CHARLOTTESVILLE The United States has fought four costly wars since 1945 and none of them ended as World War II did, with complete victory. In Korea, after nearly three years of huge American troop casualties, the war ended in 1953 in a draw with North and South Korea divided along roughly the same border they had at the start of the war.

Korey Outerbridge was in Iraq when the idea came to him: He needed to write a children’s book. “We had phone tents when we deployed, for soldiers to call back to the states,“ Outerbridge said. Crossword-puzzle and race-car magazines lay scattered about the phone tents. Soldiers would thumb through them while they waited to contact to their families, the 29-year-old Newport News native recalled.

Korey Outerbridge was in Iraq when the idea came to him: He needed to write a children’s book. “We had phone tents when we deployed, for soldiers to call back to the states,“ Outerbridge said. Crossword-puzzle and race-car magazines lay scattered about the phone tents. Soldiers would thumb through them while they waited to contact to their families, the 29-year-old Newport News native recalled.

Nearly six years into the war in Iraq, the United States military still is having trouble getting spare parts for some armored vehicles it uses there, Rep. Robert J. Wittman, R-1st, said yesterday.

Katherine Davenport was at work selling cars Nov. 12 when she received the call about her son, Jason, who was deployed in Iraq. “My first question was, ‘Is he alive?‘“ the mother of three said. “The guy starts telling me about the attack, and I said, ‘Is he alive?‘ I don’t know how many times I said, ‘Is he alive?‘ before he finally said, ‘Yes, he’s alive’.“

Republicans as a whole have been reluctant to admit the crucial part played by Iraq in their recent electoral drubbing. The latest favorite theory is that only because of GOP success in engineering the surge did Iraq disappear from the public radar.

Even as the U.S. presence is on the verge of receding in Iraq, America needs to stay engaged with that key Middle Eastern nation, two international experts said in Richmond yesterday. “Iraq could be a positive force in the region,“ said former Iraqi defense official Nazar Janabi. But, Janabi said, “that will require some strategic patience” on the part of America.

Janabi Newton Two experts with extensive personal experience in Iraq will discuss the next steps for that country at a World Affairs Council program in Richmond tomorrow. Nazar Janabi served from 2004 to 2006 as director general for defense policy and requirements in the Iraqi Ministry of Defense. He is a Next Generation fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, focusing on Iraqi and Middle Eastern security issues and democratization in the region.

It takes a brave soldier to do what Army Maj. Gen. David Blackledge did in Iraq. It takes as much bravery to do what he did when he got home. Blackledge got psychiatric counseling to deal with wartime trauma. Now he is defying the military’s culture of silence on the subject of mental health problems and treatment. “It’s part of our profession . . . nobody wants to admit that they’ve got a weakness in this area,“ Blackledge said of mental health problems among troops returning from America’s two wars.

BAGHDAD - Iraq will serve as an early test of Barack Obama’s skill in weighing options and measuring risks. The next few months should give an indication whether he can end the Iraq war without risking new violence that could threaten U.S. interests throughout the Middle East. Ending the war, which the Congressional Budget Office says costs $145 billion a year, would fulfill an important campaign promise and free up military resources for the fight against al-Qaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan.

ZAKHO, Iraq—The streets of this bustling frontier town are crowded with trucks sporting blue and white Turkish license plates and billboards advertising Turkish products that are popular in Iraq. Watching the hectic flow of commerce, you’d never think that hostilities are exchanged across this border almost as rapidly as goods are traded across the same line.

Pfc. Bradley S. Coleman’s death is under investigation, military officials said. A 24-year-old Martinsville soldier and father of two young children died in Iraq last week of injuries suffered in a noncombat-related incident, the U.S. Defense Department announced yesterday. Pfc. Bradley S. Coleman, a 2003 graduate of Magna Vista High School, died Oct. 29 at Qayyarah Airfield. He was assigned to the 51st Transportation Company, based in Mannheim, Germany.

Fearing political division in the parliament and the country at large, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki won’t sign the just-completed agreement on the status of U.S. troops in Iraq, a leading lawmaker said yesterday. Shelving the accord would be a major setback for the Bush administration, which has been seeking to establish a legal basis for the extended presence of troops in this country, and for Iraq, which gained notable concessions in the draft accord reached one week ago.

Iraq’s labor minister escaped assassination yesterday when a bomber rammed an explosives-laden SUV into his convoy, killing at least nine people in one of the safest areas of the capital. Meanwhile, the U.S. relinquished control of a province that includes much of the area south of Baghdad once known as the “triangle of death.“ Babil is the 12th of 18 Iraqi provinces to be placed under Iraqi control, paving the way for U.S. forces eventually to go home. Americans will stay in the area to help when needed.

American soldiers might stop patrolling the streets and head back to their barracks. Help to the Iraqi army could suddenly cease—not to mention raids on al-Qaida fighters and Shiite extremists. U.S. and Iraqi officials would scramble for options to salvage their mission here, in the waning days of a Bush administration. It’s a vision of what may take place if Iraq’s parliament refuses to accept a new security agreement with the U.S. before year’s end. That date—Dec. 31—is when a U.N. mandate expires and with it, the legal basis for American troops to operate inside Iraq.