Iraq Archives Digest
This is a summary of each post only. The numbers in parenthesis after each entry are the number of comments and number of trackbacks.
For the full archive (large file), click
here.
March 26, 2008
Back in October 2002, Representatives Jim McDermott (D-WA), David Bonior (D-MI) and Mike Thompson (D-CA) - all, of course, Democrats - took a trip to Iraq: The three anti-war Democrats made the trip in October 2002, while the Bush administration was trying to persuade Congress to authorize military action against...
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I link, you decide: [There was a] 1993 claim by the Kuwaiti government - accepted by the Clinton administration - that the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) had plotted to assassinate President George H.W. Bush during a trip to Kuwait that spring. ...A just-released Pentagon study on the Iraqi regime's ties...
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March 23, 2007
Remember the al Qaqaa dustup shortly before the 2004 election, in which a few reports said that large amounts of munitions had been looted from Iraq munitions dumps, prompting a furious response from the usual suspects who did everything within their powers to support massive Bush administration incompetence? Now, the...
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February 13, 2007
Even Reuters' international correspondents are unclear on the concept of borders and border security, offering this: Iraq's government said on Tuesday it would close its borders with Syria and Iran and extend the hours of a night curfew in Baghdad under a U.S.- backed security plan to rein in violence...
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February 07, 2007
From this: The U.S. Federal Reserve sent record payouts of more than $4 billion in cash to Baghdad on giant pallets aboard military planes shortly before the United States gave control back to Iraqis, lawmakers said on Tuesday. The money, which had been held by the United States, came from...
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December 19, 2005
I'd say this might be a correct decision, or the Bush administration might have some super-secret stratergery planned, except in almost all cases their decisions have turned out to be completely wrong. I guess we'll just have one more rollercoaster to ride because of their deep thinking, huh? About 24...
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June 20, 2005
Actually, I combine 99 cents store bran flakes with raisins from the same place, thus saving money over both the Raisin Bran brand and the supermarket generic equivalent. Other than that, there are only minor differences between me and Saddam Hussein: [SH's American guards found Hussein] to be a friendly,...
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April 21, 2005
Earlier this week American peace activist Marla Ruzicka was killed in a suicide bomb attack in Baghdad. I first learned about this when I saw a large amount of hits on the May 2003 entry "American Woman Travels Door to Door to Count Iraqi Casualties". I thought she'd just done...
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February 23, 2005
Mark Jensen of United for Peace of Pierce County reports: Scott Ritter, appearing with journalist Dahr Jamail yesterday [Friday 2/18/05] in Washington State, dropped two shocking bombshells in a talk delivered to a packed house in Olympia’s Capitol Theater. The ex-Marine turned UNSCOM weapons inspector said that George W. Bush...
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February 15, 2005
Put me in the "very skeptical but then again I wouldn't be surprised" category: ...there is a strong movement in southern Iraq for the establishment of autonomous Shi'ite provinces as a precursor to introducing vilayet-e-faqih (rule by the clergy) in the whole country... To head off this threat of a...
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February 03, 2005
Interesting news brief from Australia's ABC: The residents of a small Iraqi village have killed five insurgents who had attacked them for voting in last weekend's national elections. Several other insurgents were also wounded... The insurgents' cars were then set alight. Al-Mudhiryah's tribal sheikh says his people are sick of...
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February 01, 2005
Chicago Tribune, March 23, 2004: From the ashes of abandoned Iraqi army bases, U.S. military engineers are overseeing the building of an enhanced system of American bases designed to last for years... Now U.S. engineers are focusing on constructing 14 "enduring bases," long-term encampments for the thousands of American troops...
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January 31, 2005
BAGHDAD, Jan 31 (IPS) - Voting in Baghdad was linked with receipt of food rations, several voters said after the Sunday poll. Many Iraqis said Monday that their names were marked on a list provided by the government agency that provides monthly food rations before they were allowed to vote......
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October 14, 2004
Tom Friedman: I don't know whether to laugh or cry when I hear the president and vice president slamming John Kerry for saying that he hopes America can eventually get back to a place where "terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they're a nuisance." The idea that...
