I am a responsible person and in assuming government responsibility, I will not be afraid. I was subjected to many assassination attacks but I was not afraid. Since I’ve accepted to assume responsibility, I should be able to cope with such responsibility and I’m never afraid and I’ll never be afraid. This is a motive for me to work harder and harder to make things more secure and stable.
Read the entire conversation with Abdul Rahman Mustafa, governor of the highly contentious and oil-rich province of Kirkuk.
Iraq may give S. Korea special oil deal terms
Iran says it’s ready to supply natural gas to Iraq, though Iraq’s vast reserves could be developed.
What the Iraqi press is saying: UPI’s Hiba Dawood and the Iraq Press Roundup
Responding to U.S. concerns that Tehran’s influence is the problem in Iraq, British troops just withdrawn from Basra are being sent to the border with Iran.
Gen. Petraeus, meanwhile, says no U.S. troops are needed in Basra though the extent of the power vacuum is not known yet.
Paul Rieckhoff, Iraq war veteran and founder of Iraq & Afghanistan Veterans of America writes in the Huffington Post on why relying on the Petraeus report to Congress and why the buck stops with President Bush, not a military commander.
But General Petraeus isn’t Moses — and he’s not the commander in chief either. Many in the media and in Washington have turned to our military leaders to make sweeping policy decisions and undo four years of arrogance and error in Iraq. Instead, thankfully, our military continues to implement the decisions of their civilian leadership. That is, after all, what the generals should do in democratic nations.
THE GHOST OF ANBAR
The US military’s progress report on Iraq is in and it’s mostly bad news.
But there is one unexpected success story: in the heartland of the Sunni Insurgency, a group of tribes has joined with the Americans to fight Al Qaeda. The Americans report that attacks on US forces have dropped dramatically and claim that life is beginning to return to normal. The leader and symbol of this movement that the Americans claim is rapidly securing Anbar province is a sheik named Sattar Abu Risha.
But is Abu Risha all he claims to be?
With the support of the Pulitzer Foundation, Richard Rowley and David Enders set off to find out - and to see who is paying the price.
Watch the two-part series.
The Red Zone
Reporter Dahr Jamail’s new book, Beyond the Green Zone, is due out next month.
As the occupation of Iraq unravels, the demand for independent reporting is growing. Since 2003, unembedded journalist Dahr Jamail has filed indispensable reports from Iraq that have made him this generation’s chronicler of the unfolding disaster there. In these collected dispatches, Jamail presents never-before-published details of the siege of Fallujah and examines the origins of the Iraqi insurgency.
