Archives: January 2005

Sistani Uia And Elections Anthony

Sistani, the UIA and the Elections Anthony Shadid on Sunday in WaPo captured the edgy reality of life on the ground in Iraq in the build-up to the elections, and the anxieties…

Guest Editorial Sunni Anxieties And

Guest Editorial: Sunni Anxieties and the Rise of Shiite Power by Shahin M. Cole Sunni Anxieties and the Rise of Shiite Power Shahin M. Cole Iraq after its elections is not out…

Mixed Story Im Just Appalled By

A Mixed Story I'm just appalled by the cheerleading tone of US news coverage of the so-called elections in Iraq on Sunday. I said on television last week that this event is…

Election Update At Little After Noon

Election Update At a little after noon EST, Jane Arraf on CNN is reporting about 30 percent turnout in Baqubah, a mixed Sunni-Shiite city to the northeast of Baghdad. It seems clear…

Dozens Killed In Election Day

Dozens Killed in Election Day Guerrilla Campaign Guerrillas launched mortar and suicide bomb attacks at polling stations throughout Iraq on Sunday as thousands of Iraqis headed to the polls. As many as…

Zogby 9 Of Sunnis Will Vote Stong

Zogby: 9% of Sunnis Will Vote Stong Majority of Iraqis Wants US Out Borzou Daragahi of AP reports an Iraqi poll that shows that the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance coalition will do…

15 Iraqis Killed In Attacks Focusing

15 Iraqis Killed in Attacks Focusing on Polling Places Ash-Sharq al-Awsat reports that guerrillas killed 15 Iraqis on Thursday and blew up six polling sites, continuing their campaign to prevent successfull elections…

Feith Resigns Under Pressure Of

Feith Resigns Under Pressure of Investigations Douglas Feith, the number three man at the Pentagon who went there from the pro-Likud Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) and the Project for…

37 Us Troops Dead Other Americans

37 US Troops Dead, Other Americans Wounded Large numbers of Iraqis Killed, Wounded by Car Bombs at Polling Stations, Party HQs AP reports the worst news the US has had in Iraq…

Speech Bush Should Have Given This Is

The Speech Bush Should have Given This is the speech that I wish President Bush had given in fall, 2002, as he was trying to convince Congress to give him the authority…

Advice For Candidates Do Not Reveal

Advice for Candidates: 'Do not Reveal your Identity . . . Stay Home as Much as Possible ' Jack Fairweather reports for the Telegraph from Baghdad on a meeting held by the…

Sistani Blesses United Iraqi Alliance

Sistani "Blesses" United Iraqi Alliance Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani's web site [Arabic Link] has posted an article from the newspaper al-Ra'i al-`Amm which reports Sistani's oral answers to questions its reporter submitted…

Israeli Arab News Cycle I Found This

Israeli-Arab News Cycle I found this Haaretz article too complicated too follow. So the Israeli Army has a psy-ops unit that used to be very active but has been less so recently,…

Bombs Zarqawi And Sistanis

Bombs, Zarqawi, and Sistani's Constitution On Monday morning, guerrillas set off another car bomb near the headquarters in Baghdad of the Iraqi National Accord, the party headed by interim Prime Minister Iyad…

Al Yawir On Chalabi Affair Lbc Arab

Al-Yawir on the Chalabi Affair The LBC Arab satellite channel ran an extended interview Sunday afternoon EST with interim Iraqi President Ghazi al-Yawir. The interviewer asked him at one point if Ahmad…

Al Hakim No To Civil War Yes To

Al-Hakim: No to Civil War, Yes to Timetable for US Withdrawal Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the United Iraqi Alliance list, says that Shiites refuse to be tricked into a civil war…

Chalabi To Be Arrested Political

Chalabi to be arrested The political season in Iraq is turning extremely nasty. Not only were over 20 persons killed and dozens injured in bombings of a Shiite mosque and a Shiite…

Montazeri Warns Iraqis Against

Montazeri Warns Iraqis Against Clerical Rule Ayatollah Husain Ali Montazeri of Qom warned [Persian link] the Iraqi political class on Friday against allowing clerics to dominate the executive in their new government.…

Nine British Troops Wounded In Abuse

Nine British Troops Wounded in Abuse-Related Blast Guerrillas targeted British troops at the Shaibah base near Basra with a suicide bombing, wounding nine, along with a number of civilians. It appears that…

Rice Doublespeak At Senate Transcript

Rice Doublespeak at Senate The transcript of the Rice/Boxer exchange is worth reading in full. Rice's performance is breathtakingly bad, and Boxer has all the quotes and facts at her fingertips. The…

Consensus Growing In Iraq For

Consensus Growing in Iraq for a Withdrawal Timetable Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the leading figure in the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA the largely Shiite party that is likely to form the next Iraqi…

