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Archives: December 2006

What Number 3000 Hides Iraqi

What the Number 3000 HidesIraqi guerrillas killed 6 more GIs and AP put the total dead in combat at 2998. The dreadful milestone of 3000 is upon us. Like all statistics, this…

Murderers Gibbet Cole In Salon

The Murderer's Gibbet Cole in Salon.com on the Saddam Execution My article on the execution of Saddam is out in Salon.com. Excerpt:' The body of Saddam, as it swung from the gallows…

For Whom Bell Tolls Top Ten Ways Us

For Whom the Bell Tolls: Top Ten Ways the US Enabled Saddam HusseinThe old monster swung from the gallows this morning at 6 am Baghdad time. His Shiite executioners danced around his…

Riverbend Is Back Riverbend Weighs In

Riverbend is Back Riverbend weighs in on the condition of Iraq and Saddam's impending execution.I disagree with her about Jalal Talabani (the old-time Kurdish politician who is now Iraq's president), who has…

Alexandrovna Guest Op Ed Saddams

Alexandrovna Guest Op-Ed: Saddam's Execution and the Campaign Against Iran Saddam's Execution is about IranLarisa Alexandrovna'PROLOGUE: When someone does something obviously egregious, we tend to look past it because it is our…

Guerrillas Kill 5 Gis Security Alert

Guerrillas Kill 5 GIs Security Alert over Saddam Sentence Al-Aamiri killing Roils Shiite Politics The US military announced that Iraqi guerrillas killed 5 GIs on Thursday in separate incidents. All but one…

Thousands Demonstrate In Najaf Sunnis

Thousands Demonstrate in Najaf; Sunnis Clash with Gov't in Baghdad over Saddam Sentence; Ford blasts W., Cheney on Iraq Iraqi guerrillas killed three US GIs on Wednesday in two separate bombings.Thousands of…

Polk Guest Editorial Pros And Cons Of

Polk Guest Editorial: Pros and Cons of ISGThe Baker-Hamilton Study: Pluses and MinusesWilliam R. Polk 'In recent days, as you know, there has been a great deal of publicity on the Baker-Hamilton…

Guerrillas Kill 7 Gis Blow Up 52

Guerrillas Kill 7 GIs, blow up 52 IraqisAFP rounds up the violence in Iraq on Tuesday. 7 more US GIs were killed, and bombings in Baghdad and Kirkuk killed and wounded scores.…

Ford And Foreign Policy Snapshots From

Ford and Foreign Policy: Snapshots from the 1970sFormer President Gerald Ford has died at 93. A Wolverine star of the early 1930s at the University of Michigan, Ford passed up an opportunity…

Top Ten Myths About Iraq 2006 1

Top Ten Myths about Iraq 2006 1. Myth number one is that the United States "can still win" in Iraq. Of course, the truth of this statement, frequently still made by William…

Shiite Militias And Iran In Iraq

Shiite Militias and Iran in Iraq Another US soldier was killed on Christmas Day, bringing the number of GIs killed in Iraq to one more than the number of persons killed in…

Christmas In Middle East Silent Night

Christmas in the Middle East Silent night, Al-Zaman reports that "The Our Lady of Salvation Church in Baghdad appeared almost deserted on Christmas Eve. Christian celebrations of Christmas were limited to private…

Sistani Rejects New Sunni Shiite

Sistani Rejects New Sunni-Shiite Coalition 6 Dead in Samawa Clashes 47 Bodies in Baghdad Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani has rejected a plan for a new coalition in the Iraqi parliament that would…

5 Us Gis Killed British Raid Rogue

5 US GIs Killed British Raid Rogue Police in Basra Coeds Raped, Killed in Baghdad Reuters reports several deadly bombings in Baghdad. In addition, US military spokesmen said that 5 GIs were…

Swearing On Quran And Nut On Miami

Swearing on the Qur'an And the Nut on MiamiFlorida Governor Jeb Bush called Colorado congressman Tom Tancredo "a nut" for comparing Miami to a "third world" country. Cuban-Americans and other minorities who…

