Since my last article was published, Iraq’s political situation has slightly improved, but terrorist attacks continue to inflict immense and painful loss of human life and cause huge damage of resources. Also, the sectarian violence and displacement have worsened, and the living standards have further deteriorated to unbearable levels. The dominant players of the conflict were trying to maximize their benefits by changing their military (violence) tactics, but not their strategic objectives. In this difficult, intense and historically crucial situation, the tough struggle continues for building a free democratic, stable, and prosperous Iraq.

Four years after the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime. sunni groups continue to fight an insurgency against the occupation forces, and the violence that erupted in summer 2003 has yet to let up.

It does not cost much to undermine the morale, and eventually the fighting capacities, of a technologically- and numerically-superior armed force. Ask the historically-informed sniper. History is replete with the achievements of lone marksmen thwarting the plans of larger armies. In 1777, Timothy Murphy, a sharpshooter in the American Revolutionary War, helped break the British attempt to capture American positions at the Battle of Bemis Heights when he terminated the lives of two inspirational British generals. In 1942, Vasily Zaytsev contributed to the successful Soviet resistance against the mighty German Wehrmacht at Stalingrad by killing over 100 enemy officers and soldiers with his rifle.

The Baker-Hamilton report explained that failure in Iraq could have severe consequences for our national interests in a critical region and for our national security here at home. In my many conversations with members of Congress and foreign policy experts, few have disagreed.

While the involvement of the United States in counterinsurgency has a long history, it had faded in importance in the years following the end of the Cold War. When American forces first confronted it in Iraq, they were not fully prepared. Since then, the U.S. military and other government agencies have expended much effort to refine their counterinsurgency capabilities. But have they done enough?

Following is the opening statement by Lieutenant General David H. Petraeus this morning before a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on his nomination to be the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, as recorded by Federal News Service.

Le président Bush devrait décider début janvier quelle nouvelle politique il entend appliquer en Irak. Partir ou rester? Abandonner l’Irak à ses démons ou tenter encore d’y rétablir une certaine sécurité ? Solution militaire ou solution politique?

In this consensus report, the ten members of the Iraq Study Group present a new approach because we believe there is a better way forward. All options have not been exhausted. We believe it is still possible to pursue different policies that can give Iraq an opportunity for a better future, combat terrorism, stabilize a critical region of the world, and protect America’s credibility, interests, and values. Our report makes it clear that the Iraqi government and the Iraqi people also must act to achieve a stable and hopeful future.

President Bush does not have a strategy for victory in Iraq. His strategy is to prevent defeat and to hand the problem off to his successor. As a result, more and more Americans want to bring our troops home immediately, even at the risk of trading a dictator for chaos and a civil war that could become a regional war. Both are bad alternatives.

By invading Iraq, the U.S. and its Coalition partners have undertaken probably the most challenging nation-building exercise since the end of World War II. The Coalition has set itself the task of fundamentally transforming Iraqi society, restoring stability to a war- and sanctions-ravaged country and reconstructing Iraq’s political order. This monumental task has been further complicated by a succession of well-documented strategic errors, tactical blunders, and operational shortcomings. The list would surely include: the commitment of too few troops, often with the wrong equip-ment and training for counterinsurgency warfare; hasty turnover of responsibility to unready Iraqis in the search for an early exit; and failure to seal the borders as part of a larger strategy to gain regional support for the project.

To evaluate the claim of media bias systematically, we constructed a simple methodology for reviewing the reporting from Iraq over the last three years. First, we selected several news outlets that are considered among the most important in the United States and that also span its political spectrum, at least in the outlets’ editorial instincts. Specifically, we assessed coverage by the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and NBC News and also looked at the Washington Times, USA Today, ABC News, and Fox News in more limited ways. This approach not only served to provide raw data that could help answer our basic question of whether media coverage is slanted but also helped to assess the degree to which the typical tone of stories might vary across organizations and thus the degree to which the reporting might reflect the political agendas of publishers, owners, editors, editorial writers, news anchors, and other key media figures.

Rhetorically, the United States and Europe are united in their opposition to terrorism. Governments on each side of the Atlantic frequently assert that counterterrorism cooperation is essential to solving the problem, and they join together to condemn outrages such as the July 7, 2005, attacks in London. In terms of doctrine, the U.S. National Security Strategy of 2002 and European Union Security Strategy of 2003 are remarkably similar in their scriptions of the new threats to national security. Both highlight international terrorism, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), and ungoverned spaces that might foster terrorism as the central security concerns for the future.

