Iraq War | featured news

It seems as if violence is everywhere, but it's really on the run. Yes, thousands of people have died in bloody unrest from Africa to Pakistan, while terrorists plot bombings and kidnappings. Wars drag on in Iraq and Afghanistan. In peaceful Norway, a man massacred 69 youths in July. In Mexico, headless bodies turn up, victims of drug cartels. This month eight people died in a shooting in a California hair salon.

By declaring the Iraq war over, President Barack Obama scored what his allies see as a fourth big foreign policy success in six months, starting with Osama bin Laden's killing. But in his re-election bid, these events might play a discouragingly small role even if they burnish his eventual place in history. Voters tend to focus heavily on domestic issues, especially in times of high unemployment. That will limit Obama's campaign options.

All US troops will be pulled out of Iraq by the end of the year, President Barack Obama has announced. He ordered a complete withdrawal from the country, nearly nine years after the invasion under President George W Bush. About 39,000 US troops remain in Iraq, down from a peak of 165,000 in 2008. The US and Iraq were in "full agreement" on how to move forward, Mr Obama said, adding: "The US leaves Iraq with our heads held high."

The U.S. is abandoning plans to keep U.S. troops in Iraq past a year-end withdrawal deadline, The Associated Press has learned.

The administration has put the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq on a terrorism blacklist and is offering a $10 million reward for information.

The Obama administration is trying to avoid a repeat of what happened in Iraq, where the United States was not fully prepared for the aftermath of a leader’s fall.

The Obama administration favors keeping a smaller military force in Iraq beyond this year than U.S. commanders believe is necessary, officials said Wednesday, although even a relatively tiny U.S. contingent may be too big for White House advisers who are worried about the slumping U.S. economy and the president's re-election chances....

As much as $60 billion in U.S. tax dollars has been lost to waste and fraud in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past decade due to lax oversight of contractors, poor planning and corruption, according to an independent panel....

Baghdad's decision comes on the same day Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, visits Iraq and warns that the US needs to know soon whether a training mission will proceed.

The U.S. official in charge of overseeing reconstruction in Iraq says the country is more dangerous than it was a year ago, a blunt assessment that comes five months before American troops are scheduled to leave.