September 20, 2007

"Bending" Iraqi detainees to the US will

The commander of US detention facilities in Iraq, Marine Maj. Gen. Douglas M. Stone, on Tuesday told a group of military bloggers that the US is now holding 25,000 detainees...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:07 PM | Fulltext link (14 comments)

September 14, 2007

Washington-Iraq update

It's been a very Iraq-focused week here in Washington DC. Herewith, some quick notes. Note 1. Yesterday, the Prez made his appeal for support ( = congressional funding) of a...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:27 AM | Fulltext link (27 comments)

September 10, 2007

Petraeus and Crocker do the House

I did watch a bit of the Petraeus-and-Crocker show on C-SPAN this afternoon. Oh how handy for the administration to have this whole thing happening during the week of September...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:28 PM | Fulltext link (53 comments)

September 09, 2007

Centcom chain of command losing its integrity?

The WaPo had an interesting big front-page article today, in which a large team of their good reporters was writing about evident differences of opinion on the surge being expressed...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:51 PM | Fulltext link (7 comments)

September 05, 2007

Visser on the British exit from Basra

Reidar Visser yesterday sent out an informative email note that drew on his long and close study of the politics of, in particular, Basra and the surrounding regions of...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:55 PM | Fulltext link (8 comments)

August 29, 2007

Rights situation of Iraqis continues to deteriorate

I almost cannot believe the level of brazen disregard or outright, racist disdain that Bush administration spokespeople and their supporters show towards the situation in which the people of Iraq...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:43 PM | Fulltext link (9 comments)

August 23, 2007

Planning a thoroughly modern coup

Iraqslogger has a great piece that reproduces the text of a contract signed between Ayad (Iyad) Allawi and Robert Blackwill, in the latter's capacity as head of a DC lobbying...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:48 PM | Fulltext link (39 comments)

August 22, 2007

The 'Seven Soldiers' wisdom on Iraq

This book-writing business really is pretty intense. But I just wanted to dash over here to the blog to note a couple of important things that have been going on:...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 05:24 PM | Fulltext link (4 comments)

August 01, 2007

Body blow to Iraq's Potemkin Government?

I've been locking myself down writing my new book. (Two chapters almost finished!) But I couldn't help noticing the reports (e.g. here) about the (mainly Sunni) Iraqi Accord Front having...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:54 PM | Fulltext link (27 comments)

July 20, 2007

22,000: the Iraqis held by the US in Iraq

Buried deep in this WaPo story today was the news that, oh by the way, "the number of detainees held by the U.S. military in Iraq has increased to almost...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:46 PM | Fulltext link (19 comments)

July 11, 2007

Riverbend: Where is she?

Regular commenter Frank al-Irlandi quite rightly reminds us that it's been nearly three months since the ultra-talented Iraqi female blogger Riverbend informed us on her blog that her family had...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:18 AM | Fulltext link (8 comments)

July 09, 2007

A crucial week in DC, for Iraq

Has Bush's ability to undertake anything like coherent governance of the US started to implode? In a column in today's WaPo, Bob Novak writes that several weeks ago, Sen. Chuck...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:28 AM | Fulltext link (28 comments)

July 08, 2007

Benchmarks? What benchmarks?

Karen DeYoung and Tom Ricks write in today's WaPo that unnamed senior administration officials involved in Iraq policy have admitted that "The Iraqi government is unlikely to meet any of...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:59 PM | Fulltext link (14 comments)

July 06, 2007

Republican realists' resurgence grows

Another Republican Senator, New Mexico's Pete Domenici, has thrown his hat into the "stop the surge" ring, bringing to four the number of GOP senators who are now clearly lined...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:04 PM | Fulltext link (3 comments)