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Iraq page archive May - September 2004

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Tony Blair "....Regime change was not the cause for it, the cause for it was that... (pause) What I did was take the view after September 11th that we had to take a totally new approach and what that meant is that in respect of regimes developing WMD instead of taking a reactive approach we had to take an active approach and that therefore the place to start was Iraq because there was a string of UN resolutions, a long history of UN inspections not working and so we went back to the UN, got a fresh resolution which said he had to comply fully with the UN inspection regime. Now in the end he didn't so that was the legal basis for the war. Um..." Transcript: John Humphrys and Tony Blair. Sept 29 2004

Sunday Herald Spy chiefs warn PM: don't blame us for war (Jan 25 2004)

Informed Comment DAILY on the situation in Iraq by Juan Cole, Professor of History at the University of Michigan. ~ The Butler Report website ~ download the full 9/11 Commission report or substantial summary

September 30 2004 ~"... Bombs exploded near a U.S. convoy in western Baghdad on Thursday, killing 35 children and seven adults,

a hospital official said. Hours earlier, a suicide car bomb killed a U.S. soldier and two Iraqis on the capital's outskirts. The day of violence left a total of 46 people dead and 208 wounded.." AP

September 29 2004 ~ "Our Iraq policy should be step-by-step disengagement, and we should start now. ... "

Simon Miles' Comment in the Guardian ".....Our ambassadors are, for the most part, wise and honourable men and women. When it becomes clear that the government's policy is not serving the country's interests, they are in an impossible position. An ambassador cannot always duck a question, and he couldn't have said that US policy in Iraq is right. It isn't.
Important and newsworthy though all these topics are, we should not let them distract us from the bigger picture, which Colin Powell has rightly described as "getting worse". The political settlement that brought fragile peace to Falluja has collapsed, and the Americans are again using heavy weapons, including air-to-ground missiles, inside the town, building up yet more hatred and problems for the future. Elsewhere, the daily killing of Iraqis and Americans goes on. .." Read in full

Sept 28 ~ ".. elections in Iraq are impossible"

"The Jordanian monarch has said that elections in Iraq are impossible because of the current chaos and that “in the immediate” future he sees no chances of improvement." Scotsman and "King Abdullah II, who was paying a brief visit to France, told the daily Le Figaro that, in his view, it is the extremists who would gain the upper hand in the current conditions in Iraq..." Associated Press

Sept 27 2004 ~ Ignorance or lying?

Reuters "Many of President George W. Bush's assertions about progress in Iraq -- from police training and reconstruction to preparations for January elections -- are in dispute, according to internal Pentagon documents, lawmakers and key congressional aides on Sunday."
(Juan Cole's Informed Comment tells us that although President Bush said that UN electoral advisers are in Iraq, there are in fact only a handful there. Voter registration hasn't been conducted. Almost no preparations have been made. Bush spoke of 100,000 "fully trained and equipped" Iraqi soldiers & police but only 22,700 Iraqi troops and police have received even minimal training, and only a few thousand are fully trained.)
Reuters " A senior administration official defined "fully trained" as having gone through "initial basic operations training."
Juan Cole says "The article is worth reading in full, and by the time you get to the end it is clear that Bush was either lying or ignorant, neither of these being a good posture for a president."

Sept 27 2004 ~ The worse the situation in Iraq, the bigger the lies that Tony Blair tells us.

Robert Fisk "Iraq, remember, was going to be the role model. It would be the catalyst, 'crucible' even, of the new Middle East .... We are now in the greatest crisis since the last greatest crisis. That’s how we run the Iraq war - or the Second Iraq War as Lord Blair of Kut al-Amara would now have us believe. ......
.... what happened to all those videos which members of Congress were allowed to watch in secret and which we - the public - were not permitted to see? Why have we suddenly forgotten about Abu Ghraib? Seymour Hersh, the journalist who broke the Abu Ghraib story - and one of the only journalists in America who is doing his job - has spoken publicly about what else happened in that terrible jail.
I’m indebted to a reader for the following extract from a recent Hersh lecture: "Some of the worst things that happened that you don’t know about. OK? Videos. There are women there. Some of you may have read that they were passing letters out, communications out to their men. This is at Abu Ghraib... The women were passing messages out saying please come and kill me because of what’s happened. And basically what happened is that those women who were arrested with young boys, children, in cases that have been recorded, the boys were sodomised, with the cameras rolling, and the worst above all of them is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking..."

Sept 27 ~ Just as we must no longer talk about weapons of mass destruction.....

For as the details slowly emerge of the desperate efforts of Bush and Blair to find these non-existent nasties, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. US mobile site survey teams managed, at one point, to smash into a former Iraqi secret police headquarters in Baghdad, only to find a padlocked inner door. Here, they believed, they would find the horrors that Bush and Blair were praying for. And what did they find behind the second door? A vast emporium of brand new vacuum cleaners. At Baath party headquarters, another team - led by a Major Kenneth Deal - believed they had discovered secret documents which would reveal Saddam’s weapons’ programme. The papers turned out to be an Arabic translation of A J P Taylor’s The Struggle for Mastery in Europe. Perhaps Bush and Blair should read it.

Sept 27 ~ Second Iraq War indeed. How much more of this tomfoolery are we, the public, expected to stomach?

We are fighting in "the crucible of global terrorism", according to Lord Blair of Kut. What are we to make of this nonsense? Of course, he didn’t tell us we were going to have a Second Iraq War when he helped to start the First Iraq War, did he? And he didn’t tell the Iraqis that, did he? No, we had come to "liberate" them. So let’s just remember the crisis before the crisis before the crisis. Let’s go back to last November when our Prime Minister was addressing the Lord Mayor’s banquet. The Iraq war, he informed us then - and presumably he was still referring to the First Iraq War - was "the battle of seminal importance for the early 21st century".
Well, he can say that again. But just listen to what else Lord Blair of Kut informed us about the war. "It will define relations between the Muslim world and the West. It will influence profoundly the development of Arab states and the Middle East. It will have far-reaching implications for the future of American and Western diplomacy."
And he can say that again, can’t he? For it is difficult to think of anything more profoundly dangerous for us, for the West, for the Middle East, for Christians and Muslims since the Second World War - the real second war, that is - than Blair’s war in Iraq. And Iraq, remember, was going to be the model for the whole Middle East. Every Arab state would want to be like Iraq. Iraq would be the catalyst - perhaps even the "crucible" - of the new Middle East. Spare me the hollow laughter. ..." Read in full

Sept 27 2004 Robert Fisk " ... many of the letters I’ve received from readers come from men and women who fought in the Second World War, who argue ferociously that Blair and Bush should never be allowed to compare this quagmire with the real struggle against evil which they waged more than half a century ago.

Not for many years has there been such a gap - in America as well as Britain - between the people and the government they elected. Blair’s most recent remarks are speeches made - to quote that Owen poem - "to children ardent for some desperate glory". Ken Bigley’s blindfolded face is our latest greatest crisis. But let’s not forget what went before. www.independent.co.uk

Sept 26 ~ there still remains a sense of unreality in public life about the enormity of what Britain has helped to create in Iraq

Guardian ".....In recent weeks British forces have been under regular assault, caught up in bloody firefights and forced back to barracks by the increase in attacks in Basra, Amara and elsewhere. Evidence has been piling up of the killing and maltreatment of Iraqis in and out of custody by British troops, whose local reputation for brutality is a far cry from the benign paternalism often hailed in the British media. And now a British engineer working at a US military base faces the horrific fate meted out to his two fellow American kidnap victims...
the events of the past few days should have triggered a political crisis in Britain.
The conclusion of the Iraq Survey Group that there were no weapons of mass destruction at the time of the invasion, the leaked Whitehall documents confirming that Blair was warned in advance of the likelihood of post-war chaos and, crucially, the declaration by the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, that the war launched by a British prime minister was illegal should be a lethal combination. ............
............. That these events have not yet led to a decisive crisis of Blair's leadership is above all a function of the fact that Britain was the only one of the original invading coalition to have a centre-left government - and which has therefore been supported over the fundamentals of the war ever since by the main opposition party. But the underlying damage to both the Labour party and the government by their continuing association with such a catastrophic adventure is likely to have fatal political consequences in its impact on public trust and support. ..." Read in full

Sept 24 2004 ~ Arab commentators are unimpressed by Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's speech to the US Congress on Thursday, with one saying it was difficult not to "throw up".

BBC "....The only thing Allawi's government has achieved for the Iraqis is to destroy their country and provide cover for US forces to slaughter more than 20,000 Iraqis. " is the commentary from London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi
Commentary in Jordan's Al-Dustur: "If Bush wins another term, and considering his war justifications and his own hidden agenda, he will continue the occupation of Iraq, keep US military bases there and make the next Iraqi government follow US policies aimed at redrawing the Middle East map and imposing a system of Islamic democracy on its states."

Sept 24 ~ "Dr Germ" Why has she not been let go?

She has not been charged with any crime, and even if she were, could she not be freed on bail? Is it that the US authorities don't want her talking to the press about the biological specimens she received from American companies in the 1980s when Saddam Hussein was Washington's friend? Are they worried she might produce the receipts she has said she holds? .." Guardian

Sept 24 ~ Iraq "The country may become a no-go area for news.." Guardian

Foreign journalists who used to rent houses in Baghdad have had to retreat to better-guarded hotels. Many media organisations have reduced their teams to one reporter, and even they rarely risk leaving Baghdad. Their Iraqi interpreters and drivers are under threat. The country may become a no-go area for news. In the mayhem of kidnappings, suicide bombs, and US air attacks, the continuing detention of a dozen Iraqi scientists may seem trivial. Thousands of other Iraqis have been arrested on suspicion of being part of the anti-American insurgency. Most are eventually let go, some after beating and torture. Only a few have been taken to court and convicted. But the holding of Iraqi scientists, whom the Americans call high-value detainees, is significant because they, more than any other group, seem to be hostages. Taken initially into custody because it was thought they could shed light on those elusive weapons of mass destruction, it is clear they had little new to say. There were no WMD, as they always insisted. ....
.... Small wonder that Iraqis feel humiliated and impotent. They are trapped between different sets of foreigners. On one side they face the barbarity of outside Islamists, who use Iraq as the latest and most convenient terrain for jihad against America. On the other, they see the stubbornness of Bush and the arrogance of Blair, who refuse to admit that their adventure was wrong, has become a disaster, and needs to be ended.

Sept 24 ~ "George Bush's vision of the liberation of Iraq has melted before harsh facts.

But reality cannot be allowed to obscure the image. The liberation is "succeeding", he insists, and only pessimists cannot see it. .." writes Sidney Blumenthal in the Guardian
"....In Iraq, US commanders have plans for this week and the next, but there is "no overarching strategy", I was told by a reliable source who has just returned after assessing the facts on the ground for US intelligence services. The New York Times reports that an offensive is in the works to capture the insurgent stronghold of Falluja - after the election. In the meantime, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and other terrorists linked to al-Qaida operate from there at will, as they have for more than a year. ."

Sept 22 ~ Simon Jenkins says, " Britain should get out of Iraq - fast.