4 Bombs Shake Baghdad Wednesday

4 Bombs Shake Baghdad Wednesday Morning Condi Assures Senate Everything was Handled Properly and Everything will be All Right Guerrillas unleashed a terror campaign of bombings on the Iraqi capital Wednesday morning,…

Chalabi Attacks Shaalan Rivalry

Chalabi attacks Shaalan The rivalry between Iyad Allawi [Arabic link] and Ahmad Chalabi has heated up two weeks before the January 30 elections. Jon Lee Anderson points out in his New Yorker…

Iraqthemodel Sarah Boxer Writing In

IraqTheMOdel Sarah Boxer writing in the NYThas more on the saga of the Fadhil brothers and their pro-Bush website, which is idolized on the American Right. She notes that Ali Fadhil, one…

Pace Of Attacks Picks Up In Iraq With

Pace of Attacks picks up in Iraq, with Explosion Tuesday Morning in Baghdad, 24 Dead on Monday A big car bomb exploded outside the headquarters in Baghdad of the Supreme Council for…

Accountability Moment And Hersh On

The Accountability Moment and Hersh on Iran Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh threw Washington, Islamabad and Tehran into consternation Monday with his report in the New Yorker on the activities of Bush's Pentagon…

Al Abbudi Sistani Endorses United

Al-Abbudi: Sistani Endorses the United Iraqi AllianceAl-Zaman reports via AFP that Shaikh Naji al-Abbudi, a representative of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, spoke at a conference on the upcoming elections in the southern…

Major Fighting In Ramadi Mosul Kut Al

Major Fighting in Ramadi, Mosul, Kut al-Zaman says that a US soldier was killed Saturday at Babil, the site of ancient Babylon, where the US military has come under criticism for having…

Curfew Measures On Election Day Events

Curfew Measures on Election Day Events conspired to undermine the Iraqi government's attempts to reassure the public that procedures for voting would be secure. Judge Wael Abdul Latif, a Basra notable of…

Muqtada Outside Powers Should Not

Muqtada: "Outside Powers Should Not Interfere in Elections" Pachachi: Expatriate Iraqis must Vote Al-Sharq al-Awsat: Shaikh Nasir al-Sa`idi, the Friday prayers leader of al-Muhsin Mosque in Sadr City, read out a sermon…

Polling Sites Soldiers Electoral

Polling Sites, Soldiers, Electoral Workers Targeted Guerrillas bombed a polling site in Sharqat north of Baghdad, destroying it but causing no casualties. In Baghdad, a policemen, two Iraqi soldiers and a civilian…

7 Dead 38 Wounded In Shiite Mosque

7 Dead, 38 Wounded in Shiite Mosque Bombing Two Aides of Sistani Killed Guerrillas parked a car bomb outside a Shiite mosque in the eastern village of Khan Bani Saad on Thursday…

Election News No Ayatollahs No

Election News: No Ayatollahs, no Israelis Al-Hayat: The Iraqi National Accord has lodged a formal complaint with the Iraqi electoral commission against the use by the United Iraqi Alliance of the name…

Absolutely Sometimes You Have To Go To

Absolutely? Sometimes you have to go to the regional newspapers for the punchy editorials. The Pentagon's announcement that the search for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction officially ended quietly in late December…

Falling Like Flies 53 Iraqi Parties

Falling like Flies 53 Iraqi Parties Withdraw from Elections Xinhuanet reports that: ' According to the Al Furat newspaper, 53 political parties and organizations as well as 30 individuals have asked their…

Pressman Implications Of Abu Mazen

Pressman: Implications of Abu Mazen Jeremy Pressman of the University of Connecticut Political Science Department shares his thoughts in a guest editorial on the victory of Mahmud Abbas in the Palestinian elections…

Third Baath Coup If As I Have Argued

The Third Baath Coup? If, as I have argued, the Baathists along with some Salafi (Sunni fundamentalist) allies are behind the guerrilla war, what do they want? They want to drive the…

Allawi Pockets Will Not Be Able To

Allawi: "Pockets" Will not be Able to Vote Michael Georgy of the Scotsman reports from Baghdad that interim Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi admitted on Tuesday that "pockets" of Iraq won't be…

Us Soldier Killed In Samarra 15 Iraqis

US Soldier Killed in Samarra, 15 Iraqis Killed Guerrillas set off a car bomb at the police station in Tikrit Monday, killing 6 policemen and wounding between 8 and 12. Tikrit is…

Electoral Lists Kind Person In Baghdad

Electoral Lists A kind person in Baghdad sent me this. It is a translation of an official announcement from last month, which appeared in a Kuwaiti newspaper. It is a complete listing…

Us Rejects Sunni Demand For Withdrawal

US Rejects Sunni Demand for Withdrawal Timetable 2 US troops Killed, along with Baghdad Deputy Police Commissioner and Iraqi Police, Guards The US rejected on Monday a proposal from the Sunni Association…

