Summary: The final bill for the post 9/11 U.S. wars in Iraq and the Afghanistan-Pakistan region will reach at least $3.7 trillion and could be as high as $4.4 trillion, according to the research project “Costs of War” by Brown University’s Watson Institute for International Studies. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on June 29, 2010, Aubrey Immelman provided his weekly report of U.S. military deaths in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

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Summary: Four bombs ripped through Shiite neighborhoods in Baghdad, killing at least 40 people and wounding nearly 100 in the worst violence the Iraqi capital has seen in months. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on June 23, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that President Barack Obama relieved Gen. Stanley McChrystal of command in the Afghanistan war, naming Gen. David Petraeus as his replacement.

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Summary: Few Americans took notice as yet another incident in an unending cascade of violence marred post-Saddam Iraq. The blast outside the Diwaniya governor’s house killed at least 20 people and wounded more than 30. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on June 20, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that suicide bombers in a crowded Baghdad commercial district and in Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit killed at least 33 people as insurgents tried to turn a monthslong deadlock over forming a new Iraqi government to their advantage.

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Summary: Five U.S. troops are killed in a rocket attack on a base in Baghdad, the single largest loss of life for the American military in Iraq in more than two years. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on June 6, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that bombings in Baghdad, Iraq and Kandahar, Afghanistan killed seven people — including policemen in both countries — and wounded about two dozen.

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Summary: In a contentious interview with Lawrence O’Donnell on MSNBC’s “The Last Word,” former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice persists with the Bush administration’s debunked pretext for the Iraq war, that Saddam Hussein posed a threat to U.S. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on May 10, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that a cascade of bombings and shootings hit at least 10 cities and towns in Iraq, killing at least 100 people — mostly in Shiite areas — in Iraq’s deadliest day thus far in 2010.

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Summary: Abu Huthaifa al-Battawi, the accused mastermind of the October 2010 siege at Baghdad’s Our Lady of Salvation church that killed dozens, nearly escaped from prison after wresting a gun from a prison guard and launching an hours-long assault that left 17 people dead, including Brig. Gen. Muaeid Mohammed Saleh, a top Iraqi counterterrorism official. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on May 8, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that Pakistan was investigating whether Faisal Shahzad, the Pakistani-American arrested over a botched plot to bomb New York’s Times Square, had met with top Pakistani Taliban leaders in South Waziristan prior to his failed bombing attempt.

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Summary: In the second significant attack in Iraq since the death of Osama bin Laden, a suicide car bomber crashed his vehicle into a barrier outside a police building in Hillah, Iraq, killing 20 policemen and wounding dozens more. Two days earlier a car bomb tore through a cafe in Baghdad packed with young men watching a soccer match on TV, killing at least 16 people. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on May 5, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that Iraq’s two largest Shiite electoral blocs announced they had formed an alliance, giving them a strong chance of forming the next government, heavily supported by neighboring Iran.

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Summary: Suicide bombers detonated two explosives-packed cars outside Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone, killing at least nine people and wounding 23. Separately, hours after Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki met with U.S. House Speaker John Boehner telling him Iraq’s security forces can protect the country after the planned withdrawal of 46,000 U.S. troops by the end of 2011, gunmen stormed the home of a Shiite family living in a mostly Sunni neighborhood of Baghdad and killed all four family members, including two children. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on April 18, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that the Taliban were moving fighters into Kandahar, planting bombs, and plotting attacks as NATO and Afghan forces prepare for a summer offensive.

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Summary: Iraq’s top diplomat, Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, says his country’s security forces are ready to protect Middle East leaders who will attend the Arab League summit in May 2011, even as bombings and shootings across Iraq killed 20 people, including four policemen. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on April 11, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that Sarah Palin criticized Barack Obama’s foreign policy on the eve of the president’s nuclear counterproliferation summit focused on keeping nukes out of the hands of terrorists.

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Summary: Powerful anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr threatens to reactivate his feared Mahdi Army militia if American soldiers remain in Iraq beyond the end of 2011, after U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates offered on behalf of the Obama administration to keep American troops in Iraq if needed. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on April 9, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that the White House issued a warning that al-Qaida was quietly hunting for an atomic bomb, adding urgency to a historic summit where President Barack Obama aimed to persuade world leaders to step up their efforts to keep nuclear weapons out of terrorist hands.

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