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A FOX News cameraman helped save the life of an injured Marine in Afghanistan — and was injured himself — when the armored Humvee convoy he was traveling in was struck by a roadside bomb Sunday night in the Helmand province, a Taliban stronghold. Two U.S. Marines were badly injured when the improvised explosive device detonated near their convoy. Though FOX News cameraman Chris Jackson was injured in the blast, he went back to the burning vehicle to rescue one of the Marines. "The cabin was on fire and I jumped out," said Jackson in a report filed immediately following...

Lt. Col. William Russell returns to Freedom Radio after his stint of active duty. We are overjoyed to speak with him LIVE for an update on the campaign. It is vital that we take back the House folks. It is the grassroots that will return Conservative thought to DC, not from the top down. Join us on Freedom Radio at 8pm est, Sunday August 3 and give this wonderful guy your support.

Eeevil just providing another chat room for this historical and AWESOME movement for our troops! Move America Forward Webthon for the Troops http://www.ustream.tv/channel/from-the-frontlines http://www.moveamericaforward.org/

A US marine has been acquitted of charges that he ordered a cover up of the Haditha massacre, an incident in which 24 Iraqis were killed in cold blood in 2005. Lieutenant Andrew Grayson was declared "not guilty on all charges" by a military courtmartial after his defence accused the prosecution of relying on a botched and politically motivated investigation. The military intelligence official was the sixth of eight accused to be cleared over the controversial incident. The deaths of 24 people in the central Iraqi town ranks as one of the darkest incidents since the 2003 invasion. The killings...

WASHINGTON, June 3, 2008 – Medal of Honor recipient Army Spc. Ross A. McGinnis joined a select group of military heroes during a Pentagon ceremony here today. Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England hosted the event that added McGinnis’ name to the roster of other Army Medal of Honor recipients. Army Secretary Pete Geren and Gen. Richard R. Cody, the Army’s vice chief of staff, also attended the event at the library and conference center. Medal of Honor recipients “are our nation’s most-revered heroes,” England said. “And every time a name is added, that individual’s story enriches the significance of...

WASHINGTON — President Bush on Monday presented the nation's highest military award to a young soldier killed in Iraq when he threw himself on a hand grenade tossed into a Humvee where four other soldiers sat. Ross McGinnis of Knox, Pa., was 19 years old when he gave his life to save the lives of his colleagues. "The Medal of Honor is the nation's highest military distinction," the president said. "It's given for valor beyond anything that duty could require or a superior could command." Bush was joined at a White House ceremony by Vice President Dick Cheney and military...

Gen. David H. Petraeus said he expects to recommend further cuts in the size of U.S. forces in Iraq before he gives up command in September. The military is currently cutting its forces down to 15 brigades, or about 140,000 troops. That drawdown is scheduled to be concluded by July. Last month, President Bush endorsed Petraeus' call for a 45-day pause before the troop reduction. Petraeus noted those further cuts may be small but said that he always intended to make constant reassessments of force level requirements. "My sense is that I will be able to make a recommendation at...

Dem Leader: It's Not 'Practical' to Stop War-Funding Vote By Josiah Ryan CNSNews.com Staff Writer May 09, 2008 (CNSNews.com) - House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) told Cybercast News Service Thursday that he does not think it would be "practical" to stop the war in Iraq simply by not allowing a war-funding bill to come up for a vote on the House floor, something that it is within his power as Majority Leader to do. Hoyer also said that the troops in harm's way in Iraq need support from Congress. "I don't personally believe it's a practical alternative not to...

A court-martial panel on Friday found a Hawaii-based soldier not guilty in the killing of an unarmed Iraqi during a raid on a suspected insurgent hideout last year. Sgt. 1st Class Trey Corrales' friends and family erupted in cheers when the head of the military panel, or jury, read the verdict. The jury of nine soldiers acquitted Corrales of all three charges, including premeditated murder, after more than seven hours of deliberation. Corrales would have faced a minimum sentence of life in prison if he had been convicted. Corrales said it feels like a 200-pound weight had been lifted from...

