A highly efficient and mild procedure is described for the oxidation of different types of alcohols using 2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidin-1-yloxy (TEMPO) as the catalyst, iodobenzene dichloride (PhICl2) as a stoichiometric oxidant, and pyridine as the base. This procedure also smoothly oxidizes 1,2-diols to α-hydroxy ketones or α-diketones depending upon the amount of iodobenzene dichloride used. A competitive study shows that using the 2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidin-1-yloxy/iodobenzene dichloride/pyridine system aliphatic secondary alcohols are preferentially oxidized over aliphatic primary alcohols. In addition, two very convenient and high yielding procedures for the preparation of iodoarene dichlorides from iodoarenes have been developed. One employs solid sodium chlorite as a chlorinating agent in dilute hydrochloric acid solution; the other uses sodium hypochlorite as a chlorinating agent still in hydrochloric acid solution, which is more robust than the sodium chlorite system. Typically, the preparation of iodobenzene dichloride from iodobenzene was performed in five minutes using the sodium hypochlorite/hydrochloric acid system.