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October 05, 2004
From the AP: The United States did not have enough troops in Iraq after ousting Saddam Hussein and "paid a big price" for it, says the former head of the U.S. occupation there. L. Paul Bremer said Monday that he arrived in Iraq on May 6, 2003 to find "horrid"...
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October 02, 2004
The NYT has 15-screenfuls on the aluminum tubes which were supposed to prove that Iraq had a nuclear weapons program. I didn't read the whole thing, but from "How the White House Embraced Disputed Iraqi Arms Intelligence": In 2002, at a crucial juncture on the path to war, senior members...
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July 06, 2004
From this: American and Iraqi joint patrols, along with U.S. Special Operations teams, captured two men with explosives in Baghdad on Monday who identified themselves as Iranian intelligence officers, FOX News has confirmed... (Link via Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds)...
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July 04, 2004
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The Iraqi official heading the investigation into alleged corruption in the United Nations oil-for-food program was killed in a bomb attack earlier this week, officials familiar with the probe said on Saturday....
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June 20, 2004
From Reuters: The commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks has been told "a very prominent member" of al Qaeda served as an officer in Saddam Hussein's militia, a panel member said on Sunday. Republican commissioner John Lehman told NBC's "Meet the Press" program that the new intelligence, if proven true,...
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June 16, 2004
From this: The United Nations was rocked by a new scandal yesterday when reports surfaced that the diplomat in charge of rooting out corruption in the world body is himself facing allegiations about unethical conduct......
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June 15, 2004
From this: Mercenaries believed to be from Chechnya are suspected of carrying out the deadly ambush of civilian security contractors on a road outside Baghdad earlier this month. The attackers killed four civilians working with Blackwater USA. Three contractors who managed to escape concluded that the assault was the work...
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June 11, 2004
UNMOVIC admits that Saddam sent "weapons of mass destruction components as well as medium-range ballistic missiles before, during and after the U.S.-led war against Iraq in 2003..." Oops. Expected "liberal" reaction: 1. Ignore 2. "Yes, but the components to make 20,000 liters of anthrax are not the same as 20,000...
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June 09, 2004
One of the Japanese citizens who was kidnapped in Iraq is filing a lawsuit. Only problem: he's suing the Japanese government: "Mr. Watanabe believes his kidnapping was the result of Japan's military presence," [his ambulance-chaser said]. "His captors told him that he had been taken because he was from a...
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May 25, 2004
From the CSM: ...behind the scenes, direct negotiations were under way to transform Sadr's militia into a political entity and end a violent rebellion. The coalition has declared repeatedly that it will not negotiate with "militias and criminals." Nonetheless, a deal may be forthcoming with Sadr, said an official close...
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May 23, 2004
Did Iran use Chalabi to get us to invade Iraq? That's what the DIA says. However, 'Chalabi Denies Spying for Iran'. Like I said before, who knows who's doing what in the Land of Conspiracies?...
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May 21, 2004
As previously discussed: "when[Iraqis were] asked which leader they trusted the most, just 0.2% said Ahmed Chalabi; he's not trusted at all by 10.3%." Maybe his numbers will change for the better after the raid. Who knows who's doing what in the Land of Conspiracies?...
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May 14, 2004
From the NY Post: A MAN has his head cut off by al Qaeda in Iraq, and The New York Times aggressively markets the idea - on its front page yesterday - that his death is somehow the fault of the United States... Whatever the circumstances of Nick Berg's detention...
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May 13, 2004
Courtesy of Drudge, here's the scoop from the N.Y. Post (which is not a tabloid, I swear): Shocking shots of sexcapades involving Pfc. Lynndie England were among the hundreds of X-rated photos and videos from the Abu Ghraib prison scandal shown to lawmakers in a top-secret Capitol conference room yesterday....
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May 11, 2004
The so-called 'Arab Street' erupted in rage and grief today, as devoted Muslims crowded into public squares by the hundreds of thousands, in dozens of cities, to denounce the brutal videotaped beheading of American Nicholas Berg by Muslim extremists affiliated with Al Qaeda... Unfortunately, here's the link. To be fair,...
