Georgetown Security Law Brief

Human rights group calls for Iraq to end executions

02/10/12: CNN reports that a human rights group expressed alarm Thursday at the pace of executions in Iraq and called for Iraqi authorities to abolish the practice. In a statement, Human Rights Watch noted that Iraq has executed at least 65 prisoners since the year began 40 days ago. Fifty-one of the executions occurred in January and 14 so far this month, it said. "The Iraqi government seems to have given state executioners the green light to execute at will," said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. "The government needs to declare an immediate moratorium on all executions and begin an overhaul of its flawed criminal justice system."

July trial set for Iraq refugee in Kentucky terror case

02/08/12: The Miami Herald reports that an Iraqi man charged in Kentucky with trying to funnel weapons and cash to al-Qaeda in his home country is scheduled for trial July 30. US District Judge Thomas B. Russell set the Bowling Green trial date for 24-year-old Mohanad Shareef Hammadi on Wednesday. Hammadi and 30-year-old Waad Ramadan Alwan were charged in federal court in May with attempting to provide material support to terrorists and terrorists organizations and conspiracy to transfer surface-to-air missile launcher systems. They were in Kentucky as refugees.

CIA digs in as Americans withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan

02/08/12: The Washington Post reports that the CIA is expected to maintain a large clandestine presence in Iraq and Afghanistan long after the departure of conventional US troops as part of a plan by the Obama administration to rely on a combination of spies and Special Operations forces to protect US interests in the two longtime war zones, US officials said. US officials said that the CIA’s stations in Kabul and Baghdad will probably remain the agency’s largest overseas outposts for years, even if they shrink from record staffing levels set at the height of American efforts in those nations to fend off insurgencies and install capable governments.

US planning to slash Iraq embassy staff by up to half

02/07/12: The New York Times reports that less than two months after American troops left, the State Department is preparing to slash by as much as half the enormous diplomatic presence it had planned for Iraq, a sharp sign of declining American influence in the country. Officials in Baghdad and Washington said that Ambassador James F. Jeffrey and other senior State Department officials are reconsidering the size and scope of the embassy, where the staff has swelled to nearly 16,000 people, mostly contractors. The expansive diplomatic operation and the $750 million embassy building, the largest of its kind in the world, were billed as necessary to nurture a postwar Iraq on its shaky path to democracy and establish normal relations between two countries linked by blood and mutual suspicion.

Iraqi lawmaker says immunity lift sought

02/06/12: The Miami Herald reports that a lawmaker in Iraq's Sunni-backed bloc says the Shiite-led government is seeking to lift his parliamentary immunity, a step which may extend the country's political crisis. Iraqi deputy Haider al-Mulla says he has received notice from the parliament that authorities are requesting a vote to strip him of immunity to prosecute him on charges he insulted the country's judiciary. Iraqiya accuses Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki of sectarian bias and of trying to push Sunnis out of the government to consolidate his power. 

US drones patrolling its skies provoke outrage in Iraq

01/30/12: The New York Times reports that a month after the last American troops left Iraq, the State Department is operating a small fleet of surveillance drones here to help protect the US Embassy and consulates, as well as American personnel. Some senior Iraqi officials expressed outrage at the program, saying the unarmed aircraft are an affront to Iraqi sovereignty. The program was described by the department’s diplomatic security branch in a little-noticed section of its most recent annual report and outlined in broad terms in a two-page online prospectus for companies that might bid on a contract to manage the program.

Iraq will take legal action over US raid

01/26/12: The Ithaca Journal reports that Iraq will take legal action to ensure justice for the families of 24 unarmed Iraqi civilians killed in a US raid in Haditha seven years ago, a government spokesman said Thursday, after the lone US Marine convicted in the killings reached a deal to escape jail time. Residents in Haditha, a former Sunni insurgent stronghold of about 85,000 people along the Euphrates River valley some 140 miles northwest of Baghdad, have expressed outrage at the American military justice system for allowing Staff Sergeant Frank Wultrich to avoid prison.

UN rights chief says Iraq should stop all executions

01/25/12: Jurist reports that UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay on Tuesday condemned Iraq's execution of 34 individuals, including two women, last week. All 34 executions occurred on a single day for crimes described as terrorism-related offenses. Iraq maintains the death penalty for even non-fatal crimes, but there has been no report of a single case in which the death penalty was pardoned, according to Pillay.

