Today in Iraq

DAILY WAR NEWS FOR MONDAY, June 12, 2006 Photo: A man at the scene holds up the body of a small child said to have died during a U.S.-led raid near Baqouba in Iraq, Monday, June 12, 2006. (AP Photo) (See below) U.S.-led forces raided a house near a volatile city northeast of Baghdad on Monday, killing nine people, including two children, the military said. The raid was staged in the area where terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed, and the military said the targeted terrorists had ties to senior al-Qaida leaders across Iraq and were involved in helping foreign fighters. Local residents accused the Americans of targeting civilians, and a man wearing a white dishdasha held up the charred body of a toddler whose head had been blown in half. The Iraqis screamed "Allahu akbar" or "God is Great" as they loaded two wooden coffins onto pickup trucks. AP Television News footage also showed the burned-out shells of vehicles and a devastated house with a large hole in the roof. The military said coalition forces received enemy machine-gun fire from a rooftop and two people with AK-47s had been seen fleeing the area just prior to the assault. OTHER SECURITY INCIDENTS Baghdad: An attack involving three separate explosions, thought to have targeted a bus taking workers to Iraq's industry ministry, killed six people and wounded 12 others. Police reports say the victims were all workers at Baghdad's main oil refinery in the Dora district of the city. Two mortar rounds struck a neighborhood in southern Baghdad, killing three civilians just moments after gunmen strafed the area with random fire. Eleven others were wounded in the mortar attack. No one was injured in the drive-by shootings. A car bomb in the commercial Karrada district killed six people and wounded more than 40. In Baghdad's northern Shuala neighborhood, gunmen wounded two teachers, a man and woman. An explosion in Sadr City killed four people and wounded 41. A bombing at the al Washash market next to the upscale Mansour district in Baghdad killed five people and wounded 13 others. Balad: Five people were killed and 25 injured in a dual bomb attack in Balad. Two explosive devices hidden in a taxi and in a pick-up truck detonated within five minutes of each other in central Balad. Baqubah: A suicide car bomber slammed into a security checkpoint outside Baqouba, killing at least eight people and wounding four others. Three members of the Iraqi Army were killed and seven others injured due to an attack on a military checkpoint in Baaqouba. Unidentified gunmen shot dead four people working in a shop, including three brothers, in the Mafraq area in western Baquba. Tikrit: Gunmen shot dead two civilian contractors who were on their way to Tikrit from Kirkuk. (Near) A policeman was killed by gunmen between Tikrit and Ouja, 180 kilometers (112 miles) north of Baghdad. Baiji: Police found the body of an unidentified person who was shot dead in the refinery city of Baiji, 180 km (112 miles) north of Baghdad. Suwayra: Police found nine bodies, including a 10-year-old boy, in a river near Suwayra, about 45 km (25 miles) south of Baghdad. The victims, shot in the head and chest, showed signs of torture. One severed head was also found, police said. Amara: Three gunmen shot dead a former Baath party member in the southern city of Amara. Kirkuk: A roadside bomb detonated next to a police patrol east of Kirkuk, but missed and struck a civilian car. One person was killed in the explosion, two more were injured. Gunmen shot dead two civilians on the road from Kirkuk to Tikrit. Mosul: In Mosul a former officer from the disbanded Baathist-led Iraqi army was assassinated. Eyewitnesses told DPA that Abdallah Ahmad, a former army officer with the rank of brigadier general, died instantly during the attack by armed men in the Darkazliya district of the city. Eyewitnesses reported that an explosive device was detonated in Mosul's industrial district resulting in the death of one Iraqi and the injuring of six others. Tal Afar: A suicide car bomber plowed into a gas station in in Tal Afar, 260 miles northwest of Baghdad, killing four civilians and wounding more than 40. Ramadi: Video: Residents of Iraqi town of Ramadi complained on Sunday for the damage caused during fierce clashes happening between US troops and Iraqi insurgents. Some Iraqis claimed US soldiers shelled civilian homes.