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From NewsMax: Democrats howling for the resignation of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld for not informing them of reports of prisoner abuse in Baghdad are ignoring the fact that concerned parents of an accused soldier informed 16 members of Congress - top Democrats such as Senators Hillary Clinton, Edward Kennedy...
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May 10, 2004
Two weeks ago I linked to Jesse Jackson's comments on Iraq. He said the same thing more recently in Greece, and the Arab News was the only source that reported his remarks: During the opening session of a conference on religions and cultures in Greece, Jackson said Bush must “end...
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From this: Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon tonight said that the Daily Mirror pictures which allegedly showed British soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners appeared “increasingly like a hoax”. Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan swiftly issued a statement saying that the newspaper does not accept that the Ministry of Defence had proved that...
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May 09, 2004
No, the title doesn't refer to CBS, CNN, the rest of the news media, John Kerry, the DNC, "liberals," or all the rest. Instead: At a press conference by human rights groups in Baghdad on Sunday, numerous former prisoners came forward to tell of abuse including beatings by soldiers and...
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May 07, 2004
Developing......
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May 05, 2004
So much has been written recently about the Abu Ghreib prison that its past has apparently been forgotten: "Qusay, [Saddam's] second son, ordered Abu Ghreib prison to be "cleaned out" and had 2,000 prisoners executed in 24 hours." (link) "Abu Ghreib prison, 30 kilometres (19 miles) west of Baghdad, was...
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May 02, 2004
Yeah, that's nice. Perhaps we could talk about AI's Pattern of Anti-American Bias? Sure, as previously stated, Abu Ghraib is not a good thing, and it needs to be dealt with. However, we also need to watch for those who will seek to use this incident to suit their agendas....
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Based on the 60 Minutes report, I originally thought this was just an isolated incident involving yahoos, and that no one was physically hurt. The Hersh article says this is much worse, and the responsibiilty for at least covering it up might go much higher. Not only that, we might...
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April 28, 2004
Maybe it isn't a popular insurgency after all: A Pentagon intelligence report has concluded that many bombings against Americans and their allies in Iraq, and the more sophisticated of the guerrilla attacks in Falluja, are organized and often carried out by members of Saddam Hussein's secret service, who planned for...
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...all two of them. But, I kid. Several "liberals" are complaining about U.S. military police allegedly mistreating Iraqi POWs. For instance, here's TalkLeft's post. The few patriotic "liberals" could point out that a) this is an isolated incident, b) (most of) those responsible are being prosecuted, c) these actions in...
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April 23, 2004
From the NYT: ...Standing in the courtyard of [Najaf's] golden-domed Shrine of Ali on Friday, staring at 2,500 worshipers seated on rugs, the imam, Sadr al-Din al-Kubanchi, hurled words as sharp as scimitars at the army that had invaded this holy city. But the soldiers he denounced were not Americans...
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April 21, 2004
ABC has a long, worthwhile scoop on Oil For Food: At least three senior United Nations officials are suspected of taking multimillion-dollar bribes from the Saddam Hussein regime, U.S. and European intelligence sources tell ABCNEWS. One year after his fall, U.S. officials say they have evidence, some in cash, that...
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April 20, 2004
From the AP story 'Marines reopen photo probe': The Marines have reopened an investigation into a photograph circulating on the Internet that depicts a reservist with Iraqi children and a sign saying the serviceman killed one boy’s father and impregnated the boy’s sister. The reservist under investigation, Lance Cpl. Ted...
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April 19, 2004
Here's a discussion of "BCCI with a U.N. label:" ...Especially with the U.N.'s own investigation into Oil-for-Food now taking shape, and more congressional hearings in the works, it is high time to focus on the likelihood that Saddam may have fiddled Oil-for-Food contracts not only to pad his own pockets,...