It's that simple..."
"... Tony Blair has declared that Britain is now fighting a “new war” in Iraq. He did so on the anniversary of the Battle of Arnhem, an inauspicious precursor. Arnhem was a notorious “bridge too far”, a politico-military decision that led to defeat and the needless loss of British lives. But at Arnhem Britain knew what it was about. When Mr Blair calls on all “sensible and decent people” to support him in this new Iraq conflict we can only ask, to what end? When I was in Baghdad last winter I could travel freely anywhere albeit in conditions of extreme insecurity. That is now out of the question. No soldier, journalist, aid worker, United Nations official, contractor, even middle-class Iraqi thought to be worth a ransom dares to move. Iraq may enjoy some liberties but they are near worthless in a state of anarchy. .." Read in full

Sept 22 ~ "what was obnoxious to the American people about Saddam Hussein was not that he was a dictator.

Those are a dime a dozen and not usually worth $200 billion and thousands of lives. It is that he was supposedly dangerous to the US because, as Bush alleged, he was trying to develop an atomic bomb. But whatever nuclear program he had was so primitive as not to be worth mentioning, and there is no evidence that Saddam posed any threat at all to the United States' homeland, or would have in his lifetime. I have a sinking feeling that the American public may like Bush's cynical misuse of Wilsonian idealism precisely because it covers the embarrassment of their having gone to war, killed perhaps 25,000 people, and made a perfect mess of the Persian Gulf region, all out of a kind of paranoia fed by dirty tricks and bad intelligence. And, maybe they have to vote for Bush to cover the embarrassment of having elected him in the first place. How deep a hole are they going to dig themselves in order to get out of the bright sunlight of so much embarrassment?" Juan Cole yesterday

Sept 22 ~ "The Foreign Office, as disclosed in the Hutton and Butler inquiries and again in internal papers leaked at the weekend to the Daily Telegraph, initially opposed war in Iraq.

They argued that war would be much worse than the status quo, which at the time was a policy of containment, keeping Saddam Hussein weak through a combination of international sanctions and the retention of no-fly zones in northern and southern Iraq. ..." Guardian

Sept 21 ~ The Case of the Dead Clerics Outside Two Mosques

Juan Cole "Two important figures in the Sunni fundamentalist Association of Muslim Scholars [Board of Muslim Clerics] were assassinated on Sunday and Monday....The ASM, headed by Sheikh Hareth al-Dhari, has in some instances been linked to militants, but usually has maintained enough independence of them to act as a broker between them and the Baghdad government. The AMS has announced that it will boycott the elections scheduled for January. It has emerged as the most respected and influential of the Sunni Muslim religious parties in Iraq, and seems to be the Sunnis' answer to Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani...since the simultaneous siege of Fallujah and Najaf in spring of 2004 by the US, the Sunni fundamentalists or Salafis and the Sadrist Shiites had appeared to make up. They sent each other food aid, and the Sunnis put up posters of Muqtada al-Sadr in Fallujah .... So it would be strange if the Sadrists, who are still under pressure from the US, should suddenly decide to pick a fight with the Sunnis....the Baathists and the Sunni fundamentalists seem to have forged at least a tacit alliance in places like Fallujah and Ramadi, so it is a little odd that they should take out after Sunni leaders at this juncture..
The other possibility is Monotheism and Holy War, the terrorist organization based in Jordan and Germany that begin as a rival to al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. The letter attributed to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi last January by the CIA spoke of attempting to provoke Sunni-Shiite warfare as a way to ensure that American-dominated Iraq was destabilized.
I dislike the US official tendency to blame most violence in Iraq on Zarqawi and other outsiders. I think 99% of it is Iraqi in character. But killing Shaikh al-Zaidi right in front of a Shiite mosque, or dumping his body there, does seem to be a deliberate provocation of the sort Tawhid earlier spoke of.
A conspiracy theory might cast suspicion on the Allawi government, which would potentially benefit from driving a wedge between AMS and the Sadrists. But I don't think Sunni-Shiite riots would help the stability of Iraq, and can't imagine Allawi is so foolish as to risk provoking them."

Sept 21 2004 ~ "I am angry, not because I was deceived over Iraq, but because we were right."

Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, at the Liberal Democrat conference in Bournemouth: "Our reputation and respect have been diluted and dissipated, and all because of Iraq. ....Before the war, it was claimed that to attack Iraq was necessary because it was a threat. Now we are told the war was justified because Saddam was a tyrant. A justification of doubtful legality has been replaced by one of no legality whatsoever." Mr Campbell said the British people looked "in vain" for contrition from the government. Mr Campbell added: "I am angry, not because I was deceived over Iraq, but because we were right." The Herald Britain's ambassador to Italy, Sir Ivor Roberts, said yesterday that Mr Bush was the best recruiting officer for Al Qaeda "If anyone is ready to celebrate the eventual re-election of Bush it is Al Qaeda."
An overwhelming majority of voters want Tony Blair to start preparing British troops to pull out from Iraq, according to a new opinion poll See also Analysis from the Herald"An exercise in rebranding".

Sept 20 2004 ~ So now we are told it is a "new conflict"...

As Juan Cole says, "At the end of this misadventure, it seems more and more likely that a US soldier will report to his general, "We had to destroy the country to save it, sir!"
No government minister would talk to the Today Programme this morning. Nicholas Soames, on the Today Programme, said the post conflict planning was chaotic and we are picking up the bills from all that. We are managing chaos. Odd that the government have a news balckaout about what has been happening in Basra in the past month - the situation has gone from benign to one of very considerable danger ...in the last three weeks.
Even Mr Soames conceded that the UK might have to send more troops.

Sept 20 2004 ~ Al-Qaeda does not care who wins the (US) elections

Juan Cole says..."The remark of Speaker of the House Denis Hastert that al-Qaeda would like to manipulate the US election with a terrorist bombing and would be happier with Kerry as president is simply wrong. The Democrats are correct that such comments are a form of fear-mongering aimed at stampeding the American public into voting for Bush out of terror. Indeed, if the US public votes for any candidate because of concern for Bin Laden, then Bin Laden has been handed precisely the victory that Hastert professed to abhor. But Hastert is just wrong. Al-Qaeda does not care who wins the elections. If the US withdraws from Iraq (which could happen willy-nilly under Bush as easily as under Kerry), that would be seen as a victory by al-Qaeda. If the US remains in Iraq for years, bleeding at the hands of an ongoing guerrilla insurgency, then that is also a victory for al-Qaeda from their point of view. They therefore just don't care which candidate wins..."

Sept 18 2004 ~ colonialism is just another word for grand larceny.

Professor Juan Cole today, commenting on Sharon's repudiation of the "Road Map" "Most Americans would be appalled if the United States suddenly chased all the Iraqis out of Baghdad and brought in Americans to permanently take over their apartments and other property, instead. But that is an exact analogy for how the Israelis are behaving."

Sept 18 2004 ~ Iraq had no WMD: the final verdict

Julian Borger in Washington Saturday September 18, 2004 The Guardian
"The comprehensive 15-month search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq has concluded that the only chemical or biological agents that Saddam Hussein's regime was working on before last year's invasion were small quantities of poisons, most likely for use in assassinations. ..." Read in full

Sept 18 ~ "Tony Blair was warned a year before invading Iraq that a stable post-war government would be impossible

without keeping large numbers of troops there for "many years", secret government papers reveal. The documents, seen by The Telegraph, show more clearly than ever the grave reservations expressed by Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, over the consequences of a second Gulf war and how prescient his Foreign Office officials were in predicting the ensuing chaos.
They told the Prime Minister that there was a risk of the Iraqi system "reverting to type" after a war, with a future government acquiring the very weapons of mass destruction that an attack would be designed to remove...The documents further show that the Prime Minister was advised that he would have to "wrong foot" Saddam Hussein into giving the allies an excuse for war, and that British officials believed that President George W Bush merely wanted to complete his father's "unfinished business" in a "grudge match" against Saddam...
More than 900 allied troops have been killed in Iraq since the end of the war, 33 of them British. More than 10,000 civilians are believed to have been killed " Read in full

Sept 16 ~ US justification contradicted by film of rocket attack

Independent "... the US sought yesterday to defend the two helicopter pilots who fired seven rockets into a crowd in Baghdad on Sunday, killing 13 people and wounding 41, saying they had come under "well-aimed ground fire". This is different from the first statement by the US military claiming that they opened fire with rockets to prevent a Bradley fighting vehicle which had been hit by a bomb from being looted of arms and ammunition. The US account of the incident in which Mazen al-Tomeizi, a Palestinian television producer working for al-Arabiya satellite channel was killed, was contradicted by the film taken by his cameraman at the moment the rocket struck. There is no sound of firing from the crowd in the moments before the helicopters attacked. The US military's accounts of incidents in which it claims to have targeted insurgents but only civilians have died are frequently discredited by Arab television pictures of the incident, which US officers apparently do not watch before issuing statements...."

Sept 13 ~ Bloody Sunday:110 Dead in Iraq, 200 Wounded

"... a burning Bradley fighting vehicle sitting there in the street, and a crowd gathers, many of them boys, to jeer and dance. Some of the young men haul out a banner of the Tawhid and Jihad terrorist group and hang it from a barrel sticking out of the vehicle. Alarmed that the Bradley would now be looted for weapons and ammunition (and, some reports say, "sensitive equipment"), US troops now call in helicopter gunships. They arrive, but claim they took small arms fire from the area around the burning Bradley.
Now the tragedy unfolds. The helicopters fire repeatedly on the crowd gathered around the Bradley, killing 13 persons and wounding 61. Although some of the killed or wounded may have been guerrillas, it seems obvious that others were just curious little boys from the neighborhood....It would also be interesting to know what exactly was in that burning Bradley that was so important it was worth 13 lives and scores of wounded." Juan Cole's website

Sept 11 2004 ~ "So, three years after the international crimes against humanity in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania we were bombing Fallujah.

Come again? Hands up those who knew the name of Fallujah on 11 September 2001. Or Samarra. Or Ramadi. Or Anbar province. Or Amarah. Or Tel Afar, the latest target in our "war on terror'' although most of us would find it hard to locate on a map (look at northern Iraq, find Mosul and go one inch to the left). Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive...we expected to be loved, welcomed, greeted, fęted, embraced by these people. First, we bombarded Stone Age Afghanistan and proclaimed it "liberated", then we invaded Iraq to "liberate" Iraqis too. Wouldn’t the Shia love us? Didn’t we get rid of Saddam Hussein? Well, history tells a different story. We dumped the Sunni Muslim King Feisal on the Shia Muslims in the 1920s. Then we encouraged them to rise against Saddam in 1991, and left them to die in Saddam’s torture chambers. And now, we reassemble Saddam’s old rascals, their torturers, and put them back in power to "fight terror’’, and we lay siege to Muqtada Sadr in Najaf. ...." Robert Fisk today in the Independent

Sept 11 2004 ~ "September 11 did not change the world.

