Month: January 2008

Updated at 11:50 p.m. EST, Jan. 31, 2008For the third day in a row, Baghdad saw a number of small bombings. At least 23 Iraqis were killed or found dead and 38 more were wounded in attacks across the country. Two U.S. soldiers were also killed. Meanwhile, the head of a parliamentary committee warns of … Continue reading “Thursday: 2 US Soldiers, 23 Iraqis Killed; 38 Iraqis Wounded”

Regular readers of Antiwar.com probably often wonder who we columnists are in flesh and blood. Many of you like some/many/all of the articles we write, but you probably still wonder what we would be like as speakers. To put it bluntly, would you want to spend some of your speaker budget on this or that … Continue reading “Two Days with Charles Peña”

President George W Bush announced during his recent Middle East trip that he is formally serving notice to Congress of his administration’s decision to approve the sale of bomb-guidance kits to Saudi Arabia. This announcement follows notification on five other arms deals to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait that are part of … Continue reading “Arming the Middle East”

Updated at 9:00 p.m EST, Jan. 30, 2008A flurry of small bombings continued in and around Baghdad for the second day in a row. Overall, at least 28 Iraqis were killed and 35 more wounded throughout the country. No Coalition deaths were reported. Also, two new studies reported significant new findings concerning Iraqi war deaths … Continue reading “Wednesday: 28 Iraqis Killed, 35 Wounded”

The president’s State of the Union speech was pointedly ignored, even while it was going on, according to the report filed by The Hill, the Beltway’s newspaper of record. All eyes were on the two Democratic presidential aspirants, whose closely watched nonverbal cues acted out a political pantomime: “When Bush proclaimed, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, some … Continue reading “Presidential Pantomime”

President George W. Bush signed a $696 billion Pentagon spending bill immediately before his State of the Union address Monday night, which funds all Defense Department programs not directly tied to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, expands health care for injured veterans, and gives U.S. soldiers a pay raise. The bill is a mixed … Continue reading “Bush Signs Vets Bill, Won’t Ban Permanent Bases”

With just less than one year left in his presidency, George W. Bush remains as focused as ever on the Middle East and Iraq and appears reluctant to take on any major new foreign policy challenges in the time that he remains in power. That appears to be the consensus of most analysts in the … Continue reading “Bush Offers Another Year of the Same”

A Jan. 21 Los Angeles Times Iraq piece by Ned Parker and Saif Rasheed led with an inter-tribal suicide bombing at a gathering in Fallujah in which members of the pro-American Anbar Awakening Council were killed. (“Asked why one member of his Albu Issa tribe would kill another, Aftan compared it to school shootings that … Continue reading “Normalizing Air War From Guernica to Arab Jabour”

Speaking to the World Affairs Council in Philadelphia in May 2005, then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld made two important observations: "[T]his conflict [what the administration calls the Global War on Terrorism or GWOT] cannot be won by military means alone." "[W]e must find ways to reduce the ideological appeal of violent extremism." While recognizing the … Continue reading “Is Bad PR Really the Problem?”

Updated at 8:30 p.m EST, Jan. 29, 2008At least 61 Iraqis were killed and another 56 were wounded in attacks mostly targeting civilians and security personnel. Nineteen of the victims were found in a gruesome discovery in Muqdadiyah. The DOD reported that a U.S. soldier died Sunday of wounds received in a roadside bombing last … Continue reading “Tuesday: 1 US Soldier, 61 Iraqis Killed; 56 Iraqis Wounded”