Juan Cole

Fallujah and Najaf al-Hayat reports that the Interim Governing Council continues to attempt to negotiate a settlement at Fallujah between guerrillas and the US Marines. The Marines called down 500-pound bombs and AC-130 howitzers on the Julan neighborhood again on Wednesday, in reply to heavy fire from insurgents based there. Eyewitnesses said 10 buildings were […]

New Executive of Technocrats being Readied for Iraq Az-Zaman reports that American sources told it yesterday that influential quarters in the Central Intelligence Agency are putting forward as candidate for high office in the caretaker government of Iraq a politically neutral former major general and three prominent court judges and independent attorneys. There will be […]

Iraq Corruption at Pentagon Allegations of corruption have been raised against a Pentagon figure. He is said to have pressured the Coalition Provisional Authority to make a telecom bid private rather than public, so that it could be thrown to an American firm using the Qualcomm CDMA technology and ensure that the European GSM standard […]

Brahimi Plan Controversial Lakhdar Brahimi spoke further on Tuesday about his ideal plan for a caretaker government in the period June 30 – January 31, the run-up to national elections. It seems clear that Brahimi prefers that a handful of high offices be filled by technocrats with no further political ambitions. He thinks that politicians […]

Muqtada and Fighters Defiant in Najaf Luke Harding of the Guardian managed to get to Kufa after the big battle there. He writes: ‘ These days, Mr Sadr, a 30-year-old cleric whose father and uncle were both killed by Saddam, is a hard man to find. But his spokesman, Qais al-Kha’zali, told the Guardian that […]

AC-130s at Fallujah and Najaf (64 Sadrists Killed) I made the mistake of turning on the television in the middle of the day and was treated to horrific images of part of the Julan quarter of Fallujah in flames. It appears that the Marines took fire from there and called in AC-130 strikes against the […]

Protest Letter of 52 British Former Diplomats to Blair on Iraq Policy The letter is worth reading in full, and probably it is also worth googling the signatories. It is extraordinary how terrified these experienced diplomats are, and amazing that these men who spent a lifetime practicing discretion would now speak out. I understand that […]

More Violence in Iraq I was at a conference at Columbia on Monday and then traveling and so was away from news most of the day. When I did get a chance to check in, I found this Boston Globe piece that summarized the now-daily carnage. Renewed fighting in Falluja, including use of air strikes […]

Shots Fired at Bulgarian President Parvanov Attacks Kill 9 in Iraq, Including 2 US Military Personnel Guerrillas directed fire at visiting Bulgarian President Georgy Parvanov as his motorcade moved from the Polish base to the Bulgarian base near the Shiite shrine city of Karbala in south-central Iraq on Sunday. They were repelled, and no casualties […]