Indeed, for months afterwards, no one was allowed even to question the motives of the mass murderers. To point out that they were all Arabs and Muslims was fair enough. But any attempt to connect these facts to the region they came from – the Middle East – was treated as a form of subversion; because, of course, to look too closely at the Middle East would raise disturbing questions about the region, about our Western policies in those tragic lands, and about America's relationship with Israel. Yet now, at last, President Bush's increasingly manic administration has spotted the connection – and is drawing all the wrong conclusions.......
......if you talk to a Palestinian in Lebanon about the September massacre, he will assume you are referring to the slaughter, at the hands of Israel's militia allies, of 1,700 Palestinians in Beirut in September of 1982. Just as Chileans, when hearing the phrase "September 11" – as that fine Jewish writer Ariel Dorfman pointed out – will think of 11 September 1973, when an American-supported coup d'état led to the overthrow of the Allende government and the deaths of thousands of Chileans. Talk to Syrians about a massacre and they will think first of all – though they will not say the words – of the killing of up to 20,000 Syrians in the Islamist uprising at Hama. Talk about massacres to the Kurds and they will tell you about Halabja; to the Iranians and they will tell you about Khorramshahr; to the Algerians and they will think of Bentalha and a whole series of other village atrocities that have cost the lives of 150,000 Algerians. ...... " Robert Fisk's article in 2002

Sept 10 ~ Cheney - "he is promising us more wars, folks. And he almost certainly has Iran foremost on his mind"

Juan Cole yesterday "Dick Cheney's statement that if Americans elected John Kerry they would suffer another terrorist attack like 9/11 has provoked outrage among Democrats. But what is interesting to me is the policy implications. Cheney seems to be saying that the reason there won't be another attack if he is re-elected is because he will keep fighting "pre-emptive" wars. So, he is promising us more wars, folks. And he almost certainly has Iran foremost on his mind."

Sept 6 2004 ~ " the period since March 19 should properly be seen as an ongoing war"

Juan Cole's comment on the fact that around 1100 US troops were wounded in Iraq in August, the highest one-month total so far. "..The injuries came because the US was actively fighting "in four cities" according to a US military spokesman (Fallujah, Ramadi, Samarra, and Najaf). Actually it was much more than that. There was also fighting in August in Sadr City and some southern cities. This finding underscores the point I made on Saturday, which is that the period since March 19 should properly be seen as an ongoing war."

Sept 5 2004 ~ after all the brouhaha about Iraq as a shining beacon of democracy and liberty, its actual policy in al-Jazeerah's case is worse than most Middle Eastern dictatorship

The caretaker Allawi government extended its ban on al-Jazeerah on Saturday. Juan Cole's comment " Al-Jazeerah itself reported that the government charged it with instigating attacks on its officials. Al-Jazeerah reports on Iraq quite extensively, and often manages to get better video and interviews than most Western news programs, so the closing of the Baghdad office appears not to be a serious obstacle. They do telephone interviews, e.g. So the only one hurt by this "ban" is the caretaker government, which looks heavy-handed and as though it is trying to stop criticism of itself. Al-Jazeerah does give a platform to Iraqi dissidents, but they also do ask tough questions of, e.g. Sadr's representatives. Anyway, there are no grounds under the interim constitution (which guarantees freedom of speech) for the government to close the offices of a news organization. It is not an auspicious start for the new Iraq, and these kinds of measures, once taken, become foundational. So after all the brouhaha about Iraq as a shining beacon of democracy and liberty, its actual policy in al-Jazeerah's case is worse than most Middle Eastern dictatorship."

Sept 4 2004 ~The Fallujah medical authorities keep insisting that such strikes are killing children and women.

Juan Cole "The US maintains it had a good view of terrorists killing someone, then going into their safe house, which the US then bombed. The Fallujah medical authorities keep insisting that such strikes are killing children and women. On Friday Fallujans charged that a US tank fired into the city, which the US military denies.
The Poles are turning over responsibility for Karbala, in preparation for their planned January departure from Iraq. Bush was boasting at the convention about all the foreign allies he had (he seemed to me to make Denmark an applause line; I like Denmark but it is no longer a Great Power.) But what he did not mention is all the countries that have withdrawn or are planning withdrawals in the next few months.
Tension was high again on Friday in Najaf, with US troops surrounding the city. Apparently there are fears of a Mahdi Army resurgence already. A small demonstration was held against Muqtada al-Sadr by Najafis..."

Sept 3 2004 ~David Hare's work will move anyone who opposed the whole misadventure.

Robin Cook's verdict on David Hare's new play Stuff Happens ".....He has centred his drama very much on the process by which the Bush administration settled on the invasion of Iraq. There is a strategic truth in this focus, as it was a war made in Washington. It has the merit that it brings back the reality that Tony Blair took Britain into the war primarily to preserve his status as the closest ally of whoever is in the White House. The exchanges between Blair and his advisers on weapons of mass destruction are accurately portrayed as discussions about how to present the case for war rather than a debate on whether there was a case for war. ..."
Scott Ritter "...While cringing at the damning self-indictments of Bush's inner circle - Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Condoleezza Rice and Dick Cheney - transpiring on stage, I couldn't help but wonder what Tony Blair did to have his role in the lead-up to the war with Iraq portrayed in such a sympathetic, albeit weak-kneed, manner. Hare's play places the blame for the Iraq war squarely on the shoulders of the arrogant Americans, while covering up Blair's own complicity and deviousness in the matter. ...."

Sept 3 2004 ~ "Ibrahim Jaafari, a Shiite politician in Iraq, objected to US air strikes at Fallujah"

From Juan Cole's update for today "....It is astonishing that Chalabi's militia is still operating in Iraq. It was flown to Iraq by the Pentagon soon after Saddam fell, but has been ordered to disband. Chalabi himself has been indicted for counterfeiting and fraud. But he attended the national assembly meeting on Wednesday and is ordering his militia around the country, which in turn is engaging in firefights.
In other news, guerrillas bombed a northern pipeline again, cutting off oil exports in the north. Some twenty were killed in US warplane attacks on Fallujah. Ibrahim Jaafari, a Shiite politician in Iraq, objected to US air strikes at Fallujah."

Sept 3 2004 ~ " if you think about him as a CEO, and look at how well he has run things, you can see the idiocy of this argument."

Juan Cole " Bush gave a long speech Thursday night, which sounded like a laundry list of promises more than anything else. He pointed to few genuine accomplishments during the past four years, and seemed stuck in fall, 2001.
If you think about George W. Bush as CEO of America, Inc., it becomes clearer why his poll numbers have been so low (low to mid forties) in the run up to the election. No president with those kinds of poll numbers in the spring before the election has ever won.
Bush's basic characteristic is not steadfastness, as the convention attempted to argue, but rashness. He is a gambler who goes for the big bang. He loses his temper easily, and makes hasty and uninformed decisions about important matters. No corporation would keep on a CEO that took risks the way Bush has, if the gambles so often resulted in huge losses. ........ given this kind of record, do you vote this CEO back in? It is often said that a lot of Americans want to stick with Bush to "see Iraq through." But if you think about him as a CEO, and look at how well he has run things, you can see the idiocy of this argument..."

Sept 3 2004 ~ Qaradawi Calls for Attacks on Americans in Iraq

Juan Cole writes " Shaikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, and old time Muslim Brotherhood cleric resident in Qatar, has called for Muslims to "fight" Americans in Iraq, whether troops or civilians, because they are occupiers. Al-Jazeerah.net says, ..... al-Qaradawi's call for American civilians in Iraq to be attacked, it is absolutely despicable. It is also contrary to classical Islamic law, as the Abdul Mu'ti al-Bayyumi of the al-Azhar Seminary noted only a few days ago.
I heard al-Bayyumi on al-Jazeerah speaking eloquently about the Islamic duty to avoid harming civilians. He said the same thing to al-Sharaq al-Awsat: "Civilians who do not fight and do not take part in the fighting may not be killed or kidnapped. They must be treated well. If he does participate in the fighting against Muslims, in any way, it is permitted to treat him as a combatant." .
... Al-Qaradawi came out of the old Muslim Brotherhood before it turned toward parliamentary politics, and still worships the false idol of terror."

Sept 2 2004 ~ Chatham House, formerly the Royal Institute for International Affairs, has issued a highly pessimistic report (in pdf format) on Iraq.

says Juan Cole " At best, it argues, the US and the UK will just muddle through in Iraq, but will fail to attain goals like installing a democracy, and stability will remain elusive. At worst, the authors of the report imagine Iraq falling apart as Yugoslavia did. They warn that the lesson of Yugoslavia is that old neighbors who lived peacefully together for decades can learn to hate each other violently virtually overnight.
I don't personally find the break-up scenario very likely. Iraqis are generally very committed to their nation, and none of the neighbors would stand for a split. It could happen, but I find it only a remote possibility."

Aug 30 ~"..the espionage case ( ie the Lawrence Franklin espionage scandal in the Pentagon) could tie to an ongoing Justice Department criminal investigation into the outing of Valerie Plame"

Juan Cole quotes Ken Henderson

Aug 30 ~ "efforts at the Pentagon to paint Franklin as a low-level desk grunt..."

Juan Cole comments: " It appears to be the case that someone in the Pentagon got wind that Larry Franklin had been flipped, and was terrified that the investigation might go on up the ladder at the Pentagon, in AIPAC, and with the Israelis. So they leaked news of the investigation to make sure that everybody clammed up and shredded everything.
The NYT piece today reflects continued efforts at the Pentagon to paint Franklin as a low-level desk grunt with little access to Paul Wolfowitz. This last is just a lie...."
Significant too is this comment by Juan Cole:He adds: "Again, I underline that the American Jewish community does not support most AIPAC positions (a majority are much closer to Americans for Peace Now), and that this issue has to do with a small fanatical leadership of a specific lobbying organization, nothing more." He links to a diagram on threetwoone.org's website showing graphically the strands of the Pentagon spy story.
(See also warmwell page on Karl Rove and on the Niger fiasco)

Aug 30 ~ Sadr calls for ceasefire

Reuters "Moqtada al-Sadr has ordered his militia to end attacks on U.S. and Iraqi government forces and will soon unveil plans to pursue his goals through politics rather than conflict, aides say...."The Mehdi Army is now turning to peaceful struggle. We will have to see in the future -- that could change. But now it is peaceful," Sadr aide Sheikh Mahmoud al-Sudani told Reuters on Monday. "Moqtada will declare his participation in Iraq's political process. He will not participate directly in elections but he will appoint and back someone from his side or elsewhere."

Aug 28 ~ "Sadr left the mosque with amnesty for any crimes he might have committed

an invitation to join in national politics, and freedom for his militiamen, many of whom remained heavily armed. Left in a weaker position were interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi and the U.S.-led military forces that back him. Allawi got no guarantee that Sadr would desist from armed activities outside Najaf and neighboring Kufa, leaving open the distinct possibility that he would remobilize his forces and remain, at the least, a thorn in the government's side." See LA Times

Aug 27 ~ " I am weeping for Iraq and for my brother. I have no idea if either of them will survive..."

Independent "...Haider Mehdi, 24, from Kut, said: "We did not like seeing Muqtada al-Sadr lay claim to leading the Shia people. So it was right that our real leader should come here. My brother ... was beside me when we reached Medina Street close to the old city. Suddenly we heard shots and realised it was the police firing at us. Abbas was hit four times in the back. He is in the operating theatre now. Today I am weeping for Iraq and for my brother. I have no idea if either of them will survive."

Aug 27 ~ "Sistani ....has recognized the need to align himself with the wave of outrage that has swept Iraq during the three weeks of the siege..."

From http://www.time.com The lesson of Najaf is that Sadr's radical populism has a large following by Tony Karon "...Sadr has championed the poor, who have been disillusioned by the traditional clergy and the Shiite establishment. And they see little to love in the deal taking shape under Allawi and the Americans. Which means that this rebellion is likely to continue long after the Mosque is cleared. And the fact that Sistani sees fit to go to Najaf not in a U.S. helicopter or government motorcade, but at the head of a procession of Iraqi Shiites willing to march into a war zone, suggests that he's recognized the need to align himself with the wave of outrage that has swept Iraq during the three weeks of the siege.
The fact that Sistani has scrupulously avoided publicly condemning Moqtada or endorsing government action against him is telling. .."

