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A clear majority of voters say they approve of the United States' recently launched airstrikes in Iraq, a Fox News poll released Wednesday shows. But the survey shows President Obama gets low marks overall for his handling of Iraq. Fully 65 percent of Americans say they approve of the airstrikes. Just 23 percent disapprove. The poll of registered voters was conducted from Sunday to Tuesday. U.S. warplanes struck Sunni extremist militants last Friday. Obama said the airstrikes were conducted to "prevent terrorist forces from advancing on the city of Irbil."

It looks like the US won't have to launch a mass evacuation of Iraqis trapped on a mountain after all. A small team of American military personnel who spent 24 hours on Mount Sinjar said US airstrikes seem to have done the trick—most of the trapped Yazidis who wanted to flee to safety have done so, reports the New York Times. As a result, defense chief Chuck Hagel said a rescue mission is "far less likely now," reports AP.

Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) on Wednesday said President Obama does not need approval from Congress for the limited U.S. airstrikes taking place in Iraq. "Well, I don't think congressional approval is needed for the type of targeted airstrikes the president's conducting right now," he said on MSNBC. The ranking Budget Committee member was pushing back on the assertion raised by Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) a day earlier. Like a number of other Democratic leaders, Van Hollen said Obama "would want to come back to Congress" if the mission expanded, which the congressman said he doubts. He noted that the...

Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine wants President Barack Obama to seek new approval from Congress for the current bombing campaign in Iraq. “I support providing humanitarian relief to Iraqi civilians and measures to protect American personnel, but I am concerned about the timeline and scope of our renewed military efforts in Iraq,” the Virginia Democrat said in a statement. “Since the Administration has conceded that the 2002 Iraq Authorization for Use of Military Force is obsolete and should be repealed, it is now up to the Administration to receive Congressional authorization for the current air campaign against IS. This is especially...

Kurdish forces retook two towns from Sunni militants Sunday a senior Kurdish military official said. The seizure of the towns was one of their first victories after weeks of retreating from the growing militant threat in Iraq. The Kurds were helped by a fourth round of American airstrikes near Erbil intended to push armored vehicles used by the militant Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, (ISIS, also known as ISIL) CBS News correspondent Holly Williams reported. The Kurdish peshmerga soldiers are the only ones still fighting ISIS on the ground and were able to push them out of the villages...

Washington (CNN) -- Two U.S. F/A-18 jet fighters bombed artillery batteries of Sunni Islamic extremists in Iraq on Friday, escalating America's military involvement more than two years after President Barack Obama brought home forces from the country. Obama authorized "targeted airstrikes" if needed to protect U.S. personnel from fighters with the Islamic State, formerly known as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS. The U.S. military also could use airstrikes to prevent what officials warn could be a genocide of minority groups by the Islamic State fighters. The U.S. aircraft dropped 500-pound laser-guided bombs on a "mobile artillery...

WASHINGTON — President Obama said on Saturday that the airstrikes and humanitarian assistance drops he ordered last week in Iraq could go on for months, preparing Americans for an extended military presence in the skies there as Iraq’s leaders try to build a new government. “I don’t think we’re going to solve this problem in weeks,” Mr. Obama told reporters before leaving for a two-week golf-and-beach vacation on Martha’s Vineyard. “This is going to be a long-term project.” The president repeated his insistence that his administration would not send ground troops back to Iraq after ending an unpopular, decade-long war...

Scratch the surface of most of the world’s armed conflicts and you won’t see an ideological struggle or deep-seated ethnic or religious hatred that has erupted in a war of all against all. Rather, what you’ll find is a collection of thugs for hire, some in uniforms and some not, who are taking advantage of the chaos of war to prey on the weak. Sometimes this involves stealing oil or diamonds, or sexual brutality. But it’s pretty rare that it involves some larger design. True, the hooligans who take part in these orgies of destruction will often claim loyalty to...

How has Barack Obama’s reactive strategy to the sweep of the Islamic State across Iraq been received so far in Washington? Not well, as critics arose across the partisan spectrum. “It takes an army to defeat an army,” Senator Dianne Feinstein said yesterday in regard to the threat ISIS now poses to the region — and the US: Senate Intelligence Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein warned Friday of the risk that the insurgent group ISIL could be preparing fighters to attack American and European targets.“It has become clear that ISIL is recruiting fighters in Western countries, training them to fight its...

On Wednesday evening, moments after finishing a summit meeting with African leaders at the State Department, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff delivered a stark message to President Obama as they rode back to the White House in Mr. Obama’s limousine. The Kurdish capital, Erbil, once an island of pro-American tranquillity, was in the path of rampaging Sunni militants, the chairman, Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, told the president. And to the west, the militants had trapped thousands of members of Iraqi minority groups on a barren mountaintop, with dwindling supplies, raising concerns about a potential genocide. With American...

