Home | Site Index | FAQs | Contact | RSS  | Podcast

• Related Materials

  • Iraq Outlook Improves But Sustained U.S. Military Presence Remains Essential
    Interview
    June 10, 2008

  • As British Leave, Basra Deteriorates
    By Karen J. DeYoung and Thomas E. Ricks
    Must Read
    September 5, 2007

  • Newsweek: How To Lose Iraq: Grants of immunity have a long and unpleasant history in the Middle East, having caused serious crises.
    By Karl E. Meyer
    Must Read
    July 7, 2008

  • Newsweek: Firing Line: Britain is one of Europe's only nations to send troops to fight in Afghanistan
    By William Underhill
    Must Read
    July 7, 2008

  • The Role of the ‘Sons of Iraq’ in Improving Security
    By Greg Bruno, Staff Writer
    Backgrounder
    April 25, 2008

  See Also

  Iraq, International Peace and Security, Peacemaking

  '

  • Minorities, Women Highly Satisfied by Military Work
    
  • The Booze Is Back in Baghdad
    
  • ‘He Should Never Have Gone to Iraq’
    
  • Iraq: Airport Deaths Cloud Talks on U.S. Forces
    
  • Iraq Drawdown Plan
    

  More From:

  Newsweek International

  IWPR: Checkpoints: Baghdad's Russian Roulette

  Author:	IWPR Reporters

  September 5, 2007

  Summary:

  A report from the Institute of War and Peace Reporting that gives an Iraqi insider’s view of life in Baghdad where giving the wrong kind of name at a checkpoint can mean death. The report says that moving through the city is ‘like Russian roulette’; this is especially true for people whose names clearly identify them as belonging to a particular group, such as the typically Sunni Omar, or Ali, a common Shia name. As a result many people driving around Baghdad carry two sets of identification with them - their real ID and a fake one. One identifies them as Sunni, the other as Shia. Showing the right document can save their lives.
  
  Excerpt:

  If there is one thing that has become the defining feature of everyday life in Baghdad, it is the checkpoint.
  
  They may be a familiar sight in other regional states where tensions run high, such as Lebanon, Saudi ArabiaandTurkey, but checkpoints are nowhere as important as in Baghdad. The once-diverse Iraqi capital has become a patchwork of ethnic and sectarian divisions separated by concrete walls and countless checkpoints.
  
  The number of official controls has skyrocketed since the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime in April 2003. Around 1,000 now exist in Baghdad, in addition to an unknown number of informal ones set up by various militias and outlawed insurgent groups.
  
  The official checkpoints are run by the defence and interior ministries, and they are considerably better organised since the 2005 elections. Each government control is manned by five to ten soldiers or policemen armed with Kalashnikov rifles and equipped with armoured vehicles or four-wheel-drive cars. Some are permanent, while others are set up wherever the security situation requires.

  Full Text of Document

   

• 

  New CFR Books

  

  In Termites in the Trading System, Jagdish Bhagwati reveals how the rapid spread of preferential trade agreements endangers the world trading system.

  

  America Between the Wars explores how the decisions and debates of the years between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Twin Towers shaped the events, arguments, and politics of the world we live in today.

  

  In The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State, Noah Feldman tells the story behind the increasingly popular call for the establishment of the sharia—the law of the traditional Islamic state—in the modern Muslim world.

  Complete list of CFR Books.

  

  

  New Independent Task Force Reports

  Confronting Climate Change

  This report argues that the United States must lead with domestic action on climate change and proposes a U.S. negotiating strategy for a global UN climate agreement that includes commitments from all major economies, while also promoting a less formal Partnership for Climate Cooperation that would focus the world's largest emitters on implementing aggressive emissions reductions.

  U.S.-Latin America Relations: A New Direction for a New Reality

  This Task Force report examines changes in Latin America and in U.S. influence there, while taking account of the region's enduring importance to the United States. The Task Force offers an agenda for U.S. policy toward Latin America and identifies four critical areas that should provide the basis of a new U.S. approach.

  About Independent Task Forces at the Council.

  

•  

By Region  |  By Issue  |  By Publication Type  |  The Think Tank  |  For The Media  |  For Educators  |  About CFR

Home  |  Site Index  |  FAQ  |  Contact  |  RSS  |  Podcast

Copyright 2008 by the Council on Foreign Relations. All Rights Reserved.