September 26, 2008
It's neither an open list system nor a closed list system....
Since a different military clash in South Asia is getting more press, I thought I'd note this one. Turkish warplanes crossed the border into northern Iraqi airspace to bomb 16 Kurdish rebel sites, a spokesman for Turkey' s military said...
September 01, 2008
It's the first deal of its kind since the 2003 invasion. Iraq and China signed a $3 billion deal this week to develop a large Iraqi oil field, the first major commercial oil contract here with a foreign company since...
July 20, 2008
I think Hilzoy is right here. And if the press is paying attention the larger trend, I think Maliki's comments could be even worse for McCain than they at first appear. First the Bush administration started appeasing negotiating with Iran,...
July 02, 2008
Eric Martin restates the obvious.Of course a simple way of seeing that is that it's been extended long past the date when the president first promised it would end. But somehow that's viewed as a sign of success, not failure....
June 06, 2008
I can't decide which of these two paragraphs is more troubling. A top aide to then-secretary of defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, however, shut down the 2003 investigation into the Pentagon officials' activities after only a month, and the Defense Department's...
May 23, 2008
Cole has a long post on this important issue, and notes a few possibilities of why Sistani might choose to do this now. Personally, I think this is the most likely reason about the timing. I have all along believed...
April 11, 2008
He's got some very good arguments. Of course whether or not they might actually come to pass is an entirely different matter....
April 06, 2008
Yeah, this really does cut to the chase, doesn't it: So, just so that we're clear on this. We are building an army full of people who are still getting pension payments from an organization that the U.S. has designated...
April 04, 2008
Via War is Boring I see this depressing story touching on the capabilities and strength of the Iraqi military. More than 1,000 Iraqi soldiers and policemen either refused to fight or simply abandoned their posts during the inconclusive assault against...
April 02, 2008
In this case he doesn't even know his own mind. Yesterday in one interview he described Sadr as a major player whose influence must be reduced. In a different interview yesterday he said Sadr's influence had been on the...
April 01, 2008
Something else to make many nervous about the outcome of the recent fighting between the Iraqi government and Sadr's forces. Brig. Gen. Qassem Suleimani, who helped U.S.-backed Iraqi leaders negotiate a deal with radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr to...
March 26, 2008
High problematic from a Shiite point of view, sure, but Marc Lynch makes a pretty good case for it here. Why now and what can be gained? The downside is that if Maliki doesn't go along, dragging his feet and...
March 25, 2008
Yesterday the Washington Post ran this profile of the police chief in Fallujah, a former member of Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard, and a man who enthusiastically fought Americans in the wake of the war. For the next two years, Zobaie...
March 17, 2008
Yep. That's what you call it: The account that emerges from those interviews, and from access to previously unpublished documents, makes clear that Mr. Bremer’s decree reversed an earlier plan - one that would have relied on the Iraqi military...
February 28, 2008
Kevin Drum was kind of funny yesterday, pointing out how the US loves military timetables when it involves other countries' armies leaving Iraq, but not ours. But while the hypocrisy might be amusing the situation on the ground isn't. Iraq's...
February 22, 2008
This would seem to be good news from Iraq - at least if one's goal is to limit direct conflict between the major armed groups in the country.But it's probably also worth noting that this renewal is only until mid-August...
February 18, 2008
Matt Duss notes the contradictions, which is amusing as far as it goes, but of course still leaves us with a debacle. While on a darkly satirical level I appreciate that Gerecht's new line of pro-war bull directly contradicts previous...
February 11, 2008
Okay, I rarely find this kind of thing all that impressive - but this really is pretty funny, and actually I'd love to see someone pay to put it on tv (where it'd surely get lots of free media attention)....
So Michael Gordon's piece on the RAND report that's been hushed up for over 2 years is interesting mostly for the continual secrecy about even things that are already widely known, so long as they might prove the slightest bit...
February 08, 2008
This will be somewhat obscure, 'cause I don't want this to be public (this will make sense; just read on).I've been invited to have dinner with a gentleman being inducted to this august University's Alumni Hall of Fame (or whatever...
January 23, 2008
The Army is having trouble again. They want to have 90% of their recruits with a high school diploma, but they also need to make the recruiting numbers in order to prevent a shortfall in people to do jobs. Well,...
January 21, 2008
If this is accurate, it's horrifying. The Pentagon is releasing a report saying, one in five American serviceman and women who have been in Iraq are coming back with brain injuries. Mild, traumatic brain injuries. More than 250,000 people. That...
January 17, 2008
So my latest Netflix rental was this documentary on the utter ineptitude of the Bush Administration and CPA in planning for and dealing with post-war Iraq. Yes, it deserves the acclaim it's received. And I'll be floored if it's not...