Aug 27 ~" Thousands of supporters of Iraq's most revered cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who brokered the peace deal, have converged on the mosque.

it was not immediately clear if Sadr was instructing his Mehdi Army militia to leave the mosque for good in accordance with a peace deal agreed overnight to end his three-week rebellion. Thousands of supporters of Iraq's most revered cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who brokered the peace deal, have converged on the mosque. Thousands have gone into the shrine while others remain outside. Under the peace deal, Sadr's militia is expected to leave the shrine by 10 a.m. (0600 GMT) on Friday. U.S. forces are also to leave the southern city, with security being turned over to Iraqi police. " Reuters

Aug 27 ~"....Iraqis in Kufa who went to a mosque to pray before walking to Najaf came under mortar fire

which killed dozens and wounded a large number. The Sadrists blamed the US military, which denied having mortar emplacements anywhere near the shrine. The US military suggested that the Mahdi Army has engaged in wild, undisciplined mortar fire. (This is true, but unless a clear target is identified near the mosque that they might have actually been aiming at, it seems a little unlikely that they would hit their own mosque with hundreds of worshippers inside.) The main source of violence in Kufa in the past 24 hours has been Iraqi police or national guards, who have fired on unarmed demonstrators..." Juan Cole

Aug 26 ~"...With all sides - the Americans, the Iraqi government and al-Sadr - giving at least nominal support to al-Sistani's efforts

it was not known who fired the mortars that struck the mosque in Kufa or whether it was an attempt to sabotage the peace effort. Iraqi police have shot at peaceful marchers several times in the past few days.
The 75-year-old ayatollah is seeking to bring his enormous popularity to bear to end the fighting, which has killed scores of civilians and nearly paralyzed the city since it began Aug. 5.
In the last 24 hours, 55 people were killed and 376 injured during clashes in Najaf, Sa'ad al-Amili of the Health Ministry said Thursday. At least 40 people have been killed in Kufa over the same period, including the victims in the mosque...." Associated Press

Aug 25 2004 ~ Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has rushed back from London to "save Najaf"

ABC.net "Sadr supporters barricaded in the Imam Ali shrine in Najaf greeted Sistani's call with joy..... The situation is getting worse day by day and only God's intervention can save us. And I think this march is a gift from God," Mohammed al-Batat said. A senior Shiite official said Sistani wanted all foreign troops and weapons out of the city and for Sadr's Mehdi Army to leave the shrine and the city.
Ali al-Safi, the cleric's Basra representative said Sistani had returned to Najaf despite medical advice to rest longer in London. "I could not stay there when I saw what was happening in Iraq," he quoted the cleric as saying during his evening sermon, where thousands gathered.
Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, who has vowed to flush Sadr's militia out of Najaf unless they surrender, also welcomed the cleric home.
Juan Cole says: "...Muslim political and religious figures continued to denounce the US actions in Najaf on Tuesday, as a form of desecration of a holy place. The speaker of Iran's parliament said the actions were spreading hatred for the US in the region. Pakistani satellite tv said that the Pakistani senate had passed a resolution demanding that all foreign troops leave the holy city of Najaf. The Pakistani senate is a generally conservative body, dominated by landlords and by supporters of the pro-American "president," Pervez Musharraf"

Aug 24 2004 ~A new report says senior military officials may be responsible for some of the prisoner abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison.

"...Tuesday's report, issued by a commission appointed by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, implicitly faulted Rumsfeld and Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The report did not suggest that Rumsfeld ordered any of the abuses or did anything to encourage them. But it indicated that his policies created some confusion at lower levels of the military. "The abuses were not just the failure of some individuals to follow known standards, and they are more than the failure of a few leaders to enforce proper discipline," the report said. "There is both institutional and personal responsibility at higher levels." The commission was particularly critical of Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top U.S. commander in Iraq at the time of the abuses, which occurred mainly between October and December 2003...." Newsday.com

Aug 24 2004 ~ "Given that the Bush administration has turned Iraq into a failed state and a country in flames..

.. the condition of which is far worse than the US public is allowed to know, it is quite outrageous that Bush should be trumpeting Iraq as an achievement. That he is doing so in connection with the Olympics is just tacky and probably illegal..." Juan Cole commenting on a Bush press conference, reported by the Washington Post

Aug 24 ~ the American soldier exclaimed: "Oh my Jesus Christ, it's a young boy."

He stood for a moment examining the body and then jumped from the minibus and ran some 20 yards before vomiting on to the ground. Nobody laughed at him. It wasn't a young boy, as he acknowledged a few minutes later, but a man of between 35 or 40. "I guess I hadn't seen a dead body like that so close before....how long, we asked another Staff Sergeant, Brandon George, did he think the battle had to run? "That's what we all keep asking." Asked how long his unit, here to support the US Marines, had been in Najaf, another soldier replied: "About three weeks. Three weeks too long." On this at least, these soldiers from Texas and elsewhere across the US, aching to get home, or at least to Baghdad, from this cemetery which seems to encapsulate all the torments of Iraq, would agree with the extended family of the three Salmans, innocent victims of a continuing war. "I do not know who is controlling Iraq," said Mr Latif. "We call on Allah to provide security and stability." From For the grief-stricken of Iraq, burying the dead is a dangerous business in the Independent

Aug 21 ~ Confusion continues..

Reuters "Fighters loyal to rebel Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr were firmly in control of Najaf's Imam Ali mosque on Saturday, giving the lie to government claims that police had taken control of the shrine. ...Hundreds of young men inside the shrine chanted slogans vilifying Allawi, who has called on them to lay down their weapons and leave the golden-domed shrine. "We are winning, we will win over Iyad Allawi and the traitors collaborating with the Americans," they chanted. Radio Free Europe "A top al-Sadr aide, Sheikh Ahmed al-Sheibani, said final details of the handover of the site to representatives of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani were still being worked out today. But al-Sheibani also told reporters that al-Sadr's militia will continue to "defend the shrine and Najaf" after it hands over the keys to the mosque.

Aug 20 2004 ~"I really don't believe any news anymore," he said. "We have heard it all before from both sides. We are not living like humans."

Reuters reports on the confusion reigning this evening. Some reports suggest that the interim government is in control and that Muqtada has escaped arrest. His militiamen deny police have seized the city's sacred Imam Ali Mosque from their control. Reuters: "Mohammed Jassim, a father of eight, shook his head as he stood on a Najaf street corner, gunfire crackling overhead and tank shells rocking the ground. "I really don't believe any news anymore," he said. "We have heard it all before from both sides. We are not living like humans.".."

Aug 19 ~ Najaf. "few expect this siege to end well or easily."

Juan Cole explains today what Muqtada al Sadr says he wants. Professor Cole tells us considerably more than the newspapers. Extract: "Interim Defense Minister Hazem Shaalan threatened to teach Muqtada a lesson he would never forget, and promised decisive action against him, if he did not leave the shrine within hours. (-al-Zaman ). (Shaalan has adopted the body language and rhetoric of the old Baath regime, which makes the skin of a lot of Iraqis crawl. To be fair, Muqtada also acts in a thuggish way that alarms many Iraqis who have had enough of thugs.)

Aug 19 ~ "The caretaker Allawi government will likely ignore the National Council and do as it pleases."

Comment today by Juan Cole on the setbacks and wrangling in Iraq. The National Council process is derailed and Basra delegates have withdrawn

Aug 18 ~ Iraq's defence minister has given Shi'ite militiamen in the holy city of Najaf hours to surrender

warning that troops are preparing for a major assault to "teach them a lesson they will never forget" Reuters

Aug 18 ~ " Since Khan had been turned, he was perhaps the most valuable asset inside al-Qaeda Pakistani intelligence ever had"

Juan Cole on the outing of Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan. "....The Pakistani government arrested a 25-year-old computer expert in Lahore on July 13. The arrest was never given to the Pakistani press by the Pakistani government, and no notice appeared in any Pakistani or other newspaper. This absence can only be deliberate, since the Pakistanis could easily have held a press conference to trumpet their new captive. This decision to keep the arrest quiet appears to have been made because Khan had been "flipped," i.e., had become a double agent and continued to have email contact with al-Qaeda members in London, e.g., but now with the Pakistani military intelligence listening in.... Pakistan continues to insist that the leak came from the American side, and they also should be in a position to know"

Aug 18 ~ "the Bush administration does time such announcements for political purposes"

Juan Cole..."had Ridge not made his announcement, the press would have had no occasion to go searching for the source of his information... al-Qaeda members on hearing the details Ridge revealed to the American public would know that a real insider had been busted, and would inevitably become so cautious that the Khan sting operation might well have been fatally compromised...The Bush administration at the very least bears indirect responsibility for the outing of Khan..."
"...The appearance of Khan's name in the New York Times on August 2 caused the British to have to swoop down on the London al-Qaeda cell to which he was speaking. As it was, 5 of them heard about Khan's arrest and immediately fled. The British got 13, but it was early in their investigation and they had to let 5 go or charge them with minor offences (immigration irregularities e.g.). On Tuesday, the British charged 8 of them....I do not know if the Bush administration made the announcement to take the spotlight off the Kerry campaign right after the Democratic National Convention, but Paul Krugman and others have persuasively argued that the Bush administration does time such announcements for political purposes."

Aug 17 ~ Blair faces Labour conference walkout over invitation to Iraqi Prime Minister

Independent ".... Activists from Labour Against the War have circulated a protest e-mail calling for Mr Blair to be lobbied by Labour members to withdraw the invitation. Party officials said no official invitation had been issued, but they confirmed that Mr Blair wants Mr Allawi to attend the conference.
The e-mail said: "Iyad Allawi is well known for his former connections to the CIA and MI6. He was a member of Saddam's Baath party." It repeated claims, which Mr Allawi has strongly denied, that he executed six suspected insurgents at a Baghdad police station. Mr Seddon also protested at the treatment of British journalists in the Iraqi city of Najaf, including Donald Macintyre of The Independent, who reported yesterday that he was warned by local police that he would be shot if he stayed to report the continuing violence.....Sir Jeremy Greenstock, the former UK envoy to Iraq, said on BBC radio that Mr Blair had 18 months to show that Iraq was a success. He said: "If Iraq in 2006 looks very little better than under Saddam, then the whole thing was a waste of lives, money and effort."

Aug 17 2004 ~ Thousands of civilians have marched to Najaf to surround the shrine of Ali as human shields.

Reuters quotes one of them, Fadil Hamed, 30, as saying, "I will lie on the ground in front of the tanks, or I will kill the Americans to defend Sadr and Najaf."

Aug 17 ~" If the Bush/Cheney team gets back in, there will be further wars and massive disturbances to world peace and security, starting with Iran."

Juan Cole today "... Cheney and Bush are diplomatically tone deaf, projecting nothing but arrogance and being all too willing to humiliate traditional allies. They have no sensitivity. And it is for that reason that they have the U.S. stuck in Iraq with only one really significant military ally, the U.K. (the Italians only have 3,000 troops there, and most countries just a few hundred, which makes their presence a token one). They have perhaps permanently alienated all the countries that might have lent the U.S. a hand.
And that pattern of arrogant, unilateral war-mongering worries me more than Cheney being a coward.
If the Bush/Cheney team gets back in, there will be further wars and massive disturbances to world peace and security, starting with Iran. Maybe the whole doctrine of pre-emptive war is a form of inferiority complex, impelling Cheney to be a strident war-monger to try to vindicate his uninvolved youth. If he was a coward, he may be endangering us all (and especially our teenagers) in a desperate ploy to regain his own manhood..."