Carrier launches are astonishing events. The plane is moved to within what seems like a bowling alley's length of the bow. A blast shield larger than any government building driveway Khomeini-flipper rises behind the fighter jet, and the jet's twin engines are cranked to maximum thrust. A slot-car slot runs down the middle of the bowling alley. The powered-up jet is held at the end of its slot by a steel shear pin smaller than a V-8 can. When the shear pin shears the jet is unleashed and so is a steam catapult that hurls the plane down the slot,...

Iraq: Democrats insisted the surge couldn't succeed. When it did, they claimed it failed because Iraqis weren't using the "political breathing space" it provided. In fact, Iraq's ongoing political progress is stunning.Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has been called an incompetent incapable of achieving consensus in a country that has never known representative government. The nation he tries in vain to run, we've been told for years now, is in a state of civil war. The only thing President Bush accomplished in invading it, they say, was to send American troops into a hopeless quagmire. But speaking Tuesday in Kuwait to...

Well, maybe if it was raining like it usually does and is forecast for this coming Saturday. But we did have plenty of t-shirts. BELOW LEFT: Cindy_True_Supporter. BELOW RIGHT: Lurker Bill's daughter BELOW LEFT: Fraxinus's T-shirt BELOW RIGHT: My T-shirt says "Kill Them All, Let the Devil sort It Out" in case you couldn't read it as it wraps around my winter surge. The roll call of our 9 Patriots included Legionnaires Glenn (USMC - WWII), Newbie Ed (Army - WWII), Halsey (USMC - Korea), Lurker Bill and daughter, Cindy_True_Supporter, Fraxinus, [Mrs] Trooprally and myself, [Mr] T. All Pics by...

Players from competing teams in the Mahmudiyah Soccer Tournament line up on the field April 20. U.S. Army photo by Pvt. Christopher McKenna, 3rd BCT, 101st Abn. Div. (AASLT). FORWARD OPERATING BASE MAHMUDIYAH — The Mahmudiyah Soccer Stadium officially opened April 20 with a 24-team, double-elimination tournament sponsored by the U.S. Agency for International Development. This was the first in a series of three tournaments scheduled over the next four months. Security for each event will be provided by the 25th Brigade, 6th Iraqi Army Division.“Many people are excited about both the tournament and the stadium,� said Garbi Abbas, the...

A worker in the Mahmudiyah Chicken Hatchery sets eggs into trays April 21 to begin the incubation process. U.S. Army photo by Pvt. Christopher McKenna, 3rd BCT, 101st Abn. Div. (AASLT). FORWARD OPERATING BASE MAHMUDIYAH — Eight months of preparation and planning paid off when the Mahmudiyah Chicken Hatchery received the first of three shipments of eggs for incubation April 21. The first batch contained 35,000 eggs shipped to Iraq from Holland. “The purpose in bringing in eggs from Holland is that they have a faster growing rate and they’re healthier than chickens from within this area,� said Maj. Alaric...

Residents unload fertilizer bags, April 10, at the Zambraniyah community center. Soldiers of Company B, 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, delivered 180 bags of fertilizer to the center. DoD photo. FORWARD OPERATING BASE KALSU — Zambraniyah farmers got much-needed assistance for their crops recently with a delivery from the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division. “Today we conducted a fertilizer distro for the farmers of Zambraniyah and I think this is something that definitely will continue helping to establish the foundation for economic growth in our sector,� said Capt. Cesar Santiago, a...

FORWARD OPERATING BASE SHARANA, Afghanistan, April 22, 2008 – Soldiers of Task Force Pacemaker, deployed from Fort Lewis, Wash., celebrated spring earlier this month with an organizational day. Soldiers bear the stains of taking part in a pie-eating contest during the “Spring Break 2008” festival at Forward Operating Base Sharana, Afghanistan. U.S. Army photo  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Dubbed “Spring Break 2008!,” the event gave soldiers a break from the rigors of their deployment and allowed them a chance to relax, hear live music, eat barbeque and even take part in a pie-eating contest. Soldiers enjoyed live...

WASHINGTON, April 22, 2008 – Army Spc. Pastor Paul Durano, originally from the Philippines, joined the ranks of his comrades and became an American citizen during a naturalization ceremony here earlier this month. Army Spc. Pastor Paul Durano became an American Citizen in Baghdad’s Al Faw Palace on April 12, 2008. Durano, a native of Cubu City, Philippines, assigned to the 10th Mountain Division, participated in a naturalization ceremony for 259 deployed soldiers. Courtesy photo  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Durano, a member of 10th Mountain Division’s Headquarters and Headquarter Battery, 5th Battalion, 25th Field Artillery Regiment, participated...