Human Rights Watch details Iraq crackdowns, warns of ‘budding police state’

01/23/12: The Washington Post reports that Human Rights Watch announced in its World Report 2012 that Iraq “cracked down harshly” on freedom of expression and assembly in 2011 by intimidating, beating and detaining activists and journalists. “Iraq is quickly slipping back into authoritarianism as its security forces abuse protesters, harass journalists and torture detainees,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Despite US government assurances that it helped create a stable democracy, the reality is that it left behind a budding police state.”

Iraq's Maliki accused of detaining hundreds of political opponents

01/20/12: The Charlotte Observer reports that Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki's security services have locked up more than 1,000 members of other political parties over the past several months, detaining many of them in secret locations with no access to legal counsel and using "brutal torture" to extract confessions, his chief political rival has charged. Ayad Allawi, the secular Shiite Muslim leader of the mainly Sunni Muslim Iraqiya bloc in parliament, has laid out his allegations in written submissions to Iraq's supreme judicial council. Allawi, whose bloc is part of Maliki's coalition government, demanded Wednesday that the prime minister grant the detainees legal counsel and due process.

Iraq violence up sharply since US troops’ exit

01/18/12: The Washington Post reports that violence appears to have increased sharply since US troops left Iraq a month ago, as insurgents have unleashed a wave of furious bombings targeting Baghdad neighborhoods, Shiite pilgrims and police facilities in Sunni areas. The deadly attacks have roots not only in the troops' departure but also in a domestic political crisis that erupted in its wake. Shiite and Sunni leaders have squared off in a power struggle, one that analysts say insurgents are trying to turn into a full-scale civil war. How the politicians handle their own mess will determine Iraq’s ability to hold itself together.

Iraq detains US contractors

01/17/12: Reuters reports that less than a month after the last US troops walked out of Iraq, American officials are admitting that left behind in Baghdad were a number of contractors held by the foreign government, some for as many as three weeks. The number of civilian contractors detained by Iraqi officials was in the “low hundreds,” and although all have been released, it doesn’t rule out the possibility of future imprisonments. America’s embassy in Baghdad houses around 15,000 US-affiliated persons, but now with the war officially over, Iraq is warning the US and others that they better play by their rules if they want to stay.

US embassy workers detained in Baghdad

01/13/12: The Washington Post reports that four US Embassy workers driving through Baghdad were stopped and detained by Iraqi security forces for two hours Thursday, a day after the embassy warned that some American citizens working here had been held for days over “discrepancies in permits and paperwork.” The tensions come more than three weeks after the US military left a country that has since been rocked by a political crisis and spectacular bombings. Baghdad’s governor was quoted on an Iraqi news Web site Thursday as calling the embassy workers’ behavior “suspicious.”

Blackwater settles last lawsuit in 2007 Baghdad shooting incident

01/10/12: JURIST reports that Blackwater, now known as Academi, reached a confidential settlement agreement Saturday with survivors and families of victims in a 2007 shooting incident in the Nisour Square area of Baghdad that left 17 Iraqi civilians dead. A subsequent FBI investigation revealed that 14 of the deaths were unjustified acts of excessive force. A federal judge ruled last year that the lawsuit could proceed in North Carolina state court, saying that nonresidents lack the right to sue in federal court for injuries sustained outside of the country but that federal courts are obligated to remand such cases to the state level. 

Iraqi man arrested on suspicion of helping 5 Iraqis, al-Qaida members, hide in Romania

12/30/11: The Minneapolis Star Tribune reports that prosecutors have arrested an Iraqi man on the suspicion he helped five of his countrymen who were members of al-Qaida hide in Romania. Prosecutors said Friday that Mohamad Al Dulaimi created phantom companies in Romania, starting in 2006, to allow the Iraqis to travel in and out of the country. They said in a statement that the men were wanted for terrorist attacks in Iraq, but provided no further details. Prosecutors said Al Dulaimi will be indicted on charges that he helped terrorists.

Iraqi interpreters for US military in dangerous limbo

12/27/11: The Los Angeles Times reports that when interpreters like Tariq, 27, served the US military, they lived on a secure base, safe from fellow Iraqis determined to kill them because of their service to America. But when the unit Tariq served pulled out of Iraq on October 13, he was dismissed and escorted off the base. The US government promised Tariq and thousands of other former interpreters that they would be first in line for special visas to the United States. But with the pace of visa approvals having slowed to a crawl, that promise rings hollow for Tariq, who stays locked in his parents' home tracking his application.