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The Beeb has a slanted discussion of more "spontaneous demonstrations" in Madrid: Most Spaniards have welcomed Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's announcement that he will bring home the 1,300 Spanish peacekeepers from Iraq as quickly as possible since they have no UN mandate to be there. In central Madrid,...
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April 12, 2004
"Anti-US sentiment has been heightened by Al-Jazeera and other anti-coalition media reporting" on the closure of a Shiite radical newspaper and the siege of the insurgent bastion of Fallujah, the coalition's deputy director of operations, Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, told a news conference... [...whining about al Jazeera deleted...] ...But Al-Jazeera,...
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April 11, 2004
Remember the picture of the supposed Marine with the cardboard sign? ("Lcpl Boudreaux Killed my Dad. then he Knocked up my Sister!") It turns out that it was probably a real sign held up by a real Marine reservist. See the story in the Marine Times. Would that it were...
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April 09, 2004
This article gives a good overview of today's impeachment of President Bush: washington, april 9, 2004. A hush fell over the city as George W. Bush today became the first president of the United States ever to be removed from office by impeachment. Meeting late into the night, the Senate...
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From Reuters: Iran's influential former president, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, on Friday hailed the Shi'ite Muslim militia of firebrand cleric Moqtada al-Sadr as "heroic" for rising up against the U.S. occupation in Iraq. Rafsanjani told worshippers at Friday prayers in Tehran that a distinction should be drawn between Shi'ite fighters, who...
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April 07, 2004
DebkaFile has a map showing who's currently fighting in Iraq and where. Consider the source, but it's probably accurate....
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April 05, 2004
Is this sign real or fake? It seems quite convenient how CAIR and others are using it for propaganda purposes. How do we know this is from Iraq? That appears to be a Real Madrid T-shirt. Are those being passed out or sold in Iraq? There is Arabic writing behind...
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March 29, 2004
From the NY Post: Investigators probing the United Nations' Iraq oil-for-food program are taking a close look at allegations the scandal-plagued initiative was filled with spies, terrorists and do-nothing bureaucrats earning exorbitant salaries. The activities of the estimated 3,000 U.N. staffers who were working on the $100 billion humanitarian aid...
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March 23, 2004
Remember the recent 60 Minutes interview with Ahmed "0.2%" Chalabi? Remember how he showed Leslie Stahl a document purporting to prove a link between Iraq and al Queda? Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough have a report on the document here (permalink not yet available): We have obtained a document discovered...
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March 18, 2004
From the AP: Saddam Hussein's government smuggled oil, added surcharges and collected kickbacks to rake in $10.1 billion in violation of the United Nations' oil-for-food program, congressional investigators said Thursday. The estimate, much larger than previous calculations, comes as the United Nations considers expanding its probe into the humanitarian program,...
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March 17, 2004
Rep. Henry Waxman has a new site listing quotations about Iraq: "Iraq on the Record: The Bush Administration's Public Statements on Iraq" It makes fun reading, as you peruse comments from Bush, Cheney, Rice, Powell, and Rumsfeld. Unfortunately, you can't search for statements from Rep. Waxman himself, such as this...
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From the NY Post: In documents I obtained during an investigation of the French relationship to Saddam Hussein, the French interest in maintaining Saddam Hussein in power was spelled out in excruciating detail. The price tag: close to $100 billion. That was what French oil companies stood to profit in...
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March 15, 2004
An opinion poll carried out in Iraq will make good reading for US President George W Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair. The poll suggests that Iraqis are happier than they were before the invasion, optimistic about the future and opposed to violence... Seventy percent said that things...
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July 25, 2003
From "Reuters Sees Touched Up Bodies of Saddam Sons": U.S. forces in Iraq partly rebuilt the faces of two bodies shown to journalists on Friday in an effort to convince Iraqis that the battle-scarred corpses were those of Saddam Hussein's widely feared sons. Perhaps it's not so much a problem...
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July 22, 2003
According to this: The U.S. acted illegally when its soldiers attacked and killed Uday and Qusay Hussein, a leading Democratic congressman [Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-NY] complained on Tuesday, before mocking the military maneuver that succeeded in eliminating the brutal duo....
