Month
Category

Archives: July 2004

Fierce Firefight In Fallujah Leaves 13

Fierce Firefight in Fallujah Leaves 13 Dead, 14 Wounded AP reports that US Marines in Fallujah came under fire late Thursday, starting a firefight that continued through Friday and spilled over into…

Did Al Qaeda Game Bush Into Iraq War

Did al-Qaeda Game Bush into Iraq War? Douglas Jehl of the New York Times explains how Ibn al-Shaykh Libi, a high al-Qaeda official of Libyan extraction, was captured in fall of 2001…

Muqtada Warns Muslim Nations In His

Muqtada warns Muslim Nations In his Friday prayer sermon on Friday before hundreds of followers in Kufa, radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr warned Muslim nations not to send troops to Iraq, warning…

Humanitarian Crisis Looms In Basra

Humanitarian Crisis looms in Basra Reuters reports that a high UN official has raised the specter of a serious humanitarian crisis (i.e. lots of people dying) in Basra this summer. The problem…

National Congress Postponed Fighting

National Congress Postponed Fighting in Nasiriyah In a sign that the political situation in Iraq is even worse than anyone had suspected, the caretaker Iraqi government has had to postpone the holding…

Kerry Plan On Iraq How It Could Work

The Kerry Plan on Iraq: How it Could Work if the UN were Brought In In his speech to the National Democratic Convention, John Kerry devoted a few passages to Iraq. He…

120 Dead In Bombings Clashes In Iraq 4

120 Dead in Bombings, Clashes in Iraq 4 US Troops Killed Wire services report that 120 persons died in separate incidents in Iraq on Wednesday, the one-month anniversary of the "transfer of…

Cheney Watch Vice President Dick

Cheney Watch Vice President Dick Cheney gave his stump speech in Utah on Wednesday, attempting to rally the Republican faithful while the national spotlight remained on the Democrats. Rebecca Walsh reports: Cheney…

Iraqi Economy In Travail Ken Dilanian

Iraqi Economy in Travail Ken Dilanian reports on the woes of the Iraqi economy. His general impression is that unemployment remains between 28 percent and 50 percent; that foreign investment is not…

Arguing With Cheney Reuters Reports

Arguing with Cheney Reuters reports that Dick Cheney was doing some counter-programming to the Democratic National Convention by speaking on the West Coast at Camp Pendleton. He said, “Terrorist attacks are not…

14 Us Troops Wounded By Mortar Fire In

14 US Troops wounded by Mortar Fire in Baghdad 3 Iraqis die in Violence Paul Garwood of AP reports that on Tuesday, guerrillas successfully launched four or five mortars at the Green…

Sunni Iraqis Adopt Religious

Sunni Iraqis adopt Religious Radicalism Others Support Saddam Dan Murphy of the Christian Science Monitor reports on the way in which Sunni Iraqis are turning toward Salafi Islam. Salafis are sort of…

Preoccupation With Iraq Slowed Us Uk

Preoccupation with Iraq Slowed US, UK Response to Darfur Crisis The Foreign Policy Centre in the UK is issuing a report that blames the Iraq War for the inability of the US…

Margaret Cho And Iraq Blog I Have Been

Margaret Cho and an Iraq Blog I have been a fan of comedian Margaret Cho for years, and so was happy and surprised to see traffic coming from her site to mine.…

Clintons Low Key Dissing Of Bush Bill

Clinton's Low-Key Dissing of Bush Bill Clinton is perhaps the most gifted political orator of our generation, so it is worth considering how he dealt with Bush and the Iraq War issue…

8 Killed In Iraq Violence 3 Us

8 Killed in Iraq Violence 3 US Soldiers Wounded in Mosul Bombing Mark Turner of the Financial Times in Baghdad reports that the violence continues in Iraq. He writes, "The spate of…

Shiite Parties Seek Power In National

Shiite Parties Seek Power in National Assembly Defense Minister slams Iran Ashraf Khalil writes for the Los Angeles Times that the Shiite al-Da'wa Party is making an alliance with the Supreme Council…

Brahimi Iraq War Caused More Problems

Brahimi: Iraq War Caused More Problems than it Solved, Brought Terrorism to Iraq Deutsche Press Agentur reports that former UN special envoy to Iraq, Lakhdar Brahimi, expresed deep criticism of the Bush…

Brown Israel Palestine Walled In

Brown: Israel-Palestine: Walled In Kenneth L. Brown gives us a guest editorial on the Israeli security wall being built in the Occupied West Bank. A form of it earlier appeared in an…

Washington Post Weblog Contest

Washington Post Weblog Contest The Washington Post is running a contest for the best weblogs on politics this fall, including international politics. They are now taking nominations and will then do voting…

