Iraq

CINCINNATI - The Rev. Chris Beard is a theological conservative, make no mistake about it. He believes the Bible is the word of God. He believes the Holy Spirit speaks to him directly. He believes, as an article of faith, that abortion and same-sex marriage are wrong. Still, when a group of religious leaders in Ohio held two days of meetings in Cincinnati recently to talk about economic and racial justice, issues usually associated with the political left, there was Beard, a fourth-generation Pentecostal preacher with a disarming smile, a shaved head and a set of convictions that knock holes in the stereotypes about white evangelical Protestants.

KABUL, Afghanistan — Ryan Crocker, a respected diplomat who came out of retirement to become the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, is leaving his post this summer, a year ahead of schedule. U.S. Embassy spokesman Mark Thornburg on Tuesday confirmed Crocker's plan to depart. Rumors had swirled during the weekend summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in Chicago, which Crocker attended. The 62-year-old Crocker had served as the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, taking the diplomatic helm there during a crucial period, from 2007 to 2009, that coincided with a sharp increase in U.S. troop levels to tamp down escalating violence.

CHICAGO - When the White House sent a last-minute invitation for Asif Ali Zardari to attend the two-day NATO summit, they were taking a highly public gamble. Would sharing the spotlight with President Obama and other global leaders induce the Pakistani president to allow vital supplies to reach alliance troops fighting in Afghanistan? But long before the summit ended Monday, the answer was clear: No deal. Zardari's refusal to reopen the supply routes left a diplomatic blot on a summit that NATO sought to cast as the beginning of the end of the conflict in Afghanistan.

A Riverside County jury convicted a parolee Friday of first-degree murder for shooting a Riverside police officer in 2010, a brutal slaying that occurred after the officer pleaded with the killer. Earl Ellis Green, 46, faces a possible death sentence for the murder of Officer Ryan Bonaminio, an Iraq War veteran who had been on the force for four years. The jury deliberated for about three hours before returning with the guilty verdict with special circumstances that would make Green subject to execution.

ABC News is scaling back its presence in Iraq and will rely on BBC News for daily coverage of developments there. "By working more closely with the BBC, we will increase our capabilities in Iraq and the region, while at the same time freeing our people and resources to concentrate on the unique reporting that our audiences value so highly," ABC News President David Westin wrote in a memo to employees Wednesday. The two networks have a long-standing relationship in which they share content.

They are known as the "men of the night." The rugged group sits in front of a liquor store in the northern foothills of Iraq, swapping stories and glasses of whiskey as their horses munch nearby. As dusk approaches, they begin strapping heavy cartons onto their animals for the long journey ahead. Their cargo: bottles of vodka and Scotch destined for Iran. Trade has flourished between the two regions for centuries. Some of it is legitimate, some of it not. In the ethnic Kurdish enclaves on either side of the border, many livelihoods are built on the illicit flow of alcohol, cigarettes and other contraband into Iran.

EVERYTHING WAS going swimmingly on the panel. The subject was politics and faith, and I was on stage with two clergymen with progressive spiritual leanings, and a moderator who is liberal and Catholic. We were having a discussion with the audience of 1,300 people in Washington about many of the social justice topics on which we agree -- the immorality of the federal budget, the wrongness of the president's war in Iraq.

Is Greg Valentini going to make it? After harrowing combat tours in Afghanistan and Iraq, years of nomadic dumpster diving in Lakewood, and a meth addiction that nearly destroyed him, can he save himself? Valentini occasionally opens a photo album and sneaks a peek at an unflattering picture ? it's the monster version of himself. The Great Valentini, as he's known to some friends, is blitzed in the photo, high on meth, a crazy-eyed zombie slumped on a sofa. "It's to remind me where I come from," he says in his dorm room at the Volunteers of America vet center in Hollywood, where he and other vets from Afghanistan and Iraq now fight addiction and other vestiges of war. When I visited Valentini in mid-February, he was in a bit of trouble at the VOA. With a weekend pass, he had taken a train to his old neighborhood and had begun walking to a spot along the tracks where he knew he'd find a dealer.

The question was direct. So too was the answer. "Where's your biggest threat area?" asked Marine Maj. Phillip Zeman. "Anywhere, everywhere, sir," answered Cpl. Phil Shy as their Humvee sped through what was left of Fallouja's commercial district Friday. Two months after Marines wrested control of the Sunni Triangle city from insurgents in a weeklong battle, some of the war-weary units involved in the fight are close to going home. But the U.S. job here is far from over.

