1,682 women.

Click here to read more.

————-
[4:30 p.m. - 12/21/2009] - Army General In Iraq Will Court-Martial Soldiers For Getting Pregnant

WASHINGTON — A U.S. Army general in northern Iraq has added pregnancy to the list of reasons a soldier under his command could be court-martialed.

The new policy, outlined last month by Maj. Gen. Anthony Cucolo and released Friday by the Army, would apply to both female soldiers who become pregnant on the battlefield and the male soldiers who impregnate them.

Civilians reporting to Cucolo also could face criminal prosecution under the new guidelines.

Army spokesman George Wright said the service typically sends home from the battlefield soldiers who become pregnant. But it is not an Army-wide policy to punish them under the military’s legal code, he said.

However, division commanders like Cucolo have the authority to impose these type of restrictions to personnel operating under their command, Wright said.

Cucolo oversees forces in northern Iraq, an area that includes the cities of Kirkuk, Tikrit and Mosul. His Nov. 4 order was first reported by the military newspaper Stars and Stripes.

Cucolo’s order outlines some 20 barred activities. Most of them are aimed at keeping order and preventing criminal activity, such as selling a weapon or taking drugs.

But other restrictions seemed aimed at preventing soldiers from leaving their unit short-handed, including becoming pregnant or undergoing elective surgery that would prevent their deployment.

Under Cucolo’s order, troops also are prohibited from “sexual contact of any kind” with Iraqi nationals. And, they cannot spend the night with a member of the opposite sex, unless married or expressly permitted to do so.

From NYDailyNews.com:

ARLINGTON, Va. – He didn’t introduce himself. He didn’t have to.

President Obama simply stuck out his hand and asked for my name as he stepped toward me amid a bone-chilling drizzle in the Gardens of Stone.

This was Section 60 of Arlington National Cemetery. I wasn’t there as a reporter, but to visit some friends and family buried there when Obama made an unscheduled stop – a rare presidential walk among what Lincoln called America‘s “honored dead” – after laying a Veterans Day wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns.

What I got was an unexpected look into the eyes of a man who intertwined his roles as commander in chief and consoler in chief on a solemn day filled with remembrance and respect for sacrifices made – and sacrifices yet to be made.

I’m sure the cynics will assume this wasjust anotherObama photoop.

If they’d been standing in my boots looking him in the eye, they would have surely choked on their bile.

His presence in Section 60 convinced me that he now carries the heavy burden of command.

I had stopped at Arlington to see the resting place of Ken Taylor, Ed Lenard and Dave Sharrett. Ken and Ed survived their service, in World War II and Korea, and died as old men. Dave did not leave Iraq alive. He was 27.

Obama arrived just before noon at the serene Section 60, where many of the dead from Iraq and Afghanistan are buried together – and where many more heroes will undoubtedly be laid to rest before this President leaves office.

It’s a section typically bustling with those visiting loved ones. Every time I go there, more and more graves have been dug into the earth.

The President and First Lady Michelle Obama emerged from their armored limousine hatless in the frigid downpour and took a slow stroll into the soggy rows of white marble headstones.

They stopped first at the grave of Medal of Honor recipient Ross McGinnis, an Army private who threw himself on a grenade in Iraq three years ago to save four buddies.

A sad-faced woman reached for Obama’s hand and pointed him to a nearby plot.

The face of another woman – who had grimly sat in a folding chair for hours next to a headstone she’d arranged flowers around – suddenly broadened into a smile as she stood to embrace Obama and thank him for paying his respects.

She was so overcome with emotion that  a soldier from the Army’s Old Guard had to console her afterward.

The President patted backs of adozen other Gold Star relativesand troops visiting buddiesnow in the ground.

He gave hugs. He shook wet, chilly hands. He wanted to know something about each fallen warrior.

He began to slowly trudge back toward the motorcade – and to another White House huddle with his war council, which is advising him whether to send up to 40,000 additional troops into harm’s way in Afghanistan.

And then Obama noticed a tall, bearded figure. He probably didn’t see the mud-caked combat boots I trudged around Afghanistan in a few years ago.

“What’s your name?” a somber President asked as he extended his hand.

“James Meek, sir,” I replied, struggling to pull off my wool glove and pull my hood back from my head. “I’m here visiting a friend, Pfc. David H. Sharrett II, who was killed in Iraq last year.”

Click here to read the rest.

From Dr. Judith Rich at the HuffingtonPost.com:

For the past six years, the daily headlines have been dominated by the war in Iraq and the political and social turmoil and widespread violence among Iraqi sectarian groups. Relatively removed from the reality of the war, Americans’ attention has been primarily concerned with the number of deaths and injuries among American troops, and to a lesser extent, the impact on our military families, who carry the burden of sacrifice for the rest of the country.

Far from the headlines, there is another conflict going on in Iraq. Rarely reported in this country is the impact of the chaos on the Iraqi civilian population. Iraqis have lived without regular access to basic services like electricity and drinkable water for over six years. But the impact of the war has been particularly devastating to the women of Iraq.

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As Black history month come to an end, it is important that we remember the African Americans who fought and died for America during its many wars. Few people know that the man credited to be the first one to die in the Revolutionary War was a Black man, by the name of Chrispus Attucks. During the War of 1812, Black soldiers helped defeat the British in New Orleans.

By the end of the Civil War, 10% of the union forces were Black. The 54th regiment, which was an all Black fighting unit, was immortalized in the movie “Glory,” fought a number of important battles, eventually losing more than half of their troops. Two of Frederick Douglass’s sons also fought in the Civil War and Harriet Tubman severed as a scout for the 2nd South Carolina Volunteers.

During World War I, Black soldiers were given full citizenship, although they still fought in segregated units. Many credit Black soldiers for bringing Jazz music to Europe and France.

In World War II, Black soldiers had an increased presence. The NAACP pushed for the War Department to form the all-black 99th Pursuit Squadron of the U.S. Army Air Corps, otherwise known as the Tuskegee Airmen. The Tuskegee airmen were the only U.S. unit to sink a German destroyer. Like the 54th Regiment, the Tuskegee Airmen were immortalized in a movie of the same name.

The Marines first opened themselves to Black volunteers in 1942. To the dismay of the Marines only 63 African Americans joined.

Black officer, Lieutenant Colonel Campbell C. Johnson, decided that he would actively recruit Black Marines. Due to his efforts African Americans began joining the Marines at a rate of more than 1,000 a month in 1943.

Despite the opposition to the Vietnam war from Black leaders and athletes like Muhammad Ali and Martin Luther King, many Black soldiers both volunteered and were drafted to fight in the Vietnam war. Colin Powell joined the ROTC at City College and would go on to be a Captain in Vietnam, later becoming a major. Powell would go on to be National Security Advisor (1987–1989), Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Army Forces Command (1989) and as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (1989–1993) and eventually as Secretary of State for George W. Bush in 2001.

Another Black Vietnam veteran who would go on to success was Col. Charles F. Bolden. After graduating from the United States Naval Academy in 1968, he became a second lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps, flying over 100 sorties in Vietnam. Bolden’s flying skills made him an ideal candidate for NASA, which he joined as an astronaut in 1981. After a long and impressive career as an astronaut, President Barack Obama name Bolden the head of NASA.

Here is a Profile of Darienne M. Page ROTUS (Receptionist of the United States) from the New York Times

Ms. Page presides over the beehive of activity that is the West Wing lobby of the White House. At 27, she is among the hundreds of young aides who help the new administration tick. But her vantage point offers a considerably closer view of this presidency than most of them.

