Free Republic

Excerpt - A Kurdish army brigade in northern Iraq was undergoing intensive urban combat training as it readied for deployment in the latest Baghdad security operation and was expected to take on the capital's Mahdi Army Shiite militia, its commander said on Saturday. Meanwhile, three Iraqi generals told The Associated Press that the Iraqi commander who will lead the overall Baghdad security mission was the government's second choice and only got the job after the U.S. military objected to the first officer named to the post by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. In the northern city of Irbil, Brig. Gen. Nazir...