Keeping pressure on President George W. Bush to wind down the Iraq war, a House of Representatives panel approved bills on Friday to require the Pentagon to send lawmakers a withdrawal plan and give troops more leave between deployments.
Two British firms have emerged as finalists to win the largest U.S. security contract in Iraq, according to sources familiar with the matter.
Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney said Friday that the country is angry over the lack of progress in the Iraq war, a stinging assessment of the Bush administration's handling of the conflict from a Republican candidate.
As of Friday, July 27, 2007, at least 3,646 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 2,992 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military's numbers.
July 27 (Bloomberg) -- The Pentagon, under pressure to start planning for an Iraq withdrawal whether it begins in two months or two years, may find that getting out will take a lot longer than getting in.
The fight between U.S.-led forces and militants in and near Baghdad and the sectarian civil war raging in the capital has overshadowed another grim wartime reality -- the factional strife in Iraq's southern Shiite heartland.
The U.S. military said on Friday it had killed around 17 militia fighters in clashes in Iraq's holy Shi'ite city of Kerbala, but hospital and police sources said some civilians were among the dead.
The United States must make plans for an Iraq pull-out, a House panel chairman said Friday.
A GOP congressman Friday urged colleagues not to tie the president's hands on Iraq.
Nine people were killed, including several civilians, in clashes between U.S. soldiers and militia fighters in Iraq's holy Shi'ite city of Kerbala on Friday, police and hospital sources said.