She is on hand to greet nearly every official visitor who has an appointment with the president or his top advisers. She oversees the front of the house at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, serving coffee to former Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, making small talk with a delegation from Kazakhstan and trying to chew a mouthful of almonds quickly before saying hello to Tiger Woods as he stands at her desk.

This is her first White House job, but Mr. Obama is the second president she has served. The first was George W. Bush, her commander in chief when she was an Army sergeant stationed in Iraq.

Ms. Page joined the military after finishing high school in Maryland, following a long line of others in her family. She worked as a paralegal in Baghdad, taking depositions in the Abu Ghraib prison. She still wears a metal bracelet on her right wrist inscribed with the name of Sgt. Maj. Cornell W. Gilmore, her commander, who was killed when enemy fire struck his helicopter in late 2003.

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From Walter Fields at NorthStarNews.com:

The parents and siblings of Michael Edward Yates, Jr., one of the soldiers killed by a comrade at a military counseling center in Baghdad held a press conference this morning to express their sorrow. While watching the event on CNN, and immediately empathizing with the Yates family over their loss, my eye caught the sight of a Confederate flag positioned prominently next to the American flag in the background. My sympathy for the family immediately turned to scorn. Seeing the bars and stars displayed in such a way was a cold reminder of how many whites in this country are still invested in the Civil War and issues that should have long ago been resolved.

What war was their son fighting and for who?

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Pentagon officials say five U.S. soldiers are dead after an American soldier opened fire at a U.S. base in Baghdad.

The officials say the shootings happened Monday at Camp Liberty near Baghdad’s airport.

One senior military official in Washington said it was not yet clear whether the shooter was among the dead. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the circumstances surrounding the deaths are under investigation.

Initial reports indicated the Army soldier shot several others, then turned the gun on himself. But it was unclear whether he, too, had died.

The Bush administration applied relentless pressure on interrogators to use harsh methods on detainees in part to find evidence of cooperation between al Qaida and the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s regime, according to a former senior U.S. intelligence official and a former Army psychiatrist.

Such information would’ve provided a foundation for one of former President George W. Bush’s main arguments for invading Iraq in 2003. In fact, no evidence has ever been found of operational ties between Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network and Saddam’s regime.

The use of abusive interrogation — widely considered torture — as part of Bush’s quest for a rationale to invade Iraq came to light as the Senate issued a major report tracing the origin of the abuses and President Barack Obama opened the door to prosecuting former U.S. officials for approving them.

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On a trip shrouded in secrecy, President Barack Obama flew into Iraq on Tuesday for a brief look at a war he opposed as a candidate and now vows to end as commander in chief.

Obama flew into the country hours after a car bomb exploded in a Shiite neighborhood of the capital city, a deadly reminder of the violence that has claimed the lives at least 4,266 members of the U.S. military and thousands more Iraqis since March 2003.

The visit came at the conclusion of a long overseas trip that included economic and NATO summits in Europe and two days in Turkey.

Shortly before leaving Turkey, the president held out Iraq as an example of the change he seeks in policies inherited from former President George W. Bush.

“Moving the ship of state takes time,” he told a group of students in Istanbul. He noted his long-standing opposition to the war, yet said, “Now that we’re there,” the U.S. troop withdrawal has to be done “in a careful enough way that we don’t see a collapse into violence.”

In office only 11 weeks, Obama has already announced plans to withdraw most U.S. combat troops on a 19-month timetable. The drawdown is to begin slowly, so American forces can provide security for Iraqi elections, then accelerate in 2010. As many as 50,000 troops are expected to remain in the country at the end of the 19 months to perform counterterrorism duties.

Tuesday’s trip was Obama’s third to Iraq, and his first since taking office. He met with U.S. commanders and troops last summer while seeking the presidency.

Because of security concerns, the White House made no advance announcement of the visit, and released no details for his activities on the ground.

It was the last stop of an eight-day trip to Europe and Turkey during which Obama sought to place his stamp on U.S. foreign policy after eight years of the Bush administration.

He and other world leaders pledged cooperation to combat a global recession, and he appealed with limited success for additional assistance in Afghanistan, a war he has vowed to intensify. The new president drew large crowds as he offered repeated assurances that the United States would not seek to dictate to other countries.

“I am personally committed to a new chapter of American engagement. We can’t afford to talk past one another, to focus only on our differences, or to let the walls of mistrust go up around us.” Obama said before leaving Turkey. The visit to a nation that straddles Europe and Asia was designed to signal a new era. He had pledged as a candidate to visit a majority-Muslim nation in his first 100 days in office.

The president flew into Baghdad, and was spending his day at Camp Victory, where he arranged to speak to some of the 140,000 U.S. troops stationed in the country. He was awarding medals to several.

Plans to travel to the Green Zone — the heavily fortified U.S. nerve center in Baghdad — were scrapped because of bad weather.

Instead, officials said the president would speak by phone with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and President Jalal Talabani.

While U.S. casualties are down sharply from the war’s height, there were constant reminders of violence. A half-dozen bombs rocked Shiite neighborhoods on Monday, killing 37 people. There was no immediate death toll available from the car bomb incident that occurred a few hours before the president arrived on Tuesday.

The military is in the process of thinning out its presence ahead of a June 30 deadline, under a U.S.-Iraq agreement negotiated last year that requires all American combat troops to leave Iraq’s cities. As that process moves forward, the increase in bombings and other incidents is creating concern that extremists may be regrouping.

There was no indication Obama planned to visit Afghanistan before flying home to Washington aboard Air Force One, although he has emphasized the importance of that war over Iraq

Little more than a week ago, the president announced a revamped Afghanistan strategy that calls for adding 21,000 troops, narrowing the focus from nation-building to stamping out the Taliban and al-Qaida and broadening the mission to include pressure on Pakistan to root out terrorist camps in its lawless regions.

Afghanistan was a big topic of conversation with fellow world leaders on the earlier portion of Obama’s trip, particularly the part that took him to a NATO summit in Strasbourg, France.

Obama’s opposition to the Iraq war helped him enormously in his campaign for the presidency. It helped him defeat former rival — now Secretary of State — Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Iowa caucuses that were the first test of the race, and aided his campaign against Republican Sen. John McCain last fall.

The end-the-war plan Obama announced in February was aimed at fulfilling his campaign promise to end combat in Iraq within 16 months of taking office. Contrary to hopes among some Democrats and grass-roots supporters, the plan calls for a 19-month timetable instead.

A U.S. soldier convicted of murder in the execution-style slayings of four blindfolded Iraqis apologized for shooting one of them in the back of the head, but said he acted out of concern for his fellow troops.

“Nothing is harder than losing a soldier,” Sgt. 1st Class Joseph Mayo said in closing arguments after he was found guilty of murder. “Or calling a mother or a wife and telling them that you tried, but wondering if you did enough. I apologize to the military for what I’ve done. I apologize to the soldiers; I never wanted them to have to go through this.”

Mayo told the court — just lawyers and a judge, with no jury — that he shot one of the Iraqis with a 9mm pistol. A judge-only decision is possible in military courts.

Mayo of Fort Bragg, North Carolina, pleaded guilty to premeditated murder and conspiracy to commit premeditated murder in the proceeding at the U.S. Army’s Rose Barracks in southeast Germany.

