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Al-Hakim Faults Plan for Transition to Sovereignty Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq and a member of the Interim Governing Council, complained this week about the US plan for handing over sovereignty to an Iraqi government by June. He said the process whereby this plan was worked out […]

Khafaji added to IGC Salma al-Khafaji has been added to the Interim Governing Council, succeeding the slain Aqilah al-Hashimi, who was assassinated. Al-Khafaji is a Shiite woman dentist, and joins other technocrats on the council. She was chosen by the Shiite caucus on the IGC, which is now back to having a majority of 13 […]

Gunmen trade fire with Guards of Japan’s Embassy Gunmen began firing on Wednesday night near the Japanese embassy in Baghdad. The embassy guards got into a firefight with them, after which they fled. The Japanese spokesman at the enemy said it was unclear whether they had been guerrillas intentionally targetting the Japanese embassy, or whether […]

Season of Bombs The 8 people killed in Iraq since Wednesday by various guerrilla bombings and attacks are dwarfed by the disaster in Istanbul. A US soldier was killed and two wounded by a bomb attack in Ramadi. Another bomb went off outside the house of the pro-US mayor of Ramadi. Guerrillas blew up a […]

Vatican Denounces Islamist Attacks on Christian Schools in Mosul Radical Muslims sprayed machine gun fire at properties of the Assyrian Antiochan church in Mosul and planted hand grenades in schools maintained by the church. The attacks brought a condemnation from the Vatican. Iraqi police found the hand grenades, which could have injured school children, and […]

Talabani: Muqtada Welcome in Transitional Government Muqtada al-Sadr, the heretofore radical Shiite cleric of Kufa, would be welcome in the Iraqi government, according to Interim Governing Council president Jalal Talabani. So reports Howard LaFranchi of CSM. Al-Sadr had earlier been a harsh critic of the US and had urged nonviolent resistance to the occupation (though […]

Cordesman: Attacks on Americans will continue “until the day the US leaves” CPA under Fire According to Knight-Ridder, the US will double the number of State Department personnel in Iraq to 110, including a large number of the Department’s 402 Arabic speakers. (The State Department only has 402 Arabists??) The new team will oversee the […]

Supposed al-Qaeda links with Saddam People have asked me what I thought about the memo of Undersecretary of Defense for Planning Douglas Feith detailing 50 instances of contacts between al-Qaeda and the Iraqi Baath, published last weekend in the Weekly Standard to a huge yawn in most US media (Fox Cable News was peeing its […]

3 US Troops dead Guerrillas killed two American soldiers Monday in two different attacks. They ambushed on soldier while he was patrolling. They blew up a roadside bomb and killed another. A third soldier died from “nonhostile gunfire.” It is not clear if this is a euphemism for suicide, or for “friendly fire.”