Iraq

On a recent Friday morning, a classroom of teenagers at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School broke up into small groups and spent an hour not answering questions about Albert Camus's "The Plague. " It wasn't that the students were shy, or bored, or that they hadn't done the reading. They were following instructions: Ask as many questions as they could, and answer none of them. The kids wrote in rapid fire on sheets of butcher paper. "Why is everyone acting normal when people are dropping dead?"

Iraqi officials say gunmen have attacked a bus northeast of Baghdad, killing two people and wounding seven. Police officials say the Wednesday morning attack took place when gunmen opened fire on a bus carrying daily laborers who were on their way to a construction site near the city of Baqouba. Baqouba is a former Sunni insurgent stronghold located some 60 kilometers (35 miles) northeast of the Iraqi capital. A local medic confirmed the casualties. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

CORONADO, Calif. -- President Bush answered growing antiwar protests yesterday with a fresh reason for US troops to continue fighting in Iraq: protection of the country's vast oil fields, which he said would otherwise fall under the control of terrorist extremists. The president, standing against a backdrop of the USS Ronald Reagan, the newest aircraft carrier in the Navy's fleet, said terrorists would be denied their goal of making Iraq a base from which to recruit followers, train them, and finance attacks.

An Iraqi official says Iraq and Iran have exchanged the bodies of 111 soldiers killed during the two countries' 1980-1988 war. Mahdi al-Tamimi, an official in Iraq's Human Rights Ministry, says the remains of 98 Iranians and 13 Iraqis were returned to their native countries during a ceremony on Tuesday. Al-Tamimi says the swap at a border checkpoint near the southern Iraqi city of Basra brings the number of Iraqi bodies received since 1996 to 2,262. Iranians have received 1,597 bodies of their fallen.

CONCORD, N.H. -- Three retired generals challenged a dozen members of Congress in a new ad campaign yesterday, saying the politicians can't expect to win reelection if they support President Bush's policies in Iraq. "I am outraged, as are the majority of Americans. I'm a lifelong Republican, but it's past time for change," retired Major General John Batiste told reporters. "Our strategy in Iraq today is more of the same, a slow grind to nowhere which totally ignores the reality of Iraq and the lessons of history," he said.

WASHINGTON -- Senate majority leader Harry Reid said yesterday that he had lost confidence in Gen eral Peter Pace and was happy to learn the four-star general will not remain chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Reid also said he was concerned Gen eral David Petraeus might not be offering an honest assessment of the Iraq war. Such a stinging critique of the military's top leadership is rare on Capitol Hill, where members traditionally reserve such attacks for civilian policy makers and mostly praise uniformed officers for their service to the nation.

DECATUR, Ala. -- At 68, many people are slowing down. Not John Wicks: He's going to Iraq. Wicks, a psychiatrist, has been called out of military retirement by the Army to fill a shortage of mental health specialists needed to help soldiers cope with combat. He could be gone as long as a year. The Army hasn't told Wicks what his exact assignment in Iraq is, or where in the country it will send him. "I believe that the morale in general is not that good since the scandal at that prison," he said, referring to the allegations of abuse at Abu Ghraib prison.

LONDON -- Al Qaeda is changing its tactics and new strategies are needed to combat it, the former head of Britain's intelligence agency said yesterday, warning that Iraq has become the new epicenter for terror cells in exporting radical ideology. "We need to think rather carefully about where we go now -- from where we are now -- in confronting the consequences of 9/11," Richard Dearlove told a business conference on terrorist threats. "Our strategy -- strategic position -- in sum is weak," he added.

WASHINGTON -- A majority of Americans in a poll say they feel hopeful about President Bush's second term, but those hopes are clouded by doubts about when the bloodshed in Iraq will end. People say Iraq should be the president's highest priority, according to an Associated Press poll that indicated that those surveyed are not optimistic a stable government will take hold there. After winning reelection, Bush is preparing to pursue an agenda that includes efforts to change Social Security, federal tax laws, and medical malpractice awards.

UNITED NATIONS - Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki of Iraq told the UN General Assembly yesterday that terrorism is threatening to erase any gains made in reducing sectarian killings and establishing democratic principles in his country. He also warned that Iraq's neighbors must stop the continued flow into his country of weapons, suicide bombers, and funding for terrorism, saying there would be "disastrous consequences" for the region and the world if they failed. "National reconciliation is stronger than the weapons of terrorism," Maliki said.