He pleaded not guilty to obstruction of justice in the incident, which happened while he was deployed in Baghdad. Military prosecutors later dropped that charge.

The 27-year-old was sentenced to 35 years in prison with the possibility of parole and will be incarcerated at the military prison in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He will be dishonorably discharged, have his rank reduced to private and forfeit his pay, though not immediately.

His lawyer, Michael Waddington, said Mayo would testify against another soldier involved in the incident and could be eligible for parole in about 10 years. Mayo has been in the Army for nearly a decade.

Col. Jeffrey Nance, the judge overseeing the proceedings, told Mayo that he “entered into an agreement to commit premeditated murder” that saw the four Iraqi men shot in the head by the side of a canal in Baghdad between March and April 2007.

According to testimony Monday and at previous courts-martial, at least four Iraqis were taken into custody in spring 2007 after an exchange of small arms fire with Mayo’s unit.

The Iraqis were taken to the unit’s base for questioning and processing, although there was not enough evidence to hold them for attacking the unit. Later that night patrol members took the Iraqis to a remote area and shot them so that they would not be able to attack U.S. forces again, Mayo testified.

He said the unit’s first Sergeant, John Hatley, 40, instigated the plan and that Mayo and another senior member of the unit, Sgt. Michael Leahy, volunteered to help kill the detainees.

Earlier this year, Leahy, 28, of Lockport, Ill., was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after he admitted to the killing of one of the detainees and shooting another. He was acquitted of murder over a separate incident in Baghdad in January 2007.

Nance asked Mayo if it was his intent to kill the prisoners, and if he was frustrated by the thought that, if detained in the usual way, the prisoners would soon be back on the street to shoot at U.S. soldiers.

“Yes sir,” Mayo replied.

“If we took (the) individuals to detention they’d be released in a matter of days,” he told the court. “(Hatley) said we should take care of them. I agreed.”

“I believe I was acting in self-defense,” Mayo said. “I just wanted to take care of my soldiers.”

But he admitted that neither he nor his men were in any immediate danger, as the detainees were blindfolded with their hands bound.

Hatley, who is also accused of pulling the trigger, will be court-martialed on charges of premeditated murder, conspiracy to commit premeditated murder and obstruction of justice on April 13. He also faces murder charges from the separate incident in Baghdad in January 2007. The Army has not released a hometown for Hatley.

Waddington said that under a deal reached with prosecutors, Mayo will testify at Hatley’s court-martial.

Two soldiers — Spc. Steven Ribordy, 26, of Salina, Kansas, and Spc. Belmor Ramos, 24, of Clearfield, Utah — pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit premeditated murder and were sentenced to prison for their role in the incident last year.

Staff Sgt. Jess Cunningham, 29, of Bakersfield, California, and Sgt. Charles Quigley, 28, of Providence, Rhode Island, had charges of conspiracy to commit premeditated murder dropped this year.

All were with the 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 1st Infantry Division. The unit is now part of the Germany-based 172nd Infantry Brigade.

The Obama administration is close to announcing a redrawn strategy for a war in Afghanistan that the president says the United States is not winning, focusing on enlisting Pakistan in the fight against extremism and trimming U.S. expectations for military victory, administration, defense and intelligence officials said.

The White House expects to announce new objectives for the flagging war as soon as next week that place an onus on next-door Pakistan to contain extremism, defense and administration officials said Thursday.

President Barack Obama was expected to explain the redrawn U.S. objectives to NATO allies when he attends a NATO summit in Europe next month.

The in-house review coordinated by the White House National Security Council lays out objectives over three years to five years, although that doesn’t necessarily mean the U.S. military could leave in that time, defense officials said.

The White House objectives were expected to roughly parallel 15 goals contained in a 20-page classified report to the White House from the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Among them were getting rid of terrorist safe havens in Pakistan and adopting a regional approach to reducing the threat of terrorism and extremism in both countries.

The U.S. goal in Afghanistan must be to protect Kabul’s fragile government from collapsing under pressure from the Taliban — a goal that can only be achieved by securing Pakistan’s cooperation, increasing substantially the size of Afghanistan’s national security forces and boosting economic aid in the region, according to senior military and intelligence officials.

“We’re just about done,” Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen said in an interview with PBS’ “The Charlie Rose Show” on Thursday.

The review addresses “the safe haven in Pakistan, making sure that Afghanistan doesn’t provide a capability in the long run or an environment in which al-Qaida could return or the Taliban could return,” Mullen said, as well as the need for stability, economic development and better governance in Afghanistan, and the development of the Afghan armed forces.

An administration official said that although the review was not complete, one thrust was that Pakistan needed to recognize that combating extremism was in its own interest as well as that of U.S. and NATO fighting forces across the border in Afghanistan. The official, like others interviewed for this story, spoke on condition of anonymity because the review was not complete.

The review overseen by former CIA analyst Bruce Riedel drew on several generally bleak internal government assessments of the war done over the past six months. People familiar with those accounts sum up the conclusions much as Obama himself described the Afghanistan war in a New York Times interview last week: The United States is not winning.

Gen. David Petraeus, head of U.S. Central Command, and Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, met privately on Thursday with more than a dozen senators. Although the session was confidential, it was part of the administration’s effort to recruit support for a trimmed-down U.S. mission in the war begun by former President George W. Bush following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

It is not clear whether Obama will approve additional forces for Afghanistan this year beyond 17,000 he has already dispatched. His ground commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David McKiernan, has requested up to 30,000 troops.

The White House review was expected to frame U.S. objectives in two major categories: strategic regional goals for stability in impoverished Afghanistan and nuclear-armed Pakistan and smaller-scale warfighting goals for the growing U.S. military commitment in Afghanistan.

Broadly speaking, the Obama administration was expected to endorse a doctrine of counterinsurgency that has military and civilian components and that scales back U.S. expectations for Afghan democracy and self-sufficiency. A main theme is the premise that the military alone cannot win the war, officials said.

The review was expected to focus on containing the Taliban and the proliferation of lesser-known militant groups, providing a greater sense of security and stability for Afghan civilians and increasing the size and proficiency of the Afghan armed forces.

“I would say that, at a minimum, the mission is to prevent the Taliban from retaking power against a democratically elected government in Afghanistan and thus turning Afghanistan, potentially, again, into a haven for al-Qaida and other extremist groups,” Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in an interview with National Public Radio this week.

Part of the strategy would be purely military, as the 17,000 additional troops Obama has approved for Afghanistan this year attest. Their role is to face off against extremists in the busy spring and summer fighting season and buy time for less tangible counterinsurgency tactics to take hold.

Administration and military leaders have given a glimpse into one such tactic, describing ways that Afghan and U.S. leaders might co-opt or pay off mid- and lower-level Taliban and other insurgents in rough imitation of a successful strategy to blunt the insurgency in Iraq.

The Iraqi journalist who threw shoes at then-President George W. Bush was convicted Thursday of assaulting a foreign leader and sentenced to three years in prison, lawyers said. He shouted “long live Iraq” when the sentence was read.

The verdict came after a short trial in which Muntadhar al-Zeidi, 30, pleaded not guilty to the charge and said his action was a “natural response to the occupation.”

Some of his relatives collapsed after the verdict and had to be helped out of court. Others were forcibly removed by security forces when they became unruly, shouting “Down with Bush” and “Long live Iraq.”

