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Dozens of Yazidis enslaved by IS in Iraq now free BBC News Thirty-six members of the Yazidi religious minority are free after nearly three years in the hands of so-called Islamic State (IS), the UN says. They have been taken to UN centres in Dohuk in Kurdish northern Iraq. It is unclear whether they escaped in ... Yazidis freed in northwest Iraq after three years of enslavementAMN Al-Masdar News (registration) After long trek to Armenia, Iraq's Yazidi families struggle to fit in ...ReliefWeb all 7 news articles »

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Dozens of Yazidis enslaved by IS in Iraq now free - BBC News

SANTA CLARITA, Calif. The two things Colt Romberger and his father had most in common, the ones that made them best friends as well as father and son, were a deep affection for horses and an equally deep pride in having served their country in times of war.

So when Cliff Romberger, a Vietnam War veteran and onetime wrangler of horses on Hollywood film sets, died in 2015 of a brain disease doctors attributed to his exposure to the chemical defoliant Agent Orange, his son knew there was but one way to honor him: He would saddle up his horse and ride it from the Pacific Ocean to the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington.

On Monday the compact, muscular 32-year-old Iraq war veteran will begin that journey through big-city streets, across desert sand and over mountain ranges and prairies, aboard a handsome gray-and-black 4-year-old quarter horse named Gus.

"I've spoken to so many Vietnam vets, and they've emailed me. Sometimes it breaks my heart hearing their stories," he says in a voice momentarily choked with emotion.

There was the guy in Norfolk, Virginia, who heard of the ride and sent him $200. When Romberger called to thank him he learned the man was dying of a form of leukemia he believed had been caused by Agent Orange but that had not yet been classified as such because there hadn't been enough cases for the Department of Veterans Affairs to study. He was hoping the government could make that connection in time to add his wife to his survivor's benefits.

"And then he passed away, and he never got the approval," Romberger says quietly as he sits on the patio of a friend's ranch in a semi-rural section of the picturesque suburb of Santa Clarita, 35 miles (56 kilometers) north of Los Angeles. Gus is in a pen nearby, playfully grabbing at a large log he's turned into a toy. They've just finished a lengthy endurance ride through surrounding canyons.

Colt Romberger has been preparing for this ride for nearly two years, and like all good cowboys, the reserve Pasadena police officer, Air Force reserve intelligence analyst and part-time actor will bring along a sidekick. It's his late father's best friend.

"He said, 'Kenny, I'm going to do this. You want to go?' I said, 'You bet,' so I told his mom I'll make sure he's taken care of, and so here we are," said Kenny Reichel, who is putting his business restoring antique cars on hold for the six months the ride is expected to take.

Reichel will drive a truck carrying supplies and pulling a horse trailer while scouting for places man and horse might bed down for the night.

It will pretty much be Gus who sets the pace, Romberger said, adding when the horse gets tired they'll stop. He estimates they can average 25 miles (40 kilometers) a day.

To prepare, he's been riding Gus through some of the busy streets of Los Angeles and Pasadena.

Recently he dropped by the Pasadena Police Department, which has granted him a leave of duty for the ride.

"I wish I had taken a picture," Police Chief Phillip Sanchez says with a chuckle. "Picture the classic Gary Cooper 'High Noon,' right? He's got this brown Stetson hat on, he's wearing a pair of 501 button-down Levi jeans, a pair of brown boots that have probably seen more cow dung than I want to imagine, and spurs of all things."

The department "couldn't be more proud of him," Sanchez adds, and will be following his ride on social media.

Veterans Affairs has recognized more than a dozen diseases it presumes to be connected with exposure to Agent Orange, the defoliant sprayed on the Vietnam countryside to eliminate ground cover hiding enemy troops. After learning how toxic it was, the U.S. banned its use in 1971.

Romberger's father, stationed with the Air Force in Vietnam in 1970 and '71, knew he was exposed but had no idea of the debilitating effects it would cause.

After that exposure, Romberger says, it's likely nothing would have prevented his father from contracting the brain-wasting disease that killed him. But, he adds, his father could have been diagnosed years earlier, providing time to better plan his future and make his final years more comfortable.

That's what Romberger wants to accomplish for others.

"I'm hoping this ride raises the national awareness, becomes the squeaky wheel to get things rolling for these guys," he says. "And I hope it becomes like an educational tool that says, 'Hey, there is help out there, there are people who care.'"

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Iraq War vet aims to spread word about Agent Orange from horseback - Military Times

The firm, together with partners Martyn Day and Sapna Malik and solicitor Anna Crowther, deny charges of misconduct relating to the handling of claims against British troops following a 2004 battle in southern Iraq. Allegations that troops had tortured and murdered prisoners taken after the Battle of Danny Boy were dismissed as the product of deliberate and calculated lies by the Al-Sweady public inquiry in 2014.

Representing the firm, Patricia Robertson QC of Fountain Court Chambers said the case had a wider significance for all solicitors and warned that a finding of misconduct might stop others from speaking up or acting in difficult cases. Day had been convinced that his Iraqi clients were telling the truth when he went public with allegations at a press conference in 2008, she said.

While Day had been sucked in by a series of lies, he had made efforts to check their veracity with doctors and the British Army before the conference, Robertson told the tribunal.

Earlier, the tribunal heard that the firm had pursued claims against troops while knowing its clients were members of an Iraqi insurgent militia rather than civilian bystanders.

For the prosecution, Fountain Courts Timothy Dutton QC said emails in the build-up to the press conference showed Day was alive to the possibility the clients were concocting the story to embarrass the British Army.

It was known that their clients might have been lying and might have been members of the [insurgent] Mahdi Army. The risk was that files were being put in the public domain as containing the truth. The risk was that it would cause maximum damage not only to the British Army as an institution, but to British soldiers and their families, Dutton said.

