* Iraq asked the US to launch air strikes against jihadists, but the US Administration and prominent US lawmakers hinted that prime minister Maliki should first resign to make room for a more inclusive government. Maliki says he won’t quit. The Pentagon...
* Insurgents and the Iraqi military have been fighting over the control of Iraq’s largest oil refinery in Baiji, as well as waging an information war in parallel over their alleged accomplishments. * This brings to mind recent events in Libya, where the...
* The White House continues to milk its failure to submit a proper Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) FY15 budget for all it’s worth. Two weeks after saying it intended to spend some OCO money to reassure Eastern Europeans, funds previously meant for...
* ISIS militants posted pictures to back up their claim they had executed hundreds of Iraqi soldiers near Tikrit. The pictures leave a lot of room for interpretation about what actually happened, but they seem to be working to escalate the situation into a full-blown...
* Bloomberg’s tracking of Pentagon awards of $6.5M and more shows another Y/Y drop in May, with a total of $13.7B vs. $19.4B last year. For the past 6 months, only April was above levels seen in 2013. Iraq * The Institute for the Study of War provides ongoing,...
