Iraq, Iraq War | featured news

The influence of Tehran on its neighbor is growing, while the U.S., Iraqi officials and analysts say, pursues a policy of near-total disengagement... Ten years after the U.S.-led invasion to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, the geopolitical winner of the war appears to be their common enemy: Iran.

The U.S. war in Iraq has cost $1.7 trillion with an additional $490 billion in benefits owed to war veterans, expenses that could grow to more than $6 trillion over the next four decades counting interest, a study released on Thursday said.

Dick Cheney's new heart has not softened his attitude toward President Obama... Of course, the feeling is no doubt mutual; Obama and his backer say the policies of Cheney and President George W. Bush in Iraq and elsewhere lowered U.S. standing in the world.

U.S. auditors have concluded that more than $200 million was wasted on a program to train Iraqi police that Baghdad says is neither needed nor wanted. The Police Development Program -- which was drawn up to be the single largest State Department program in the world -- was envisioned as a five-year, multibillion-dollar push to train security forces after the U.S. military left last December. But Iraqi political leaders, anxious to keep their distance from the Americans, were unenthusiastic.

Prosecutors and defense attorneys in the court martial of Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich, accused in the killing of 24 unarmed Iraqis in 2005, announced an agreement Monday to settle the case.

TV stations aligned with Sunni and Shiite extremist groups, many of whom attacked U.S. troops, have dubbed it the "Day of Defeating the Occupier."

Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney on Thursday attacked U.S. President Barack Obama for a "signature failure" to keep some troops in Iraq to prevent the country falling back into sectarian conflict.

The last convoy of U.S. soldiers pulled out of Iraq Sunday, ending their withdrawal after nearly nine years of war and military intervention that cost almost 4,500 American and tens of thousands of Iraqi lives.

Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta marked on Thursday the end of the U.S. war in Iraq, with the last American troops withdrawing nearly nine years after the invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein.

President Barack Obama welcomed home some of the last U.S. troops from Iraq on Wednesday, marking a symbolic end to the nearly nine-year war that strained America's armed forces and inflicted lasting damage to its standing worldwide.