BAQUBA, May 15 (IPS) - Farmers in the Diyala province in Iraq have been hit by just about every crisis possible. First the security disaster dried up supplies and markets, then lack of electricity cut irrigation, and now comes a drying up of water resources.

WASHINGTON, May 14 (IPS) - Early this month, the George W. Bush administration's plan to create a new crescendo of accusations against Iran for allegedly smuggling arms to Shiite militias in Iraq encountered not just one but two setbacks.

WASHINGTON, May 14 (IPS) - If politics makes strange bedfellows, then the relationship between Iran, the United States and the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq is the strangest ménage à trois in international relations today.

FALLUJAH, May 12 (IPS) - Sharp increases in food prices have generated a new wave of anti-occupation and anti-U.S. sentiment in Fallujah.

WASHINGTON, May 9 (IPS) - The P5+1 -- the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany -- will present Tehran with a secret incentive package in the next few days to convince Iran to suspend its enrichment programme and enter negotiations.

BAQUBA, May 9 (IPS) - Water supply is drying out in what was once the agriculturally rich Diyala province north of Baghdad. Baquba, the capital city of Diyala, is now running out of water both for drinking and for irrigation.

NEW YORK, May 8 (IPS) - As U.S. television networks continue their silence about their use of retired military officers to "sell" progress in Iraq, members of the U.S. House of Representatives are calling on the Defence Department Inspector General to investigate the Pentagon-sponsored public relations effort.

WASHINGTON, May 7 (IPS) - Growing impatience in Congress over the enormous costs being racked up by the Iraq war, as well as the Pentagon's belief that it needs more troops in Afghanistan to fight insurgents there, is putting the vaunted success of the George W. Bush administration's "surge" strategy to the test.

NEW YORK, May 7 (IPS) - As human rights groups demanded the release of a report on a long-running investigation of the role of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the unlawful interrogations of detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay, new torture claims were leveled at two U.S. military contractors by a former Abu Ghraib "ghost" detainee who was wrongly imprisoned and later released without charge.

WASHINGTON, May 5 (IPS) - Three weeks after the 9/11 terror attacks, former U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld established an official military objective of not only removing the Saddam Hussein regime by force but overturning the regime in Iran, as well as in Syria and four other countries in the Middle East, according to a document quoted extensively in then Undersecretary of Defence for Policy Douglas Feith's recently published account of the Iraq war decisions.

WASHINGTON, May 3 (IPS) - Five years since U.S. president George W. Bush's infamous "Mission Accomplished" speech, critics say the administration has yet to show a credible way to actually "accomplish" the mission that could see a peaceful Iraq and a return home of U.S. troops.

DAMASCUS, May 2 (IPS) - "I'll go to any country," says Zirgon Tomas al-Aya, a 60-year-old Iraqi standing outside the UN Refugee Agency headquarters in Damascus.

FALLUJAH, May 2 (IPS) - Amidst unemployment and impoverishment, Iraqis now face a cutting down of their monthly food ration ? much of it already eaten away by official corruption.

SAN FRANCISCO, May 2 (IPS) - Arturo Gonzalez delivered his closing arguments inside a packed courtroom on the 17th floor of the Federal Building in downtown San Francisco.

WASHINGTON, Apr 30 (IPS) - The price of oil and other international economic issues are rapidly taking centre stage among the dominant foreign policy concerns of the U.S. public, which has also become increasingly sceptical about the effectiveness of military action to further Washington's interests abroad, according to a major new survey released Wednesday by the influential Foreign Affairs journal.

SOFIA, Apr 28 (IPS) - Bulgaria, sometimes considered a safe haven for Iraqi asylum seekers, has denied refugee status to all but two applicants from Iraq since December last year. Bulgaria's move contributes to blocking land access to Europe for Iraqis fleeing violence.

DAMASCUS, Apr 26 (IPS) - More than a million Iraqis were lucky enough to flee into Syria. But in this relatively safe haven, there is no getting away from poverty.

WASHINGTON, Apr 23 (IPS) - The nomination of Gen. David Petraeus to be the new head of the Central Command not only ensures that he will be available to defend the George W. Bush administration's policies toward Iran and Iraq at least through the end of Bush's term and possibly even beyond.

ATLANTA, Apr 23 (IPS) - "Politics in the U.S. is at a crisis level," Green Party presidential hopeful Cynthia McKinney told IPS during a rare sit-down interview. "Disillusionment, lack of participation, and establishment of false choice -- what is one to do? For me, I can't give up hope. I said yes when the Green Party said 'okay, now you want to do it?'."

SAN FRANCISCO, Apr 22 (IPS) - The United States government does such a bad job of caring for wounded war veterans, advocates told a federal judge here Monday, that 18 veterans commit suicide every week.

WASHINGTON, Apr 17 (IPS) - There are an estimated 2.7 million Iraqis who have been displaced within their own country. No house; no food; no security. Who do they turn to for help? The international community's humanitarian organisations? The occupying United States government? The central Iraqi government based in Baghdad?

WASHINGTON, Apr 17 (IPS) - In testimony before Congressional committees last week, Gen. David Petraeus portrayed Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's late March offensive in Basra as a poorly planned effort that departed from what U.S. officials had expected.

WASHINGTON, Apr 16 (IPS) - Throughout a long career in politics, presumptive Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain has had his foreign policy shaped by his and the United States' experience in the Vietnam War.

SAN FRANCISCO, Apr 15 (IPS) - One of the leading voices of dissent inside the U.S. Army has been promoted.

FALLUJAH, Apr 14 (IPS) - Fallujah remains a crippled city years after the November 2004 U.S.-led assault.

BAGHDAD, Apr 12 (IPS) - Many Iraqis have come to believe that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is just as much a dictator as Saddam Hussein was.

WASHINGTON, Apr 11 (IPS) - "Tell me how this ends," Gen. David Petraeus, then commander of the 101st Airborne Division, asked a Washington Post reporter during the "liberation" of Iraq almost exactly five years ago.

WASHINGTON, Apr 10 (IPS) - With the head of the occupying forces in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, and U.S. ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker delivering a progress report to Congress this week, Iraq has been thrust back into the U.S. public consciousness, along with all the political divisions the issue engenders.

BAQUBA, Apr 8 (IPS) - As violence continues in Baghdad and southern Iraq, it seems quiet on the surface in Baquba, the volatile city 40km north of Baghdad. But few believe truce between the U.S.-backed Awakening Groups and the government security forces can last.

WASHINGTON, Apr 7 (IPS) - U.S. lawmakers have a financial interest in military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, a review of their accounts has revealed.