Month: December 2004

By JOHN F. BURNS BAGHDAD, Iraq, Dec. 19 – Only days into Iraq’s six-week election campaign, an eruption of violence today killed at least 60 people and wounded about 120 others in car bombings in Iraq’s two holiest Shiite cities, Najaf and Karbala. In Baghdad, a group of about 30 insurgents hurling hand grenades and…

By JOHN F. BURNS BAGHDAD, Iraq, Dec. 18 – The chief investigative judge for the Iraqi tribunal established to try Saddam Hussein and his top aides said Saturday that he had held formal interviews with Ali Hassan al-Majid, known to Iraqis as Chemical Ali, and Sultan Hashim Ahmed, the Iraqi defense minister during the United…

By JOHN F. BURNS BAGHDAD, Iraq, Dec. 17 – With the candidates’ lists closed and Iraq seemingly set on an irreversible course toward elections on Jan. 30, a senior Western official with decades of Middle East experience cast about Friday for the kind of optimistic forecast that the United States and its allies have offered…

By JOHN F. BURNS and ROBERT F. WORTH BAGHDAD, Iraq, Dec. 15 – Iraq’s election campaign season opened on a violent note when a bomb exploded Wednesday near the gate of one of Iraq’s holiest Shiite shrines in the pilgrim city of Karbala, killing 9 people and wounding 40, including a top aide to the…