Juan Cole

‘Imminent Threat’ and ‘We know where they are’ becomes “Intent” (Cheney) I am so naive that I still read items like this with my jaw on my keyboard: AP reported that US Vice President Dick ‘Cheney, the keynote speaker at the Republicans’ annual Lincoln Days, said the evidence indicates that Saddam Hussein had the intent […]

John Hannah Allegedly Focus of Plame Probe Richard Sale, respected intelligence reporter for UPI, has given credibility to a story that had been rumored for several weeks . It is that the FBI investigation into the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame is increasingly focusing on two officials in the office of Vice President Dick […]

Jaafari of al-Da`wa Calls for Shiite Unity Plan The London daily al-Hayat says today that after being roiled by divisions after the fall of Saddam, the Shiites are now seeking a way to unify. Ibrahim Jaafari, a physician who leads the al-Da`wa Party and serves on the Interim Governing Council, has been in the forefront […]

Sadrists occupy Provincial HQ in Nasiriyah, force Resignation of some Members of Provincial Council Sat. 8:30 pm. Just checked my email and am getting some information indirectly from a CPA source in Nasiriyah that challenges the al-Zaman story below on some particulars. The source claims that although there was a demonstration last Wednesday, the governor […]

Disputed Assassination attempt on Sistani Alissa Rubin of the LA Times reports that there are conflicting stories about whether Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani was the victim of an attempted assassination attempt on Thursday. Two Shiite members of the Interim Governing Council told her that they were briefed that there was such an attack. On the […]

Rumsfeld: We never said it! Tony Blair admitted Thursday that he had not understood what was being claimed in British intelligence estimates that Iraq could launch weapons of mass destruction in 45 minutes. The intelligence claim, which was anyway wrong, was speaking of battlefield weapons. Blair confessed that he thought the report referred to a […]

Honduras Protests against Iraq War, US Imperialism Thousands of protesters, including students, union members and leftists, thronged the streets of five major cities in Honduras on Thursday to protest the Iraq war and US imperialism. Some 370 Honduran troops are serving in Iraq under the Spanish command around Nasiriyah.

Kurdish Parliament Rejects Islamization of Personal Status Laws Late last December, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim and some allies on the US-appointed Interim Governing Council issued an executive order abrogating Iraq’s secular personal status laws and putting each Iraqi under the personal status laws of his or her religious sect. This step had clearly negative implications for […]

Al-Hakim: Presidential Council OK Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, head of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq and a member of the US-appointed Interim Governing Council, has according to AFP given his assent to the presidential council proposed by Adnan Pachachi and the Sunnis. Pachachi had suggested a rotating 3-man presidency, which would appoint the […]