With stepped-up U.S.-led raids against Muqtada al-Sadr’s militia, Jaysh al-Mahdi, and media allegations of the militia’s responsibility for widespread and particularly horrendous sectarian killings in Baghdad on 9 July, the Shiite leader and his movement have become more central than ever. The war in Iraq radically reshuffled the country’s political deck, bringing to the fore new actors and social forces, none more surprising and enigmatic, and few as critical to Iraq’s stability, as Muqtada al-Sadr and the Sadrist movement he embodies. Largely unknown prior to the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime and bereft of resources Shiites typically must possess to assert their authority, Muqtada al-Sadr at first was dismissed as a marginal rabble-rouser, excluded from the political process and, after he flexed his muscles, decreed wanted “dead or alive” by the U.S.-led coalition. Learning the hard way, the U.S. and its allies have had to recognise the reality of the Sadrists’ strength.

As all eyes are turned toward efforts to stabilise Iraq, the conflict that has been percolating in Kirkuk remains dangerous and dangerously neglected. That struggle is equal parts street brawl over oil riches, ethnic competition over identity between Kurdish, Turkoman, Arab and Assyrian-Chaldean communities, and titanic clash between two nations, Arab and Kurd. Given the high stakes, the international community cannot afford to stand by, allowing the situation to slip into chaos by default. It needs to step in and propose a solution that addresses all sides’ core concerns without crossing their existential red lines. The most viable negotiated outcome, which a special UN envoy should mediate between leaders of Kirkuk’s communities as well as representatives of the federal government and the Kurdish federal region, would rest on the following provisions.

With stepped-up U.S.-led raids against Muqtada al-Sadr’s militia, Jaysh al-Mahdi, and media allegations of its responsibility for the horrific killings in Baghdad on 9 July that threaten new escalation of sectarian violence, he and his movement have become more vital than ever. In the immediate aftermath of Saddam’s ouster, Muqtada was known chiefly for disruptive behaviour. Two years later, he has political power and a very different role. The Sadrist movement has deep roots in contemporary Iraq and expresses many justified grievances. But as sectarian tensions have grown, so too has his movement’s involvement in the dirty war of Sunnis against Shiites. Muqtada must be recognised as a serious political actor, but if he is to be a constructive one, he must do more to exercise responsible leadership and defuse his movement’s violent inclinations.

In recent days, administration officials, from President Bush on down, have insisted repeatedly that it is time for others to live up to monetary commitments to Baghdad, most of them made in 2003.

At the same time, however, Afghanistan is offering a note of caution about the challenge of removing America's military might from a country still finding its feet. There, as US forces pull back from the volatile south in anticipation of the arrival of NATO troops, insurgents are taking advantage of the vacuum in the most violent year since the fall of the Taliban in late 2001.

On Wednesday, at our request, the director of national intelligence declassified six "key points" from a National Ground Intelligence Center (NGIC) report on the recovery of chemical munitions in Iraq. The summary was only a small snapshot of the entire report, but even so, it brings new information to the American people. "Since 2003," the summary states, "Coalition forces have recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent," which remains "hazardous and potentially lethal."

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's tribe in Jordan, the Al-Khalayleh, claimed last November that they had disowned the man who had sown havoc in Iraq. They made that public declaration in the aftermath of his attack on three Amman hotels. That day, Nov. 9, 2005, was dubbed by the Jordanians as their own 9/11. But blood has its claims, and in truth Zarqawi had been, and remained, a man of high standing in Jordan and in other Arab lands.

The U.S. military in recent weeks has seized a "huge treasure" of intelligence materials on al Qaeda in Iraq, including a revealing document in which the terror group acknowledges its own "bleak situation" caused by losses on both the public relations and war fronts.

At the time of his death, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was still trying to transform his organization from one focused on the Iraqi insurgency into a global operation capable of striking far beyond Iraq's borders, intelligence experts here and in the West agreed.

The agreement announced Saturday between Iran and Iraq to close their border against insurgents reflects Iran's growing influence in its rebellion-torn neighbor. The agreement announced by Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki during his visit to Iraq has paradoxical implications for the United States. On the positive side, if Iran honors its side of the deal, the flow of weapons and to insurgents in Iraq could be significantly reduced.

