Middle East

Rice Meets Syrian Envoy Donors Cancel $30 Bn. in Iraq Debt Warren Strobel and Miret el Naggar report on US Secretary of State Condi Rice’s meeting at Sharm El Sheikh with the Syrian foreign minister, Walid Moualem. She pressed him to have Syria close its borders with Iraq to infiltrators. US generals on the ground […]

Sharm El Sheikh on Iraqi T.V. The USG Open Source Center has translated and summarized reports on Iraqi television about the conference being held at Sharm El Sheikh on Iraq: Al-Iraqiyah, Al-Sharqiyah Coverage of Sharm al-Shaykh Conference 3 May (2)Iraq– OSC SummaryThursday, May 3, 2007 Baghdad Al-Iraqiyah Television in Arabic — government-sponsored television station, run […]

Murtha Urges Limited Funding Bombing Kills 10 in Shiite Sadr City Iraqi guerrillas killed 3 US troops and wounded 2 on Wednesday. Guerrilla violence killed some 85 persons in Iraq on Wednesday. Reuters reports: ‘ BAGHDAD – A car bomb killed 10 people and wounded 35 near a police station in the Baghdad Shi’ite stronghold […]

Note to Bush and Edwards: On How there is not Really any al-Qaeda in Iraq I caught John Edwards on Wolf Blitzer’s Situation Room Wednesday afternoon. Blitzer asked him about Bush’s remarks on al-Qaeda being enemy number one in Iraq. Edwards replied with great good sense and admirable forthrightness, and I’ll quote it in a […]

Bush Vetoes Supplemental for Iraq Rice will be Polite 11 Killed in Minibus attack Bush vetoed the supplemental appropriations bill for Iraq that Congress sent him on May 1. You know, Bush and Cheney and others got this meme going last fall that critics of the war had a responsibility to put forward their own […]

Mission Accomplished, 4 Years on: A Commentary in Links Remarks by President Bush announcing the end of major combat operations in Iraq Thursday evening [May 1, 2003] from the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln: Admiral Kelly, Captain Card, officers and sailors of the USS Abraham Lincoln, my fellow Americans: Major combat operations in Iraq […]

3,000 Sadrists Protest US Raid 32 Killed in Funeral Bombing Some 3,000 Iraqis came out Monday in Baghdad to protest US military action against the Mahdi Army at Kadhimiya, the site of revered shrine to the 7th Imam or descendant of the Prophet Muhammad. Members of the Iraq parliament as a result want to restrict […]

Touchy, Touchy Terrorists The USG Open Source Center summarizes an internet comment by a supporter of the Salafi “Islamic State of Iraq,” in which he lashes out at the criticism of the organization posted by someone he says is a Baathist. Some call The Islamic State in Iraq “al-Qaeda,” but it doesn’t have operational links […]

25 Killed in Basra Blast; Political Crisis in Basra as Governor is Unseated ; Iran will Attend Sharm El Sheikh Meet On Sunday evening, militiamen set off a bomb that killed 25 and wounded dozens in the poor Hayaniya district in the southern Shiite port city of Basra. Early reports put suspicion on the Mahdi […]