Al Qaeda in Iraq claims responsibility for recent attacks

12/27/11: CNN reports that al Qaeda in Iraq claimed responsibility Tuesday for a string of attacks that killed almost 70 people and wounded more than 200. "The series of special invasions launched, under the guidance of the Ministry of War in the Islamic State of Iraq, to support the weak Sunnis in the prisons of the apostates and to retaliate for the captives who were executed," the group said on an al Qaeda website. A recent political crisis has raised fears of a return of the sectarian bloodshed in Iraq that ripped the country apart at the height of the war a few years back.

Iraq agrees to move Iranian dissidents from Camp Ashraf

12/26/11: The Washington Post reports that the United Nations and the Iraqi government agreed to relocate several thousand Iranian exiles living in a camp in northeastern Iraq, potentially averting a showdown with its residents. The dissidents, who have not said whether they would agree to move, reported a rocket attack on the camp. The People’s Mujahedeen Organization of Iran, one-time allies of Saddam Hussein in a common fight against Iran, said Katyusha rockets struck near housing units inside the camp on Sunday night, but did not report any casualties.

US keeps biometrics database of three million Iraqis

12/21/11: WIRED reports that US Central Command, the military command responsible for troops in the Mideast and South Asia, confirms to Danger Room that the biometrics database, compiled by US troops over the course of years, will remain US property. “Centcom has the database,” says the command’s chief spokesman, Army Major T.G. Taylor, who says it contains files on three million Iraqis. Iraqis aren’t the only ones to wind up in huge US biometrics databases. Afghans, too, have been scanned by the millions. As far back as 2005, detainee biometric data from both Iraqis and Afghans turned up in a DoD DNA Registry.

NATO ends its 7-year training mission in Iraq

12/18/11: Star and Stripes reports that NATO has ended its seven-year training mission in Iraq with a ceremony in Baghdad's Green Zone. During Saturday's ceremony, senior Iraqi military commanders praised NATO's role in training Iraqi army and security forces since the program began in 2004. NATO announced on Monday that it would permanently shut down the training mission and withdraw all of its soldiers by December 31 because of the failure to agree on an extension with Iraqi leaders.

Iraq shaped Obama administration’s foreign policy

12/18/11: The New York Times reports that President Obama has made good on his campaign pledge to end the Iraq war, portraying the departure of the last troops as a chance to turn to nation-building at home. But from Afghanistan to the Arab Spring, from China to counterterrorism, the lessons of that war still hang over the administration’s foreign policy — shaping, and sometimes limiting, how the president projects American power in the world. The war that Mr. Obama never wanted to fight has weighed on internal debates, dictated priorities and often narrowed options for the United States, according to current and former administration officials.

Terror suspect pleads guilty

12/17/11: The Bowling Green Daily News reports that one of two Iraqi refugees accused of supporting terrorism efforts in Iraq while living in Bowling Green pleaded guilty Friday in federal court to all charges against him. Waad Ramadan Alwan, 30, entered a guilty plea to every count in a 23-count indictment that charged him with conspiracy to kill US nationals in Iraq, conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction against US nationals in Iraq, attempting to provide material support to terrorists and to al-Qaida in Iraq, distributing information on the manufacture and use of improvised explosive devices and conspiracy to transfer, possess and export Stinger missiles.

US drones allowed in Iraqi skies

12/17/11: The Washington Post reports that American troops are almost gone from Iraq, but that doesn’t mean the US military will cease its operations there entirely. Baghdad has given Washington permission to keep flying Predator drones on surveillance missions over northern Iraq, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said Friday. The unmanned airplanes, which operate out of Incirlik Air Base in Turkey, are being used to look for fighters from the Kurdistan Worker’s Party, or PKK.

US hands over alleged terrorist Daqduq to Iraq

12/17/11: Politico reports that The US handed over to the Iraqi government on Friday a Lebanese man accused of killing American soldiers in Iraq, Ali Musa Daqduq. The move by President Barack Obama helps ease the US effort to withdraw from Iraq by the end of the year, but the decision to turn Daqduq immediately drew harsh criticism from lawmakers who want the alleged Hezbollah operative to stand trial before a military commission. A White House spokesman, Tommy Vietor, said President Barack Obama agreed that Daqduq should be tried by a military tribunal.

US war in Iraq declared officially over

12/15/11: The New York Times reports that the United States military officially declared an end to its mission in Iraq on Thursday even as violence continues to plague the country and the Muslim world remains distrustful of American power.  Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta thanked the more than one million American service members who have served in Iraq for “the remarkable progress” made over the past nine years but acknowledged the severe challenges that face the struggling democracy.