Shotlist: Smoke billows from the city, sounds of clash Shots of damaged vehicles, strafed buildings, stormed houses Interview with resident of Ramadi, Abdurrahman Jasseem (in Arabic) Details of toys on the ground, damaged vehicles, empty cartridges on the ground Shot of a helicopter hovering over the area Shots of wreckage caused by explosion and clashes Video: Ramadi clashes Resistance fighters in the city of Ramadi clash with US soilders..An Oil Tanker is blown up..a young man watching the battle is sniped by US snipers one of the resestane fighters is saying "throw him a rope"..but before they can get him that he shot again several times.

Samarra: Video: US troops opened fire on a an Iraqi civilian car convoy in Samarra on Sunday. The attack left one Iraqi dead and injured another. US forces have not commented on the reasons for the attack.

Shotlist: Exterior shot of the hospital Shot of the dead man on a stretcher outside the hospital Interview with Jasseem Ismail (in Arabic) Deceased man placed in coffin and brought to the back of a police pick up Shots of the injured man in the hospital Interview with the injured man, Kamal Ismail Khalif (in Arabic), details Interview with the brother of the injured man, Jamal Ismail Khalif

>> NEWS Provincial council in Maysan province suspends all cooperation with the British military after clashes between troops and Shiite militiamen left five Iraqis dead: "We in the province of Maysan are in mourning for the shedding of the innocent blood of our martyrs and the injuring of old men, women and children by the occupation forces," the provincial council said in a statement on Sunday. It ordered a halt to all cooperation with British troops, and demanded an inquiry into the deaths and the intervention of the central government in Baghdad. (…) The governor of Maysan, Adel al-Maliki, told AFP that the provincial council would not meet Monday in protest at the deaths. He said black banners would be hung on official buildings in honour of the "martyrs". (…) Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki told a May news conference with British Prime Minister Tony Blair that Maysan province would be under complete Iraqi security control by July. The governor is close to Shiite radical leader Moqtada al-Sadr, with whose Mehdi Army militiamen British troops clashed Sunday, and said he did not believe they would leave. "The handover of security is just an illusion, and they are just making fun of our beards," the governor said. "Judging by the actions of the multinational forces, like these raids and arrests and killings of innocents, we don't think they have any intention of handing over security." U.S. plans to retain a garrison of 50,000 troops in Iraq for years to come, according to US media reports. The revelation came as George W Bush summoned his top political, military and intelligence aides to a summit on Iraq's future today at the presidential retreat at Camp David. (…) Mr Bush said the meeting would decide "how to best deploy America's resources in Iraq and achieve our shared goal of an Iraq that can govern itself, sustain itself, and defend itself". But despite fierce domestic pressure to reduce troop levels before November's critical mid-term elections, there were growing signals that Gen George Casey, America's Iraq commander, may raise troop levels in the short-term. (…) Military planners have begun to assess the costs of keeping a 50,000-man force in Iraq for a protracted period of time. At present the total number of serving American troops is about 500,000. The plan has not yet received presidential approval. But it would fit with the administration's belief that while troops numbers will fall, American forces will have to remain in Iraq beyond Mr Bush's departure from the White House in early 2009. Saddam`s lawyer blasts trial: Saddam Hussein's former intelligence chief was dragged out of court and manhandled by guards after arguing with the judge today, and an American lawyer blasted the trial, saying unfair treatment was putting the defence at a "serious disadvantage." Chief Judge Raouf Abdel-Rahman ordered Barzan Ibrahim removed after he accused the court of "terrorizing" the defence. Iraqi guards grabbed Ibrahim by the arms and pulled him out, and when he tried to shrug them off, they held his left arm and pushed him into a wall as they tried to hustle him out the door, causing an uproar among the defence lawyers. "This is dictatorial," Ibrahim shouted as he was pulled out. "You know dictatorship," Abdel-Rahman sneered. "They are beating him in front of your eyes. Right at the door," defence lawyer Mohammed Munib shouted to the judge. "How can we ask you to protect the defendant when they beat him right in front of you?" Abdel-Rahman banged his gavel and lectured the defence to be quiet. >> REPORTS Thousands of pounds of armor added to military Humvees have made the vehicles more likely to roll over, killing and injuring soldiers in Iraq, a newspaper reported. "I believe the up-armoring has caused