More U.S. troops heading to Baghdad
WASHINGTON – The U.S. is sending another 300 troops to Iraq to beef up security at the U.S. Embassy and elsewhere in the Baghdad area to protect U.S. citizens and property, officials said Monday.
That raises the total U.S. troop presence in Iraq to approximately 750, the Pentagon said.
The State Department, meanwhile, announced that it was temporarily moving an unspecified “small number” of embassy staff in Baghdad to U.S. consulates in the northern city of Irbil and the southern city of Basra. This is in addition to some embassy staff moved out of Baghdad earlier this month,
Obama names ex-CEO as new head of VA
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama sought to turn the page Monday on a humiliating chapter in the history of the Veterans Affairs Department, tapping former Procter & Gamble CEO Robert McDonald to take over the sprawling agency.
A former Army captain, McDonald would bring a blend of corporate and military experience to a bureaucracy reeling from revelations of chronic, system-wide failure and veterans dying while on long waiting lists for treatment. His selection reflects Obama’s desire to put a tested manager in charge as the White House calls for a top-to-bottom overhaul of the VA.
Bodies of missing teens found in Israel
JERUSALEM – The Israeli military found the bodies of three missing teenagers on Monday, just over two weeks after they were abducted in the West Bank, allegedly by Hamas militants a grisly discovery that culminated a feverish search that led to Israel’s largest ground operation in the Palestinian territory in nearly a decade and raised fears of renewed fighting with Hamas.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed tough action as he convened an emergency meeting of his Security Cabinet.
“Hamas is responsible, and Hamas will pay,” the Israeli leader said in a statement, adding the teenagers “were kidnapped and murdered in cold blood by human animals.” In Washington, President Barack Obama urged restraint.
Eyal Yifrah, 19, Gilad Shaar, 16, and Naftali Fraenkel, a 16-year-old with dual Israeli-American citizenship, disappeared June 12 while hitchhiking home from the Jewish seminaries where they were studying near the West Bank city of Hebron.
Associated Press
