BANGOR Gouldsboro resident Robin Aston said Wednesday that she has been pretty much numb for the past year while her son Army Reserve Spc. David T. Aston II of Bangor has been serving in Iraq with the 94th Military Police Company. I was pretty much in neutral the whole time he was gone, she said Wednesday, the day after the 94th returned to Maine.
KIRKUK, Iraq -- In the ethnic melting pot of this northern Iraqi city, the challenges of creating a new, unified Iraqi army are clear. Half the recruits speak Kurdish, the other half Arabic. Loyalties are complicated by regional ties to Kurdistan, the autonomous region to the north. For Iraqi military commanders, and the Americans working with them, the struggle is as much about training recruits for battle as it is instilling allegiance to an undivided Iraq.
Iraq's new army is "developing steadily," with "strong Iraqi leaders out front," the chief U.S. trainer assured the American people. That was three-plus years ago, the U.S. Army general was David Petraeus, and some of those Iraqi officials at the time were busy embezzling more than $1 billion allotted for the new army's weapons, according to investigators.
BAGHDAD - Iraq on Friday reinstated 20,000 former army officers dismissed after the U.S.-led invasion, a landmark gesture at reconciliation ahead of the March 7 elections. It's a move designed to allay some of the bitterness that still rankles Iraq - years after the Bush administration first made the controversial decision to dismantle Saddam Hussein's army.
WASHINGTON (AP) - A team of specially trained investigators will hunker down in an Army office north of Detroit on Monday to begin poring over hundreds of Iraq war contracts in search for rigged awards. This team of 10 auditors, criminal investigators and acquisition experts are starting with a sampling of the roughly 6,000 contracts worth $2.8 billion issued by an Army office in Kuwait that service officials have identified as a hub of corruption.
Washington This week's combat death of a Wisconsin National Guardsman in Iraq, following complaints from his father about the soldier's training, triggered a high-level Army review and defense of his 85 days at Camp Shelby, Miss. Spc. Stephen W. Castner, 27, of Cedarburg was killed Monday in Tallil when a makeshift bomb exploded near his Humvee.
This was not what Maj. Cathy McKenney expected. While training for Iraq duty last summer with the Army Reserve's 399th Combat Support Hospital, the registered nurse from Portland envisioned a steady stream of injured soldiers, along with the occasional Iraqi civilian. But children?
WASHINGTON - Can diplomats field their own army? The State Department is laying plans to do precisely that in Iraq, in an unprecedented experiment that U.S. officials and some nervous lawmakers say could be risky. In little more than a year, State Department contractors in Iraq could be driving armored vehicles, flying aircraft, operating surveillance systems, even retrieving casualties if there are violent incidents and disposing of unexploded ordnance.
ver las páginas en versión mobile | web
ver las páginas en versión mobile | web
© Copyright 2012, vLex. All Rights Reserved.
Contents in vLex United States
Explore vLex
For Professionals
For Partners
Company
Other interesting searches:
donee definition | Central 1 Credit Union | Glen Hanlon | large holding company | Mercenary | code 28 | neuville aux bois | Reproducciones provisionales | mission locale | Patronatos
