April 30, 2006
'Zarqawi' - 09:51 PMMichael Scheuer had some interesting things to say to ABC today. What were they? He told Four Corners that during 2002, the Bush Administration received detailed intelligence about Zarqawi's training camp in Iraqi Kurdistan. Mr Scheuer claims that a July...
April 24, 2006
'That Can't Be Good' - 02:57 PMTurkey moves 40,000 troops to the Iraq border, and Iran is bolstering their forces as well. Both targetting Kurdish areas, ostensibly in retaliation for PKK attacks based from there. Turkey already has 250,000 troops in theatre, so this brings the...
April 17, 2006
'Cobra II - A Talk with Michael Gordon' - 11:00 PMThe lecture/discussion events at SIPA keep on rolling with a talk by Michael Gordon about his book, Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq. (No, I'm not actually a shill for Amazon Books) I'm still...
April 14, 2006
'Fourteen Months, Huh?' - 06:08 PMHarry Shearer catches Gen. Tommy Franks, defending Donald Rumsfeld and the execution of the Iraq War when he accidentally adds a little to our previous discussion: "Ask him about the 14 months we spent planning this thing." Which, as Harry...
April 13, 2006
'On Bullshit' - 02:41 PMThe question of the day, with respect to Iraq's WMD program-related activities, is when and whether Bush et. al. knew that the "mobile biological weapons labs" touted so often in the lead up and initial aftermath of the war were...
April 05, 2006
'Col. Ahmed Hashim on the Iraqi Insurgency' - 03:25 PMI'm frequently going to special panel discussions and lectures on various topics either at Columbia or elsewhere in New York, usually with the intent to blog them afterwards. Few of them really lend themselves to that however. Most go for...
March 29, 2006
'Another Corner Turned' - 02:14 PM“The Ministry of Defense requests that civilians do not comply with the orders of the army or police on nightly patrols unless they are accompanied by coalition forces working in that area.” Riverbend, an Iraqi blogger in Baghdad, reports that...
March 21, 2006
'My Charming Naivete' - 11:10 AMI had mixed feelings last night when I read this NY Times article: Mr. Bush recounted how American and Iraqi forces initiated a major military offensive against the insurgents last fall, including the construction of an eight-foot dirt wall around...
March 20, 2006
'Three Years' - 09:04 PMFantastic. This NY Times article hits just about every major note of the Iraq War debacle in the opening sentence: On the third anniversary of a war that they once expected to be over by now, President Bush and senior...
March 10, 2006
'Iraq: The Model' - 03:21 PMStephen Biddle is my professor for Analytical Techniques for Military Policy class this semester, wherein we learn the various modeling techniques used in the defense analysis field. In the most recent issue of Foreign Affairs, he tackles a modeling problem...
March 02, 2006
'A Knife on the Table' - 07:24 PMLaura Rozen of War and Piece drags a bracing editorial out from behind the TimesSelect wall: From January 2004 to January 2005, I served in various places in Iraq (including Abu Ghraib) as an Army interrogator. Following orders that I...
February 26, 2006
'Groundhog Day III' - 10:01 AMI would hate to be this guy: Now, after parliamentary elections held in December, the U.S. effort has entered a third stage. The current emphasis is on reducing the U.S. role in the war, putting Iraq army and police forces...
November 15, 2005
'Awesome!' - 04:48 PMFrom the BBC: "I've never seen such a situation like this during the past two years in Baghdad, this is the worst. "I saw signs of physical abuse by brutal beating, one or two detainees were paralysed and some had...
'Iraq, Terrorism and Torture' - 09:32 AM
I have very little new to say on this subject, and less that isn't already being said elsewhere. I'm glad that the country is finally exercised about this, though it is cold comfort to our victims after four years. As...
November 12, 2005
'History's First Draft' - 02:49 PMJosh Marshall has an excellent, essential run down of the run up to the Iraq War. Go read it, bookmark it, print it out and post it up in prominent places where you won't ever forget it. In the president's...
August 19, 2005
'Winning Hearts and Minds' - 07:34 AMThe Medium Lobster finally discovers the secret plan to win the war in Iraq: Indeed, the Medium Lobster could not agree more: while some in the petty name of "truth," "accountability" and "basic humanity" might want to open this material...
'Heisenberg Goes To War' - 07:30 AM
Via Atrios, this Hardball transcript brings up an important point on the covering of the war in Iraq: MATTHEWS: Let me go, Paul, before you start. What I keep doing here is asking people on and off camera who come...
August 15, 2005
'Going Back to the Start' - 09:50 AMI absolutely love Dan Savage, and so I absolutely loved that he was guest blogging at Andrew Sullivan's site this past week. Dan and I share several political positions and leanings, one of which was a left-wing rationale for going...
'Declaring Defeat' - 06:58 AM
I was away this past weekend at a ceremony and accompanying festivities for my dad's retirement from the Army after 29 years. Thus, no recent posts. Meanwhile, I missed the spate of articles on Sunday announcing the new Administration exit...
August 10, 2005
'Getting Seriouser in Iraq' - 07:44 AMAnybody who was in the least interested in my recent take on flipping Iraq should be reading TPM Cafe right now. Larry Diamond, a Stanford professor called in by Condoleeza Rice to advise on the reconstruction of Iraq in November...
August 08, 2005
'More Groundhog Day' - 07:23 AMIt's getting to the point where when I read the words, The assessment by Gen. John P. Abizaid, the head of the military's Central Command, tracks with a statement made last week by the top American general in Iraq, Gen....
August 05, 2005
'Getting Serious in Iraq' - 12:00 PMThe first and last step towards getting out of Iraq is more troops. And not American ones. Simply put, we have no more troops to send: The proposed cuts in the size of the Army may send the same message...
August 03, 2005
'Who's Training Iraq's Troops? Oh no, Bear's Training Iraqi Troops!' - 09:29 AMReading over the articles I missed this past weekend, I'm struck by a very disturbing trend: Slate.com - "This recent talk of withdrawal may have been sparked by the realization that almost no progress has been made in training Iraq's...
July 26, 2005
'The Good News' - 07:47 AMThis guy seems to get around (via AmericaBlog, via Atrios): Sunday's news release said: "'The terrorists are attacking the infrastructure, the ISF and all of Iraq. They are enemies of humanity without religion or any sort of ethics. They have...
July 21, 2005
'Bitter Vindication, Round II' - 07:18 AMI could have told you this (and did), but it's always comforting to hear it from the source, too: About half of Iraq's new police battalions are still being established and cannot conduct operations, while the other half of the...
July 06, 2005
'Bitter Vindication' - 07:51 AMWriting in the New Republic (free registration required), Spencer Ackerman backs me up: [CPA Official Terri Kelly] had arrived in Iraq that February with the unenviable assignment of dismantling the militias--a portfolio that no previous official had held despite nearly...
June 15, 2005
'They Get That From Your Side' - 07:39 AMYou know, you try to teach them good manners and proper etiquette, to sit up straight and respect their elders, and then they go out and do something like this. KIRKUK, Iraq -- Police and security units, forces led by...
June 10, 2005
'Money, Mouths and Militaries' - 10:40 AMIn the same vein as my previous post on Iraqi troops, the Washington Post today has an excellent article on their current state of readiness: "I know the party line. You know, the Department of Defense, the U.S. Army, five-star...
June 05, 2005
'Groundhog Day' - 08:00 PMI'm stealing this post title from somebody, but I can't seem to find the original article. George Bush had a press conference on Tuesday that a lot of government and media people thought was pretty misleading. Shocking, I know. But...