Summary: Adm. Chris Barrie, former chief of the Australian Defense Force, has said there was no evidence to justify going to war in Iraq in 2003: “I have to say, even up until the day I retired, I never saw any evidence that said suddenly we had to go off and do a job in Iraq.” … Two U.S. soldiers were killed in an OH-58 Kiowa Warrior helicopter crash in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. … A car bomb killed 10 people and wounded 30 in the northern Iraqi city of Tal Afar.

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Summary: An Associated Press tally showed at least 26 deadly bombings in Baghdad in the first half of November 2008, compared with 28 for all of October and 22 in September. At least 102 people were killed in the Iraqi capital in the first half of November 2008, compared with 95 in October and 96 in September, according to the AP count.

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Summary: In Mosul, an Iraqi soldier fired automatic weapons at U.S. soldiers at a military base, killing two and wounding six before he died in a hail of bullets. … In Baghdad, bombers struck the capital for a third straight day, killing 23 people and wounding scores in a string of attacks in mostly Shiite areas. … In Kandahar, Afghanistan, a suicide bomber driving an oil tanker detonated his explosives outside an Afghan government office during a provincial council meeting, killing at least six people and wounding 42. … Iran test-fired a solid-fuel, high-speed Sajjil long-range surface-to-surface missile with a range of about 1,200 miles. … North Korea announced it will shut the country’s border with the South on Dec. 1, 2008.

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Summary: 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, the pendulum in Mosul has swung several times between stark violence and fragile security, and 2008 is no different. Last November, when the American regiment arrived, the city’s western half was “entirely enemy territory,” with other areas not much better, says Maj. John Oliver, operations officer of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment’s 3rd Squadron. … A series of blasts struck Baghdad for the third consecutive day, killing nine people and wounding more than 30 others. … Taliban fighters hijacked trucks carrying Humvees and other supplies for U.S.-led troops in Afghanistan, authorities said after a brazen attack near the Khyber Pass that underscored the militants’ grip across key mountain strongholds.

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Summary: NBC Today’s “American Story with Bob Dotson” comes from Arlington National Cemetery, where mothers remember their veteran sons who lost their lives in combat. … Video from the St. Cloud-area Veterans Day Parade.

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Summary: In the deadliest attack in Iraq in months, a suicide bomber struck a crowd that gathered where an explosion moments earlier had damaged a bus full of schoolgirls, killing at least 31 people and wounding 71. Meanwhile in Baqouba, a female suicide bomber attacked a security checkpoint, killing five and wounding 15.

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Summary: Shiite clerics have warned the Iraqi government not to sign a security pact that would keep U.S. troops in Iraq until 2012, as Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki studied what U.S. officials described as the final draft of the U.S.-Iraq status-of-forces agreement. … Referring to President-elect Barack Obama, U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota said she was “extremely grateful that we have an African-American who has won this year,” calling Obama’s victory “a tremendous signal we sent.”

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Summary: Iraqi officials, who see President-elect Obama’s views on the timing of a U.S. withdrawal as consonant with their own, appear to be leveraging his election to pressure the Bush administration to make last-minute concessions in negotiations to reach a status-of-forces agreement with the United States. … Iraqi and U.S. officials are concerned about a surge in “sticky bombs.” In Afghanistan, President Hamid Karzai urged U.S. President-elect Barack Obama to stop the killing of civilians in coalition operations, which undermines popular support for the Afghan government and the international mission.

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Summary: Lincoln Chafee, a former Republican senator from Rhode Island who endorsed Obama, predicted a bloody struggle for the soul of the party. The election results demonstrated that the party had hit rock bottom, Chafee said, but he feared that socially conservative party activists — “the Rush Limbaughs, the Bill O’Reillys, the Sean Hannitys” — were incapable of changing course.

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Summary: Saying airstrikes cannot win the fight against terrorism, Afghan President Hamid Karzai congratulated Barack Obama on his election as president of the United States and called on him to halt civilian casualties after U.S. warplanes bombed a wedding party, killing 37, mostly children.

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