Since 2001, Congress has appropriated about $640 billion for the global war on terrorism, the majority of this for operations in Iraq. In Jan. 2007, the Pres. announced ¿The New Way Forward¿ to stem violence in Iraq and enable the Iraqi gov¿t. to foster national reconciliation. This new strategy established goals and objectives to achieve over 12 to 18 months, or by July 2008. This report discusses progress in meeting key goals in ¿The New Way Forward¿: (1) improve security conditions; (2) develop capable Iraqi security forces and help the Iraqi gov¿t.; (3) enact key legislation; (4) spend capital budgets; and (5) provide essential services. Also discusses U.S. strategies for Iraq. Includes recommendations. Charts and tables.

In Jan. 2007, the Pres. announced a new U.S. strategy to stem the violence in Iraq and help the Iraqi gov¿t. foster conditions for national reconciliation. In ¿The New Way Forward,¿ the Admin. articulated near-term goals to achieve over a 12- to 18-month period and reasserted the end state for Iraq: a unified, democratic, federal Iraq that can govern, defend, and sustain itself and is an ally in the war on terror. To support this strategy, the U.S. increased its military presence and financial commitments for Iraq operations. This testimony discusses: (1) progress in meeting key security, legislative, and economic goals of ¿The New Way Forward¿; and (2) past and current U.S. strategies for Iraq and the need for an updated strategy. Illus.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “I’ve read kind of all the books on this subject . . . and this is the one you want to read.”—Rachel Maddow Before Ukraine, before impeachment: This is the never-before-told inside story of the high-stakes, four-year-long investigation into Donald Trump’s Russia ties—culminating in the Steele dossier, and sparking the Mueller report—from the founders of political opposition research company Fusion GPS. Fusion GPS was founded in 2010 by Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch, two former reporters at The Wall Street Journal who decided to abandon the struggling news business and use their reporting skills to conduct open-source investigations for businesses and law firms—and opposition research for political candidates. In the fall of 2015, they were hired to look into the finances of Donald Trump. What began as a march through a mind-boggling trove of lawsuits, bankruptcies, and sketchy overseas projects soon took a darker turn: The deeper Fusion dug, the more it began to notice names that Simpson and Fritsch had come across during their days covering Russian corruption—and the clearer it became that the focus of Fusion’s research going forward would be Trump’s entanglements with Russia. To help them make sense of what they were seeing, Simpson and Fritsch engaged the services of a former British intelligence agent and Russia expert named Christopher Steele. He would produce a series of memos—which collectively became known as the Steele dossier—that raised deeply alarming questions about the nature of Trump’s ties to a hostile foreign power. Those memos made their way to U.S. intelligence agencies, and then to President Barack Obama and President-elect Trump. On January 10, 2017, the Steele dossier broke into public view, and the Trump-Russia story reached escape velocity. At the time, Fusion GPS was just a ten-person consulting firm tucked away above a Starbucks near Dupont Circle, but it would soon be thrust into the center of the biggest news story on the planet—a story that would lead to accusations of witch hunts, a relentless campaign of persecution by congressional Republicans, bizarre conspiracy theories, lawsuits by Russian oligarchs, and the Mueller report. In Crime in Progress, Simpson and Fritsch tell their story for the first time—a tale of the high-stakes pursuit of one of the biggest, most important stories of our time—no matter the costs.