Iraq

Richard B. Cheney, the former vice president of the United States who was the architect of the nation’s longest war as he plotted President George W. Bush’s thunderous global response to the 9/11 terror attacks, has died.

Vexed by heart trouble for much of his adult life, Cheney died Monday night due to complications of pneumonia and cardiac and vascular disease, according to a statement from his family. He was 84.

“For decades, Dick Cheney served our nation, including as White House Chief of Staff, Wyoming’s Congressman, Secretary of Defense, and Vice President of the United States,” the statement said. “Dick Cheney was a great and good man who taught his children and grandchildren to love our country, and to live lives of courage, honor, love, kindness, and fly fishing. We are grateful beyond measure for all Dick Cheney did for our country. And we are blessed beyond measure to have loved and been loved by this noble giant of a man.”

To supporters and detractors alike, Cheney was widely viewed as the engine that drove the Bush White House. His two-term tenure capped a lifetime of public service, both in Congress and on behalf of four Republican presidents.

It often fell to Cheney, not President Bush, to make an assertive, unapologetic case for the American-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and for the controversial antiterrorism measures such as the Guantánamo Bay prison. And after the election of President Obama, it was once again Cheney, not Bush, who stood among the new president’s fiercest critics on national security.

In an October 2009 speech — one emblematic of the role he embraced after leaving the White House — Cheney blasted the Obama administration for opening a probe of “enhanced” interrogations of suspected terrorists conducted during the Bush years.

“We cannot protect this country by putting politics over security, and turning the guns on our own guys,” he said. The rhetoric was textbook Cheney: blunt, unvarnished, delivered with authority.

While Cheney at the time was attempting to occupy the leadership vacuum in the GOP in the age of Obama, there was little doubt that he also was motivated to preserve a legacy that appears to be as much his as former President Bush‘s. For eight years, Cheney redrew the lines that defined the vice presidency in a way no predecessor had. His office enjoyed greater autonomy than others before it, while working to keep much of his influence from plain sight. That way of operating led to a challenge before the Supreme Court as well as a criminal investigation over a leak of classified information.

Moreover, the image of a powerful backroom operator managing the Bush administration’s “war on terror,” combined with his service as Defense secretary during the Persian Gulf War and his stint as a chairman of defense contracting giant Halliburton, made Cheney a towering bête noire to liberals worldwide. To them, he embodied a dangerous fusion of politics and the military-industrial complex — and they viewed his every move with deep suspicion.

To his champions, however, he was the firm-jawed, hulking, resolute defender of American interests.

Standing with the administration was more than a duty to Cheney; it was an article of faith. The invasion of Iraq “was the right thing to do, and if we had to do it over again, we’d do exactly the same thing,” Cheney said in a 2006 interview, even as the nation slowly learned that U.S. intelligence suggesting Saddam Hussein’s regime possessed weapons of mass destruction was simply not true.

Three years earlier, Cheney had pledged that the U.S. would be greeted in Iraq as “liberators” — a comment that haunted him as insurgents in the country gained strength, killed thousands of allied troops and extended the conflict for years. The war in Afghanistan would drag on for 20 years, ending in 2021 as it had begun, with the Taliban back in control.

While Cheney will largely be remembered for his leading role in the response to the 9/11 terror attacks, he had long worked the corridors of power in Washington. He was a White House aide to President Nixon and later chief of staff to President Ford. As a member of the House from Wyoming, he rose quickly to become part of the Republican leadership during the 1980s. In the early ’90s, he ran the Pentagon during the Gulf War.

Richard Bruce “Dick” Cheney was born in Lincoln, Neb., on Jan. 30, 1941, and spent much of his teenage years in Casper, Wyo. His father worked for the U.S. Soil Conservation Service.

As a young man, he was more interested in hunting, fishing and sports than in academics, and a stint at Yale University was short-lived. He eventually obtained bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Wyoming and studied toward a doctorate at the University of Wisconsin.

In 1964, he married Lynne Ann Vincent, who became a lifelong political partner while strongly influencing Cheney’s conservatism. Daughter Elizabeth, who was elected to Congress in 2017, was born in 1966 and her sister, Mary, arrived three years later. The sisters became embittered years later when Elizabeth — who preferred Liz — took a stance opposing same-sex marriage, which seemed a slap to Mary and her wife. Cheney, however, offered his support for such unions, an early GOP voice for same-sex marriage. Years later, he came to Liz’s defense when she broke with fellow Republicans and voted to impeach President Trump following the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. In addition to his wife and daughters, Cheney is survived by seven grandchildren.

A fellowship sent Cheney to Washington, where he soon began working for a politically shrewd House member who also was a lifetime influence, Donald H. Rumsfeld. When Rumsfeld joined the Nixon administration, Cheney followed.

After Ford succeeded Nixon in the wake of Watergate, Rumsfeld served as chief of staff, with Cheney at his side. Ford eventually appointed Rumsfeld secretary of Defense, and Cheney, at 34, ran the White House. Even then, his calm reserve was a hallmark.

Although nearly everyone working for him was older, “He was very self-assured,” James Cannon, a member of Ford’s White House team, said years later. “It didn’t faze him a bit to be chief of staff.”

Ford lost a narrow election to Jimmy Carter in 1976, but Cheney’s Washington career was just getting underway. He headed back to Casper and in little more than a year was running for Congress.

His health, though, already was a factor. In 1978, at age 37 and in the midst of a primary election campaign, he had a heart attack, the first of several. He would undergo multiple surgeries, including a quadruple bypass, two angioplasties, installation of a heart pump and — in 2012 — a transplant. His frequent trips to the hospital and seeming indestructibility provided fodder for late-night talk show hosts during Cheney’s vice presidency.

With the help of television ads reminding voters that Dwight D. Eisenhower and Lyndon B. Johnson had served full White House terms despite having had heart attacks, he narrowly won the Republican nomination and, in November 1978, secured election to the House of Representatives from Wyoming’s single district.

In Congress, he was known as a listener more interested in problem-solving than conservative demagoguery, even as he quietly built a voting record that left no doubt about where he stood on the political spectrum. He quickly moved into the ranks of GOP leadership.

