Iraq

Source: www.latimes.com --- 2 hours ago
The Iraqi prime minister tells visiting Vice President Joe Biden that Iraqis must overcome their political differences on their own and that U.S. involvement would not be welcome. Vice President Joe Biden's mission to promote national reconciliation in Iraq was rebuffed Friday by Prime Minister Nouri Maliki, who told him that the issue was a domestic Iraqi affair and that U.S involvement wouldn't be welcome. ...

Source: www.miamiherald.com --- 4 hours ago
BAGHDAD - Vice President Joe Biden's surprise two-day visit this weekend to Iraq was meant to "re-establish contact" with leaders here, but some Iraqis bristled at the messenger more than the message. ...

Source: www.nytimes.com --- 4 hours ago
Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. warned Iraqi leaders that the United States would not remain engaged in Iraq if the country reverts to sectarian violence, officials said. ...

Source: www.reuters.com --- 8 hours ago
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Supporters of Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr paraded through a Baghdad slum on Friday, burning American flags and shouting anti-U.S. slogans during a visit to Iraq by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden. ...

Source: www.cbsnews.com --- 10 hours ago
In 1st Baghdad Trip as VP, Will Press Iraqis to Make More Progress Toward Political Reconciliation ...

Source: www.bostonherald.com --- 11 hours ago
BAGHDAD - Vice President Joe Biden discussed the future of the American mission in Iraq Friday with the top two U.S. officials there following the withdrawal of most troops... ...

Source: www.fox17.com --- 26 minutes ago
UNDATED (AP) -- Tennessee Titans Jeff Fisher, the New York Giants' Tom Coughlin, the Baltimore Ravens' John Harbaugh, former Pittsburgh Steelers coach Bill Cowher and former Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Jon Gruden are taking part in the first NFL-USO coaches tour over the Fourth of July weekend. ...

Source: paul.kedrosky.com --- 3 hours ago
The failed Iraq oilfield auctions this week have become a litmus test for Iraq, for oil analysts and for the ever-nervous global oil market. Iraqi officials refuse to see the disappearance of most bidders and the completion of only auction (with a single bidder) as a failure. Instead, they are hawking the crowd-pleasing idea that multinational oil companies are greedy mouth-breathers that balked at the hard bargain being driven by righteous Iraqis who control so much valuable, marginal oil supply. For their part, of course, oil companies think that the Iraqi oil auctioneers are nuts. The proffered risk/reward premium for exploration, development and production in an unsafe country with minimal infrastructure and maximal political flux was near zero. But in their zealotry to demonstrate resource nationalism to an uneasy electorate, Iraqi officials scared off most sane bidders, making the only successful buyer in this first round a bid backstopped and subsidized by the Chinese government -- and one that still required a huge price concession. Here is a nice summary snippet from IHS on where this means the sorry process goes from here: Without Iraq offering a better risk/reward ratio to investors it will have to undertake all investment and development itself—a process that will be slow, laborious, and under-funded, and will result in volumes nowhere near those targeted and years from their hoped-for schedule. Iraq needs to look not ...

Source: www.moreover.com --- 3 hours ago
Vice President Joe Biden said the U.S. might disengage in Iraq if an eruption of sustained violence surrounds the U.S. path toward a complete withdrawal of troops by 2011. ...

Source: www.swamppolitics.com --- 6 hours ago
by Mark Silva As U.S. military forces withdraw from the urban front lines of a six-year war in Iraq - and prepare to pull out of the country altogether by 2011 - Vice President Joe Biden said today in Baghdad that Americans "stand ready if asked and helpful'' to help with the political reconciliation that remains elusive there. "There is a hard road ahead,'' and "it's not over yet,'' Biden, capping a two-day stop in Iraq, said in appearance with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The Iraqi leader saluted "the common partnership and common efforts" between the U.S. and Iraq in defeating al Qaeda. They stood in the same room where, not long ago, former President George W. Bush had to duck the two tossed shoes of an irate Iraqi as the American who authorized the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 made his final appearance there as president. Sandstorms prevented the vice president from flying by helicopter into Baghdad. Gen. Ray Odierno, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, made the call, and the vice president's 22-car motorcade made its way toward the Green Zone. The ride took well over an hour because an armored truck carrying reporters could not fit under one bridge so the caravan took a long route. Biden met with the two vice presidents, al Hashemi and al Mahdi, and other Iraqi representatives in a sandstone building with stained glass windows called the Presidency Diwan. This is a ceremonial building, the place where Zal Khalilz ...

