Category: Iraqi War

“When we get injured, all it says is `one soldier wounded,’ ” Specialist Acosta said, echoing others at Walter Reed. “Not that a soldier has lost an arm or a leg, or how hard that is.”

Early one morning last July, my rifle company boarded a convoy of trucks leaving Nasiriyah, an Iraqi city 180 miles south of Baghdad, bound for Kuwait. After tossing my pack onto a truck, I looked back at members of the Carabinieri, Italy’s military police force, who were staying. They were made groggy and disgruntled by…

Ok I said I would link to some of the articles in this month’s Atlantic. Here’s talk of the first one. P.J. O’Rourke does a spectacular job this month – and here is an interview on his piece – which I can’t link to yet. His article is absolutely brilliant – c’mon Atlantic let me…

Ok, fellow bloggers, I need some advice, help and maybe a little money! You might think me crazy but I am planning a trip to Iraq with some fellow freelance journos in the Spring. ‘Why?’ You might ask. Truth be told I really just want to a few things: 1. See what Iraq is like…

Investigators think they’ve found some of Hussein’s loot. Since the fall of Baghdad in April, American officials have scoured the globe in search of Saddam Hussein’s legendary fortune. Now they think they have found a big chunk. According to a U.S. estimate, as much as $3 billion in Iraqi assets is sitting in Syrian government-…

In a day of escalating violence in Baghdad, a Spanish intelligence officer was shot to death in front of his home Thursday and a car bomber plowed into a crowd of Iraqi policemen waiting to collect their pay, killing himself and at least eight others. The bomb, which blasted a deep crater outside a police…

Paul Krugman is discussing and comparing the Marshall plan with the current plans for Iraq. He accuses the White House of cronyism and blatant profiteering. Iraq’s reconstruction, by contrast, remains firmly under White House control. And this is an administration of, by and for crony capitalists; to match this White House’s blithe lack of concern…

Oliver Kamm, now one of my regular reads, writes a healthily long criticism of New Statesman hack John Pilger. It reminds me of this article in the Spectator a few weeks ago. Despite my own writing for the New Statesman, I am inclined to agree with Sweeney on this one. He argued that John Pilger…

Paul Krugman looks like he is back in top form again. This piece discusses Bush’s recent address to the nation, and what he believes to be the sheer gall of the administration. Now almost half the Army’s combat strength is bogged down in a country that wasn’t linked to Al Qaeda and apparently didn’t have…

A British bomb disposal expert has become the latest casualty in Iraq: Mr Rimell, who was working for the British-based charity Mines Advisory Group (MAG), was driving in a vehicle with the distinctive MAG emblem when the gunmen struck. The 53-year-old’s bodyguard Salem Ahmed Mohammed was left in a critical condition. I note that his…