WASHINGTON, April 22, 2008 – Coalition forces killed a terrorist, detained suspects, and discovered homemade explosives during a series of operations today and yesterday. In a synchronized effort triggered by intelligence from an April 12 operation, coalition forces descended on targets in Salahuddin province to disrupt al-Qaida foreign terrorist leaders. The coordinated operations seized 21 individuals with alleged ties to the al-Qaida foreign terrorist network. As an operation in Sharqat began, one man rushed coalition forces, who responded to the hostile threat, killing the attacker. Coalition forces also found weapons inside the building and uncovered homemade explosives, which were safely...

BAGHDAD — Iraqi soldiers took control of the last bastions of the cleric Moktada al-Sadr’s militia in Basra on Saturday, and Iran’s ambassador to Baghdad strongly endorsed the Iraqi government’s monthlong military operation against the fighters. By Saturday evening, Basra was calm, but only after air and artillery strikes by American and British forces cleared the way for Iraqi troops to move into the Hayaniya district and other remaining Mahdi Army militia strongholds and begin house-to house searches, Iraqi officials said. Iraqi troops were meeting little resistance, said Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, the spokesman for the Iraqi Interior Ministry in...

BAGHDAD - CD shops sell love songs again. Some women emerge from their homes without veils, and alcohol sellers are coming out of hiding in the southern city of Basra — where religious vigilantes have long enforced strict Islamic codes. The changes in recent weeks mark a surprising show of government sway — at least for now — after an Iraqi-led military crackdown that was plagued by desertions, ragged planning and ended in a virtual stalemate with Shiite militias in Iraq's second-largest city. But it's unclear whether the new tone in parts of Basra represents a permanent tilt toward the...

The commander of forces in far western Iraq said April 15 the enemy his Marines and their Iraqi counterparts now confront is in disarray -- a smattering of foreign malcontents ruled by local thugs with little community support. Disillusioned foreigners from Yemen, Algeria, Syria and Saudi Arabia are coming to Iraq with dreams of "jihad" in fewer numbers than they were a year ago, arrive under-equipped and are poorly led once they infiltrate the province. "These are very often young to middle aged males who are kind of malcontents and misfits from their society," said Col. Patrick Malay, commander of...

Iraq's major Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish parties have closed ranks to force anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr to disband his Mahdi Army militia or leave politics, lawmakers and officials involved in the effort said Sunday. Such a bold move risks a violent backlash by al-Sadr's Shiite militia. But if it succeeds it could cause a major realignment of Iraq's political landscape. The first step will be adding language to a draft election bill banning parties that operate militias from fielding candidates in provincial balloting this fall, the officials and lawmakers said. The government intends to send the draft to parliament within...

Sen. Biden: Troop buildup is failure 16 minutes ago A leading Democrat on Saturday declared last year's troop buildup in Iraq a failure. Sen. Joe Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the military push didn't succeed because U.S. troops remain committed there in large numbers and political reconciliation has not been achieved. "The purpose of the surge was to bring violence in Iraq down so that its leaders could come together politically," said Biden, D-Del., in this week's Democratic radio address. "Violence has come down, but the Iraqis have not come together." He later added, "There is...

Congressional Democrats are warning U.S. Iraq commander General David Petraeus, and the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, not to attempt to minimize the seriousness of the situation in Iraq when they testify to Congress next week. VOA's Dan Robinson reports from Capitol Hill. A few days before General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker appear before House and Senate committees to deliver their latest update on Iraq, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi makes clear what she hopes they will not say. In a news conference together with the chairmen of the House committees on Armed Services and Foreign Affairs, she refers to the recent...

U.S. officials say a new U.S. intelligence report on Iraq shows that conditions there are improving and that progress is being made toward healing political rifts. U.S. media cited government officials as saying the latest National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq provides a more upbeat analysis of conditions than the last assessment made in August. However, the officials said the classified document did not include the recent deadly fighting between Iraqi forces and Shi'ite militias. The report, a collaboration by 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, has been released to top administration staffers as well as members of the U.S. Congress. Some of...