Cheney stepped into the public spotlight after he was named Defense secretary by President George H.W. Bush in 1989. As the Berlin Wall fell and the Cold War cooled, Cheney was charged with overseeing a Pentagon that was more fractious than usual. In a test of political and managerial will, he oversaw major reductions in the Defense budget, a profound downsizing of forces and the closing of obsolete military bases. He helped implement the U.S. invasion of Panama in 1989 to oust the country’s leader, Manuel Noriega, for drug trafficking and racketeering.

But Cheney — along with his hand-picked chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Colin Powell — made his mark in the American response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Cheney played a key role in persuading the Saudi royal family to allow American troops to be stationed in Saudi Arabia to defend against a looming attack from Hussein’s forces.

The Cheney-led Pentagon then shifted to offense in 1991, amassing an enormous American force that totaled more than 500,000 soldiers, nearly twice the number employed in the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. The U.S. military, with help from allied countries, overwhelmed the Iraqi forces in Kuwait in only 43 days and easily entered Iraq.

Characteristically, Cheney would defend the then-controversial decision to halt the U.S. advance toward Baghdad, which left Hussein in power. “I would guess if we had gone in there, we would still have forces in Baghdad today. We’d be running the country,” he said in a 1992 speech. “We would not have been able to get everybody out and bring everybody home.”

Cheney’s efforts to station U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia, considered critical to the push to repel Iraq, would have unforeseen ramifications. The military presence there helped radicalize young Islamic militants such as Osama bin Laden.

After President Clinton’s victory in 1992, Cheney left government service. Three years later, he assumed the helm of Halliburton, one of the world’s leading oil field companies and a prominent military contractor. The company thrived under Cheney’s leadership: Its relationship with the Pentagon flourished, its international operations expanded and Cheney grew wealthy.

In 2000, then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush, the Republican nominee for president, asked Cheney to head up the search for his running mate, then ultimately chose Cheney for the job instead. He brought to the ticket an element of maturity and Washington gravitas that the inexperienced Bush did not possess.

Cheney’s lack of design on the presidency, and his willingness to return to government 10 days shy of his 60th birthday, seemingly gave Bush the benefit of his experience and earned Cheney a measure of trust — and thus authority — commanded by few presidential advisors.

Once in office, Cheney, mindful of lessons learned in the Ford White House, sought to revitalize an executive office he believed had become too hemmed in by Congress and the courts. He termed it a “restoration.”

“After Watergate, President Ford said there was an imperiled president, not an imperial presidency,” said presidential historian Robert Dallek. Cheney, he said, felt “he badly needed to expand the powers of the presidency to assure the national security.”

In office barely a week, Cheney created a national energy policy task force in response to rising gasoline prices. A series of meetings with top officials from the oil, natural gas, electricity and nuclear industries were closed to the public, and Cheney refused to reveal the names of the participants. Cheney would exert similar influence over environmental policy and, with an office on Capitol Hill, forcefully advance the president’s legislative agenda.

A lawsuit seeking information about the task force made its way to the Supreme Court, which ruled in the vice president’s favor in 2004. One of the justices in the majority was Antonin Scalia, who was a friend and, it was later revealed, had recently gone duck hunting with the vice president.

Another hunting trip gone awry earned Cheney embarrassing headlines in 2006 when he accidentally shot and wounded a member of the party with a round of birdshot while quail hunting on a Texas ranch.

More troubling to Cheney was a federal criminal probe in connection with the 2003 leak of the identity of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson. The investigation resulted in the conviction four years later of Cheney aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby for perjury and obstruction of justice. Libby was later pardoned by President Trump.

Cheney, however, will be largely remembered for his unwavering belief that the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq — especially the latter — were essential, a stance he maintained even as the missions in both theaters evolved from rooting out suspected terrorists to nation-building, and even as the casualties skyrocketed and it became clear the 20-year mission was doomed.

When U.S. troops and civilians were pulled out of Afghanistan in a fraught and fatal departure in 2021, it was Cheney’s daughter who spoke up.

“We’ve now created a situation where as we get to the 20th anniversary of 9/11, we are surrendering Afghanistan to the very terrorist organization that housed al Qaeda when they plotted and planned the attacks against us,” Rep. Liz Cheney (R.-Wyo.) said.

The former vice president’s steely resolve was captured years later in “Vice,” a 2018 biographical drama in which Christian Bale portrayed Cheney as a brainy yet uncompromisingly uncharismatic leader.

It was Cheney who insisted early on that Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. “There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us,” Cheney said in August 2002. The U.S. eventually determined that Iraq had no such weapons.

He argued forcefully that Hussein was linked to the 2001 terror attacks. When other administration officials fell silent, Cheney continued to make the connections even though no shred of proof was ever found. In a 2005 speech, he called the Democrats who accused the administration of manipulating intelligence to justify the war “opportunists” who peddled “cynical and pernicious falsehoods” to gain political advantage.

Cheney also frequently defended the use of so-called extreme interrogation methods, such as waterboarding, on al Qaeda operatives. He did so in the final months of the Bush administration, as both the president’s and Cheney’s public approval ratings plunged.

“It’s a good thing we had them in custody and it’s a good thing we found out what they knew,” he said in a 2008 speech to a friendly crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference.

“I’ve been proud to stand by him, the decisions he made,” Cheney said of Bush. “And would I support those same decisions today? You’re damn right I would.”

Oliphant and Gerstenzang are former Times staff writers.

Staff writer Steve Marble contributed to this story.

After decades of armed struggle, fighters from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, are withdrawing from Turkiye and moving to northern Iraq.

The conflict between the PKK and Turkish forces has killed more than 40,000 people in four decades.

The withdrawal is the latest step in an agreement with the Turkish state, which the group says will see it shift from armed rebellion to democratic politics.

So, will Ankara stick to its end of the bargain and allow the PKK to engage in civil society?

And is Kurdish autonomy now just a pipe dream?

Presenter: Adrian Finighan

Guests:

Hiwa Osman – former adviser to Iraqi President Jalal Talabani

Mohammed D Salih – non-resident senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute

Hisyar Ozsoy – former deputy chairman of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP)

Iraqi farmer Umm Ali has watched her poultry die as salinity levels in the country’s south have reached record highs, rendering already scarce water unfit for human consumption and killing livestock.

