Summary: Weekly report of U.S. military deaths in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan), compiled from U.S. Department of Defense News Releases. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on the 20th day after losing his 2008 primary challenge against U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann in Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District, Aubrey Immelman, in line with his focus on national security, reported on mass-casualty bombings in Baghdad and a lecture by Juan Cole on the foreign policy implications of the Iraq war.
Summary: A suicide bomber killed 32 people at the entrance of Baghdad’s main police academy in a chilling reminder of the nation’s still-shaky security. The blast — the second major attack to hit Iraq in three days and the deadliest to strike Baghdad in nearly a month — was a bloody reminder of the ability of insurgents to defy security improvements and stage dramatic attacks as the U.S. begins to draw down its forces.
Summary: President Barack Obama has won crucial backing for his Iraq military withdrawal plan from leading Congressional Republicans, including Senator John McCain and Ohio Rep. John A. Boehner, the House minority leader.
Summary: Federal authorities examining the early, chaotic days of the $125 billion American-led effort to rebuild Iraq have significantly broadened their inquiry to include senior American military officers who oversaw the program.
Summary: With the reduction of violence in Iraq following a U.S. troop “surge” and other measures, foreign militants are now flooding into Afghanistan to join Taliban insurgents battling Afghan and international troops, according to Afghan Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak.
Summary: Speaking as “a good Republican,” former Congressman Joe Scarborough responded to the inauguration of Barack Obama by saying, “I’m damn proud to be a part of this great republic.”
Summary: President George W. Bush presided over the weakest eight-year span for the U.S. economy in decades, according to an analysis of key data, with economists across the ideological spectrum increasingly viewing his two terms as a time of little progress on the nation’s thorniest fiscal challenges. Specifically, the number of jobs in the nation increased by about 2 percent during Bush’s tenure, the most tepid growth over any eight-year span since data collection began seven decades ago. Gross domestic product, a broad measure of economic output, grew at the slowest pace for a period of that length since the Truman administration. And Americans’ incomes grew more slowly than in any presidency since the 1960s, other than that of Bush’s father George H. W. Bush.
Summary: In response to President George W. Bush’s ultimatum to Iraq to disclose illegal weapons and disarm — or face serious consequences — Saddam Hussein on December 7, 2002 apologized for invading Kuwait in 1990 and delivered a 11,800-page weapons disclosure to U.N. inspectors in Baghdad, which he said proved that Iraq had no illegal weapons programs.
Summary: Iraq remained the deadliest country for media workers in 2008, followed by India and Mexico, although the number of deaths was down sharply from the previous year. A total of 109 journalists and support staff in 36 countries died while covering the news in 2008, down from 172 in 2007, largely due to a decline in the number of media workers killed in Iraq.
Summary: A female suicide bomber killed at least 38 and wounded 72 in an attack on pilgrims entering the revered Imam Moussa al-Kadhim shrine in Kadhimiya, northwestern Baghdad, on January 4, 2009. … Security incidents in Iraq on Jan. 3, 2009, as reported by Reuters. … January 2008 update of key facts, figures, and statistics on Iraq since the war began in March 2003.