WASHINGTON — Army Lt. Col. Dominic "Rocky" Baragona was killed in Iraq on the very day that he was going home.

He was en route, heading south on the road between Baghdad and Kuwait City, when a tractor-trailer lost control, jackknifed across the highway and crushed his Humvee.

That was more than six years ago, when the Iraq war was barely two months old, and Baragona's family has been fighting to hold someone accountable ever since. » read more

BAGHDAD — Iraq's pivotal national elections were thrown back into turmoil and potential delay Wednesday after Vice President Tariq al Hashemi vetoed part of an election law and sent it back to parliament.

Successful national elections, which are supposed to take place in January, are a crucial milestone for the departure of U.S. troops from Iraq. President Barack Obama wants to remove all American combat forces from Iraq by Aug. 31

Hashemi, a Sunni Muslim, charged that the measure doesn't provide adequate representation for millions of displaced Iraqis, most of whom are thought to be Sunnis. » read more

BAGHDAD — In a massacre that revived memories of Iraq's worst years of sectarian bloodshed, assailants dressed in Iraqi army uniforms savagely killed 13 men and boys late Sunday near the restive city of Abu Ghraib, according to Iraqi officials and villagers.

Many of the victims — some of whom reportedly were beheaded, while others were shot and then mutilated — were members of the Awakening, a Sunni Muslim movement that with U.S. backing and funding has fought the terrorist group al Qaida in Iraq.

Residents and security officials said that shortly before midnight, armed men in civilian vehicles raided two villages near Abu Ghraib — a city to the west of Baghdad that houses a major prison — took captives to a nearby cemetery named Seyid Mhimmed and killed them. » read more

BAGHDAD — Yaser Adnan, who owns a bookstore on Baghdad's Mutanabi Street, got new regulations from Iraq's Ministry of Culture last July. Trucks full of his books now sit at Iraq's borders for two to three weeks while he runs the list of titles by the authorities and gets the multiple approvals he needs to import them.

Adnan isn't happy with the new restrictions, but he said he understood the need for vigilance. Books that foment sectarian strife deserve to be banned, he said. "The state should interfere to prevent such books."

Journalists, actors and artists decried what they said were creeping limits on freedom of expression, but with sectarian killings still common and emotions raw from years of warfare between Shiite and Sunni Muslims, some Iraqis along Mutanabi Street were ready to trade free speech for stability. » read more