Free Republic

WASHINGTON—A handful of lawmakers are saying President Barack Obama must get congressional authorization for military action in Iraq, a vote that could exacerbate tensions between the branches and present members with a difficult vote just before the midterm elections. Mr. Obama's announcement of limited airstrikes last week aimed at slowing the advance of militants from the Islamic State toward the Kurdish city of Erbil initially triggered few complaints that he had usurped the power to declare war that Congress claims as its own. But with the president warning over the weekend that "I don't think we're going to solve this...

On board Iraqi army helicopter delivering aid to the trapped Yazidis, Jonathan Krohn sees a hellish sight Mount Sinjar stinks of death. The few Yazidis who have managed to escape its clutches can tell you why. “Dogs were eating the bodies of the dead,” said Haji Khedev Haydev, 65, who ran through the lines of Islamic State jihadists surrounding it. On Sunday night, I became the first western journalist to reach the mountains where tens of thousands of Yazidis, a previously obscure Middle Eastern sect, have been taking refuge from the Islamic State forces that seized their largest town, Sinjar....

Pertinent parts of Iraqi constitution: "...2- The Council of Representatives may withdraw confidence from the Prime Minister based on the request of one-fifth (1/5) of its members. This request may be submitted only after a question has been put to the Prime Minister and after at least seven days from submitting the request. 3- The Council of Representatives shall decide to withdraw confidence from the Prime Minister by an absolute majority of its members." ---There has not been a successful "no confidence" vote against Maliki. "...Article 73: First: The President of the Republic shall name the nominee of the Council...

There is an idiom, “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me,” or as George W. Bush said, “fool me once…you fooled me, can’t get fooled again.” However one puts it, the proverbial definition is that after being tricked once, one should be very wary so a person cannot trick one again. Republican warmongers certainly understand they fooled Americans in 2003 and lied through their teeth to take the country to war against a sovereign nation with no connection to al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, or the terror attacks on 911. Now, they are back again lying,...

U.S. air strikes since Friday have opened a corridor through which tens of thousands of Yazidis, trapped and starving on a mountain in Iraq, have escaped to safety in Kurdistan. The Kurds, whose peshmerga fighters were sent reeling by the Islamic State last week, bolstered now by the arrival of U.S. air power, recaptured two towns. But the peshmerga have apparently lost the strategically important town of Jalawla, 20 miles from Iran, the furthest east that ISIS forces have penetrated. Last week's gains by the Islamic State caused Republican hawks to flock to the Sunday talk shows. "ISIS is...

On Thursday, the Pentagon revealed that the Yazidi minorities have been encircled by Islamic State forces on Mt. Sinjar for weeks were in much better shape. Military officials determined that select airstrikes on ISIS positions around the mountain had been successful, and some Yazidis had already evacuated the area. Defense officials determined that the success of contingency operations against ISIS in western Iraq indicated that no further action would need to be undertaken. In a press conference on Thursday, President Barack Obama confirmed that the mission to save the Yazidis had been a success. He added that, while the...

President Barack Obama on Thursday promised to expand U.S. humanitarian relief to Iraqis threatened by the advancing army of the Islamic State militants. He took credit for alleviating the genocide threat to thousands trapped on a mountaintop but said the situation “remains dire” throughout the country. Obama also said U.S. airstrikes would continue to protect Americans and U.S. facilities in Iraq, and he said Washington has increased its delivery of military assistance to Iraqi and Kurdish forces fighting the Islamic State. But he gave no indication he intends to shift from the limited, defensive military campaign he announced last week...

An Iraqi MP and United Nations relief workers today dismissed claims by the U.S. and the UK that the humanitarian crisis on Mount Sinjar was all but over. Yazidi MP Vian Dakhil claims some 70-80,000 refugees are still stranded on the mountain despite assertions from American and British leaders that they number only in their low thousands. President Barack Obama yesterday said the ten-day siege by the Islamic State had been 'broken' by missile strikes and humanitarian aid drops, allowing tens of thousands of Yazidis to escape. Downing Street also said the situation had improved so much that further aid...

ISTANBUL — Yazidi leaders and emergency relief officials on Thursday strongly disputed American claims that the siege of Mount Sinjar in northern Iraq had been broken and that the crisis was effectively over, saying that tens of thousands of Yazidis remained on the mountain in desperate conditions. On Wednesday, the United States military said that a small team of 18 Marines and Special Operations soldiers had completed an assessment of conditions on Mount Sinjar and found that most of the Yazidis, a small Iraqi religious minority, had succeeded in escaping, and the numbers remaining were in the low thousands. American...

Last week, we were told there were 40,000 Yazidis on Sinjar Mountain facing starvation if they remained there, and slaughter by ISIS if they came down. But a team of Marines and Special Forces that helicoptered in has reported back that, with a corridor off the mountain opened up by U.S. air strikes, the humanitarian crisis is over. The few thousand who remain can be airdropped food and water. The rest can be brought out. The emergency over, President Obama should think long and hard about launching a new air war in Iraq or Syria. For Iraq War III holds...