Today in Iraq

War News for Tuesday, January 31 2006 Bring ‘em on: A British soldier was killed by an explosion in southern Iraq on Tuesday, becoming the 100th British service member to die in the campaign since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. Three other soldiers were hurt, one seriously, in the blast, which took place on Tuesday morning in the southern port of Umm Qasr in Basra province. Bring ‘em on: A roadside bomb targeted a joint Danish-Iraqi military patrol near the southern city of Basra on Monday, the first attack on Danish troops since protests against a Danish newspaper for publishing widely criticized caricatures of Islam's prophet. There were no casualties in the attack, which occurred as the troops crossed a bridge in a rural area about 60 miles north of Basra, Iraq's second-largest city. Bring ‘em on: Gunmen attacked a house used by U.S. soldiers as a base in eastern Fallujah on Monday, witnesses said. "Armed men surrounded a house used by American soldiers as base and opened heavy fire for 15 minutes at about 9:00 a.m. (0600 GMT)in the Annaz area," the witnesses told Xinhua on condition of anonymity. The attackers destroyed the house with the U.S. soldiers inside and fled the scene, added the witnesses. According to them, U.S. helicopters hovered over the area firing two rockets at suspected insurgent positions, as other U.S.troops cordoned off the area. Bring ‘em on: Three Iraqi soldiers killed on Monday in northern Iraq's Kirkuk city by unknown gunmen. A police source said the soldiers were part of a force designated with securing oil facilities. Bring ‘em on: Bullet-riddled bodies of two bound and gagged men found in Baghdad. Bring ‘em on: Gunmen attacked a construction team in west Baghdad, killing one worker and wounding four. Bring ‘em on: A suicide car bomber plowed into a police commando headquarters. One police officer died and more than 30 others were wounded. Bring ‘em on: Insurgents hurled 10 mortar rounds late Sunday night at the US military base in Habaniyah. Bring ‘em on: Two policemen killed and 20 people wounded when a suicide bomber in a car attacked a barracks in the southern city of Nassiriya on Monday. Bring ‘em on: In southern Baghdad, Iraqi police announced the apprehension of 14 gunmen of different Arab nationalities, during a raid. A police source told reporters that the arrested group consisted of four Egyptians, eight Sudanese, a Tunisian and a Yemeni. IRAQ NEWS Poll: Nearly half of Iraqis support attacks on U.S. troops: A new poll found that nearly half of Iraqis approve of attacks on U.S.-led forces, and most favor setting a timetable for American troops to leave. The poll also found that 80 percent of Iraqis think the United States plans to maintain permanent bases in the country even if the newly elected Iraqi government asks American forces to leave. Researchers found a link between support for attacks and the belief among Iraqis that the United States intends to keep a permanent military presence in the country. According to the poll's findings, 47 percent of Iraqis approve of attacks on American forces, but there were large differences among ethnic and religious groups. Among Sunni Muslims, 88 percent said they approved of the attacks. That approval was found among 41 percent of Shiite Muslims and 16 percent of Kurds. Ninety-three percent of Iraqis oppose violence against Iraqi security forces, and 99 percent oppose attacks on Iraqi civilians. Japan to leave Iraq in May: Japan will withdraw its ground troops from southern Iraq by the end of May along with pullouts by the British and Australian forces from the area, Japanese media outlets have reported citing sources in the Japanese Government. Diplomats and defence officials from Australia, Britain, Japan and the United States reached a basic agreement over the timing of the withdrawals at a secret meeting in London last Monday, the sources told Kyodo. Oil found in northern Iraq: Foreign firms have reached “very good results” in their exploration for oil deposits in the border town of Zakho, said Mohammed Zaibari, head of the northern oil distribution company. Zaibari, speaking in a local television interview, did not name the foreign firms but said they were exploring for oil in northern Iraq under an agreement with the central government. Zakho is a town in the Kurdish north bordering Turkey. ABC News anchor treated in Germany after Iraq blast: U.S. television news anchor Bob Woodruff and cameraman Doug Vogt arrived in Germany for further treatment on Monday at a U.S. military hospital after being injured in a roadside blast in Iraq. Speaking to Reuters Television after a news conference, chief surgeon Guillermo Tellez underlined the seriousness of their injuries. "Unfortunately as a result of what we call 'improvised explosive devices', or bombs, these two individuals sustained injuries to their upper chest, neck and face and brain," Tellez said. Iraqi group urges Danish attacks over cartoons: An Iraqi militant group called on Monday for attacks against Danish and Norwegian targets over satirical cartoons of Islam's Prophet Mohammad, saying a boycott of goods was not enough, according to an Internet statement. "Boycotting cheese and dairy products alone is a flimsy stance that fits a weak nation that cannot defend its prophet ... They started this and they have to shoulder the responsibilities," said the statement attributed to the Mujahideen Army. It called on its fighters to "hit whatever targets possible belonging to these two countries and other (countries) that follow their steps". Jill Carroll, on a new videotape aired by Al-Jazeera, appealed for the release of all Iraqi women prisoners: The U.S. journalist Jill Carroll, weeping and veiled, appeared on a new videotape aired Monday by Al-Jazeera, and the Arab television station said she appealed for the release of all Iraqi women prisoners. The video was dated Saturday, two days after the U.S. military released five Iraqi women from custody. US says will not give in to Carroll's kidnappers: The United States will not give in to the demands of the kidnappers of reporter Jill Carroll, a U.S. military spokesman said on Tuesday, after a new video was aired in which she called for Iraqi women prisoners to be freed. "We will not make concessions to terrorist demands," U.S. military spokesman in Iraq Lieutenant Colonel Barry Johnson told Reuters. The United States says it does not negotiate with kidnappers or terrorists. The U.S. military released five women prisoners last week, but both they and Iraqi officials insisted the move had been pre-planned and was not linked to the hostage-takers' demands. U.S. forces say they continue to hold at least four more women security detainees. The Iraqi government has been pressing for the release of the women; the detention of women offends Iraqis and the U.S. military seeks to avoid it in most cases. Iraqi Kurdish girl died of bird flu: An Iraqi Kurdish girl who died earlier this month of suspected bird flu did have the deadly H5N1 virus, the Iraqi health minister said Monday. Abdel Mutalib Mohammed Ali told reporters that Shanjin Abdel Qader, 14, had contracted H5N1, despite initial reports from a World Health Organization laboratory in Amman saying test results were negative. The minister headed to the northern Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah and met with local health officials as well as doctors at the city hospital to discuss efforts to stop the spread of the virus, which has killed four people in neighboring Turkey. UK Ministry of Defence admittes it issued misleading figures for the number of British soldiers injured in Iraq: The Ministry of Defence has admitted that it issued misleading figures for the number of British soldiers injured in Iraq after a Scotsman investigation found that they were wildly inaccurate. John Reid, the Defence Secretary, last week claimed that about 230 UK personnel had been wounded in action in Iraq since the start of the war in March 2003. The new figure was substantially smaller than previous estimates and would mean British troops had a ratio of deaths to injuries of roughly 1:3, compared with the US ratio of 1:7. The MoD admitted yesterday that hundreds more may have been injured in combat and that it was unlikely that injuries sustained by soldiers during the war itself had been included in the total. It is now reviewing the information and has promised to issue more figures in the next couple of weeks. A spokesman said: "At the moment this is the only figure we have got. We simply can't tell you how many people have been injured in Iraq. We have been absolutely clear about this - it is never going to be precise. There will be many, many more injuries that would not require admission to a hospital." Analysis of the MoD's own statements, interviews with senior officers and published reports of casualties from Iraq shows there have been more than 230 injuries. A study of reports from Iraq filed over the past three years found reference to 263 wounded soldiers, but uncovered evidence to suggest that the MoD routinely under-reports casualties. Military analysts believe that the true figure is closer to 800. In a number of instances it was possible to show that the MoD issued incorrect information about specific incidents in which soldiers were injured. In August 2003 eyewitness reports from Basra suggested that a number of British soldiers had been injured in rioting. This was denied by the MoD, only for the soldiers' commanding officer, Lt Col Jorge Mendonca, to reveal a few days later in an interview that they had suffered 21 casualties, some with stab wounds. Military experts expressed astonishment at the casualty figure given out by Dr Reid. Charles Heyman, a former British army staff officer and now editor of Armed Forces of the UK, said the MoD was clearly not telling the truth."They are being totally disingenuous," he said. "I suspect that they are making a serious mistake here." Mr Heyman expressed astonishment at the MoD's claim that it did not have details of casualty figures. "You monitor the sick rates as much as you monitor the ammunition," he said. Mr Heyman said he would expect to see a British casualty rate of approximately 800 wounded in the Iraq campaign. "The figure that we use for a modern, conventional military operation is that for every guy killed between eight and ten are injured," he said. Italy allegedly paid to free hostages in Iraq: The Italian government paid million-dollar ransoms to secure the release of its citizens held hostage in Iraq, according to a police report cited Monday by daily La Repubblica. La Repubblica said the report by the special-operations section (ROS) of the Italian paramilitary organization Carabinieri had been handed over to Rome prosecutors investigating the abductions. The report said the government of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi agreed to pay for the release of journalist Giuliana Sgrena, kidnapped in Baghdad in February 2005, and Simona Pari and Simona Torretta, two relief workers kidnapped in September 2004. The money was allegedly paid via Italian intelligence agents and red cross officials operating in Iraq to Abdel Salam Al Kubaisi, a Sunni cleric who has acted as a mediator in numerous abductions. The ROS report said the Italian government had paid 'a considerable amount of money' for the release of Sgrena, possibly in the region of 5 million dollars, La Repubblica said. Commenting on the report Monday, Italian Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini denied that his government had paid for the release of Sgrena or 'any other