Iraqis unable to defend their borders as US exits

12/14/11: The Boston Globe reports that after billions of dollars and nearly nine years of training, American troops are leaving behind an Iraqi security force arguably capable of providing internal security but unprepared to defend the nation against foreign threats at a time of rising tensions throughout the Middle East. Building up an Iraqi military and police able to protect the country became a key goal of the United States and its allies after they defeated and then disbanded the Saddam Hussein-era force in 2003. As America's role in Iraq fades, the results appear at best incomplete.

Commentary: What will history say about Iraq?

12/12/11: The Christian Science Monitor features commentary by John Yemma. Words like Da Nang, Hue, and Hanoi Hilton still stir painful memories for many Americans and Vietnamese, especially those who were directly involved in the Vietnam War. But as time passes, perspectives shift. Surprising changes occur. Time does that – softens old animosities, consigns desperate conflicts to the pages of history. New generations arise with only a faint notion of the pain that ripped through their parents’ lives. The battlefields of Manassas, Virginia, and Waterloo, Belgium, are now beautiful lawns. For Americans and Iraqis, the departure of the last US military units from Iraq starts the slow fade from present tense to past.

As last US troops leave Iraq, Obama and al-Maliki chart next steps in relationship

12/12/11: The Washington Post reports that with the US troop withdrawal from Iraq in its final days, President Barack Obama and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki will meet at the White House Monday to discuss the next phase of the relationship between their countries. While Obama and al-Maliki have pledged to maintain strong ties, the contours of the partnership between Washington and Baghdad remain murky, especially with Iran eager to assert influence over neighboring Iraq. And serious questions remain about Iraq’s capacity to stabilize both its politics and security. Iraqi leaders have said they want US military training help for their security forces but have been unable to agree on what type of help they’d like or what protections they would be willing to give American trainers.

NATO may end Iraq training mission

12/12/11: The San Francisco Chronicle reports that NATO says it is considering shutting down its military training mission in Iraq at the end of this month. Officials say talks on extending the 8-year mission stalled over the question of legal immunity for the foreign trainers — an issue that earlier torpedoed plans to keep a residual US military presence in the country. The alliance said in a statement Monday that despite "robust negotiations" agreement on the extension of the program was not currently possible. It says NATO's governing body will soon decide on the issue.

Pentagon program to limit the threat of roadside bombs faces budget cut

12/11/11: The Washington Post reports that budget hawks may cut back a five-year-old Pentagon program aimed at curbing casualties from the crude roadside bombs known as IEDs, a leading threat to US troops in Afghanistan. The Senate Armed Services Committee has proposed trimming $265 million from the Pentagon’s $3.2 billion budget for the program. The Government Accountability Office and some think tanks have said it’s duplicative, raising questions about the long-term viability of the program.

War forever changed lives of 6 Iraqis media knew well

12/11/11: The Miami Herald reports that on June 28, 2004, the day the US-led occupation authority in Iraq officially was dissolved, its Baghdad bureau held a staff dinner to mark the beginning of the country's path to self-determination and democracy. A photo snapped that day of our modest party and serious faces reflected our concerns at the time that the tensions coursing through Iraqi streets didn't match the rosy predictions for the country's future that were emanating from Washington. More than seven years later, with US troops almost gone from Iraq ahead of a December 31 withdrawal deadline, these are the fates of the six Iraqi staff members in that "sovereignty day" photo: One is dead, one is an amputee, one was internally displaced and the others are refugees in Sweden, Australia and the United States.

Baghdad official says Iraqi leader under Saddam Hussein will be executed

12/06/11: CNN reports that Tariq Aziz, who served as Iraq's top diplomat under Saddam Hussein, will be executed next year, after US forces have pulled out of the country, an adviser to Iraq's prime minister told CNN on Monday. "It will definitely take place, and it will take place after the Americans leave Iraq," said the adviser, Saad Yousif al-Muttalibi, about Aziz, who served as foreign minister. A lawyer for Aziz said he was surprised. "I did not expect the government would be that stupid, by doing this they will drag this country to the edge of the abyss," said Badi Arif in a telephone interview.

Security tightened in Baghdad amid threats

12/05/11: The New York Times reports that the American Embassy in Baghdad has placed sharp new restrictions on how government workers can travel inside the walled-off International Zone, citing serious threats of kidnapping and terrorist attacks across Iraq and near the embassy’s own doorstep. In a statement posted on Saturday, the embassy said it had “severely restricted” movement through the International Zone, also known as the Green Zone, and had increased security. To go to a nearby shop, restaurant or government office in the area, embassy employees must now be accompanied by security guards.

