BAGHDAD – The daily mortar attacks on Camp War Eagle of the U.S. First Cavalry at the edge of the seething Shia Muslim Sadr City tapered off over the weekend. Just a few dry pops of exploding mortar grenades could be heard in the late afternoons. During the week...
"It will be like in Lebanon during the civil war. The only person who could move outside the embassy then was the ambassador, with a tank in front and a tank in back." – Edward S. Walker, Jr., former ambassador to Egypt, former deputy chief of mission in Saudi...
Paul Bremer suddenly left Iraq on Monday, having "transferred sovereignty" to the caretaker Iraqi government two days early. It is hard to interpret this move as anything but a precipitous flight. It is just speculation on my part, but I suspect that the Americans...
According to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Russia today is estimated to have 7,800 operational nuclear warheads in its arsenal. I emphasize "estimated" because Russia, like all the nuclear powers, remains quite secretive about its nuclear arsenal. Altogether,...
Neocons Earn an 'F' The Neocons and their champions should be charged, at the very least, with malfeasance for leading the US into an unnecessary Iraq war. By steering US foreign policy down the preemptive path without imminent threat, they have set precedents that...
From Dahr's weblog How much worse does it need to get here before the occupiers consider changing their policy? 100 dead every day? In light of what happened here yesterday, it appears as though we're heading in that direction. For those of you who think June 30 will...
It hasn't been a good week for Undersecretary of State Bolton. Some of the eggs he's laid in the past year or so hatched as turkeys and have come home to roost. Back in October of 2002, one of Bolton's munchkins claimed he had accosted a Democratic People's Republic...
NEW DELHI – Six years after they blasted their way into the world's nuclear club, India and Pakistan have taken some welcome, if tentative, steps in recent days toward nuclear-risk reduction and confidence-building, which they say would "promote a stable...
According to the U.S. government, these before and after satellite images from Iran are evidence of nuclear activity and a subsequent cover-up. Ironically, the accusation is based on the identification of a U.S.-made radiation monitor at the site.
DAMASCUS – When he downloaded some material on Syria and emailed it to his friends, Abdel Rahman al-Shaghouri did not think he would end up in prison. Al-Shaghouri, 32, already in prison since February 2003 for his "offense," was sentenced this week to...