hostage.' REPORTS, COMMENTARY & ANALYSIS Iraq IEDs as deadly as ever: There is no technological 'quick fix' available to neutralize the IED threat. Given the effectiveness of modern explosive devices, especially the capabilities inherent in shaped-charge technology, this should come as no surprise. There is in fact only one proven counter-tactic that could neutralize IEDs, and it is the oldest and simplest in the history of combat: it is to flood areas where such attacks are made with disproportionately large numbers of security forces on regular patrols on a 24/7 basis. Such forces, as the British Army effectively showed in the long conflict in Northern Ireland, if concentrated in sufficient density, can continually intercept guerrilla groups transporting or placing IEDs and can rapidly inflict unacceptable rates of attrition on them. But the U.S. Army in Iraq has never had anything like the troop numbers to maintain such a strategy even in the most limited areas. The aim of U.S. strategy over the past year and a half has been to rapidly train and deploy new Iraqi security forces in massive numbers that would indeed have the manpower to carry out such operations on a sustained basis. And in terms of the numbers of them being deployed, that goal is, theoretically, being met. This month, the Iraqi Armed Forces and National Guard fielded a combined strength of 106,800 men the total police strength was listed as 142,190 giving a combined total of 226,900 men, closed to the eventual stated goal of 272,566. But major questions remain about the reliability and combat efficiency of these forces. Most of all, as UPI`s Iraq Benchmarks column has documented week in and week out, the insurgents continue to inflict unacceptable rates of attrition on the new Iraqi forces with dozens of them, sometimes more than a hundred, being killed per week. The insurgents therefore continue to have the tactical and morale whip-hand over the new security forces, and there is widespread concern among many U.S. military analysts that they have been able to leverage that power into massive infiltration of the new forces with access to its intelligence. The Bully Complex: Canadian war reporter Scott Taylor was recently interviewed by the Canadian-Macedonian News newspaper. He kindly mentions myself, but that is not the primary reason I suggest the article. More interesting is the following insight into why the Americans tend to support who they do. When asked why the Americans fell for the fawning accolades and desperate pleas of the Albanians (as well as the Kurds), Scott notes: "...The American mentality is they want to be loved. They’re like a great big schoolyard bully who really just wants a friend and they don’t understand that the Albanians don’t really like them. They’re just using them and the Kurds in northern Iraq are just using the Americans. It’s the inherent weakness of this great big giant, blind, stupid bully. He wants to be liked so if somebody says we like you they believe him because they want to be liked. The Macedonians aren’t going to play that game. The Serbs are definitely not going to play that game." Of course, at work are also all the numerous geostrategic and economic interests, some of which Scott mentions, but this insight into America's collective psychology has a devastating ring of truth to it, for me anyway. Today we live in an imperial moment like any other. And when it becomes necessary to grovel at the feet of empire to curry favor, those who have neither self-respect nor an interest in self-reliance always win. Sometimes it's better to lose. Why demonizing Islam is NOT a good idea: Being a Muslim is freakin' hard work! Those namby-pamby born-again so-called Christians -- who are always bragging about how holier-than-thou they are -- would wilt like prom flowers after only about a week of being a Muslim. First of all, to be a Muslim you gotta get up at 5:30 in the morning every day. Then you gotta perform a ceremonial cleansing called "wudo" that consists of washing your face, ears, nose, mouth, fingers, arms up to the elbows, toes and feet up to the ankles. Then you gotta trudge across town before freaking SUNRISE in order to pray in the mosque. And, if you are a woman, you have to cover every! part of your body while doing all the rest of this stuff. And that's just the beginning. You gotta do this whole routine four more times every day. That means that if you are a merchant, you gotta close your shop five times a day. If you are a mom and want to pray at the mosque too, you gotta load up the stroller and trudge across town with the kiddies five times a day. And, in many Middle Eastern Islamic countries, you gotta do it dressed in black with only your eyes showing. Chasing toddlers dressed like Zorro in drag? That's work! And if you are a Muslim in Baghdad, you gotta do all this while American occupying forces and resistance fighters are shooting at you! Plus, if your are a Muslim, you gotta do a whole bunch of other stuff too. There are so many proscriptions and rules that even the most tight-assed "Christian" fundamentalist control freak in Dixie would get confused. I'm exhausted just thinking about it. Plus if you make any major mistakes and don't ask for forgiveness, you get to go straight to Hell. Lots of Hell Fire. Not a pretty sight. Plus, Islam stresses justice and equality and good manners. You cannot attack anyone unless you are attacked first. And you gotta be NICE to people. 24/7. Muslims are some of the nicest, most generous people in the world. How do they do it? Yesterday I got thrown off a computer at an internet! cafe run by Muslims. "Why?" I protested. "My time isn't up." "We're closing," said the geek behind the desk and apologized profusely as he threw me out the door. And three blocks later (I'm a slow thinker) I realized why. It was time for the evening prayer. Yesterday a friend of mine took me on a tour of the local mosques. We toured five mosques and prayed at every one. Combine that with the required five prayers a day and that's 10 (ten) prayer cycles in one day. There's only so much ritual prayer I can take and I was just about prayed out. I myself prefer the spontaneous, on-the-fly, wing-and-a-prayer approach to talking with God but this was like going to Mass ten times a day. That's a hecka lot of work. After all that, when would I even have TIME to sit down and chit-chat with the Almighty? Being a Muslim is freaking hard work! Yet when I went off to the formal Friday prayers at a local mosque the other day, there were hundreds of people there. All of them were devoted. All of them were enthusiastic. All of them were really glad to be there -- not just for an occasional drop-in visit with God but five times a day for the rest of their lives. Year after year after year with no break. Voluntarily. They actually CHOSE not to sit the occasional day out or to stay home to watch Sunday afternoon football or nothing like that. Any Methodist minister would give his eye teeth to have a congregation like that. And any "Christian" dictator plotting a theocracy would drool at all this enthusiasm. None of these Muslims want to overthrow Islam and win the right to not have to close down the freaking shop five times a day or sleep in on Sunday morning. That's amazing. Being a Muslim is hard work. And yet Muslims do it anyway. Over a billion Muslims do it daily. It seems to me that after the collapse of the Soviet Union, arms manufacturers were looking around for another formidable enemy -- as an excuse to steal taxpayers' money by scaring us into parting with our hard-earned cash and claiming that there was a desperate need to keep us all safe from some post-USSR calamity or other. Osama bin Forgotten was not a big enough threat to justify spending trillions of weapons dollars just to go after one man -- so the idiots in the Bush bureaucracy looked around for another possible post-Communist villain and decided to make Islam the enemy. Big mistake. Muslims are basically nice people. They are just Average Joes like you and me. And also, like you and I would do if we were in their same position and George Bush kept insisting on trying to blow us all up, Muslims will fight back. Why? Because Muslims LIKE being Muslims. Even despite the hard work. War In Iraq Just for Democrats: So the war by 2006 is a total failure that kills our troops, costs billions up billions every month, humiliates Bush and the administration on a daily basis and presents very serious risks to the interests of the Unites States on multiple fronts, yet the war goes on. Why? Because at this stage of the game the war is all for us, Democratic brothers and sisters. Everything else has gone to hell, but the weapons the war gives Bush over Democrats are just too potent to put down. The exceptional blogger Mark Schmitt confirmed this January 5th when he noted that Bush wanted the NSA scandal dragged well into next year, for it gave Bush the perfect club to beat the Democrats with in 2006. Paul Krugman confirmed it another way last week when he noted success in Iraq can never arrive without electricity, yet that effort has totally failed, the administration knows it, but they deliberately will do nothing about it. Bush is cementing our loss, in other words, yet the war drags on. I am certain that Duncan Black is correct to some degree: Bush is manifestly too infantile and stubborn to ever be tagged with retreat, he won’t blink any eye if 100,000 of our troops are killed in the next three years just so he won’t get tagged with bugging out on his watch. That’s certainly part of it, yes. But at this stage of the total debacle the only other rational reason to stay in Iraq is to smash Democrats with perfect wedge potential. As we are on the eve of another humiliating capitulation to Bush this is what I want our Senators to know most of all: after three years of horrifying war crime failure that has made us a pariah on the globe and even sacrifices our troops, Bush will keep happily on just to defeat you. Oh yes, Bush will sacrifice tradition, honor, ethics, the treasury, the interests of the country, even the lives of our people just…for…you. How is that not obvious? Americans need desperately to understand: According to news reports, the Bush administration is stunned by the election victory of the radical Islamist Hamas Party, which swept the US-financed Fatah Party from office. Why is the Bush administration astonished? The Bush administration is astonished because it stupidly believes that hundreds of millions of Muslims should be grateful that the US has interfered in their internal affairs for 60 years, setting up colonies and puppet rulers to suppress their aspirations and to achieve, instead, purposes of the US government. Americans need desperately to understand that 95 percent of all Muslim terrorists in the world were created in the past three years by Bush's invasion of Iraq. Americans need desperately to comprehend that if Bush attacks Iran and Syria, as he intends, terrorism will explode, and American civil liberties will disappear into a thirty year war that will bankrupt the United States. The total lack of rationality and competence in the White House and the inability of half of the US population to acquire and understand information are far larger threats to Americans than terrorism. America has become a rogue nation, flying blind, guided only by ignorance and hubris. A terrible catastrophe awaits. The last straw for ‘Marlboro Man’: The photograph hit the world on Nov. 10, 2004: a close-cropped shot of a U.S. Marine in Iraq, his face smeared with blood and dirt, a cigarette dangling from his lips, smoke curling