MER Article Will Iraqis Find Justice in War Crimes Tribunals? Muhan Jabr al-Shuwaili no doubt knew the risks he faced when he ventured out of his house in Najaf on November 3, 2003. But the head judge of the Najaf governorate, member of a commission collecting evidence against former Iraqi officials possibly complicit in crimes against humanity, quickly discov Hassan Fattah • 5 min read
MER Article From the Editors (Winter 2003) "If Saddam had nuclear weapons, Iraq's geographic location at the head of the Persian Gulf would allow him to threaten the destruction of a number of targets of great importance to the United States. The Saudi oilfields are a particularly worrisome target." These lines do not The Editors • 5 min read
MER Article Fragile Glasnost on the Tigris Sitting in Baghdad’s packed Café Shahbandar on a Friday afternoon in June of 2003, I was overwhelmed by the atmosphere of open discussion and genuine freedom. Drawn by the open-air used book market on nearby al-Mutanabbi Street, the patrons -- old journalists, professors and hip artists with shoulder-length hair Keith Watenpaugh • 9 min read
MER Article A Clean Slate in Iraq Iraq has the world’s second largest oil reserves, but before the 2003 war its human development indicators placed it only just ahead of Sudan and Bangladesh. [1] The war and its ongoing aftermath have left Iraq further shattered. At the most basic level, diseases of poverty are again sweeping Colin Rowat, Justin Alexander • 14 min read
MER Article Multiplier Effect Despite continual White House assurances in 2002 and early 2003 that “war is a last resort,” the key advocates of invasion in Washington gave a good deal of forethought to the US-led war with Iraq. The Iraq hawks had been considering the military option for years. the option became feasible Sarah J Graham-Brown • 24 min read
MER Article Baghdad Diaries, Then and Now Rosemary O’Brien, ed. Gertrude Bell: The Arabian Diaries, 1913-1914 (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2000). Nuha al-Radi, Baghdad Diaries (London: Saqi Books, 1998). Paul Rich, ed. Arab War Lords and Iraqi Star Gazers: Gertrude Bell’s The Arab of Mesopotamia (Lincoln, NE: Authors Choice Press, 2001). Since the 1991 Salah Hassan • 7 min read
MER Article World Oil Markets and the Invasion of Iraq George W. Bush's regime-changing war in Iraq is widely seen as an oil war -- a grab for the second-largest petroleum reserves in the world. In the minds of many, this interpretation was confirmed when the United States pressed for, and secured, a UN resolution giving the US-British Raad Alkadiri, Fareed Mohamedi • 22 min read
MER Article The Worldly Roots of Religiosity in Post-Saddam Iraq April 9, 2003 will go down in Iraqi history as the day of the fall. Barely two days after the anniversary of the founding of the Ba‘th party, and 21 days after the US-led invasion of Iraq began, the battle Saddam Hussein dubbed the Mother of All Decisive Battles Faleh A. Jabar • 18 min read
Current Analysis Sanctions and the "Moral Case" for War Economic sanctions have suddenly resurfaced in the international debate about Iraq, after months of near silence on the issue. British Prime Minister Tony Blair, in particular, has advanced the notion that one of the benefits of a war with Iraq would be the prospect of lifting the punitive economic sanctions Per Oskar Klevnas • 10 min read
Current Analysis Litmus Test Hours before chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix briefed the UN Security Council on January 27, Turkey's deputy prime minister protested that the Bush administration would proceed toward military confrontation regardless of Blix's findings. "You'll declare war against an Iraq...that has taken Yuksel Taskin, Koray Caliskan • 9 min read
Current Analysis A Case for Concern, Not a Case for War On January 27, UNMOVIC Executive Chairman Hans Blix and IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei presented to the UN Security Council their required updates on the progress of weapons inspections inside Iraq. The updates arrive as the differences between the overt strategies of Security Council members reach a new level of Nathaniel Hurd, Alistair Millar, Glen Rangwala • 9 min read