January 04, 2008
The blogger known as G'Kar was killed in Iraq yesterday. Hilzoy has posted his final words, written in advance in the event this happened....
November 04, 2007
Perhaps this is more Baltar's territory than mine, but I think this Charles Bird post is worth linking too, as it's a nice collection of news stories from Iraq that could actually be termed "good news". Now it would be...
November 01, 2007
I'm just completely reprinting this entire George Packer post from his blog over at Vanity Fair. My level of frustration at our conduct in this war (both on this issue and others - how can America possibly be having a...
October 24, 2007
Spencer Ackerman's tips for Blackwater, as it apparently needs sensitivity training: Lesson One: Don't drunkenly murder bodyguards of Iraqi dignitaries. Lesson Two: Should Lesson One fail, don't hire those who drunkenly murder bodyguards of Iraqi dignitaries. Lesson Three: Don't shoot...
October 15, 2007
Some generals say it's time to declare victory. The U.S. military believes it has dealt devastating and perhaps irreversible blows to al-Qaeda in Iraq in recent months, leading some generals to advocate a declaration of victory over the group, which...
September 29, 2007
By a big, big margin. So what if that's not what the Iraqi people want, it's what the US Senate (which showed such great wisdom in helping get us in this mess in the first place) wants - and that's...
September 28, 2007
If the senior senator from Delaware's campaign wasn't such a sad and pointless affair (which means it really doesn't merit attack ads), opponents could have a lot of fun with this. Biden's presumptuousness (something sadly backed by most senators, though...
September 17, 2007
Iraq's Interior Ministry has revoked the license of Blackwater USA......
September 12, 2007
Do you think the punditocracy and tv blowhards will pay attention to their op-ed now that they are dead?...
Not only does Petraeus say here that we'll be in Iraq until there's politicial reconciliation, regardless of advances in Iraqi forces' capabilities, we'll apparently be there until the Iraqi state is firmly stable. In other words, Petraeus wants us to...
September 11, 2007
September 08, 2007
So says Gen. Jones, who would seem to be in an excellent position to know. Would it be too much to ask for the news crews to note this fact every time the White House says that if we leave...
We don't know. Fred Kaplan guesses it may have been Cheney on Chalabi's advice. But regardless of who had the idea, I think we know who is responsible. Kaplan ends his article this way: Many stories have since been told...
September 07, 2007
About that White House report (aka the Petraeus Report) ... well it turns out it won't actually exist. The general is going to give a statement to Congress and ... that's it. I guess that's one way of getting around...
September 04, 2007
As Ezra notes, it's impossible. But that's the genius of the surge strategy: Anything that's good is redefined as Progress, and anything that's Progress is defined as a result of the surge. Meanwhile, anything that's bad -- like the continued...
You've got to be kidding. Sadly, our government is not....
I'm rather surprised that this hasn't been more framed this way more often. The extent to which the administration and Petraeus are engaging in public relations as opposed to producing on-the-ground success continues to surprise (which you wouldn't think would...
Hilzoy says you should keep these 8 points in mind....
August 31, 2007
I've had all I can stand, and I can't stands no more. (NOTE: I realize this is almost a week late, but I have an actual day job, and have to do actual work at it. Thus, I got this...
August 30, 2007
The new GAO report on Iraq is grim. Also grim is the fact that it's being released in this form because officials think the White House will skew its findings. That's entirely predictable - but it's sad that that's become...
August 29, 2007
I didn't know he had that kind of power....
August 27, 2007
I didn't know this either. The president's decision-making procedures (or lack thereof) really are the worst in the history of the modern presidency. The incompetence seemingly knows no bounds....
August 26, 2007
The New York Times Magazine article on the potential division between Captains/Majors and Generals in the US Army is well worth reading. There have been multiple arguments about "breaking" the Army by forcing it to recycle troops through Iraq multiple...
August 24, 2007
August 23, 2007
Michael Hirsh notes that while a lot of what the president was saying about Iraq and Vietnam yesterday was incredibly off-base, there are one or two unfortunate similarities between the two. We need to face facts. The problem of Iraq...
August 16, 2007
It's hot (back into the high 80s, with approximately the same humidity); I'm tired (I start teaching three classes on Monday). Thus, I'm cranky. Consider this a wrap-up of the things I have muttered to myself this past week. If...
August 15, 2007
Atrios thinks it's important that we keep it in mind that the "Petraeus Report" will actually be written by the White House. That's true. But I've got a question for the LA Times: Why make this paragraph - Despite Bush's...
August 11, 2007
Literally. For the life of me I'll never understand why this doesn't get discussed more in the media's discussion of what victory entails, or whether the US can "win"....
