Iraq

Guerrillas injured the Polish ambassador to Iraq on Wednesday with roadside bombs.Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki again insisted on Wednesday that the Blackwater security firm should leave Iraq. He accused its employees of having been trigger-happy on several occasions. Al-Maliki began making this demand soon after the September 16 shootings at Nisur Square, which left […]

Colin Kahl of Georgetown University writes: ‘There will be 100-130K troops in Iraq when Bush leaves. The number will depend largely on who wins the factional infighting between the White House and MNF-I (Petraeus) on the one hand, and CENTCOM, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Secretary Gates on the other hand. The former want […]

British PM Gordon Brown, in Baghdad and Basra for consultations with PM Nuri al-Maliki, with British commanders, and with his US allies, announced that he would withdraw another 1,000 British troops from Basra by Christmas. A majority of the British public wants all the troops out now, but the US is putting enormous pressure on […]

Iraqi authorities are not only accusing Blackwater guards of an unprovoked shooting of 11 persons at Nisur Square on Sept. 16, but also of engaging in an hour-long firefight with Iraqi police later that day. The firm appears to have deployed attack helicopters in the firefights. The NYT reports that a new congressional report on […]

A wave of violence rolled over the northern city of Mosul (pop. 1.5 million, Iraq’s second largest) on Sunday. A member of the Ninevah Provincial Council and his three body guards were assassinated by machine gun fire; gunmen killed two policemen in the east of the city; armed men killed two people in a market; […]

NYT columnist Tom Friedman’s column, “9/11 is over,” sounds the death knell for the Neoconservative use of 9/11 and is in particular an attack on Rudy Giuliani. Friedman’s main arguments are that the Bush administration’s approach to dealing with al-Qaeda has so damaged the US image abroad, has so inconvenienced foreign travelers and visiting business […]

The USG Open Source Center translates or paraphrases sermons given in Iraq on Friday, both Sunni and Shiite. ‘Round-up of Iraqi Friday Sermons 28 SepIraq — OSC SummarySaturday, September 29, 2007 Major Iraqi television channels – Baghdad Al-Iraqiyah, Baghdad Baghdad Satellite Channel, Baghdad Al-Sharqiyah, Baghdad Al-Furat, Cairo Al-Baghdadiyah, and Baghdad Al-Diyar – are observed on […]

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Friday rejected the US Senate resolution calling for a soft partition of Iraq. Reuters reports: ‘ “They should stand by Iraq to solidify its unity and its sovereignty,” Maliki told Iraqi state television . . .”They shouldn’t be proposing its division. That could be a disaster not just for […]

The US Senate voted for a soft partition of Iraq on Thursday. First they messed up Iraq by authorizing Terrible George to blow it up, now they want to further mess it up by dividing it. It makes no sense to me; the US Senate doesn’t even have the authority to divide Iraq. Wouldn’t that […]