Troops who served in Iraq earn the right to display the Iraqi Campaign Medal. From the perspective of the medal, there have been four phases of the war that the medal recognizes: “Liberation,” “Transition,” “Iraqi Governance” and “National Resolution,” all covering the period from 2003 to 2007. Draw your own More…
A recent memo authored by a senior U.S. military official questions the basic rationale for keeping U.S. troops in Iraq until 2011 as the Obama administration has decided, arguing that U.S. troops have reached a point of “diminishing returns” in training the Iraqi security forces and risk jeopardizing both a More…
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki opened the door for the first time Thursday to the prospect of a U.S. military presence in Iraq after the December 2011 deadline for troop withdrawal set by last year’s bilateral accord — something President Obama appeared to rule out during a joint appearance on More…
Usually when a journalist says “this is a thoughtful piece of writing” what s/he means is “this is a well-expressed recapitulation of things I already believe,” but, really, in the straightforward sense, this is a thoughtful piece of writing from a Marine stationed near Fallujah, brought to us by More…
Former Vice President Dick Cheney worries that the U.S. troop withdrawal from urban Iraqi areas might “waste all the tremendous sacrifice that has gotten us to this point.” Andrew Sullivan writes that he’s really just trying to establish a narrative whereby the Obama administration gets the blame for More…
Milestones don’t always mark what they should. Tomorrow all these things are true: there are 130,000 U.S. troops in Iraq; procedures and circumstances and contingencies pertain whereby urban security will still be a U.S. mission; there is a U.S. combat mission, by binding diplomatic accord, for an additional 13 More…
Although Gen. Raymond Odierno, commander of U.S. troops in Iraq, says it’s already happened, as of Wednesday, U.S. combat forces will officially be out of Iraqi towns and cities. There’s going to be a limited number of U.S. forces allowed into the cities for training, equipping and advisory missions, More…
Alissa J. Rubin has a great story in The New York Times today about a crucial issue in Iraq (which some wags are starting to call the “Forgotten War”): an upcoming referendum that, if passed, would compel the United States to withdraw its troops from Iraq within a More…
In the United States, it would be a mundane tax form, with standard provisions for cataloging an employee’s tax obligations. Full name. Citizen ID number. Address. Phone. Specifications about any children.
But Form D/4a from the Iraqi Ministry of Finance is sending waves of anxiety through the community of Iraqis More…
Granted, the U.S.-Iraq Status of Forces Agreement has been kind of under the media radar in general. But what’s really gotten no attention, even from obsessives like myself, are the restrictions it places on U.S. military operations in Iraq over the next three years. Consider this vague language More…
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