For much of the summer, President Barack Obama had watched with alarm as a brutal, al-Qaida-linked insurgency seized more and more territory in northern Iraq. But it wasn’t until Thursday, when Obama learned that genocide could be imminent, that the president decided the U.S. military had to act. The vivid reports streaming into the Situation Room that morning from U.S. diplomats and intelligence officials were unsettling, to say the least: Stories of mass executions, women being enslaved as child brides, members of a small religious group trapped on a mountain and potentially dying of thirst. The situation was falling apart—fast....

As militants with the Islamic State launched artillery rounds at Kurdish forces in northern Iraq, the U.S. military on Friday launched airstrikes using fighter jets on the USS George H. W. Bush, Pentagon officials said. It was just the latest involvement in combat for the Bush, which was commissioned in 2009. It was used extensively in 2011 to support combat operations in Afghanistan, and left Norfolk, Va., in February on its second deployment. It arrived in the Middle East in March, and entered the Persian Gulf in June, as the Islamic State took control of vast regions of northern and...

<p>Obama is scheduled to make remarks at the White House at 10:25 a.m....</p>

1 Samuel 17 Now the Philistines gathered their forces for war and assembled at Sokoh in Judah. They pitched camp at Ephes Dammim, between Sokoh and Azekah. Saul and the Israelites assembled and camped in the Valley of Elah and drew up their battle line to meet the Philistines. The Philistines occupied one hill and the Israelites another, with the valley between them. ... Now the Coward in Chief is so desperate to look relevant on the world stage he has decided to drop a few bombs on some camels in Iraq. His next feat will be emptying the ocean...

President Obama sought to prepare Americans for an extended presence in the skies over Iraq, telling reporters on Saturday that the airstrikes he ordered this week could go on for months as Iraqis try to build a new government. “I don’t think we’re going to solve this problem in weeks,” Mr. Obama said before leaving for a two-week vacation on Martha’s Vineyard. “This is going to be a long-term project.” “There has to be a rebuilding and an understanding of who it is the Iraqi security forces are reporting to, what they are fighting for,” he added. Once that happens,...

British military chiefs are drawing up plans to help American airstrikes in Iraq, the Times reports. Senior figures are considering sending a spy plane to provide intelligence on ISIS positions, while Royal Air Force aircraft capable of refuelling U.S. fighter jets in mid-air will also be sent. The UK government, which has welcomed American intervention in the fight against ISIS, has also not ruled out conducting its own airstrikes if the humanitarian situation worsens. MPs are also discussing the possibility of using British special forces, who have long experience in the Kurdish region, to offer help in pinpointing targets. Former...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Does anybody remember how Barack Obama first achieved national attention? These are always intriguing questions to me, 'cause I of course know the answer. (interruption) Well, yes, that was the occasion of the speech. But what did he do in this speech, what did he say? What did Obama say? Do you remember how Obama first achieved national attention? And if you're shouting at me, "It was that convention speech, Rush, in 2004 at the Democrat convention." Yes, that's correct. That was the occasion. But what did he do in this speech? In 2004 Barack Obama condemned...

U.S. airstrikes on Islamic State positions have begun. Fighter jets also bombed Islamic State militants in northwest Iraq on Thursday night. But it's not clear who the pilots were. The Pentagon immediately denied a New York Times report that the U.S. carried out Thursday's strikes. Iraqi military officials told CNN and the Wall Street Journal that the Iraqi Air Force had struck ISIS targets near Erbil, which is the regional capital of Iraqi Kurdistan and host to hundreds of U.S. military advisers. The Iraqi Air Force is poorly equipped, consisting of several Cessna planes carrying American-supplied Hellfire missiles, some American-...

Democratic leaders rallied behind President Obama’s decision to authorize airstrikes against Islamic terrorists in Iraq, applauding him for imposing limits on military action and vowing not to send U.S. troops back into Iraq. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said early Friday that it was “appropriate that the President authorized airstrikes against [the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria] should they threaten U.S. personnel and other interests in Erbil or elsewhere in Iraq.” “As the President reiterated, there is no American military solution to the situation in Iraq,” she said. “Defeating ISIS will require Iraq’s leaders to see beyond their divisions...

The U.S. gambled on local militias to keep ISIS in check. The president’s authorization of airstrikes is an admission that bet didn’t pay off. Friday morning, with a humanitarian mission already underway, the United States began airstrikes on ISIS in northern Iraq. What had been the U.S. policy—to rely on local forces to contain ISIS while waiting for a new Iraqi government to reach a political solution—is finished. The new policy is still taking shape, but it may eventually lead to more involvement from the special operations troops who have been in Iraq for weeks. President Obama said Thursday night...