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June 02, 2003
Insty and others tell us that the Iraq museum looting was way overstated. This LAT article says: Galvanized by the ransacking of Iraq's National Museum, computer scientists, archeologists and art historians at UC Berkeley are hatching a plan to help the museum — and the war-scarred nation — resurrect at...
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May 29, 2003
As pointed out in the comments to the post "Clinton Wants Change in Presidential Term Limits", there's a bill currently in the House to repeal the 22nd Amendment, thereby allowing presidents to serve more than two terms. Here are the sponsors: Mr. HOYER - Democrat Mr. HYDE - Republican Mr....
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May 28, 2003
This report from Iraq purports to have an interview with the actual Salam Pax. [Free subscription required.] I didn't bother to subscribe, since I don't really give a fsck about Mr. Pax, I'm just passing it along. Note that Salam Pax is supposedly working with Marla Ruzicka's CIVIC organization. UPDATE:...
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According to this: Two truck-trailers found in Iraq were "ingeniously simple" mobile biological weapons factories, with other as-yet-undiscovered trailers holding the end of the production chain, the CIA said on Wednesday. No trace of biological weapons has been found in either of the trailers, but there is little question they...
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May 20, 2003
From Drudge comes "U.S. Asks Experts to Survey Iraqi Labs": The United States is inviting a group of international experts to inspect two mobile labs suspected of being used by Iraq as biological weapons facilities... Outside confirmation could help legitimize one of the Bush administration's main reasons for going to...
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Insty has several links concerning the Beeb's apparently fake charges involving the Jessica Lynch rescue. Robert Scheer takes a bashing along with the Beeb....
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May 19, 2003
A while back, I sent an email to an OB (see the previous entry) in which I listed a few of the things I found wrong with our Iraq efforts. He hasn't written much about similar topics - too busy with the Blair scandal and welfare reform I guess -...
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May 14, 2003
Nightline just had a segment on the "hardships" that two families in Baghdad are having to endure. The first was a lower-middle or working class family of seven who spent most of the day in their two-room apartment. They were afraid to go outside. One member said that under Saddam,...
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April 30, 2003
From "Iraqi prostitutes back on the streets after Saddam": Media restrictions meant Iraqis heard about the executions [of prostitutes by Iraq in 1999] only by word of mouth, and estimates vary on how many people were killed -- from dozens to hundreds. Still, most agree on the cause of the...
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April 27, 2003
In "I sweet-talked my way into dreaded intelligence HQ," Telegraph UK reporter "Inigo Gilmore describes how he gained access to documents in the complex that most Iraqis under Saddam were desperate to avoid." So, the "slumbering" guards just let him in, and then let him come right back out without...
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From this: France is undertaking an active campaign to strengthen multilateral institutions as part of an effort to define the United States' potential for unilateral action as one of the world's great worries. It is, in effect, an attempt to limit American power and to convince other countries that they...
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This article discusses European and Arab journalists who might have received bribes from Saddam. It includes mentions of "Baghdad" Bonior and a contribution made to U.S. Rep. Jim McDermott by a supposed Saddam supporter....
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April 26, 2003
This article discusses a three-page memo showing that Iraq wanted to establish a relationship with bin Laden in March 1998. The memo was found at the bombed-out Mukhabarat headquarters in Baghdad. See this post and this article for more on the AQ-Iraq connection. It's awfully convenient how the Telegraph keeps...
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April 22, 2003
From this: In a memo sent two weeks before the fall of Baghdad, the Pentagon office charged with rebuilding Iraq urged top commanders of U.S. ground forces to protect the Iraqi National Museum and other cultural sites from looters. "Coalition forces must secure these facilities in order to prevent looting...
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From this: A scientist who claims to have worked in Iraq's chemical weapons program for more than a decade has told an American military team that Iraq destroyed chemical weapons and biological warfare equipment only days before the war began, members of the team said. They said the scientist led...