more deaths than it has saved," said Scott Badenoch, a former Delphi Corp. vehicle dynamics expert told the Dayton Daily News for Sunday editions. Since the start of the war, Congress and the Army have spent tens of millions of dollars on armor for the Humvee fleet in Iraq, the newspaper reported Sunday. That armor - much of it installed on the M1114 Humvee built at the Armor Holdings Inc. plant north of Cincinnati - has shielded soldiers from harm. But serious accidents involving the M1114 have increased as the war has progressed, and the accidents were much more likely to be rollovers than those of other Humvee models, the newspaper reported. THE EVERYDAY STORY IN IRAQ Aishya was staying in Haditha with the Al-Hadithi family at the end of May. In the morning 41-year old Hanan woke her, looking very sad. When Aishya asked what was wrong, Hanan told her she was extremely worried about her 18-month old boy, Hakam. He'd been having severe diarrhea and stomach pains. (…) "We began driving to Hit [said Aishya], but on the way there was a roadblock by the Americans. They now have a new technique. They block the road and stay the same distance away as a car bomb would explode. But how do the people get through? I decided to walk that distance to them. With my hands up, I began waving. I was calling to the Americans to tell them who we are. "Instead of coming to meet me, one of the soldiers used this sign of his hand across his neck, like he would kill me. The other one put his M16 on the side of his tank and pointed it at me. Then they began moving a humvee and a tank toward me, stopping to completely block the road." Jawad Al-Hadithi wanted to get out of the car to help Aishya, but would likely have been shot as males between the ages of 15 and 55 are automatically considered potential "insurgents." "Can you imagine? They said nothing. No one came to talk to me. They didn't even come closer, except with their tanks. This is they way of treatment of the people." Earlier in the day, the small group was worried only for the life of the child. Now, trying to find a doctor, they were worried for lives of them all. Aishya says Hanan was begging her husband that they must all leave or be killed. "I felt so powerless. Useless. Imagine you can't do anything for the person who is the closest to you. "I had put my hands on my head. I was speaking to them in English, but they don't care. They didn't give a shit. Maybe they think I am a suicide bomber. But this little boy is very sick. "We had to turn back. We had not choice. We drove to another village and here, fortunately, we could find a doctor. It is extremely hot now. We are in the summer. But we had to stop at a bridge because it was blocked by a concrete wall. We carried the boy by our arms, but we got him to the doctor. "Imagine you have a little boy in a similar [health] situation and it is impossible to take your child to the doctor? What if your child might die because of this kind of treatment? "This is the everyday story in Iraq. Every moment in Iraq is like this!" read in full... U.S. PAYOFFS TO FAMILIES OF DEAD IRAQI CIVILIANS HAS 'SKYROCKETED' A chilling report from the Boston Globe on Thursday reveals that the amount of cash the U.S. military has paid to families of Iraqi civilians killed or badly injured operations involving American troops "skyrocketed from just under $5 million in 2004 to almost $20 million last year, according to Pentagon financial data." The payments can range from several hundred dollars for a severed limb to a standard of $2500 for loss of life. There is no explanation on how that top figure was arrived at. Globe reporter Bryan Bender observes: "If each of the payments made in 2005 was the maximum $2,500 for an Iraqi death, it would amount to 8,000 fatalities. But it's unknown exactly how many payments were made or for what amount." Defense Department officials stressed to Bender that the payments shouldn't be seen as an admission of guilt or responsibility. But Bender observes that "the fourfold increase in condolence payments raises new questions about the extent to which Iraqi civilians have been the victims of U.S. firepower." read in full… >> COMMENTARY AND ANALYSIS AL-SOMEBODY OR OTHER Well folks, the 'new' leader of 'al-Qu'eda in Iraq' has been named (already). Can't remember it offhand, not that it matters, it's al-somebody or other. I've posted a page of newslinks on his 'death' if you can be bothered to read through the endless drivel that's been generated. (See also the 'Zarqawi' section for more on the fabled foe of Western 'civilisation'.) read in full… KILLING “BUSH’S MAN IN IRAQ” No psychological operation can hide the fact that the Bush administration and its neocon "plan" has failed in catastrophic fashion: failed to do the job it was installed into power to do; failed to conquer Central Asia and the Middle East; failed to secure and control cheap oil; failed to gain geopolitical advantage over superpower rivals. In fact, Bush-Cheney has obliterated what little international