There is something rather surreal about the transatlantic world today. There are completely separate debates about Iraq ongoing on either side of the ocean and they simply don't connect.

Iraq has a rich and diverse resource base—the third largest oil reserves in the world, abundant water, and a national labor force of more than seven million people—much larger than any member of the Gulf Cooperation Council.

As Iraq teeters on the precipice of a civil war, Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, al Qaeda’s leader in Iraq, continues to search for ways to push the country over the edge.1 Yet questions linger about Zarqawi’s ultimate motivation: Is it his loathing of foreign occupation forces that make him tick? Or is his hatred of Iraq’s Shia the essential and irreducible sentiment that sustains his violent jihad? This distinction between Zarqawi’s quest to promote a Sunni–Shia civil war and al Qaeda’s broader goal of waging a universal battle that unites all Muslims against Western “infidels” has many implications, not merely for the future of Iraq, but also for the Middle East and the war on terror itself.

Serge Boidevaix, une ancienne figure de la diplomatie française, dîne avec Tarek Aziz, vice-premier ministre irakien. Les deux hommes se connaissent bien. La guerre en Irak est imminente - elle éclatera le 20 mars. A l'ONU, la France a bataillé pour tenter de l'empêcher.

A small group of current and former conservatives have become harsh critics of the Iraq war. They have declared, or clearly implied, that it is a failure and the president's effort to promote liberty in the Middle East is dead and dead for a perfectly predictable reason: Iraq, like the Arab Middle East more broadly, lacks the democratic culture that is necessary for freedom to take root.

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian terrorist and the head of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, has sharply lowered his profile in recent months, and his group claims to have submitted itself to the leadership of an Iraqi.

Iraq´s response to the Coalition´s military threat was dictated by the nature of the regime and of Saddam Hussein himself. While to Western eyes the choices Iraq made may appear dysfunctional or even absurd, the regime´s responses to the threat and then the invasion were logical within the Iraqi political framework, even if later proven to be conterproductive.

The third anniversary of U.S. military action to liberate Iraq has brought with it a relentless stream of media and political pessimism that is unwarranted by the facts and threatens to become a self-fulfilling prophesy if it goes unchallenged.

In the book, Col. Nagl, who served a year in Iraq, contrasts the U.S. Army's failure with the British experience in Malaya in the 1950s. The difference: The British, who eventually prevailed, quickly saw the folly of using massive force to annihilate a shadowy communist enemy.

For centuries, Iraq has held a strategic geopolitical position in the Middle East region. Since the late nineteenth century, Iraq has attracted foreign interest in its oil wealth. Toward the future, Iraq's strategic importance will extend beyond the drive for the democratization and economic liberalization of the Middle East, as part of a wider movement for civil liberties within a globalization thrust.

Lost amid the news of all the bloodletting in Iraq is an important political development: The Kurds have switched sides. In the first parliament they allied themselves with the Shiite slate to produce the current Shiite-dominated government led by Ibrahim al-Jafari.

Saddam Hussein and his small circle of aides had their own ideas of how to fight the war. Convinced that the main danger to his government came from within, Hussein had sought to keep Iraq's bridges intact so he could rush troops south if the Shiites got out of line.

Success in Iraq requires progress on all three tracks — political, security, and economic — of the President’s National Strategy for Victory in Iraq. The three tracks are fundamental to our counter-insurgency, counterterrorism campaign and our effort to help Iraqis build a democratic, stable and prosperous country that is a partner in the war against terrorism.

The story told by the two Iraqi guerrillas cut to the heart of the war that Iraqi and American officials now believe is raging inside the Iraqi insurgency. In October, the two insurgents said in interviews, a group of local fighters from the Islamic Army gathered for an open-air meeting on a street corner in Taji, a city north of Baghdad.

This will be a year of decision in Iraq. Full participation in the December national elections by all communities has created the opportunity to significantly advance our strategy for success as recently outlined by President Bush. Building on this momentum is up to the Iraqi people.

The President is answering America’s questions about our mission in Iraq. And today, I have come to the Heritage Foundation to address an additional question: What is the international community doing to advance the cause of victory in Iraq?

