Category: Uncategorized

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Baghdad “Pacified”

In the year it has controlled Baghdad, the Coalition Provisional Authority still hasn’t managed to get the traffic lights working or to provide the most basic security for civilians. So in Sadr City, Sadr’s...

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Morning Constitutional

As residents [of Falluja] started escaping the city, they told tales that are sure to inflame. The residents refused to give their names, saying that even talking to an American right now could endanger...

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Smokestack Iraq

One quick way of gauging how things are going in Baghdad is to look at the four chimneys of the Daura power station which dominate the skyline in the south of the capital. If...

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Radiological Blowback

Army officials at Fort Dix and Walter Reed Army Medical Center are rushing to test all returning members of the 442nd Military Police Company of the New York Army National Guard for depleted uranium...

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Precision Marksmanship

We were in Fallujah during the “ceasefire” … We depended for much of our information on Makki al-Nazzal, a lifelong Fallujah resident who works for the humanitarian NGO Intersos … With the “ceasefire,” large-scale...

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Collective Punishment

Falluja, although heavily Sunni Arab, was hardly in Saddams pocket. Its imams got into trouble for refusing to obey his orders to praise him personally during prayers. Many inhabitants were Salafists (Wahhabism is a...

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Untermenschen

“My view and the view of the British chain of command is that the Americans’ use of violence is not proportionate and is over-responsive to the threat they are facing. They don’t see the...

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Cordon Insanitaire

On the way into the city from the airport, we drove past the wreckage of a convoy that was still smoking off to the side of the road. A few drivers nearby accelerated to...

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Natural Selection

I noted a year ago that the impending prolonged occupation would inevitably engender a more sophisticated Iraqi resistance. Insurgents fighting the U.S.-led occupation force have sharply increased the sophistication, coordination and aggressiveness of their...

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Bad Guys A Go Go

Again and again, administration officials have insisted that some particular evildoer is causing all our problems. Last July they confidently predicted an end to the insurgency after Saddam’s sons were killed. In December, they...