Archives for November 2005

Cole in Salon and Truthdig In Salon.com today, I ask “Did Bush plan to Bomb al-Jazeera?” And present new evidence that Rumsfeld considered the Arabic satellite station’s reporting to be a form of murder. My article on Rumsfeld’s complicity with Saddam Hussein when he was using chemical weapons is at Truthdig.com, a new site, the […]

Wilkerson: Cheney May be a War Criminal Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff of Colin Powell, told the BBC that Vice President Dick Cheney may be guilty of war crimes for arguing that all restrictions on torturing prisoners should be done away with. The Wilkerson transcript is here. Money grafs: >BBC: But you’re talking about […]

Shiite Militiamen Terrorize Sunni Arabs Khalilzad Agrees to Talk to Sunni Guerrillas Now terrorists are killing Christian (Chaldo-Assyrian) politicians. The New York Times seems to have become convinced of the credibility of Sunni Arab charges that Shiite religious militiamen have infiltrated the new Iraqi army and security forces, and are conducting a campaign of murder […]

Khalilzad to talk to Iranians Monday in Iraq was characterized by the usual mayhem, much of it with a dark sectarian character. Two prominent members of the Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party and a third politician from the Association of Muslim Scholars (hard line Sunni) were assassinated in Baghdad. South of the capital, two Britons of […]

US Air Power to Replace Infantry in Iraq; Distant President Trapped in Utopianism Veteran journalist Seymour Hersh is reporting in the New Yorker that the Bush administration has decided to draw down ground troops in Iraq. Knowledgeable observers strongly suspect that this step would produce a meltdown and possibly even civil war in Iraq (which […]

Rubaie: US will Withdraw Completely from Some Areas Muqtada offers National Pact Al-Sharq al-Awsat: Muwaffaq al-Rubaie, national security adviser to the Iraqi government, said Saturday that “The American forces will soon turn over complete and total responsibility for security in a number of areas of the country to Iraqi forces.” He said that a joint […]

Al-Qaeda Plot Against Tourist Hotels in Morocco Busted Up 2 Suspects had fought in Iraq Al-Zaman/ AFP: Moroccan security agencies said Saturday that they had foiled a attempt by al-Qaeda to attack buildings belonging to the government as well as hotels frequented by foreign tourists. Two of the plotters had Belgian citizenship but were of […]

Iraqi Guerrillas Made Key Demands of CIA at Cairo Conference Al-Hayat says that [Arabic URL] informed sources maintained to it that the intelligence services of the Arab states, of Iraq, of the guerrilla movement in Iraq, and of the US, conducted discussions on the sidelines of the National Reconciliation Conference for Iraq held recently in […]

Ministry of Interior Moles Busted Wave of Kidnappings, Killings in Mosul, Tikrit Al-Zaman: American forces killed Shaikh Abdullah al-Ani, the preacher at the mosque in the town of Qaim, near the Syrian border. [This killing of a respected cleric will be causing us trouble for years to come.] DPA: Iraqi authorities announced that they had […]