RIGHTS-US: Vets’ Lawsuit Opens Door on Suicides, Poor Care

The United States government does such a bad job of caring for wounded war veterans, advocates told a federal judge here Monday, that 18 veterans commit suicide every week.

IRAQ: Chaos Hardening Sectarian Fiefdoms

There are an estimated 2.7 million Iraqis who have been displaced within their own country. No house; no food; no security. Who do they turn to for help? The international community's humanitarian organisations? The occupying United States government? The central Iraqi government based in Baghdad?

POLITICS: Petraeus Hid Maliki Resistance to US Troops in Basra

In testimony before Congressional committees last week, Gen. David Petraeus portrayed Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's late March offensive in Basra as a poorly planned effort that departed from what U.S. officials had expected.

POLITICS-US: McCain’s Vietnam Lessons Unlearned?

Throughout a long career in politics, presumptive Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain has had his foreign policy shaped by his and the United States' experience in the Vietnam War.

POLITICS-US: Army “Rewards” Outspoken Antiwar Soldier

One of the leading voices of dissent inside the U.S. Army has been promoted.

IRAQ: Five Years On, Fallujah in Tatters

Fallujah remains a crippled city years after the November 2004 U.S.-led assault.

IRAQ: From One Dictator to the Next

Many Iraqis have come to believe that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is just as much a dictator as Saddam Hussein was.

POLITICS-US/IRAQ: Stuck!

"Tell me how this ends," Gen. David Petraeus, then commander of the 101st Airborne Division, asked a Washington Post reporter during the "liberation" of Iraq almost exactly five years ago.

US/IRAQ: Calm on the Surface, Simmering Beneath

With the head of the occupying forces in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, and U.S. ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker delivering a progress report to Congress this week, Iraq has been thrust back into the U.S. public consciousness, along with all the political divisions the issue engenders.

IRAQ: A Little Too Tense to Be Truce

As violence continues in Baghdad and southern Iraq, it seems quiet on the surface in Baquba, the volatile city 40km north of Baghdad. But few believe truce between the U.S.-backed Awakening Groups and the government security forces can last.

FINANCE: U.S. Lawmakers Invested in Iraq, Afghanistan Wars

U.S. lawmakers have a financial interest in military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, a review of their accounts has revealed.

US/IRAQ: Petraeus Testimony to Defend False "Proxy War" Line

A key objective of the Congressional testimony by Gen. David Petraeus this week will be to defend the George W. Bush administration's strategic political line that it is fighting an Iranian "proxy war" in Iraq.

IRAQ: Shia Battles Spread to Baquba

Battles between rival Shia groups have spread from Basra in the south to Baquba in the north.

POLITICS-US: Iraq Still a Quagmire Say Experts

Despite a reduction in violence over the past 15 months, '’the U.S. risks getting bogged down in Iraq for a long time to come, with serious consequences for its interests in other parts of the world,’’ according to a new assessment by the same group of experts who advised the bipartisan blue-ribbon Iraq Study Group (ISG) in 2006.

POLITICS-US: Campaigns Spar Over Where to Focus Troops

Last week's violent clashes in the Iraqi cities of Baghdad and Basra reverberated all the way to Washington, where suddenly, the Iraq war was thrust back into the limelight just as the 2008 primary season enters its final stretch.

IRAQ: ‘Handed Over’ to a Government Called Sadr

Despite the huge media campaign led by U.S. officials and a complicit corporate-controlled media to convince the world of U.S. success in Iraq, emerging facts on the ground show massive failure.

US/IRAQ: Surge Success Runs Into Sadr

As the fifth year of U.S. discontent came and went, presidential candidates jousted with each other about how best to assuage the fears of ordinary citizens over a war that - in nearly all estimates - has gone terribly wrong.

POLITICS: Embarrassed U.S. Starts to Disown Basra Operation

As it became clear last week that the "Operation Knights Assault" in Basra was in serious trouble, the George W. Bush administration began to claim in off-the-record statements to journalists that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had launched the operation without consulting Washington.

IRAQ: Divided Arabs Deliver Little

The Arab summit held in Damascus over this weekend has convinced many Iraqis that Arab leaders do not speak for them.

/CORRECTED REPEAT*/IRAQ: Blackwater Fever Comes In New Ways

Iraqi doctors in al-Anbar province warn of the spread of Blackwater fever, a complication of malaria. Many Iraqis see that name as ominously one with Blackwater Worldwide, the U.S. mercenary company operating in Iraq.

ARTS-IRAQ: Ghosts From the Land of Milk and Honey

Somewhere in Baghdad, a family sits down to dinner. Heaped plates of food line the long table. A man sits at the head, fork in hand. Beside him, a youngish woman with immaculately shaped eyebrows turns to speak with a young girl. Forks and spoons face upwards on still empty flowered plates.