Iraqi PM confirms that Green Zone bombing was attempt to assassinate him

12/03/11: CBS News reports that Iraq's prime minister said Saturday that a bombing earlier this week inside Baghdad's Green Zone was an assassination attempt against him, but he defended the nation's armed forces and said the breach did not signal a deterioration in security. During an interview with The Associated Press, Nouri al-Maliki said the building housing the legislature or the parliament speaker also could have been targets but that preliminary information suggested the bombers were trying to get him.

Iranian influence seeping into Iraq

11/30/11: The Washington Times reports that Iran's presence is already visible in Iraq, from the droves of pilgrims at Shiite holy sites to the brands of yogurt and jams on grocery shelves. But now Iraqis are bracing for a potential escalation of Persian influence as the US military leaves at the end of the year. It’s a natural step, most agree, for the only two Shiite Muslim-led governments in the Sunni-dominated Mideast to expand their relationship. Still, it’s a fine line for Iraq to walk, with even many in Iraq's Shiite majority wary of infringement of their country’s sovereignty and afraid of being overrun by the Iranian theocracy.

Iraq executes 12 militants over wedding massacre

11/24/11: The Seattle Times reports that Iraqi officials say 12 convicted al-Qaida members have been executed for their role in the 2006 massacre of 70 people at a wedding party in the central Iraqi town of Dujail. An Iraqi court had sentenced 15 people to death in June over the killings in the predominantly Shiite town, in the latest in a series of trials of alleged perpetrators of atrocities during the height of Iraq's Sunni insurgency.

US hands over all detainees to Iraqis except for Hezbollah agent

11/22/11: The Denver Post reports that the US handed over all of the remaining detainees in US custody in Iraq Tuesday, except for a Lebanese Hezbollah commander linked to the death of four American troops, Iraqi and American officials said. The prisoner transfer marks another step toward the American military's withdrawal from Iraq, as it plans for all US troops to be out of the country by the end of this year. It still leaves the contentious issue of what to do with a prisoner that many in the US worry will walk free if he's handed over to the Iraqi government.

British court backs Iraqis' bid for inquiry into abuse

11/22/11: The Huffington Post reports that Britain's Court of Appeal on Tuesday backed a bid by more than 100 Iraqi civilians to force a public inquiry into claims they were abused by British troops. Three appeals judges ordered the government to reconsider its decision not to hold public hearings into allegations of torture and degrading treatment by British soldiers and interrogators in southern Iraq. The 128 claimants assert they were subjected to beatings, sleep deprivation and other ill-treatment between March 2003 and December 2008 in British-controlled detention facilities.

As US prepares to leave Iraq, Iran's shadow looms large

11/14/11: The Los Angeles Times reports that as the last US troops pack up to leave Iraq by the end of next month, Pentagon officials and senior military commanders are warning that Iran will rush to fill a power vacuum created by the American exit unless Washington limits its pullback from the region. That broad assessment has taken on urgency in recent weeks against a backdrop of new intelligence that indicates the government in Tehran also is aggressively courting proxy forces in Yemen and, according to United Nations nuclear inspectors, is fast approaching the capability to build nuclear weapons.

Retiring DC judges played key role in terror cases

11/11/11: The Blog of Legal Times reports that retiring US District Judges Henry Kennedy Jr. and Ricardo Urbina both made headlines during their time on the bench for decisions in controversial cases surrounding the US military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan. US District Chief Judge Royce Lamberth announced Thursday evening that Kennedy would be retiring November 18 and that Urbina, who took senior status in January, would retire effective March 2011. Lamberth's announcement didn’t say why the judges had decided to retire now, and neither judge returned a request for comment.

US turns to more private contractors in Iraq

11/08/11: The Washington Post reports that as American troops head out of Iraq, US officials are being forced to bring in more private security contractors. The withdrawal of the remaining troops from Iraq — 33,000 at last count— has caused US officials to move quickly to fill a series of security gaps to ensure the continued protection of American diplomatic personnel as well as US goods. The latest example comes from the Army, which said in a recent notice that it has increased the number of contracted security teams hired to escort convoys of food and fuel coming in from Kuwait.

