Saddam's downfall changes Iran-Iraq relations
Saddam's downfall has
opened new ties and an unpredictable chapter in relations between
Iran and Iraq -- a change that could have lasting implications
for both the Middle East and the United States.
— Newark Star-Ledger, December 26, 2003
In Iraq, private contractors lighten load on U.S. troops
To train Iraqi soldiers,
the United States isn't turning to its own armed forces but
to a group of gray-suited specialists under contract from the
Vinnell Corp., a subsidiary of American defense giant Northrop
Grumman. Vinnell is one of more than a dozen private military
companies..
— Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September
28, 2003
Iraqis face a daily toil just getting by
They are a cross section of the Iraqi people -- a cleric, a clerk, a student, a doctor and a former soldier -- and their lives have changed since Saddam Hussein's government was ousted by U.S. forces. Plus, is Iraq out of control? The continuing struggle in Iraq has emerged in part as a battle of perceptions -- both for Iraqis living in a new reality and for Americans trying to figure out whether their intervention has produced chaos or cause for hope.
— Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 14, 2003
Rival factions struggle to lead Shiites in Iraq
As believers filed in to Friday prayers, grieving over last week's assassination of Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim, clerics huddled in this holy city wrestled with a potentially explosive succession battle that will decide who will lead Iraq's 15 million Shiites.
— San Francisco Chronicle, September 5, 2003
UN work slows to a crawl in Iraq
The blue flak jacket is heavy and cumbersome, and Roger Guarda frets uncomfortably as he pulls it off. "It's hot and I'm choking," grumbles the new head of the United Nations Development Programme in Baghdad. "But because the UN is now a target in Iraq, we have to wear these things every time we leave the office." Plus, U.N. sounds warning on children's health in Iraq.
— The Scotsman, September 13, 2003 and Associated Press, June 8, 2003
Abandoned weaponry litters Iraq
Iraqi officials and former army officers say the United States, in its haste to dismantle Saddam Hussein's rule, has left thousands of pounds of munitions unguarded and accessible to looters and criminals.
— San Francisco Chronicle, August 26, 2003
Ayatollah
Khomeini grandson assails Iran regime
The grandson of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the fiery
cleric who launched an anti-American Islamic revolution in Iran
that sparked 25 years of unrest in the Muslim world, has condemned
Iran's clerical regime and said U.S. military intervention in
Iran might be a path to liberation of his country.
— San Francisco Chronicle, August 5, 2003
Prominent
Cleric Denounces Iraq Council
In an exclusive interview, cleric Moqtada al-Sadr condemns Iraq's
U.S-picked Governing Council as made up of "non-believers" and
vows to create a rival body. Earlier, his followers in Kufa's
historic mosque shout "Death to America."
— Associated Press, July 19, 2003
Embedded: Witnessing combat during weeks with the soldiers of the U.S. Army in the volatile Sunni Triangle. U.S. forces, facing an increasingly violent and organized resistance, launch Operation Ivy Serpent, Operation Sidewinder and Operation Peninsula Strike, large-scale military attacks on the growing insurgency. An exclusive interview with Maj. Gen. David Petraeus, then commander of the 101st Airborne Division in Mosul. How low morale and deadly mortar attacks plague U.S. troops. Soldiers of the U.S. Army's Fourth Infantry Division try to convince townspeople to stop insurgents and convince Iraqi police officers to do their jobs. Plus, America's secret weapon against the insurgency: George, the translator.
— Associated Press, June 12 to July 25, 2003
A new and unexpected
media force has emerged from the rubble of Iraq. By late May,
nearly 100 new publications and a handful of broadcast outlets
were available in Baghdad. They are communist, monarchist, Kurdish,
Assyrian, Islamist, nationalist, and secularist. But they are
Iraqi. Plus, the U.S.-led
occupation authority devises a code of conduct for the press,
drawing protests from Iraqi journalists.
— Columbia Journalism Review, July/August
2003 and Associated Press, June 4, 2003
Iraqi Professors Shaken by Threats
Just weeks after the
murder of three professors, an anonymous note calling on professors
to stay home "or else" has shaken Mustansiriyah University's
staff and some of its students.
— Associated Press, June 30, 2003
Iraqis rediscovering joys of booze
Mohamed Majed's makeshift bar is situated in a trash-strewn parking lot beneath a highway overpass somewhere in the Baghdad sprawl.
— Pittsburgh Post-Gazette , June 22, 2003
Beyond the ridge where the Zagros Mountains divide Iran and Iraq, several hundred Islamic militants vanished into the early spring snow. Now, there are signs that Ansar al-Islam, suspected to have links with Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network, is coming back.
— Associated Press, June 20, 2003
Ancient
Samarra Stands Largely Untouched
Amid the destruction of this war - the bombing, the fighting,
the looting - this elegant city was left largely untouched.