Democratic Convention Will Not

Democratic Convention Will not Denounce Iraq War Stewart Powell of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports that there won't be much difference between the policies on Iraq to be adopted by the delegates of…

Heavy Fighting At Buhriz Kills 15 Paul

Heavy Fighting at Buhriz Kills 15 Paul Garwood of AP reports that "the carnage" continued in Iraq over the weekend. US troops made a sweep of Buhriz, northeast of Baghdad near Baqubah,…

200000 Israeli Fascists Demand

200,000 Israeli Fascists Demand Colonization of Gaza Tens of thousands of rightwing Israeli imperialists formed a human chain aimed at stretching between Jerusalem and Gaza to protest plans of Israeli Prime Minister…

Sadrists Boycott National Congress As

Sadrists Boycott National Congress As US Troops Surround Muqtada's House Az-Zaman is reporting that US troops surrounded Muqtada al-Sadr's house on Sunday for several hours before withdrawing. It was not known if…

911 Commission Report In Html Thanks

9/11 Commission report in HTML Thanks to Jason Kottke's Documents Page for making the 9/11 commission report available in html, which I find generally easier to use than pdf. Ooops. That was…

Black Banners And Economic Warfare In

Black Banners and Economic Warfare in Iraq Claude Salhani of UPI reports that the recent kidnappings of truck drivers in a bid to force the companies that employ them out of the…

Guest Editorial Penn On Fall Of

Guest Editorial: Penn on the Fall of Pacifist Japan Michael Penn examines the impact of the Iraq crisis on Japan. Ending the “Irresponsible Peace”—The Fall of Pacifist Japan by Michael Penn More…

September 11 Report Due Today

September 11 Report Due Today The September 11 Panel will issue its findings on Thursday. It notes 10 points at which the US made key mistakes that might have stopped Bin Laden's…

Us Military Death Toll In Iraq Reaches

US Military Death Toll in Iraq Reaches 900 Some Two Dozen Iraqis Killed in Baghdad, Ramadi, Baquba, Samarra Violence AP reports that a roadside bomb killed a 1st Infantry Division soldier in…

Naylor On Iranal Qaeda Red Herring

Naylor on Iran/al-Qaeda Red Herring Professor Thomas Naylor of McGill writes: This is certainly not the the first time these tales about Iran cooperating with al-Qa'idah have surfaced. About two years ago…

4 Us Servicement Killed Bombing In

4 US Servicement Killed Bombing in Baqubah leaves 6 dead AP reports that guerrillas killed two US Marines and two US soldiers in Anbar province on Monday and Tuesday. The two Marines…

Deputy Governor Of Basra Assassinated

Deputy Governor of Basra Assassinated AFP reports that guerrillas shot and killed Hazem Ainachi in Basra on Tuesday morning as he got in his car to go to work. Ainachi, acting governor…

Iran In Bushs Sights Same Techniques

Iran in Bush's Sights The same techniques used to get up the Iraq war are now being applied by the political Right in the United States, including President Bush, to Iran. These…

Fresh Wave Of Violence In Iraq Leaves

Fresh Wave of Violence in Iraq Leaves 10 Dead, 62 Wounded Reuters reports that a suicide bomber set off a massive explosion by targeting a fuel tanker near a police station in…

Guest Editorial Pressman On Wall Today

Guest Editorial: Pressman on The Wall Today we feature two guest editorials on the Israeli security wall, which is being built largely on Palestinian territory and involves a de facto unilateral annexation…

Beinin Guest Editorial Us Congress

Beinin Guest Editorial: The US Congress Defies the World Court Our second guest editorial on the issue of the Wall is by the distinguished academic Joel Beinin of Stanford University. The US…

Muqtadas Newspaper Reopens Al Hawzah

Muqtada's Newspaper Reopens Al-Hawzah, the newspaper of the radical young Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, will be allowed to publish again. The decision was taken by Prime Minister Iyad Allawi after the newspaper's…

Rockefeller On Feith Upi Runs Guest

Rockefeller on Feith UPI runs a guest editorial by Greg Guma that signals a long-delayed outbreak of public candor in the US print press about the sinister role of Undersecretary of Defense…

Airstrike On Fallujah Leaves 14 Dead

Airstrike on Fallujah Leaves 14 Dead Bombing in Tikrit, Kidnappings in Kirkuk AP reports that 14 died and 7 were wounded in an American airstrike on an Al-Tawhid facility in Fallujah that…