WE TUMBLED OUT of two Black Hawks onto a shrub-dusted mountainside. It was a windy, cold October evening. A half-moon illuminated the tall pines and peaks. Through night-vision goggles the soldiers and landscape glowed in a blurry green-and-white static. Just across the valley, lights flickered from a few homes nestled in the terraced farmlands of Yaka China, a notorious village in the Korengal River valley in Afghanistan’s northeastern province of Kunar. Yaka China was just a few villages south and around a bend in the river from the Americans’ small mountain outposts, but the area’s reputation among the soldiers was...

Attacks by insurgents and rival sectarian militias have fallen up to 80 percent in Baghdad and concrete blast walls that divide the capital could soon be removed, a senior Iraqi military official said on Saturday. Lieutenant-General Abboud Qanbar said the success of a year-long clampdown named "Operation Imposing Law" had reined in the savage violence between majority Shi'ites and minority Sunni Arabs dominant under Saddam Hussein. "In a time when you could hear nothing but explosions, gunfire and the screams of mothers and fathers and sons, and see bodies that were burned and dismembered, the people of Baghdad were awaiting...

Iraq's parliament adopted legislation Saturday on the reinstatement of thousands of former Baath party supporters to government jobs, a key benchmark sought by the United States as a step toward national reconciliation. The bill was approved by a unanimous show of hands on each of the law's 30 clauses. Titled the Accountability and Justice law, it seeks to relax restrictions on the rights of members of Saddam Hussein's now-dissolved Baath party to fill government posts. It is also designed to reinstate thousands of Baathists in government jobs from which they had been dismissed because of their ties to the party....

hristmas Eve, late afternoon, and U.S. soldiers from 4th Squadron, 2nd Cavalry Regiment piled into their Stryker armored vehicles for a patrol out on the streets of Baghdad. This is the fifth Christmas that U.S. troops have been out in Iraq, and commanders say the best way to keep morale up is to keep moving. There are special dinners, packages from home, religious services and decorations around camp, but no let-up in patrols. "My personal goal would be to try to go ahead and keep the mission constant," said Ray Ramsey, who has spent 23 years in the army and...

FALLUJAH, IRAQ – “You're probably safer here than you are in New York City,” said Marine First Lieutenant Barry Edwards when I arrived in Fallujah. I raised my eyebrows at him skeptically. “How many people got shot at last night in New York City?” he said. “Probably somebody,” I said. “Yeah, probably somebody did,” he said. “Somewhere.” Nobody was shot last night in Fallujah. No American has been shot anywhere in Fallujah since the 3rd Battalion 5th Marine Regiment rotated into the city two months ago. There have been no rocket or mortar attacks since the summer. Not a single...

As violence declines in Baghdad, the leading Democratic presidential candidates are undertaking a new and challenging balancing act on Iraq: acknowledging that success, trying to shift the focus to the lack of political progress there, and highlighting more domestic concerns like health care and the economy.

QARGHULIA, Iraq — Despite persistent sectarian tensions in the Iraqi government, war-weary Sunnis and Shiites are joining hands at the local level to protect their communities from militants on both sides, U.S. military officials say. In the last two months, a U.S.-backed policing movement called Concerned Citizens, launched last year in Sunni-dominated Anbar province under the banner of the Awakening movement, has spread rapidly into the mixed Iraqi heartland. ... "What you find is these people have lived together for decades with no problem until the terrorists arrived and tried to instigate the problem," ..."So they are perfectly willing to...

Violence is down 55 percent in Iraq since a U.S.-Iraqi security operation began this summer, U.S. officials said today, even as at least 15 Iraqis were reported killed in bombings and shootings. The dead included three children who were killed as they gathered around American troops who were handing out toys and sports equipment. The officials cautioned it was too early to credit Tehran with the recent lull in overall violence, despite recent optimism that Iran was stemming its support for Shiite militia fighters. "It's unclear to us what role the Iranians might have had in these developments, if any,"...

