Archives for December 2006

What the Number 3000 Hides Iraqi guerrillas killed 6 more GIs and AP put the total dead in combat at 2998. The dreadful milestone of 3000 is upon us. Like all statistics, this one is deceptive. It does not include US troops killed in Afghanistan, that oddly forgotten war where the US still has a […]

The Murderer’s Gibbet Cole in Salon.com on the Saddam Execution My article on the execution of Saddam is out in Salon.com. Excerpt: ‘ The body of Saddam, as it swung from the gallows at 6 a.m. Saturday Baghdad time, cast an ominous shadow over Iraq. The execution provoked intense questions about whether his trial was […]

For Whom the Bell Tolls: Top Ten Ways the US Enabled Saddam Hussein The old monster swung from the gallows this morning at 6 am Baghdad time. His Shiite executioners danced around his body. Saddam Hussain was one of the 20th century’s most notorious tyrants, though the death toll he racked up is probably exaggerated […]

Riverbend is Back Riverbend weighs in on the condition of Iraq and Saddam’s impending execution. I disagree with her about Jalal Talabani (the old-time Kurdish politician who is now Iraq’s president), who has opposed the death penalty all his political life, and I think that he genuinely won’t sign the death decree for reasons of […]

Alexandrovna Guest Op-Ed: Saddam’s Execution and the Campaign Against Iran Saddam’s Execution is about Iran Larisa Alexandrovna ‘PROLOGUE: When someone does something obviously egregious, we tend to look past it because it is our nature to believe that people are naturally sane, good, and honest. We cannot imagine that anyone would willfully destroy their own […]

Guerrillas Kill 5 GIs Security Alert over Saddam Sentence Al-Aamiri killing Roils Shiite Politics The US military announced that Iraqi guerrillas killed 5 GIs on Thursday in separate incidents. All but one attack clearly occurred in Sunni Arab areas. One was in the east of Baghdad, but since there are Sunni Arab districts between the […]

Polk Guest Editorial: Pros and Cons of ISG The Baker-Hamilton Study: Pluses and Minuses William R. Polk ‘In recent days, as you know, there has been a great deal of publicity on the Baker-Hamilton plan for dealing with the problems the United States faces in Iraq and for restarting the peace process on the Palestine […]

Guerrillas Kill 7 GIs, blow up 52 Iraqis AFP rounds up the violence in Iraq on Tuesday. 7 more US GIs were killed, and bombings in Baghdad and Kirkuk killed and wounded scores. Fighting broke out between US troops and Mahdi Army militiamen in East Baghdad. Emily Miller’s op-ed on her brother in Iraq is […]