Aug 16 ~ "...he seems even to believe that Allawi gave such an undertaking and would abide by it!"

Essential reading on the Iraq situation is Juan Cole. He reports today on the "night and day" different versions of the current conference reported by the US reporters John Burns of the New York Times and Rajiv Candrasekaran of the Washington Post. He says,

Aug 16 ~ "Likewise, CNN appears to have been the victim of a second-hand psy-ops campaign

insofar as it is referring to the guerrillas as "anti-Iraqi forces." The idea of characterizing them not as anti-American or anti-regime but "anti-Iraq" was, according to journalist Nir Rosen, come up with by a PR company contracting in Iraq. Nir says that they were told that no Iraqis would fall for it. So apparently it has now been retailed to major American news programs, on the theory that the American public is congenitally stupid. The American public has no idea how bad it is in Iraq because it gets lots of contradictory reports and has no way of wading through or evaluating them. On the evidence of Sunday, I'd advise them to keep their eyes on what John Burns says. He is a veteran war correspondent with his eyes open. If he thinks things in Iraq are bad, they likely are..." Juan Cole

Aug 15 ~ Thousands of Shiites are streaming toward Najaf in hopes of forming a human shield around Muqtada al-Sadr

Juan Cole says " Many have already gathered at the gates to the old city in Najaf and around the shrine of Imam Ali. In the meantime, the Allawi government says it intends to send an Iraqi military force into the shrine of Ali after Muqtada al-Sadr and his militiamen, according to al-Sharq al-Awsat. Allawi should be careful. A colleague of mine was reminded of a similarity between the current situation and the Indian government raid on the Sikh Golden Temple in 1984. That invasion of holy space arguably led to the assassination of Indira Gandhi and prolonged civil instability in the Punjab..."
Professor Cole is not blind to the inconsistencies in al-Sadr's demands and says that "the other side of the story is that Muqtada's militiamen are narrow-minded, thug-like puritans who impose their power on civilians by coercion"

Aug 15 ~ ".The American desecration of sacred Najaf and its cemetery makes the blood boil among Shiites throughout the world. There is likely to be a violent reaction..."

Juan Cole writes in the Washngton Post today about both the Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani and Muqtada al-Sadr.

Aug 15 2004 ~ he adds, “Are you Sadrists? If not, I’ll kill you.” It’s difficult to tell whether he is joking or not.

The Sunday Herald's eye witness report "through the strongholds of Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi army from Baghdad to Najaf"

Aug 15 ~" Iraq: Massacre fears as Najaf peace talks collapse"

"Sunni city bombed
(ie Sumarra - see below) Athens: Blair signs ‘sham’ truce. Thousands flock to support al-Sadr" James Cusick, Westminster Editor of the Sunday Herald, writes "Thousands were reported to be flocking to Najaf to support al-Sadr, who now expects Iraq’s interim prime minister Ayad Allawi to order an attack on the holy mosque in which the rebel leader is claiming sanctuary. An al-Sadr aide blamed the failure of the peace talks on Allawi. He claimed agreement had been reached on all points, but that the interim prime minister had ordered an end to negotiation and told his officials to return to Baghdad. Those around al-Sadr, who is believed to have been slightly wounded in attacks near the Imam Ali shrine, predicted Najaf could now become the site of “a massacre”. Read in full

Aug 14 2004 ~ The truce in Najaf has collapsed.

Juan Cole writes, " "....even the council of tribal chieftains in the Middle Euphrates, a previously pro-American group, has issued a statement condemning the "barbaric massacres perpetrated by the United States in Najaf," according to al-Jazeerah's crawl. .... Although its Baghdad bureau is closed, al-Jazeerah still gets lots of video from Iraq .... Muqtada declared that "Najaf has triumphed over imperialism and imperial hubris" .....no one is laughing, and in fact there are pro-Muqtada demonstrations all over Iraq, including in the hard line Sunni areas (!), and insurgencies. Indeed, there have been big demonstrations in Iran, Bahrain and Pakistan as well as in Iraq.
......Muqtada said that calling Iyad Allawi (he didn't mention him by name) a "Shiite" was like calling Saddam Hussein a "Muslim." ...

Aug 14 ~ "The US military looks more like the Israeli every day"

Reporting on the bombing of Samarra, "which has been in rebellion for many months and hasn't seemed to be under government control for a long time" Juan Cole comments :

Aug 14 ~"... they replaced Saddam with a government worse than him"

Juan Cole "In a press conference on Friday, Muqtada al-Sadr called on the caretaker government of Iyad Allawi to resign: "I advise the dictatorial, agent government to resign ... the whole Iraqi people demands the resignation of the government ... they replaced Saddam (Hussein) with a government worse than him."Muqtada seemed to accept the current de facto truce in Najaf, but warned that his militia would fight to the death rather than leave Najaf...A spokesman conveyed Sadr's sentiments: "I will not leave this holy city . . . We will remain here defending the holy shrines till victory or martyrdom."
The report also notes, "Sadr urged supporters in other cities in central and southern Iraq to continue their uprising, saying the truce was restricted to Najaf."
Juan Cole remarks drily, "Obviously, Allawi and the Americans have Muqtada right where he wants them."
Meanwhile, there were large demonstrations in Iraq and throughout the Middle East on Friday protesting the US assault on Najaf.

Aug 14 ~Kofi Annan is "deeply saddened" by the violence

"...Asking all parties in Iraq to show restraint, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has offered the world body's help to end the current fighting in that country, particularly in the holy city of Najaf. In a statement, he reaffirmed that the force should be used as a last resort, pointing out that the United Nations stood for the peaceful settlement of disputes. ..... Annan was "deeply saddened" by the violence and "especially concerned" about reports on the condition of Moqtada Al-Sadr, a Shiite Muslim cleric leading his militia in the fight against US and Iraqi interim Government forces in Najaf, who was wounded, his spokesman said. "The Secretary-General believes that all of us want to see Iraq become a civil society, based on the rule of law. .." See Hindustan Times

Aug 13 ~ If the UK journalist is freed unharmed it will be - apparently - because of the intervention of Muqtada al-Sadr

See Reuters report this afternoon.
Juan Cole comments on the young cleric today ".....Although Muqtada and his men are now under siege, Waco-style, it is not for sure that the Marines can capture or kill him. I suspect Najaf is crisscrossed by underground tunnels, which is how Muqtada and others used to evade Saddam's secret police.
If he is trapped in the shrine, and the siege goes on very long, that in itself could inflame Shiite passions against the US. ....
My guess is that if Muqtada is killed, and maybe also if he is captured and imprisoned, that will tip the Sadr movement into conducting a long-term low-intensity guerrilla war, similar to what Sunni radicals and Arab nationalists have done in the Sunni heartland for the past 16 months. The south had been much quieter than the Sunni Arab areas, but I suspect that calm can no longer be taken for granted. The question is what happens to the Iraqi government if it faces two major guerrilla insurgencies going on at the same time...."

Aug 12 ~ UN mission in Iraq extended for a year

The UN Security Council unanimously approved a resolution on Thursday extending the UN mission in Iraq for a year. How significant a role the UN can play remains to be seen. See Reuters report

Aug 11 ~ an executioner's charter.

Jonathan Freedland in the Guardian ".....Liberal hearts will have sunk at last week's announcement that Iraq is to restore the death penalty. But, OK, they understand. Iraq is not Sweden; the Middle East is a tough neighbourhood. Everyone else, and Iraq's American sponsor, has capital punishment for murderers so why would Baghdad be any different? Except Iraq will execute not only those convicted of murder but anyone found guilty of either distributing drugs or the handily catch-all crime of "endangering national security". That sounds like an executioner's charter. Any unwelcome political activity could be branded a danger to national security, with the irritant duly put to death. .." Read in full

Aug 10 ~the White House had asked them to announce the arrest or killing of any "high-value [al-Qaeda] target" any time between July 26 and 28, the first three days of the Democratic Convention.

New York Senator Charles Schumer is pressing the White House to explain why it leaked Khan's name to the press. "The outing of Khan, probably the most important asset the U.S. has ever had inside al-Qaeda, is a huge disaster and a setback to attempts to finish off the top leadership of al-Qaeda." See Juan Cole's Informed Comment website "...no way to shift the blame here from Tom Ridge or one of his aides, who told the press the information came from KhanYou don't tell a big group of journalists something you don't want to see in the newspapers the next day.... " Quoting Jim Lobe "Similarly, the administration announced the arrest in Pakistan of a senior al-Qaeda operative, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, wanted for organizing the 1998 suicide bombings of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, on the third day of the Democratic convention, and three weeks after the The New Republic weekly quoted Pakistani intelligence officials as saying the White House had asked them to announce the arrest or killing of any "high-value [al-Qaeda] target" any time between July 26 and 28, the first three days of the Democratic Convention. At the time, former CIA officer Robert Baer said the announcement made "no sense." "To keep these guys off-balance, a lot of this stuff should be kept in secret. You get no benefit from announcing an arrest like this."

Aug 10 ~ Fresh fighting has broke out in Najaf

Reuters "U.S. warplanes were flying overhead while smoke was rising from near the city's ancient cemetery, a haven for fighters from Moqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army who have been battling American marines for six straight days. Clashes also erupted in an impoverished Shi'ite Baghdad suburb as militiamen ignored a curfew order from Iraq's interim government, witnesses said. .... The radical Shi'ite uprising has virtually shut down several cities in Iraq and given Prime Minister Iyad Allawi his sternest test since taking over from U.S.-led occupiers on June 28. ...... Allawi has ordered Sadr's men to leave Najaf but the young firebrand cleric responded with defiance on Monday, saying he would keep resisting and never leave his hometown. .....
In the southern city of Basra, a British military spokeswoman said the streets were calm after clashes on Monday that killed one British soldier and wounded four others. .............. A roadside bomb apparently aimed at a U.S. military convoy exploded near hotels used by foreigners in Baghdad early on Tuesday, but Iraqi police said there were no casualties. ..... In Kirkuk, the deputy governor of the northern city escaped an assassination attempt late on Monday when attackers opened fire as he left his house. Police said he was unhurt.

Aug 10 ~ "..warrants against former Pentagon darling Ahmad Chalabi and his nephew Salem Chalabi

the U.S.-appointed lawyer supervising Saddam Hussein's trial. Both men dismissed the charges on Monday as politically motivated and said they would fight to clear their names. They are out of the country at the moment.
Another burden for Allawi has been a spate of kidnappings aimed at pressuring foreign forces and firms to leave Iraq. While around 20 foreigners remain in the hands of kidnappers in Iraq, a Syrian, two Jordanians and two Lebanese have been released, their families said on Monday." Reuters

Aug 8 ~ Al Jazeera office closed in Baghdad

"Deadly clashes rumbled on between US troops and Shiite Muslim fighters in Baghdad and the holy city of Najaf, as Iraq's caretaker government closed Al-Jazeera's office in the capital for a month after accusing it of fomenting violence. Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said the decision to close the pan-Arabic satellite channel came after an independent committee monitored Al-Jazeera "to see what kind of violence they are advocating, inciting hatred and problems and racial tensions." ChannelNewsAsia

Aug 8 ~ ".. hundreds of Najaf families streamed out of the city on Saturday, terrified of the heavy warfare

being fought all around them. The US has aerially bombed Najaf cemetery and US tanks have targeted hotels in the city in an effort to get at the Mahdi army militiamen, of whom the US claims to have killed 300. This number has been challenged by the Sadrists, and local hospitals put the dead at closer to 76.... In New York, a spokesman for UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said Annan was "extremely concerned" about fighting in Iraq the past several days, particularly in the holy city of Najaf. "The United Nations is ready to extend its facilitating role to the current crisis, if this would be helpful," said the spokesman. Annan, the spokesman said in a statement, "believes that, in such a situation, force should be a last resort. He calls for every effort to be made, even at this late hour, to work out a ceasefire and peaceful solution." ." AFP

Aug 6 ~ I think this must be a typographical error for "30"

From Juan Cole's site: "Al-Obeidi says the Americans allege that they have killed 300 militants in Najaf. I think this must be a typographical error for "30"..."
This figure has been reported widely. It illustrates how news reports from Iraq are compiled from other sources rather than, as in the past, written by a newspaper's own war correspondent on the spot.
The illness of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, who has been flown to London for medical treatment for a heart condition, means he cannot intervene in the current fighting.

