MPs have commissioned an investigation into the legislation which has delayed publication of the Chilcot Inquiry for over half a decade. The Iraq Inquiry, as it is officially known, was announced in June 2009, with public hearings beginning that November. The hearings concluded in February 2011, but five years later the report is still to be released. The investigation set up by MPs is expected to scrutinise the principle of 'Maxwellisation', under which anyone criticised in an official report can read the passage that relates to…

Article by Struan Stevenson in Huffington Post A massive protest rally organised by Muqtada al-Sadr, the firebrand Shi'ia cleric, took place again last Friday around the Green Zone in central Baghdad, Iraq. It was the most recent in a series of rallies that have involved hundreds of thousands of al-Sadr's supporters protesting against corruption at the heart of the Iraqi government. Initially, al-Sadr had intended to lead his supporters, mostly from the deprived Sadr City suburbs of Baghdad, in an outright…

Iraq's influential Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr called for government reform Saturday, demanding greater accountability and threatening to withdraw from the political process if his proposal is not accepted and the government does not show results within a year. Al-Sadr's comments follow a slew of similar demands from Iraq's political and religious elite after months of stalled progress on a reform package Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi proposed last summer. Among a series of economic and political reforms, Al-Sadr called for…

AMIRIYAT FALLUJA, Iraq — When Iraqi ground forces and American aircraft began assaulting the city of Ramadi more than a month ago, Ghusoon Muhammed and her family fled to the government’s front line, as did many other Sunni Arab families who had been trapped for months. Soldiers sent her and the children one way, and her husband another, to be interrogated in a detention facility.She has not seen him or heard from him since. She and her children, who will…

BAGHDAD — Plunging oil prices have pitched Iraq into a severe financial crisis as it struggles to combat the Islamic State group, play host to millions of refugees and rebuild cities and towns ravaged by war. Iraq's economy is almost completely reliant on oil, which accounts for 95 percent of government revenues. With global prices hovering around $30 a barrel, Iraq has had to draw on foreign exchange reserves to fill a shortfall in the 2016 budget, which anticipated $45…

Iran-backed militias have seized homes, businesses and cultural sites, including churches belonging to Baghdad’s Christian communities, forcing individuals to resettle and forfeit all their belongings, according to members of the Christian members of the Iraqi Parliament.  The militias have targeted properties belonging to Christians, forcing individuals to leave the area, according to Christian community leaders, including representatives from the Assyrian, Chaldean and Syriac minorities, as well as the Chaldean Patriarch of Iraq who have condemned the attacks, calling them a…

RAMADI, Iraq — As his armored vehicle bounced along a dirt track carved through the ruins of this recently reconquered city on Wednesday, Gen. Ali Jameel, an Iraqi counterterrorism officer, narrated the passing sites. Here were the carcasses of four tanks, charred by the jihadists of the Islamic State. Here, a police officer’s home that the jihadists had blown up. Here, a villa reduced to rubble by an airstrike. And another. And another. In one neighborhood, he stood before a…

American commanders have been hailing the advance of the retrained Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) on Ramadi, the key city where they were easily routed some 18 months ago by marauding fighters of the Islamic State militant group (ISIS).   But what they aren’t saying—and are loath to concede, according to well-informed military sources in Washington—is that the security forces of the Iran-backed regime in Baghdad largely consist of Shiite fighters in league with murderous militias that have slaughtered innocent Sunnis after ousting ISIS militants from Tikrit…

As forces loyal to Syria’s president Bashar al-Assad regained control of a significant part of the city of Homs this week, it is important to remember how Syria has reached this point. Almost five years ago Syrians came out in their hundreds of thousands to demonstrate largely peacefully for the freedoms that others had mobilised for during the Arab spring. The dictator reacted by unleashing a brutal wave of violence against his own citizens, including Scud missiles, chemical weapons and…

With a 407-19 vote, bill intends to prevent foreign nationals who have visited Iraq, Syria and other countries in past five years from entering US without visa By an overwhelming bipartisan majority, the House of Representatives passed legislation intended to strengthen the visa waiver program in the aftermath of attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, California. The legislation, which was approved by a vote of 407-19, would prevent any foreign national who has visited Iraq, Iran, Syria or the Sudan…