The conflict in, and rebuilding of, Iraq

G: tales from the home front

Liberal Hawks Reconsider the Iraq War
Paul Berman, Thomas Friedman, Christopher Hitchens, Fred Kaplan, George Packer, Kenneth M. Pollack, Jacob Weisberg, and Fareed Zakaria

The New Yorker: From the Archives: war in Iraq
The New Yorker's coverage of the war on Iraq (includes an article on the David Kelly affair)

• (G 04-11-06) Julian Borger: Neocons turn on Bush for incompetence over Iraq war [quotes from Vanity Fair article talking to Perle, Adelman and others]
• (drezner 27-10-06) Is it just me or did the earth move for everyone? [USA politics; Republican shift on the war?]
• (bat 26-10-06) eastward ho! [on war supporters' shiftingview on Iraq]
• (bat 26-10-06) the symptom has become more dangerous than the disease [Iraq]
• Linklog :: Guardian: '655,000 Iraqis killed since invasion'
• (bat 20-10-06) decent interval, or possibly rolling carnage I think Bush is pushing the revisionist line here, namely that Tet was a military success for the United States but that it was also the moment that feckless and treacherous liberals plunged their knife into the back of American Will, etc... So what he's saying is that Iraqi insurgents are working hand in hand with treacherous Democrats to lead America into defeat, with the collaboration of The Liberal Media.
• (19-10-06) Truthdig - Reports - After Pat's Birthday
  Kevin Tillman joined the Army with his brother Pat in 2002, and they served together in Iraq and Afghanistan. Pat was killed in Afghanistan on April 22, 2004.
• (bat 17-10-06) oh, they're the ones who worship the sun [on some breathtaking ignorance of the Middle East from someone who's job should require them to know better]
• (katheder 16-10-06) Fair Play to the Man [Mulholland on Geras' reappraisal and his own of the war in Iraq]
• (G 14-10-06) Ghaith Abdul-Ahad: The British officer said: 'We are now just another tribe'
• (backword 12-10-06) Like They Say, You Can't Fight City Hall
• (ct 26-09-06) Like pasting feathers together and hoping for a duck (the US army; its problems; and Iraq)
• (G) US postwar Iraq strategy a mess, Blair was told