Iraq Roundup Us Military Announced 3

Iraq RoundupThe US military announced 3 more US GIs killed by guerrillas on Thursday. The Arab League ambassador in Baghdad, Mukthar Lamani, said Thursday that in the previous week, 250 prominent Iraqi…

76 Bodies Found In Baghdad Dozens More

76 Bodies found in Baghdad, Dozens More Killed Attacks on Teachers Roil Education Raed Jarrar argues that the Bush administration's plans to ally with the Kurds and the Shiites and crush the…

Hashimi Bush Blackmailed Blair On

Hashimi: Bush Blackmailed Blair on Timetable Sistani Said to Back New Coalition A US Marine died of wounds received in al-Anbar Province on Monday, the US military announced.Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi…

3 More Us Troops Killed Violence In

3 More US Troops Killed Violence in Iraq at 'All Time High' The deaths of three more US troops at the hands of Sunni Arab guerrillas were announced on Monday.Iraq violence is…

More On Elliot Abrams Censorship Of

More on Elliot Abrams' Censorship of LeverettThe Last Hurrah has imagined the content of Flynt Leverett's squashed opinion piece on Iran, based on his past pronouncements on the matter. Thanks to Daily…

Bush White House Censors Op Ed On Iran

Bush White House Censors Op-Ed on Iran Elliot Abrams Must Go Steve Clemons of the New America Foundation carries the story of how Elliot Abrams and others at the National Security Council…

Dozens Of Red Crescent Workers

Dozens of Red Crescent Workers Kidnapped The horror show in Iraq continued on Sunday, when men dressed as special police commandos invaded the offices of the Red Crescent Society [which is allied…

3 Gis Killed 53 Bodies Found Sunnis

3 GIs killed, 53 Bodies found Sunnis, Sadr Boycott 'Reconciliation' Conference Sunni Arab guerrillas killed 3 GIs north of Baghdad on Saturday with a roadside bomb.Police found 53 bodies in the streets…

Lando On Oil Insecurity In Basra Ben

Lando on Oil Insecurity in Basra Ben Lando of UPI gives us a 2-part report on oil security [part 1 here] in Iraq, or rather the lack thereof. This problem is often…

3 Marines Killed Dozens Of Bodies

3 Marines Killed Dozens of Bodies found 3 US troops were announced killed by Sunni Arab guerrillas on Friday. At least 22 bodies were found in Baghdad. A prominent Iraqi politician and…

How Republicans Are Stealing November

How the Republicans are Stealing the November Elections Or, Bushes and Bonapartes On November 7, the American people delivered a stiff rebuke to the Bush Administration and the Republican Party over its…

Bush Hints That He Will Send More

Bush Hints that he Will send More Troops Dozens Killed in Continued Violence Bush seems likely to try the "surge" tactic in Iraq of putting in substantially more troops, perhaps 20,000, in…

New Middle East Cold War

The New Middle East Cold War: Saudi/Israel/Lebanon versus Iran/Syria/Iraq/Hizbullah Helene Cooper with Hassan Fattah of the NYT has the scoop that Saudi King Abdullah told US VP Dick Cheney two weeks ago…

Kucinich Paul Congressional Hearing On

Kucinich-Paul Congressional Hearing on Civilian Casualties in Iraq Here is the transcript of Monday's hearing on Capitol Hill on the Lancet study, at which I spoke along with two co-authors of the…

Bombings Kill 54 Downtown Baghdad

Bombings Kill 54 Downtown Baghdad Saudi Clerics Mobilize against Shiites Guerrillas detonated two enormous bombs at Tayaran Square in central Baghdad, killing 54 persons and wounding 106. The bombers targeted day laborers…

Congressional Hearing On Civilian

Congressional Hearing on Civilian Casualties in Iraq Stephen Soldz blogs the Paul-Kucinich hearings on civilian casualties in Iraq, at which I testified.Dennis Kucinich has been calling for a US withdrawal from Iraq…