“We used to drink, wash and cook with water from the river, but now it’s hurting us,” said Umm Ali, 40, who lives in the once watery Al-Mashab marshes of southern Iraq’s Basra province.

This season alone, she said, brackish water has killed dozens of her ducks and 15 chickens.

“I cried and grieved, I felt as if all my hard work had been wasted,” said the widowed mother of three.

Iraq, a country heavily affected by climate change, has been ravaged for years by drought and low rainfall.

Declining freshwater flows have increased salt and pollution levels, particularly in the south, where the Tigris and Euphrates rivers converge before spilling into the Gulf.

“We haven’t seen such high levels of salinity in 89 years,” Iraq’s Ministry of Water Resources spokesman, Khaled Shamal, said.

Last month, salinity levels recorded in the central Basra province soared to almost 29,000 parts per million compared with 2,600ppm last year, according to a Water Ministry report.

Freshwater should contain less than 1,000ppm of dissolved salts, while ocean water salinity levels are about 35,000ppm, according to the United States Geological Survey.

The Tigris and the Euphrates converge at Basra’s Shatt al-Arab waterway “laden with pollutants accumulated along their course”, said Hasan al-Khateeb, an expert from Iraq’s University of Kufa.

In recent weeks, the Euphrates has seen its lowest water levels in decades, and Iraq’s artificial lake reserves are at their lowest in recent history.

Khateeb warned that the Shatt al-Arab’s water levels had plummeted and it was failing to hold back the seawater from the Gulf.

Farmer Zulaykha Hashem, 60, said the water in the area had become very brackish this year, adding that she must wait for the situation to improve to irrigate her crop of pomegranate trees, figs and berries.

According to the United Nations, almost a quarter of women in Basra and nearby provinces work in agriculture.

“We cannot even leave. Where would we go?” Hashem said, in a country where farmers facing drought and rising salinity often find themselves trapped in a cycle of water crisis.

The UN’s International Organization for Migration, which documents climate-induced displacement in Iraq, has warned that increased water salinity is destroying palm groves, citrus trees and other crops.

As of October last year, some 170,000 people had been displaced in central and southern Iraq due to climate-related factors, according to the agency.

Water scarcity pushed Maryam Salman, who is in her 30s, to leave nearby Missan province for Basra several years ago, hoping her buffalo could enjoy the Shatt al-Arab.

Rising salinity is not the only problem now, said Salman, a mother of three children.

“Water is not available … neither summer nor winter,” she said.

The Tigris and the Euphrates originate in Turkiye, and Iraqi authorities have repeatedly blamed dams across the border for significantly reducing their flows.

Iraq, a country with inefficient water management systems after decades of war and neglect, receives less than 35 percent of its allocated share of water from the two rivers, according to authorities.

Khateeb from the University of Kufa said, in addition to claiming its share of the rivers, Iraq must pursue desalination projects in the Shatt al-Arab.

In July, the government announced a desalination project in Basra with a capacity of 1 million cubic metres per day.

Local residents said the brackish water is also impacting fish stocks.

Hamdiyah Mehdi said her husband, who is a fisherman, returns home empty-handed more frequently.

She blamed the Shatt al-Arab’s “murky and salty water” for his short temper after long days without a catch, and for her children’s persistent rash.

“It has been tough,” said Mehdi, 52, noting the emotional toll on the family as well as on their health and livelihood.

“We take our frustrations out on each other.”

In the narrow alleys of Old Mosul, once the proud heart of Iraq’s shoemaking industry, the workshops are coming alive again.

After years of conflict and destruction, artisans like 58-year-old Saad Abdul Aal are reviving a tradition that dates back more than 1,000 years.

Shoemaking in Iraq, known as al-qandarjiya, flourished during the Abbasid Caliphate, when Baghdad was a global hub of trade and culture.

Generations of families devoted their lives to transforming rawhide into durable footwear, their skills handed down from master to apprentice.

Before the war, the capital city of Baghdad had more than 250 factories, while Mosul boasted over 50. Iraqi-made shoes were prized for their elegance and resilience – a symbol of national pride.

“Our work began more than 40 years ago,” says Abdul Aal, his hands quick and steady as he trims a piece of leather. “I learned the profession, fell in love with it, and never left it.”

That proud tradition nearly disappeared in 2014, when ISIL (ISIS) seized Mosul. Workshops and factories were bombed, looted, or abandoned.

Abdul Aal lost everything – his equipment, his shop, his workers. “Bombings, destruction,” he recalls. “There was no money even to consider starting again.”

By the end of the war, Mosul’s 50 factories had dwindled to fewer than 10. Thousands of shoemakers were left unemployed, their skills at risk of vanishing.

The turning point came with the International Organization for Migration’s (IOM’s) Enterprise Development Fund-Tameer, which provided grants and training to displaced entrepreneurs and returnees.

For Abdul Aal, this was an opportunity to buy sewing and pressing machines, reopen his workshop, and hire staff.

“It’s not easy, but little by little we are moving forward,” he says.

Today, Abdul Aal produces about four pairs of shoes a day – fewer than before, but enough to keep his business alive. Competition from cheap imports is fierce, but he insists Iraqi craftsmanship still has an edge.

“Our shoes are genuine leather; they last. Imported shoes may appear visually appealing, but they lack quality.

“In contrast, the shoes produced in my factory are visually similar to imported shoes but offer superior quality.

“That is what makes us proud.”

Control over lucrative exports was a major point of contention between Baghdad and Kurdistan region, with a key pipeline to Turkiye shut since 2023.

Iraq has resumed crude oil exports from the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region to Turkiye after an interim deal broke a two-and-a-half-year deadlock over legal and technical disputes.

The resumption started at 6am local time (03:00 GMT), according to a statement from Iraq’s oil ministry on Saturday. “Operations started at a rapid pace and with complete smoothness without recording any significant technical problems,” the ministry said.

Turkish Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar also confirmed the development in a post on X.

