Juan Cole

Telecom contracts Under Suspicion of Graft The Financial Times says that the Pentagon is investigating the interim Iraqi minister of communications and two officials of the Coalition Provisional Authority concerning charges that they had taken bribes in granting licenses to build and operate mobile telephone networks in Iraq. The Orascom contract is the one under […]

Poor US Military Intelligence in Iraq The Associated Press did a story on Friday on the US military’s lack of good human intelligence skills and assets in Iraq. This lack of Arabists and analysts familiar with Arab politics and culture helps explain the morass into which the US has fallen in the past six months. […]

Al-Hakim Faults Plan for Transition to Sovereignty Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq and a member of the Interim Governing Council, complained this week about the US plan for handing over sovereignty to an Iraqi government by June. He said the process whereby this plan was worked out […]

Powerful Explosions Rip through Palestine, Sheraton Hotels Guerrillas fired rockets into the Palestine Hotel and the Sheraton in downtown Baghdad on Thursday. Several persons were injured. According to CNN staff, who are based in the Palestine, there was damage to the 12th, 15th and 16th floors of the 18-story building. The attack took place at […]

Gunmen trade fire with Guards of Japan’s Embassy Gunmen began firing on Wednesday night near the Japanese embassy in Baghdad. The embassy guards got into a firefight with them, after which they fled. The Japanese spokesman at the enemy said it was unclear whether they had been guerrillas intentionally targetting the Japanese embassy, or whether […]

Khafaji added to IGC Salma al-Khafaji has been added to the Interim Governing Council, succeeding the slain Aqilah al-Hashimi, who was assassinated. Al-Khafaji is a Shiite woman dentist, and joins other technocrats on the council. She was chosen by the Shiite caucus on the IGC, which is now back to having a majority of 13 […]

Season of Bombs The 8 people killed in Iraq since Wednesday by various guerrilla bombings and attacks are dwarfed by the disaster in Istanbul. A US soldier was killed and two wounded by a bomb attack in Ramadi. Another bomb went off outside the house of the pro-US mayor of Ramadi. Guerrillas blew up a […]

Vatican Denounces Islamist Attacks on Christian Schools in Mosul Radical Muslims sprayed machine gun fire at properties of the Assyrian Antiochan church in Mosul and planted hand grenades in schools maintained by the church. The attacks brought a condemnation from the Vatican. Iraqi police found the hand grenades, which could have injured school children, and […]

Talabani: Muqtada Welcome in Transitional Government Muqtada al-Sadr, the heretofore radical Shiite cleric of Kufa, would be welcome in the Iraqi government, according to Interim Governing Council president Jalal Talabani. So reports Howard LaFranchi of CSM. Al-Sadr had earlier been a harsh critic of the US and had urged nonviolent resistance to the occupation (though […]