across weary eyes. It was an instant icon, with Dan Rather calling it "the best war photograph in recent years." About 100 newspapers ran the photo, dubbing the anonymous warrior the "Marlboro Man." The man in the photograph is James Blake Miller, now 21, and he is an icon, although in ways Rather probably never imagined. He's quieter now -- easier to anger. He turns to fight at the sound of a backfire, can't look at fireworks without thinking of fire raining down on a city. He has trouble sleeping, and when he does, his fingers twitch on invisible triggers. The diagnosis: post-traumatic stress disorder. Miller dismissed the early signs When he and his buddies reacted to a truck backfire by dropping into a combat stance and raising imaginary rifles, well, that was to be expected. And when his wife, Jessica -- the childhood sweetheart whom Miller had married in June -- told him he was tightening his arm around her neck in the night, that was strange, but he figured it would pass. So would the nightmares he began to have about Iraq, things that had happened, things that hadn't. Then one day, while visiting his wife at her college dorm in Pikeville, Miller looked out the window and clearly saw the body of an Iraqi sprawled out on the sidewalk. He turned away. "I said, 'Look, honey, I just got to get out of here.' And one day, as Miller headed for the smoke deck with a Marlboro, a passing sailor made a whistling sound just like a rocket-propelled grenade. "I don't remember grabbing him. I don't remember putting him against the bulkhead. I don't remember getting him down on the floor. I don't remember getting on top of him. I don't remember doing any of that s -- ," Miller said. "That was like the last straw." Warriors and wusses: I DON'T SUPPORT our troops. This is a particularly difficult opinion to have, especially if you are the kind of person who likes to put bumper stickers on his car. Supporting the troops is a position that even Calvin is unwilling to urinate on. I'm sure I'd like the troops. They seem gutsy, young and up for anything. If you're wandering into a recruiter's office and signing up for eight years of unknown danger, I want to hang with you in Vegas. And I've got no problem with other people — the ones who were for the Iraq war — supporting the troops. If you think invading Iraq was a good idea, then by all means, support away. Load up on those patriotic magnets and bracelets and other trinkets the Chinese are making money off of. But I'm not for the war. And being against the war and saying you support the troops is one of the wussiest positions the pacifists have ever taken — and they're wussy by definition. It's as if the one lesson they took away from Vietnam wasn't to avoid foreign conflicts with no pressing national interest but to remember to throw a parade afterward. Fool me twice…: Despite the clear and unambiguous facts, the Fox/Opinion Dynamics poll reports that 60% of Republicans, 41% of Independents, and 36% of Democrats support using air strikes and ground troops against Iran in order to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. This poll indicates an appalling extent of ignorance and misinformation among the American public. The Bush administration will take advantage of this ignorance to initiate another war in the Middle East. A majority of Americans have now been deceived twice on the same issue. Just as there was no evidence that Iraq was developing nuclear weapons, there is no evidence that Iran is developing nuclear weapons. There is nothing but unproven assertions, assertions, moreover, that are contradicted by the evidence that does exist. Americans, it would appear, are so eager for wars that they welcome being fooled into them. Are Bin Laden’s tapes authentic?: There is no reason whatsoever to believe that these audiotapes are authentic. While they are always followed by reports of scientific voice analyses, these studies have been invariably done by CIA experts. In fact, only one occasion was an independent analysis done. And while American officials were certain of the tape’s authenticity, Swedish scientists were convinced that it was fake. Consider yesterday’s audiotape, in which BIN LADEN warned that AL-QAEDA is planning new attacks against the United States, but offered a conditional “long-term truce”, which the White House rejected. Hours after the tape's release, CIA officials said it is a “genuine message” from BIN LADEN. “Following a technical analysis, the voice on the tape is believed to be that of OSAMA BIN LADEN,” said a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) official. On the other hand, several experts doubted the tape's authenticity. “It was like a voice from the grave“, said Bruce Lawrence, a Duke professor, who analyzed more than 20 complete speeches and interviews of the AL-QAEDA chief for his recent book “Messages to the World: The Statements of OSAMA BIN LADEN.” In several occassions, no evidence was provided to support claims of the authenticity of such tapes. The media and politicians seem little concerned about such issues. Moreover, the fact that AL-QAEDA adopted new tactics since this unverified medium emerged was never discussed. For example, the network have never claimed responsibility for any attack before the taped messages. But since their introduction, AL-QAEDA has taken responsibility for several attacks, including those against German tourists in Tunisia, Israeli tourists in Kenya, and the Madrid bombings. The group even released a taped admission of involvement in the 9/11 attacks despite all their previous pre-audiotape protestations to the contrary. Moreover, nobody ever tried to explain why BIN LADEN focuses on the U.S.‘s global interests rather than his own troubles in AFGHANISTAN. Since 9/11, it seemed that BIN LADEN preferred to target U.S. forces in IRAQ than in AFGHANISTAN. Strange also is why AL-QAEDA would use an audiotape message to threaten France, Russia and Germany, even though all three countries opposed the Bush administration’s “WAR ON TERROR“ to BIN LADEN’s alleged new pet project, IRAQ . Never addressed as well is the timing of the release of such audiotapes. One of the previous audiotapes was released just two days before the first anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Its message actually preceded BUSH's first UN appeals on IRAQ by a few days, as well as similar lobbying before the U.S. Congress. Another tape emerged a year later while BUSH tried to win financial aid from Asian countries for IRAQ’s reconstruction. This one also came before a donors’ conference in Madrid just the following week. Some analysts were quick to point to the perfect timing of the latest tape. They suggest that if the speaker really is BIN LADEN, then the tape will certainly boost support for BUSH. In addition to cooling down the anger provoked by the CIA’s strike in Pakistan, opposition to IRAQ WAR is growing, midterm elections are coming up and international pressures are mounting on Iran over its NUCLEAR PROGRAM. The content of such tapes is equally alarming as their timing. The push for IRAQ WAR, for example, won support when a BIN LADEN audiotape helped to cement U.S. claims of links between AL-QAEDA and SADDAM HUSSEIN. This tape was released in February 2003, while the U.S. lobbied heavily for a second UN resolution on IRAQ, and just a month before the war began. Global game of thermonuclear chicken: Iran is a vast, strategically central expanse of land, more than double the land area of France and Germany combined, with well over 70 million people and one of the fastest population growth rates in the world. It is well prepared for a new Holy War. Its mountainous terrain makes any thought of a US ground occupation inconceivable at a time the Pentagon is having problems retaining its present force to maintain the Iraq and Afghanistan occupations. World War III begins in a series of miscalculations and disruptions. The Pentagon's awesome war machine, "total spectrum dominance" is powerless against the growing "asymmetrical war" assaults around the globe. Clear from a reading of their public statements and their press, the Iranian government knows well what cards its holds and what not in this global game of thermonuclear chicken. Were the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld axis to risk launching a nuclear strike on Iran, given the geopolitical context, it would mark a point of no return in international relations. Even with sagging popularity, the White House knows this. The danger of the initial strategy of preemptive wars is that, as now, when someone like Iran calls the US bluff with a formidable response potential, the US is left with little option but to launch the unthinkable - nuclear strike. There are saner voices within the US political establishment, such as former National Security Council heads, Brent Scowcroft or even Zbigniew Brzezinski, who clearly understand the deadly logic of Bush's and the Pentagon hawks' preemptive posture. The question is whether their faction within the US power establishment today is powerful enough to do to Bush and Cheney what was done to Richard Nixon when his exercise of presidential power got out of hand. It is useful to keep in mind that even were Iran to possess nuclear missiles, the strike range would not reach the territory of the US. Israel would be the closest potential target. A US preemptive nuclear strike to defend Israel would raise the issue of what the military agreements between Tel Aviv and Washington actually encompass, a subject neither the Bush administration nor its predecessors have seen fit to inform the American public about. “If there were no oil in the Islamic lands, there would be no clash of civilizations”: The questions about Islam, which have been formulated after the spreading of the images produced by the Strauss ideology of the “Clash of Civilizations” and which add up to older ones cropped up from the colonial folklore or past wars officially waged in the name of faith, are a recurrent subject in the “Western” press since 9/11, 2001. First of all, the Atlantist press presents Islam as another self. Describing this alter ego is also, and firstly, calling one’s own self. The word “Islam” designates a religion to which each and everyone is free to adhere. But it also designates a culture, necessarily exotic, which, in case of converting to this religion, is equal to betraying one’s own culture or neglecting civilization. The alter ego of Islam defines, by opposition, the universe of the author: the “West”. The word is in itself enough to revive the ghosts of the Cold War. There was a time when the West opposed the East in the form of the Soviet world. Today, it opposes the East as the Muslim world. This West, which is not Muslim, declares itself “Judeo-Christian”. On the other hand, the Atlantist press visualizes Islam through the knowledge it has of the Maghreb. By making a big effort, it puts all Arab and Persian populations together, but ignores that most Muslims in the modern world are neither Arabs nor Persians. The only way the Atlantist press accepts Turkey within NATO is for the conviction that the country is still controlled by the Kemalist military allied to Israel, thus turning a blind eye to the existence of the Balkans or Bosnia-Herzegovina. Islam is therefore a religion of “immigrants” whose vocation is “becoming integrated”, that is, getting mixed up with another mass till disappearing. Basically, for the Atlantist press, the normalization of Islam requires an internal division and the victory of the moderates over the extremists. This approach allows blaming others for violence: