Word: iraq
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...most obvious solution--an Iraq-style surge--is unlikely to succeed. President Bush has promised to begin sending 8,000 more troops before he leaves office, and both presidential candidates have pledged at least an additional two brigades. But any troops are unlikely to arrive fast enough or in sufficient numbers. Afghanistan is a third larger than Iraq in size, and its terrain is a lot more difficult. Counterinsurgency expert John Nagl has estimated that there should be 600,000 troops--including Afghan ones--inside the country to quell the Taliban and al-Qaeda threat. Currently there are only about...
...Washington Extended Tours Continue Owing to wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. Army announced it will continue involuntary extensions of combat duty, also known as stop-loss, through 2009. Since 2002, more than 130,000 soldiers have been affected by this policy, which on average means spending an extra seven months in war zones...
...imperial phase of America's involvement in Iraq is ending. Probably by the end of the year, the U.S. will return the palace to the Iraqi government, and embassy staff will move into a new complex just down the river. The U.S. will still have a heavy footprint in Iraq--the embassy is the largest in the world and cost about $750 million to build. But the departure from the Republican Palace is part of a larger transfer of authority. So far, the U.S.-led coalition has turned over security responsibilities to Iraqi forces in 13 out of 18 provinces...
Whoever wins on Nov. 4 will, inevitably, be a wartime President. In the streets of Iraq and in foxholes in Afghanistan, U.S. troops continue to fight a two-front engagement on perilous terrain, against a constantly shifting array of adversaries. John McCain supported the war in Iraq and was a leading advocate of the surge there; Barack Obama opposed the intervention and calls for pulling out roughly half of all U.S. troops by the middle of 2010. But whether that happens will depend largely on the performance of the Iraqi government. And the possibilities for a reduction in U.S. troops...
Perhaps no place better symbolizes the stranger-than-fiction quality of the U.S. project in Iraq than the Republican Palace. The sprawling sandstone complex on the Tigris River was a monument to Saddam Hussein's regime. Then in 2003 it became the center of American power there--first of direct military rule, and following that, as headquarters of the U.S. embassy. Though U.S. officials removed some of the more egregious reminders of Saddam--like massive stone carvings of the dictator's head--the palace's marble floors and soaring ballrooms still make an incongruously imperial backdrop for the civilians...