When it comes to the future of Iraq, there is a deep disconnect between those who have firsthand knowledge of the situation and those whose impressions are shaped by doomsday press coverage and the imperatives of domestic politics.

The frenzy of the week in the blogosphere concerns the use of White Phosphorus as an anti-personnel weapon at Fallujah. After initial State Department denials that did little for the American PR cause, the Pentagon has now made a matter-of-fact statement that it was indeed so used, but only against combatants, and therefore legally.

Dozens of reports in the foreign news media and on Web sites have suggested that the United States used banned weapons and tried to cover it up.

2005 will be remembered as the year of the freest elections in Iraqi history. Iraqis will have gone to the polls three times by the end of this year. In January, they elected their representatives for an interim parliament, in October they voted on a constitution, and in December they are scheduled to choose a regular parliament.

The final substantive report concerning the UN Oil-for-Food Programme. This report illustrates the manner in which Iraq manipulated the Programme to dispense contracts on the basis of political preferece and to derive illicit payments from companies that obtained oil and humanitarian goods contracts.

The lead-up to the war in Iraq put the issue of the potential acquisition and use of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) by terrorist groups at the top of the list of Western priorities.

Instead of healing the growing divisions between Iraq's three principal communities -- Shiites, Kurds and Sunni Arabs -- a rushed constitutional process has deepened rifts and hardened feelings.

The birth-pangs of Iraq’s new constitution are symptomatic of the deep crisis afflicting the country, and even if an agreed document is eventually produced, it may not only fail to resolve the country’s underlying problems but could actually make them worse.

In April 2004, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed an independent, high-level inquiry committee to investigate the administration and management of the Oil-for-Food Programme in Iraq. The appointed Committee was chaired by Paul Volcker. This is the result, the conclusions and lessons of the OFFP.

Because they lack a coherent strategy, U.S. forces in Iraq have failed to defeat the insurgency or improve security. Winning will require a new approach to counterinsurgency, one that focuses on providing security to Iraqis rather than hunting down insurgents. And it will take at least a decade.

The complete text of the draft Iraqi Constitution, as translated from the Arabic by The Associated Press.

To help tackle the raging insurgency, Iraqis should give themselves six additional months to draft their new constitution. Iraq faces a dilemma: rush the constitutional process and meet the current deadline of 15 August 2005 to prevent the insurgents from scoring further political points, or encourage a process that is inclusive, transparent and participatory in an effort to increase popular buy-in of the final product.

Este informe presenta las pruebas reúnidas por el Subcomité permanente de Investigaciones del Senado de EEUU que establece que a Charles Pasqua, el anterior Ministro del Interior francés, y a George Galloway, un miembro recién elegido del Parlamento Británico, se les concedieron asignaciones sustanciales de petroleo desde el regimen de Hussein bajo el programa Petroleo por Alimentos de la ONU.

Two years after the invasion of Iraq, we still do not know with complete confidence what happened to all of the stockpiles of weapons and weapons precursors that Saddam’s government admitted to possessing in the early 1990s, as well as other undeclared material Iraq had not accounted for during the United Nations weapons’ inspection process.

ISG formed a working group to investigate the possibility of the evacuation of WMD-related material from Iraq prior to the 2003 war.

If we look back at the war that started on September 11, there have emerged some general rules that should guide us in the next treacherous round of the struggle against Islamic fascism, the autocracies that aid and abet it, and the method of terror that characterizes it.

Although critics impatiently complain about its slow pace, Iraq is making much faster progress in standing up an elected government than Germany or Japan did following World War II.

Training Iraq’s security forces is the centerpiece of President George W. Bush’s strategy in Iraq. To the extent that training records can be uncovered in the muddle of conflicting reports, the chronicle of the past eighteen months raises grave doubts about the strategy’s hope of success.

Iran's influence in Iraq has been one of the most talked about but least understood aspects of the post-war situation. Tehran has been variously accused by Washington of undue and nefarious interference, by Arab leaders of seeking to establish an Islamic Republic, and by prominent Iraqi officials of an array of illegitimate meddling.

The catalogue of what we have lost for refusing to increase the size of the force to respond to the post-9/11 world is considerable. It has played out in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in the larger war on terror, and is causing structural damage to the force itself.

Overview of investigative results and sets out the findings, conclusions and recommendations of the Independent Inquiry Committee into the United Nations Food Programme.