Juan Cole

Stand-Down in Fallujah The US abruptly decided Thursday not to press the Marine assault on Fallujah. Instead, it is forming a 1000-man Iraqi unit to restore order in the city, led by a former Baath officer. There is controversy about who the commanding officer will be. Al-Hayat named Major General Jasim Muhammad Salih al-Muhammadi. Western […]

Haeri Criticizes Muqtada Ayatollah Kadhim al-Haeri, now in Qom, Iran, criticized Muqtada al-Sadr, according to AFP/ash-Sharq al-Awsat. Technically, Muqtada is under the authority of al-Haeri, though if Muqtada has managed to finish his studies and is a jurisprudent (mujtahid) he would not have to follow any other cleric blindly. Al-Haeri said that Muqtada had not […]

USA Today Poll: 57% of Iraqis say ‘US Out Now’ From March 22 to April 2, 60 trained Iraqi pollsters interviewed 3,444 randomly selected Iraqis for USA Today. This is one of the first polls in Iraq that seems to me well weighted statistically, though to be sure we’d have to know more than USA […]

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 […]