Today's release of the Iraq Study Group report [.pdf] raises as many questions as it answers. A few highlights of the report and its 79 recommendations follow. Troop Withdrawals? Despite some early headlines suggesting that the Iraq Study Group would be calling for a...
Iraq Study Group:
Iraqi Professionals Targeted for Abduction, Murder
ARBIL - The call from his mother changed Dr. Harb Zakko's life. "Someone has been calling me to open the door, saying he has something for you," his mother said. Soon after, apparently the same person called him at his clinic, asking personal questions. The...
Thursday: 57 Iraqis Killed, 10 Wounded
Updated at 7:35 p.m EST, Dec. 7, 2006 At least 57 Iraqis were killed or found dead today and another 10 were wounded in several attacks. U.S. military authorities reported that another U.S. soldier was killed yesterday in Iraq, and a GI died today from wounds received...
NATO’s Poisoned Chalice
Serbia's Delusions of "Partnership" On Nov. 29, NATO foreign ministers meeting in Riga extended an invitation to Serbia, Montenegro, and Bosnia-Herzegovina to join its Partnership for Peace (PfP) program. Established in 1994, the program has been a way for...
A Losing War, a Failed President, a Weak Dollar: We’ve Been Here Before
I'm not a financial speculator, and I don't play one on television. So please don't base your decision on whether or not to bet against the U.S. dollar on my thoughts about the fate of the greenback, which has fallen to a 20-month low against the euro recently. But...
How More Produces
Less in Iraq
[Note for TomDispatch readers: Be on the lookout former federal prosecutor Elizabeth de la Vega, who took over TomDispatch last week, is tentatively scheduled to appear on The Colbert Report tonight. Don't forget to be the first person in the neighborhood to...
Catastrophe Still Awaits
"The real difficulty in changing any enterprise lies not in developing new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones." - John Maynard Keynes A ray of realism appeared in the confirmation hearings for Secretary of Defense nominee Robert Gates before the Senate...
Two Pair of Twos
Almost every war sees the emergence of a weapon that is considered decisive or revolutionary. The English longbow with its ability to kill in great numbers at long range gave England's armies the edge in medieval wars on the continent for nearly three...
It’s Happening Again
The lead-up to the invasion of Iraq has become notorious in the annals of American journalism. Even many reporters, editors, and commentators who fueled the drive to war in 2002 and early 2003 now acknowledge that major media routinely tossed real journalism out the...
In Iraq, It’s Hard
Being a Woman
With Ali al-Fadhily BAGHDAD - Once one of the best countries for women's rights in the Middle East, Iraq has now become a place where women fear for their lives in an increasingly fundamentalist environment. Prior to the U.S.-led invasion and occupation of Iraq, Iraqi...


