World-News

The Associated Press's Richard Larner and Anne Flaherty say: "The Defense Department put US troops in Iraq at risk by awarding contracts for badly needed armored vehicles to companies that failed to deliver them on schedule, according to a review by the Pentagon's inspector general."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/071107T.shtml

The Nation's Chris Hedges and Laila al-Arian write: "Over the past several months The Nation has interviewed fifty combat veterans of the Iraq war from around the United States in an effort to investigate the effects of the four-year-old occupation on average Iraqi civilians. These combat veterans, some of whom bear deep emotional and physical scars, and many of whom have come to oppose the occupation, gave vivid, on-the-record accounts. They described a brutal side of the war rarely seen on television screens or chronicled in newspaper accounts."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/071107R.shtml



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=combat+veterans

Noam N. Levey reports for the Los Angeles Times, "Senate Republicans who are fed-up with the war, but not ready to abandon Iraq, are seeking shelter in legislation that calls for a new war strategy without ordering a troop withdrawal."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/071207N.shtml



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=GOP
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Iraq+withdrawal

Stephen Collinson of Agence France-Presse reports that Congress will attempt to gain control of the Iraq war from Bush. The House of Representatives, holding an all-day debate, is expected to vote on a bill demanding the withdrawal of most combat troops from Iraq by April 1, 2008, beginning deployment in 120 days. It is not clear if Democrats in the Senate have enough support from ex-Bush allies to defeat delaying tactics by Republican leaders.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/071207L.shtml



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Iraq+showdown
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Iraq+withdrawal

Slate
by Fred Kaplan

07/10/07

Some officers and midlevel officials have been telling me and other reporters that President George W. Bush is preparing to give in on Iraq — to recognize that victory is no longer feasible, that the ’surge’ isn’t working, and that it’s time to cut back U.S. troop levels and shift strategy once more. After watching Bush’s speech in Cleveland this afternoon, I can only conclude that this prediction — like all the similar predictions of an impending drawdown these past three years — is wishful thinking. The president seemed, as much as ever, committed to the war, certain of liberty’s inevitable triumph, and deluded about the nature and direction of the conflict...

http://www.slate.com/id/2170145/


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=stay+the+course
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Fred+Kaplan

Huntington Herald-Dispatch

07/12/07

Nervous Senate Republicans beseeched the White House without apparent success Wednesday for a quick change in course on Iraq as congressional Democrats insisted on high-profile votes calling for the withdrawal of U.S. troops by spring. Prospects for a less-sweeping, bipartisan challenge to President Bush suffered a setback when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the leading proposal has ‘less teeth than a toothless tiger’...

http://tinyurl.com/2mo8yy


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=GOP
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Harry+Reid
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=withdrawal+Iraq

MSNBC

07/12/07

Early on the morning of Nov. 13, 2006, members of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group gathered around a dark wooden conference table in the windowless Roosevelt Room of the White House. For more than an hour, they listened to President Bush give what one panel member called a ‘Churchillian’ vision of ‘victory’ in Iraq and defend the country’s prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki. ‘A constitutional order is emerging,’ he said...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19719435/


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Iraq+Study+Group

Many Iraqis say basic services are at their worst level in decades. More than four years of war has crippled infrastructure while unrelenting violence has hobbled reconstruction efforts.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/KHA049126.htm


From Information Clearing House

Video

It takes most of the morning to erect 3,000 white crosses on St Barbara beach. Each cross was meant to represent a soldier killed in Iraq. But when the death toll topped 3,000, the organisers had to stop erecting new ones. "We're going to continue doing this until people realise that we have to get out of Iraq", states organiser, Rodney Brown.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=glxnPal8PbM


From Information Clearing House