President Bush's hour-long meeting with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani on Tuesday yielded familiar White House assurances that Iraq's leaders are making progress on unifying their country. The session did not, however, add any clarity about when that may happen.
In an unannounced visit to Baghdad, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Tuesday that he would pull 1,000 more British troops out of southern Iraq by the end of the year.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Tuesday that Britain would pull 1,000 more troops out of southern Iraq by the end of the year.
The House of Representatives passed a bill Tuesday directing the Bush administration to give Congress plans detailing how it would redeploy U.S. troops from Iraq.
As of Tuesday, Oct. 2, 2007, at least 3,809 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. The figure includes seven military civilians. At least 3,105 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military's numbers.
In a rare show of bipartisanship on Iraq, the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday voted to make the Pentagon produce plans to withdraw U.S. troops -- but did not mandate the withdrawals.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced Tuesday that he was slashing the remaining British contingent in Iraq by nearly 20 percent. A beleaguered Iraqi leader said his own forces would be ready to take up the slack in the country's oil-rich southernmost province in two months.
The withdrawal of five US combat brigades from Iraq by July could lead to an increase of troops specialized in training and logistical support, a top general said Tuesday.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain said he planned to withdraw 500 additional troops from Iraq's southern region by the end of the year.
Iraq's government must do a better job of distributing electricity, fuel and food if recent security improvements are to be sustained, the top U.S. commander for day-to-day operations in Iraq said on Tuesday.