Terror is not the result of the colonial aggression by a Coalition that bombs civilians, but of the Muslim extremists who put up resistance. However, reality is quite the opposite, as filmmaker and reporter Tariq Ali would write in our columns: “If there were no oil in the Islamic lands, there would be no clash of civilizations”. Iraq is not an enemy: Here is the embarrassing question: Is America actually at war? We have a war president, war hawks, war planes, war correspondents, war cries, even war crimes -- but do we have war? We have war dead, but the question remains. With young US soldiers being blown up almost daily, it can seem an absurd question, an offensive one. With thousands of Iraqis killed by American firepower, it can seem a heartless question, as if the dead care whether strict definitions of ''war" are fulfilled. There can be no question that Iraq is in a state of war, and that, whatever its elements of post-Saddam sectarian conflict, the warfare is being driven from the Pentagon. But, regarding the Iraq conflict as it involves the United States, something essential is lacking that would make it a war -- and that is an enemy. The so-called ''insurgents," who wreak such havoc, are not America's enemy. They are not our rivals for territory. They are not our ideological antagonists. Abstracting from the present confrontation, they have no reason to wish us ill. Americans who bother to imagine the situation from the Iraqi point of view -- a massive foreign invasion, launched on false pretenses; a brutal occupation, with control of local oil reserves surely part of the motivation; the heartbreaking deaths of brothers, cousins, children, parents -- naturally understand that an ''insurgency" is the appropriate response. Its goal is simply to force the invaders and occupiers to leave. Sunnis, Shi'ites, and Kurds have intrinsic reasons to regard each other as enemies, from competition over land and oil, to ethnic hatreds, to unsettled scores. No equivalent sources of inbuilt contempt exist among these people toward America. Taken as a whole, or in its parts, Iraq is not an enemy. Smoothing over the edges of a US torture policy: An army court martial convicted Chief Warrant Officer Lewis E. Welshofer of negligent homicide on January 22 for killing Abed Hamed Mowhoush, a former major general in the Iraqi military. Mowhoush died after Welshofer stuffed him in a sleeping bag, wrapped a cord around his body, straddled his broken ribs, and covered his mouth. Welshofer’s sentence included no prison time. Evidence has emerged in media reports that Mowhoush was tortured to death over the course of 16 days, and that his interrogation involved several intelligence agencies, including the CIA. It is obvious that Welshofer’s trial was an attempt to smooth over the edges of a US torture policy that pervades throughout all branches of the US military and intelligence agencies. The court martial assigned all blame for Mowhoush’s death onto Welshofer, but even so, the soldier received no prison time. Welshofer was originally on trial for murder, but was subsequently charged only with negligent homicide and dereliction of duty, penalties that carry up to three years and three months jail time, respectively. At his final sentencing on January 23, he was given a fine and restricted to barracks, work and his place of worship for 90 days. This negligible sentence is a clear sign from the military that it will not seriously prosecute those who have engaged in torture. The fact that Welshofer’s superiors—those who authorized and encouraged the torture methods used on Mowhoush—have not even been charged is an even more serious transgression of justice. The way the government has handled the killing of Mowhoush is of the same mold as its handling of the Abu Ghraib torture scandal. However, in the case of Abu Ghraib, several low-ranking soldiers were charged and received prison time, two of them for 10 years. Because of the enormous international public outrage generated by the torture photographs from Abu Ghraib, the US government felt obliged to punish a few scapegoats, while still allowing higher-level officers and political officials to go unpunished. On the other hand, the Iraqi general’s murder had a much smaller media impact, in large part due to the fact that there was no photographic documentation of the conditions surrounding his death. It could thus be portrayed as a fluke—one ailing man who died when an interrogator “crossed the line.” In all probability, the incident would not have even been reported, investigated or prosecuted had the victim not been so highly placed in the Iraqi military and widely known throughout the area. Unlike the cases of the anonymous detainees that fill prisons in Iraq, the US military could not simply sweep a general’s murder under the rug. So it did the next best thing, setting up a stage-managed military trial to further obscure the truth regarding the circumstances of Mowhoush’s death. Operation Plant WMDs: According to a recent report by Larissa Alexandrovna, the Office of Special Plans didn’t just present cherry-picked pre-war "intelligence" to the White House and the media. It also dispatched personnel to IRAQ after the 2003 INVASION, when it was known that there were no WMD in the war-torn country, to examine the possibility of planting such weapons in order to avoid the U.S.‘s embarrassment. Quoting "three U.S. intelligence sources and a source close to the United Nations Security Council," Alexandrovna says that the OSP planned "off book" missions that were sent by Stephen Cambone, Defense Department intelligence chief, on March 2003. (Cambone now occupies the third post in the Defense Department). Teams sent to IRAQ included "CIA, FBI, Green Berets, Delta Force operators, and commandos from the Navy’s Special Warfare Development Group." Their primary mission was to probe an allegation made by Ahmad Chalabi that a USN pilot shot down in 1991 and proclaimed KIA soon afterwards was being held as a prisoner of war in Iraq. (This wasn’t true). The second was to handle the WMD issue, and the third was to capture SADDAM HUSSEIN. According to the UN official, one team interviewed several Iraqi intelligence officers in 2004, reportedly telling them: "Our President is in trouble. He went to war saying there are WMD and there are no WMD. What can we do? Can you help us?" The Iraqi officials knew they were being asked to co-operate with a deceptive plot. But the UN source said that the “guys were thinking this is absurd because anything put down would not pass the smell test and could be shown to be not of Iraqi origin and not using Iraqi methodology." The Killing Fields: Ghosts of the Walking Dead: All around Iraq and its cities a clandestine yet deadly killer lurks, invisible and unseen, devastating in its capacity to destroy human DNA, a silent death sentence that has and will befall hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of unsuspecting human beings, both Iraqi and American. This killer festers in the air, water, food supply, vegetation and ground, infiltrating the porous bodies of human beings, cementing itself for life. It lingers on streets and rivers and buildings and homes, carried by wind and rain and through the daily weather patterns of Mesopotamia. Slowly a land once fertile, an oasis between ancient rivers, the cradle of civilization is being contaminated by the ultimate weapon of mass destruction, poisoned, since 1991, by radiation equivalent to between 250,000 and 400,000 Nagasaki bombs. Thanks to the thousands of tons of ordinance, munitions, missiles and bombs dropped during the Gulf War, and the tens of thousands of tons of ordinance, missiles and bombs dropped by America during the Iraq/Bush War, all saturated with depleted uranium (DU), the nation of Iraq is being destroyed from within by an invisible demon sent from the home of the brave and the land of the free. Many of its citizens are dead Iraqis walking, becoming ghosts of walking dead, unaware of the poison inside their bodies and the death that most certainly awaits them. Depleted uranium is a silent mass murderer, a clandestine nuclear bomb whose mushroom cloud is never seen exploding, yet the radiation and heavy metals excreted from the weapons it envelopes when they strike their target, the heat evaporating uranium particulates into the air, become airborne contagions that latch onto our carbon and organic bodies. It attacks our organs and our bones, our nerves and blood, mutating our DNA genetic sequence, destroying our immune systems, penetrating our reproductive systems and causing various terminal cancers. It is the ultimate weapon of genocidal intentions, a perfect weapon if one wishes to slowly make putrid the human body, embedding itself into our DNA, guaranteeing that it passes onto the next generation of human being, usually resulting in macabre and grisly consequences. Today in Iraq, thanks to the Gulf War, cancers have skyrocketed beyond the pale of comparison, leaving doctors dumbfounded how so many clusters of Iraqis with various cancers can exist when so few existed before. Today the natural rate of deterioration of the body once DU enters it is over, resulting in an exponential and ominous increase in fatalities, most by cancer, disease and immune system chaos. Depleted uranium used fifteen years ago is now being felt where American ordinance was dropped from the sky above, as lands, food supply, water and air once contaminated, inhaled and ingested release the WMD lingering in their midst. Child deformities, stillbirths, mutated fetuses, miscarriages and birth defects have been springing up for quite some time now, as the DU embedded in the sperm and eggs of parents transfers over to the embryo. The mutations taking place, along with the deformities now apparent yet hardly ever seen in human society, are gross distortions of human normalcy, creating beings the likes of which have never been seen before. The photos of what DU can do to newborn babies and fetuses are available on the Internet. Entire regions, towns and neighborhoods are experiencing clusters of these mutations in their newly born babies, with doctors unable to explain the sudden rise in defects and deformities that did not exist previously. What we are seeing is the beginning of decades of death in Iraq from the aftereffects of DU, an epidemic of radiation poisoning caused by American WMD. An entire population has been exposed to nuclear radiation by America and its government – which has been aware of the effects of DU for some time – and soon the world will be witness to the death of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Iraqi citizens. The world has entered a black hole into a genocide that will possibly last for centuries. We will see the Iraqi nation’s cancer rate skyrocket to levels we though impossible, affecting large segments of the populace, as well as the subsequent deaths of terminally ill patients, most of them children whose bodies have embedded inside them the deadly remnants of their parents’ depleted uranium. We will witness, as we already can through the grisly photos of DU mutations in babies, the horrific rise in child birth defects and deformities and miscarriages and stillbirths that are already causing thousands of potential Iraqi parents to strongly consider ever giving birth for fear of producing in their child a gross distortion of a human baby. The devastating increase in malignancies and cancers, now a great worry, will in the next few decades grow exponentially, laying waste to a large segment of the Iraqi population. In essence, they have been given a death sentence