Juan Cole

Bush and Blair Committed to War in April, 2002 Leaked Cabinet Briefing Shows British Knew War was Illegal The London Times has dropped another bombshell document concerning the planning of the Iraq war in Washington and London. The leaked Cabinet office briefing paper for the July 23, 2002, meeting of principals in London, the minutes […]

More than 35 Killed by Iraqi Guerrillas US Kills 40 Fighters with Missile Strike CBC/AP reports: The new wave of violence began Friday evening when a suicide bomber targeted patrons of a falafel restaurant in the Shiite Shula quarter of Baghdad, killing 10 persons, some of them children waiting for ice cream. On Saturday, a […]

Cole on Iraq, 2002-2003 By the way, it has been alleged by some of my detractors that I supported the Iraq War. Someone wrote me quoting this passage: “I remain convinced that, for all the concerns one might have about the aftermath, the removal of Saddam Hussein and the murderous Baath regime from power will […]

5 Marines Killed, 4 Wounded 21 Bodies Found Sunnis Reject offer on Constitutional Committee Guerrillas killed 5 Marines near Haqlaniyah in Anbar Province on Thursday. Some 21 bodies were discovered near Qaim in western Iraq, some executed mafia style with a bullet to the back of the head. Two were beheaded. Twenty Iraqi soldiers were […]

Attacks in Yusufiyah, Mosul, Kut Islamic Parties Meet to Shape the Constitution A vehicle accident near Hit in Iraq left a Marine dead on Wednesday, according to AP. 1,683 US military personnel have died so far in Iraq. al-Sharq al-Awsat: A mortar attack aimed at a military site at Yusufiyah instead hit two civilian homes […]

Piles of Smoking Guns Kind readers have drawn my attention to other leaked documents on the British side that lend support to the implications of the Downing Street memo, which alleges that Bush had decided on a war against Iraq by summer, 2002 and would fix the intelligence around the policy. The Daily Telegraph for […]

The Downing Street Memo and “Fixing Around” At least one commentator has been quoted in the press as questioning what British Intelligence chief Richard Dearlove meant in the Downing Street Memo by the phrase “the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.” The full passage reads, “Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military […]

Hersh on Journalism and the Internet Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh is interviewed in The Guardian. He has some canny comments on journalism and blogging. Hersh is a giant in investigative journalism who broke both My Lai and Abu Ghraib, and without him the Republic would be in even worse shape. He makes the key […]

The Revenge of Baghdad Bob “The Revenge of Baghdad Bob” is my current piece in Salon.com about the bizarrely unrealistic assessments of the Iraq War by George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. First para.: “The sheer dishonesty of the Bush administration whenever it speaks about the situation in Iraq was on display again during Bush’s […]