As usual for events that are meant to be a Turning Point in Iraq, temporary calm has been enforced by a total curfew and vehicle ban during Saddam’s judgment. It works, of course, for a few days – but it can’t last, as people have to buy food and go to work. Consider it a…
Read More Watch out!Widely reported that, due to the verdict on Saddam, most of Iraq is under an indefinite curfew and the airport is closed. Except for British Gulf International and Click, though. Two flights from Baghdad arrived in Sharjah today. 05-Nov 12:30 Baghdad International Airport British Gulf International Airlines BGK 1234 05-Nov 15:30 Baghdad International Airport Click…
Read More So much for the Iraqi curfewRight, I’ve already given reasons why it’s urgently necessary to start staff talks with Iran about how we can get out of Iraq. Someone asked what incentive the Iranians had to participate. I suggested, essentially, that they would rather not have us shoot our way out with AC-130s down Highway 8. Well, here’s a better…
Read More Talking to Iran, part 3Nibras Kazimi reports on the sniper propaganda some Iraqi insurgent groups have been putting out recently. The “Islamic Army of Iraq” (i.e. a chapter of NOIA) claims a large number of dead US soldiers, shows its sniper team preparing for action, using a US Marine Corps manual (nice touch), and then shooting various people. Interestingly,…
Read More Sniper at workThe thinnest attempt to discredit the Lancet study yet: apparently if you don’t live on a main street you can’t be blown up by a carbomb, murdered by fake policemen or shot by coalition convoy guards. Worse, it is alleged the back streets weren’t sampled although the methodology explicitly states they were. And one of…
Read More Vicarious embarrassmentThe chatter is building up that a serious change in policy in Iraq is afoot. Supposedly, there is talk of an ultimatum to the Iraqi government to do various defined things or face undefined sanctions (this is an old John Paul Vann idea from South Vietnam), but there are also reasons to imagine that the…
Read More Talking to Iran, part 2The new map of the Middle East crazed wingnut Ralph Peters came up with needs a bit more battering, I think. Specifically, as well as the fact that even though in the text of the article he accepts that the Israelis ought to go back to the Green Line, and on the map he blithely…
Read More Ralph Peters: ManiacMaps are nice, aren’t they? So let’s have a look at a few maps of Iraq. This one shows Iraq’s administrative divisions, its roads and its rivers. Note especially that there are essentially two major roads between Baghdad and Basra. One runs along the Tigris valley parallel to the Iranian border. The other runs just…
Read More Talk to Iran. Now.Avient Aviation, flying to Baghdad. Flight no. SMJ872, arrived Sharjah ex-Baghdad 0818 local time today.
Read More SurveillanceIn my head-on-the-block post regarding the unlikelihood of an attack on Iran, I mentioned that most of the Royal Navy is engaging in a large exercise off Sierra Leone, with the involvement of the Fleet Lead Commando Group, HMSs Ocean and Bulwark, and a large supporting cast. Now, many miles away indeed, the Royal Marines…
Read More Tony Blair: Chopper