by George W. Bush, who, when future historians see the complete damage DU has caused, will be compared to Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot and Mao in terms of numbers of murders committed, easily surpassing the 1.5 million dead Iraqis as a result of America’s economic genocide of the 1990’s. Millions of Iraqis, forced through the consequence of their lives to live inside the smoldering radiation that is Iraq, unable to leave a land now poisoned and made toxic through America’s weapons of death and destruction, will have to face a future of uncertainty and trepidation, slowly becoming aware, if they are not already, that inside them lives a WMD that can not only kill them, but their sexual partner as well along with severely deforming any child they might decide to bring into this world. Inside a bubble of death they will live, forever to breathe the particulates of a pestilence first imported in 1991, unable to escape its damaging grip on organic human bodies. Iraq has been transformed into a vast killing field, a wasteland overrun by the remnants of America’s silent WMD, a cheap and money saving weapon devastating to the human body, capable of killing perhaps millions of innocent human beings, capable of altering entire genetic sequences resulting in the severe birth defects, stillbirths, miscarriages and deformities now appearing almost daily in Iraq. The Cradle of Civilization has transmuted into the Iraqi Killing Fields, a place where only death and disease now prosper, where millions of walking dead stir up the dust of the same killer elements that will invariably leave them without life. It is not necessary to construct gas chambers, incinerators, gulags or concentration camps to exterminate millions of human beings. We are seeing this reality today in Iraq, in multiple forms, in degenerate warfare, in countless acts of war crimes and crimes against humanity being perpetrated by American forces. In the end, millions have and will die at the hands of America and George W. Bush, some quicker than others, some in silent placidness and some in terrible agony, some by bullets and bombs, some by water-borne disease and malnourishment, some by radiation-filled cancers, mutated deformities and destroyed immune systems. The seeds of the Iraq Holocaust have been firmly planted in the now barren lands of the Fertile Crescent. The Killing Fields will in the next few decades take the life of tens of thousands, certainly, millions, perhaps. Yet it will not only be Iraqis made to suffer the consequences of America’s invisible yet devastating nuclear war upon Iraq. Already, 11,000 American soldiers, veterans of the first Gulf War, have died thanks to Gulf War Syndrome, cancer and disease. Over 350,000 veterans, out of 700,000 who served, have asked for serious disability, most of these veterans being in their late twenties and early thirties, in the prime of their lives, cleared as healthy before the war in military conducted medical physicals. Depleted Uranium is the most likely culprit, as many more get diagnosed with terminal diseases and illnesses every year. Many veterans of Gulf War One and now the Iraq/Bush War have themselves been giving birth to deformed and defective children, much like their Iraqi counterparts. It is estimated that 40,000 to 80,000 more veterans will die in the next twenty to thirty years as the effects of DU run their course. How many more will produce offspring with genetic birth defects, gross mutations of fetuses, miscarriages and stillborns? So much for Bush’s hypocritical culture of life. How many of our soldiers and veterans are dead men and women walking, waiting out a cruel game of DU lottery, hoping their bodies were spared the poison now rampant in Iraq? How many will have their lives altered, never to regain normalcy, never able to bear children, always to wonder if they will be next to fall. Depleted Uranium is but the next stage in America’s indifference to the Arab world, an indifference that has lasted decades, with the US concerned only for the Middle East’s vast yet dwindling oil wealth, not its human capital nor its interest in freedom, democracy or human rights. In a twisted form of karma, DU has returned the favor to thousands of American soldiers, returning its deadly poison back to the same nation that created it, penetrating the porous skin and bodies of soldiers once occupying Iraq, now a land devastated with the invisible radiation of American DU ordinance. It has attached itself to our soldiers, in time to haunt their health and their families, possibly becoming manifest in the deformities of American babies. The great sadness is that the Iraq Killing Fields, with its ghosts of walking dead, will remain unknown to the vast percentage of humanity, for this scandal will never be allowed to see the light of day, neither by America’s government or the corporate world that owns both it and the media. Greater in scope than Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the potential number of deaths greater than some evildoers of times past, Iraq’s Killing Fields will continue killing and deforming, mutating DNA and inflicting untold levels of misery, simply because of its clandestine approach to death, its silent and whispered calls to disease. Its secrecy and cover-up will only be surpassed by its criminality and by the complete callousness of government officials to the plight they helped birth. There will be no blood and no violence, no bombs or bullets, though abundant suffering. The calamity will not bleed, so it will not lead. It will be boring to the average American, becoming an unspoken genocide free of the violence we are so addicted to and enamored with. The front lines of this battle will be inside hospitals and in the homes of the afflicted, left to confront a destiny not of their own choosing, unable to understand how an invisible weapon of mass destruction could be allowed to be used on civilians and on cities, on humans and on soldiers on both sides. Many will die in disbelief, their lives wasted, slowly rotting from the inside out, seeing their babies deformed, born stillborn or mutated, their last remaining years spent living as ghosts of walking dead, becoming prisoners only of time and of anger. Mired by decades of war with Iran and later the United States, 1.5 million of its citizens, including 500,000 children dead due to economic genocide, 100,000 to 200,000 dead due to American invasion and occupation, and now afflicted by an enemy they can neither see nor touch, the Ghosts of Walking Dead await our response to their hushed and clandestine call for help. In their whispered plea can we see a perpetual future of cancer, death, disease, mutation, deformity and entire generations now endangered and at serious risk of devastation. In their whispered plea can we also see what might happen to tens of thousands of our own men and women, themselves hosts carrying the demons of the Iraqi Killing Fields back home. The Killing Fields can be felt, their warm winds echoing the cries for help, their plains saturated with the clouds of poison, and of outrage, seeking our full attention in understanding a silent and clandestine genocide taking place where fertility once permeated and where the cradle of civilization once nurtured us before sending us all on our way to all corners of the planet and to most uncertain destinies. Top 25 Censored News Stories of 2005: Project Censored specializes in covering the top news stories which were either ignored or downplayed by the mainstream media each year. Project Censored is a research team composed of nearly 200 university faculty, students, and community experts who review about 1,000 news story submissions for coverage, content, reliability of sources, and national significance. The top 25 stories selected are submitted to a panel of judges who then rank them in order of importance. 1. White House Erodes Open Government 2. Media Coverage on Iraq: Fallujah and the Civilian Death Toll 3. Distorted Election Coverage 4. Surveillance Society Quietly Moves In 5. U.S. Uses Tsunami to Military Advantage in Southeast Asia 6. The Real Oil for Food Scam 7. Journalists Face Unprecedented Dangers to Life and Livelihood 8. Iraqi Farmers Threatened By US Mandates 9. Iran’s New Oil Trade System Challenges U.S. Currency 10. Mountaintop Removal Threatens Ecosystem and Economy 11. Universal Mental Screening Program Usurps Parental Rights 12. Military in Iraq Contracts Human Rights Violators 13. Rich Countries Fail to Live up to Global Pledges 14. Corporations Win Big on Tort Reform, Justice Suffers 15. Plan to Override Academic Freedom in the Classroom 16. U.S. Plans for Hemispheric Integration Include Canada 17. U.S. Uses South American Military Bases to Expand Control of the Region 18. Little Known Stock Fraud Could Weaken U.S. Economy 19. Child Wards of the State Used in AIDS Experiments 20. American Indians Sue for Resources; Compensation Provided to Others 21. New Immigration Plan Favors Business Over People 22. Nanotechnology Offers Exciting Possibilities, Health Effects Need Scrutiny 23. Plight of Palestinian Child Detainees Highlights Global Problem 24. Ethiopian Indigenous Victims of Corporate, Government Resource Aspirations 25. Homeland Security Was Designed to Fail WORLDWIDE Sweden leads the world in science and innovation: The UNESCO Science Report 2005 ranked Sweden in first place for innovation in science and technology research, ahead of Japan and the United States. Finland, Switzerland, the UK and Denmark were also among the top seven nations. The report, written by an international team of independent experts, said a small number of emerging Asian economies, led by China, were challenging the leadership of North America, Europe and Japan in this field. It noted that while countries like Germany, the Netherlands and France are losing momentum, Sweden is not only the world leader in the field but is moving ahead in innovation faster than any other nation. The report used a range of benchmarks to gauge countries' performance in R&D and science, including citations in scientific journals, patents, and higher education structures. It observed that Sweden spends more than four percent of its gross domestic product on research and development. Three-quarters of this funding comes from private business. Pork soup movement: Small groups linked to the extreme right are ladling pork soup to France's homeless. Critics and some officials denounce the charity as discriminatory: because it contains pork, the soup is off-limits for Muslims. The associations offering the soup are satellites of Bloc Identitaire, a small, extreme-right movement that defends the European identity and, as its leader Fabrice Robert said, "the rights of the little whites." Pork soup is an age-old staple of the rural heartland from which all the French, at least in the national imagination, are said to spring. The groups dishing up the soup say their victuals are no more than traditional French cuisine and deny they are serving up a message of racial hatred — a crime in France — or that they would refuse soup to a hungry Muslim or Jew. This is the third winter "identity soup" is being offered in Paris. But its spread to Nice, Strasbourg and Nantes as well as Belgium is raising eyebrows. A leading anti-racism group has urged Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy to ban pork soup giveaways throughout France. For Bernadette Hatier, vice president of the Movement Against Racism and for Friendship Between Peoples, the real motive of the soup servers is to drum up far-right votes ahead of 2007 presidential elections.

