AFP - A top lawmaker voiced fears Tuesday that US President George Bush's administration was negotiating deals with Iraq that would amount to an open-ended commitment to stage US combat missions there.
AP - As of Tuesday, March 4, 2008, at least 3,974 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.
Reuters - The Bush administration is working on two agreements on future ties with Iraq -- one relating to U.S. military forces there and another setting out the framework for diplomatic relations with Baghdad, a senior U.S. official told Congress on Tuesday.
AP - With only 10 months left in his term and Israeli-Palestinian talks collapsed over renewed violence, President Bush said Tuesday there is "plenty of time" to get a Mideast peace deal before he leaves.
AP - Under congressional pressure, the State Department agreed Tuesday to retain nine inspectors in Iraq to oversee reconstruction, health and other assistance programs.
AP - An Army paratrooper unit that led the U.S. troop surge into Baghdad last year is returning home, marking a resumption of a troop drawdown that will test the durability of recent security gains.
U.S. News & World Report - BAGHDAD--The Abu Ghraib hospital was lucky, through government reconstruction funds, to receive a stereoscopic lens to allow the doctors there to perform surgeries on patients with injured eyes. And there are many such patients, given the amount of shrapnel that's flown around the neighborhood in the past five years. But the device sits unused on a small surgical cart in a dusty operating room because it lacks a mount needed to operate the machine. Gen. James Milano scowls at the all-too-familiar conundrum. ...
AFP - The former number two US commander in Iraq charged Tuesday that Iran is still training, funding and arming Shiite extremists in Iraq, with the aim of keeping a weak government in Baghdad.
AFP - A Russian made Mi-17 helicopter belonging to the Iraqi military has crashed in northern Iraq, killing eight people on board including a US service person, a US military spokesman said on Tuesday.
AFP - US President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice covertly sought to oust Hamas after the 2006 polls triggering a bloody Palestinian civil war, a US magazine alleged Tuesday.