Aug 5 ~ military intelligence officers implicated in abuse at Abu Ghraib

US Army officers testifying at the hearing of Lynndie England have implicated military intelligence officers in acts of purported abuse. ChannelNews Asia"...Captain Brent Fitch told the hearing by telephone from Charlottesville, Virginia, he had seen a photograph that pictured three military intelligence (MI) officers abusing a detainee....He also testified that MI officers sometimes wore "sanitised" uniforms in the jail. The army says this was so detainees could not identify their interrogators.
Captain Carolyn Wood, who supervised MI interrogators at the prison between August and December of 2003, testified by telephone she had also seen a photograph of intelligence officers abusing detainees. "That was in May of this year," she answered when asked when she had seen the picture. "I signed a sworn statement."..."

Aug 4 ~ "Let me try to help Mr. Bush with this problem.."

"A sound bite from President Bush on Monday strikes me as emblematic of the country's current crisis" writes Juan Cole "He (Bush) said, Let me try to help Mr. Bush with this problem. The number of persons in the Muslim world who wanted to inflict direct damage on the US homeland in 2000 was tiny. Even within al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri's theory of "hitting the distant enemy before the near" (i.e. striking the US rather than Egypt or Saudi Arabia) was controversial.
The Muslim world was largely sympathetic to the US after the 9/11 attacks. Iranians held candlelight vigils, and governments and newspapers condemned terrorism. Bush's unprovoked attack on Iraq, however, turned people against the US. The brutal, selfish, exploitative occupation, the vicious siege of Fallujah, the tank battles in front of the shrine of Ali, a vicar of the Prophet, Abu Ghuraib, and other public relations disasters have done their work. .." See Juan Cole's website

Aug 4 ~ The Guardian and the Independent on the years old "intelligence" that became yesterday a "clear and present danger"

"Tom Ridge, the Homeland Security Secretary, admitted yesterday that the decision to warn the financial institutions was based on information that was at least three years old..."

Aug 3 ~ Musaad Aruchi's arrest took place on June 12.

"He had with him street maps of New York City without the front cover, and addresses of some other important buildings," the official said. "There were some data CDs also recovered from him."
The Washington Post reports the "Valuable Leads" following the arrest of a "senior al Qaeda operative", Musaad Aruchi, and his subsequent interrogation.......All key al Qaeda suspects arrested in Pakistan have been handed over to U.S. authorities for broader investigation."
Juan Cole comments: "Musaad Aruchi is the one who gave up Muhammad Na'im Nur Khan of Lahore, a computer expert who appears to have been doing email for the hidden al-Qaeda leadership. Police also found Ahmad Khalfan Ghailani, a key player in the East Africa embassy bombings.
It just struck me that the people who made these arrests and gave the information over to the United States are Pakistani Muslims. Pakistan gets plenty of blame when it fails, but how often do Americans give full credit to their Muslim allies in struggle against terror (i.e. against radical fundamentalism)?"
As for the terror reports today, the New York Times says: "The information, which detailed meticulous scouting of banking institutions in New York, Newark and Washington in preparation for a possible truck or car bomb attack, left significant gaps. The information did not clearly indicate when or how the plot was to unfold, nor did it describe the identities of people involved."

August 2 2004 ~ just as, before the war, our governments warned us of threats that did not exist, now they hide from us the threats that do exist.

Robert Fisk yesterday "..What, indeed, are we to make of a war which is turned into a fantasy by those who started it? As foreign workers pour out of Iraq for fear of their lives, US Secretary of State Colin Powell tells a press conference that hostage-taking is having an "effect" on reconstruction. Effect! Oil pipeline explosions are now as regular as power cuts. In parts of Baghdad now, they have only four hours of electricity a day; the streets swarm with foreign mercenaries, guns poking from windows, shouting abusively at Iraqis who don’t clear the way for them. This is the "safer" Iraq which Mr Blair was boasting of the other day. What world does the British Government exist in?" Read in full

July 30 ~ 'A battleground for al-Qa'ida': MPs deliver damning verdict on Iraq war and aftermath

See reports about the Foreign Affairs Committee's findings from the BBC and the Independent. "Iraq risks becoming a "failed state" which could destabilise the Middle East, a powerful committee of MPs warned yesterday as they delivered a damning verdict on the war on international terrorism...Their scathing 70,000-word report warned there were insufficient troops to provide security on the ground in Iraq, and said Britain's credibility in the country was being damaged by the failure to restore basic services to the Iraqi people.
...The report pointed to failures in communication in the Foreign Office over the infamous claim that Saddam could deploy weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes, and the fact that Red Cross allegations of prisoner abuse by British troops were withheld from ministers and senior officials. It said Foreign Office officials in Iraq attended a meeting with the International Committee of the Red Cross in February to be presented with the interim findings of their inquiry into detainee mistreatment. But ministers received copies only on 10 May, after reports about the findings emerged in the press. ". (Independent) "

July 30 ~ Juan Cole explains how Kerry's plan for Iraq could work if the UN were brought in

(Kerry said - to howls of approval: We need a president who has the credibility to bring our allies to our side and share the burden, reduce the cost to American taxpayers, and reduce the risk to American soldiers. That's the right way to get the job done and bring our troops home.")
Juan Cole comments: The first problem with involving the international community is that the US effort in Iraq lacks international legitimacy. Moreover, the Bush administration has insisted that the troops of its coalition partners (some of whom, like the Poles, are being paid by the US to be in Iraq) remain under over-all United States military command.
However he concludes his comment with this: and the posting is very worth reading in full

July 28 ~ He is simply lying

Juan Cole today: " The question is whether the quagmire in Iraq makes the US look weak. The answer is yes. Therefore, by Cheney's own reasoning, it is a mistake that opens us to further attacks.
Reuters reports, "Cheney said Americans were safer and he stood by prewar characterizations of Iraq as a threat despite the failure to find weapons of mass destruction and new warnings by Cheney and other administration officials that another major terrorist attack may be coming."
Iraq was not a threat to the United States. Period. Let me repeat the statistics as of the late 1990s:
US population: 295 million
Iraq population: 24 million

US per capita annual income: $37,600
Iraq per capita annual income: $700

US nuclear warheads: 10,455
Iraq nuclear warheads: 0

US tons of lethal chemical weapons (1997): 31,496
Iraq tons of lethal chemical weapons (1997): 0

While a small terrorist organization could hit the US because it has no return address, a major state could not hope to avoid retribution and therefore would be deterred. Cheney knows that Baathist Iraq posed no threat to the US. He is simply lying....."

July 28 ~ Baghdad is a city that reeks with the stench of the dead

Robert Fisk in "portfolio" article in the Independent "The smell of the dead pours into the street through the air-conditioning ducts. Hot, sweet, overwhelming. Inside the Baghdad morgue, there are so many corpses that the fridges are overflowing. The dead are on the floor. Dozens of them. Outside, in the 46C (114F) heat, Qadum Ganawi tells me how his brother Hassan was murdered..."

July 26 ~ Ministers have stripped Army commanders in Iraq of their power to veto criminal investigation of their troops after a string of cases alleging mistreatment of Iraqis.

This story in the Independent yesterday is best read in full. The first legal challenge to the conduct of British forces in Iraq will be heard in the High Court this week.

July 25 ~ Correcting the Record on Sept. 11, in Great Detail

New York Times ".... the commission pressured the White House to declassify and make public a special intelligence briefing that had been presented to the president at his Texas ranch on Aug. 6, 2001, a month before the attacks.
..... In testimony this April to the Sept. 11 commission, before it was made public, Ms. Rice insisted that the report was "historical."
"It did not, in fact, warn of attacks inside the United States," she testified. "It was historical information based on old reporting. There was no new threat information.''
But there were gasps in the audience in the hearing room when she disclosed the name of the two-page briefing paper: "Bin Laden Determined to Attack in U.S." ..... It noted that a caller to the United States Embassy in the United Arab Emirates that May had warned that "a group of bin Laden supporters was in the U.S.," planning attacks with explosives. The commission's final report revealed that two C.I.A. analysts involved in preparing the brief had wanted to make clear to Mr. Bush that, far from being only a historical threat, the threat that Al Qaeda would strike on American soil was "both current and serious." Read in full

July 25 ~ "This is what Iraq has become," Mr. Ali explained. "Goods to be sold."

New York Times today "The war in Iraq has been especially disillusioning for young Iraqi artists, many of whom believed the American promises of freedom. As the old order fell, they sat in their cracked-window studios and at paint-splattered easels and dreamed of an Iraqi renaissance.
They dream still.
..... The amount of violence has stunned these artists. It has robbed them of business, killed classmates and made it difficult to work and live.
..... among many mature artists who say that all the recent death and destruction have turned them inward, seeking to make sense of a world that does not make sense.
"Of all the troubles we've been through, this period has been the hardest," Mr. Hayat said. "In our own country, we now feel like strangers."....
.....In mid-April, the Ministry of Culture tried to put on a big show to celebrate the first anniversary of the fall of Saddam Hussein. The problem was, not many artists felt like celebrating. "We don't consider this moment the end of Saddam," said Juma Shumran, manager of Baghdad's Hewar Gallery. "We consider it the beginning of the occupation."....."

July 23 ~ " It has been estimated that there is now one private contractor for every 10 soldiers in Iraq."

See Profits of war in the Guardian
"Halliburton has become a byword for the cosy links between the White House and Texan big business. But how did the company run in the 90s by Dick Cheney secure a deal that guaranteed it millions in profit every time the US military saw action? ...... ....Cheney was in charge of Halliburton when it was circumventing strict UN sanctions, helping to rebuild Iraq and enriching Saddam Hussein. ....
In September 2003, Cheney insisted: "Since I've left Halliburton to become George Bush's vice-president, I've severed all my ties with the company, gotten rid of all my financial interests. I have no financial interest in Halliburton of any kind and haven't now for over three years." The Congressional Research Service (CRS), a non-partisan agency that investigates political issues at the request of elected officials, says otherwise. Cheney has been receiving a deferred salary from Halliburton in the years since he left the company. In 2001, he received $205,298. In 2002, he drew $162,392. He is scheduled to receive similar payments through 2005, and has an insurance policy in place to protect the payments in the event that Halliburton should fold." (Read in full)

July 23 ~ "Bush and his administration came into office obsessed with Iraq. Cheney was looking at maps of Iraq oil fields...

