WBEZ 91.5 Chicago

Violence in Iraq rose dramatically in March — with violent deaths more than double the level in February, according to statistics provided by sources including Iraq's Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Health and the Baghdad morgue.In March, 79 civilians and 31 security personnel were killed

Of the 49,000 American troops still in Iraq, some 1,600 are assigned to advise and train the Iraqi military and police.One of the key areas is Iraq's air force. It was totally destroyed as a result of the Gulf War in 1991 and the U.S. invasion in 2003.Now the U.S.

For more than a century, Iraq was a beacon of visual art in the Arab world.The Ottomans, the British and the Iraqi rulers who followed prided themselves on the fact that Iraqi artists studied their craft abroad, then returned to practice it back home.Artists even thrived under Saddam Hussein.

Five years ago, Iraqi insurgents in Samarra, north of Baghdad, detonated four bombs in a shrine that is one of the holiest sites in Shiite Islam.The destruction of the Askariya shrine brought the most vicious sectarian warfare that Iraq has seen.

While protests in the streets of Baghdad and other Iraqi towns have been small compared with elsewhere in the Arab world, they have shaken the government of Nouri al-Maliki.The Iraqi prime minister at first reacted like strongmen who have ruled Iraq in the past — with violence.

These days, it seems like there are two Iraqs.There's the Iraq that we know, where Baghdad is the capital, and where low-level bombings and political infighting are the norm.And then there's a place that tour groups are calling "the other Iraq": the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan.

There are still questions about whether some U.S. troops will remain in Iraq beyond the withdrawal deadline set for the end of this year. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki said in December there's no need for a continued U.S.