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April 18, 2003
DERBYSHIRE ALERT! DERBYSHIRE ALERT! Derb's latest: "Churning: Rethinking the Iraqi National Museum" attempts to explain away the looting at he museum. See, those antiquities didn't really belong to the current Iraqis. And, the Iraqis aren't really in a place to take care of them properly. No, their proper stewardship is...
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April 12, 2003
From this: Stockholm - They may be thousands of kilometres away from the fighting in Iraq, but children in Sweden are haunted by a war which stokes their worst fears about the world they live in, psychologists fielding calls on a war hotline said. "The global state of affairs affects...
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Top secret documents obtained by The Telegraph in Baghdad show that Russia provided Saddam Hussein's regime with wide-ranging assistance in the months leading up to the war, including intelligence on private conversations between Tony Blair and other Western leaders. Moscow also provided Saddam with lists of assassins available for "hits"...
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Before clicking this link, try to guess who is Mr. X in this flashback to February 15, 2003: ASSISI, Italy (Reuters) - While millions demonstrate around the world against war in Iraq, Mr. X has held his own protest by praying silently before the tomb of St Francis, the patron...
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April 10, 2003
According to this: LONDON: America and Britain say they have launched a new TV service into Iraq with special messages from George W. Bush and Tony Blair -- but it was not clear if any Iraqis had actually heard it. Moving their propaganda strategy into high gear as the war...
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April 09, 2003
This article has more information on a camp belonging to the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission. It offers an object lesson on why inspections were doomed to fail: the bad parts of the camp were underground, and the inspectors never visited those parts....
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Collection of quagmire quotes here....
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April 07, 2003
"I've got a wild theory about Sahaf. Think COINTELPRO." - me, 2:19PM Pacific here. Think about it, it makes sense. He's (AFAIK) the most western of all the upper leaders of Iraq. Even the Arab world is realizing his over the top, incredible ramblings for what they are. So, maybe...
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Insty points to this Michael Barone article which proposes an Alaskan-oil-revenues type plan for the people of Iraq. Which is great. But, all I could think about as I read it was, "how much could I skim off the top if I were the one in charge of it?" Not...
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Just in case you haven't heard: U.S. forces near Baghdad found a weapons cache of around 20 medium-range missiles equipped with potent chemical weapons, the U.S. news station National Public Radio reported on Monday. NPR, which attributed the report to a top official with the 1st Marine Division, said the...
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April 06, 2003
According to this: The U.S. military said on Sunday it had captured or killed fighters from Sudan, Egypt and other countries in Iraq, and some of those captured had led it to a terrorist training camp. Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks told a briefing at Central Command in Qatar that the...
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April 05, 2003
According to the wacky theory discussed here, "Saddam is alive but no longer in Iraq and our Government knows it." First of all, consider the source, one of which is a leftie blog I won't name and the other of which is none other than the 100% reliable DebkaFile. Let's...
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April 04, 2003
When you put the threat of a spectacular attack on the airport together with yesterday's report: "FoxNews noting unconfirmed reports from within Baghdad that announcements are being made inside the city that people should walk toward the airport. Don't ask me . . ." what do you come up with?...
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Via Command Post comes 'Blair to make personal appeal to Iraqis': "Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair will make a personal pledge to help rebuild Iraq through a leaflet to be distributed in the country... Blair's spokesperson said thousands of pamphlets, which are currently being printed, will be distributed by British...
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April 03, 2003
Here. I excerpted the complaint from the lawsuit mentioned in the article here....
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From this. Some in the Bush administration wanted to attack Iraq right after 9/11; Blair convinced him to go after the Taliban first. This will be discussed in a Frontline documentary tonight....
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April 02, 2003
FWIW, there's this story....
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Let me summarize: AJ: Aw, fuckit. We're outta here. SH: Go! You lackeys of the western imperialist genociders of the Iraqi Peoples! Like the Iraqi ambassador to Egypt being asked to leave, the Iraqi diplomats in Jordan having left, and other incidents, this only increases Iraq's isolation. That has its...
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From this: Every time this company of Marines comes across a suspicious Iraqi or discovers a stash of documents, the call goes out for Tillmans. ``Get the translator up here!'' Capt. Greg Grunwald yells into the radio several times a day... When he's not interviewing suspects or translating documents, you...