....and muttering about opportunities for US companies there, already in January or February of 2001. Wolfowitz contradicted counter-terrorism czar Richard Clarke when the latter spoke of the al-Qaeda threat, insisting that the preeminent threat of terrorism against the US came from Iraq, and indicating he accepted Laurie Mylroie's crackpot conspiracy theory that Saddam was behind the 1993 World Trade Towers bombing. If you believe crackpot theories instead of focusing on the reality--that was an al-Qaeda operation mainly carried out by al-Gamaa al-Islamiyyah, an Egyptian terrorist component allied with Bin Laden-- then you will concentrate on the wrong threat.
Even after the attacks on September 11, Bush was obsessing about Iraq. Wolfowitz lied to him and said that there was a 10 to 50% chance that Iraq was behind them. (On what evidence? The hijackers were obviously al-Qaeda, and no operational links between al-Qaeda and Iraq had ever been found)." Juan Cole on the findings of the September 11 Panel (More)

July 23 ~ The Pakistan Connection

As Michael Meacher writes in the Guardian today "There is evidence of foreign intelligence backing for the 9/11 hijackers. Why is the US government so keen to cover it up?"
Juan Cole comments: "..Clinton had worked out a deal with Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in summer of 1999 that would have allowed the US to send a Special Ops team in after Bin Laden in Qandahar, based from Pakistan. I presume you need the Pakistan base for rescue operations in case anything went wrong. You also need Pakistani air space. The plan was all set and could have succeeded. But in fall of 1999, Gen. Pervez Musharraf made a coup against Nawaz Sharif. The Pakistani army was rife with elements protective of the Taliban, and the new military government reneged on the deal. Musharraf told Clinton he couldn't use Pakistani soil or air space to send the team in against Bin Laden. Look at a map and you try to figure out how, in fall of 1999, you could possibly pull off such an operation without Pakistani facilities. Of course, you could just go in by main force. But for those of you tempted in that direction, please look up Carter's Tabas operation. It should be easily googled"

July 23 ~ The American arrested for running a private interrogation centre in Afghanistan says "Rumsfeld knew all about the torture"

July 20 ~ the awarding of three contracts to Halliburton without a competitive bidding process was"a source of concern"

Guardian (Henry Waxman) "also asks why the White House has "failed to comply with numerous IAMb requests [for information about] payments of approximately $1.5bn inDFI funds to Halliburton" - the Texas-based oil services company formerly headed by the vice-president, Dick Cheney. Mr Waxman is not alone in asking questions. In April this year, the chairman of the IAMB, Jean-Pierre Halbwachs, wrote to Mr Bremer saying the awarding of three contracts to Halliburton without a competitive bidding process was"a source of concern". His letter appears to have had little effect. The IAMB is now reviewing the CPA's overall conduct and must decide whether a full investigation is necessary. ...Halliburton was the largest single recipient of Iraqi oil funds during the occupation, according to the Army Corps of Engineers' figures released last month. And among US politicians, according to the Center for Public Integrity, Mr Bush has been the largest single recipient of US oil and gas industry campaign contributions since 1998 - his total stands at $1,724,579.

July 20 ~ "Attacks on US troops are running at dozens a day, frequently accompanied by looting, burning and stoning.

" Iraq is not improving, it's a disaster. The only sensible objective now is orderly disengagement, and soon" .. It is generally believed in Baghdad that around 1,000 Iraqis leave the country every day for Jordan and Syria because the security situation is intolerable. ..." Oliver Miles in the Guardian

July 20 ~ now they must endure the anarchy we call freedom.

Robert Fisk in the Independent "Yes, it is a shameful reflection on our invasion of Iraq - let us solemnly remember 'weapons of mass destruction' - but it is, above all, a tragedy for the Iraqis. They endured the repulsive Saddam. They endured our shameful UN sanctions. They endured our invasion. And now they must endure the anarchy we call freedom....
....That the 'muqawama' - the resistance - controls so many hundreds of square miles around Baghdad should be no great surprise. The new American-appointed Iraqi government has neither the police nor the soldiers to retake the land. They announce martial laws and telephone tapping and bans on demonstrations and a new intelligence service - but have neither the manpower nor the ability to turn these institutions into anything more than propaganda dreams for foreign journalists and a population that does desperately crave security.." Read in full

July 19 ~"... the report's concerns also lead back to the US company that has become inextricably linked with the occupation: Halliburton.

Given that the US vice president Dick Cheney was previously chief executive of Halliburton, the potential conflict of interest over its business dealings in Iraq were always going to be a focus of concern. Yet when the monitoring board's auditors asked for details of contracts involving Halliburton being paid for out of the oil funds, the Pentagon repeatedly refused. At issue are three contracts, worth a total of $1.4bn, awarded in noncompetitive tenders - meaning Halliburton was the sole bidder. The monitoring board rightly concluded that further investigation is required.
While the Butler report was couched in the language of the mandarin, the auditor's report was written in the language of accounting. But it is no less damning for that." Guardian leader

July 19 ~ "Britain has paid compensation to Iraqis over more than 120 incidents involving death, injury or property damage

in the British-occupied south of the country, the government said on Monday. In a written answer to the House of Commons, Defence Minister Adam Ingram said the compensation cases included one death in detention, six deaths in road accidents and 11 people with injuries sustained during arrest. ... Ingram did not give details of the financial settlements." IOL

July 19 ~ Al-Hawzah, the newspaper of the radical young Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, will be allowed to publish again.

(Juan Cole) "The decision was taken by Prime Minister Iyad Allawi after the newspaper's staff approached his government. The Americans had closed the newspaper in March, as a prelude to their failed attempt to arrest Muqtada and crush his movement. (They did kill some 1500 of his fighters and pushed them back out of control of some key cities, but Muqtada's cadres are still numerous and his movement continues to thrive)."
"...14 died and 7 were wounded in an American airstrike on an Al-Tawhid facility in Fallujah that was supporting a trench line for radical Sunni fighters. Al-Tawhid has vowed to assassinate Prime Minister Iyad Allawi and has put a bounty on his head, and Allawi pointedly announced that he had authorized the airstrike. Local Fallujans maintained that those killed were civilians working in support of the Fallujah Brigade, the force that supplies security to the city. Meanwhile, Allawi left for Amman, Jordan, for his first consultations as PM outside Iraq with foreign leaders friendly to his regime. ."

July 18 ~ British army sanctioned the hooding of Iraqi prisoners

"The routine hooding of Iraqi prisoners was sanctioned by British army commanders despite repeated warnings that the practice broke human rights laws, The Independent on Sunday can reveal. Ministers have also admitted for the first time that hooding was banned only because its use played a direct part in the death of the hotel receptionist Baha Mousa, who was allegedly killed by British soldiers last September..."

July 17 ~Allawi shot prisoners in cold blood: witnesses

Paul McGeough, Chief Sydney Morning Herald Correspondent, in Baghdad reports "Iyad Allawi, the new Prime Minister of Iraq, pulled a pistol and executed as many as six suspected insurgents at a Baghdad police station, just days before Washington handed control of the country to his interim government, according to two people who allege they witnessed the killings. They say the prisoners - handcuffed and blindfolded - were lined up against a wall in a courtyard adjacent to the maximum-security cell block in which they were held at the Al-Amariyah security centre, in the city's south-western suburbs. They say Dr Allawi told onlookers the victims had each killed as many as 50 Iraqis and they "deserved worse than death". The Prime Minister's office has denied the entirety of the witness accounts in a written statement to the Herald, saying Dr Allawi had never visited the centre and he did not carry a gun.
But the informants told the Herald that Dr Allawi shot each young man in the head as about a dozen Iraqi policemen and four Americans from the Prime Minister's personal security team watched in stunned silence. ..."
Juan Cole comments: "Allawi was once a Baathist hit man in London who fell out with Saddam and then directed terrorist operations against Baghdad. Some reports suggest that one of his operations once resulted in the bombing of a schoolbus in which school children died."

July 17 ~ "...we were being told our son had been assassinated, probably by the CIA."

Scotsman "...He had not been in Baghdad long but he was asking questions, rocking the boat, maybe making himself unpopular. As a journalist he was not ‘on message’. We think he knew something that could have destabilised, or certainly embarrassed, the coalition and that’s why he was killed." ...... "Political assassinations involve cover-ups," says Mrs Wild. "We do not have the resources to find out exactly what went on, but we have certainly found out more than we were told." ....the anger at the official handling of Richard’s death will never completely abate. The Wilds were shocked to hear that the Foreign Office admitted initial reports about Richard’s death had been "misleading" but were delivered in good faith.
The Foreign Office also claimed to have given the family new information when it came to light. "That is a complete falsehood," says Mr Wild. "They have never been proactive in this and all the new information we have received has come to us from other sources."
Mrs Wild takes a letter from the Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, from a pile of papers. "Look at this," she says. "He waffles on about the coalition military authorities being severely limited in their ability to investigate crimes and then says: ‘I can assure you that the nature of Richard’s work had no impact on whether or not there was an investigation’. Is he being deliberately obtuse? The whole point is that it was the nature of Richard’s death that might have influenced whether there was an investigation."... " Read in full

July 16 ~ The War on Learning - which began when the American army entered Baghdad.

While Sun readers may believe what Mr Blair and Mr Murdoch tell them about the world being a safer place, Robert Fisk reports on a wave of assassinations of Iraqi academics, over a dozen of whom have been assassinated in recent months. Read in full

July 16 ~ Allawi to create a new secret police

A headless body believed to be that of a Bulgarian hostage was found on Thursday. Interim Prime Minister Allawi announced that he was going to create a new secret police, raising alarums among some Iraqis who had suffered at the hands of Saddam's secret police and who had been hoping that the new Iraq would only have ordinary police.

July 16 ~ 32 Iraqis died in violence on Thursday.

Juan Cole "Guerrillas assassinated the chief of security for the Iraqi foreign ministry as he and colleagues traveled north from Baghdad toward Kirkuk. Two other officials were injured, as their car was sprayed by machine gun fire from a grey Opel about 110 km. north of the capital....
....Thousands of Iraqis demonstrated Thursday in Baghdad, Najaf, Karbala and Basra, demanding the execution of Saddam Hussein and protesting the return of former Baathists to administrative positions in the Allawi government and the Iraqi army. They also condemned the Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. They chanted slogans against the United States and Zionism and "terrorism." ....

July 16 ~ Young male prisoners were filmed being sodomised by American soldiers at the Abu Ghraib prison

near Baghdad, according to the journalist who first revealed the abuses there. Seymour Hersh, who reported on the torture of the prisoners in New Yorker magazine in May, told an audience in San Francisco that "it's worse". But he added that he would reveal the extent of the abuses: "I'm not done reporting on all this," he told a meeting of the American Civil Liberties Union. He said: "The boys were sodomised with the cameras rolling, and the worst part is the soundtrack, of the boys shrieking. And this is your government at war." He accused the US administration, and all but accused President George Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney of complicity in covering up what he called "war crimes"..." Independent

July 16 ~ SIS withdrew the two reports in July 2003. The Hutton inquiry began taking evidence in August 2003.

