Juan Cole

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). […]

Two US Soldiers Killed On late Thursday, guerrillas fired a rocket propelled grenade at military vehicles near Kirkuk, killing a soldier from the 173rd Airborne Brigade and injuring two others. In Tikrit, a US soldier, from the 4th ID was killed by a fire in an abandoned building, and another was wounded.

Sadrist Militia interferes with Burial Rites for Aqila al-Hashimi Aqila al-Hashimi, a Shiite member of the Interim Governing Council, was buried in Najaf on Friday after having been assassinated, probably by Baathist goons. Ordinarily the body would have been carried to the shrine of Imam Musa al-Kazim at al-Kazimiya, a suburb of Baghdad, for prayers […]

Judicial Board Constituted CPA head Paul Bremer signed an order creating an independent judicial council to oversee the Iraqi legal system. It will be supervised by the interim minister of justice, Hashim al-Shibli. This system of law is a secular one. Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani and other Shiite clerics, as well as Ahmad al-Kubaisi on […]