AP - As of Friday, Feb. 29, 2008, at least 3,973 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. The figure includes eight military civilians. At least 3,237 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military’s numbers.
AP - A military prosecutor has appealed a judge’s decision to throw out a subpoena seeking unaired footage of a CBS News interview given by a Marine squad leader charged in the killings of 24 Iraqis.
AP - Gunmen abducted a Chaldean Catholic archbishop soon after he left Mass in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, the latest in what church members called a series of attacks against Iraq’s small Christian community.
McClatchy Newspapers - WASHINGTON— None of the 26 buildings in the new $740 million U.S. Embassy complex in Baghdad is ready to be occupied. Fire alarms intended to safeguard more than 1,000 U.S. government employees aren’t working. Kitchens in some of the buildings are fire hazards.
AP - The Saddam Hussein henchman known as “Chemical Ali” for gassing thousands of Kurdish civilians is due to hang within the month, following the endorsement of his death sentence Friday by Iraq’s presidential council. But even survivors were notably subdued about the news in a nation weary of violence and suffering.
Reuters - The top U.S. commander in Iraq will
likely take four to six weeks after a reduction in U.S. troop
levels ends in mid-July before deciding if more can go home, a
senior administration official said on Friday.
AP - The top U.S. commander in Iraq will ask President Bush to wait until as late as September to decide when to bring home more troops than already scheduled, a senior administration official said Friday.
AP - The U.S. plans to reduce the number of auditors and investigators at its development agency in Baghdad, The Associated Press has learned.
AP - The Justice Department appears to be gathering testimony from Iraqi witnesses for a possible trial of Blackwater Worldwide security guards over a 2007 shooting in Baghdad that left 17 Iraqi civilians dead.
AP - Federal officials last year certified as complete the new $736 million U.S. Embassy in Iraq, even though the mammoth complex was still plagued by construction defects, a House Democrat charged Friday.