Juan Cole

Jostling for the Vacant IGC seat of Aqila al-Hashimi It may seem unseemly, but political forces are already attempting to place their candidate on the IGC as a successor to Aqila al-Hashimi, assassinated last week. CPA head Paul Bremer is said to want an independent professional women with the sort of standing and competency enjoyed […]

Drafting of Constitution and Adopting it may take 18 Months or More The Constitutional Preparatory Commission in Iraq, which was supposed to make its report on Tuesday recommending how the new Iraqi constitution should be drafted, has failed to reach agreement. The main issues are whether the drafters are to be elected or appointed, and […]

One Polish Soldier Killed, Four US Troops Wounded Guerrillas in the town of Iskandariya, 45 km south of Baghdad, attacked US troops with a home made bomb on Sunday at 11 am, wounding two. (Note that this attack occurred, not in the usual northern Sunni Arab areas, but in a Shiite region on the road […]

Constitutional Committee in Basra The Preparatory Committee for Drafting the Constitution met Sunday in Basra, chaired by Salah al-Battat. Attending members were Drs. Muhammad al-Muzaffar, Mahdi Jad Mahdi, and Safa’ al-Din al-Safi. Sayyid `Ali `Abd al-Hakim made opening remarks in which it was mentioned that Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani had prepared a prototype constitution, which […]

Kuwaitis Reject Bremer’s Call to Forgive Iraq Reparations Kuwait’s government rejected any suggestion that it cease demanding reparations from Iraq. CPA head Paul Bremer recently called on Kuwait and other Gulf states to write off loans they had made to Iraq (mostly during the Iran-Iraq war) and in the case of Kuwait, to let Iraq […]

Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics Two recent opinion polls, one done by the Zogby group looking at 600 residents from four Iraqi cities, and another done of 1200 residents of Baghdad, have been trumpeted by Bush administration officials and by Rightwing rags like the National Review as containing good news for the US. The officials […]

al-Zawahiri: Overthow Musharraf! The deputy head of al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahir, issued a videotape in which he called on Pakistanis to rise up and overthrow President Pervez Musharraf. He also condemned the recent visit of Israeli officials to New Delhi, decrying an Indian/Israeli/United States axis, which they allege keeps the Palestinians down. Al-Zawarihi also warned that […]

Bush’s Bad News Blues For Bill Berkowitz’s fine piece, “Bush’s bad news blues Administration cooks up new campaign ‘to shine light on progress made in Iraq’” in Working for Change/ Working Assets (which quotes this ephemeral servant), see http://www.workingforchange.com/ article.cfm?itemid=15703

Extent of Saddam’s Atrocities? John Laughland questions UK PM Tony Blair’s assertion that Saddam put 300,000 Iraqis into mass graves. The figure 290,000 victims of Saddam, he says, comes from Human Rights Watch and they admit it is soft in many ways (i.e. not based on actual body counts, which are so far relatively small). […]