War News for Monday, January 30, 2006

Bring ‘em on: Three people killed and nine wounded in five car bombings aimed at Christian churches, two in Kirkuk and two in Baghdad, and at the office of the Vatican envoy in Baghdad.

Bring ‘em on: Bombings and ambushes Sunday killed eight policemen and a medic in attacks across Baghdad and in the northern cities of Baqouba and Beiji.

Bring ‘em on: A massive car bomb killed four Iraqi soldiers and wounded six more in Saddam Hussein's birthplace of Uja, about 75 miles north of Baghdad. It was unclear whether the attacks was linked to Saddam's trial, which resumed Sunday.

Bring ‘em on: A former high-ranking general in Saddam's disbanded army, Lt. Gen. Mahmoud Idham, was assassinated near Tikrit. The motive for the attack was unclear.

Bring ‘em on: ABC News anchor Bob Woodruff and a cameraman were seriously injured Sunday in an explosion while reporting from Iraq. Woodruff and cameraman Doug Vogt were hit by an improvised explosive device near Taji, Iraq, and were in serious condition at a U.S. military hospital.

Bring ‘em on: Two policemen were killed and 20 people were wounded when a suicide bomber in a car attacked a barracks in Nassiriya on Monday. The wounded included soldiers and civilians.

Bring ‘em on: Thirty people were arrested, including two top suspects, by U.S and Iraqi forces in Sebtiya, a northern suburb of Baquba.

Bring ‘em on: Three decapitated bodies were found on Saturday by U.S forces in a soccer field west of Baghdad.

Getting further apart: It's already a bitter fight and getting more acrimonious by the day — the question of who should control Iraq's police and army.

At stake is whether Iraq slides toward civil war — and how long American troops might have to stay to keep the peace.

In a clear sign of the issue's importance, American officials have been pointed in their demands that the two sides reach a deal, and that no one group should monopolize key ministries. But so far, the sides are getting further apart, not compromising.

Sunni Arabs insist that Shiites aligned with sectarian groups with private militias cannot control the key interior and defense ministries that run the police and the army.

"We will work hard to not allow the security ministries to be in the hands of groups that have militias. And we will also work hard not to let those sectarian people head these ministries," said Thafir al-Ani, a spokesman of the main Sunni Arab bloc. "We will absolutely not allow this."

But Shiites say they must control those key ministries to ensure that members of their majority community are protected.

"We have red lines that cannot be crossed in regard to electoral weight and the interest of national security," Hadi al-Amri, head of the Shiite Badr militia. "We will never surrender these. We are subjected to a daily slaughter. We will not relinquish security portfolios."

This worked out about as well as the rest of it: Not long after the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq in 2003, a top aide to L. Paul Bremer III, then the head of the American occupation authority there, excitedly explained that Iraq had just become the front line in Washington's effort to neutralize Iran as a regional force.

If America could promote a moderate, democratic, American-friendly alternate center of Shiite Islam in Iraq, the official said, it could defang one of its most implacable foes in the Middle East.

Iran, in other words, had for decades been both the theological center of Shiite Islam and a regional sponsor of militant anti-American Islamic groups like Hezbollah. But if westward-looking Shiites — secular or religious — came to power in southern Iraq, they could give the lie to arguments that Shiites had to see America as an enemy.

So far, though, Iran's mullahs aren't feeling much pain from the Americans next door. In fact, officials at all levels of government here say they see the American presence as a source of strength for themselves as they face the Bush administration.

In almost every conversation about Iran's nuclear showdown with the United States and Europe, they cite the Iraq war as a factor Iran can play to its own advantage.

"America is extremely vulnerable right now," said Akbar Alami, a member of the Iran's Parliament often critical of the government but on this point hewing to the government line. "If the U.S. takes any unwise action" to punish Iran for pursuing its nuclear program, he said, "certainly the U.S. and other countries will share the harm."

Negotiating with terrorists: American officials in Iraq are in face-to-face talks with high-level Iraqi Sunni insurgents, NEWSWEEK has learned. Americans are sitting down with "senior members of the leadership" of the Iraqi insurgency, according to Americans and Iraqis with knowledge of the talks (who did not want to be identified when discussing a sensitive and ongoing matter). The talks are taking place at U.S. military bases in Anbar province, as well as in Jordan and Syria. "Now we have won over the Sunni political leadership," says U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad. "The next step is to win over the insurgents." The groups include Baathist cells and religious Islamic factions, as well as former Special Republican Guards and intelligence agents, according to a U.S. official with knowledge of the talks. Iraq's insurgent groups are reaching back. "We want things from the U.S. side, stopping misconduct by U.S. forces, preventing Iranian intervention," said one prominent insurgent leader from a group called the Army of the Mujahedin, who refused to be named because of the delicacy of the discussions. "We can't achieve that without actual meetings."