— Associated Press, April 22, 2003
U.S. Takes on MKO Militia in Iraq
Charred military trucks,
exploded tanks and crushed pieces of artillery line the highway
where the American bombs struck illustrate the U.S. military's
determination to stop the vehicles belonging to the Mujahedeen
Khalq, a militia fighting against the Islamic Republic of Iran
next door. Plus, at an age when young women of her class are
obsessed with careers and boyfriends, British-raised Laleh
Tariqi is crazy about her "Kalash" - the Kalashnikov assault
rifle she totes when she goes out on patrol
— Associated Press, April 20, 2003 and Scotsman,
April 21, 2003
Widespread
looting of the northern oil facilities has put any prospect
of a quick recovery in doubt. Sabotage
along Iraq's largest pipeline delays the flow of freshly
pumped oil - the key to the reconstruction of an economy devastated
by sanctions and war.
— Associated Press, April 18 and June 22,
2003
A modest,
four-room, single-level house in this suburb of Kirkuk has
become a battleground in what is certain to become a continuing
postwar conflict among Kurds, Arabs and Turks in northern Iraq.
"It was our land," said
Khader Rashid Rahim, a trader who plans to move his wife and
seven children to this house. Plus, I never realized just how
viscerally and primordially they hated each other until that
day on the road from Tikrit.
— Associated Press, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Columbia
Journalism Review, April 17, 18 and April/May 2003
War: With cruise missiles, aerial bombardment and midnight landings into Kurdish-held Iraq by Special Forces, the United States' northern front to topple Saddam Hussein's government has begun. American forces launch missiles against Ansar al-Islam positions in northeastern Iraq, but hit wrong Islamist faction. Car bomb explosion kills five , including Western journalist. U.S. builds up forces in the north, with American planes landing in the Kurdish north and more airstrikes pounding positions of a militant Islamic group with alleged al-Qaida ties. Warplanes bomb military barracks in northern Iraq , shattering windows for miles around and igniting huge plumes of smoke. Villagers and militiamen swarm barracks and bunkers abandoned by Iraqi soldiers. Inside the newly abandoned local office of Saddam's Hussein's Ba'ath Party, gas masks and vials of nerve gas antidote litter the floor. Iraqi forces shell village as fighter jets target positions 100 miles north of Baghdad. Kurds seize large stretches of land turned into lifelessheavily mined no-man's lands by the Baghdad regime 15 years ago. Kurds push on toward Baghdad and Kirkuk as lines collapse. Crowds welcome Kurdish fighters with flowers and candy as they sweep into Khaneqin, capturing it without a fight. Kurds flood northern Iraq, taking Kirkuk and pushing toward Mosul. Citizens try to bring order and security to areas where the 30-year-old government seemed to collapse overnight. With the Baghdad regime gone, so, too are its boundaries and distinctions as all semblance of control vanishes . U.S. Marines move into and overrun Saddam's hometown in a new foray to battle the city's scattered defenders. While Saddam's statues and pictures have been destroyed in cities across Iraq, his loyalists honor him at his birthplace.
— Associated Press, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Newark Star-Ledger, St. Petersburg Times, Washington Times, March 22 to April 16, 2003
Iran-backed fighters appear in northern Iraq
The fighters say they
are Iraqi patriots who came to Kurdish northern Iraq to fight
off foreign invaders - but the green telephone at their camp
has a sticker identifying it as the property of the Iranian
Revolutionary Guards. Mostly middle-aged militiamen march
in parade. Plus, a mistaken
shooting illustrates the tricky ground-level political minefield
the United States will encounter in Iraq.
— Associated Press, March 4 and 15, 2003
Preparing for war: A dormant airbase reopens in northern Iraq, raising speculation American soldiers might be landing soon. Prominent Iraqi opposition leader Ahmad Chalabi arrives in Iraq and gives exclusive interview. Some residents say they're already living in the middle of a war, caught in the crossfire between local authorities of the autonomous Kurdish region and a militant Islamic group. Rumors of Americans - CIA operatives and military special operations troops - are everywhere in northern Iraq. Opposition figures gather to discuss the country's future. The fragmented Iraqi opposition takes a step toward unity and insists they should be allowed to run the country's affairs. Short of supplies and medicine, Kurds do their best to prepare for the war's upheaval and violence while worrying about influx of refugees and deserters.
— Associated Press, January 30 to March 20, 2003
Lawsuits pile up against potential successor to Saddam
Kurds working in this
mountaintop town are reluctant to support the man often mentioned
as a successor to Saddam Hussein for one simple reason: They
say Ahmad Chalabi owes them money.
— Associated Press, February 12, 2003
A visit to al-Qaida: At a site depicted by US and Kurds as a chemical factory, visitors found a half-built cinderblock compound filled with heavily armed Kurdish men, video equipment and children - but no obvious sign of chemical weapons manufacturing. Plus, in a televised war that makes celebrities of spokespersons, al-Qaida group wants its share of the spotlight.
— Associated Press, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Feb. 8 & 16, 2003 and Columbia Journalism Review, May/June 2003