• (new statesman 11-09-06) Lindsay Hilsum: absent friends
  The pro-war lobby - including the Euston Manifesto Group, heavily influenced by the Kurds, who have a different agenda from other Iraqis - refuses to acknowledge the disaster war has created. Even as Sunni insurgents slaughter Shias, and Shia ministry of interior thugs terrorise Sunnis, they claim that democracy is nascent...
  Their refusal to acknowledge the truth is as sickening as the cynical reasoning of the anti-war lobby, which opposed the war because its members hate America, not because they thought it would harm Iraqis. Most Iraqis I know agreed with Mohammed that there was no other way to get rid of Saddam, and that, however rough it was, war would in the long run bring a better life. They have been proved wrong, but the anti-war mob infantilises Iraqis, allowing them no responsibility for their own fate. They blame the US for all killings in Iraq, as if the murderous bands who detonate car bombs in Baghdad and Baquba were not responsible for their own actions.
• (Katheder 07-09-06) "However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results."
  Links to an article by Lindsey Hilsum on the war in Iraq, and discusses the irresponsibility of war supporters' current silence.
• NYRB 53:13 (10-08-06) Peter W. Galbraith: Mindless in Iraq.
• Asterism (01-01-06) [on the results of the Iraqi elections]
• (hp 20-11-05) David T: How not to make the case [for war]
• (TPM 12-11-05) : Joshua Micah Marshall's riposte to Bush's accusation of revisionism amongst the Iraq war's critics
  Chronicling the full measure of the Bush administration's mendacity with regards to the war is a difficult task - not because of a dearth of evidence for it but because of its so many layers, all its multidimensionality.
• (11-11-05)BBC NEWS | Americas | Bush slams Iraq war 'revisionism'
• (dean's world) Lies: WMDs, and "There may have been a good case for war, but they didn't make it"
• Johann Hari: We must ask Iraqis whether they want the troops out - and now they probably do
• (w bar 24-09-05) Heart of Darkness
• (OBS 25-09-05) Mary Riddell: "It's cowardly and callous to walk away"
• (G 28-09-05) Simon Jenkins: The handover they should be talking about in Brighton
• (G 21-09-05) Simon Jenkins: To say we must stay in Iraq to save it from chaos is a lie
• (c timber 07-09-05)Packer and Iraq
• (pa 26-08-05) on Wesley Clark's proposals for staying in Iraq
• (hp 26-08-05) Gene: Wesley Clark's advice
• (pa 19-08-05) Iraq and the liberal hawks
  Either you believe that there's a way we can win in Iraq - a real way that involves the leadership of George Bush and his staff, not some fantasy scenario in which he suddenly turns into the reincarnation of FDR - or you don't. And the only reason to stay in Iraq is if you think we can win.
• Chrenkoff "Good News From Iraq"
• (NY 18-07-05) Seymour Hersh: Get out the vote: Did Washington try to manipulate Iraq's election?
• NYRB vol. 52, no. 12 (14-07-05) Tony Judt: The New World Order [printed Aug 05]
  Those of us who opposed America's invasion of Iraq from the outset can take no comfort from its catastrophic consequences. On the contrary: we should now be asking ourselves some decidedly uncomfortable questions.
• (21-07-05) Michael Young: What Went Wrong?: A onetime believer deconstructs the Iraq war
• (matt t 17-07-05) British Taliban: A few posts down I noted the Talibanisation of Basra. Via Anthony Cormack I see this chilling story, which implies that this is happening without any British protest.
• (PA 11-07-05) Cohen and war
  Neocon military historian Eliot Cohen says he supported the Iraq war but now wishes he'd paid more attention to the incompetence of the people who proposed invading in the first place
• (29-06-05) BBC NEWS | Bush says Iraq sacrifices 'vital' [this is his speech at an air base]
• (IND 16-05-05) Andrew Buncombe: The deserters: Awol crisis hits the US forces
• (NY 09-05-05) George Packer on the new Iraqi government
• (pa 04-05-05) dan drezner on reform in the middle east
  The fact that Iraqis demonstrated a willingness to vote in the face of insurgent threats of violence was as powerful a signal as you could get in a region accustomed to power emanating from the barrel of a gun.
• (dean's world 27-04-05) Dean Esmay: WMD Remembrances
  Yes, it's true that WMDs were mentioned most often by the Bush administration; no, it's not true that they were given as "the reason" for action. Yes it's true that they were mentioned most prominently by Colin Powell at the U.N.--but that happend after the U.S. Congress had made the decision to declare war (and it is Congress, not the President, that does that).
• (bb 03-04-05) American media...
  Two years ago, the major part of the war in Iraq was all about bombarding us with smart bombs and high-tech missiles. Now there's a different sort of war- or perhaps it's just another phase of the same war. Now we're being assailed with American media. It's everywhere all at once...
  We sat there watching like we were a part of another world, in another galaxy. I've always sensed from the various websites that American mainstream news is far-removed from reality- I just didn't know how far. Everything is so tame and simplified. Everyone is so sincere.
• (IND 01-04-05) Rupert Cornwell: WMD verdict: 'Dead wrong'
  