Al-Zeidi could have received up to 15 years in prison for hurling his shoes at Bush last December during a joint press conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

But defense lawyers said the judge showed leniency because of al-Zeidi’s age and clean record. Many Iraqis consider al-Zeidi a hero for defiantly expressing his anger at a president who they believe destroyed their country after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. Thousands across the Muslim world took to the streets to demand his release.

Defense lawyers said they would appeal because they believe the action was a legitimate political protest and did not merit prison time.

“This judiciary is not just,” al-Zeidi’s brother, Dargham, said tearfully.

The journalist has been in Iraqi custody since the Dec.14 news conference where he threw his shoes at Bush, who quickly ducked to avoid being hit. Al-Zeidi was quickly wrestled to the ground by guards and dragged away.

During Thursday’s proceedings, al-Zeidi, wearing a beige suit over a brown shirt and brown leather shoes, walked swiftly to the wooden pen where defendants are kept and greeted the panel of three judges with a nod and a wave.

Presiding Judge Abdul-Amir al-Rubaie asked al-Zeidi whether he was innocent or guilty.

“I am innocent. What I did was a natural response to the occupation,” the defendant replied.

The proceedings took place under heavy guard with scores of armed policemen inside the courtroom and the Iraqi soldiers who escorted al-Zeidi waiting outside.

The trial began on Feb. 19 but was adjourned until Thursday as the judges weighed a defense argument that the current charge is not applicable because Bush was not in Baghdad on an official visit, having arrived unannounced and without an invitation.

Al-Rubaie on Thursday read a response from the prime minister’s office insisting it was an official visit.

Chief defense attorney Dhia al-Saadi then demanded that the charge be dismissed, saying his client’s action “was an expression of freedom and does not constitute a crime.”

He echoed al-Zeidi’s testimony at the previous hearing, saying his client had been provoked by anger over Bush’s claims of success in a war that has devastated his country.

“It was an act of throwing a shoe and not a rocket. It was meant as an insult to the occupation,” the lawyer said.

The judge then turned to the defendant and asked whether he had anything to add

“I have great faith in the Iraqi judiciary. It is a judiciary that is both just and has integrity,” al-Zeidi responded.

The judge delivered the verdict to the defendant and his attorneys after ordering other people in the audience out of the courtroom.

Many people in the region — angry over the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq — have embraced al-Zeidi. They have staged large street rallies calling for his release, and one Iraqi man erected a sofa-sized sculpture of a shoe in his honor that the Iraqi government later ordered removed.

When al-Zeidi threw his shoes at Bush, he shouted in Arabic: “This is your farewell kiss, you dog! This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq.”

But al-Maliki was deeply embarrassed by the action against an American president who had stood by him when some Arab leaders were quietly urging the U.S. to oust him.

The journalist’s family has raised concerns about his welfare, and he testified earlier that he had been tortured with beatings and electric shocks during his interrogation — allegations the Iraqi government has denied.

RELATED:

Quote Of The Day: The Shoe Heard Round The World | CLICK HERE

Arabs Hail Shoe Hurler As Hero | CLICK HERE

A suicide bomber struck Sunni and Shiite tribal leaders touring a market after a reconciliation meeting west of Baghdad on Tuesday, killing 33 people in the second major attack in the capital area in two days.

Despite the ongoing violence, the top U.S. commander in Iraq said he does not believe the Iraqi government will ask Americans to remain in the country past a 2011 deadline set by a security agreement between the two countries.

The bombing — which left clusters of bodies lying piled near the shabby market stalls lining the road — was part of a spike of violence that comes as the U.S. military begins to draw down its forces.

The bomber detonated an explosives belt as the tribal leaders were walking through the market in the town of Abu Ghraib, accompanied by security officials and journalists, according to the Iraqi military.

Shakir Fizaa, the mayor of Abu Ghraib, blamed al-Qaida in Iraq. He said the tribal leaders had just left his office along with security officials after a reconciliation meeting and were talking to constituents in the market when the bombing occurred.

He said some people were wounded when police opened fire after the attack.

“This terrorist attack was aimed at stopping reconciliation and the improvement in the security situation,” he told The Associated Press. “The criminal attack bears the fingerprints of al-Qaida, but we will not be deterred by the acts of the vicious group against innocent civilians.”

Two Iraqi television journalists from the privately owned Baghdadiya station were among those killed in the attack, and a reporter from the state television was wounded.

Nobody claimed responsibility for the attack, but suicide operations are the hallmark of al-Qaida in Iraq. The U.S. military has said the terror network appears to be stepping up its campaign of bombings as it tries to make a comeback after being battered by recent U.S.-Iraqi military campaigns.

A suicide attacker killed 30 people on Sunday near the police academy in east Baghdad.

Abu Ghraib is a mainly Sunni district that also is the site of the prison where U.S. soldiers were photographed abusing inmates, igniting a scandal that was one of the biggest setbacks to American efforts to win the peace in Iraq.

The area was once one of the most dangerous in Iraq but has seen a sharp decline in violence after a decision by local Sunni tribal leaders to turn against al-Qaida in Iraq.

Recent high-profile attacks have marred an announcement on Sunday by the U.S. military that 12,000 American troops and 4,000 Britons will be withdrawn from the country by September — the first step in fulfilling President Barack Obama’s pledge to end America’s part in the war by the end of 2011.

U.S. troops are to leave the cities by the end of June, and the attacks raise questions about whether Iraqi security forces will be able to cope with the persistent violence.

The 2011 deadline was set in a security agreement that took effect on Jan. 1. There has been speculation the Iraqis may ask the U.S. for an extension.

But Gen. Ray Odierno told The Associated Press in an interview that he has received no indication that Iraqi leaders want that to happen.

Odierno left the door open to the possibility, however, saying “never say never.”

The reconciliation meeting the Sunni and Shiite sheiks were holding before they were attacked was one of many the Iraqi government has been encouraging to heal the rifts between the Muslim sects after years of sectarian violence that pushed the country to the brink of civil war.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, last week went so far as to call on Iraqis to reconcile with former supporters of Saddam Hussein’s Sunni-dominated regime who have been shunned by the Shiite government that rose to power after the U.S. invasion.

The speech appeared aimed at making political inroads into Sunni areas ahead of national parliamentary elections expected later this year. The prime minister’s allies gained little support in Sunni areas in the Jan. 31 provincial elections.

The Iraqi officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to release the information, said 33 people were killed and 46 were wounded in Tuesday’s attack.

But the Iraqi military spokesman’s office put the toll slightly lower, at 28 people were killed and 28 wounded.

Conflicting casualty tolls are common in the chaotic aftermath of bombings.

By David Love, The Black Commentator

Have you heard the story about LaVena Johnson?

LaVena Johnson, a high school honor student, decided to enlist in the Army to pay for college. On July 19, 2005, after serving eight weeks in Iraq, she was killed, eight days short of her 20th birthday.

Pvt. Johnson — she was posthumously promoted to private first class — was found dead on a military base in Balad, Iraq, in a tent belonging to military contractor KBR, a spinoff and former subsidiary of Halliburton, Dick Cheney’s company. She was the first woman from Missouri to be killed in Iraq or Afghanistan.

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Watch a Video on LaVena Johnson

CLICK HERE to read the full text of President Obama’s speech.

Declaring “I have come to speak to you about how the war in Iraq will end,” President Barack Obama on Friday moved to fulfill the defining promise of his campaign, announcing that all U.S. combat troops will be withdrawn by September 2010.