15 Killed Including Us Soldier Dozens

15 Killed, including a US Soldier; Dozens Wounded Minister of Justice Narrowly Escapes Guerrillas attempted but failed to assassinate the Iraqi Minister of Justice, Malik Dohan al-Hassan, 83, with a suicide bomb…

Mahdi Army Evicted In Diwaniyah

Mahdi Army Evicted in Diwaniyah Sistani Reassures Kurds Iraqi National Guards evicted Mahdi Army fighters from a building that they had occupied in Diwaniyah on Friday. Tom Lasseter of Knight Ridder discusses…

Allawi Accused Of Murdering Prisoners

Allawi Accused of Murdering Prisoners Paul McGeough, Chief Sydney Morning Herald Correspondent, in Baghdad reports that eyewitnesses are saying Iyad Allawi personally executed several prisoners in late June just before the Americans…

32 Killed In Separate Incidents Dozens

32 Killed in Separate Incidents, Dozens Wounded Foreign Ministry Security Chief Assassinated Wire services report that 32 Iraqis died in violence on Thursday. Guerrillas assassinated the chief of security for the Iraqi…

Iraqi Boys Sodomized At Abu Ghuraib

Iraqi Boys Sodomized at Abu Ghuraib: Hersh Sy Hersh, the journalist who broke the Abu Ghuraib prison torture scandal, told an American Civil Liberties Union audience that film exists of young Iraqi…

Some 22 Killed Dozens Wounded In

Some 22 Killed, Dozens Wounded in Bloody Day in Iraq A suicide bomber detonated a huge car bomb at the Green Zone in Baghdad Wednesday, killing 11-12 persons and wounding 40. Interim…

How Clean Has Blair Come Although John

How Clean has Blair Come? Although John Edwards argued Wednesday that President Bush had not taken responsibility for the intelligence failures about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction the way that Tony Blair…

Sadrs Mahdi Army Regrouping Ann Scott

Sadr's Mahdi Army Regrouping Ann Scott Tyson of the Christian Science Monitor has a fine piece today on how Muqtada al-Sadr's militia is regrouping and continuing to engage in vigilante practices. There…

American Islam David Crumm Religion

American Islam David Crumm, religion correspondent of the Detroit Free Press, has written a highly significant portrait of Sheikh Hasan Qazwini, a key Shiite cleric in Dearborn near Detroit. Qazwini comes across…

Arguing With Bush Yet Again President

Arguing with Bush yet Again President Bush gave a speech on Tuesday in which he made specific claims about how the United States is safer as a result of his military action.…

7 Die In Green Zone Bombing Olympic

7 Die in Green Zone Bombing Olympic Head Avoids Assassination Reuters reports that guerrillas killed at least 7 persons with a car bomb at the entrance of the Green Zone (which houses…

Iraqi Police Arrest 527 In Dragnet

Iraqi Police Arrest 527 in Dragnet Sistani calls for National Unity Al-Zaman: Iraqi police swept the al-Rusafah quarter of Baghdad on Tuesday, arresting 527 persons suspected of having committed violent crimes or…

60 Of Iraqi Historical Records Gone

60% of Iraqi Historical Records Gone Valentinas Mite of Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty tells us more about the destruction of a substantial portion of Iraq's archives. Saad Iskandar, Director of the…

Abu Ghuraib Shelled Roadside Bombs In

Abu Ghuraib Shelled; Roadside Bombs in Baghdad Wire services report that Guerrillas fired mortar rounds at Abu Ghuraib prison outside Baghdad on Monday, lightly wounding a civilian "contractor" (likely a private security…

Voice Of America Imperilled Alan Heil

Voice of America Imperilled Alan Heil, author of an important history of the Voice of America, sends along dire news about the service. For Arabic broadcasting, this development is rather as if…

Iraqi Economy Setser Replies Reader

Iraqi Economy: Setser Replies Reader and economist Brad Setser responded to my comment on the Financial Times article on the Iraqi economy last weekend. I . . . have tried to follow…

3 Us Troops Killed 4 Wounded

3 US Troops Killed, 4 Wounded Guerrillas near Samarra detonated a roadside bomb as a US convoy passed on Sunday, killing two US soldiers and wounding 3 others. In Mosul, guerrillas set…

Demonstrations Over Saddam In Baqubah

Demonstrations over Saddam in Baqubah, Baghdad Al-Hayat reports that hundreds of Iraqis demonstrated in the eastern city of Baqubah on Sunday in favor of Saddam Hussein. They carried placards ridiculing his trial…

Shiites And Us Army In Karbala And

Shiites and the US Army in Karbala and Sadr City Ken Dilanian of Knight Ridder has a piece on how the 37th Armored Regiment's 1st Battalion fought an ideal battle in the…