The agreement between Iraq’s federal government, the Kurdistan regional government (KRG) and foreign oil producers operating in the region will allow 180,000 to 190,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude to flow to Turkiye’s Ceyhan port, Iraq’s oil minister told Kurdish broadcaster Rudaw on Friday.

The resumption follows a tripartite agreement reached earlier this week between the ministry, the Kurdish region’s natural resources ministry, and international oil companies operating in the region.

The United States had pushed for a restart, which is expected to eventually bring up to 230,000 bpd of crude back to international markets at a time when the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is boosting output to gain market share. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio welcomed the deal in a statement, saying it “will bring tangible benefits for both Americans and Iraqis”.

Iraq’s OPEC delegate, Mohammed al-Najjar, said his country can export more than it is now after the resumption of flows via the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline, in addition to other planned projects at Basra port, state news agency INA reported on Saturday.

“OPEC member states have the right to demand an increase in their [production] shares especially if they have projects that led to an increase in production capacity,” he said.

Companies operating in the Kurdistan region will receive $16 per barrel to cover production and transportation costs. The eight oil companies that signed the deal and the Kurdish authorities have agreed to meet within 30 days of exports resuming to work on a mechanism for settling the outstanding debt of $1bn the Kurdistan region owes to the firms.

Control over lucrative oil exports has been a major point of contention between Baghdad and Erbil, with the deal seen as a step towards boosting Iraq’s oil revenues and stabilising the relationship between the central government in Baghdad and the Kurdish region.

Oil exports were previously independently sold by the Kurdish authorities, without the approval or oversight of the federal authorities in Baghdad, through the port of Ceyhan in Turkiye.

The Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline was halted in March 2023 when the International Chamber of Commerce in Paris ordered Turkiye to pay Iraq $1.5bn in damages for unauthorised exports by the Kurdish regional authorities.

The Association of the Petroleum Industry of Kurdistan, which represents international oil firms operating in the region, put losses to Iraq since the pipeline closed at more than $35bn.

Iraq is advancing several solar power projects as part of a plan to meet its electricity needs.

Iraq is set to open its first industrial-scale solar plant in a vast desert area in Karbala as the government attempts to tackle an electricity crisis that has led to widespread blackouts.

Authorities said the plant, the largest of its kind in Iraq, will be inaugurated on Sunday to eventually produce up to 300 megawatts of electricity at its peak, according to Iraqi media reports.

Tens of thousands of black panels are set out in rows in a huge desert area, spanning some 4,000 dunams (1,000 acres or 400 hectares) in the al-Hur area of Karbala, located southwest of capital Baghdad.

Nasser Karim al-Sudani, head of the national team for solar energy projects in the Iraqi prime minister’s office, said another project under construction in Babil province will have a capacity of 225 megawatts, and work will also begin soon on a 1,000-megawatt project in the southern province of Basra.

قطاع الطاقة 🇮🇶 | الاول في العراق.. صحراء محافظة كربلاء المقدسة تكتسي بالألواح الشمسية مع تواصل مشروع انشاء محطة كهرباء للطاقة الشمسية ستولد 300 ميغاواط من الطاقة الكهربائية pic.twitter.com/ZTn9MwArat

— مشاريع العراق – Iraq projects (@IraqProjects) July 29, 2025

Translation: The first in Iraq. The desert of the holy Karbala Governorate is covered with solar panels as the project to establish a solar power plant continues, which will generate 300 megawatts of electrical energy.

The projects are part of a larger vision to account for a portion of Iraq’s electricity needs using large-scale solar power plants that could help ease the electricity crisis while also reducing the negative environmental impact of gas emissions.

Deputy Minister of Electricity Adel Karim said Iraq has solar projects with a combined capacity of 12,500 megawatts either being implemented, in the approval process, or under negotiation. Barring the semi-autonomous northern Kurdistan region of Iraq, the projects could potentially supply up to 20 percent of Iraq’s total electricity demand, according to the official.

But despite its massive oil and gas resources, Iraq continues to face – as it has for decades – electricity shortages rooted in war, corruption and mismanagement.

Nationwide electricity consumption peaked at about 55,000 megawatts this summer as scorching temperatures exceeded 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit) in some areas.

This is while deputy minister Karim said the country is now producing up to 28,000 megawatts of electricity, including about 8,000 megawatts fuelled by natural gas imported from neighbouring Iran and fed to power plants in Iraq.

The critical supplies from Iran have faced many challenges over the years as well, particularly from unilateral sanctions imposed by the United States in an effort to pressure Tehran and squeeze its revenue streams amid a standoff over Iran’s nuclear programme and military capabilities.

In March, Washington announced it was ending a sanctions waiver that allowed Iraq to directly purchase electricity from Iran, which needed to be renewed every 120 days. The US has, for now, left another waiver in place that lets Iraq buy Iranian natural gas to feed its power plants.

Iran is also facing multiple crises, including massive energy shortages, an issue that has affected its exports to Iraq.

SEOUL, Sept. 15 (UPI) — South Korea’s Hyundai Engineering & Construction said Monday that it received a $3 billion order to build a mega-sized seawater treatment plant in Iraq.

It is a Water Infrastructure Project, Iraq’s state initiative aimed at constructing a seawater treatment facility at Khor Al-Zubair Port about 310 miles southeast of Baghdad.

Hyundai E&C noted that the plant would supply up to 5 million barrels of water every day to major oil fields in southern Iraq, including West Qurna and Rumaila, to enhance crude oil output.

The Seoul-based contractor will break ground on the project this November, with the goal of completing construction by the end of 2029.

Iraq, which derives more than 90% of its national revenue from oil exports, is seeking to nearly double daily production to 8 million barrels from 4.2 billion by 2030, according to Hyundai E&C.

The contract was awarded by TotalEnergies, a French multinational energy company that invested in WIP with Qatar’s state-run Qatar Energy and Iraq’s government-backed Basrah Oil Co.

The agreement marks Hyundai E&C’s second-largest construction project in the Arab country after the $6 billion deal to establish an oil refinery in Karbala, which was finished in 2023.

“We will put forth effort to secure a competitive edge in bidding for future projects in Iraq, including refineries, power plants, and housing, which are expected to see continued demand,” Hyundai E&C said in a statement.