• (pa 21-3-05) Bases in Iraq
  You can argue all day long about whether permanent U.S. bases in Iraq are a good idea or not, but the Bush administration has made it plainly obvious that they want them. Why then does there seem to be an underlying assumption in press accounts that as soon as everything calms down we'll pull out our troops and leave?
• bb 1-3-05: you want a rabbit?
  It hurts because thousands of Iraqis have died at American checkpoints or face to face with a tank or Apache and beyond the occasional subtitle on some obscure news channel, no one knows about it and no one cares. It just hurts a little bit.
• Friendly fire (yet again):
  • (05-05-05) BBC NEWS | Berlusconi renews support for US
    (has links to suplplementary material)
  • (08-03-05) BBC NEWS | Rift over Italian death deepens
  • (G 08-03-05) Italians honour Iraq hostage go-between
  • (WP/AP 08-03-05) Italy Pressures U.S. Over Iraq Incident
  • (OBS 06-03-05) Outrage as US soldiers kill hostage rescue hero
  • (G 05-03-05) US troops kill rescuer as Italian hostage is plucked to safety in Iraq
  • (NY 28-02-05) George Packer: Testing Ground: In the Shiite south, Islamists and secularists struggle over Iraq's future [printed]
  • (21-02-05) BBC NEWS | Bush seeks backing for 'new Iraq'
  • (drezner 14-02-05) Iraq's election results
  • (G 11-02-05) Jonathan Steele: The cheers were all ours: Iraq's illegitimate election did not justify the invasion, nor did it make occupation popular
  • (dean's world 30-01-05) Dean Esmay: Victory [on Iraqi elections]
    Today, with the exception of the days my sons were born, I have never felt prouder. All of us bloggers who supported Iraq's liberation from fascism, all of us who worked against the relentlessly defeatist American press corps, have something to be proud of.
  • BBC NEWS | Middle East | Iraq election log: 2 February 2005
  • (a+d 06-01-05) Eric Raymond: How the Left Betrayed Iraq
  • (3-1-05) How the Left Betrayed My Country - Iraq
  • (IC 18-11-04) Juan Cole: More on Marine Mosque Killing
  • (G 14-10-04) Audrey Gillan on TA soldiers in Iraq: part one and part two
  • (NYT 27-09-04) Douglas Jehl, David E. Sanger: Prewar Assessment on Iraq Saw Chance of Strong Divisions
  • (24-09-04) warandpiece: Reality in Iraq, surreality in Washington
    Bush has turned Iraq into Lebanon, and he's running his election on this masking-taped Potemkin village of a liberated Iraq heading joyfully for elections that's all coming apart at the edges. Even if he manages to win reelection, I think any second administration would be set to soon collapse under the weight of the lies once people do wake up and realize what a disaster we have on our hands.
  • (talent show 16-09-04) Bottom of the ninth in Iraq
  • 14/4/04: excerpts from some US papers' response to George Bush's speech on Iraq
  • a report from Falluja
  • (27-08-04) critique of a Naomi Klein article on Najaf
  • The Atlantic Monthly, Nov. 04: The American bubble in Baghdad (link found via Chris Lightfoot's posting)
  • (WP 12-08-04) Howard Kurtz: The Post on WMDs: An Inside Story Prewar Articles Questioning Threat Often Didn't Make Front Page
  • (NY 29-09-04) George Packer: The next Iraqi war: What Kirkuk's struggle to reverse Saddam's ethnic cleansing signals for the future of Iraq.
  • (G 9/4/04) David Aaronovitch: So this is free Baghdad
  • (G 14-10-04) Hundreds of Kurds found buried in Iraq mass graves
  • BBC NEWS | Spain PM to withdraw Iraq troops
  • (G 7-10-04) Julian Borger: There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq
    Saddam Hussein destroyed his last weapons of mass destruction more than a decade ago and his capacity to build new ones had been dwindling for years by the time of the Iraq invasion, according to a comprehensive US report released yesterday.
  • (IHT 18-7-03) Blair says history will justify war
  • Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Iraq: key speeches and documents
  • (G) Blair admits weapons of mass destruction may never be found
  • Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Saddam Hussein captured
  • KRT Wire | 07/12/2003 | Lack of planning contributed to chaos in Iraq
  • (WP 17-07-03?) Bush, Blair Defend Motives Behind War
  • (WP 16-07-03?) Allies Didn't Share All Intelligence on Iraq
  • (IHT 18-7-03) Wolfowitz taking pulse of Iraq
  • (IHT 7-7-03) Blair team mishandled Iraq data, panel finds
  • Frustrated, U.S. Arms Team to Leave Iraq
  Last modified: Fri Nov 10 21:41:33 GMT 2006