Even the good news is bad: Deadly fighting has erupted within Iraq's insurgency as home-grown guerrilla groups, increasingly resentful of foreign-led extremists, try to assert control over the fragmented anti-American campaign, U.S. and Iraqi officials say. Yet there is no evidence that the split here in the Sunni Arab heartland has weakened the uprising, diminished Iraqis' sense of insecurity, or brought any relief to U.S. forces, the officials say.

Mowaffak Rubaie, the Iraqi government's national security advisor, said a growing body of intelligence indicated that Iraqi-led groups were turning against Zarqawi's faction, Al Qaeda in Iraq, over a divergence of basic aims. He believes the shift reflects Iraqis' growing resentment of a foreign-led force whose fundamentalist religious goals and calls for sectarian war against Iraq's Shiite majority run counter to Iraqi nationalist traditions. But U.S. military officials concede that the guerrillas' ability to strike anywhere at any time is largely undiminished. They say the insurgency remains a stubborn, elusive and deadly collection of fighting groups that share the aim of ousting American forces. Their attacks across Iraq averaged 75 per day in December, up from 52 a year earlier, driving the country's sectarian violence and contributing to a decline in its oil production. U.S. troops died at the same rate last year as in 2004, and most estimates of Iraqi civilian casualties rose.

Basra protest: More than 1,500 Iraqis protested outside the British consulate in Basra over the recent arrests of several Iraqi policemen linked to a spate of local militia-related killings and kidnappings.

The protesters demanded the release of five men who were among 14 arrested by British and Iraqi forces last Tuesday to try to weed out security forces linked to Shiite militia groups operating in Basra, Iraq's second-largest city, 340 miles southeast of Baghdad.

"No, no for the occupation; no, no for taking Iraqis' rights," chanted the protesters outside the consulate. Many carried banners emblazoned with slogans demanding the release of the detainees.

Among the demonstrators, some who burned and tore British flags, were Basra city council members, Islamic clerics, tribal chiefs and police officers.

Oil follies: Iraq's demoralised oil minister is set to leave his job for a second time, industry sources said on Sunday, and he will not attend Tuesday's OPEC meeting.

The sources said Ibrahim Bahr al-Uloum, from a prominent Shi'ite family, was quitting because of Shi'ite wrangling over the oil job since Iraq's December 15 election.

The upheaval coincides with a collapse in Iraq's oil exports to their lowest level since the U.S.-led invasion.

Wrecking the US Military

The incredible shrinking Army: Since September 2001, the number of junior enlisted soldiers -- the bulk of the Army, and on whose shoulders rest most of the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan -- has declined by nearly 20,000 total, according to Defense Department statistics.

And despite Army efforts to add soldiers to its payroll and historically high retention rates, the active duty force actually shrunk by 6,800 from 2004 to 2005.

These declines come as the Army is trying to increase its force to 512,400 soldiers, up from a baseline of about 480,000 in 2001.

That’s ok, we’ll just keep everyone in forever: The U.S. Army has forced about 50,000 soldiers to continue serving after their voluntary stints ended under a policy called "stop-loss," but while some dispute its fairness, court challenges have fallen flat.

The policy applies to soldiers in units due to deploy for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. The Army said stop-loss is vital to maintain units that are cohesive and ready to fight. But some experts said it shows how badly the Army is stretched and could further complicate efforts to attract new recruits.

"As the war in Iraq drags on, the Army is accumulating a collection of problems that cumulatively could call into question the viability of an all-volunteer force," said defense analyst Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute think tank.

"When a service has to repeatedly resort to compelling the retention of people who want to leave, you're edging away from the whole notion of volunteerism."

More Ancient History

It would be nice if this really blew up: Tony Blair knew that George Bush was only "going through the motions" of offering support for a second UN resolution in the run-up to the Iraq war, it was claimed last night.

According to reports in The Mail on Sunday, the Prime Minister and the US President decided to go to war regardless of whether they obtained UN backing. The allegations will undermine claims that the final decision to go to war was not made until MPs voted in the Commons a day before military action. It will also bolster claims that the President and Mr Blair decided to go to war months before military action began.

An updated edition of a book by Philippe Sands QC, a leading human rights barrister and Professor of Law at London University, to be published in Britain this week, is expected to strengthen claims that President Bush decided to go to war with or without UN backing, and that he had Mr Blair's support.

Hmmm

An odd little tale: For more than a decade, Osama bin Laden had few soldiers more devoted than Abdallah Tabarak. A former Moroccan transit worker, Tabarak served as a bodyguard for the al Qaeda leader, worked on his farm in Sudan and helped run a gemstone smuggling racket in Afghanistan, court records here show.

During the battle of Tora Bora in December 2001, when al Qaeda leaders were pinned down by U.S. forces, Tabarak sacrificed himself to engineer their escape. He headed toward the Pakistani border while making calls on Osama bin Laden's satellite phone as bin Laden and the others fled in the other direction.

Tabarak was captured and taken to the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where he was classified as such a high-value prisoner that the Pentagon repeatedly denied requests by the International Committee of the Red Cross to see him. Then, after spending almost three years at the base, he was suddenly released.

Today, the al Qaeda loyalist known locally as the "emir" of Guantanamo walks the streets of his old neighborhood near Casablanca, more or less a free man. In a decision that neither the Pentagon nor Moroccan officials will explain publicly, Tabarak was transferred to Morocco in August 2004 and released from police custody four months later.

When The People Lead, The Leaders Will Follow

Feinstein: Cindy Sheehan, the peace activist who set up camp near President Bush's Texas ranch last summer, said Saturday she is considering running against Sen. Dianne Feinstein to protest what she called the California lawmaker's support for the war in Iraq.

"She voted for the war. She continues to vote for the funding. She won't call for an immediate withdrawal of the troops," Sheehan told The Associated Press in an interview while attending the World Social Forum in Venezuela along with thousands of other anti-war and anti-globalization activists.

"I think our senator needs to be held accountable for her support of George Bush and his war policies," said Sheehan, whose 24-year-old soldier son Casey was killed in Iraq in 2004.

Hillary, San Francisco: U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton -- recently described as a "formidable" potential presidential candidate by President Bush -- drew cheers and some vocal anti-war protests Saturday night during a stop in the Democratic bastion of San Francisco.

Clinton's appearance drew about two dozen protesters outside, including some from the group Code Pink, which charged that she has not been forceful or courageous enough to stand up against the war in Iraq.

"We want Hillary and other Democrats to show some teeth," said Nancy Mancias, San Francisco coordinator for the women's peace organization.

Hillary, Portland, OR: Before her speech, as many as 50 protesters demonstrated outside the Hilton as they carried such signs as, "Hillary, you're not listening. Bring the troops home."

"I think she has left the Democratic Party behind," said protester Linda Wiener of Code Pink, an anti-war group that helped organize the demonstration. She said Clinton has been trying to move to the political center to position herself for the presidential race.

Afterward, Wiener and as many as a dozen demonstrators managed to get into the ballroom and repeatedly interrupt her speech with shouts of "Hillary supports the war!" and "Stop the War!" At one point, they displayed an anti-Clinton banner that was ripped down by supporters as security guards repeatedly hustled out protesters who popped up in various parts of the ballroom.

Lieberman: Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, who rose to national prominence as the 2000 Democratic vice presidential nominee, appears likely to face a serious primary challenge this year that could measure the depth of his party's discontent over the Iraq war.

Ned Lamont, a businessman and war critic, earlier this month publicly began seeking support for a run against Lieberman in the state's August nominating contest.

Lamont is attracting interest largely because of Democratic grumbling — in Connecticut and nationally — about Lieberman's unflinching support of President Bush's policies in Iraq.

"The indications I have is that a primary would be good for the party and very doable," said Lamont, 52, who founded a cable television company.

Commentary

Washington Post Editorial: The larger lesson is that domestic intelligence operations by security-conscious government agencies, even when necessary and well-intentioned, can easily get out of hand and violate the fundamental rights of Americans. After the abuses of the 1960s and '70s, Congress passed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act precisely to ensure that there would be an independent monitor, in the form of a secret court, on the government's domestic surveillance. That is the law that President Bush bypassed in authorizing the NSA to monitor the communications of Americans. We believe that the president's decision violated the law and exceeded his powers as president. If it did not also lead to the wrongful targeting of some American citizens, then the NSA operation would be a historical anomaly.

My god! A clear unambiguous statement! Quick, Democratic leadership! Hide!

Philip Gailey: Karl Rove, the president's unindicted leaker in the CIA leak case, stooped to a new low in suggesting that Democrats still have a "pre-9/11 worldview" when it comes to fighting terrorists. "Let me be as clear as I can be - President Bush believes if al-Qaida is calling somebody in America, it is in our national security interest to know who they're calling and why," Rove told a Republican audience last week. "Some important Democrats clearly disagree."

