Linked with Revealed: Secret plan to keep Iraq under US control.
Patrick Cockburn (1950) is an Irish journalist who has been a Middle East correspondent since 1979 for the Financial Times and, presently, The Independent. Among the most experienced commentators on Iraq, he was one of the few journalists to remain in Baghdad during the first Gulf War, and has written four books on the country’s recent history. Cockburn’s on-the-ground reporting on the Iraq War won him the Martha Gellhorn Prize in 2005 and the James Cameron Prize in 2006.
He writes: Bush is acting rather like Tory politicians a century ago who played ‘the Orange Card’ over Ulster, 7 February 2007.
Audio on npr: Journalist Patrick Cockburn on Iraq’s Tenuous Calm, 42.35 min, February 21, 2008 (Click on Listen now).
Révélation d’un plan secret pour maintenir l’Irak sous le contrôle des Etats-Unis, The Independent, 7 juin 2008 … and in english: Pat Cockburn writes, that » … secret deal being negotiated in Baghdad would perpetuate the American military occupation of Iraq indefinitely, regardless of the outcome of the US presidential election in November … « , Submitted on world war 4 report, by Bill Weinberg, 06/08/2008.
About same item, read on: WSWS, June 6, 2008; and all Google news-search about.
U.S. negotiators say Iraq must sign a bi-lateral security deal or lose billions in oil revenue, June 6, 2008.
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Patrick Cockburn – Ireland
US Holds $50 Billion of Iraq’s Financial Reserves Hostage, June 6, 2008.
… Cockburn says that the United States is able to use the funds as a bargaining chip because Iraq is still limited by U.N. resolutions enacted when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990 … (full text).
He writes also: … The war in Iraq is now joining the Boer War in 1899 and the Suez crisis in 1956 as ill-considered ventures that have done Britain more harm than good. It has demonstrably strengthened al-Qa’ida by providing it with a large pool of activists and sympathisers across the Muslim world it did not possess before the invasion of 2003. The war, which started out as a demonstration of US strength as the world’s only superpower, has turned into a demonstration of weakness … (full text).
Book Review: Muqtada, from Patrick Cockburn, May 22, 2008.
The last word that Saddam Hussein heard as the executioner’s noose was being tightened around his neck was « Muqtada. » As in Muqtada al-Sadr, the young Shia cleric who had survived his persecutor to lay claim to Iraq. Americans may be tempted to dismiss Muqtada as mainly a nuisance – too young, inexperienced and unstable to thrive in Iraqi politics. But it was Muqtada’s men who executed Saddam, and the movement associated with him has grown enough to threaten U.S. plans for Iraq, most recently by plunging the southern metropolis of Basra into battle and by roiling Baghdad’s Sadr City, the massive Shia district that bears his family name. As veteran British journalist Patrick Cockburn’s authoritative biography should make clear, it is unwise to assume a future for Iraq that does not include Muqtada al-Sadr and his movement … (full text, June 07, 2008).
These Cultures will Become Extinct, Exodus of Iraq’s Ancient Minorities, March 5, 2007.
And he writes: … Muqtada will very likely rule his country after the Americans pack their tents and depart, which will start soon after George W Bush leaves office, next January. For there is no one among the discredited pack of incompetents, sycophants and corrupt opportunists now ruling Iraq as America’s placemen who could possibly challenge him. That’s if no one assassinates him, of course, and assassination is the favoured way of changing leaders in Iraq … (cited in the Monthly, June 2008 ).
Kurdistan: Birth of a Nation? June 22, 2006.
… As Cockburn writes:
- « Few paid much attention to the radical potential of Shi’ism before the Iranian revolution of 1978-79;
- the rise of Hezbollah in Lebanon following the Israeli invasion of 1982;
- the Shia uprising in Iraq in 1991, followed by their gradual takeover of power after the U.S. invasion of 2003″.
… (full text, April 11, 2008).
Iraqis are Naming Their Babies Saddam, October 31, 2003.
Sadr City and other major Shiite areas in Baghdad have been under siege since late April; millions of people are struggling to survive. On May 1, Patrick Cockburn – an honourable exception to the journalistic norm – reported in the Independent: « Shia losses have been heavy. An Iraqi government spokesman for the civilian side of Baghdad security operations said 925 people had been killed and 2,605 wounded in Sadr City since the Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, began his offensive against the Sadrist movement on 25 April » … (full text, May 28, 2008).
Brutal Punishment of Villagers, US Troops Bulldoze Crops, October 14, 2003.
… Books are better — but their problem is that they can’t speak with any kind of immediacy. Patrick Cockburn’s recently published “Muqtada” is an invaluable guide to one of Iraq’s most powerful political and religious figures … (full text, May 21, 2008).
A Failure of Historic Proportions, The Iraq Wreck, September 16, 2003.
Find him and his publications on wikipedia/writing; on Google Video-search; on Google Group-search; on Google Book-search; on Google Blog-search.
links:
Profiting from Iraq’s occupation, June 8th, 2008;
International Briefs, by Indypendent Staff, From the May 16, 2008 issue;
Armed Truce: Surging Into Slaughter on Sadr City’s Jerusalem Street, May 12, 2008.