A Congressional investigation issued a scathing criticism of the private military firm Blackwater USA around the March 2004 mission that saw four of its guards killed and led to a major escalation of the Iraq war.
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US Defence Secretary Robert Gates ordered a review of the way private security firms operate in Iraq and the oversight given by the US military, car bombs killed 27 people and wounded more than 90, the US government began a new battle with Congress after demanding the unprecedented sum of 189 billion dollars to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Prime Minister Al-Maliki pointed out that the vision of national reconciliation in Iraq is plagued by a tenacious insurgency and sectarian warfare.
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Raytheon unveiled Silent Guardian, a device that radiates unbearable pain which the US plans to use in Iraq. “You don’t have time to think about it,†said an executive. “You just run.â€
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The US Senate urged the Bush administration Wednesday to declare Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard a terrorist group to help the United States roll back Iranian influence in Iraq.
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The Bush administration planned to increase its 2008 financing request for military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere by almost $50 billion and it was reported that the Iraq war is costing $500,000 a minute, fourteen Iraqis were killed during separate operations and raids by US army and Iraqi police, the UN considered a greater role in Iraq, the Iraqi government rejected calls to expel the US firm Blackwater which is under investigation over a shooting which killed 11 Iraqis claiming it would leave a “security vacuum” in Baghdad, while the Iraqi Prime MinisterNouri al-Maliki noted that Blackwater has been linked to at least seven incidents involving gunfire on Iraqi civilians- “There are serious challenges to the sovereignty of Iraq,” he said.
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Al-Sadr’s movement announced it would withdraw from the largest political bloc in Parliament- a coalition of Shiite parties, a group of gunmen killed a leader from Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army in west Baghdad, while the militia retaliated by killing four Iraqis and causing scores of families from the region to be displaced, new figures showed that the number of displaced Iraqis his risen by about fifty-thousand since July, the US security firm Blackwater has resumed limited operations in the Iraqi capital Baghdad four days after a deadly shootout involving the company, and the Senate has overwhelmingly rejected a measure that would cut off funding for combat operations in Iraq by next June as well as a measure that would haven given U.S. troops longer rest periods in between deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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Alan Greenspan said the Iraq war was largely about oil.
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A march by thousands of protesters demanding an end to the Iraq war turned chaotic yesterday afternoon near the Capitol, where hundreds sprawled on the ground in a symbolic “die-in.” Police arrested 189 people.
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In a prime-time address last night, Bush said he foresees what he called “an enduring relationship†between Iraq and the United States, a long-negotiated deal over a new Iraqi oil law collapsed, two of seven soldiers who co-authored an article last month criticizing the US occupation were killed in a car accident, Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki ordered the release of Iranian prisoners convicted of drug smuggling, stealing and destructive actions in Iraq, and a high-profile Sunni Arab sheik who collaborated with the American military in the fight against jihadist militants in western Iraq was killed in a bomb attack .
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General David Petraeus said he wasn’t sure if the War in Iraq has made America safer. “I don’t know,” he said. He later changed his mind and said yes.
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Two policemen were injured and three protesters arrested as thousands marched under tight security through Sydney on Saturday in a protest against visiting US President George W. Bush and the Iraq war.
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Bombs killed 20 people in Iraq on Saturday.
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It was reported that Iraq needs about $50 billion dollars to fix it’s oil and electrical infrastructure, a second British general criticized the US’ Iraq war strategy calling it a “fatally flawed” policy, a new independent assessment reported Iraq’s security forces will be unable to take control of the country in the next 18 months and Baghdad’s national police force is so rife with corruption it should be scrapped entirely, U.S. Representative Jon Porter warned that premature evacuation from Iraq would cause American gas prices to rise, and President Bush said we were kicking ass in Iraq. “We’re kicking ass,” he said.
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The British Army began withdrawing from its last base in Basra’s city center early Monday, a move that will leave Iraq’s second-largest city without foreign forces for the first time since the American-led invasion in 2003.
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Syria decided to stop letting in Iraqi refugees.
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Despite a stepped-up commitment from the United States to take in Iraqis who are in danger because they worked for the American government and military, very few are signing up to go, resettlement officials say. The reason, Iraqis say, is that they are not allowed to apply in Iraq.
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The Bush administration prepared to ask Congress for an additional fifty billion dollars for the war in Iraq, a military jury exonerated the only officer facing trial for abusing detainees at Abu Ghraib, shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr Wednesday ordered a six-month shutdown of his militia in what his aides described as an attempt to reform the organization, President Bush said Tehran’s atomic ambitions could put the Middle East “under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust,” Iran rejected US accusations it was fomenting instability in Iraq, and northern Iraq was hit by major cholera outbreak.
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Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has lashed out at Democratic Senators Hillary Clinton and Carl Levin for calling for his replacement. “I don’t agree with Hilary,” he said.
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The Associated Press reported the death toll for Iraqi civilians is double what it was a year ago.
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President Bush refused to endorse the Al-Maliki Government as several key US politicians called for it’s ousting, and Al-Maliki responded by saying US politicians have no right to impose timetables on his elected government and that his country can find friends elsewhere.
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