AFP - A US film laying bare the ugly reality of the Iraq war seared the big screen at the Venice film festival on Friday, with director Brian De Palma saying he hoped it would help end America's military occupation.
AP - President Bush huddled with top military leaders about the Iraq war Friday, and Pentagon officials defended efforts to rid the Iraqi national police of sectarian bias and corruption, even as an independent review found the force too tainted to continue.
AP - The United Arab Emirates announced a new law Friday permitting it to ban or restrict shipments for national security or foreign policy reasons.
AP - Iraq’s Shiite prime minister said Friday hard-line Sunni clerics outside Iraq share the blame for this week’s bloodshed at a Shiite religious festival in Karbala because they issued religious decrees terming Shiites heretics.
Reuters - The U.S. Marine
sergeant accused of leading a 2005 massacre of Iraqi civilians
in Haditha gunned down five unarmed men who were standing next
to a car after a roadside bombing, a Marine from his squad told
a military court on Friday.
Reuters - Republican U.S. Sen. John Warner of
Virginia, an influential voice in Congress on military policy,
said on Friday he would not seek re-election next year — a
decision that complicates party hopes of recapturing Senate
control.
AFP - Powerful Republican Senator John Warner, whose independent stance on important defense issues and Iraq has challenged the administration of President George W. Bush, announced Friday that he will not seek reelection in 2008.
AP - The leader of a squad of Marines that killed 24 Iraqis in Haditha told two soldiers a week before the assault if they were ever hit by a roadside bomb they should kill everyone in the area, a former squad member testified Friday.
AFP - A Marine accused of murdering 17 Iraqis shot dead five unarmed men before asking a fellow soldier to help cover up the killings, a court heard here Friday.
AP - Representatives of feuding Sunni and Shiite groups in Iraq were meeting at a seminar behind closed doors Friday to discuss ways of ending the bloodshed, conference organizers said.