President Obama addressed the nation Tuesday night in a broadcast speech to mark the formal end of the combat phase of the US troop presence in Iraq. From now until the last of the US troops leave, by the end of next year, Iraqi forces will bear the brunt of the fighting, with the remaining US troops largely relegated to support and training roles.

Hours before making the speech, Obama visited the huge Fort Bliss army base near El Paso, Texas, to personally thank some of the 600 soldiers from the 1st Brigade Combat Team who returned from Iraq last week for their service on a mission that Obama had forcefully opposed from the start. In seven years of fighting, the mission in Iraq cost the lives of more than 4,400 US troops, including 51 from Fort Bliss. Thousands more were wounded and maimed for life.

Obama claimed to have met his self-imposed August 31 deadline for having all US combat troops out of Iraq. Just about 50,000 US troops will remain, down from a peak of nearly 170,000 in 2007, at the height of the surge. According to the rules of engagement for the US troops who remain, they will no longer be allowed to go on combat missions unless requested and accompanied by Iraqi forces. The Obama administration insists the US is not abandoning Iraq and is ramping up a diplomatic corps to help stabilize the country’s government and economy over the coming years.

The nation’s most prestigious authority in legal and judicial ethics has issued a scathing indictment of Judge Linda Reade’s conduct in the Rubashkin case.

In a written legal opinion addressed to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, Professor Mark Harrison, one of the key architects of the Code of Judicial Conduct - the country’s standard judicial ethics guidebook - asserts that Judge Reade repeatedly violated the Code’s provisions.

Harrison’s affidavit accompanies a new motion, filed this week by Sholom Mordechai Rubashkin’s lawyers, for a stay [postponement] of the September 7 deadline for filing an appeal.