Long columns of trucks wait at the Jordanian border to carry their loads of supplies into war-torn Iraq. When Iraqi drivers wish to enter Jordan, they now wait up to 18 days to be allowed in. The al-Karama border is a land of waiting, but not just for the truck...
Censoring the Carnage
At long last, the culminating session of the World Tribunal on Iraq is upon us. As a witness providing testimony, I'm being interviewed by many outlets. Today, one of them was by reporters for one of the larger newspapers in Turkey, Yeni Safak. I'll leave the...
Desperate for Work, Blind to Dangers
AMMAN - Ahlam Najam just needed a job. At 25, she had a university degree in education but could not find work as teacher. When Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR), a subsidiary of the U.S. firm Halliburton, offered her a job as a security guard at a U.S. base in Iraq, she...
Who Cares About Iraqis?
Suicide bombers unleashed another day of hell across Iraq today, killing at least 18 and wounding over 67. Four of them struck Iraqi security forces, along with U.S. military convoys around Baghdad. Despite the huge, U.S.-backed Iraqi security operation throughout the...
‘This Is the Freedom America Has Brought Us’
The mayhem continues in Iraq, with at least 40 people dead today including five U.S. soldiers in Diyala province, as the meltdown of the failed U.S.-led occupation continues. Two suicide bombers detonated themselves after walking into a crowd of police officers in...
Death and ‘Sketchy Details’ in Iraq
Yesterday Iraq's Minister of Defense, Sadoun al-Dulaimi, announced that starting Saturday 40,000 Iraqi troops will seal Baghdad and begin to "hunt down insurgents and their weapons." Baghdad will be divided into two main sections, east and west, and within each...
Observers Challenge US Claims About Iraq Siege
AMMAN - As with the siege of Fallujah six months back, U.S. claims over the siege of the Iraqi town al-Qa'im are being challenged now by independent sources. The U.S. military claims a "successful" end to the week-long operation earlier this month around al-Qa'im, a...
A Welcome Parade of Seething Anger
As if to add insult to injury, with over 400 Iraqis killed in violence during the first two weeks of the newly sworn in Iraqi "government," U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice made a surprise one-day visit to the newest U.S. colony. After visiting northern Iraq,...
Shi’ites and Sunnis: What Divides, What Unites
BAGHDAD - Wrapped in his brown abaya, Sheik Sayak Kumait al-Asadi, a spokesman in Baghdad for the revered Shi'ite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, is angry and forceful when speaking of both the U.S. occupation and the suffering of the Shi'ites under the regime...
‘How Are These People Going to Feel About Americans?’
These are the stories that will continue to emerge from the rubble of Fallujah for years. No, for generations Speaking on condition of anonymity, the doctor sits with me in a hotel room in Amman, where he is now a refugee. He'd spoken in the UK about what he saw...