respect the New World Order once believed it commanded. The Zarqawi "crescendo" signals what is likely the beginning of a final chapter in the Bush administration’s "war on terror" fiction, as the administration itself faces its own fall. In an attempt to save face, the mentally ill Bush and his criminals know they must act now to create the illusion of victory, even as their violent, criminal acts have left the New World Order, and the entire world, in flames. Could a spectacular pursuit and execution of "Osama bin Laden" be far behind? read in full… IS THE IDEA OF A SALVADOR OPTION IN IRAQ "NONSENSE"? April 5, 2006 Dear Secretary Rumsfeld: I am writing to request a copy of all records pertaining to Pentagon plans to use U.S. Special Forces to advise, support and train Iraqi assassination and kidnapping teams. On January 8, 2005, Newsweek magazine first published a report that the Pentagon had a proposal to train elite Iraqi squads to quell the growing Sunni insurgency. The proposal has been called the "Salvador Option," which references the U.S. military assistance program, initiated under the Carter Administration and subsequently pursued by the Reagan Administration, that funded and supported "nationalist" paramilitary forces who hunted down and assassinated rebel leaders and their supporters in El Salvador. This program in El Salvador was highly controversial and received much public backlash in the U.S., as tens of thousands of innocent civilians were assassinated and "disappeared," including notable members of the Catholic Church, Archbishop Oscar Romero and the four American churchwomen. According to the Newsweek report, Pentagon conservatives wanted to resurrect the Salvadoran program in Iraq because they believed that despite the incredible cost in human lives and human rights, it was successful in eradicating guerrillas. Mr. Secretary, at a news conference on January 11, 2005, you publicly stated that the idea of a Salvador option was "nonsense." Yet mounting evidence suggests that the U.S. has in fact funded and trained Iraqi assassination and kidnapping teams and these teams are now operating with horrific success across Iraq. We know that the Pentagon received funding for training Iraqi paramilitaries. About one year before the Newsweek report on the "Salvador Option," it was reported in the American Prospect magazine on January 1, 2004 that part of $3 billion of the $87 billion Emergency Supplemental Appropriations bill to fund operations in Iraq, signed into law on November 6, 2003, was designated for the creation of a paramilitary unit manned by militiamen associated with former Iraqi exile groups. According to the Prospect article, experts predicted that creation of this paramilitary unit would "lead to a wave of extrajudicial killings, not only of armed rebels but of nationalists, other opponents of the U.S. occupation and thousands of civilian Baathists." The article further described how the bulk of the $3 billion program, disguised as an Air Force classified program, would be used to "support U.S. efforts to create a lethal, and revenge-minded Iraqi security force." According to one of the article's sources, John Pike, an expert of classified military budgets at www.globalsecurity.org. "the big money would be for standing up an Iraqi secret police to liquidate the resistance." We know that some of the Pentagon's Iraq experts were involved in the Reagan Administration's paramilitary program in El Salvador. (...) Mr. Secretary, in light of this evidence of U.S. support for and the existence of death squads in Iraq, what is the basis for your January 11, 2005 statement, that the idea of a Salvador option in Iraq is "nonsense"? I request a copy of all records pertaining to Pentagon plans to use U.S. Special Forces to advise, support and train Iraqi assassination and kidnapping teams. I look forward to receiving your response. Sincerely, Dennis J. Kucinich, Member of Congress read in full THE RESISTANCE REMAINS AS RESILIENT AS EVER The fact that in just weeks ago the Pentagon announced that it was sending more troops to Iraq (to the resistance hotbed of Ramadi) indicates that the war is long since lost. If the U.S. is increasing its presence after three years of increasingly destructive warfare, more than $10 billion spent on barely operational Iraqi security forces, perhaps 200,000 Iraq civilian deaths and 2,700 foreign troops, then why would one man's death change anything? Even though the mainstream media has lost interest in reporting it, U.S. deaths are averaging close to 60 a month this year, essentially the same rate as the last two years. In other words, despite the fact that the Pentagon has used almost every weapon and tactic in its arsenal, the resistance remains as resilient as ever. link WIN SOME, LOSE SOME I enjoy fresh, ripe peaches, nectarines, navel oranges, spinach, tomatoes, avocados, red onions, and many other fruits and vegetables. I am always pleased when I can get savory, succulent produce without paying an arm and a leg for