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Roy Gutman

Syria plants anti-personnel mines on Turkish border

The Syrian military in the past month planted a band of anti-personnel mines along stretches of the border with Turkey, where last year more than 10,000 Syrian refugees fled the Assad regime's crackdown on the pro-democracy "Arab Spring" uprising, Syrian witnesses said. | 03/11/12 18:56:00 By - Roy Gutman

Greek austerity moves leave nation's economic safety net in tatters

The shipyards are deserted in this town just west of Piraeus, Greece's main port, and unemployment hovers at 60 percent. The country is at the edge of bankruptcy, and with more government spending cuts looming, newly impoverished Greeks are turning to charity for health care, medicines and food. | 02/08/12 15:34:00 By - Roy Gutman

Blaming the messenger: Greece's chief statistician under fire

Greece has won strong endorsements in the past year for shoring up its economic statistics after years of fudging data to conceal its deficits and financial mismanagement, but the man who's responsible for restoring the country's reputation is now the target of possible prosecution. | 01/31/12 18:02:00 By - Roy Gutman

With U.S. troops hardly gone, Iraq's government is coming apart

Is the country headed for another round of sectarian strife? Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki, a Shiite Muslim, is driving to consolidate control and sideline more secular politicians in a battle that increasingly appears to be a fight to the finish in which there can be no compromise. | 01/22/12 13:46:00 By - Roy Gutman

Iraq's Maliki accused of detaining hundreds of political opponents

Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki's security services have locked up more than 1,000 members of other political parties over the past several months, detaining many of them in secret locations with no access to legal counsel and using "brutal torture" to extract confessions, his chief political rival has charged. | 01/19/12 17:59:00 By - Roy Gutman, Sahar Issa and Laith Hammoudi

Iranian dissident group in Iraq agrees to quit Camp Ashraf

The diplomatic standoff over a group of Iranian dissidents in Iraq appeared to be resolved Wednesday when the dissidents agreed to abandon their camp north of Baghdad and move to a former U.S. Army base, where the United Nations will process their applications for refugee status in Europe and elsewhere. | 12/28/11 18:23:00 By - Roy Gutman

Dysfunctional banking sector helps keep Iraq in economic shambles

Iraq lacks the banking infrastructure to grow out of its financial mess and the political will to undertake dramatic economic reform. There are no electronic funds transfers for payroll or bills and almost no checking accounts or credit cards. ATMs are few and far between. There are no home improvement loans and few mortgages. For most Iraqis, banks serve only as a safety deposit box. | 12/25/11 00:01:00 By - Roy Gutman

Iraq arrests four security officials following Baghdad bombings

The Iraqi government has arrested four of its own security officers in connection with a devastating wave of car bombs that killed 65 and wounded more than 200 civilians in Baghdad on Thursday, Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki disclosed Saturday. | 12/24/11 16:41:08 By - Roy Gutman and Laith Hammoudi

Iraq's Maliki rebuffs Biden, signals move to Shiite rule

Rebuffing a plea by the Obama administration, Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki signaled Wednesday that he's ready to gradually drop his key partner party, the largely Sunni Iraqiya bloc, and move toward a government run by the country's Shiite majority at the expense of minority Sunnis and Kurds. | 12/21/11 18:41:00 By - Roy Gutman

Iraqi VP denies terror charges as sectarian dispute continues

Iraqi Vice President Tariq al Hashimi struck back at the Shiite Muslim-led government Tuesday, dismissing official allegations that he had masterminded multiple assassinations of security officials as based on fabricated evidence. | 12/20/11 18:45:00 By - Roy Gutman

Iraq orders vice president's arrest after TV 'confessions'

Iraq's Shiite Muslim-dominated government ordered the arrest Monday night of Vice President Tariq al Hashimi, a Sunni, after televising the reputed confessions of three bodyguards that implicated him in a string of assassinations of leading Shiite military and government officials. | 12/19/11 19:10:00 By - Roy Gutman

As U.S. troops exit, Iraq's political crisis deepens

Iraq's political crisis deepened Sunday as Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki ordered the country's vice president off of a plane and had him held temporarily at Baghdad airport, on suspicion that members of his security detail took part in a string of assassinations. | 12/18/11 17:30:00 By - Roy Gutman

As U.S. departs Iraq, it leaves two allies that aren't speaking

More than five years have passed since Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah last received Iraq's prime minister, Nouri al Maliki. The Saudi monarch views Maliki as untrustworthy and, even worse, "an Iranian agent." | 12/18/11 00:01:00 By - Roy Gutman

NATO ends Iraq mission as drama unfolds in Green Zone

NATO closed down its small training mission here Saturday even as there was high drama in Baghdad's international zone, as troops and tanks surrounded the homes of three prominent Sunni politicians | 12/17/11 16:28:00 By - Roy Gutman

Last U.S. base in Iraq prepares to turn out the lights

The young Army officer who's in charge of logistics at the last U.S. base in Iraq is a Sudanese refugee, one of the "lost boys" who fled their war-ravaged homeland in the mid-1990s. His staff sergeant survived a deadly improvised-explosives attack during his third tour here in 2005, then returned for two more. When they and the five other members of their team process the final load of equipment from what was once a network of more than 500 American bases, the nearly nine-year U.S. occupation and military presence in Iraq will be history. | 12/15/11 18:28:00 By - Roy Gutman

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