The British commander in southern Iraq confirmed yesterday that UK officials have been holding talks with supporters of the Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi army in the hope they would be drawn into the political process. Major General Graham Binns said the security situation in Basra province - to be handed over to Iraqi forces next month - was improving and attacks against British and Iraqi forces had fallen by 90% since British troops withdrew from their last base in the centre of the city in September. Confirming the talks with the Mahdi army, first reported in the Guardian, Binns...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - With an intensifying White House race drawing attention to his legacy, President George W. Bush could leave office without the baggage of complete failure in Iraq some analysts say. American success at quelling sectarian and insurgent violence has raised hopes that the relatively calmer conditions of the past few months in Iraq might last into early 2009, when the next U.S. president takes over. "The overall prediction has to be that George Bush will escape this without an obviously visible abject failure. It may become that again over time. But right now, it looks like Bush will...

BAGHDAD - An armed Sunni group has ended Al-Qaeda’s tight two-year grip on north Baghdad’s volatile Adhamiyah neighbourhood and is now in control, an AFP correspondent witnessed on Friday. A local militia calling itself the “revolutionaries of Adhamiyah” took over the Sunni district on the east bank of the Tigris on November 10 in a swift and audacious raid that sent Al-Qaeda fleeing from its last stronghold in Baghdad. On Friday, members of the “revolutionaries of Adhamiyah” controlled main roads into the neighbourhood as well the square housing the famous Abu Hanifa mosque where Saddam Hussein made his last public...

House Democrats pushed through a $50 billion bill for the Iraq war Wednesday night that would require President Bush to start bringing troops home in coming weeks with a goal of ending combat by December 2008. The legislation, passed 218-203, was largely a symbolic jab at Bush, who already has begun reducing force levels but opposes a congressionally mandated timetable on the war. And while the measure was unlikely to pass in the Senate — let alone overcome a presidential veto — Democrats said they wanted voters to know they weren't giving up. "The fact is, we can no longer...

BAGHDAD — Taking advantage of a dramatic drop in car bombings and sectarian murders, Baghdad residents are once again venturing out to local markets and restaurants after dark in many parts of the city. They're celebrating weddings and birthdays in public places and eating grilled carp on the Tigris River late into the night. A local television station has begun a feature called "Baghdad Nights," showing the capital's residents shopping, eating and socializing after the sun has set— a sight that until recently was unheard of in most neighborhoods. In Mansour, in central Baghdad , eight young brides, dripping in...

More active members of the military died during two years of peacetime in the early 1980s than died during a two-year period of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a government report. The Congressional Research Service, which compiled war casualty statistics from the Revolutionary War to present day conflicts, reported that 4,699 members of the U.S. military died in 1981 and '82 — a period when the U.S. had only limited troop deployments to conflicts in the Mideast. That number of deaths is nearly 900 more than the 3,800 deaths during 2005 and '06, when the U.S. was fully...

As the congressional session lurches toward a close, Democrats are confronting some demoralizing arithmetic on Iraq. The numbers tell a story of political and substantive paralysis more starkly than most members are willing to acknowledge publicly, or perhaps even to themselves. Since taking the majority, they have forced 40 votes on bills limiting President Bush’s war policy. Only one of those has passed both chambers, even though both are run by Democrats. That one was vetoed by Bush. Indeed, the only war legislation enacted during this Congress has been to give the president exactly what he wants, and exactly what...

AGHDAD -- Rocket and mortar attacks in Iraq have decreased to their lowest levels in more than 21 months, the U.S. military said Monday. Last month saw 369 "indirect fire" attacks _ the lowest number since February 2006. October's total was half of what it was in the same month a year ago. And it marked the third month in a row of sharply reduced insurgent activity, the military said. The U.S. command issued the tallies a day after Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said suicide attacks and other bombings in Baghdad also have dropped dramatically, calling it an end...

Tripoli, 7 Nov. (AKI) - A former leader of an armed Islamic group in Libya, Numan Bin Uthman, has written a letter to al-Qaeda second in command Ayman al-Zawahiri telling him that Jihadi groups in Arab countries have failed. "Dear Doctor Ayman, as I told you during a meeting in Kandahar [in Afghanistan] in 2000, the experience of the Jihadi groups in Arab countries is failed and despite our appeals, the armed groups are divided and will not unite," he said in the letter, a copy of which was published in the London based pan-Arab daily al-Hayat. The letter by...

