Uncategorized

Mudarrisi Criticizes Planning for new Constitution Sayyid Hadi al-Mudarrisi, a major cleric of the holy shrine city of Karbala, issued a denunciation Wednesday of the process whereby preparations are being made to draft a new Iraqi constitution. He said that the IGC owed the Iraqi people much more transparency about the process. (al-Zaman) He complained, […]

Bush address to UN Disappointing The US needs three things from the United Nations desperately with regard to Iraq. The first is legitimacy. It needs a UN mantle for its activities in that country, which will make those activities more acceptable to Iraqis and to the Arab and Muslim worlds, as well as to France […]

INC Moves to Take over Iraqi Finances, Economic Policy More on the ambitious “shock treatment” of the Iraqi economy announced Monday. Apparently Ahmad Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress pushed for the plan on the Iraq side, even as proponents of the Washington Consensus did so on the American. The INC managed to get Kamil Mubdir al-Kaylani […]

Petroleum Smuggling The British navy intercepted 7 ships smuggling petroleum out of southern Iraq to the Persian Gulf, according to al-Zaman. Smuggling reduces the country’s ability to produce electricity and the availability to Iraqis of fuel. Such shortages provoked heavy rioting in Basra last month. Meantime, a Coalition spokesman expressed confidence that the new Iraqi […]

FAO Says Millions of Iraqis Suffer Hunger The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP) issued a report on Tuesday saying that almost half of the Iraqi population (24-26 million) are poverty-stricken and in need of aid. An estimated 60% are unemployed. They say that chronic malnutrition afflicts several million […]

6,000 US Troops have come home Sick or Wounded Although the number of troops wounded in action in Iraq is still a little less than 1200, several thousand more have fallen physically or mentally ill in Iraq and the military has been forced to bring them home. The total may run to 6,000. http://www.finalcall.com/ artman/publish/article_1024.shtml

Ambassador Wilson interview by Josh Marshall, part 2 Talkingpointsmemo has posted the second part of a long interview with Joe Wilson, who served in the embassy in Baghdad just before the last Gulf War, who investigated and disproved the fraudulent claims that Iraq had tried to purchase Niger uranium, but who was ignored by the […]

Videotape Shows Powell, Rice, knew WMD Claims False Australian journalist John Pilger claims to have incontrovertible proof that the Bush administration knew that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction and its major figures admitted as much in spring of 2001. Pilger showed video footage of US Secretary of State Colin Powell saying in […]

Attacks in Mosul, Baquba Iraqi eyewitnesses reported that an automobile exploded Monday in front of the police station in the northern city of Mosul, wounding a number of people. Guerrillas also mounted a mortar attack on US troops in the eastern city of Baquba, but it was not clear if they hurt any of them. […]