Juan Cole

Bombs Rock Baghdad on Monday Powerful explosions rocked downtown Baghdad at 10:35 pm local time on Monday, as a rocket also landed in a parking lot near the American headquarters. It is where Coalition Provisional Authority head Paul Bremer and his aides park, but no casualties were reported. Sirens went off and US officials at […]

Kerry, Edwards surge in New Hampshire; Health Care beats Iraq as Concern Only 10 percent of the voters in New Hampshire think Iraq is the most pressing issue in the campaign. I was surprised to find that 22 percent put health care as an issue first, as opposed to 16 percent who focused on the […]

Iraqi Women’s Rights Imperiled Sarah el Deeb of the Associated Press explores the implications for Iraqi women of the US tendency to appoint men to high office, to exclude women, and to bow to vocal patriarchalists whenever challenged. Western commentators, including George W. Bush, who think women’s rights have actually improved in Iraq since the […]

Controversy over 45 Minute Claim Nick Theros is denying stories that appeared in Newsweek and theThe Guardian that claim to demonstrate how expatriate networks suckered the United States and Tony Blair into believing exaggerated claims about Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction capacitities. Here’s the story: Patrick Theros (an Ann Arborite) is a former US ambassador […]

Mahatma Sistani? From a European peace worker in Iraq, a week or so ago: “I have heard that Sistani has promoted among his followers the Gandhian method of disobedience against the occupation power, if the situation seems to go out of hand [i.e. if the US rejects direct elections].” If this report is correct, it […]

6 US Soldiers killed over Weekend, Over a Dozen Wounded; 2 Iraqi police dead, dozens wounded; Helicopter Crash The low-grade guerrilla war against the US military continued at a heated pace over the weekend.. On Sunday, a soldier died of wounds inflicted by a rocket-propelled grenade attack near Beiji, north of Baghdad.. In a separate […]

Sunday Times Alleges Torture, Kidnapping in Basra The Sunday Times carried a story that members of the Badr Brigade of the Shiite Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq are being used as a sort of secret police in Basra with the permission and even oversight of the British authorities there. The article says that […]

The Question of Elections in Iraq In the past week, two significant demonstrations were launched by Iraq’s Shiites, including one on Monday 1/19 that involved an estimated 100,000 in the streets of Baghdad (including, from all accounts, some Sunnis who support open elections). The other, on Tuesday, was smaller and drawn from the poorer, more […]

Kay, Powell, Backtrack on WMD It seems to me that David Kay’s resignation as weapons inspector in Iraq and his open admission that there simply are no “weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq of any significance, has settled the issue. Kay snarkily went out suggesting that there may have been “programs” (read: vague plans and […]