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Congratulations to Patrick Cockburn, Winner of the 2009 Orwell Prize

Share / Recommend - Comment - Print - Monday, May 04 2009, 4:33PM

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Congratulations to Patrick Cockburn, whose award-winning articles for the London Review of Books and The Independent provide an excellent primer on the political situation in Baghdad.

Cockburn manages to explain the trajectory of events in Iraq without getting lost in the weeds of the complex and fluid situation there.

I found two articles from last year - Who Rules in Baghdad? and America Concedes - to be particularly helpful in understanding the SOFA agreement and how that document reflects Washington's diminished influence in Baghdad.

I hope you enjoy his articles as much as I did.

-- Ben Katcher

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Reader Comments (1) - post a comment

Posted by Don Bacon, May 05 2009, 2:42AM - Link

Cockburn explains well the Iraqi side of the SOFA, and the consideration of it by various Iraqi segments including the parliament, but to understand this agreement fully one must take into account that on the US side this document, as it evolved, was purely a secretive product of the executive branch. This autocratic process, to which Senators Obama and Biden undoubtedly contributed by omission, if continued will sustain executive privilege in Iraq to the detriment of those who wish to see the end of this folly.