Steve Shickles

AP - As of Sunday, June 29, 2008, at least 4,113 members of the U.S. military have died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

AP - A nearly 700-page study released Sunday by the Army found that “in the euphoria of early 2003,” U.S.-based commanders prematurely believed their goals in Iraq had been reached and did not send enough troops to handle the occupation.

AP - Iraqi guards opened fire on a female suicide bomber on Sunday and triggered her explosives belt before she reached their headquarters, foiling the latest of more than 20 suicide missions by women this year, military officials said.

McClatchy Newspapers - JANAJA, Iraq— Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki grew up in this village of lemon and date orchards about half an hour from the southern Shiite Muslim holy city of Karbala. He attended school in the area, according to his official biography, and members of his extended family keep elegant villas here.

AP - Capt. David N. Simms wanted the tribal sheiks to have no doubts — the $500,000 his unit spends every month to pay and equip local tribesmen to keep peace here will soon run out and they had better be ready when it’s gone.

AP - Sen. John Kerry is facing his first primary opponent since he first took office 23 years ago, and his challenger has one issue in mind: The senator’s 2003 vote authorizing President Bush to launch military action against Iraq.

AP - In a June 27 story about security walls in Baghdad, The Associated Press erroneously reported that a military spokesman, Maj. Frank Garcia, cited the “significant effect” of a wall in the Baghdad district of Azamiyah. The spokesman for U.S. forces in Baghdad, Lt. Col. Steven Stover, says Garcia was referring to Amariyah, another mostly Sunni neighborhood in Baghdad. Both neighborhoods have walls.

Reuters - The U.S. military faced Iraqi anger on
Sunday over a raid near the holy Shi’ite city of Kerbala in
which a distant relative of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki was
killed.

AFP - A car bomb in the central Iraqi town of Dhuluiya on Sunday killed at least seven policemen and wounded two more, the town’s police chief told AFP.

AFP - The US military is to hand over security control of the Shiite province of Diwaniyah to Iraqi authorities on Monday, a local government official told AFP.