But in the same speech to Marines at Camp Lejeune, N.C., he revealed that the vast majority of those involved in the pullout will not leave this year. He also said that tens of thousands of U.S. personnel will remain behind afterward.

“The most important decisions that have to be made about Iraq’s future must now be made by Iraqis,” Obama told hundreds of Marines and officers at the sprawling base, which is deploying thousands of troops to the U.S.’s other war front, in Afghanistan.

Senior Obama administration officials had said earlier that of the roughly 100,000 U.S. combat troops to be pulled out of Iraq over the next 18 months, most will remain in the war zone through at least the end of this year to ensure national elections there go smoothly. The pace of withdrawal suggests that although Obama’s promised pullout will start soon, it will be backloaded, with most troops returning in the last few months of the time frame.

And even after the drawdown, a sizable U.S. force of 35,000 to 50,000 U.S. troops will stay in Iraq under a new mission of training, civilian protection and counterterrorism.

With most Americans telling pollsters they believe the war was a mistake and more than 4,250 Americans killed there, the Aug. 31, 2010 end date for Iraq war combat operations is slower than Obama had promised voters as a candidate. The timetable he pledged then would have seen combat end in May 2010.

Regardless, it is a hastened exit, something Obama called a necessity, both for the future of Iraq and to allow the U.S. to refocus its attention more firmly on Afghanistan.

“America can no longer afford to see Iraq in isolation from other priorities: we face the challenge of refocusing on Afghanistan and Pakistan; of relieving the burden on our military; and of rebuilding our struggling economy and these are challenges that we will meet,” he said.

“Every nation and every group must know, whether you wish America good or ill, that the end of the war in Iraq will enable a new era of American leadership and engagement in the Middle East,” he said. “This does not lessen our commitment. We are going to be enhancing that commitment to bring about a better day in that region, and that era has just begun.”

Obama applauded the military for its role in an improved situation in Iraq, where violence is down significantly in Baghdad and most of Iraq and U.S. military deaths plunged.

He also acknowledged that many problems remain in the country and said “there will be difficult days ahead.” Those include violence that will remain “a part of life,” political instability and fundamental unresolved questions, a large displaced and destitute citizenry, tepid support for Iraq’s fragile government in the neighborhood and the stress of declining oil revenues.

But, the president said the U.S. cannot continue to try to solve all Iraq’s problems.

“We cannot rid Iraq of all who oppose America or sympathize with our adversaries,” he said. “We cannot police Iraq’s streets until they are completely safe, nor stay until Iraq’s union is perfected. We cannot sustain indefinitely a commitment that has put a strain on our military, and will cost the American people nearly a trillion dollars.”

President Barack Obama is expected to order all U.S. combat troops to leave Iraq by August of next year, administration officials said, closing the door on a war that has led to the deaths of at least 4,250 American soldiers.

The pullout recommended by Obama’s security advisers would free up troops and resources for the war in Afghanistan, where Obama has said the threat to national security is acute. The Iraq withdrawal would be completed 18 months from now.

“We are now carefully reviewing our policies in both wars, and I will soon announce a way forward in Iraq that leaves Iraq to its people and responsibly ends this war,” Obama said in his address to Congress on Tuesday.

An announcement could come as early as this week, a senior White House official said Tuesday, adding that Obama has not yet approved the final details. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because an announcement was not yet planned, said Obama could discuss Iraq during a trip to North Carolina on Friday.

Obama built enormous grass-roots support for his White House bid by promising a quick end to the unpopular Iraq war. His 16-month withdrawal plan, based on removing roughly one brigade a month, had been predicated on commanders determining that it would not endanger U.S. troops left behind or Iraq’s fragile security.

Officials said that upon entering the White House, Obama requested a range of options from his top military advisers, asking for plans ranging between 16 to 23 months.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had recently forwarded three withdrawal alternatives for Obama’s consideration — 16, 19 and 23 months, the longest an alternative preferred by Iraqi officials and some of Obama’s Iraq-based generals. The 19-month plan, which was selected, was pegged to his January inauguration.

Other senior military officials were more sanguine about a quicker pullout. Marine Maj. Gen. John Kelly, who just left his job overseeing U.S. operations in Anbar Province, said Tuesday that violence there has dropped to an almost “meaningless” level over the past year. Kelly told reporters Tuesday most U.S. forces in Anbar could have pulled out months ago.

The emerging plan now leaves Obama two months off his campaign pledge, and with between 30,000 and 50,000 troops still in Iraq to advise and train Iraqi security forces and to protect U.S. interests.

The residual force would include intelligence and surveillance specialists and their equipment, including unmanned aircraft, according to two administration officials and a Pentagon official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the plan has not been made public.

The complete withdrawal of American forces will take place by December 2011, the period by which the U.S. agreed with Iraq to remove all troops.

About 142,000 U.S. troops are in Iraq, roughly 14 brigades, about 11,000 more than the total in Iraq when President George W. Bush announced in January 2007 that he would “surge” the force to put down the insurgency. He sent an additional 21,000 combat troops to Baghdad and Anbar province.

Although the number of combat brigades has dropped from 20 to 14, the U.S. has increased the number of logistical and other support troops. A brigade is usually about 3,000 to 5,000 troops.

Congress has approved more than $657 billion so far for the Iraq war, according to a report last year from the Congressional Research Service.

As the Obama White House prepared to address the Iraq pullout, the man Obama defeated for the White House challenged suggestions by administration officials that the United States should lower its expectations in Afghanistan.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., insisted in remarks prepared for a speech Wednesday that Afghanistan could be turned around with sufficient resources.

In a speech planned at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, McCain said the United States should brace itself for violence in Afghanistan that worsens before it gets better.

McCain said that while “some suggest it is time to scale back our ambitions in Afghanistan,” the U.S. should start spending more on development to keep Afghans from being seduced by the Taliban.

But McCain also echoed recent cautions from Obama, Gates and Mullen that the Afghan conflict would be hard going in the coming months.

“The scale of resources required to prevail will be enormous, and the timetable will be measured in years, not months,” said McCain, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

A recent classified Pentagon report urged Obama to shift the military strategy in Afghanistan to de-emphasize democracy-building and concentrate more on targeting Taliban and al-Qaida sanctuaries inside Pakistan with the aid of Pakistani military forces.

A female suicide bomber attacked a tent filled with women and children resting from a pilgrimage to a Shiite holy city south of Baghdad on Friday, killing 40 people and injuring 60 others, said officials. It was the deadliest attack in Iraq this year and the third straight day of bombings against Shiite pilgrims.

The tent where the bomber detonated her explosives was located on a route to Karbala, where hundreds of thousands of Shiite pilgrims will converge for an important religious ceremony on Monday, said a police official. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

Separate tents for men and women are set up along the road to Karbala to offer pilgrims food, drinks and a place to rest.

Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf confirmed the attack and said security officials were rushing to the scene, located between the cities of Mussayib and Iskandariyah about 40 miles south of Baghdad.

Mohammed Abbas, a medical official in Mussayib, said most of the dead and wounded from the attack were women and children.

Sadiya Kadom, a 40-year-old woman from Baghdad, said she was walking near the tent at the time of the explosion and suffered injuries to her legs and hands.

“It was a horrific scene with dead and screaming injured people on the ground,” said Kadom.

Hussein Faris, a 39-year-old from Baghdad who lost his wife in the attack and was wounded in the stomach, said people at the scene panicked.
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“I was so terrified,” said Faris. “People nearby stampeded, and many were hurt by that.”

