iraq war

At a contentious news conference Tuesday that was mostly about the war in Iraq, President Bush took another opportunity to restate his belief that marriage is between a man and a woman.

Eric Alva, the first American wounded in the Iraq War, has since come out and is working now to lift the ban on openly gay service members in the U.S. military.

While recruitment efforts have been ramped up in light of the Iraq war, most high-ranking military officers are still not in favor of allowing gays to serve openly in the military.

Tammy Duckworth, an Iraq war veteran and Democratic candidate for Congress, is at odds with two national gay rights groups over whether she supports repealing the military's ban on openly gay service members.

President Bush drew sporadic, startling criticism Tuesday night in Manchester, N.H., from Republican White House hopefuls unhappy with his handling of the Iraq war, his diplomatic style, and his approach to immigration.

Everyone, it seems, is taking jabs at John McCain these days, from a Republican rival for the presidential nomination challenging his stand on same-sex marriage to several potential Democratic candidates questioning his position on the Iraq war.

Senate Democrats are trying to force President Bush to sign hate crimes legislation he has threatened to veto by attaching it to a massive bill funding the Defense Department and the Iraq war. Writing violent attacks on gays into federal hate crime laws is related to the war because both are strikes against terrorism, according to a Republican senator and other supporters of the measure.

The Bush administration sidelined Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on Friday, announcing plans to replace him as the nation's top military officer rather than reappoint him and risk a Senate confirmation struggle focusing on the Iraq war.

U.S. Senate majority leader Harry Reid caused a stir Thursday when he said Gen. Peter Pace failed in his job of providing Congress a candid assessment on the Iraq war and that he was concerned Gen. David Petraeus might be guilty of the same.

Republican control of Congress is on the line Tuesday in an election colored by voters' dismay over the Iraq war and misbehavior in Washington. At stake in the midterm election were all 435 House of Representatives seats, 33 in the Senate, 36 governor's offices, and ballot measures on same-sex marriage.

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama battled to refocus his campaign on the five-year-old Iraq war and the slumping U.S. economy, ending a week that saw him clobbered over incendiary remarks by his longtime Chicago pastor. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, his rival for the Democratic nomination, blasted away on the war and economy as well, while pressing demands to reinstate delegates in Michigan and Florida. Clinton won both contests, but the national Democratic Party said they would not be counted because the state votes were held too early and violated party rules.