Independent ".... Three out of five key sources for the most sensational claims in the Government's September 2002 dossier on Iraqi weapons proved to be so untrustworthy that MI6 (the Secret Intelligence Service) officially withdrew their contributions. According to paragraph 405 of the Butler report, "in July 2003 ... SIS withdrew the two reports [about ongoing production of chemical weapons] because the sourcing chain had by then been discredited". The Hutton inquiry began taking evidence in August 2003
The withdrawals fatally undermine the case for war and would undoubtedly have had a significant bearing on the Hutton report. But they were not revealed to Lord Hutton by any of the government witnesses, who included Mr Blair, Geoff Hoon, the Secretary of State for Defence, Mr Scarlett, and Sir Richard Dearlove, the outgoing head of MI6. All stood by the claims in the dossier, although it is not clear how many were aware that the intelligence had been withdrawn..."

July 15 ~ "...He concluded, as must any sensible person, that Downing Street cooked the books before the invasion. "

Simon Jenkins on the Butler Report (Times) "...It offers a corrective to Lord Hutton, who last spring committed the unpardonable sin of implausibility. Lord Butler was asked whether the Prime Minister was a liar or a fool in presenting the case for invading Iraq. He gave the right answer, a fool with mitigating circumstances.
He concluded, as must any sensible person, that Downing Street cooked the books before the invasion. It distorted intelligence, over-egged the pudding and pulled a fast one with “45 minutes”. But its intentions were not deliberately mendacious, more faults of inexperience and eagerness.
Lord Butler clearly took the view that we knew already that this war was declared on a false prospectus and tens of thousands died as a result. We have already choked on Mr Blair’s excuse that Saddam Hussein killed lots of people too, and choked on his claim that Iraq is “a safer place” as a result. Like the Franks report on the Falklands, Lord Butler seems happy for the evidence to speak for itself. He lets history pass final judgment. His job was to find out the facts and apply, if not whitewash, at least a light coat of grey. If everyone was to blame, then so was no one. ..." Read in full

July 14 ~"...the report also criticised the government's controversial dossier on Iraqi weapons, published in the run up to war in September 2002, saying that it went to the "outer limits"

of the available intelligence.
It said that Tony Blair's statement in the Commons may have "reinforced the impression" that there was "fuller and firmer" intelligence behind the assessments in the dossier than was actually the case.
The inquiry acknowledged that its report would lead to calls for the resignation of John Scarlett, the chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee who drew up the dossier and who has since been appointed the chief of MI6.
It said that it hoped he would stay on. "We have a high regard for his abilities and his record," it said. .."
(warmwell comment: Does this not mean, in effect, that Lord Butler exonerates John Scarlett for the information that was teased out and spun by Downing Street. Remember Hutton on Sept 23)

July 14 ~ "I recently heard politicians as various as John Reid, Peter Hain and Tessa Jowell assert that weapons “will be found”.

I wondered what spell holds power over those anointed. When even George Bush began to hedge his bets before Christmas, Mr Blair seemed in a trance. He was still “absolutely convinced” that weapons were there. His craven apparat chorused its assent. Thus did 22 bishops vote Galileo guilty and keep the Earth at the centre of the Universe" Simon Jenkins Feb 4 2004

July 13 ~"It is the very existence of the dossier and the process that led to its publication that exposes the biggest untruth of the whole Iraq saga:

the pretence that the decision to go to war was evidence led. .." David Clark was a special adviser at the Foreign Office from 1997 to 2001 . Here is his comment in today's Guardian "To put the blame for war on the intelligence services would be a travesty"
"....The government's supporters argue that all Downing Street did was insist that the case against Iraq should be as strong as the JIC was willing to make it. But this misses a rather significant point. Had Blair been genuine in his belief that Iraq posed a serious threat, all he needed to do was publish a declassified version of the intelligence reports on which his conclusions were based. There would have been no need for anything "new" and "revelatory". What had convinced the prime minister ought to have been sufficient to convince the rest of us."

July 13 ~ the Butler committee has sent separate letters requesting information from Mr Blix, the chief UN arms inspector, and Mr ElBaradei, the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Independent ".... Lord Butler of Brockwell's decision to extend his inquiries to Mr Blix and Mr ElBaradei, and their staff, is seen as ominous for Downing Street. Both the men have in the past disputed British claims about Iraq's supposed weapons of mass destruction.
The Niger claim is especially problematic for the Government, as well as MI6, which has continued to back its alleged veracity despite it being widely dismissed by, among others, the US government.
.......Mr Blix .... said recently about the claim, in Mr Blair's dossier, that Iraq can deploy chemical and biological weapons in 45 minutes: "The intention was to dramatise it, just as the vendors of some merchandise are trying to exaggerate the importance of what they have. But from politicians and our leaders in the Western world, I think we can expect more than that. A bit more sincerity. ..."

July 12 ~ " intelligence assessments, which might have worked against the build-up to war, were sidelined."

Since January, we have publicised on this page the article from the Sunday Herald Spy chiefs warn PM: don't blame us for war (Jan 25 2004) which appeared on the eve of the Hutton Report. On the eve of the Butler Report it is as relevant as ever.
"Intelligence work had become politicised under Labour , and spies were taking orders from politicians. They provided worst-case scenarios which were used by politicians to make factual claims. ..." Read again and see today "MI6 distances itself from 45-minute weapons claim" in the Guardian. (The same warmwell page carries the article by Robin Cook in which he expresses "mystification" that Tony Blair said "... he had never understood that the intelligence agencies did not believe Saddam had long-range weapons of mass destruction" when he himself had received clarity on this very point from John Scarlett.)

July 12 ~ What created real urgency in Washington to start the invasion may have been the dawning realisation that Hans Blix was about to remove their pretext for war.

Robin Cook in the Guardian "... I had been briefed that Saddam's weapons were only battlefield ones and I could not conceive that the prime minister had been given a different version. My briefing took place in February at my residence at Carlton Gardens, where I was visited by John Scarlett, chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee. We spoke for almost an hour and - as always - I found him professional, dispassionate and frank in his replies. When I put to him my conclusion that Saddam had no long-range weapons of mass destruction but may have battlefield chemical weapons, he readily agreed. .... Saddam had taken apart the shells and dispersed them -with the result that it would be difficult to deploy them under attack. Not only did Saddam have no weapons of mass destruction in the real meaning of that phrase, neither did he have usable battlefield weapons.
I put these points to the prime minister a couple of weeks later. The exchange is recorded in my diary on March 5 2003..... "

July 11 ~ "even the CIA was critical of British intelligence. The agency was particularly disparaging of claims from British intelligence that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Niger

in Africa, cutting a passage from a keynote speech by George Bush in October 2002 which was to read: “The regime has been caught attempting to purchase up to 500 tonnes of uranium oxide from Africa .” One CIA official wrote a memo to the National Security Council (NSC) saying: “We told Congress that the Brits exaggerated this issue.” The line was dropped from the speech, but what remained points significantly to the way British and American politicians were intent on sexing up what intelligence they could. .." Sunday Herald
See also warmwell's page on the Niger scandal "...Germany's Der Spiegel accused the United States and the U.K. as the forgery perpetrators in a March 17 Web story titled, "Grounds for War Urgently Required: Forgeries and Half-Truths Intended To Heighten Fears of Saddam's Weapons Arsenal".... "

July 11 ~ Fury over Pentagon cell that briefed White House on Iraq's 'imaginary' al-Qaeda links

SundayTelegraph "....Mr Feith's cell undermined the credibility of CIA judgments on Iraq's alleged al-Qa'eda links within the highest levels of the Bush administration. The cell appears to have been set up by Mr Feith as an adjunct to the Office of Special Plans, a Pentagon intelligence-gathering operation established in the wake of 9/11 with the authority of Paul Wolfowitz. Its focus quickly became the al-Qa'eda-Saddam link. On occasion, without informing the then head of the CIA, George Tenet, the group gave counter-briefings in the White House. Sen Jay Rockefeller, the most senior Democrat on the committee, said that Mr Feith's cell may even have undertaken "unlawful" intelligence-gathering initiatives. ..."
Juan Cole comments: " What is remarkable is that the Democrats in the Senate apparently are beginning to get their footing and are actively gunning for Feith. He has strong support from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, the main think tank of the American Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC), both of which have moved increasingly close to Israel's far-right Likud Party, and it will be interesting to see if the senators prove willing to buck this influential lobby. If so, and if it is done successfully, such a move could damage the myth of AIPAC's invincibility and open up American politics to a wider range of views on Mideast policy."

July 11 ~ " ...a big petroleum income combined with an influx of foreign aid could create hyper-inflation.

Getting the Iraqi economy right will be no easy task. Just having a lot of money sloshing around is not the same as development. Ask the Shah of Iran. .." Juan Cole

July 7 ~ "The tragedy is that people will go on believing Mylroie's weirdness

and she will keep getting invited on t.v. and to speak to Congress, and AEI will not suffer a loss of credibility because of this fiasco. If an assistant professor in a university wrote such nonsense, the person would never get tenure and would end up unemployed.
I guess if you have the backing of enough incredibly rich people, you can get away with almost anything." Juan Cole on the Bergen article below.

July 7 ~ Did one woman's obsession take America to war?

Peter Bergen in Guardian yesterday: " ... why were Bush and his aides so keen to swallow Laurie Mylroie's theories on Saddam and terrorism?...
Clarke writes: "I could hardly believe it, but Wolfowitz was spouting the Laurie Mylroie theory that Iraq was behind the 1993 truck bomb at the World Trade Centre, a theory that had been investigated for years and found to be totally untrue."
Mylroie's influence can also be seen in the Bush cabinet's reaction to the September 11 attacks. According to Bob Woodward's recent book, Plan of Attack, Wolfowitz told the cabinet immediately after the attacks that there was a 10 to 50% chance that Saddam was implicated. Around the same time, Bush told his aides: "I believe that Iraq was involved, but I'm not going to strike them now."
The most comprehensive criminal investigation in history - pursuing 500,000 leads and interviewing 175,000 people - has turned up no evidence of Iraqi involvement.
How is it that key members of the Bush administration believed otherwise? ...." Read in full Juan Cole comments:

July 7 ~" Although Allawi insisted that the law would not detract from civil liberties

it is hard to see how it could fail to curb freedom of association (curfews are like that), and the threat of censorship now looms." Juan Cole
......I also would add something to the argument about petroleum resources driving the Bush-Cheney imperial project.
Petroleum is fungible and cannot be "controlled." The question is who gets the profits from refining and distribution, and to what purpose the profits are put. The major new field in recent years is Tengiz in Kazakhstan, but the US hasn't menaced Astana. Likewise, only the Neocon lunatic fringe has spoken about attacking Saudi Arabia. I think the calculation is more complex. The targets are countries
  1. whose regimes are actively hostile to the United States;
  2. which practice a form of socialism that limits US corporations' ability to invest and extract profits from the country;
  3. which have valuable resources such as petroleum that can generate foreign exchange and buy powerful weapons, including WMD, and
  4. which menace or limit close US military allies in their region. Such states cannot be incorporated easily into US global hegemony.
Iraq and Iran fit the profile perfectly... so does North Korea. Libya is more ambiguous, especially given Qaddafi's change of policies in the late 1990s and into 2004. But Lebanon and Somalia were on the 7-nation hit list drawn up by the neocons, so in their case factor 4 was reinterpreted and given primacy, so that the goal must be establishing control over a key strategic waterway (Somalia & the Red Sea) and aiding and abetting Likud expansionism (versus Lebanon)."

July 6 ~ British forces face frequent mortar bomb attacks in 'quiet' Basra

Independent "...Hussain Abid, 35, whose two-year-old son was seriously injured in Sunday's attack, called yesterday for the Army to relocate. .........Since the recent transfer of power to the interim Iraqi government the Army has been tryin