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Call me perverse, but when I read something like this 4/2 1347GMT entry in the BBC reporter's web log, I get a sense of dread and foreboding: What you see in Umm Qasr now are groups of children coming to Royal Marine troops and wanting to muck around! They are...
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In 'Robert Fisk: Cows and armed guards on a college campus. Where is the truth amid all this subterfuge?' he wants to see civilian carnage, but instead his Iraqi minders show him a "college."...
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Khazraji is a former Iraqi general who mysteriously disappeared from Denmark a couple of weeks ago. Details here. Now, 'Denmark Seeks U.S. Help to Find Iraqi Ex-General'. According to Denmark's Justice Minister in a letter sent to the U.S. ambassador: "...Needless to say, such clarifications may also be important in...
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March 28, 2003
Details here: "The giant energy and construction firm once managed by Vice President Dick Cheney is no longer in the running for a $600 million rebuilding contract in postwar Iraq... though the Houston-based firm could take part as a subcontractor. Allegations of a too-close-for-comfort relationship with corporate America have long...
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March 26, 2003
The following is an internal memo from a real Hollywood company: Assuming the current situation with Iraq leads to combat activity by US troops, I suggest we get a small film crew credentialed as press to shoot over there. This will solve some of the budget vs. production value problems...
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March 21, 2003
BAGHDAD, 22 March 2003 — The United States and Britain unleashed a devastating air assault on this city yesterday as their ground forces thrust deep into Iraqi territory toward the capital. The air attack triggered giant fireballs, deafening explosions and huge mushroom clouds above the city center... Imams at Iraqi...
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According to this: CIA sources have revealed that several Iraqis are being hunted in Mexico. The six suspects are thought to have chemical and biological weapons with them. According to reports, the men have tried to persuade smugglers, who profit from helping people cross the Mexican border into the US,...
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She wants to have it and eat it too. According to an interview on NBC, she hoped that the war had ended with the target-of-opportunity strike, and she wants it to end as soon as possible to avoid any further loss of life. However, she also admits that those who...
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Maybe they're still sewing his body parts back together, because he was supposed to hold a news conference a couple hours ago. Instead, belatedly, we get Mohammed al Sahaf, Iraq's Minister of Propaganda Information Minister. "The U.S. is a gang, violating international law, war criminals, the U.S. is no better...
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Apparently they've been secured: U.S. special forces may have secured the Kirkuk oil fields in northern Iraq, the BBC said on Friday, quoting unnamed intelligence sources. "The oil fields of Kirkuk which are the busiest in Iraq may have been already secured by American special forces," correspondent John Simpson told...
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March 20, 2003
According to 'Annan Seeks to Oversee Oil-for-Food Program': U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan asked the Security Council today to put him in charge of a humanitarian program that uses billions of dollars in Iraqi oil proceeds to pay for the delivery of food, medicine and other humanitarian supplies to needy...
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WaPo says that Saddam's former girlfriend says the Saddam who was on TV after the recent target-of-opportunity strike was not the real Saddam. Uday is also supposed to have had a brain hemorrage....
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March 12, 2003
Tom Friedman has an interesting column: And that is what makes me so sad about this moment. It appears we are on the verge of going to war in a way that will burst all the national solidarity and good will that followed 9/11, within our own country and the...
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March 11, 2003
Welcome to this week's "There's no truth in Pravda" posting. According to the 2/26/03 article 'Russian Muslims ready to fight on Iraqi side': Thousands of Russian Muslims are prepared to go to Iraq to "defend the Iraqi people" from US attacks if war breaks out, the head of the Council...
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March 07, 2003
More here: Former CIA Director James Woolsey offered bombshell testimony this week in a lawsuit brought by the families of World Trade Center victims that implicates Saddam Hussein in the 9/11 attacks... None of his testimony is really a bombshell, it's just a reinforcement of the allegations contained in the...
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February 26, 2003
Here. Developing......