BAGHDAD - Police found the bodies of six victims of sectarian violence dumped in three Iraqi cities Friday. There were no reported shootings or bombings, and it was only the second day this year that the sectarian death toll fell below 10, according to an Associated Press count.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASERELEASE No. 20071103-04November 3, 2007Tip leads Iraqi National Police to cacheMulti-National Division – BaghdadFORWARD OPERATING BASE LOYALTY, Iraq – Based off a tip from a concerned citizen, officers with the 1st Battalion, 4th Brigade, 1st Iraqi National Police Division recovered a cache in the courtyard and surrounding areas of the al Mustafa mosque in the Mualameen neighborhood of eastern Baghdad Nov. 1.  The cache included two explosively-formed penetrators, eight rocket-propelled grenades, three rocket-propelled grenade launchers, seven rocket-propelled grenade motors, three rockets, 14 mortars, one sniper rifle with a scope and a 10-round magazine. A spool of wire, body...

FORT HOOD – They are brothers – twins actually. Same rank. Same company. Same deployment. Same future assignment. It was a "blessing" that Staff Sgts. Baron and Braulio Fulp both ended up in the 89th Military Police Brigade's Headquarters and Headquarters Company, Baron said soon after they returned Thursday from a 15-month deployment to Iraq. More than 100 soldiers of the brigade's Headquarters and Headquarters Company returned to Fort Hood on Thursday. They were joined by about 15 from the 13th Sustainment Command's 4th Sustainment Brigade. Soldiers from the military police brigade's Headquarters and Headquarters Detachment, 720th Military Police Battalion...

The Longest Morning By Jeff Emanuel Published 11/1/2007 12:08:23 AM This article is the cover story of The American Spectator's new, November 2007 issue. To subscribe to our monthly print edition, click here. Samarra, Iraq THE DAY OF AUGUST 26, 2007, began like any other for the soldiers of Charlie Company, 2-505 Parachute Infantry Regiment (from the 82nd Airborne Division) -- with a mission in the city. Over a year into its deployment to Samarra, Iraq, and now working on the three-month extension announced by Secretary of Defense Gates in the spring, the company knew the city like the back...

BAGHDAD — The monthly toll of U.S. service members who have died in Iraq is on track to being the lowest in nearly two years, with at least 34 troop deaths recorded as of Tuesday, but the military cautioned it's too early to declare a long-term trend. Iraqi civilians, meanwhile, faced more attacks on Tuesday. At least four mortar rounds slammed into a village near Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, killing a woman and wounding five other civilians, police said. In Baghdad, gunmen in a speeding car tossed a hand grenade into a crowd of shoppers in eastern Baghdad, killing...

Hunting al Qaeda, I of III Witches Sink, Insurgents Float Writing these words from downtown Baqubah at a place called Combat Outpost White Castle, I am surrounded by soldiers from Alpha Company 1-12 Cav who are preparing for combat. Tomorrow, [15 July] they will clear a dangerous palm grove that abuts the Diyala River, a place where just last night approximately 7 suspected enemy were killed by American forces. Among the dead apparently were several members of Tonto’s family. But before tomorrow’s mission, there is today’s mission, which includes linking up with 1920 Revolution Brigades [1920s] to swap information. Open...

A few months ago, the national media coverage of the war in Iraq was downright depressing for military families and their supporters. News media coverage of Iraq was showcasing acts of violence on a nightly basis. Television commentators solemnly assured us that Iraq was a hopeless cause and was already consumed by a full-blown civil war. Anti-military protesters were waging constant protests here on the home front, throwing red paint at veterans' memorials and military recruitment centers. But now things are changing in a big way.

Iraq Warns Against Early U.S. Withdrawal   Jul 20 08:59 PM US/Eastern By NAHAL TOOSI Associated Press Writer       UNITED NATIONS (AP) - Iraq's deputy prime minister on Friday defended his government's progress in establishing security and ending political infighting, and warned that an early U.S. troop pullout would be disastrous for his country. Barham Salih told a U.N. forum that the time had come to "define more clearly" the status of U.S.-led troops in Iraq, though he emphasized that Iraqi forces needed more time to take over security on their own. Salih spoke during a U.N....