During a symbolic signing ceremony, Iraq ambassador Ryan Crocker said the Iraqi Cabinet’s approval of a security pact extending the presence of American forces in Iraq for three years is ‘historic’. The deal still needs parliamentary approval.

Watch the Raw Video of the Iraq Security Pact Signing Ceremony:

This agreement will keep US forces in Iraq until at least December 2011. Just in time for the 2012 election campaign.

U.S. and Iraqi officials have confirmed that the U.S. conducted a raid inside Syria, just inside the Syria-Iraq border. U.S. and Iraq say the raid targeted Syrian insurgents, while Syrian officials say that the raid killed some children.

Watch the Video of a BBC report:

More videos on the U.S. raid inside Syria:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zc4CVT0IeM8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKmf0oE81Ko
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CldHJqjmbto

Think Progress
Friday, Sept 12, 2008

Earlier today (Sept.11), Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin linked the Iraq war to the attacks of September 11, 2001, telling an Iraq-bound brigade of soldiers that included her son that they would “defend the innocent from the enemies who planned and carried out and rejoiced in the death of thousands of Americans.” “America can never go back to that false sense of security that came before September 11, 2001,” said Palin at the deployment ceremony.

Watch the video:

As the Washington Post’s Anne Kornblut points out, “The idea that Iraq shared responsibility with al-Qaeda for the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, once promoted by Bush administration officials, has since been rejected even by the president himself.”

Reuters
Thursday, Aug 28, 2008

Three U.S. soldiers killed four handcuffed and blindfolded Iraqi prisoners with pistol shots on the bank of a Baghdad canal last year, the New York Times reported on Wednesday.

Sergeant First Class Joseph P. Mayo, the platoon sergeant, and Sergeant Michael P. Leahy Jr., Company D’s senior medic and an acting squad leader, made sworn statements in January to Army investigators in Schweinfurt, Germany probing the incident, the newspaper reported on its website.

The men each described killing one of the Iraqi detainees, as directed by First Sergeant John E. Hatley, according to the statements. Hatley shot two other detainees with a pistol in the back of the head, Mayo and Leahy told investigators, according to the NYT.

U.S. soldiers cannot harm enemy combatants once they are disarmed and in custody, the NYT said.

A spokesman for the U.S. Army in Europe declined to comment, saying he could not speculate on any future legal action.

David Court, the lawyer in Germany named by the NYT as representing Hatley, was not immediately reachable.

Full article here

Marine veterans demonstrate what happens in Iraq to people who protest since they were “liberated” by the 2003 invasion.

Watch the video: