Juan Cole

Kurdish/Arab Violence in Kirkuk Dozens of armed Kurdish men in Kirkuk attacked Arab tribesmen near the city on Thursday afternoon, according to al-Hayat. The Kurds descended on the village of Hayfa, apparently intent on reclaiming it. Many Sunni Arabs had been given land by Saddam, at the expense of Kurds and Shiites. The head of […]

Uncompetitive Halliburton Contracts worth Billions in Iraq The contracts given last February by the US military to Halliburton for putting out petroleum fires and getting petroleum pumping again after the war were initially worth only a few million dollars, but their worth is now estimated at $3 bn. and it could go to $7 bn., […]

Ambassador Joe Wilson on Iraq – Interview by Josh Marshall The full story of Ambassador Joe Wilson’s investigation of (fraudulent) claims that Iraq had signed a deal to buy uranium from Niger is given in his interview with Josh Marshall in Talking Points Memo. Wilson, who served in the US embassy in Iraq until the […]

No Smallpox Program in Iraq, Either US Secretary of State Colin Powell said in his UN presentation that Iraq had the capacity to produce smallpox, one of the reasons it had to be attacked immediately. A special team scouring Iraq for a smallpox weapons program came up empty. The building the CIA thought might have […]

US Soldiers Wounded AFP reports “four more soldiers wounded in two separate attacks on convoys.”

US Tempts Pakistan with Aid, in return for Troops in Iraq The US is putting pressure on Pakistan to send up to 10,000 troops to Iraq, using foreign aid and debt relief as a carrot, according to Reuters. Pakistan had owed the United States $3 billion by summer of 2001, but the article maintains that […]

CNN Star says US Media were Intimidated by Bush Christiane Amanpour said in an interview on CNBC that the US media had been intimidated into self-censorship in its coverage of the Iraq war. “I think the press was muzzled and I think the press self-muzzled.” I think she is being too kind. The US press […]

Zebari Rules out Turkish Troops in Iraqi Kurdish Areas Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari has categorically ruled out the deployment of Turkish troops in the Kurdish areas of Iraq. He expressed a preference for finding other foreign troops besides the Turks, just because countries neighboring Iraq were more likely to have their own agendas. He […]

Two US Soldiers Wounded, One Albanian Killed, Iraqis wounded In Mosul, guerrillas wounded two US soldiers on Monday. In a separate incident, they fired grenades in front of City Hall, killing one Albanian soldier and wounding several Iraqis. There are 70 Albanian troops in Iraq as part of the US “coalition of the willing.” The […]