Iraq

For decades, Arab soldiers and Kurdish guerrillas battled by gun, by mortar, by rocket. Now, elections are the latest weapon in the struggle for land and power in Iraq's north. The ballot box has become a battleground in Nineveh province, a high-stakes combat zone where Kurds and Arabs will face off over the future shape of the country -- and confront each other over the past. The outcome could set the stage for another round of violence, which both sides insist that they do not want.

The amount of U.S. money spent on the Iraq war will surpass the cost of Vietnam by the end of the year, making it the second most expensive military conflict in American history, behind World War II, according to Pentagon figures provided Friday. If Congress approves the supplemental funding request submitted this week by the Obama administration, the cost of the war will rise by $87 billion for 2009, including a previous supplement approved during the Bush administration.

Sometimes, it's the forbidden stories, the ones people are afraid to tell in full, the ones that emerge only in fragments, that reveal the truth about a place. This is such a story. It's being told now not because the complete truth is known, but because the story nags at those familiar with its outlines, and because it says as much about Iraq's progress as it does about Iraq's resistance to change.

Inside the tidy suburban St. Louis home of John and Linda Johnson, no photos of their eldest daughter grace the walls. Army Pfc. LaVena Johnson was just 19 when she died in Iraq in 2005; to this day her parents cannot bear to display reminders of her life. John Johnson does possess other photos of his daughter -- explicit color shots of her autopsy and death scene. He shows them to a visitor. They are horrifying: LaVena in a pool of blood. LaVena's corpse on a coroner's table.

On election day, Sheik Wahid Issawi held court in his mudheef, a tribal guesthouse tucked among the family's acres of date groves and rice fields. Relatives filed in, kissed his hand and cheek and asked his guidance on how to vote in Saturday's provincial elections. His answer was simple: Choose the list of Prime Minister Nouri Maliki. If Maliki's Islamic Dawa Party proves victorious in Najaf province, the spiritual capital of Shiite Islam, the graying patriarch will have played a key role.

The financial crisis that has sent economies reeling the world over is finally seeping into Iraq, with potentially grave implications for the stability of the country. Car sales have plummeted. The once-booming property market has skidded to a halt. Electronic goods that were flying off the shelves a few months back are staying put. And in a country still threatened by an insurgency, more than a quarter of men ages 18 to 29 are unemployed.

As American forces work to revive Iraq's tattered farming economy, they seem to have found an effective new weapon. Cows. At the suggestion of an Iraqi women's group, the Marine Corps recently bought 50 cows for 50 Iraqi widows in the farm belt around Fallouja, once the insurgent capital of war-torn Anbar province.

The U.S. and Iraqi infantry soldiers walked in a staggered formation Thursday through northwestern Baghdad's Ghazaliya district, with its chocolate-colored villas and orange trees. With the new year, Iraq was now in charge of its own security, including places like this -- a mixed Sunni-Shiite neighborhood that had been the site of raging gun battles during the country's sectarian war, which lasted for most of 2006 and 2007.