Tag: iraq

  • The Soldiers Came Home Sick. The Government Denied It Was Responsible. – The New York Times

    The Soldiers Came Home Sick. The Government Denied It Was Responsible. U.S. service members and veterans have long insisted that the military’s garbage-disposal fires in war zones made them ill. Why were their claims stonewalled for so long? Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/11/magazine/military-burn-pits.html A burn pit is exactly what it sounds like: A hole is dug in the […]

  • Opinion | Horrified by the Blackwater Pardons – The New York Times

    Opinion | Horrified by the Blackwater Pardons (Published 2021) The F.B.I. agent who led the Blackwater investigation and two other letter writers are appalled by the pardon of men who killed innocent civilians. Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/01/opinion/letters/blackwater-pardons.html I was the F.B.I. case agent who led the investigation of the Blackwater massacre in Baghdad. We originally went to […]

  • Inside the Iraqi Kleptocracy – The New York Times

    Inside the Iraqi Kleptocracy (Published 2020) Corruption, as much as violence, makes Iraq unlivable. It helped fuel the rise of ISIS. And America provides the cash to sustain it, at least $10 billion a year in hard currency. Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/29/magazine/iraq-corruption.html Early last October, while working in his office in Baghdad, a businessman named Hussein Laqees […]