Soldiers have described beatings, psychological torture and other physical mistreatment at a camp near Baghdad where General Stanley McChrystal, then commander of US Joint Special Operations forces in Iraq, was frequently seen.
The Brad Blog, which picked up on the story of the strange death of
Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi shortly after I published the first account in
the Western media on Sunday evening, asked a question yesterday evening
that I had been asking myself throughout the day:
MAHMUDIYA, Iraq - Relatives of an Iraqi girl who was raped and killed along with her family by a U.S. soldier urged that he be given the death penalty on Friday.
Private 1st Class Steven Green was convicted in a Kentucky court on Thursday of raping Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi, 14, and killing her and her family in Mahmudiya, 30 km (20 miles) south of Baghdad, in 2006. He faces a possible death sentence.
BAGHDAD - US security firm Blackwater ended its operations in Iraq on Thursday closing a controversial era for the company whose guards shot dead 17 civilians in Baghdad in 2007.
"The task order for security protection operations held by Blackwater comes to an end today in Baghdad," American embassy spokeswoman Susan Ziadeh said, adding that Triple Canopy will replace it.
Triple Canopy, a Virginia-based firm, was appointed at the end of March by the US State Deparment to take over the multi-million-dollar contract to protect US government personnel working in Iraq.
'We acknowledge," the letter says, "that violence has claimed the lives of many thousands of Iraqi civilians over the last five years, either through terrorism or sectarian violence. Any loss of innocent lives is tragic and the Government is committed to ensuring that civilian casualties are avoided. Insurgents and terrorists are not, I regret to say, so scrupulous."
One hundred and seventy-nine dead soldiers. For what? 179,000 dead
Iraqis? Or is the real figure closer to a million? We don't know. And
we don't care. We never cared about the Iraqis. That's why we don't
know the figure. That's why we left Basra yesterday.
WASHINGTON - Although many have ties to the
United States, only one fifth of Iraqi asylum seekers to the United
States have been accepted, says a new report examining the progress and
problems with the U.S. government's pledge to help Iraqi refugees.
British troops officially ended combat operations in southern Iraq today, handing over control of their base in Basra to US forces.
The last British army patrol around Iraq's second city returned to the base and a defence official confirmed: "The role of British ground forces is finished."
Britain's combat role - including patrolling the city of Basra - was originally due to end on 31 July but was brought forward as the prime minister, Gordon Brown, said Britain and Iraq had begun a "long-term partnership of equals".
BAGHDAD - April was the bloodiest month for violence in Baghdad in more than a year, another sign that Iraq's security gains are beginning to reverse.
President Barack Obama acknowledged Wednesday night that violence has risen in recent weeks, but he said the levels of violence were still below last year's.
Calling recent bombings "a legitimate cause for concern," Obama said "civilian deaths . . . remain very low compared to what was going on last year."
BAGHDAD - Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said a US raid on Sunday in which a policeman and a woman were shot dead was a "breach" of a landmark security pact with Washington.
"The prime minister condemns the killings which are in breach of the (US-Iraqi) security pact," Maliki said in a statement carried by Iraqi state TV. The premier "wants those responsible to be put on trial," it added.
