Iraq, Wars | featured news

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....

U.S. Army Gen. David Petraeus, once the top commander in Iraq and then Afghanistan, will leave the Pentagon Wednesday for the halls of the CIA next week.

Amid the euphoria of having forced Moammar Kadafi to flee, some Tripoli residents decry the lack of basic services and say they fear that chaos is imminent, like that in Baghdad after Saddam Hussein. The rapid rebel takeover has left Libya's capital teetering, with young men firing antiaircraft weapons into the air and gunmen at checkpoints hustling anyone they regard as mildly suspicious into overcrowded detention centers.

Iraqi leaders aim to decide within two weeks whether American troops should stay in the country past the end of the year, Iraq's president announced.

Suicide bombers detonated two explosives-laden vehicles early Tuesday near a government compound south of Baghdad, killing at least 22 people and wounding dozens, Iraqi officials said. The attacks come as Iraq’s top political factions started to discuss in earnest whether to ask some of the U.S. troops to stay beyond the Dec. 31 withdrawal deadline because of the security situation.

President Barack Obama said on Saturday Iraq could "chart its own course" and told Americans the drawdown of U.S. troops helped fulfill a promise he made during the 2008 presidential campaign.

Seven years after the fall of Saddam's regime, democracy is alive in Iraq. But there's still squabbling between Sunni Arabs, Shiites and Kurds. ...

The last U.S. combat troops are leaving Iraq in a convoy to Kuwait, more than seven years after a U.S.-led invasion toppled Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, NBC News reported on Wednesday.

The House approved Tuesday the spending of an additional $37 billion on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, overcoming the opposition of some congressional Democrats who have concluded that the Afghan conflict is unwinnable.