Where I grew up in the Midwest during the 1950s and early '60s, Memorial Day was no more about remembering the nation's war dead than Labor Day was about honoring working stiffs. It was a "free day." Falling on a Monday, Memorial Day made possible that great innovation, "the long weekend." As a family, we gathered in backyards for barbecues and to celebrate the informal beginning of summer. We did not gather in cemeteries to pay homage. During my years as a serving soldier, Memorial Day connoted something quite different: It meant no scheduled training.

SAN DIEGO - A Marine sergeant who criticized President Obama on Facebook was notified Wednesday that he is being dismissed from the service with an other-than-honorable discharge. Gary Stein, 26, a nine-year veteran who served in Iraq, will be demoted to lance corporal, and his discharge status will make him ineligible for most federal veterans benefits, after Brig. Gen. Daniel Yoo accepted the unanimous recommendation of an Administrative Separation Board. The panel found that he made disparaging comments about Obama that were detrimental to good order and discipline and violated military law. Civilian lawyers for Stein said they would continue to fight in federal court to prevent Stein from being dismissed or to win his reinstatement.

WASHINGTON - Matt Pizzo has a law degree, can-do attitude, proven leadership skills, and expertise in communications and satellite technology from his four years in the Air Force. Yet the 29-year-old has been told that he's overqualified, too old, too "non-traditional," and that he's fallen behind his civilian contemporaries. "It was disheartening, to say the least," he said of his latest job rejection. "But it's typical, I'm afraid. " For unemployed veterans of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, rejection is a special ordeal.

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon will reorganize its spy service to target national security threats around the globe after a decade of focusing chiefly on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a senior defense official said Monday. The official said several hundred case officers and analysts at the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency would be shifted to the new Defense Clandestine Service. The fledgling service is supposed to work closely with CIA officers based at U.S. embassies overseas to collect and distribute intelligence on foreign terrorist networks, nuclear proliferation and other difficult targets, the official said.

A series of explosions and shootings struck Iraq on Tuesday, leaving scores dead and injured a week before a major Arab summit in Baghdad aimed at showcasing the nation's stability after the U.S. military withdrawal. Starting shortly after dawn, at least 20 bombs exploded at 13 sites, from Baghdad to the northern city of Kirkuk to the southern cities of Hillah and Karbala. The nationwide death toll was at least 46, with more than 200 injured, the Associated Press reported. At least two car bombs exploded near the heavily fortified Green Zone, where next week's Arab League summit is scheduled to take place.

Drone crews protect U.S. ground troops by watching over them 24 hours a day from high above. Sitting before video screens thousands of miles from their remote-controlled aircraft, the crews scan for enemy ambushes and possible roadside bombs, while also monitoring what the military calls "patterns of life. " Only rarely do drone crews fire on the enemy. The rest of the time, they sit and watch. For hours on end. Day after day. It can get monotonous and, yes, boring. It can also be gut-wrenching.

Turkey envisions itself as a Middle East power, a dynamic Islamic democracy with a thriving economy that can help guide the region through the turmoil of the "Arab Spring. " But it has stumbled in its efforts to stop the violence and repression in its neighbor and onetime ally Syria. Although Turkish officials have harshly criticized President Bashar Assad's response to a yearlong uprising that is increasingly taking on the character of a civil war, they have not budged the Syrian leader.

Ruby Pierce was packed in body armor and a Kevlar helmet, ready for the 15-minute drive from the military landing strip to her new posting at Forward Operating Base Courage. Four blue Ford Expeditions crusted with dirt to the roofline pulled up with her escorts: 14 hard-faced soldiers of fortune in black armor. The convoy, a private security escort hired by the U.S. military, hit the streets of Mosul at 70 mph, lights flashing and a siren screaming.

baghdad -- The security company Blackwater USA was approved Friday to resume escorting American officials in Baghdad, just days after the fatal shooting of 11 Iraqis galvanized the Iraqi government over the company's conduct and the immunity its employees enjoy from Iraqi law. The decision by the U.S.

A bipartisan group of California legislators has asked the secretary of the Navy to reconsider a request from the Marine Corps that the Medal of Honor be awarded posthumously to a Marine from San Diego killed in Iraq. The group says newly discovered video and a report from a noted pathologist merit a review of the decision by then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates not to recommend that the Medal of Honor be awarded to Sgt. Rafael Peralta . Peralta, 25, an immigrant from Mexico, was killed in November 2004 while Marines were clearing insurgents from barricaded homes in Fallouja.