BAGHDAD — The most prominent figure in a revolt of Sunni sheiks against al-Qaeda in Iraq was killed Thursday by a bomb planted near his home in Anbar province, 10 days after he met with President Bush, police and tribal leaders said. Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha was leader of the Anbar Salvation Council, also known as the Anbar awakening – an alliance of clans backing the Iraqi government and US forces.
Every question and answer from last night’s Channel 4 News interview with Jon Snow and the Iranian president” Q: Both the UK and the US have accused Iran of fighting a proxy war inside Iraq? A: “I think the Americans and the British, they should correct themselves …. We know that there is a difference between Americans and the British. The British when they moved out of Barsa, it was
by Scott Ritter It should come as no surprise that the Bush administration’s newest military-man-of-substance-turned- political lapdog, General Petraeus, maintains that the situation in Iraq is not only salvageable, but actually improving, due to the “surge” of U.S. combat troops into Iraq over the past year. All the president and his collection of GI Joe hand-puppets ask for is more time, more money and more troops. There is no reason
Today, I had the pleasure of being interviewed by the anti-war talk show host Scott Horton for his daily show on KAOS 95.5 radio in Austin, Texas. Our conversation covered topics such as the Israel/Neocon Lobby in the USA, its role in getting the US in wars in the Middle-East, its struggle against what I call the “Old Anglo Guard” and Russia’s relationship to the developments in Iran. Please click
How the press spent its summer vacation by Eric Boehlert News that Katie Couric would anchor the CBS Evening News from Baghdad this week created a major media splash. After earlier suggesting that type of assignment would be too treacherous for a single mother of two, Couric did an about-face. She stressed that as a journalist she wanted to get a better sense, a firsthand account, of how events were
By Dave Lindorff The Iraq War has been lost. The British are acknowledging this fact by pulling out their troops from Basra, Iraq’s second largest city, handing over the city to the control of Shia militias. For all intents and purposes, the “Coalition of the Willing” is now dead. America is now going it alone. Bush is not acknowledging defeat, but has indirectly admitted it by saying that some troops
by Juan Cole Bush made a surprise visit to Al-Anbar Province on Monday, as part of his propaganda drive to get Americans to think we should stay in Iraq because “progress” is being made. The debate over al-Anbar province is driven by the Bushies’ desire to find any ‘good news’ to grasp at. Indeed, from 2003 forward, their criterion for objective reporting on Iraq was that it gave the ‘good
By PATRICK COCKBURN The withdrawal of British forces from Basra Palace, ahead of an expected full withdrawal from the city as early as next month, marks the beginning of the end of one of the most futile campaigns ever fought by the British Army. Ostensibly, the British will be handing over control of Basra to Iraqi security forces. In reality, British soldiers control very little in Basra, and the Iraqi
By Gisoo Misha Ahmadi, Press TV, Tehran Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari dismisses the allegations made against the Islamic Republic that Tehran is meddling in Iraq’s affairs. On the sidelines of a ministerial meeting of Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), Zebari told the Press TV correspondent that the good relations between the governments of Iran and Iraq has prompted Tehran to step up its efforts to secure and stabilize the war ravaged-country.
Empire Note by Rahul MahajanIt’s not very interesting to take apart the latest bizarre rhetorical gambit from the White House – analogizing Iraq to Vietnam in order, strangely, to argue against withdrawal, on the grounds that allegedly premature withdrawal in 1975 led to bloodbaths in Vietnam and Cambodia and that the same thing could happen in Iraq. There was, of course, no bloodbath in Vietnam after the North Vietnamese victory
By Arianna Huffington As we all await the Petraeus Report on the state of the surge, we may also need to be anticipating the Allawi Coup. I’m talking, of course about Ayad Allawi, longtime C.I.A. asset and former interim prime minister of Iraq. He’s making quite the PR push to get his old job back, penning an op-ed for the Washington Post, hooking up with Wolf Blitzer on Late Edition
by Patrick Cockburn It was supposed to mark a decisive new phase in America’s military campaign, but six months after George Bush sent in 20,000 extra troops, Iraq is more chaotic and dangerous than ever. In a special despatch, Patrick Cockburn reports on the bloody failure of ‘the surge’ The war in Iraq passed a significant but little remarked anniversary this summer. The conflict that President George Bush announced was
Saudi Arabia’s Myth of Moderation By Barbara Koeppel Almost daily, the Bush administration ratchets up the war-like rhetoric about Iran’s alleged role in destabilizing Iraq. Eerily, like the pre-Iraq War drumbeat, the U.S. press repeats the accusations with little skepticism and Congress marches in lockstep, as a new Middle East villain is marked for punishment. On Aug. 15, front-page stories in the New York Times, the Washington Post and other
BAGHDAD, Aug 17 –Washington’s envoy to Iraq has claimed that pulling US troops out of the country could open the door to a “major Iranian advance” that would threaten US interests in the region. Ambassador Ryan Crocker also accused Tehran of seeking to weaken the Iraqi government so that it could “by one means or another control it”. Crocker’s allegations clash head-on with Tehran’s public support for Iraq’s government. Washington
Tuesday: 572 Iraqis Killed, 6 GIs; 412 Iraqis Wounded Updated at 5:21 p.m. EDT, Aug. 15, 2007 At least 572 Iraqis were killed and 412 more wounded in the latest round of attacks, which included a major triple bombing in northern Iraq. Also, six GIs were killed and three more were wounded in separate events. One American servicemember was killed and three others were wounded during combat operations in western
As British Leave, Basra DeterioratesViolence Rises in Shiite City Once Called a Success Story By Karen DeYoung and Thomas E. RicksWashington Post Staff WritersTuesday, August 7, 2007; A01 As British forces pull back from Basra in southern Iraq, Shiite militias there have escalated a violent battle against each other for political supremacy and control over oil resources, deepening concerns among some U.S. officials in Baghdad that elements of Iraq’s Shiite-dominated
A stable Iraqi state would constitute a strategic victory—and the only one still possible. by William S. Lind Among the bits of lore of the United States Senate is a story that dates back to before I arrived there in 1973 as a staffer to Sen. Robert Taft Jr. of Ohio. A senator—from New York, perhaps—known for depending wholly on his staff while treating it with contempt, told his assistant
How reporters trumped up a story about Iranians killing Americans in Iraq by Gareth Porter On July 2 and 3, The New York Times and the Associated Press, among other media outlets, came out with sensational stories saying that either Iranians or Iranian agents had played an important role in planning the operation in Karbala, Iraq last January that resulted in the deaths of five American soldiers. Michael R. Gordon
By David Ivanovich Washington – More than 1,000 civilian contractors have been killed in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion more than four years ago, according to Labor Department records made available Tuesday. In response to a request from Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., the Labor Department revealed that 1,001 civilian contractors had died in Iraq as of June 30, including 84 during the second quarter of the year. So far in
According to Iranian news reports, Iraqi sources have confirmed that an American surveillance plane has crashed into Iyad Allawi’s residence. The aircraft slammed into Allawi’s house in Baghdad on Thursday. The incident comes as US support of the former Iraqi prime minister is heightening while at the moment he is the most vocal opposition to the current Iraqi government. Allawi had told Aljazeera that he dismissed some of the US
