In a major setback to US-backed national reconciliation efforts, Iraq’s presidential council rejected a plan for new provincial elections and sent the bill back to parliament Feb. 27. Many Sunnis boycotted the January 2005 elections for the 275-member parliament and… Read moreIraq’s Shi’ite majority: no new elections
Shihab al-Timimi, 74, chief of the Iraqi Journalists’ Union, died Feb. 27 of wounds suffered in an ambush outside the union headquarters in the Waziriya district of Baghdad five days earlier. His deputy at the journalists’ union, Mouayed al-Lami, said,… Read moreBaghdad: head of journalists union assassinated
Patrick Cockburn writes for The Independent, Feb. 27: Iraq is disintegrating faster than ever. The Turkish army invaded the north of the country last week and is still there. Iraqi Kurdistan is becoming like Gaza where Israel can send in… Read moreIraqi Kurdistan: Turkey’s Gaza?
Kinda says it all, doesn’t it? From AP, Feb. 23: BAGHDAD – The Iraqi military on Saturday indefinitely banned all motorcycles, bicycles and hand-pushed and horse-drawn carts from the streets of Baghdad, a military spokesman said. Although the reason for… Read moreBaghdad bans bicycles
Four more Shi’ite pilgrims headed for Karbala for Arbaeen celebrations were killed by a roadside bomb in Baghdad Feb. 25—one day after a suicide bomber killed 48 pilgrims, detonating a vest filled with explosives at a rest stop in Iskandiriyah…. Read moreIraq: bloody Arbaeen —again
Turkish troops destroyed five bridges on the Avashin or Blue River in an incursion into Iraqi Kurdistan to hunt PKK rebel fighters, Iraq’s Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said Feb. 22. “We don’t expect that a large incursion is taking place,… Read moreTurkey destroys bridges in Iraqi Kurdistan incursion
Now why is it? When the question is posed (as it always is) in terms of supporting the war, it is absolutely mandatory that we all “support the troops.” If Congress doesn’t endlessly fund the military adventure, it is accused… Read moreIraq: USMC didn’t “support the troops”
A joint press release from US Labor Against the War and Oil Change International, Feb. 15: Stop the Theft of Iraq’s Future – Iraqi Oil for the Iraqi People In Iraq, the on-going war and occupation has led to hundreds… Read moreInternational mobilization to defend Iraq’s oil
In a “rare burst of productivity,” Iraq’s parliament Feb. 13 passed three key laws and approved them as a package, ending months of deadlock. Two of the laws—providing for a general amnesty for thousands of Iraqi prisoners and defining the… Read moreIraq: “progress” —if you set the bar really, really low
From the Iraq Freedom Congress (IFC), Feb. 12: Once Again US Troops Desperately Attempt to Suppress the Voice of Freedom in Iraq The occupying troops have made another attempt to eliminate the voice of freedom from Iraq by raiding the… Read moreIraq civil resistance headquarters raided by US troops
US Defense Secretary Robert Gates arrived in Iraq Feb. 10 just before the first anniversary of the troop “surge.” Gates said in Baghdad that he supports a pause in troop draw-downs from Iraq after about 30,000 soldiers have been sent… Read moreIraq: terror greets Gates; “surge” looking permanent
From the Federation of Workers Councils and Unions in Iraq (FWCUI), Jan. 6: As a result of the continuous efforts and collaboration between the Federation of Workers Councils and Unions in Iraq (FWCUI) and the workers of the water supply… Read moreBaghdad waterworks employees in labor victory