Al Haeri Breaks With Sadr Informed

Al-Haeri Breaks with Sadr An informed reader writes from London: Sayyid Muqtada Al-Sadr has now been officially renounced by Ayatullah Kadhim Al-Haeri. He has been stripped of his "wukala"(representation) and also denied…

4 Marines 5 Iraqis Killed Guerrillas

4 Marines, 5 Iraqis Killed Guerrillas operating near Fallujah killed four Marines on Saturday. AFP reports other incidents: US Marines in Ramadi engaged in a firefight with 7 black-costumed guerrillas, killing two…

Iraqi Economy Limping Along Because Of

Iraqi Economy Limping Along Because of Poor Security The Financial Times has a suggestive story on the Iraqi economy and its continued woes. One conclusion I draw from it is that a…

Anti Occupation Forces Reject National

Anti-Occupation Forces Reject National Congress A National Congress of 1,000 notables will be held for 3 days later in July. It will elect an advisory body of 100, which will have a…

Iraqi Women Being Dragged Backwards

Iraqi Women Being Dragged Backwards Trudy Rubin of the Philadelphia Inquirer brings back grim news about the situation of women from her recent trip to Iraq. She writes, 'during my recent trip…

Feith Cell Under Attack From Senate

Feith Cell Under Attack from Senate The Telegraph points out that the annex to the Senate Intelligence report on failures leading to the Iraq war takes singular aim at Undersecretary of Defense…

Fatal Mortar Duels In Baghdad Samarra

Fatal Mortar Duels in Baghdad, Samarra Senate Tries to Make CIA the Fall Guy Correpondents in Iraq report that guerrillas launched mortar fire at the area around Sadeer Hotel, a favorite of…

Muqtada Thanks Iran Syria Sumaydi

Muqtada thanks Iran, Syria; Sumayd'i Criticizes Emergency Law as Undemocratic az-Zaman: Muqtada al-Sadr expressed his gratitude Friday to Iranian President Muhammad Khatami and Syrian President Bashar al-Asad for rejecting foreign presence in…

Voice Of America Staff Petition To

Voice of America Staff Petition to Congress I received the following from Alan Heil regarding the Voice of America and the continued sinister attempts to abolish it in favor of an AM…

5 Us Soldiers Killed 20 Wounded At

5 US soldiers Killed, 20 Wounded at Samarra 4 Iraqis dead, 24 wounded AP reports that the chaos in Samarra spilled over Thursday onto the nearby US base. Guerrillas attacked the base…

Guerrillas Number Over 20000 Some

Guerrillas number over 20,000 Some honest US officials in Iraq are finally admitting that US forces are not meeting a vanguard of international terrorism there but rather some 20,000 angry Baathists who…

Iraqi And Arab Press Critical Of

Iraqi and Arab Press Critical of Emergency Laws The BBC surveys reaction in the Iraqi and Arab press to the announcement of emergency laws by Prime Minister Iyad Allawi that could gut…

Zarqawi Not Al Qaeda Comment By David

Zarqawi not al-Qaeda: Comment by David Wright David Wright, a former Defense Department analyst and former Army Reserve strategic intelligence analyst has sent the following letter to the Washington Post and shares…

Kenny Boy And W

Kenny Boy and W. Eric Boehlert of Salon.com quotes approvingly two major newspaper leads that did not shy away from mentioning explicitly the close ties between George W. Bush and Enron's Ken…

Children Detainees In Iraq Save

Children Detainees in Iraq? "Save the Children" is intervening with Coalition members in Iraq in an attempt to secure the release of an estimated 100 Iraqi children being held as detainees. The…

Bush Says Edwards Lacks Experience

Bush says Edwards lacks Experience George W. Bush alleged Thursday that John Edwards lacks the experience necessary to be president. The problem with this argument is that Bush lacked the experience necessary…

7 Killed Including 4 Marines Mortars

7 Killed, including 4 Marines; Mortars land near Allawi's INA Offices Wire services report that 7 persons were killed in separate incidents in Iraq on Wednesday, including 4 US Marines and two…

Shin Bet At Abu Ghuraib Respected

Shin Bet at Abu Ghuraib The respected journal of military affairs, Jane's, is reporting that Israeli Shin Bet interrogators were used by the Americans at Abu Ghuraib. A twist: the article maintains…

Veterans Protest War As Dishonest In

Veterans Protest War as Dishonest In a move reminiscent of the Vietnam era, some returning Iraq veterans are condemning the Iraq war as basically dishonest. They point out that no weapons of…

