Sadiya Khadem Rashid just needed a stamp. One stamp from Baghdad's city hall so she could receive $850 in compensation given to displaced Iraqis who return home. But before she could get there, the building was blown up. Recent bombings that hit government buildings in downtown Baghdad killed more than 250 people and wounded hundreds more. The blasts also had a wider effect: slowing down the government services Iraqis use on a daily basis. The bureaucratic snarl adds to the blow that the... Read Full Story
President Barack Obama meets with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki (NOO'-ree ahl-MAHL'-ih-kee) in the Oval Office on Tuesday morning. Afterward, Obama holds a ceremony to honor recipients of a Presidential Unit Citation for actions in Vietnam. Eighty-six Army veterans of Troop A, First Squadron, 11th Armored Combat Regiment will be at the White House to receive the citation. In the afternoon, the president travels to New York, where he'll tour the headquarters of the city's Joint... Read Full Story
Press freedom should not be bought at all, and never cheaply. Freedom has been fought for in blood, sear, tears and sacrifice. The US bought democracy for Iraq expensively. It lost treasure, it lost moral authority, it paid a dearer price than perhaps was warranted. However, that hard fought win is now under threat.
The British newspaper the Guardian has just been fined $95,000 for running an article critical of Prime Minister Maliki. The Iraqi court deemed the article defamatory, though... Read Full Story
An Iraqi court found the British newspaper, Guardian , guilty of defaming Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki by charging he was displaying authoritarian tendencies. The article in question was written by award-winning correspondent, Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, whose story quoted three unnamed members of the Iraqi National Intelligence Agency as saying the prime minister was beginning to run Iraqi affairs with an authoritarian hand. Ironically, the author of the article is an Iraqi citizen and the court... Read Full Story
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has met the radical Shiite group believed to have kidnapped five Britons two years ago after it said it had renounced violence, a government spokesman said on Sunday. "The government welcomes the statement by the League of the Righteous that it renounces violence and supports the political process and efforts to achieve national unity," Ali al-Dabbagh said on official Al-Iraqiya television. "We reached an agreement to resolve all problems, especially those... Read Full Story
On Farewell Visit to Iraq, Bush Is Paid the Supreme Insult When An Angry Iraqi Journalist Tosses His Shoes At Him During Press Conference With PM Al-Maliki -- A Dramatic Show That the Most Unpopular President in Modern U.S. History Is Even More Bitterly Disliked Abroad In this dramatic image captured on video, President Bush ducks to avoid getting hit in the head by a shoe that was tossed at him by an angry Iraqi journalist during a news conference in Baghdad Sunday with Iraqi Prime Minister... Read Full Story
December 15, 2008 President George W. Bush has great reflexes. Yesterday he attended a news conference in Baghdad, Iraq with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. A man in the audience about 20 feet from the podium, hurled both shoes at the President, one after another. President Bush ducked both times. Bloomberg reported: In Arab culture, throwing shoes is a grave show of disrespect. “This is the farewell kiss, you dog,” the man shouted in Arabic. I imagine it is a sign of disrespect in... Read Full Story
The top U.S. commander in Iraq said Sunday a decision on withdrawing American forces from Iraq's major cities by a June 30 deadline will be made by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki with U.S. military advice. Gen. Raymond Odierno did not specifically say whether U.S. troops would leave Iraqi cities by the deadline, which is part of a plan for the gradual drawdown of American forces. Odierno contends that overall violence in Iraq remains at the low levels seen in the early months after the U.S... Read Full Story
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki met with Russia's leaders on Friday to discuss Russia's push for a bigger role in Iraq's oil and gas industry. During his first visit to Moscow as Iraq's leader, Nouri al-Maliki met with President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. The Kremlin said before his arrival Thursday that a key issue is "the expansion of Russian companies' participation in major projects in the oil and gas industry, electric power" and other sectors. Al-Maliki... Read Full Story
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki says his government did not intervene in the trial of the journalist who hurled his shoes at former President George W. Bush, but offered little sympathy for the man many consider a hero for his protest. In an interview broadcast Sunday, al-Maliki disagreed that many Iraqis supported Muntadhar al-Zeidi's act of shoe-throwing during a news conference last December by the two leaders in Baghdad. Al-Zeidi was sentenced earlier this month in an Iraqi court to... Read Full Story
