Word: iraq
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...dealt fluently with the toughest of questions: the push-me, pull-you issue of sending in 30,000 more troops only to start withdrawing them in July 2011, less than a year after they all arrive. The troops - as many as were involved in the Iraq surge, though in a much smaller war - are being sent to stun the enemy, to turn back recent Taliban advances, especially in Kandahar province, the heartland of the insurgency. But why limit the force of the blow by announcing the date you will begin the withdrawal? "Why wouldn't they wait you out?" asked...
...saying its push to train Afghan fighters "will be the main focus of our campaign in the months ahead." The Afghan national army, which jumped from 6,000 troops in 2003 to 24,000 in 2004, has been growing by about 1,500 troops monthly over the past year. (Iraq's security forces, protecting a smaller population than Afghanistan's, now total...
...Obama's advisers have taken to calling the latest effort a "troop surge," an ironic term for an Administration that came to power by rejecting President Bush's "surge" of troops into Iraq. But nothing about Afghanistan has gone as expected. In March, his advisers spoke of the new strategy as a break from the past. Obama had then spoken of a "way forward." His speech Tuesday night was titled "The Way Forward in Afghanistan and Pakistan...
...Iraq and transition to Afghan responsibility, we must rebuild our strength here at home. Our prosperity provides a foundation for our power. It pays for our military. It underwrites our diplomacy. It taps the potential of our people and allows investment in new industry. And it will allow us to compete in this century as successfully as we did in the last. That is why our troop commitment in Afghanistan cannot be open-ended - because the nation that I am most interested in building...
...Such comments echo those heard in 2007 after Iran's Revolutionary Guards detained 15 U.K. servicemen in the disputed Shatt al-Arab waterway that runs between Iran and Iraq. Back then, Tehran accused the Brits of trespassing in its waters. (London insisted the personnel had been patrolling Iraqi seas.) The 15 were pardoned and released by Ahmadinejad after being held for two weeks. Three years earlier, eight British servicemen snatched in the same area were also accused of trespassing. In both cases, the British military personnel were paraded on Iranian television. "Whether it's premeditated or the actions...