Malik was also accused of recklessness in not speaking up to question what was going to be said at the press conference, despite being party to discussions in the build-up. The tribunal heard she was a trusted colleague of Day and could have freely expressed any reservations she had.

Defending the decision to hold the press conference, Robertson said: It is fair to say Martyn Day, in making use of the media, wanted that to be effective and powerful. He says in his experience use of the media to get the message out there does serve a legitimate purpose in flushing out evidence and bringing to bear pressure on the decision makers.

Prosecution opening statements also referred to a key document held by Leigh Day which the SRA maintains could have undermined allegations of atrocities had it been disclosed ahead of the Al-Sweady inquiry.

Dutton said that any defence argument that it was overwhelmed by the volume of material would not hold water. If youre going to embark on international law claims where your documents are going to grow, all the more reason to have a system in place to identify all relevant documents, he said.

Robertson told the tribunal that withholding the document, known as the OMS list, was a cock-up that was admitted and much regretted. But she insisted this was not a silver bullet to bring down the entire case and said the Al-Sweady Inquiry had continued for a year after the document was disclosed to it.

Dutton stressed that the SRA was not suggesting Day had been dishonest but that he was pre-disposed towards wanting to accept his clients account and was not approaching the case with openness and an inquisitive mind.

In total Leigh Day received around 9.5m in fees from all the claims it brought, the tribunal heard.

The hearing, which is expected to last seven weeks, continues. This week the tribunal will hear evidence from witnesses including Colonel James Coote, who was at the time a major commanding British troops.

All respondents deny wrongdoing.

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Iraq verdict 'could deter future claims' - Law Gazette

Tony Blair pointed to the slaughter in Syria as justification for his decision to go to war in Iraq .

The former Prime Minister remains unrepetentant about the 2003 invasion which cost the lives of 179 British personnel and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.

He said if Saddam Hussein had not be ousted then Iraq would now pose the same danger as Syrias Bashar al Assad or North Koreas Kim Jong-un.

If you look at what Assad has done in Syria or the guy in North Korea I personally believe we would be in same position if we had left Saddam there. Thats my view other people can take a different view, he said.

Mr Blair also said he was attacked on Iraq because his political opponents on the right saw his brand of politics as a threat.

A lot of these people on the right wing who were attacking people were people who would be attacking me if I hadnt done Iraq.

I dont

Mr Blair made the remarks as he opened up about why he is going back into politics 20 years after his landslide victory.

This Brexit thing has given me a direct motivation to get more involved in the politics, he declares.

You need to get your hands dirty and I will.

Blair sounds genuinely concerned for the country being sold a Brexit dream which may quickly become a nightmare.

We dont know yet what the final deal on Brexit will be, he says, full of the old Blair messianic vigour.

We are advocating a very simple British common sense position, which is to say, lets see what the Tories come up with first. Because there is a bit of the Tory Party determined to deliver Brexit no matter what the cost.

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Tony Blair justifies 2003 Iraq war by pointing at slaughter in Syria and saying we needed to get rid of Saddam - Mirror.co.uk

This picture taken 26 December 2011 shows the Pentagon building in Washington, DC

STAFF/AFP/Getty Images

WASHINGTON -- The White House is giving the Pentagon greater flexibility to determine the number of U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria, in another move by President Donald Trump to shift greater power to his military leaders.

The decision will give Defense Secretary Jim Mattis the authority to send more forces into Syria, to assist U.S.-backed local troops as they move to retake Raqqa from the Islamic State group, which has used the city as a de facto capital.

It will also let him adjust the force numbers in Iraq, in the ongoing fight to oust the Islamic State group from Mosul and stabilize it as the rebuilding begins.

The Pentagon has already been making quiet, incremental additions to the troop levels in both countries in recent months, adding hundreds of Marines in Syria to provide artillery support, and sending more advisers into Iraq to work with units closer to the fight in Mosul. Those moves were done with White House approval, but without any formal adjustment to the longstanding troop caps that had been set by the Obama administration.

Dana White, chief spokesperson for the Pentagon, said Wednesday that Mattis has not made any changes yet to the current authorized force levels.

Under the Obama White House, military leaders chafed about micromanagement that forced commanders to get approvals for routine tactical decisions and personnel moves. They also had to provide justification for any troops sent into war zones. Commanders have argued that they should be able to determine troop deployments based on the military capabilities they believe are needed at any given time.

The new authority will provide greater transparency about the actual number of U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria after several years of public confusion about the accurate totals. Under the Obama-mandated caps, the U.S. was limited to 503 officially deployed troops in Syria, and 5,262 in Iraq. The Pentagon, however, has closer to 7,000 in Iraq, and hundreds more than the cap in Syria, but doesn't count them because they are on temporary duty or not counted under specific personnel rules.

The change, however, could trigger concerns particularly in Iraq, where there are political sensitivities about the footprint of American and coalition troops and fears about occupation forces. Officials worry that if they publicly acknowledge there are thousands more troops there, it could fuel opposition and problems for the Iraqi government.

Trump's decision applies only to the two countries, and so far does not affect Afghanistan, although that change has also been discussed.

"This does not represent a change in our mission in Iraq and Syria to defeat ISIS," said White, using another name for the Islamic State group. She said the U.S. will continue to work through and with local forces, but that giving Mattis the authority to make troop-level decisions will allow commanders to be "more agile, adaptive and efficient in supporting our partners, and enables decisions that benefit unit readiness, cohesion and lethality."

She added that the change will allow the Pentagon be more open with Congress and the public.

2017 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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Trump gives Pentagon power to determine US troop levels in Iraq, Syria - CBS News