Iraq

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Firefighters look for survivors at the local headquarters of the Kurdistan Democratic Party after a bomb attack in Kirkuk, 180 miles (290 kilometers) north of Baghdad, Iraq, Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2013. (AP Photo/ Emad Matti)

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Chuck Hagel, a potential nominee for defense secretary, called the 2007 troop surge in Iraq a “blunder” and advocated talks with Iran with no strings attached. (Associated Press)

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** FILE ** Protesters chant slogans against Iraq's Shiite-led government as they wave national flags and hold posters of Sunni Finance Minister Rafia al-Issawi during a demonstration in Fallujah, 40 miles west of Baghdad, on Sunday, Dec. 23, 2012. Thousands protested in Iraq's western Sunni heartland following the arrest of bodyguards assigned to the finance minister, who draws support from the area. The Khulafa al-Rashideen Mosque is seen at right. (AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed)

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Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, who was hospitalized late Wednesday with what unofficially is being described as a stroke, will be taken to Germany for more treatment. (Associated Press)

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Iraqi President Jalal Talabani talks to reporters in Baghdad in 2007. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)

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People inspect the scene of a car bomb attack in al-Mouafaqiyah, Iraq, a village inhabited by families from the Shabak ethnic group, near the city of Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, on Monday, Dec. 17, 2012. (AP Photo)

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Domiz refugee camp in the Kurdish Autonomous Region of Iraq has absorbed more than 30,000 Syrian Kurds since April, housing many of them in U.N. Refugee Agency tents. (Giulio Petrocco/ Special to The Washington Times)

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A presidential Thanksgiving past: President George W. Bush prepares to serve dinner to U.S. troops in Baghdad after paying a surprise Thanksgiving Day visit to Iraq in 2003. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

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Government Accountability Office investigator Michael J. Courts (center) testified Thursday during a public House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing that diplomatic security received a surge of funding from 1998 to 2008, but one-third of the money went to protect sites in Iraq, and much of the rest was spent in ways “more reactive than strategic.” (Andrew Harnik/The Washington Times)