Kuwait says no plans to host more US troops

11/07/11: The Washington Times reports that a top Kuwaiti official has thrown doubt on American proposals to station at least 4,000 additional soldiers in the Gulf nation following the US military withdrawal from Iraq at the end of the year. Sheik Jaber Al Mubarek Al Sabah, who is also defense minister, was quoted Sunday as saying there is no plan to increase US troop levels in the country. It was not immediately clear whether this was Kuwait's final word to the Pentagon or a suggestion that nothing is yet resolved and negotiations are in progress.

Iranian influence seeping into Iraq

11/07/11: The Boston Globe reports that Iran's presence is already visible in Iraq, from the droves of pilgrims at Shiite holy sites to the brands of yoghurt and jams on grocery shelves. But now Iraqis are bracing for a potential escalation of Persian influence as the US military leaves at the end of the year. It's a natural step, most agree, for the only two Shiite Muslim-led governments in the Sunni-dominated Mideast to expand their relationship. But it's a fine line for Iraq to walk, with even many in Iraq's Shiite majority wary of infringement of their country's sovereignty and afraid of being overrun by the Iranian theocracy.

615 detained in Iraq's anti-Baathist sweep

10/30/11: The Associated Press reports that Iraq's prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, said Saturday that 615 people have been detained in a security sweep targeting members of the former ruling Baath party. Arrests on this scale are likely to alarm Sunni Arabs, who consider use of the term "Baathists" by Iraq's Shiite-dominated government to be a coded way to refer to Sunni politicians, army officers, and other prominent members of their community. The arrests coincide with a recent autonomy push by a mostly-Sunni province in north-central Iraq.

More are being prosecuted for crimes in Afghan, Iraq rebuilding effort, reports show

10/30/11: The Atlanta Journal Constitution reports that a Marine in Iraq sent home $43,000 in stolen cash by hiding it in a footlocker among American flags. A soldier shipped thousands more concealed in a toy stuffed animal, and an embassy employee tricked the State Department into wiring $240,000 into his foreign bank account. As the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan wind down, the number of people indicted and convicted by the US for bribery, theft and other reconstruction-related crimes in both countries is rapidly rising, according to two government reports released Sunday.

Karzai invites McChrystal back to Afghanistan for visit

10/27/11: The New York Times reports that President Hamid Karzai has invited retired Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, who led NATO troops in 2009 and 2010, to Afghanistan, and General McChrystal plans to make the visit in the next few weeks, according to Afghan and American officials. The general has not been in Afghanistan since he resigned his command in June 2010 after an embarrassing article in Rolling Stone magazine quoted members of his staff saying disparaging things about the Obama administration.

US parts smuggled to Iran for Iraq bombs, charges say

10/26/11: The Washington Post reports that electronic parts made in Minnesota were smuggled through Singapore to Iran, and some of them ended up in the remote controls of makeshift bombs seized by American forces in Iraq. The parts are normally used in commonplace devices like routers that wirelessly connect computers and printers in a typical office network. The Justice Department said in an indictment that the ones smuggled to Iran had been put to use in sophisticated improvised explosive devices, or IED’s, that could be triggered from miles away.

State Department’s police training program in Iraq lacks planning, report says

10/24/11: The Washington Post reports that a report by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction found that the State department is spending just 12 percent of money allocated for its police training program on advising Iraqi police officials, with the “vast preponderance” of funds going toward the security, transportation and medical support of the 115 police advisers hired for the program. The department has requested $887 million to continue operating the program this fiscal year.

Cost and length of Iraq war may mark a shift in the US approach to countering threats

10/24/11: Newser reports that in the final days of the US war in Iraq, the outlook for America's military entanglements is markedly different from the confusing, convulsive first days. Early on Iraq looked, to many, like one in a string of big conflicts in a "war on terror." Now, with the last American troops set to depart by year's end, Iraq seems more likely to signal an end to such long and enormously costly undertakings in the name of preventing another terrorist attack on US soil - at least under the administration of President Barack Obama.

US scales back diplomacy in Iraq amid fiscal and security concerns

10/23/11: The New York Times reports that beyond the final withdrawal of troops that President Obama announced Friday, America’s fiscal troubles are dictating a drastic scaling back of plans for diplomatic, economic and cultural programs once deemed vital to steadying Iraq, building a long-term alliance and prying the country from Iran’s tightening embrace. Recent plans for consulates in Mosul and Kirkuk have now been shelved or indefinitely postponed, and pleas from some Iraqi leaders to open diplomatic offices in the Shiite-dominated south, where Iran wields outsize influence, were summarily rejected.