The terror trial of Iraq's fugitive vice president accused of running death squads started Tuesday in Baghdad with witnesses testifying how their relatives were killed in attacks that the authorities have linked to the country's top Sunni official. Tariq al-Hashemi was not in court for the opening of the proceedings that were already twice delayed. Al-Hashemi, who is currently in Turkey, has denied the allegation he orchestrated attacks against Shiite pilgrims and government officials, saying the charges against him are politically motivated and that he would not receive a fair...

On one of the many days Leo Dunson wanted to die, the Iraq veteran put a gun to his temple and pulled the trigger. The loaded weapon misfired. For the troubled former soldier, it was another inexplicable failure, like his divorce or inability to make friends after returning from the war. In a Las Vegas recording studio, Dunson rapped about his life: "What's wrong with me? Got PTSD. These pills ain't working, man, I still can't think. " One in six Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder in 2011, according to the...

BAGHDAD - Bombings killed six people Sunday in separate attacks targeting Iraq's security forces, officials said, while the US Embassy in Baghdad maintained it will continue training Iraqi police despite cutbacks to the program. In Falluja, west of Baghdad, a car bomb hit an Iraqi army patrol, killing two soldiers and wounding six people, according to police and hospital officials. A roadside bomb exploded near a security patrol in the western city of Ramadi, killing a police officer and wounding seven people.

BAGHDAD - In the face of spiraling costs and Iraqi officials who say they never wanted it in the first place, the State Department has slashed - and may jettison entirely by the end of the year - a multibillion-dollar police training program that was to have been the centerpiece of a hugely expanded civilian mission here. What was originally envisioned as a training cadre of about 350 US law enforcement officers was quickly scaled back to 190 and then to 100. The latest restructuring calls for 50 advisers, but most experts and even some State Department officials say even they may be withdrawn by...

A series of bombings targeting security forces killed four people in two major Iraqi cities Sunday, officials said. In the first attack, a parked car exploded near a police patrol in a main street in the center of the western city of Ramadi, police said. One policeman was killed in the morning blast in the city that was once an al-Qaida hotbed. An official in the nearby Ramadi hospital said five other policemen were seriously wounded. Two passers-by were also wounded, he said.

Iraq's lawmakers have hightailed it out of town for a six-week vacation without following through on promises to cancel a pricey perk for free armored cars that they approved for themselves in the annual budget. It is the sort of move that is fueling resentments among the struggling Iraqi public, many of whom accuse the country's leaders of being corrupt and only in politics for their own profit. For months, parliament has failed to rework the $100 billion budget that came under widespread criticism or pass a list of laws to tackle the country's numerous...

WASHINGTON -- Marine General Peter Pace took over yesterday as the military's top leader, facing an unpopular war in Iraq, recruitment shortfalls at home, and the possibility of an expanded role in domestic disasters. At Pace's swearing-in, several Marines who have served with the Vietnam veteran said he would give President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld honest counsel as the military tries to reshape itself to battle the war on terrorism. But some critics said they were concerned that as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Pace, 59, would march in the footsteps of his...

HARTFORD -- A Connecticut contractor killed Thursday in Iraq was on leave from the Rhode Island National Guard, in which he served as part of a special forces group. Eric Miner, who was working for the private US security company DynCorp, was among several people killed when two bombs exploded in the tightly guarded area of Baghdad known as the Green Zone. There have been 15 military members with Connecticut ties who have died in Iraq or Afghanistan since March 2002. "I am deeply saddened to learn of the tragic death of Mr. Miner in Iraq.

An Iraqi court postponed the terror trial against the country's fugitive vice president for a second time Thursday, with his lawyers demanding a special tribunal to hear the case that he says was brought by political enemies. Tariq al-Hashemi's legal team said it is still waiting to hear whether Iraq's Supreme Court will agree to move the trial from Baghdad's criminal court to a new court appointed by parliament. Al-Hashemi is one of Iraq's highest-ranking Sunnis and is accused of running death squads that targeted Shiite officials and pilgrims.