Word: iraqi
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Iraq began a new chapter at midnight on New Year's Day, amid the sporadic flares of small fireworks and the crackle of gunfire. Jan. 1 marks the formal implementation of the Iraqi-U.S. Security Agreement that was labored over for months by officials from the two countries. Rituals for the media and the Iraqi public gave national sovereignty a new face on Thursday morning: a formal celebration marked the handover of Baghdad's Green Zone, the center of the U.S.-aided Iraqi government for the past 5 1/2 years, to Iraqi control. And poles bearing the Iraqi flag...
...soldiers say they have already been cooperating with their Iraqi counterparts. "I think there is going to be zero difference between what we do now and Jan. 1 and beyond," said Lieut. Colonel John Vermeesch just before the end of 2008. Vermeesch commands some 880 U.S. combat troops spread across five joint Iraqi-U.S. bases in northwest Baghdad. He is one of the battalion commanders in the 2nd Heavy Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, a 4,000-troop force that arrived in Baghdad in mid-October to start a 12-month tour. They say they started complying with...
President-elect Barack Obama has repeatedly said the Iraqi government must dip deeper into its own coffers to finance the country's reconstruction projects. To date, American taxpayers have shelled out some $50 billion, according to the most recent quarterly U.S. congressional report. The Iraqi government has matched that. Still, the reconstruction of Iraq is not simply a question of who foots the bill or which companies get the contracts. Iraq's rebuilding efforts are being hamstrung by sclerotic administrative procedures that are in desperate need of modernization, after decades of inefficient centralized control, corruption, cronyism, wars and sanctions...
...with the Iraq's government gearing up to take the reins militarily in 2009, Iraqi officials across the political spectrum are seeing the glass as half full. "I assure you this number will drop sharply the moment the Americans withdraw their troops. That also goes for violence in general," says Ahmed Hassan al-Massoudi, a member of parliament aligned with radical Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. "I don't think 9,000 is a reason to worry, because you can see these numbers in other civilized countries," says Ahmed Bassam Mohammed, a police lieutenant and former member...
...Awakening fighters were key to bringing down the violence in the last two years. This past fall, they were taken from U.S. military sponsorship and put under Iraqi government control. They are increasingly replacing Iraqi police as targets, despite the overall decline of violence, the report said. This year also marks the first in which civilian deaths outside of Baghdad outnumber those within the capital, a shift that Iraqi officials say reflects the fact that Iraq's largest city has become vastly more secure...