Iraq Archives - Page 53 of 136 - Foreign Policy In Focus

September Mornings in Maryland & Iraq

by John Gershman, Conn Hallinan | Oct 12, 2005

In the pre-dawn hours of Sept. 17, 1862, a division of Confederate soldiers moved into place just south of a cornfield near where the Hagerstown Pike runs past a white, clapboard church on its way to the town of Sharpsburg, Maryland. Northeast of the Confederates, Union Major General Joseph Mansfield was getting his XII Corps into line facing a small forest. The lesson of what happened within the shadows cast by those trees–known in thousands of military histories as simply “the East Wood”–is something the Bush Administration is letting the nation re-discover these days.

Bush Again Resorts to Fear-Mongering to Justify Iraq Policy

by Emily Schwartz Greco, Stephen Zunes | Oct 12, 2005

President George W. Bush’s October 6 address at the National Endowment for Democracy illustrated his administration’s increasingly desperate effort to justify the increasingly unpopular U.S. war in Iraq. The speech focused upon the Bush administration’s claim that the Iraqi insurgency against U.S. occupation forces somehow constituted a grave threat to the security of the United States and the entire civilized world.

The "New" Iraq: Discovery or Invention

by John Gershman, Col. Daniel Smith (Ret.) | Oct 12, 2005

Random thought: Columbus Day is here again.

How Basra Slipped Out of Control: Portent in the Shiite South?

by Erik Leaver, Gareth Porter | Oct 12, 2005

To understand just how tenuous the U.S. position in Iraq is at the moment, we have only to look at the way Basra, Iraq’s second largest city, in the solidly Shiite South slipped out of the control of occupation forces last month.

Iraq: 10 Years After Gulf War

by Stephen Zunes | Oct 11, 2005

U.S.-Iraq: On the War Path

by Stephen Zunes | Oct 4, 2005

Key Points

Iraq’s New Patent Law

by John Gershman, Focus on the Global South, RAIN | Oct 3, 2005

When Former Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) administrator L. Paul Bremer III left Baghdad after the highly publicized “transfer of sovereignty” in June 2004, he left his imprint through 100 orders that he enacted as chief of the occupation authority in Iraq. Among them is Order 81 regarding “Patent, Industrial Design, Undisclosed Information, Integrated Circuits and Plant Variety.”1 This order amends Iraq’s original patent law of 1970, and unless and until it is revised or repealed by a new Iraqi government, it wields the status and force of a binding law.2 With important implications for farmers and the future of agriculture in Iraq, this order is yet another important component in Washington’s attempts to radically transform Iraq’s economy.

How to Bring the Troops Home and Internationalize the Peace

by Phyllis Bennis, Erik Leaver | Oct 3, 2005

"There is an old military doctrine called the First Rule of Holes: If you find yourself stuck in one, stop digging."

How Much Power Will the New Iraqi Government Really Have?

by John Gershman, Stephen Zunes | Oct 3, 2005

Much attention was paid in the run-up to the January 30 elections in Iraq regarding how the lack of security in much of the country, combined with the decision by major Sunni Arab parties to boycott in protest of recent U.S. attacks on several major urban areas, could thereby skew the results and compromise the resulting government’s credibility. Related concerns include the prospect of this election and the government that emerges exacerbating the divisions between Shiite Arabs, Sunni Arabs, and Kurds.

After Iraq’s Wartime Elections

by John Gershman, Frank Smyth | Oct 3, 2005

Robert Fisk is the award-winning journalist of the London-based Independent newspaper, and he has long been a consistent critic of American imperial policies in the Middle East. “But it was the sight of those thousands of Shi’ites, the women mostly in black hejab covering, the men in leather jackets or long robes, the children toddling beside them, that took the breath away,” he reported from Baghdad on election day. “If Osama bin Laden had called these elections an apostasy, these people, who represent 60% of Iraq, did not heed his threats.”