Juan Cole is Richard P. Mitchell Distinguished University Professor of History at the University of Michigan. He has written extensively about Egypt, Iran, Iraq, and South Asia. After Sept. 11, he launched a Weblog, "Informed Comment," in hope of offering the public a more accurate interpretation of the Middle East, where he had lived off and on for almost ten years. Informed Comment became a phenomenon, generating in some months as many as a million page views, and making him one of the top bloggers in the world. Cole is widely respected as a public intellectual on the Middle East and, in 2004, was invited to address the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations concerning the war in Iraq.

"Iraq: The Human Cost," a new web site launched by CIS and HyperStudio, is now available. The site features resources on the Iraq war and its
human toll in deaths, displacement, poverty, other effects and award-winning photos by AP photographer Anja Niedringhaus. The web site
is http://web.mit.edu/humancostiraq/.

For more information, contact:
Annie Abbondante
253-8306
starrforum@mit.edu