Juan Cole

223 dead, 500 wounded in clashes across Iraq US marines launch major assault on Najaf The headline, which is perfectly serviceable, is ripped off from a Pakistani newspaper mainly based on Agence France Presse reporting. The story was put to bed before a lot of the Arab newspapers came out Friday morning, so it underestimates […]

Endgame in Najaf? From Arabic and English radio and television broadcasts, including al-Jazeerah: The Marines have completely surrounded Najaf and cut off all the roads leading into the shrine of Imam Ali (Shiite Islam’s St. Peter). US warplanes bombarded positions in the vast Valley of Peace cemetery (2 million graves) again today. At one point […]

Fierce Fighting in Amara Marines Prepare for final Push in Najaf Fresh explosions and machine gun fire rocked Najaf early Thursday morning. On Wednesday, fighting in 5 Iraqi cities (excluding Najaf) left 35 dead and 219 wounded. Amara British military forces attacked Mahdi Army positions in Amarah, killing 20 persons and wounding 78. Fighting raged, […]

Kerry and Bush on Iraq War Bush asked Kerry if he would still have voted for the Iraq War if he had known in fall of 2002 everything he knows now about the non-existence of weapons of mass destruction. Kerry said “yes,” but that he would have handled things differently from Bush, giving the weapons […]

Correction to the NYT re: Sistani Alex Berenson’s otherewise fine article on the situation in Najaf contains an important error. This mistake may well not be Mr. Berenson’s fault. We professional writers know that between the time we submit something and it appears in press, it is massaged, edited and copy-edited, and with all the […]

Mahdi Army Fights on in Najaf, Sadr City The US military pounded Mahdi Army positions in the vast cemetery of Najaf again on Tuesday, with artillery and aerial bombardment. The Americans also began asking the civilian population (ordinarily nearly half a million strong) to leave the city, spurring fears that the US planned another massive […]

Iraq National Congress Office Closed Al-Hayat reports via Agence France Presse that the head of the office of Ahmad Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress in Baghdad has been told by the caretaker Iraqi government that he had 24 hours to close the office. Ahmad Chalabi and his nephew Salem, previously darlings of the US Department of […]

POW Mistreatment an Issue between US and Iraq, Denmark and UK Death Penalty Condemned by Danish Defense Minister Danish Colonel Henrik Flach said Tuesday, “The British treat their prisoners in a manner which does not, as we think in Denmark, conform with the Geneva Conventions.” The 500-strong Danish contingent was condemned by a Danish army […]

“No Pakistani Official Made this Intelligence Leak” AP reports that Pakistani officials continue to insist that the leak of double agent Muhammad Naeem Nur Khan’s name to the press on Aug. 1 was done by “Coalition partners,” though they are circumspect about directly accusing the US. AP writes, ‘ The first official described the initial […]