it. Many of my fellow Americans feel the same way about mass murder. They enjoy it – not so much actually committing it as cheering for others who do the deed on their behalf – but they prefer to get it on the cheap, if they can. (…) Okay, boys and girls, here's where we stand. We got our mass murder, and each day we get some more of it. So far, so good. But we sure as hell didn't get it cheaply. It seems that after the invasion, U.S. authorities changed the plan, having decided that the Iraqis should pay in blood, instead of oil. The price of gasoline is now nearly twice what it was before the war; the Iraqi oil industry, already a shambles, continues to serve as an attractive target for saboteurs and looters, and the future does not look bright for bringing the industry up to snuff faster than the insurgents blow it apart. Well, win some, lose some, children. At least, the American invaders and, vicariously, all their aficionados on the home front have had the pleasure of killing and maiming tens of thousands of wholly innocent men, women, and children. That's something. read in full… MASSACRE IS AN ACQUIRED TASTE Massacre is an acquired taste. The United States is arguably the only country on the planet whose national personality and self-image is rooted in centuries of unremitting expansion through race war punctuated by massacre. There have always been "free-fire zones" all along the coveted, ever moving peripheries of white American power, from the "Indian country" surrounding the settler beachheads of Plymouth Rock and Jamestown to the "Sunni Triangle" of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan. Whole peoples - millions - have been erased in the glorious march of American Manifest Destiny. (...) We commend Sheehan's courage in describing the U.S. government as criminal. In doing so, she is beginning to confront the national mythology - at the core of the national identity - that Americans are always seeking some "greater good" and commit crimes only by mistake or through the "aberrations" that are inevitably unleashed once wars are started. But even the brave Ms. Sheehan cannot face the truth. The (white) American public still cannot discuss why the U.S. glories in having become the ultimate imperial power of all time, to the acclaim of the overwhelming majority of its citizens whose whole history and culture has prepared them to accept this "burden." Wars may be aberrant experiences in the lives of most human individuals, but some nations are serial aggressors. American society is unique in having been formed almost wholly by processes of aggression against external and internal Others. Societies willingly go to war when they have been primed to do so by an already existing mass internal dynamic that is easily manipulated by scheming rulers. White America has been constantly at war with Others, internal and external, since long before the founding of the Republic. George Bush just played the right chords, in Iraq. Now the music is sounding way off key, which causes majorities of Americans great concern and confusion. Yet these same citizens react just like their pre-Iraq selves when the Bush regime choreographs a near-identical run-up to war with neighboring Iran - another country they know nothing about except that it's not "white" in the American sense. Are white Americans stupid, or have they been conditioned by a national ethos born of habitual aggression, fundamental expectations of impunity, and an idiotic assumption of innocence? Cindy Sheehan tries to find the soft spot in America by blaming the crimes in Iraq and Vietnam on something called "war," but sadly winds up in the same place as apologists for slavery and genocide, who claim these systematic crimes were "aberrations" not fundamental to the American national character and worldview. read in full… BEYOND IRAQ Afghanistan: The Ministry of Defence regrets to confirm that a British Soldier was killed in Afghanistan today, 11 June 2006. UK forces were involved in an incident in Helmand province, Southern Afghanistan, earlier this evening. A mobile patrol was engaged in a firefight against suspected Taliban forces. Sadly as a result of this engagement one UK soldier was killed and two seriously injured. (UK MoD) Two Canadian soldiers have been injured during a fierce gunbattle involving Afghan and coalition troops in southern Afghanistan. CTV's Steve Chao, reporting from Kandahar, said both soldiers were "doing well in hospital," but one had "serious" injuries after being shot during the battle in the volatile Panjwai district. QUOTE OF THE DAY: "Regarding the Haditha massacre, we have been told by the Pentagon that 99.9 percent of soldiers perform their jobs magnificently. Let's hope not. What is their job? It is to kill people and break things. The job of U.S. soldiers is to bring death and destruction to people in a country that was no threat to the United States. Some job. It would be better if it was only .1 percent that were doing their job." -- Laurence Vance, AntiWar.blog