Hyundai E&C’s share price rose 1.01% on the Seoul bourse Monday.

Sept. 11 (UPI) — A coalition of House lawmakers from both sides of the aisle has voted to repeal laws authorizing the United States’ use of force in Iraq in 1991 and 2003, which critics say has been abused by presidents.

The bipartisan amendment attached to the annual National Defense Authorization Act passed the U.S. House of Representatives in a 261-167 vote on Wednesday. Forty-nine Republicans joined 167 Democrats to pass the bill.

Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., a sponsor of the bill, described the decades-old authorizations as “long obsolete” and at risk of abuse by administrations of either party.

“It’s time for Congress to reclaim its constitutional authority over matters of war and peace,” the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee said.

The 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force was originally passed by Congress following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. However, it has been used by administrations since to justify military strikes, including during the first Trump administration to justify the assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani in 2020.

The vote also comes on the heels of President Donald Trump using the military to attack a drug smuggling vessel earlier this month and Iran’s nuclear facilities earlier this summer.

The proposal to repeal the AUMF was part of the $892.6 billion NDAA, which passed the House on Wednesday in a 231-196 vote, with only 17 Democrats giving it their approval.

US President Trump confirms Elizabeth Tsurkov freed after being held by Iraqi group amid spy claims.

Israeli-Russian academic and Princeton University student Elizabeth Tsurkov has been freed in Iraq after spending more than two years in the custody of an Iraqi armed group, US President Donald Trump has announced.

“I am pleased to report that Elizabeth Tsurkov, a Princeton Student, whose sister is an American Citizen, was just released by Kata’ib Hezbollah (MILITANT Hezbollah), and is now safely in the American Embassy in Iraq after being tortured for many months. I will always fight for JUSTICE, and never give up. HAMAS, RELEASE THE HOSTAGES, NOW!” Trump posted on TruthSocial on Tuesday, referring at the end to the captives held in Gaza, who were taken from Israel during Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack.

Kataib Hezbollah, which is a separate entity from the armed group Hezbollah in Lebanon, is part of Iraq’s security apparatus under the umbrella of the state-funded Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), a Shia paramilitary dominated by Iran-backed armed groups.

Tsurkov, who was accused of being a spy, disappeared in Baghdad in March 2023, while conducting academic research. She was last seen in the Karrada district before reports surfaced that Kata’ib Hezbollah had abducted her. Her case remained secret for months until Israel’s prime minister’s office confirmed in July 2023 that she had been abducted. It said the Iraqi government was responsible for her safety.

The 37-year-old holds both Israeli and Russian passports and had entered Iraq on her Russian travel documents, according to Israeli authorities.

Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani confirmed that Tsurkov had been released and said, “We reaffirm, once again, that we will not tolerate any compromise in enforcing the law and upholding the authority of the state, nor will we allow anyone to undermine the reputation of Iraq and its people.”

In November 2023, Iraqi state television aired footage of Tsurkov in which she claimed to be working for both Mossad and the CIA, allegations her family rejected as coerced confessions.

The precise terms of her release remain unclear. Earlier this year, reports suggested that Washington and Baghdad were engaged in negotiations over her case.

There were reports of a possible deal for the release of Tsurkov in January.

After Trump’s announcement, her sister Emma Tsurkov, who has campaigned publicly for her freedom, expressed relief in a post on X.

“My entire family is incredibly happy. We cannot wait to see Elizabeth and give her all the love we have been waiting to share for 903 days. We are so thankful to President Trump and his Special Envoy, Adam Boehler. If Adam had not made my sister’s return his personal mission, I do not know where we would be,” she wrote.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also confirmed her release, crediting months of work led by Gal Hirsch, Israel’s coordinator for captives and missing people. “Through a team effort … after great efforts, we succeeded in bringing about her release,” Netanyahu said.

Experts warn that the water crisis in the country’s south will worsen, unless there is urgent government action. 

Iraq is experiencing its driest year on record since 1933, as the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, which flow into the Persian Gulf from West Asia, have seen their levels drop by up to 27 percent due to poor rainfall and upstream water restrictions.

In the southern part of the country, a humanitarian crisis caused by drought and water shortages is unfolding in Basra, a vital port and oil hub.

Basra, home to nearly 3.5 million people, remains Iraq’s most water-scarce and climate-vulnerable region, deeply affected by inadequate water management.

Many there are forced to depend on daily water deliveries to ensure their survival and health.

Hasan Raykan, a resident of Basra, is forced to travel several kilometres daily just to secure his share of clean water. He says the allocated amount barely covers his family’s needs.

“I have to wake up early and leave my work and stand in long queues to bring [water] home,” Raykan told Al Jazeera.

“In many cases, we have to tighten ratios between livestock and household use. The seawater near our homes is polluted and causes skin diseases.”

The quality of seawater, already unsuitable for human consumption, has been further degraded by oil spills, agricultural runoff and sewage discharge.

Furthermore, saltwater travelling from the Gulf – via the Shatt Al-Arab River, which feeds from the Tigris and Euphrates – has been moving steadily upriver, increasing salinity levels in the Basra region. And the flow of freshwater is diminishing due to dams upstream.

The Mihayla desalination station in Abul Khaseeb district has been operating to alleviate Basra’s water crisis for more than a year.

It uses a special method to treat water containing high quantities of salt from the Shatt Al-Arab River.

“We produce nearly 72,000 cubic metres [19 million gallons] of treated water daily, currently serving about 50 percent of Abul Khaseeb district,” Sa’dun Abbud, senior engineer at the Mihayla Water Desalination Station, told Al Jazeera.

“Salinity in the Shatt Al-Arab River has reached nearly 40,000 total dissolved solids. After desalination, the refuse is returned to the river.”

Experts warn that the water crisis will worsen, unless there is urgent government action.

“Basra has lost 26 to 30 diverse marine species due to saltwater intrusion,” said Alaa Al-Badrani, a water expert.

“This has created a new, hybrid environment unsuitable for both freshwater and seawater species. With salinity levels rising, the water is also unfit for agriculture.”

