With a new government in place, security concerns will dominate the Iraqi leaders' agenda. Reforming the country's decrepit police will be paramount for Iraq to end its cycle of violence.

President Bush and British leader Tony Blair met Thursday to discuss a full agenda, from Iran to Afghanistan to trade and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But all of it is overshadowed by their leading role in the Iraq war.

The political stalemate in Iraq has been broken but uncertainties remain. The ministries of interior, defense, and national security remain vacant, preventing the new government from moving as quickly as it might like to address the country's violence.

More than five months after holding its first constitutionally governed elections, Iraq still lacks a government. A cabinet is said to be close to fruition, yet the country's ethnic factions, negotiating against a backdrop of increasing sectarian violence, still cannot agree on who should fill the vital ministries of interior and defense.

Iraq is the most dangerous country to be a journalist. Though the perils faced by foreign reporters have been well documented, the risks taken by Iraqi journalists are far greater.

The rebuilding of Iraq remains mired in bureaucracy, corruption, and security lapses, says Stuart Bowen Jr., the U.S. special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, but he expects more progress to be made this year.

A wave of violence against leading Sunni families who have taken part in Iraq's new political life is raising tensions at a pivotal moment. The country's long-awaited prime minister-designate must form a cabinet by mid-May, but factional violence threatens to overtake political progress.

After months of political infighting, Iraq has a prime-minister designate. But it also has an unbowed insurgency, sectarian bloodshed, a moribund economy, and increasingly, a superpower-led occupying army that seems unsure of what to try next.

In the face of mounting calls for his resignation, the secretary of defense is hanging tough. President Bush reiterates his support for Rumsfeld as the secretary defends his leadership of the Iraq war against attacks from retired senior military commanders.

The U.S. postwar military strategy in Iraq has been a lightning rod for criticism, but there are fresh signs military officials may be getting the message.

U.S. casualties in Iraq have been declining in recent months. Yet this is more a product of changing strategies among U.S. and insurgent forces than a sign of calm setting in.

A dispute over the post of prime minister has created a rift among Iraq’s religious Shiite leadership, which may further delay the already stalled political process and lead to an escalation of militia-led violence.

Washington’s opposition to the Shiites’ nomination for premier highlights the growing strain in U.S.-Shiite relations. The reaction from Baghdad suggests U.S. influence in Iraq may be on the wane.

President Bush says “it’s time” for a new government in Iraq, which is critical to the country’s stability. Three months after parliamentary polls, Iraq is still without a national-unity government, while ongoing sectarian violence threatens to send the country into civil war.

Iraq's sectarian killings have many convinced the country has slipped into civil war. President Bush says he is not so sure—and sees signs Iraqis have stepped back from the brink.

On the third anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the fall of Saddam Hussein's brutal regime, violence and political uncertainty threaten to tear the country apart. The war has also taken its toll on the American public, which is growing increasingly pessimistic.

Weekend marketplace bombings kill dozens in Iraq and wound hundreds more, seem to have unleashed another wave of sectarian fighting. Three years after the United States launched a war to oust Saddam Hussein, the insurgency remains unbowed, with no real political solution in sight for the country’s new government.

With the anniversary of the war in Iraq approaching, the United States finds itself mired in a conflict rocked by sectarian violence, an unbowed Islamic insurgency, political bickering, and uneasiness at home about the ability of U.S.-led forces to find a way out.

A string of attacks in Baghdad renew fears of sectarian civil war a week after the bombing of a Shiite mosque in Samarra. The continuing violence has forced a debate in Washington over U.S. troop levels in Iraq and threatens to delay the formation of a new Iraqi national-unity government.

After a surge in sectarian violence following last week’s attack on the Shiite Golden Mosque in Samarra threatened to derail the political process, top Sunni Arab leaders say they will rejoin talks.