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Thomas E. Ricks' daily take on national security.

Iraq, the unraveling (XXXV): bombs, bribes, foreign fighters

I couldn’t bring myself to write about the round of bombings in Iraq yesterday. More today. I have nothing useful to say about that. Meanwhile, there is some word that payoffs to Awakening groups will stop at the end of this month. Interesting campaign move.  And once again foreign fighters seem to be slipping into ...

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575763_091209_iraq7.jpg
575763_091209_iraq7.jpg

I couldn’t bring myself to write about the round of bombings in Iraq yesterday. More today. I have nothing useful to say about that.

Meanwhile, there is some word that payoffs to Awakening groups will stop at the end of this month. Interesting campaign move. 

And once again foreign fighters seem to be slipping into Iraq from Syria. 

Proven provider John McCreary’s bottom line: “Day by day, the security situation is deteriorating  … [I]t will get much worse in the next few months.”

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Thomas E. Ricks covered the U.S. military from 1991 to 2008 for the Wall Street Journal and then the Washington Post. He can be reached at ricksblogcomment@gmail.com. Twitter: @tomricks1
Tags: Iraq, Middle East and North Africa

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