“While reduced rainfall and rising temperatures are global challenges, Iraq’s water crisis is also the result of upstream restrictions and domestic neglect,” wrote Hayder Al-Shakeri, research fellow in the Middle East and North Africa programme at Chatham House, in a piece for the think tank’s website.

“Corruption and self-interest among Iraq’s political elite weaken institutional capacity”, creating opportunities for its neighbours Turkiye and Iran to push for deals that don’t necessarily benefit Iraq, said Al-Shakeri.

The water crisis was at its worst in 2018, when more than 118 people were sent to hospital with signs of contamination. There are now renewed fears of an outbreak.

Reforms at both the domestic and regional levels are needed to resolve Iraq’s water crisis, noted Al-Shakeri, who said, “Domestically, Iraq should establish a national water diplomacy body with a clear mandate to negotiate, monitor flows, and to coordinate between ministries, governorates, and the Kurdistan region.”

On July 27, two brigades from the mostly Shia Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) stormed the Iraqi Ministry of Agriculture, clashing with police.

While the incident could be seen as a power struggle for position, it also indicates a certain degree of daring on the part of the brigades, which ended up killing a police officer.

The brigades were called in by Ayad Kadhim Ali after he was dismissed as the head of the ministry’s office in Baghdad’s Karkh district, according to Mehmet Alaca, an expert on Iraq’s Shia militias. Ali is affiliated with Kataib Hezbollah, as are the brigades that attacked the ministry, analysts told Al Jazeera.

The incident is seen as a litmus test of whether the Iraqi state can hold PMF factions accountable for breaking the law.

Iraq’s government argues that passing a new legislation – which would fully integrate the PMF into the state – would help them do so. Proponents of the bill argue it would incentivise the PMF to act within the confines of the law, but detractors fear it would give legal cover to militias, which are already too strong.

The PMF

The PMF, also known as al-Hashd al-Shaabi, is an umbrella organisation of mostly Shia armed groups, some of whom have close ties to neighbouring Iran. A few of these groups first emerged during the Iraqi resistance to US occupation.

Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq, for instance, split from Jaish al-Mahdi, formerly the dominant arm of the Shia rebellion, in 2007. The group received Iranian support to become a major powerbroker in Iraq and later intervened in Syria’s civil war to support then-President Bashar al-Assad as he tried to crush a popular rebellion.

Kataib Imam Ali is another, albeit smaller, group in the PMF that reportedly received training from the Lebanese group Hezbollah in Iran and also dispatched fighters to Syria during the height of its war.

Like Kataib Imam Ali, most PMF factions were formed after Iraqi Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani issued a fatwa in 2014, urging all able-bodied men to join the state to defend Iraq from ISIL (ISIS).

At the time, ISIL controlled large swaths of territory across Syria and Iraq, equivalent to the size of England. ISIL even captured the Iraqi city of Mosul and declared a “caliphate” from there.

By 2016, Iraq’s parliament had passed a law that recognised the PMF as a component of the state’s national security.

But the law lacks clarity around command and control and budgetary oversight, and it has failed to prevent some groups from taking unilateral action to attack United States assets and soldiers stationed in the country.

In 2024, for instance, the PMF was awarded a budget of $3.4bn, which exceeded the total budget of Lebanon.

While the figure is small relative to the $21.1bn allocated to Iraq’s Ministry of Defence that same year, it is a sizeable amount that the state allocated to a body that it did not even have an accurate membership list for.

Each registered PMF faction submits a list of names to be paid, and these lists are then reviewed by the Ministry of Finance. However, PMF leaders often intervene to push payments through unchallenged, according to a 2021 report by the Chatham House think tank.

Estimates suggested there are 238,000 PMF fighters.

Receiving a share of the state budget has helped the PMF in its quest to brand itself as a legitimate entity in Iraq.

“From the beginning, the PMF was adamant that it was part of the state and not a militia,” said Renad Mansour, an expert on Iraq with Chatham House.

Over the past 10 years, PMF factions have created political wings, run in parliamentary elections and gained access to lucrative state money after securing important administrative positions in key ministries.

Yet as they accrued power, some used their arms against the state to safeguard their patronage networks and influence over key ministries.

In 2021, PMF groups linked to Iran launched a drone at the home of then-Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi, reportedly an attempt to upend the government after losing many parliamentary seats and thus access to state money in the recent elections, said Alaca, the expert on Iraqi Shia militias.

The new law

The Iraqi government drafted the new law in March. It would give all PMF factions official, stable employment and bring them under the control of Prime Minister Mohamed Shia al-Sudani as commander-in-chief

Proponents of the draft law mainly include a bloc of five Shia parties known as the Coordination Framework.

“The argument pushed by those advocating for the law is that by offering an institutional safe haven for armed factions under a reformed PMF, it would incentivise those to comply with the national chain of command – thereby diminishing their appetite to take action outside the state,” explained Inna Rudolf, an expert on the PMF and a senior research fellow at the Centre for Statecraft & National Security at King’s College London.

Most importantly to the PMF, the law offers it much-needed legal cover at a time when the US and Israel are threatening to target groups they consider Iranian proxies.

It would grant PMF members full access to intelligence, which some argue is a risky proposition because the intelligence could be passed to Iran.

Analysts have said, however, that many PMF factions would be more concerned about their power base and assets than about following Iranian interests.

During the 12-day Israel-Iran war in June, PMF groups did not attack US assets or personnel, likely out of fear of giving Israel a pretext to attack their command structure and resources as Israel did against Hezbollah, according to a report by the Royal United Services Institute.

“I would say that the stronger and more embedded PMF groups are the ones who have been practising restraint and telling the smaller [pro-Iran] factions not to get involved in the regional conflict [between Iran and Israel],” Mansour said.

The follow-up on the Ministry of Agriculture incident will test the willingness of PMF commanders to cooperate with the state to hold their own members accountable, as well as the state’s seriousness in holding PMF members accountable, according to Rudolf.

She said al-Sudani has shown “strong will” by referring all those involved in the raid to the judiciary and calling for the formation of a review committee to investigate “negligence in leadership and control duties” within the PMF.

