Iraq Archive

Most analysts of the Bush administration’s “surge” strategy in Iraq have focused on its military dimension, especially the prominent deployment of thousands of additional U.S. troops to Baghdad and other contested regions of the country. Another important element of the administration’s strategy, however, is the renewed effort to advance Iraq’s economic reconstruction with the provision of considerable new funding and other additional support. The first results of this economic surge are now in — and they do not look encouraging. According to a July 30 report of the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR), headed by […]

Earlier this month, on July 11, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier announced the release from Iraqi captivity of German-born hostage Hannelore Kadhim — or, as he called her, “Hannelore Krause.” The now 62-year-old Kadhim and her son Sinan were reported to have been kidnapped from their Baghdad home in early February. Speaking before the assembled media at the Foreign Ministry in Berlin, Steinmeier noted: “At the present time, I can tell you nothing about the background to the release,” before adding: “And I ask you please to refrain from any speculations. . . .” Most of the German media obediently […]

On July 10, the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), which had conducted WMD inspections in Iraq, formally ceased operating when its staff contracts expired. Two weeks earlier, on June 29, the U.N. Security Council (UNSC) had voted to dissolve the commission. This Security Council decision was a mistake. The UNSC should instead establish a small force of WMD inspectors that could assist with current WMD monitoring tasks and could rapidly expand to lead future U.N.-authorized inspection missions. UNMOVIC was the immediate successor to the U.N. Special Commission (UNSCOM), established by the UNSC in 1991 to oversee the postwar […]

Editor’s Note: Corridors of Power is written by veteran foreign correspondent and World Politics Review Editor-at-Large Roland Flamini and appears every Monday. FOREIGN OPINION ON LIBBY — Lewis “Scooter” Libby is the Paris Hilton of Washington politics. Luckily for him, his local sheriff was more powerful than Hilton’s sheriff, and the commuting of his sentence can’t be reversed, as hers was. That view is scattered through foreign (and for that matter, domestic) editorial comment on President Bush’s decision last week to quash Libby’s jail time. Other points widely made were (1) that Vice-President Cheney’s disgraced chief-of-staff had lied to the […]