Entries by Frank Smyth

Hussein Opens His Prison Doors to Trouble

Iraqi President Saddam Hussein released thousands of political and other prisoners from jails across his country last Sunday, including from the notorious Abu Ghraib prison west of Baghdad. The broad amnesty was no doubt welcomed by many Iraqi families whose…

Iraq’s Forgotten Majority

WASHINGTON — Last month, President Bush invoked the prospect of a democratic Iraq in his address to the United Nations General Assembly, while Secretary of State Colin Powell told Congress that he foresaw “a government of Iraqis governing Iraqis in a democratic fashion.” Yet the administration remains closest to Sunni Arabs…

Saddam’s Real Opponents

Three years ago, the influential journal Foreign Affairs published an article on Iraq entitled “The Rollback Fantasy.” It was a typically long and sober piece, challenging the thinking of those who were arguing for a United States role in toppling Iraq’s ruler, Saddam Hussein. But unfortunately, the article contained…

OK, It’s a Smoking Gun, but for Whom?

YESTERDAY, the Bush administration finally released the homemade movie that officials say U.S. military forces discovered in a house in Jalalabad, Afghanistan. If one believes the tape is real, as I do, it implicates Osama bin Laden in planning the Sept. 11 attacks.

Infallible Nation?

I was riding a bike on a busy avenue in the Eritrean capital of Asmara when, one after another, several citizens of the newly independent nation began ordering me to stop. Why?

Colombia Briefing: Bad Press

Bogotá–On May 3, 2001, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) named Colombian paramilitary leader Carlos Castaño to its annual list of the ten worst enemies of the press. Six weeks later, a reporter from the Paris daily Le Monde caught up with Castaño in northern Colombia and asked how he felt about the distinction…