Juan Cole

Was Wolfowitz the Target? Brig. Gen. Martin Dempsey denied that the rocket attack on the al-Rasheed Hotel was aimed at assassinating Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, arguing that the attack was plotted for two months or so, whereas Wolfowitz’s trip was only recently announced. It seems to me that Dempsey was trying to suggest […]

Iraqis Prefer Technocrats Al-Zaman reports a poll indicating that most Iraqis prefer technocrats (engineers, physicians, scientists, etc.) as their leaders, and show much less trust in traditional politicians or Muslim clergymen. There seemed to be a widespread feeling that there were no traditional politicians in Iraq that were up to the job (i.e. knew politics […]

3 US Soldiers Killed, 4 wounded Friday Guerrillas near Samarra’ about an hour’s drive north of Baghdad fired mortars at the US base there Friday, killing two US soldiers and wounding four. A guerrilla shot a US soldier guarding a grain silo in the north near Mosul. Also at Mosul, guerrillas fired grenades at a […]

Muqtada al-Sadr Condemns Interim Governing Council: “As bad as Saddam” The young Shiite clerical leader Muqtada al-Sadr lashed out at the US-appointed Interim Governing Council on Friday, according to AP. He said that the new regime is not much different from that run by Saddam. Muqtada was in large part referring to the plans by […]

Lack of Medicines for Chronic Diseases The interim Iraqi health ministry has contacted pharmaceutical companies worldwide, urgently seeking medicines to treat chronic diseases. The ministry lacks many such medicines in its storehouses. (al-Sharq al-Awsat)

Elections in Tikrit In an apparent reversal of Paul Bremer’s opposition to municipal elections, Tikrit elected a city council on Thursday. Apparently in the absence of voter registration roles, authorities granted each known household in the municipality one vote. (This procedure would have resulted in a largely middle aged and elderly male electorate, since the […]

Guerrillas set off a bomb in Fallujah on Thursday, wounding a US paratrooper. Guerrillas set off a bomb near a pipeline in northern Iraq, killing two Iraqi Civil Defense Corps members. 10 others were wounded. The 101st Airborne Division engaged in a firefight with guerrillas, killing two and injuring another. A car packed with explosives […]

The Iraqi interim Interior Ministry announced that it has hired 1000 school guards to prevent the kidnapping of children and the holding of them for ranson. Lack of security has discouraged some families from sending children to school, especially girls. There has been a wave of such kidnappings in the past few months.

British representative in Iraq Jeremy Greenstock complained Thursday about Iran-backed Shiite militias in Iraq. He warned Iran to cease using them to interfere. He named the Badr Corps of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iran as “harmful” and as posing a threat to Coalition troops. SCIRI had announced that the Badr Corps would […]