August 06, 2007
Feeling safer yet? Think we're "supporting the troops"? Isn't this the kind of thing we'd decry Iran for? Oh my. The Pentagon has lost track of about 190,000 AK-47 assault rifles and pistols given to Iraqi security forces in...
July 30, 2007
Don't you know that Condi Rice and Bob Gates are just thrilled that our UN Ambassador made these comments just before they visit Saudi Arabia? I presume the administration planned this, but talk about a way to make some difficult...
July 27, 2007
So the Subcommittee on National Security & Foreign Affairs of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has been investigating charges that the workers building the new US Embassy in Iraq are being abused. Here's coverage from McClatchy and The...
July 25, 2007
This is interesting. Today, the House passed H.R. 2929, Banning Permanent U.S. Bases in Iraq. This bill states that it is the policy of the United States not to establish any military installation or base for the purpose of providing...
July 21, 2007
July 13, 2007
Outrageous. A sham. Dismal. Deliberately distorted. Dismaying. I think the Bush administration's mendacity has Fred Kaplan on the verge of a Howard Beale-moment. The Bush administration's distortions are that extreme....
July 12, 2007
Could the differences between the parties on Iraq be more stark? It passed 223-201. All but 10 Democrats voted yea (the 10 were mostly conservatives, plus Kucinich). They were joined by 4 Republicans (Duncan, Emerson, Jones and Gilchrest). That's 4...
July 02, 2007
George Packer (who wrote a great book on Iraq last year) also has a blog over at the New Yorker. He muses about Phil Carter (who runs Intel-Dump, a great military blog), who has served in Iraq and now feels...
June 26, 2007
Read it, if you can stomach it.There are more than a million Iraqi refugees in Syria, many are women whose husbands or fathers have been killed. Banned from working legally, they have few options outside the sex trade. No one...
June 18, 2007
What happens when a state can't - or won't - rely on a standing army to accomplish its security objectives? Privatization. In the case of the war in Iraq, it looks like the private sector has found new and improved...
June 06, 2007
The Sadrists withdrew from his coalition, then the parliament blocked confirmation of his replacements for those cabinet ministers, and now the parliament has demanded that it grant permission for US troops to remain in the country. Iraqi legislators led by...
June 03, 2007
Basic counterinsurgency strategy (best discussed about forty years ago in Galula's counterinsurgency bible, written after Galula served in Algeria, and observing France's failing attempts to win in Vietnam) argues that counterinsurgency is fundamentally political. On one side is the government,...
May 26, 2007
Of course we already knew this to a degree (remember the White House's war against the CIA), but a new Senate Intelligence Committee report featuring previously classified information shows that the intelligence committee accurately predicted the dangerous mess that would...
May 25, 2007
In the US House most Democrats voted against the Iraq appropriations bill - but in the Senate only 14 members (and only 10 Democrats!) voted against the bill. Of course among those 14 were 3 presidential candidates (Clinton, Dodd and...
May 24, 2007
"And now, my beauties, something with poison in it. Poppies... Poppies." HT...
May 17, 2007
One of the prime problems with US policy in the Mid East (if not the world) is that everyone believes that the US hates all of them, wants to bomb everybody, and generally couldn't give a dead rat what happens...
May 16, 2007
Given its wording I think Feingold-Reid matches the popular will - fight al-Qaeda, protect Americans, but don't continue to ramp up operations to protect the dismally-functioning (and basically dismal) Iraqi government. According to my reading of the polls, that's clearly...
May 15, 2007
The legislation requires the president to begin the "safe, phased withdrawal of U.S. forces" within 120 days. After March 31, 2008, all funds would be cut off for the deployment of troops in Iraq, with three exceptions: "targeted operations"...
May 10, 2007
The McClatchy correspondents write that today's deadly truck bombing is the first major attack in the capital of Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region in 3 years. The specific target - the Interior Ministry....
That question is asked and answered by the War Nerd in this interesting discussion of who won the war in Iraq (hint, it's neither the US nor Iraq). Actually he goes on to make some thoughtful observations about who wins...
May 09, 2007
This is awful, though also sadly predictable. As many as 50 percent of Iraq's Christians may already have left the country, according to a report issued Wednesday by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, a federal monitoring and advisory...
May 03, 2007
So Amato put up the list of the seven House Democrats who chose not to vote to override President Bush's veto of the Iraq War spending bill. Six of those seven names are awfully predictable. They vote against Democrats often,...
April 30, 2007
So you've probably seen this depressing article in the Times, noting the latest depressing behavior of the Iraqi government that we are fighting (and dying) for: A department of the Iraqi prime minister's office is playing a leading role in...