Summaries here and here and here.

Iraqi Foreign Minster Hoshyar Zibari said on Thursday an expanded conference for Iraq’s neighboring countries is to convene in Baghdad in early September, unveiling that Iraq is seeking a long-term security agreement with the U.S. next year once the U.N. mandate given to the Multi-National Forces’ presence in the country was over.

[snip]

Zibari told reporters “the United Nations will review the presence of the Multi-National Forces in Iraq at the end of this year and we will act to issue a new resolution from the Security Council on new joint security arrangements.”

“The move needs much efforts but it is a step towards enhancing the sovereignty of Iraq,” said the minister noting that “it is still too early to discuss establishing U.S. bases in Iraq according to this agreement but there will be U.S. troops’ presence for a long time with smaller size and different missions.”

Zibari considered such a move as “an internal issue and has nothing to do with the neighboring countries.” Article

So how’s that training going? (emphasis added)

The Prime Minister visited Karbala yesterday, decided to extend the curfew, ordered the arrest of 1,500 security personnel for failing to do their job properly, and referred senior officers to interrogation.

Al-Maliki also sacked Major-General Saleh Al-Maliki, commander of Karbala operations, for failing to do his job. Article

Highly related:

As Congress prepares to receive reports on Iraq from General David Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker and readies for a debate on George W. Bush’s latest funding request of $50 billion for the Iraq war, the performance of the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has become a central and contentious issue. But according to the working draft of a secret document prepared by the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, the Maliki government has failed in one significant area: corruption. Maliki’s government is “not capable of even rudimentary enforcement of anticorruption laws,” the report says, and, perhaps worse, the report notes that Maliki’s office has impeded investigations of fraud and crime within the government. Article

No matter how full of hot air, a trial balloon of lead won’t float. Sheer scare tactics.

Gasoline prices could rise to about $9 per gallon if the United States withdraws troops from Iraq prematurely, Rep. Jon Porter said he was told on a trip to Iraq that ended this week.

The Nevada Republican, who returned Tuesday from his fourth trip to Iraq, met with U.S. Army Gen. David Petraeus, U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker, Iraqi Deputy President Tariq al-Hashimi and Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh.

“To a person, they said there would be genocide, gas prices in the U.S. would rise to eight or nine dollars a gallon, al-Qaida would continue its expansion, and Iran would take over that portion of the world if we leave,” Porter said Wednesday in a phone interview from Las Vegas. Article

Noted FYI:

The black-clad, gun-toting fighters of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr disappeared from the streets of Baghdad’s Sadr City on Thursday, apparently obeying their leader’s order to lie low.

An AFP photographer who walked the streets of the teeming neighbourhood said there was no sign of the Mahdi Army militiamen who usually dominate the Sadr City landscape. Article

Related:

The Mahdi Army is likely to counter any attack by US forces or any political powers targeting it, despite a six-month freeze on their activities imposed by their leader, Moqtada al-Sadr, a Sadrist source said Thursday.

‘Freezing the Mahdi Army’s activities entails no attacks against the US-led coalition forces in Iraq,’ al-Sadr office director Kazmiya Hazem al-Araji said in press statements on Thursday.

However, al-Araji added: ‘this doesn’t entail self-defence, which is a legitimate right to the Mahdi Army.’ Article

Also another related story here.

Flag of fear: antithetical to every principle, every concept, every ideal for which it stands. The latest example of “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”

Another Iraqi man who lived in the house also was questioned, though he wasn’t detained. What did he know about Sunni insurgents living in the area, asked Staff Sgt. Kenneth Braxton, who’s from Philadelphia. Nothing, the man said. Braxton said he knew the man was lying because of the way he moved his eyes. The sergeant tore an American flag Velcro patch from his sleeve and told the Iraqi to hold it to his chest. Then another soldier used a digital camera to take a picture of the man.

“So we’ve got a picture of you holding an American flag now,” Braxton said. He told the man that if he didn’t cooperate, the photo would be posted around the neighborhood. Article

Fred Kaplan, on fire:

President George W. Bush’s behavior gets more baffling every day. Most leaders in his predicament would be recalibrating their rhetoric, seeking to alter expectations, so that the inevitable drawdown of U.S. troops from Iraq won’t appear to be a defeat.

Instead, Bush is doing the opposite. Twice this past week, he has appeared before his most bedrock base (the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars), promised to give his commanders whatever they need for victory, and lambasted Congress for so much as contemplating withdrawal, a step, he warned, that would imperil civilization and free peoples everywhere.

He is willfully ignoring two facts. First, almost nobody in a position of power or much influence is advocating a complete withdrawal from Iraq. Second, a partial withdrawal is certain to take place in the next nine months, and this has nothing to do with Congress.

This has been noted time and time again, but apparently it bears repeating: The U.S. Army and Marines are simply running out of combat troops.

[snip]

The long and short of it is that by next spring some of the 20 U.S. combat brigades currently in Iraq–perhaps as many as a quarter to a half of them–will be pulling out, and nobody will replace them. This is a mathematical fact, quite apart from anything to do with the upcoming election or the war’s diminishing popularity.

Whether or not you regard this fact as lamentable, President Bush only makes things worse by howling that any pullback would erode American power and embolden the terrorists. Even if his warning is true, for a president to state it so urgently, over and over and over and over, deepens the damage when the storm hits. And given that the storm is certain to hit, it’s irresponsible–it’s baffling–that he’s howling so loudly.

Most presidents would be doing two things right now: adjusting the rhetoric (so that expectations meet reality) and changing the policy (so that the reality isn’t disastrous for U.S. interests).

One problem with Bush, judging from his Aug. 28 speech at an American Legion convention, is that he doesn’t seem to grasp the reality.… Article

Keeping up with the courts-martial:

A US Marine was ordered to execute a room full of Iraqi women and children during an alleged massacre in Haditha that left 24 people dead, a military court heard Thursday.

[snip]

At one house Wuterich gave an order to shoot on sight as Marines waited for a response after knocking on the door, said Mendoza.

“He said ‘Just wait till they open the door, then shoot,’” Mendoza said.

Mendoza then said he shot and killed an adult male who appeared in a doorway.

During a subsequent search of the house, Mendoza said he received an order from another Marine, Lance Corporal Stephen Tatum, to shoot seven women and children he had found in a rear bedroom.

“When I opened the door there was just women and kids, two adults were lying down on the bed and there were three children on the bed … two more were behind the bed,” Mendoza said.

“I looked at them for a few seconds. Just enough to know they were not presenting a threat … they looked scared.”

After leaving the room Mendoza told Tatum what he had found.

“I told him there were women and kids inside there. He said ‘Well, shoot them,’” Mendoza told prosecutor Lieutenant Colonel Sean Sullivan. Article