IRAQ: Beyond the Green Zone - Inter Press Service

IPS Correspondent Gareth Porter talks to Real News.

The U.S. military establishment believed they could easily pressure President Obama to back down on his pledge to withdraw troops from Iraq within 16 months. Having found Obama unconvinced by their argument, they have now launched a campaign in Washington to blame Obama's withdrawal policy for any future instability in Iraq.

AFGHANISTAN: Iraq Lessons Ignored at Kabul Power Plant
By Pratap Chatterjee*
WASHINGTON - A diesel-fueled power plant, nearing completion just outside Kabul, demonstrates that the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and its contractors have failed to learn lessons from identical mistakes in Iraq, despite clearly signposted advice from oversight agencies.
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IRAQ: Allegations of Fraud Scheme at Agility of Kuwait – Part 2
By Pratap Chatterjee*
WASHINGTON - The Sultan family of Kuwait runs a variety of businesses alleged to be at the heart of a scheme to overcharge the U.S. military by as much as a billion dollars over the last seven years. The company is currently scheduled to face criminal arraignment on Feb. 8 in Atlanta, Georgia.
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U.S.: Obama Calls for More Development, Counterinsurgency Aid
By Jim Lobe and Eli Clifton
WASHINGTON - U.S. President Barack Obama Monday called on Congress to approve major increases over the coming months in global health, development, and counterinsurgency assistance as part of a record 3.8-trillion-dollar 2011 federal budget.
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IRAQ: Agility Attempts to Vault Fraud Charges - Part 1
By Pratap Chatterjee*
WASHINGTON - Agility, a Kuwait-based multi-billion-dollar logistics company spawned by the U.S. invasion of Iraq, is scheduled be arraigned on Feb. 8 on criminal charges of overbilling U.S. taxpayers for food supply contracts in the Iraq war zone that were worth more than 8.5 billion dollars.
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IRAQ: Kurdish Leader Voices Indirect Support for Mutlak
By Mohammed A. Salih
WASHINGTON - The president of Iraq's Kurdistan region, Massoud Barzani, has expressed indirect support for the removal of Salih al-Mutlak and possibly other Sunni Arab politicians from a list of candidates banned from running in the March parliamentary elections.
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POLITICS: Iraqi Body Softens Stance on Banned Candidates
By Mohammed A. Salih
WASHINGTON - A decision by Iraq's controversial Accountability and Justice Commission (AJC) Monday to remove 59 candidates from a list of over 500 candidates banned from running in the March parliamentary elections appears to be a sign that the AJC is softening its stance following widespread domestic opposition and a visit by U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden to Baghdad last week.
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U.S.: Suicide Rate Surged Among Veterans
By Eli Clifton
WASHINGTON - Suicides among United States military veterans ballooned by 26 percent from 2005 to 2007, according to new statistics released by the Veterans Affairs (VA) department.
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IRAQ: Will Elections Bring Stability, or More Turmoil?
Analysis by Mohammed A. Salih
WASHINGTON - Iraq's upcoming parliamentary elections are widely considered a barometre of the country's progress and march toward stability, but they could also have a serious destabilising impact, as the U.S. prepares for a major reduction of its troops by August.
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US: Whistleblower Psychiatrist Warns of Soldier on Soldier Violence
By Dahr Jamail
MARFA, Texas - Kernan Manion, a psychiatrist who was hired last January to treat Marines returning from war who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other acute mental health problems borne from their deployments, fears more soldier-on-soldier violence without radical changes in the current soldier health care system.
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CORRUPTION: Afghanistan, Iraq Near Bottom of Transparency Index
By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON - Despite billions of dollars spent by the U.S. and other countries to improve governance in Afghanistan and Iraq, the two countries remain among the world's most corrupt nations, according to the latest edition of Transparency International's (TI) Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI).
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U.S.: Army Underreporting Suicides, Says GI Advocacy Group
By Dahr Jamail
ANCHORAGE, Alaska - According to a soldiers' advocacy group at Fort Hood, the U.S. base where an army psychiatrist has been charged with killing 13 people and wounding 30 in a Nov. 5 rampage, the official suicide figures provided by the Army are "definitely" too low.
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RIGHTS: Iraqi Minorities Dying Over Turf War
By Chryso D'Angelo
NEW YORK - Iraqi minority groups are caught up in a power struggle between the country's Arab-dominated central government and the Kurdish-controlled regional government over the oil-rich Nineveh province - and they are paying with their lives, according Human Rights Watch.
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U.S.: "War Comes Home" with Ft. Hood Shootings
By Dahr Jamail
PHOENIX, Arizona - While investigators probe for a motive behind the mass shooting at the Fort Hood military base in Texas Thursday, in which an army psychiatrist is suspected of killing 13 people, military personnel at the base are in shock as the incident "brings the war home".
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RIGHTS-US: Lawsuit Probes Role of Psychologists in Terror War
By William Fisher
NEW YORK - The state board responsible for licensing - and disciplining - psychologists in Louisiana is accused of turning a blind eye to serious allegations of abuse against one of its members, including complicity in beatings, religious and sexual humiliation, rape threats and painful body positions during his service as a senior advisor on interrogations for the U.S. military in Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib.
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IRAQ: U.S. Diplomatic Adviser's Troubling Role in Oil Politics
Analysis by Helena Cobban*
WASHINGTON - In 2003, U.S. diplomatist Peter Galbraith resigned at the end of a distinguished, 24-year government career. Over the years that followed, he worked as a contract-based adviser to leaders in Iraq's Kurdish community, while also arguing passionately in public media that Iraq's Kurds should be given maximum independence from Baghdad - including full control over any new sources of oil.
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IRAQ: Stormy Times as U.S. Withdraws
Analysis by Helena Cobban
WASHINGTON - Political violence in Iraq killed 456 Iraqis in August, the highest monthly death toll since July 2008. And with the U.S. showing no sign it plans to reverse the troop withdrawal that is now well underway, numerous struggles for power are shaping up inside Iraq.
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Unlike most other international news media, who report on Iraq from inside the heavily-fortified Green Zone in Baghdad, IPS's Iraqi correspondents spread across the country to bring you some of the boldest reporting about this war-torn nation. To this IPS adds incisive coverage from the international centres of power where the future of Iraq is being moulded.