Here’s an interesting question about the finally-released Senate Intelligence Committee Phase II report about the use of intelligence on Iraq. The “Shorter” for Phase II A is quite simply that “yes, it was all bollocks”, and specifically that it was all bollocks in the same way it was in the UK – caveats were removed,…
Read More selling the dummyI’ve repeatedly suggested that there is an emerging alignment between the Sadrists and political factions close to the NOIA insurgents and ex-insurgents. Here’s some news – a new coalition including Sadr, various mix’n’match factions including the Dialogue (close to NOIA), a chunk of Dawa that has split from SCIRI, and the Allawi fanclub (yes –…
Read More Using up SCIRIAckerman reckons we should be impressed that he suggested a Turkish-Kurdish rapprochement two years ago. The evidence for the rapprochement is pretty good – there are meetings going on between the KRG and the Turks, under the chairmanship of (Kurdish) Iraqi president Jalal Talabani, about issues connected with all the business Turkish companies are doing…
Read More People say to me just be yourself, it makes no sense to follow fashion. How could I be anybody else?Remember when we nixed the January 2007 Iranian weapons scare? We explained how pretty much any competent terrorists could build an EFP, and followed up with the revelation that the steel balls came from an Indian bike parts factory. Well, this made me smile. Iraqi officials also have accused Iran of meddling in violence and…
Read More which in your case you have not gotAfter not much happened for a while, charges have been filed against Viktor Bout in a US court. The indictment charges Viktor Bout with four terrorism offenses, including conspiring to kill Americans, conspiring to kill U.S. officers or employees, conspiring to provide material support to terrorists and conspiring to acquire and use an anti-aircraft missile.…
Read More Viktor IndictedIf you can read you should read this if you read nothing else this decade. It’s all about how the Americans started torturing people, whose idea it was, how men like John Yoo came to provide the legal justifications, who was keen (the ideological core of the administration), who didn’t want to know (the FBI…
Read More Torture LawyersKing’s College London’s terribly smart and not at all sinister Insurgency Research Group have some relevant facts about a controversy between Daniel Davies and I. Recap: Dan apparently believes that it’s better to let jihadis advertise on the Internet, on the principle that they will attract lots of idiots, self-dramatising teens, and committee fetishists, who…
Read More Human Capital Saving in a Terrorist CellAz-zaman, via Cole reports that the Iraqi government “honoured” SCIRI…sorry…ISIC militiamen for their role in the Basra fighting, and that some 10,000 of them were officially signed up to the Government’s own forces (I thought they already were). The reason for this step is apparently that large numbers – thousands – of men in the…
Read More MutinyThe Times has been doing the best reporting from Iraq by far at the moment. Here’s some evidence. Now, to substance. Note this: “We have received a shipment of Strela antiaircraft rockets,” Abu Sajad boasted to a Sunday Times reporter.“We intend to use them to prove to the world that the Mahdi Army will not…
Read More leave it, Daz, he’s not worth itWell, it’s not as if we weren’t warned; the Iraqi government had been threatening to move against Fadhila in Umm Qasr, and there had been increasing tension between the Iraqi government and the Sadr movement going back to Christmas. Not so long ago, there were demonstrations in Sadr City against Sadr; they thought the movement…
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