Iraqi PM Rejects Biden's Offer for Deployment of US Troops in Kirkuk:
Biden in a telephone conversation with Iraqi prime minister Saturday night asked for Maliki's consent to the deployment of the US troops in Kirkuk, but the premier rejected the US vice-president's offer, an informed source told FNA in Baghdad on Sunday. Ref. Source 6
Wars have disabled six million Iraqis:
"People with disabilities caused by the three wars Iraq has suffered are estimated at more than 6 million," according to Raad Abdulhusain who heads the rehabilitation of disabled people in the religious province of Najaf. Ref. Source 1
10 years on: the elephant in the room the media still won't mention:
Iraq was a war crime: Op-Ed: News reports list "Failures", "Setbacks" and "Lessons" for "The West", but there's never a line of background saying the people who started the war are now criminally liable. Ref. Source 8
The Immorality of Leaving Iraq and Afghanistan
By Dennis Prager
On every level and from every perspective - from pure national interest to the purely moral - the decision by the Obama administration and the Democratic Party to withdraw American troops from Iraq and Afghanistan is indefensible.
Let's begin with Iraq.
Here is how the front-page article in yesterday's edition of USA Today began:
"When the last U.S. Combat troops departed Iraq in December 2011, they left behind a defeated al-Qaida and an Iraq where traditional rivals Sunni and Shiite Muslims were sharing power in the world's only Arab democracy.
"Two years later, al-Qaida has seized major cities where hundreds of U.S. Troops died while fighting alongside their Iraqi brethren. The population once freed by the U.S.-Iraqi alliance has now watched those same jihadist insurgents return to command the streets and impose their will." Ref. Source 7
Iraqi forces launch major assault on rebel-held Anbar city:
Iraqi forces launched a major assault Sunday on a city partially in the control of anti-government fighters in a bid to end a weeks-long crisis ahead of elections. Ref. Source 6