Juan Cole

Iraq War Death Toll: 8,700 Iraqi Troops, 3,400 Iraqi Civilians A new study by The Project on Defence Alternatives, based on field hospital data and US government reports, finds that approximately 13,000 Iraqis were killed in the US attack of March-April. A little less than a third of the dead, 3,400 or so, were noncombatants […]

Iraq’s Christians Meet, ask for own Province A conference of Chaldean and Assyrian Christians met in Baghdad Monday, and came to two principal decisions (al-Zaman). They decided to seek a province of their own in Ninevah, near Mosul (a district that also has many Kurdish villages alongside Christian ones). And they decided that Iraqi Christians […]

US Intelligence Failures on Iraq WMD Rooted in Trusting Chalabi, Likud, Neocons Carl W. Ford Jr., the just-retired assistant secretary of State for intelligence and research, has given an extended interview to the Los Angeles Times in which he forthrightly acknowledges that something went wrong with US intelligence estimations of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction […]

Greenstock Charges Foreign Terrorists in Monday’s Wave of Attacks Special representative of the British government in Iraq, Jeremy Greenstock, told the BBC that the modus operandi of the suicide carbombings of the Red Cross HQ in Baghdad and several police stations was the mark of foreign terrorists coming in via Syria, Iran and Afghanistan. (via […]

Bangladesh, Portugal, will not send Troops The US military’s desperate search for an international division of peace enforcers in Iraq has pretty much completely failed. Bangladesh and Portugal, whom the US had pressed to provide troops, announced Monday that they would not. They said that their publics were overwhelmingly opposed, and that the recent UN […]

57% of Americans want some Troops to Come Home; 50% of Americans Disapprove Bush Handling of Iraq According to a CNN/ USA Today poll taken Oct. 24-26, exactly half of Americans disapprove of the way the Bush administration has dealt with the Iraq situation since May 1. (In April, only 18 percent disapproved. I’m happy […]

Iraq’s Neighbors meet on Crisis The foreign ministers of Iraq’s neighbors will meet in Damascus in early November, with interim Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari representing Iraq. Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, Turkey, Iran and Kuwait will all send their foreign ministers. Observers will include Egypt and Bahrain. This meeting is an encouraging sign. At some points […]

Khamenei Warns of Secret Plans to Dismember Iraq In an interview with al-Zaman, Iran’s Supreme Jurisprudent, Ali Khamenei, said that he was extremely worried by the complex and confusing issue of Iraq, and that he prayed daily for the unity of the Iraqi people. He expressed concerns that there were forces that wanted to see […]

Optimistic, Pessimistic Views of Kurdistan A friend of mine in northern Iraq sent me the following recently, which I reprint with permission. It is more upbeat than the news from the Sunni Arab triangle. “I have now seen more of northern Iraq than I ever dreamed possible — from Dohuk and Zahko through Irbil to […]