The attacks against the pilgrims appear to be part a Sunni extremist campaign to rekindle the sectarian conflict that nearly plunged the country into full-scale civil war two years ago.

On Thursday, a suicide bomber detonated an explosive belt packed with nails among Shiite worshippers in Karbala near the revered Imam Hussein shrine, killing eight pilgrims and wounding more than 50.

A day earlier, at least 12 people were killed and more than 40 wounded in bombings in Baghdad that targeted Shiite pilgrims traveling to Karbala, 50 miles to the south.

Iraqi officials have mounted an extensive security operation to protect the pilgrims, who will be celebrating Monday’s end of 40 days of mourning that follow Ashoura, the anniversary of the seventh-century death of the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson Hussein.

He was killed in a battle near Karbala for the leadership of the nascent Muslim nation following Muhammad’s death in 632. His death led to the split between Sunni and Shiite Muslims.

About 40,000 Iraqi troops have been deployed along major routes to Karbala, and officials say security cameras have been installed near the Imam Hussein shrine to keep a lookout for possible threats.

Despite strict security, al-Qaida and other extremist groups have frequently targeted Shiite pilgrims during religious commemorations, which were severely curtailed under Saddam Hussein’s Sunni-dominated regime.

Last March, a female suicide bomber attacked Shiite worshippers in Karbala, killing at least 49. At least 85 people died in a suicide bombing in Karbala in March 2004.

The chief U.N. official in Iraq, Staffan de Mistura, has said the attacks against pilgrims were “clearly designed to sectarian tensions” that many Iraqis hope are behind them.

Also Friday, an old mortar round killed two young boys _ ages 10 and 15 _ who were playing in the backyard of a farm house in Musayyib, about 40 miles south of Baghdad, said a police official. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

A woman accused of helping recruit dozens of female suicide bombers looked into the camera and described the process: trolling society for likely candidates and then patiently converting the women from troubled souls into deadly attackers.

The accounts, in a video released Tuesday by Iraq police, offer a rare glimpse into the networks used to find and train the women bombers who have become one of the insurgents’ most effective weapons as they struggle under increasing crackdowns.

In a separate prison interview with The Associated Press, with interrogators nearby, the woman said she was part of a plot in which young women were raped and then sent to her for matronly advice. She said she would try to persuade the victims to become suicide bombers as their only escape from the shame and to reclaim their honor.

The AP was allowed access on condition the information would not be released until the formal announcement of the arrest.

The U.S. and Iraqi militaries have made past claims without providing much evidence about efforts by insurgents to recruit vulnerable women as well as children as attackers. Those included statements by the Iraqis that two women who blew themselves up last year in Baghdad had Down’s Syndrome, accounts that were not supported by subsequent investigations.

It also was not possible independently to verify the claim that insurgents sent out people to rape women who could then be recruited as bombers in the volatile Diyala province northeast of Baghdad.

But the suspect, 50-year-old Samira Ahmed Jassim _ who said her code name was “The Mother of Believers” _ has given unusual firsthand descriptions of the possible workings behind last year’s spike in attacks by women bombers.

The Iraqi military spokesman, Maj. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, said the suspect had recruited more than 80 women willing to carry out attacks and admitted masterminding 28 bombings in different areas.
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Female suicide bombers attempted or successfully carried out 32 attacks last year, compared with eight in 2007, according to U.S. military figures. Most recently, a woman detonated an explosive under her robes that killed at least 36 people during a Shiite religious gathering last month.

The attacks reflected a shift in insurgent tactics: trying to exploit cultural standards that restrict male security forces from searching women and use the traditional flowing robes of women to hide bomb-rigged belts or vests.

In response, Iraqi security forces have tried to recruit more women. In last week’s provincial elections, women teachers and civic workers helped search voters.

Al-Moussawi, the military spokesman, alleged Jassim was in contact with top leaders of Ansar al-Sunnah in Diyala, the last foothold of major Sunni insurgent strength near Baghdad. The group is one of the factions with suspected ties to al-Qaida in Iraq.

Al-Moussawi said Jassim “confessed to recruiting 28 female suicide bombers who carried out terrorist operations in different areas.” He gave no other details on the locations or dates of the attacks.

In the video played for reporters, Jassim described how she was approached by insurgents to urge women to carry out suicide attacks. She said her first assignment was Um Hoda, a nickname meaning mother of Hoda.

“I talked to her a number of times,” said Jassim, who has four daughters and two sons. “I went back to them and gave them the details on her. And they told me, bring her to us. … And I took her to the police station, and that’s where she blew herself up.”

Another woman, whom she called Amal, was involved in long conversations, Jassim said.

“I talked to her many times, sat with her, and she was very depressed,” she said on the video. “I took her to them, and then went back for her and she blew herself up.”

Jassim gave no further information on the attacks or her role in the video.

In speaking with the AP _ a week after her Jan. 21 arrest _ Jassim repeated statements she had allegedly made to interrogators that insurgents organized rapes of women and that she would then try to coax the victims to become suicide bombers.

She said she was “able to persuade women to become suicide bombers … broken women, especially those who were raped.”

In many parts of Iraq, including conservative Diyala, a rape victim may be shunned by her family and become an outcast in society.

Police interrogators were not in the room during Jassim’s interview with the AP, but they were in an adjoining chamber.

Jassim did not offer additional details on her alleged role in the attacks, but suggested she was pressured into working with the insurgency.

She claimed that Ansar al-Sunnah provided her a house in Diyala, where she operated a shop selling the traditional robes for women called abaya. She added, however, that Ansar al-Sunnah once threatened to bomb her house if she did not cooperate.

“I worked with (Ansar al-Sunnah) for a year and a half,” she told the AP.

Women suicide bombers are uncommon, but not unknown, outside Iraq.

Among Palestinians, several woman have carried out suicide bombings for militant groups including Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

There also have been cases of women in the West Bank attacking Israeli soldiers so they can be imprisoned after being accused of breaking traditional rules on sexual conduct. In the Palestinian territories, relatives can seek harsh punishments, including death, on women seen as dishonoring the family.

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama said Sunday that the peaceful elections in Iraq are “good news” for U.S. troops and their families, and he agreed with the suggestion that a substantial number of those troops could be home within a year.

“I think that you have a sense now that the Iraqis just had a very significant election with no significant violence that we are in a position to start putting more responsibility on the Iraqis and that’s good news not only for the troops on the ground but for the families who are carrying an enormous burden,” Obama said in an interview with NBC’s Matt Lauer before the Super Bowl. Lauer asked Obama if he could assure the troops “that a substantial number of them will be home” a year from now.

Obama said: “Yes.”

Obama gave few details, but said “we’re going to roll out in a very formal fashion what our intentions are in Iraq as well as Afghanistan.” He said he has been talking with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and commanders on the ground.

Obama had vowed during the campaign to get combat troops out of Iraq in 16 months.

Since the November election, the U.S. and Iraq have signed a new security agreement that provides for all the more than 140,000 U.S. troops to leave by 2012, despite concerns among senior U.S. commanders that Iraqi forces might not be ready by then to ensure stability.

Iraqis voted in provincial elections under tight security this weekend that were conducted with remarkably little violence.

Iraq said Thursday it will bar Blackwater Worldwide from providing security protection for U.S. diplomats because its contractors used excessive force, sanctioning a company whose image was irrevocably tarnished by the 2007 killings of 17 Iraqi civilians.