Car Bomb In Khalis Kills 13 3 Marines

Car Bomb in Khalis kills 13; 3 Marines Die in al-Anbar On Tuesday, Australian Broadcasting says that guerrillas drove a car bomb into the midst of a funeral in Khalis, 80 km.…

Tomdispatch Way We Were Veteran

Tomdispatch: The Way we Were Veteran journalist Tom Engelhardt considers the impact of the past three years on the position of the US in the world. Speaking of the Bush-Cheney national security…

Mylroie As Bush Rasputine Peter Bergen

Mylroie as Bush Rasputine Peter Bergen, veteran journalist and al-Qaeda expert, raises the question of whether the bizarre and crackpot theories of Laurie Mylroie have undue influence high in the US government.…

Iraqi Parties Radio Free Europeradio

Iraqi Parties Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty has worked up a basic guide to Iraqi political parties. It has a Part One and a Part Two. See also their Guide to Armed Groups…

John Edwards And Iraq War Now That

John Edwards and the Iraq War Now that John Kerry has chosen John Edwards as his running mate, I looked around for some Edwards quotes on Iraq. Some good ones are at…

Guest Comment On Fallujah And Kaplan

Guest Comment on Fallujah and Kaplan: Nir Rosen Journalist Nir Rosen, who has spent most of the past year in Iraq and has fluent Arabic, recently reported on Fallujah for the New…

2 Us Pilots Wounded Strike On Fallujah

2 US Pilots Wounded; Strike on Fallujah Mortar Strike in Basra US jets dropped 500-pound bombs on Fallujah again on Monday, targetting an alleged safe house of the al-Tawhid terrorist network. The…

Samarra In Chaos Az Zaman Reports That

Samarra in Chaos Az-Zaman reports that informed sources tell it that the city of Samarra is still in a state of complete chaos, after an armed group established domination there when the…

Crisis In Yemen Guest Comment By

The Crisis in Yemen: Guest Comment by Willis John M. Willis, who has taught Middle East at New York University's Dept. of Education, writes in about Yemen: ' I just wanted to…

2 Us Pilots Wounded Mortar Strike In_06

2 US Pilots Wounded; Mortar Strike in Basra Guerrillas in the southern port city of Basra fired mortar rounds at the local government headquarters, but missed and hit local houses instead, killing…

Pipeline Blast Further Limits Iraqi

Pipeline Blast Further Limits Iraqi Exports For the second day in a row on Sunday, guerrillas attacked a key north-south pipeline in Iraq. The damage further limited Iraqi exports, which had been…

Allawi Considering Arab Troops George

Allawi: Considering Arab Troops George Stephanopoulos interviewed Iyad Allawi on Sunday and did what I thought was an excellent job. He pressed Allawi on the issue of Muqtada al-Sadr, and received the…

Karpinski Says Israelis Were At Abu

Karpinski Says Israelis Were at Abu Ghraib Brigadier General Janis Karpinski alleged Sunday that Israeli interrogators were active at Abu Ghuraib prison. She said she even met one who admitted his nationality…

Quiet Ethnic Cleansing Of Shiites By

Quiet Ethnic Cleansing of Shiites by Sunni Jihadis? A European reader with good Iraq contacts passes along a very interesting but frightening account of severe Sunni-Shiite tensions in the mixed areas around…

Iranian Influence On Iraqi Shiites Ed

Iranian Influence on Iraqi Shiites Ed Wong of the New York Times has a fine piece Saturday on Iranian influence on Iraqi Shiites. It seems pretty clear that the Iranians are giving…

2 Marines Die Friday Washington Post

2 Marines Die Friday The Washington Post reports: ' The U.S. military reported that a Marine was killed in combat Friday and a second died of wounds sustained a day earlier in…

3 Killed Or Injured In Hotel Attacks

3 Killed or Injured in Hotel Attacks Reuters reports that guerrillas launched a sophisticated strike Wednesday against the Baghdad Hotel and the Ishtar Sheraton in downtown Baghdad. The hotels were hit with…

Saddam Blames Bush Brief Appearance Of

Saddam Blames Bush The brief appearance of Saddam Hussein in the courtroom on Wednesday was marked by his arrogance and intimidating style of speech. He ran circles around the 40-year-old prosecuting judge…

Iraqi Reaction To Transfer Of

Iraqi Reaction to "Transfer of Sovereignty" The Al-Ahram Weekly, the leading Egyptian organ of news and opinion in English, has published a special issue in which it asked Iraqi writers and intellectuals…

11 Us Troops Wounded Car Bomb In

11 US Troops Wounded; Car Bomb in Samawah The Associated Press reports that guerrillas pounded a U.S. base near Baghdad airport with mortar shells, wounding 11 US soldiers. The shelling started a…