Word: iraq
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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When the next history of Iraq is written, the chapter on the stormy years following the U.S. invasion will be bookended by two iconic images: one of elated Iraqis in Firdos Square in 2003 raining their loafers and boots on a fallen statue of Saddam Hussein, and the other of President George W. Bush ducking flying footwear at a 2008 Baghdad press conference during the last official visit of his term. In many Eastern cultures, hurling a shoe at someone is a grave insult. Iraqi TV reporter Muntazer al-Zaidi's decision to fling his size 10s made...
Still, al-Zaidi may have done Bush a favor. In an ABC News interview the next day, the President conceded for the first time that al-Qaeda had no presence in Iraq before the U.S. invasion, adding, "So what?" In another news cycle, this admission would have dominated the headlines: that after the debunking of Bush's original excuse for war--Saddam's weapons of mass destruction--his argument that Iraq was a crucial nexus in the global war on terrorism also held no water. Thanks to al-Zaidi, nobody heard the other shoe drop...
President-elect Obama's Cabinet appointments are sending a powerful signal that change is on the way. His choice to run Veterans Affairs, retired general Eric Shinseki, was a brave critic of the Iraq war and is a staunch advocate for wounded vets. His pick for Housing and Urban Development Secretary, Shawn Donovan, has presided over a huge expansion of affordable housing in New York City. And his nominee for Energy Secretary, Stephen Chu (announced Monday), is a Nobel-winning physicist who preaches the gospel of efficiency. It's hard to imagine a starker contrast with their counterparts...
...start, says a German investigator focused on home grown Islamic radicals, the 1970s group and today's German terrorists share similar motives, including a deep-seated loathing of the U.S. and a passionate opposition to unpopular wars (Vietnam then, Iraq...
...group's actions were directed against the U.S. military presence in the Federal Republic of Germany. U.S. bases in Germany were a lifeline to troops in Vietnam - U.S. bombers on their way to Hanoi made a stopover in Wiesbaden just as those same bases support U.S. troops in Iraq today. (See pictures of life returning to Iraq's streets...