New Contours Of American Militarism

The New Contours of American Militarism David Ignatius of the Washington Post has a column on Tuesday concerning US options in Iraq. He reports three scenarios from Washington insiders: 1) reduce the…

Us Kills As Many As 12 Innocents 7

US Kills as many as 12 Innocents; 7 Ukrainians die in Blast US troops south of Baghdad near Yusufiyah ran into a roadside bomb near a checkpoint the night of Saturday into…

Sistani Sunnis Must Have Effective

Sistani: Sunnis Must have Effective Participation Al-Hayat: [What follows is a paraphrase:] A source close to Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani in Najaf affirmed Saturday that the new permanent constitution for Iraq must…

Election Woes Nancy Yousef Of Knight

Election Woes Nancy Yousef of Knight Ridder reports from Baghdad that campaigning for the January 30 elections has worsened ethnic tensions. Her interviews with university students reveal that the Shiites she talked…

Guerrillas Kill 9 Us Troops 18 Bodies

Guerrillas Kill 9 US Troops 18 Bodies of Lured Workers Found in Mosul Guerrillas in northwest Baghdad detonated a roadside bomb on Thursday evening as US Bradley Fighting Vehicle went by, killing…

Saudi Tsunami Fundraising Drive Raises

Saudi Tsunami Fundraising Drive Raises over $30 million in First Day Saudi Arabia Television held a fundraising drive for the victims of the tsunami and raised a little over $30 million on…

Mysterious Us Strike In Irbil

Mysterious US strike in Irbil Condemned by Kurds The US military appears to have become convinced that Ansar al-Sunnah, a breakaway group from the largely Kurdish terrorist group Ansar al-Islam, has been…

Murphy Sunnis Not Registered Dan

Murphy: Sunnis not Registered Dan Murphy of the Christian Science Monitor reports from Baghdad that many Sunni Arab families in Iraq are not registered to vote. In part, this situation derives from…

Car Bomb At Hilla Police Academy Kills

Car Bomb at Hilla Police Academy Kills at Least 20 Guerrillas detonated a car bomb outside a police academy in Hilla, a city of 500,000, largely Shiite, in the mixed Babil province…

Baghdad Governor 6 Bodyguards

Baghdad Governor, 6 Bodyguards Assassinated 5 US Troops, 10 Iraqi Commandoes also Killed The pro-American governor of Baghdad and his convoy were ambushed on Tuesday by gunmen, who managed to cut down…

Downsides Of Partitioning Iraq Some

Downsides of Partitioning Iraq Some readers asked me why I was so against partitioning Iraq. It is because it would cause a great deal of trouble to us all, not least Iraqis.…

Carnage Continues With 27 Dead

Carnage continues With 27 Dead Bombings and assassinations resulted in at least 27 deaths in Iraq on Monday. Not only was a bomb exploded outside the headquarters of interim Prime Minister Iyad…

2 Killed 14 Wounded At Allawi Party Hq

2 Killed, 14 Wounded at Allawi Party HQ Wire services and Lebanese Broadcasting Channel were reporting early Monday morning that guerrillas had detonated a car bomb near the headquarters of the Iraqi…

Middle Eastern Contributions To

Middle Eastern Contributions to Tsunamic Relief in Context Someone on an email list drew my attention to the following exchange from last week, with Tucker Carlson talking to Leslie Gelb, a fromer…

Postings Postings May Sometimes Be

Postings Postings may sometimes be irregular this week, since I'm at a conference.

Thousands Of Fallujans Demonstrate Ash

Thousands of Fallujans Demonstrate Ash-Sharq al-Awsat Thousands of Fallujans demonstrated on Saturday in front of the main entrance to the largely abandoned city. They demanded that US military forces leave their city…

Guerrillas Kill 32 Car Bomb Kills 19

Guerrillas kill 32 Car Bomb Kills 19, Wounds 6 AFP reports that guerillas killed 32 persons in Iraq on Saturday. The most spectacular act of violence was the car bombing of a…

End Of War Highly Informed Reader With

The End of War? A highly informed reader with practical Iraq experience wrote me the following, reponding to my statement on New Year's day, “Now that nukes are becoming so common, humanity…

Happy New Year May 2005 Bring Us All

Happy New Year May 2005 bring us all more peace, good will, prosperity, and spiritual fulfilment than did 2004. Maybe it will be the year that we finally see some of the…

Split Among Shiites On Elections 9

Split among Shiites on Elections 9 Iraqis Killed in Bombings, Shootings A suicide bomber killed 7 persons at Siniyah near Baiji, five of them national guardsmen. Another national guard was found dead…

Bush Responds To Criticism On Tsunami

Bush Responds to Criticism on Tsunami The Bush administration scrambled to repair the diplomatic damage done by the relative insouciance with which it had confronted the massive tsunami of last Sunday. The…