Juan Cole

Iraqi Exiles in Syria Fomenting Violence? A Kurdish commander associated with Masoud Barzani has charged that some high ranking Iraqi Baath officials had escaped over the border into Syria, and that they were directing attacks on US troops from there. (-al-Hayat) This story strikes me as a little unlikely. How exactly are they communicating with […]

References See http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/ ny-woiraq0930,0,235932.story?coll=ny- worldnews-headlines http://www.qctimes.com/internal.php?story_id =1018545&t=Nation+%2F+World&c=26,1018545

Interim Governing Council Allows Real Estate Deals The Iraqi Governing Council abrogated on Wednesday Baathist laws that had forbidden Iraqis from owning real estate, especially in Baghdad (-al-Sharq al-Awsat). Real estate ownership in the capital was only recognized, according to al-Sharq al-Awsat, if the deed to it was dated before the 1958 coup. The new […]

One US Troop Killed, another Wounded Guerrillas killed an American soldier near Falluja with an explosion on Tuesday. Guerrillas wounded another US soldier in a roadside bomb attack in West Baghdad (al-Zaman via CNN). An average of more than 8 US troops are being wounded each day in Iraq, but we do not hear about […]

Special Counsel Needed for Plame Case The FBI will investigate the outing of Ambassador Joe Wilson’s wife as a CIA operative by high White House officials. This criminal act came as an attempt to punish him for making public his findings that Iraq was not buying Niger uranium. John Ashcroft said Tuesday that the investigators […]

Graduates of Mosul University Threaten Demonstrations Graduates with higher degrees from Mosul University have threatened to hold demonstrations against the US if they are not soon given jobs commensurate with their level of education. (al-Sharq al-Awsat). Unemployment is incredibly high in Iraq. The US inability to provide many jobs so far is making many Iraqis […]

10,000 Turkish Troops for Tikrit region According to al-Zaman, the Turkish government is considering sending 10,000 troops to Iraq, many of which will be deployed in the Tikrit region (the birthplace of Saddam Hussein). The US military apparently hopes that Sunni Muslim troops like the Turks will be able to deal with the resistance in […]

Sunni-Shiite Battles Not Unknown Hamza Hendawi of the Associated Press filed a story on the life and death of the radical Sunni, Muhammad Salem Abu Bakr, who grew to hate Shiites after the fall of Saddam. When he gloated about the death of Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim on Aug. 29, a mob of Shiites gathered […]

Anglo-American Occupation committing Illegalities? Just as the Iraq War was beginning, Tony Blair’s top legal adviser, Lord Goldsmith, presented him with a memo warning that the proposed Anglo-American occupation risked violating international law. Military occupations are governed by the Hague Regulations of 1907 and by the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949. These documents, and international […]