“Sudani’s administration wants to demonstrate power over the PMF and [to prove] that everyone affiliated with it not only has the same privileges as members of the security forces but has to abide by the same code of conduct,” Rudolf told Al Jazeera.

Pressures against the new law

Not everybody in Iraq supports the PMF’s integration, said Zeidon al-Kinani, an expert on Iraq and adjunct instructor at Georgetown University in Qatar.

He said many PMF factions harmed and even killed hundreds of young protesters who were demonstrating against what they considered a corrupt political elite in 2019.

As a result, civil society is wary of seeing all PMF factions given the same privileges as Iraq’s army and police and would prefer the government absorb only those that do not have close ties with Iran, al-Kinani said.

US officials are also pressuring Iraq not to pass the law with Secretary of State Marco Rubio reportedly telling al-Sudani the law would “institutionalise Iranian influence and armed terrorist groups undermining Iraq’s sovereignty”.

Former and current Iraqi officials argued that the state cannot disband the PMF and any attempt to do so could trigger sectarian violence.

Al-Kinani warned that the US could trigger a conflict by making unreasonable demands without supporting Iraq to carry them out.

“When it comes to Iraq, the US makes drastic demands [without] supporting the Iraqi government or civil society to ensure their protection from any repercussions,” he told Al Jazeera.

The al-Khasfa site, near Iraq’s second-largest city, could contain 4,000 remains and possibly thousands more.

Iraqi officials have begun the excavation of what is believed to be a mass grave left behind by ISIL (ISIS) during its years of carnage exacted upon the civilian population after it seized large swaths of the nation from 2014 onwards, until being vanquished three years later.

Local authorities were working alongside the judiciary, forensic investigators, the Iraqi Martyrs Foundation and the directorate of mass graves to carry out the excavation in al-Khafsa, south of the northern city of Mosul, the state-run Iraqi News Agency reported on Sunday.

The site – a sinkhole about 150 metres (nearly 500 feet) deep and 110 metres (360 ft) wide – is believed to have been the grisly scene of some of the worst massacres committed by ISIL.

Ahmad Qusay al-Asady, head of the Martyrs Foundation’s mass graves excavation department, told The Associated Press news agency that his team began work on August 9 at the request of the Nineveh province.

The operation will initially be limited to gathering visible human remains and surface evidence, while preparing for a full exhumation that officials say will require international support, al-Asady said.

The foundation will then build a database and start collecting DNA samples from families of suspected victims.

Full exhumations can only proceed once specialised assistance is secured to navigate the site’s hazards, including sulfur water and unexploded ordnance. The water may have also eroded the human remains, complicating DNA identification.

Because of the presence of these elements, al-Khafsa is “a very complicated site,” al-Asady added.

Based on unverified accounts from witnesses and families and other unofficial testimonies, authorities estimate the site could contain at least 4,000 remains, with the possibility of thousands more.

Al-Khasfa is located near Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, where ISIL took control before being defeated in Iraq in late 2017. At its peak, ISIL ruled an area half the size of the United Kingdom, spanning across Iraq and Syria, with Raqqa in the latter being the capital of their self-declared “caliphate”.

The group was notorious for its brutality. The group carried out massacres of thousands of the Yazidi people and enslaved thousands of Yazidi women. The Yazidis, a long-persecuted group whose faith is rooted in Zoroastrianism, are still recovering from the horrors of ISIL’s onslaught on their community in Iraq’s Sinjar district in 2014.

Rabah Nouri Attiyah, a lawyer who has worked on more than 70 cases of missing people in Nineveh, told the AP that information points to al-Khasfa being “the largest mass grave in modern Iraqi history”.

Al-Asady, however, said investigators have not yet been able to confirm its size.

About 70 percent of the estimated human remains there are believed to belong to Iraqi army and police personnel, as well as other victims, including Yazidis.

Interviews conducted with numerous witnesses from the area suggest ISIL fighters brought people there by bus to kill them. “Many of them were decapitated,” al-Asady said.

In addition to ISIL-era mass graves, Iraqi authorities continue to unearth such sites dating to the rule of Saddam Hussein, who was toppled in a US-led invasion in 2003.

Authorities say the incident happened overnight between the two Shia holy cities of Najaf and Karbala.

More than 600 Shia pilgrims in Iraq have been briefly hospitalised with respiratory problems after inhaling chlorine as the result of a leak at a water treatment station, according to authorities.

The incident took place overnight on the route between the two Shia holy cities of Najaf and Karbala, in the centre and south of Iraq, respectively.

This year, several million Shia Muslim pilgrims are expected to make their way to Karbala, which houses the shrines of the revered Imam Hussein and his brother Abbas.

There, they will mark the Arbaeen, the 40-day period of mourning during which Shia commemorate the death of Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad.

‘All pilgrims treated’

In a brief statement, Iraq’s Ministry of Health said “621 cases of asphyxia have been recorded following a chlorine gas leak in Karbala.

“All have received the necessary care and left hospital in good health,” it added.

Security forces charged with protecting pilgrims said the incident had been caused by “a chlorine leak from a water station on the Karbala-Najaf Road”.

Much of Iraq’s infrastructure is in disrepair due to decades of wars, internal conflicts and corruption, with adherence to safety standards often lacking.

In July, a huge fire at a shopping centre in the eastern city of Kut killed more than 60 people, many of whom suffocated in the toilets, according to authorities.

Iraqi police clashed with Popular Mobilisation Forces in Baghdad after they stormed an Agriculture Ministry building.

At least one police officer was killed and 14 fighters detained after a gun battle erupted in Iraq’s capital with members of the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), a state-sanctioned paramilitary umbrella that includes groups loyal to Iran.

The violence on Sunday broke out in Baghdad’s Karkh district when PMF fighters stormed a Ministry of Agriculture building during the appointment of a new director, the Interior Ministry said.

The gunmen disrupted an official meeting, stirring panic among staff and an emergency police response team. Police responding to the scene “came under fire”, also resulting in injuries among security personnel.

The ministry said “it would not tolerate any party attempting to impose its will by force and threaten state institutions”.