The move will deprive American diplomats of their main protection force in Iraq.

The decision not to issue Blackwater an operating license was due to “improper conduct and excessive use of force,” said Iraqi Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf.

Iraqis are bitter over the September 2007 killing of 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad’s Nisoor Square. Five former Blackwater guards pleaded not guilty Jan. 6 in federal court in Washington to manslaughter and gun charges in that shooting. A sixth is cooperating with the government.

The Iraqi government has labeled the guards “criminals” and is closely watching the case.

But even before the shooting, Blackwater had a reputation for aggressive operations and using excessive force in protecting American officials, an allegation the company has disputed.

Neither Khalaf nor a U.S. Embassy official gave a date for Blackwater personnel to leave the country and neither said whether they would be allowed to continue guarding U.S. diplomats during the interim.

Anne Tyrrell, a spokeswoman for the North Carolina-based company, said the company had not yet been notified of the Iraqi decision but intended to continue providing security to U.S. officials until instructed otherwise.

“We have received no official communications from the government of Iraq or our customer on the status of those applications or the future of our work in Iraq,” she said.

“Blackwater has always said that we will continue the important work of protecting U.S. government officials in Iraq for as long as our customer asks us to do so, and in accordance with Iraqi law. That has not changed.”

The Iraq decision came just months after a U.S.-Iraqi security agreement approved in November gave the government the authority to determine which Western security companies operate in Iraq.

A joint U.S.-Iraqi committee is drawing up procedures for licensing and regulating security companies under the security agreement and it is unclear when it will finish the process.

“We have followed the procedures to apply for and secure operating licenses in Iraq,” said Tyrrell, the Blackwater spokeswoman. “Any further questions about that the licensing process should be directed to our customer.”

Khalaf said Blackwater employees who have not been implicated in the 2007 shooting have the right to work in Iraq but must find a different employer.

“We sent our decision to the U.S. Embassy last Friday,” Khalaf told The Associated Press in a phone interview. “They have to find a new security company.”

When President Barack Obama was campaigning in 2007, he announced a plan to force Iraq war contractors to follow federal law.

“We cannot win a fight for hearts and minds when we outsource critical missions to unaccountable contractors,” he said at the time.

The State Department relies heavily in Blackwater because it is the largest and best-equipped security company in Iraq. The U.S. extended Blackwater’s contract for a year last spring, despite widespread calls for the company to be expelled because of the Nisoor Square shooting.

But the company has become a lightning rod for Iraqi complaints about the behavior of Western security companies, whose employees were immune from prosecution under Iraqi law until the security agreement took effect this month.

The U.S. Embassy official confirmed it received the government’s decision, saying that U.S. officials were working with the Iraqi government and its contractors to address the “implications of this decision.”

The official made the statement on condition of anonymity under embassy regulations.

In the Sept. 16, 2007 shooting, Blackwater maintains its guards opened fire after coming under attack after a car in a State Department convoy broke down.

The shooting took place around noon in a crowded traffic circle in west Baghdad where U.S. prosecutors said civilians were running errands, getting lunch and otherwise going about their lives.

Prosecutors said the guards unleashed a gruesome attack on unarmed Iraqis, with the dead including young children, women, people fleeing in cars and a man whose arms were raised in surrender as he was shot in the chest.

Twenty others were wounded, including one injured by a grenade launched into a nearby girls’ school. Another 18 Iraqis were assaulted but not wounded, prosecutors said.

Iraqi witnesses said the contractors opened fire unprovoked and left the square littered with blown-out cars.

But the Blackwater guards insist they were ambushed by insurgents. One of the trucks in the convoy was disabled in the ensuing firefight, the guards say.

Blackwater radio logs made available to The Associated Press by a defense attorney in the case last month raised questions about prosecutors’ claims that the guards’ shooting was unprovoked. The log transcripts describe a hectic eight minutes in which the guards repeatedly reported incoming gunfire from insurgents and Iraqi police.

The Blackwater guard cooperating with the government in the case, Jeremy Ridgeway of California, pleaded guilty to one count each of manslaughter, attempted manslaughter, and aiding and abetting.

In his plea agreement with prosecutors, Ridgeway admitted there was no threat from a white Kia sedan whose driver, a medical student, was killed and his mother, in the front passenger seat, was injured.

Barack Obama often has said he will issue orders to swiftly close down the Iraq war. Now military leaders are getting a chance to tell the new commander in chief how they could comply, and why he might want to wait.

Obama was to hear the opinions of the four U.S. military service chiefs on Wednesday in a meeting the White House called one more step toward fulfilling his promise of withdrawing all combat troops from Iraq. The Joint Chiefs of Staff will be ready with a rough sketch of what would be required to fulfill the president’s timetable for a 16-month withdrawal.

Defense officials have said they can meet Obama’s campaign pledge, but several officials have signaled that a fast withdrawal could upset the fragile security that currently holds in Iraq.

“We are developing other options as well,” Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Tuesday. “We are laying out, with each of the options we will present to him, our view — each of the commander’s — of the risks associated with that timeline.”

In preparing those, Obama has asked for more information behind assumptions and for additional analysis, Gates said. “I think that the president will listen to the commanders,” he said.

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters Tuesday that all the scenarios will meet the president’s “desire for a responsible drawdown that preserves the security gains we have made in Iraq and protects our forces.”

Mullen said he hopes to give Obama that menu “in the very near future,” but Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said there will be no decisions made at Wednesday’s meeting.

The Joint Chiefs are among those in the Pentagon hierarchy who have expressed concerns about the impact that long, repeated war tours in Iraq have had on the U.S. military.

Much of the discussion is also expected to look ahead to the building fight in Afghanistan and how Obama’s plans to add forces and resources there will depend in part on the success of the Iraq exit. The Pentagon is nearing an announcement of new troop deployments in Afghanistan, with forces arriving in numbers in the spring and summer.

Obama pledged during his presidential campaign to immediately order the withdrawal of all combat troops from Iraq by May 2010. He said he would call in the Joint Chiefs and tell them so on his first day in office, a bit of campaign hyperbole that has evolved in practice into a series of consultations with military leaders, including commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The new president also has said he would adjust his timeline if it would risk the safety of U.S. troops remaining behind to train Iraqis and fight al-Qaida or if it would cause backsliding in Iraqi stability.

“Ultimately the commander in chief will decide which option he prefers and how much risk he can accept,” Morrell said.

Obama has not said when he plans to announce a new Iraq plan. Iraqi leaders already have said they want to stick to terms of an agreement negotiated with the United States last year that would leave some fighting forces in place longer.

“The president has laid down the test of ensuring that he hears specifically from both those on the ground and in the region before he makes decisions on our force posture going forward,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Tuesday.

Obama has not changed his determination that the war must end, his spokesman said.

“There will be a new mission in Iraq,” Gibbs said.

Two U.S. helicopters crashed Monday in northern Iraq, killing four American troops, the U.S. military said.

The military said the crash happened at about 2:15 a.m. local time and it “does not appear to be by enemy action.”

No precise location was given but a military spokesman said it happened in Tamim province, which includes the oil-rich disputed city of Kirkuk.

Iraqi officials said the crash site was located about 20 miles west of Kirkuk, which is about 180 miles north of Baghdad. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not supposed to release the information.

Maj. Derrick Cheng, a spokesman for U.S. forces in northern Iraq, said all the dead were Americans. He declined to give more details or release their names.