Ross Guest Editorial On Pinochet Gone

Ross Guest Editorial on Pinochet ' Gone But Not Forgottenby Amy Ross(The writer is an assistant professor of geography and human rights at the University of Georgia.)The dictator is dead. At 91,…

Congressional Briefing On Iraq

Congressional Briefing on Iraq Casualties The authors of the Lancet report on Iraq casualties, along with this ephemeral servant, will be testifying before a bipartisan group in Congress on Monday, December 11…

Talabani Rejects Isg Report Sunni

Talabani rejects ISG Report Sunni Gunmen Kill Shiite family in Baghdad My editorial in Sunday's Mercury News treated the issue of the US talking to Syria and Iran about the crisis in…

8 Killed 44 Wounded In Karbala Bombing

8 Killed, 44 wounded in Karbala Bombing Sunni Guerrillas break off Talks with US First-rate Iraq historian Sarah Shields argues that Iraq is not having a civil war so much as it…

Us Air Strike On Thar Thar

US Air Strike on Thar Thar British/Danish Raid on Militias in Basra The US military had a firefight on Friday in Ishaqi in Thar Thar, then troops on the ground called in…

Bushshiites Vs

Bush/Shiites vs. Baker/Saudis? In my article today at Salon.com, "Will Bush choose his new friends over his old? points out that "The president's Shiite allies in Iraq really don't like some of…

Bush Sets Preconditions For Iran Syria

Bush Sets Preconditions for Iran, Syria; Senators Critique ISG At a news conference with Tony Blair, George W. Bush basically blew off the Iraq Study Group's recommendation that he talk to Syria…

10 Us Troops Killed Dozens Of Iraqis

10 US Troops Killed, Dozens of Iraqis While US politicians were mesmerized by the Iraq Study Group report, the Iraqis went on with their bloody civil war. See the next entry for…

Arab Reaction To Isg Report Usg Open

Arab Reaction to the ISG Report The USG Open Source Center translates and analyzes the pan-Arab media on the Baker-Hamilton report:' FYI -- Pan-Arab Media Treatment of Baker-Hamilton Study Group Report on…

Reprint Edn

Reprint Edn.: 10 Things Congress Should Demand on Iraq In the light of the issuance of the Iraq Study Group report, I thought readers might be interested in comparing it with the…

Regional Conference Prepared Iraqi

Regional Conference Prepared Iraqi Military to Assume control within a year Gates Confirmed The US now has a secretary of defense who knows that we are not winning in Iraq, who wants…

Al Hakim Us Troops Should Stay Urges

Al-Hakim: US Troops Should Stay; Urges harsher Measures against Sunni Guerrillas Al-Zaman reports in Arabic that Iraqi Shiite cleric Abdul Aziz al-Hakim for the first time expressed his opposition to the withdrawal…

Talabani Hakim Reject Intl Conference

Talabani, Hakim Reject Int'l Conference 9 GIs Killed The US military announced that Sunni Arab guerrillas have killed 9 GIs in Baghdad and al-Anbar over the weekend.AP says that 71 bodies were…

Rumsfelds Shocking Memo Over 100 Dead

Rumsfeld's Shocking Memo; Over 100 Dead in Sectarian Violence The NYT has gotten hold of a memo by Donald Rumsfeld detailing options on Iraq. Several things struck me about it:1. Rumsfeld doesn't…

Bus Stop Massacre Kills 20 Sistani

Bus Stop Massacre Kills 20; Sistani Aide Warns against Violence, Blames Arab T.V. On Saturday morning, an empty fuel trucker slammed into people waiting at a bus stop in al-Wahada, 22 miles…

Dozens Of Bodies In Sinjar And Baghdad

Dozens of Bodies in Sinjar and Baghdad 40% Increase in Violent Deaths in November AFP says that political violence left nearly 2000 dead in Iraq in November, a 40* percent increase over…

Bush Maliki Summit And New Middle East

The Bush-Maliki Summit and the New Middle East Cold War Over 100 Bodies found in Past 48 Hours Al-Hayat writing in Arabic sums up the results of the Bush-Maliki Summit:1. The US…