Source: news.aol.com --- 9 hours ago
Vice President Biden briefly interrupted his reconciliation tour of Iraq for some welcome family time - a reunion with his citizen-soldier son Friday morning. ...

Source: thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com --- 5 hours ago
The meeting between Biden and Maliki produces few public statements. ...

Source: freeinternetpress.com --- 5 hours ago
Two years before the invasion of Iraq, oil executives and foreign policy advisers told the Bush administration that the United States would remain "a prisoner of its energy dilemma" as long as Saddam Hussein was in power. That April 2001 report, "Strategic Policy Challenges for the 21st Century" [http://www.rice.edu/energy/publications/docs/TaskForceReport_Final.pdf ], was prepared by the James A. Baker Institute for Public Policy and the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations at the request of then-Vice President Dick Cheney. In retrospect, it appears that the report helped focus administration thinking on why it made geopolitical sense to oust Hussein, whose country sat on the world's second largest oil reserves. "Iraq remains a destabilizing influence to the flow of oil to international markets from the Middle East," the report said. "Saddam Hussein has also demonstrated a willingness to threaten to use the oil weapon and to use his own export program to manipulate oil markets. Therefore the U.S. should conduct an immediate policy review toward Iraq including military, energy, economic and political/diplomatic assessments." ...

Source: www.weeklystandard.com --- 7 hours ago
One hopes the irony of today's protests to Vice President Joe Biden's visit to Iraq are not lost on the vice president himself. Biden is in Iraq to help further reconciliation between Sunnis, Shia, and Kurds just three years after pushing his his plan to divide Iraq into Sunni, Shia, and Kurdish states. Biden was on a trip to Iraq to promote reconciliation between Iraq's fractious groups after six years of bloodshed. He met for breakfast on Friday with his son Beau Biden, who is serving there with the U.S. military. Biden started his visit to Iraq on Thursday night, after U.S. forces pulled out of Iraq's towns and cities this week under the terms of a bilateral security pact that paves the way for a full U.S. withdrawal by 2012. After Friday prayers, hundreds and possibly thousands of residents of Sadr City chanted "down, down USA" and burned U.S. flags in protest at Biden's visit. A smaller demonstration also took place in Kerbala, in the Shi'ite south. Biden helped author a 2006 plan to split Iraq into self-ruled Sunni, Shi'ite and Kurdish enclaves. That plan angered many Iraqis, and was quietly shelved as violence ebbed. "Biden has come here to divide Iraq according to his plan," said a message from Sadr read out by one Imam in a mosque. In my travels to Iraq, I've spoken to many Iraqis -- Sunnis, Shia, and Kurds -- and asked what they thought of dividing the country per the Biden plan. While admitting that there are some probl ...

Source: www.startribune.com --- 9 hours ago
...

Source: blogs.fayobserver.com --- 10 hours ago
In North Carolina, local TV stations are reporting that a 19-year-old Fort Bragg soldier was rescued from a burning car in Raleigh last night by passersby. They say that Pvt. 1st Class John Michael Dean of Palmerville, Mass., was supposed to fly out of RDU this morning for a deployment. Instead, he’ll be undergoing surgery in Raleigh [...] ...

Source: www.bing.com --- 2 hours ago
BAGHDAD -- Vice President Joe Biden pressed Iraqi leaders Friday to do more to foster national reconciliation and offered U.S. assistance in achieving that, as concerns grow that a lack of political progress is fueling violence in Iraq. He stressed that America wanted to "build up" its partnership ... ...

Source: www.bing.com --- 2 hours ago
BAGHDAD -- Vice President Joe Biden pressed Iraqi leaders Friday to do more to foster national reconciliation and offered U.S. assistance in achieving that, as concerns grow that a lack of political progress is fueling violence in Iraq. He stressed that America wanted to "build up" its partnership ... ...

Source: www.cbssports.com --- 6 hours ago
Tennessee Titans coach Jeff Fisher, the New York Giants' Tom Coughlin, the Baltimore Ravens' John Harbaugh, former Pittsburgh Steelers coach Bill Cowher and former Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Jon Gruden are taking part in the first NFL-USO coaches tour over the Fourth of July weekend.. ...