Middle East Update

The United States told Iran at a face to face meeting in Baghdad on Monday May 28, its support for militias fighting in Iraq needs to cease, said Ryan Crocker, U.S. ambassador to Iraq.

Michael Moss and Souad Mekhennet
When Muhammad al-Darsi, 24, met his recruiter in Damascus, Syria, he was told he was not needed in Iraq. Instead, he was drafted into the war that is seeping out of Iraq. A team of militants from Iraq had traveled to Jordan, where they were preparing attacks on Americans and Jews. [...]

Democrats gave up their demand for troop-withdrawal deadlines in an Iraq war spending package yesterday, abandoning their top goal of bringing U.S. troops home and handing President Bush a victory in a debate that has roiled Congress for months

The House last night pushed through its second plan to fund the Iraq war and reshape war policy, approving legislation that would provide partial funding for the conflict but hold back most of the money until President Bush reports on the war’s progress in July. (By Jonathan Weisman, The Washington [...]

Congressional leaders from both political parties are giving President Bush a matter of months to prove that the Iraq war effort has turned a corner, with September looking increasingly like a decisive deadline.

President Bush and congressional leaders began negotiating a second war funding bill yesterday, May 2, with Democrats offering the first major concession: an agreement to drop their demand for a timeline to bring troops home from Iraq. (By Jonathan Weisman and Shailagh Murray, The Washington Post).

Pulling U.S. forces from Iraq could trigger catastrophe, CNN analysts and other observers warn, affecting not just Iraq but its neighbors in the Middle East, with far-reaching global implications.

Bush vetoes $124 billion emergency war-funding bill, setting up a confrontation with the Democratic-controlled Congress over his Iraq war policy.

Senate Democrats scored a surprise victory yesterday, March 27, in their bid to force President Bush to end the Iraq war, turning back a Republican amendment that would have struck a troop withdrawal plan from emergency military funding legislation.

Two roadside bomb attacks have killed five U.S. soldiers in Iraq , according to the U.S. military.