The deaths raised to at least 4,236 the number of U.S. service members who have died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

The U.S. military relies heavily on helicopters and other aircraft to ferry troops, dignitaries and supplies to avoid the threat of ambushes and roadside bombs in Iraq.

At least 70 U.S. helicopters have gone down since the war started in March 2003, according to military figures. Of those, 36 were confirmed to have been shot down.

The most recent previous incident was on Nov. 15, when a helicopter that made a hard landing after hitting wires in the northern city of Mosul killed two American soldiers.

A Russian-made cargo plane chartered by FedEx also crashed in November after reporting a malfunction west of Baghdad, leaving the seven crew members dead.

The Jan. 2005 crash of a U.S. Marine CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopter in western Iraq claimed 31 lives — the biggest single U.S. loss of life in the Iraq war. Investigators determined the crash was not due to hostile fire.

According to officials, Obama will conduct a videoteleconference late Wednesday afternoon with members of the National Security Council as well as the U.S. military commanders in the two war zones.

Obama has said he wants combat troops out of Iraq in 16 months and a greater effort made in Afghanistan. In his inauguration speech Tuesday he offered a glimpse of what was to come.

“We will begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its people and forge a hard-earned peace in Afghanistan,” he said.

At the same time, he added a warning to America’s enemies: “We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.”

Ali al-Dabbagh, a spokesman for the Iraqi prime minister, told Associated Press Television News on Tuesday that Iraq is willing to have the U.S. withdraw its troops and assume security for the country “before the end of 2011,” the departure date agreed to by former President George W. Bush in November.

Summoned to the White House were Defense Secretary Robert Gates — the lone Republican Cabinet holdover from the Bush administration — along with chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen; the top military commander in the Middle East, Gen. David Petraeus; and other members of the security council.

Gen. Ray Odierno, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and Gen. David McKiernan, the top commander in Afghanistan, were due to participate from the war fronts, according to two senior military officers. The officers spoke on condition of anonymity because the meeting has not been officially announced by the White House.

Obama pledged during his campaign to pull all U.S. combat brigades from Iraq within 16 months, but it was not clear whether he would issue any hard-and-fast orders Wednesday to end the war on that specific timeline or declare his intentions in more general terms.

Petraeus is in the midst of a broad review of his entire region of responsibility, which encompasses Iraq and the rest of the Middle East as well as Afghanistan, Pakistan and the rest of Central Asia. He is expected to finish his review by late next month.

With the inclusion of Petraeus, Odierno and McKiernan, the meeting Wednesday appeared to reflect, at least in part, Gates’ preference for offering the president a full range of views — from senior civilians as well as top military commanders — at key junctures in the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts.

The military service chiefs, with whom Obama would be expected to consult at some point, were not expected to attend Wednesday’s session. Some have expressed concerns about the impact the long, repeated war tours have had on the U.S. military.

The Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at President George W. Bush during a news conference was beaten afterward and had bruises on his face and around his eyes, a judge said Friday.

Judge Dhia al-Kinani, the magistrate investigating the incident, said the court has opened an investigation into the alleged beating of journalist Muntadhar al-Zeidi.

Al-Zeidi was wrestled to the ground after throwing his shoes during the news conference Sunday by Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, and there has been conflicting claims on his condition since then. One of his brothers said he was harshly beaten, but another said he seemed to be in good condition.

Al-Zeidi “was beaten in the news conference and we will watch the tape and write an official letter asking for the names of those who assaulted him,” the judge told The Associated Press. “Al-Zeidi has the right to drop this case.”

The journalist was in custody and was expected to eventually face charges of insulting a foreign leader. A conviction could bring a sentence of two years in prison.

Al-Kinani also confirmed that the journalist had written a letter of apology to al-Maliki. Iraq’s president can grant pardons that are requested by the prime minister, but the judge said such a pardon can be issued only after a conviction.

He added that he could not drop the case even though neither Bush nor al-Maliki had complained. “This case was filed because of an article in the law concerning the protection of the respect of sovereignity,” he said.

A spokesman for al-Maliki said Thursday that the letter contained a specific pardon request. But al-Zeidi’s brother Dhargham told The AP that he suspected the letter was a forgery.
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The incident, a vivid demonstration of Iraqis’ dismay over the U.S.-led invasion and occupation of the country for more than five years, turned al-Zeidi into an instant folk hero. Thousands of Iraqis have demonstrated for his release.

The judge said the investigation would be completed and sent to the criminal court on Sunday, after which a court date would be set within seven to 10 days.

Al-Zeidi’s action was broadcast repeatedly on television stations around the world. U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack suggested that worldwide attention to the shoe-tossing was overblown.

“We would hope that the fact of a U.S. president standing next to a freely elected prime minister of Iraq who just happens to be Shia, who is governing in a multi-confessional, multiethnic democracy in the heart of the Middle East, is not overshadowed by one incident like this,” McCormack told reporters in Washington.

McCormack said he believed that in the coming years “the fact of the president making that visit under those circumstances will probably overshadow any memory of this particular gentleman and what he did.”

In the Iranian capital Tehran, hard-line Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati praised the act at Friday prayers, calling it the “Shoe Intifadha.”

Jannati proposed people in Iraq and Iran should carry shoes in further anti-American demonstrations. “This should be a role model,” said Jannati.

Also Friday, the head of a large West Bank family said it is willing to offer one of its eligible females as a bride for al-Zeidi. The leader, 75-year-old Ahmad Salim Judeh, said that the 500-member clan had raised $30,000 for al-Zeidi’s legal defense.

The jailed journalist who threw his shoes at President George W. Bush has asked for a pardon for what he described as “an ugly act,” a spokesman for Iraq’s prime minister said Thursday.

Muntadhar al-Zeidi, a correspondent for an Iraqi-owned television station based in Cairo, Egypt, could face two years imprisonment for insulting a foreign leader. He remained in custody Thursday night.

“It is too late to now to regret the big and ugly act that I perpetrated,” al-Zeidi wrote in a letter delivered to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, according to the prime minister’s spokesman.

The spokesman, Yassin Majid, told The Associated Press that al-Zeidi went on in the letter to recall an interview he conducted with the prime minister in 2005 when al-Maliki invited him into his home, saying: “Come in, it is your home too.”

“So I ask for your pardon,” al-Zeidi wrote, Majid said.

Al-Maliki was standing next to Bush at the Sunday news conference when the journalist threw his shoes and shouted at Bush in Arabic, “This is your farewell kiss, you dog! This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq.”

Al-Zeidi was tackled to the ground by Iraqi and U.S. security after throwing his shoes at Bush, who o deftly ducked.
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An investigative judge visited al-Zeidi in his jail cell earlier this week and the family was told to return to court next week, according to the journalist’s brother, Dhargham al-Zeidi.

Dhargham al-Zeidi claims his brother was severely beaten after being taken into custody.

However, Iraqi officials and another brother deny the journalist suffered severe injuries.

Thousands took to the streets in Iraq to protest al-Zeidi’s arrest, and his actions were heralded across the Arab world as news stations repeatedly showed footage of the shoe-throwing incident.

Iraq’s parliament erupted into chaos Wednesday when lawmakers argued over the jailing of al-Zeidi and the hot-tempered parliament speaker, Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, said he was resigning.

It is unclear if al-Mashhadani, who has a history of erratic behavior and threatening to step down from his role as speaker, intended to actually leave his post. But he appeared at the legislature on Thursday.