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More here: "Baghdad is using embassies to forge ties with extremist groups to attack US facilities, say Filipino officials."...
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February 25, 2003
According to 'The Philippine Terror Front': Two weeks ago the Philippines expelled Iraqi diplomat Husham Husain after discovering he had received a phone call from an Abu Sayyaf member the day after the group staged an October 3 bombing that killed a U.S. Green Beret on the southern island of...
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February 22, 2003
This article has a discussion of Saddam's attempts to both contain and reach out to orthodoxy....
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February 20, 2003
According to this article: Turkey is demanding that it send 60,000 to 80,000 of its own troops into northern Iraq to establish “strategic positions” across a “security arc” as much as 140 to 170 miles deep in Iraq. That would take Turkish troops almost halfway to Baghdad... independent diplomatic sources...
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February 18, 2003
The article 'Did Germany sell bio labs to Iraq' has more info on the story I covered yesterday. This article also includes something about a Germany-North Korea connection....
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Last month, the NYC lawfirm Kreindler & Kreindler filed a consolidated complaint against AQ, Iraq, Sudan, the Taliban, several Saudi princes, at least one person whose name indicates he's from Libya, and just about anyone else you can think of. You can read a copy of the complaint here. You...
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February 17, 2003
Details here: "Iraqi opposition slams plan for military governor" The letter from Kanan Makiya is here: "Our hopes betrayed: How a US blueprint for post-Saddam government quashed the hopes of democratic Iraqis."...
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According to 'Waffenlabors für Saddam': Iraq got at least eight mobile chemical and biological weapons labs from Germany in the 80s... The labs can be used not only for defense of Iraq's troops, but for production of smallpox. Here's an earlier report on the labs. Also, Sully links to a...
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February 14, 2003
The article 'Berlin’s New Anti-American Axis' follows yesterday's 'Germany's Mr. Tough Guy'....
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February 06, 2003
Translation: "There are Massenvernichtungswaffen (weapons of mass destruction) in Iraq." That's a statement by CDU (German Christian Democratic Union)Foreign Expert Friedbert Pflueger here (English "translation" here): The members of the foreign committee had been informed on 13 November 2002 by the Federal Information Service (Federal Intelligence Service [BND]) about the...
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This was in Bush's speech, and it's the lead story on Drudge. However, it was also in Powell's speech yesterday. Now, just because the Brits apparently were acting like schoolboys and lifted most of their report from other sources, doesn't make it inaccurate. But, it does give some cause to...
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February 05, 2003
The full text is here. Of particular note relating to AQ: But what I want to bring to your attention today is the potentially much more sinister nexus between Iraq and the al Qaeda terrorist network... Iraq today harbors a deadly terrorist network, headed by Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, an associate...
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February 02, 2003
Philippe DeCroy at Volokh Conspiracy has apparently found case law to support an invasion of Iraq. Let me know when we've got admissible evidence that Saddam's been sucking our eggs....
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January 30, 2003
According to this: Pentagon preps for possibility Saddam will use oil wells as doomsday weapon...sources indicate Saddam had already begun mining his wells with explosives in ways that would make it most difficult to extinguish fires and cap the wells. "The Tigris and Euphrates hold a large part of the...
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January 29, 2003
From Sully: Eight leaders of European countries call for unity between Europe and America in dealing with Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. They are: Spain, Portugal, Italy, Britain, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Denmark OK, this is somewhat good news for my hawk side, but, all seriousness aside,...
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January 20, 2003
So sayeth this: "They are supporting you because they know that evildoers target Iraq to silence any dissenting voice to their evil and destructive policies," Saddam told senior military officers and his son Qusay, the commander of the elite Republican Guards. A recording of the meeting was broadcast on Baghdad's...
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November 14, 2002
This article discusses a planned psyops campaign as part of our "On To Baghdad 2003" campaign: Sophisticated broadcasting planes operated by the 193rd Special Operations Wing of the Pennsylvania National Guard, together with ground transmitters in Kuwait and elsewhere, would be used to transmit anti-Saddam programming to the Iraqi populace,...
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