Iraqi official's book blasts U.S. failures in Iraq

    WASHINGTON, April 8 (Xinhua) -- Ali A Allawi, senior adviser to the prime minister of Iraq and once served as Iraq's trade, defense and finance minister at different times, blasted U.S. failures in Iraq in his 500-page book "The Occupation of Iraq," the AP reported Sunday.

    "The corroded and corrupt state of Saddam was replaced by the corroded, inefficient, incompetent and corrupt state of the new order," Allawi concluded in the book published by Yale University Press. Full story

Six U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq

    BAGHDAD, April 8 (Xinhua) -- Six U.S. soldiers were killed and four others wounded in insurgent attacks on Sunday, the U.S. military said.

    Three soldiers were killed and another wounded when a roadside bomb hit their patrol in south of Baghdad, the U.S. military said in a statement. Full story

U.S. military "surge" in Iraq to maintain till August

    WASHINGTON, April 2 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. Defense Department said Monday that the American military "surge" in Iraq to help quell sectarian violence in the war-torn country would maintain until August this year.

    The U.S. military was maintaining a troop level of 20 combat brigades in Iraq, and with additional troops rotating into Iraq, the buildup would continue at that level through August 2007, said Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman.  Full story

U.S. Senate passes Iraq withdrawal bill

    WASHINGTON, March 29 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Senate on Thursday passed a bill that would require President George W. Bush to bring all combat troops home from Iraq within a year.

    On a 51-to-47 vote, Democrats narrowly pushed through the 122-billion-U.S. dollar war funding bill, which includes a timeline to pull out all U.S. combat troops by March 31, 2008. Full story