Thomas Friedman: Up to Iraqis Now

Thomas Friedman, who has over the years earned both enmity from the Right for his criticisms of the Iraq War and derision from the Left by his continual calls for another six months, leaves plenty for everyone in his latest column. On the one hand, the weekend elections were another "very good day for Iraq" and "a big deal."  On the ...

George W. Bush’s Rehabilitation

Professional iconoclast Stanley Fish has been predicting for a while that people would come to miss George W. Bush once the heated controversies of the moment had faded and the big picture emerged. Now, he sees evidence that he was right. A perhaps more substantial sign incorporates a sign famous (or infamous) in the Bush presidency. The March 8 cover ...

Iraq War: Mission Accomplished?

TNR's Marty Peretz argues that "The Verdict Is In On The Long American Excursion In Iraq. And It Is Favorable." He admits right at the outset that, "Of course, Iraq hasn’t turned out that well. Sunni jihadniks are still routinely murdering pious Shi’a on pilgrimage to Karbala."  But, he contends, "There are three especially compelling personal testimonies arguing that Iraq is ...

Iraqi Freedom Changing to New Dawn

Operation IRAQI FREEDOM is going to be renamed Operation NEW DAWN, Jake Tapper reports. ABC News has learned that the Obama administration has decided to give the war in Iraq -- currently known as Operation Iraqi Freedom -- a new name. The new name: "Operation New Dawn." In a February 17, 2010, memo to the Commander of Central Command, Gen. David Petraeus, Defense ...

Pointing Fingers

Where should we point the fingers for our current fiscal/economic mess? Keith Hennessey has a post that I tend to agree with. Hennessey looks at the opening statements from President Obama on his new budget, The fact is, 10 years ago, we had a budget surplus of more than $200 billion, with projected surpluses stretching out toward the horizon. ...

Chemical Ali Hanged Until Dead, Dead, Dead

The government of Iraq has finally executed "Chemical Ali" Hassan al-Majid, arguably the most heinous official of the former regime save his cousin, Saddam Hussein. Majid, an enforcer in Saddam Hussein's regime and his cousin, had earlier been sentenced to death four times for genocide and crimes against humanity.  Earlier this month, he was sentenced to death for ordering the gas ...

Last Marine Battalion Leaving Iraq

We're about to pass a rather significant milestone: The last deployment for a U.S. Marine Corps unit in Iraq marks the closing of a military chapter for the war as they prepare to leave the country, troops said. More than 40,000 members of the U.S. Marines rolled over the Kuwait border into Iraq in March 2003, storming toward Baghdad. A near-civil war ...

How Much Will Escalation Cost?

The L.A. Times has a fascinating article about the difficulties in accounting for estimated costs in a troop surge in Afghanistan. The calculations so far have produced a sweeping range. The Pentagon publicly estimates it will cost $500,000 a year for every additional service member sent to the war zone. Obama's budget experts size it up at twice that much. [...] The Office ...

Baghdad Bombings Threaten Escalation

Just as we're starting to ignore Iraq and refocus our attention on Afghanistan, things are getting very dicey again: A series of explosions targeting government and commercial buildings struck Baghdad Wednesday, killing at least 75 people and wounding more than 300, Iraqi police and medical officials said. The blasts in the capital followed a string of attacks in Iraq this month that ...

Iraq War Casualty Predictions

Tim Lambert linked some prewar Iraq War casualty predictions collected by John Hawkins in early 2003: If we go into Iraq, how many casualties do you expect to see (on the side of the US and our allies) John Hawkins: "Probably 300 or less" Charles Johnson:"Very few" Henry Hanks: "Less than 200" Laurence Simon: "A Few hundred" Rachael Lucas: "Less than three thousand" Scott Ott: "Dozens" Glenn Reynolds: ...

Obama Iraq Withdrawal: Read the Fine Print

Barack Obama built his presidential campaign around being the candidate who opposed the Iraq War from the start and therefore had the most credibility in ending the war.  As the campaign went on and he got more advice from the experts, however, he began subtly hedging his promises, careful to always refer to "combat troops."  Well, the other shoe has ...

Iraq Suicide Terrorists Kill 75

It appears that suicide bombings are back in a big way in Iraq: At least 75 people were killed and 120 injured in two explosions in Iraq on Thursday that shook a quiet residential Baghdad neighborhood and a restive city north of the capital where Iranian tourists were targeted. In the first attack, a woman wearing a suicide belt exploded herself in ...

Torture Worked! Foiled Los Angeles Attack! Yay Torture!

After several days of inflamed public debate following official confirmation that the United States government tortured suspected terrorists under specific authorization from the Bush administration, the inevitable pushback has begun.  Several reports now suggest that these extreme interrogation techniques had the desired effect, yielding valuable intelligence that saved lives. The most interesting of these, alas, comes from CNS and is headlined ...

South Park Baathists

"South Park" creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker tell The Telegraph that they got a signed picture of Saddam Hussein from some Iraq Marines. During his captivity, US marines forced Saddam, who was executed in 2006, to repeatedly watch the move South Park: Bigger, Longer And Uncut, which shows him as gay, as well as the boyfriend of Satan. He was ...

6 Years of Iraq War Photos

Yesterday, as was noted here and there, was the 6th anniversary of the United States invasion of Iraq.   That we're still there after so many years is remarkable -- depending on who's counting, it's the second longest war in American history -- but the number 6 isn't one we pay much attention to.  We like round numbers and multiples of ...