Juan Cole

Bremer: Students, Faculty may Travel Freely Abroad US civil administrator of Iraq Paul Bremer abrogated all restrictions on the travel abroad of students and faculty at Iraq’s universities on Tuesday, informing them that they were now free to go abroad whenever they had the proper travel documents. The Saddam regime used to forbid such travel […]

Gonul: We can Go in Anytime Turkish Minister of Defense Vecdi Gonul said Tuesday that Turkey retains the right to send reinforcements for its troops deployed near Northern Iraq to deal with threats from what he called Kurdish rebels. That included incursions into Iraqi Kurdistan. It now seems increasingly unlikely that Turkey will send troops […]

1 US Soldier Dead in Tikrit, One Wounded; Baghdad Shaken by blasts Guerrillas detonated an improvised explosive device near Tikrit on Monday, killing one soldier with the 4th Infantry Division and wounding another. Two Iraqis were killed and six wounded in Kirkuk when mortars fell on a civilian neighborhood. In Balad in the north, US […]

Bomb in Karbala kills 3, wounds 12 A car bomb exploded in the Shiite holy city of Karbala on Monday not far from the sacred shrine of Imam Husayn, the martyred grandson of the Prophet Muhammad. It killed 3 persons and injured 12, all passers-by. One report said the bomb went off near a hostel […]

Chief Judge of Najaf, Kidnapped, Executed; Baghdad Official Killed The chief judge in the Shiite shrine city of Najaf was kidnapped Monday, taken to the desert, and executed gangland style with bullets through his head. Judge Muhan Jabr al-Shuwaili had been in charge of investigating former Baath Party members and government employees in the region. […]

Barwari: Half of Iraqis lack Clean Water Nasrin Barwari, interim Minister of Municipalities and Public Works, said that half of Iraq’s 25 million people had no access to clean water. She expressed her disappointment Monday that the United Nations and so many non-governmental organizations (NGOs) were abandoning Iraq. She said they were desperately needed for […]

Police Riot in Basra About 200 police gathered in front of the British Headquarters in Basra Monday to protest a reduction in their salaries from $160 a month to only $60 a month. At one point they rushed the offices of the chief British officials, and came to blows with British guards. The British troops […]

Growing Numbers of Iraqis Watch al-Jazeerah Reuters reports that about a third of Iraqi households now have access to satellite television channels, and that 62 percent of them get their news primarily from al-Jazeera and another Arabic channel critical of the US. (Reference below).

Afghani Constitution Mandates Women’s Seats in Parliament The announcement that the new draft Afghanistan constitution recognizes Islam as the religion of the state has provoked a great deal of discussion in the West. But lots of Western countries have a state religion. The UK does, in the form of Anglicanism, and the British monarch is […]