Group ‘does not want to escalate’

The PMF, known locally as Hashd al-Shaabi, is composed mainly of Shia paramilitaries formed to fight ISIL (ISIS), but has since been formally integrated into Iraq’s armed forces. Several of its factions maintain close ties to Tehran.

Security sources and witnesses inside the building said the fighters aimed to block the replacement of the former director. Hospital and police officials confirmed one officer was killed and nine others were wounded in the clash.

A statement from Iraq’s Joint Operations Command, which reports to Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, said the detained gunmen were referred to the judiciary. Those involved belonged to PMF brigades 45 and 46, units widely linked to Kataib Hezbollah, one of Iraq’s most powerful Iran-aligned militias.

An unnamed member of Kataib Hezbollah told AFP news agency that a fighter from the group was killed and six others were wounded. The group “does not want to escalate” and will allow the judiciary to take its course, the group member said.

In response to the escalation, al-Sudani ordered an investigative committee to look into the events.

The PMF’s continued influence in Iraqi politics and its armed confrontations with state institutions have raised concerns over the fragility of Iraq’s security apparatus, and the blurred lines between formal authority and powerful militia.

Battle for influence

Over the years since the 2003 United States invasion of Iraq, a battle has played out in the country between Iran and the US for government influence. Among those working in alignment with Iran are a number of members of the PMF, which emerged in 2014 to fight ISIL.

In 2017, the PMF’s legitimacy was codified into law against the wishes of the Iraqi Ministries of Interior and Defence, and was brought under the oversight of Iraq’s national security adviser.

Attack is first of its kind in months and occurs as PKK has begun disarmament, ending armed campaign against Turkiye.

An unidentified drone attack has killed a member of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and injured another near northern Iraq’s Sulaimaniyah, according to security sources and local officials.

The attack on Saturday was the first of its kind in months and occurred as the PKK has begun the first steps towards disarmament, ending its armed campaign against the Turkish state.

The drone attack hit a motorbike in the area, according to Iraqi outlet The New Region.

The mayor of Penjwen, in Sulaimaniyah, Hemin Ibrahim, confirmed that the drone targeted two people in a border village within the district, resulting in one dead, Kurdistan24 reported.

“The two individuals were riding a motorcycle when they were targeted. One was killed, and the other sustained injuries,” he told the news outlet.

Ibrahim told Kurdistan24 that the strike occurred Saturday morning.

No group or country has yet claimed responsibility for the attack.

A small ceremony was held last Friday in Sulaimaniyah in Iraq’s northern Kurdish region, where 20 to 30 PKK fighters destroyed their weapons rather than surrendering them to any government or authority.

The symbolic process was conducted under tight security and is expected to unfold throughout the summer.

The PKK announced in May that it would abandon its armed struggle in May, after 40 years of fighting.

For most of its history, the Kurdish group has been labelled as “terrorists” by Turkiye, the European Union and the United States.

More than 40,000 people were killed in the fighting between 1984 and 2024, with thousands of Kurds fleeing the violence in southeastern Turkiye into cities further north.

Turkiye’s leaders have welcomed the disarmament process, with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan stating that the ceremony last week marked an “important step towards our goal of a terror-free Turkiye”.

A Turkish parliamentary commission is expected to define the conditions for the reintegration of PKK fighters into civilian and political life in Turkiye.

The airport, which has not been operational since the group seized Mosul in 2014, will have a main terminal and VIP lounge.

Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani has inaugurated the northern city of Mosul’s newly restored airport, more than a decade after it was destroyed in a series of battles to dislodge the now vanquished ISIL (ISIS) group.

“The airport will serve as an additional link between Mosul and other Iraqi cities and regional destinations,” the prime minister’s media office said in a statement on Wednesday.

Al-Sudani’s flight landed at the airport, which is expected to become fully operational for domestic and international flights in two months. Wednesday’s ceremony was held nearly three years after then-Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi laid the foundation stone for the airport’s reconstruction.

Airport director Amar al-Bayati told the AFP news agency that the “airport is now ready for domestic and international flights.” He added that the airport previously offered international flights, mostly to Turkiye and Jordan.

In June 2014, ISIL seized Mosul, declaring its “caliphate” from Iraq’s second biggest city after capturing large swaths of Iraq and neighbouring Syria, imposing hardline rule over millions of people, displacing hundreds of thousands and slaughtering thousands more.

Nouri al-Maliki, who was the Iraqi prime minister at the time, declared a state of emergency and said the government would arm civilians who volunteered “to defend the homeland and defeat terrorism”.

At its peak, the group ruled over an area half the size of the United Kingdom and was notorious for its brutality. It beheaded civilians, massacred 1,700 captured Iraqi soldiers in a short period, and enslaved and raped thousands of women from the Yazidi community, one of Iraq’s oldest religious minorities.

A coalition of more than 80 countries led by the United States was formed to fight the group in September 2014. The alliance continues to carry out raids against the group’s hideouts in Syria and Iraq.

The war against the group officially ended in March 2019 when US-backed, Kurdish-led fighters of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) captured the eastern Syrian town of Baghouz, which was the last sliver of land ISIL controlled.

The group was also defeated in Iraq in July 2017 when Iraqi forces recaptured Mosul. ISIL then declared its defeat across the country at the end of that year. Three months later, the group suffered a major blow when the SDF took back the northern Syrian city of Raqqa, its de facto capital.

The airport, which was heavily damaged in the battle, has not been operational since the initial fall of Mosul.

It now includes a main terminal, a VIP lounge and an advanced radar surveillance system, al-Sudani’s office said, adding that it is expected to handle 630,000 passengers annually.

It’s one of the longest-running conflicts in the Middle East – and it’s about to come to an end.

Members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) have started laying down their arms at a ceremony in northern Iraq.

It comes two months after the group said it would end its armed struggle against Turkiye and shift to democratic politics.

Reaction has been mixed: Some Kurds think it could pave the way to peace. Others argue it’s a concession with no gains.

So how will this process play out in Turkiye and in the wider region?

Presenter: Adrian Finighan

Guests:

Galip Dalay – nonresident senior fellow at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs

David L Phillips – director of the Program on Peace-building and Human Rights at Columbia University

Mohammed Salih – nonresident senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute who specialises in Kurdish affairs