What a loathsome insinuation. Some Republicans also have expressed doubt about the legality of Bush's surveillance program. Senate hearings are scheduled next month, but senators probably shouldn't expect much cooperation from an imperial White House that routinely defies congressional investigators.

Last week, the White House stiffed a Senate committee trying to determine why the administration was so unprepared for Hurricane Katrina. Bush to Senate: Drop dead. Citing executive privilege, the president's men have refused to provide the documents and witnesses the committee requested. If only the levees around New Orleans were as formidable as the walls this White House has erected to protect the dirty little secrets of the most secretive administration in modern times. Don't even think about asking the White House to release that photo of Bush and lobbyist Jack Abramoff, the latest poster boy for Washington corruption.

Bad news has no place in Bush's world. Neither does reality. To hear the president tell it, everything in Iraq - the war and the reconstruction - is going just fine. The government is doing everything it can for the victims of Katrina. There is nothing wrong with the economy that more tax cuts can't cure. His Medicare drug plan is just what the doctor ordered, even if people are being turned away by their pharmacies because of computer glitches, poor planning by the insurance companies and bureaucratic bungling.

So much executive power, so little competence.

Alive in Baghdad Cross-Post, January 30, 2006 This weekend showed us once again the dangerous situation facing correspondents in Iraq, as veteran correspondent and anchorman for ABC's World News Tonight was injured, along with his cameraman, by an IED attack near Taji. He appears to be in stable condition, but his future is still uncertain. But while the international media and the world focus their eyes on western correspondents, whose white skin, American voices, and charismatic faces are easy for them to relate to, what is happening to their Iraqi counterparts? I've recently had an article published by IPS, which I've posted at Alive in Baghdad. Although the situation in Iraq is dangerous for all journalists, the risks for Iraqi journalists, those who are going out into the streets and dangerous neighborhoods can be far greater and are often overlooked by the mainstream and western press. Here's an excerpt: As the war has progressed, Iraqi journalists increasingly appear to be targeted by the United States and other Coalition forces. Two Reuters journalists from Ramadi, Ali al-Mashhadani and Majed Hameed were detained, and finally released Jan. 15. "The United States forces arrested me for nothing, they had no proof against me," Hameed said after his release. "They knew I was innocent, and now I will continue my work as a journalist." Last week the U.S. authorities released Samer Mohammed Noor, who had been held for eight months without charge. "We are relieved at the release of Samer Mohammed Noor but we do not understand the reasons for keeping him in detention for more than eight months, particularly since there was no concrete evidence against him," the group Reporters Without Borders said in a statement. Yunis Khuthair, 38 year-old editor of Al Tahaddi newspaper was arrested by U.S. troops Sep. 23, 2003. At least he was charged. "They gave me many funny charges, like I tried to assassinate Tony Blair, I hid Saddam in my house, I cooperate with the terrorists," Khuthair told IPS. "But these were all fake." At least one Iraqi journalist, Abdel Amir Younes Hussein, is still in detention.. Reporters Without Borders (RSF, Reporters Sans Frontieres in French) and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) have both made repeated appeals for Hussein to be released. He has been in detention more than ten months.

War News for Sunday, January 29, 2006 Bring ‘em on: Mahmoud Badawi, a former lieutenant general in Saddam Hussein's army, was killed late on Saturday when a rocket landed on his house in Tikrit. Bring ‘em on: Eleven Iraqis were killed and five wounded late on Saturday when a bomb planted just outside a sweet shop exploded in Iskandariya. Bring ‘em on: A policeman was killed and four were wounded when gunmen opened fire on a checkpoint in eastern Baquba. In a separate attack, two policemen and five civilians were wounded when gunmen fired mortar rounds then start shooting at a police patrol in the city centre. Bring ‘em on: A U.S soldier was killed on Saturday when his vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb in Baghdad. Bring ‘em on: The bound, gagged and shot bodies of two men in their 40s were found in southern Baghdad's Rustamiyah sewage plant, which al-Ilyan said had "become the place where families go to search for the bodies of their sons killed by the government forces or militias." Bring ‘em on: Police found the buried bodies of six laborers who had been bound, gagged and shot in the head near the southern city of Karbala. Bring ‘em on: At least seven people were killed in separate shootings across Baghdad and two policeman were killed in a shooting and a bombing in other areas. A Marine also was killed Friday in a non-hostile vehicle accident in Fallujah, the military said. Bring ‘em on: A bomb exploded in a Basra fruit market killing at least one woman and wounding three others. Eyewitnesses claimed a man stepping out of a police vehicle planted the bomb. Bring ‘em on: U.S. troops killed three suspected insurgents wearing Iraqi police uniforms Sunday in Kirkuk. Bring ‘em on: The U.S. military announced the death of an American soldier in roadside blast in Baghdad. Bring ‘em on: Gunmen attacked an Iraqi police patrol Sunday near the prison in Baquba, killing one policeman and wounding another. A civilian was also wounded. Bring ‘em on: A mortar round was fired toward Baquba's police headquarters but exploded in a nearby residential area, wounding two civilians and two policemen. Bring ‘em on: Three policemen were killed while two policemen and three civilians were injured in a roadside bomb explosion targeting a police patrol in downtown Fallujah. Bring ‘em on: Late Friday a bomb explosion in a jewellery market in Kut killed two women and injured three more civilians including a child. Bring ‘em on: In Kut a woman died of her wounds at hospital Saturday after U.S. troops shot her in the western part of the city late Friday. Bring ‘em on: Gunmen shot dead a prominent Iraqi academic and political analyst in his car in a Baghdad street on Saturday. Abdul Razak Al Na'as, a familiar face on Al-Jazeera and Al- Arabiya Arabic satellite television channels, had just left his offices at Baghdad University's College of Information in the center of the capital, police said. Bring ‘em on: Two Iraqi Army soldiers died and four were wounded when an IED exploded in Tall Afar Friday. A second IED exploded while Iraqi soldiers were evacuating the casualties from the first IED, but no one was injured in that explosion. A third explosion occurred while the soldiers were conducting a cordon and search of the area. One Iraqi civilian was killed and one was wounded in that explosion. Two Iraqi soldiers were also wounded in the explosion. Bring ‘em on: An Iraqi police officer and a soldier are among at least six people killed in attacks Saturday in Iraq. The officer was in a police patrol hit by a roadside bomb in Fallujah. The soldier was a member of the Iraqi Army's Lion Brigade and died in a firefight in Baghdad. Two mechanics and a grocery store owner are among four civilians who died in attacks elsewhere. Bring ‘em on: Gunmen killed an Iraqi employee of a U.S. military base in his house in Ishaaqi. Bring ‘em on: Two policemen were killed and three wounded when a roadside bomb struck their patrol in Falluja. Bring ‘em on: An oil tanker driver was killed and three tankers destroyed when a car bomb hit their convoy in Tuz Khurmatu, 70 km south of Kirkuk on Friday. Bring ‘em on: Two Iraqi soldiers died and four were wounded when a roadside bomb exploded near their patrol in Tal Afar. In a separate bombing in the same area, one civilian was killed and another wounded. Two Iraqi soldiers were also wounded in the explosion. Bring ‘em on: Four Iraqi National Guards were killed and five wounded when a car bomb exploded next to their patrol in Oweija, 10 km south of Tikrit. Bring ‘em on: Four civilians were killed when gunmen in two cars opened fire on them as they left a mosque in Ramadi. Looking dodgy in the south: Basra’s governor threatened yesterday to stop dealing with British forces unless they release several Iraqis detained this week, including policemen, suspected of links to killings and kidnappings. Gov. Mohammed Al-Waeli also called for a mass demonstration tomorrow outside the British Consulate in downtown Basra, Iraq’s second-largest city 550 km southeast of Baghdad, to demand the release of the men, who were detained Tuesday in a joint Iraqi-British operation. Tuesday’s raids came amid an upsurge of roadside bombings and other violent acts targeting British troops, Iraqi security forces and local citizens in Basra, the main base for the roughly 8,000 British forces in Iraq. Interesting read: AP Correspondent Antonio Castaneda is embedded with U.S. Marines in Ramadi, one of the most violent cities in Iraq. This is the first of his periodic blog on his experiences there. Fragile victory: The United States and Iraqi forces have won the upper hand in a key region of northern Iraq, but the American commander warned Friday that victory may be fragile. "This is a victory for the Iraqi people, it's a victory for the Iraqi security forces, but certainly it's a fragile victory. I mean, this is a brutal and determined enemy who wants to get back into the city, who wants to continue to brutalize these people," said Col. H.R. McMaster, commander of the 3d Armored Calvary Regiment, at a Pentagon teleconference Friday. The 3d ACR launched a months-long campaign last year to oust insurgents, foreign fighters and terrorists from the town and surrounding regions and re-establish civilian control. Ok, so here’s some news that sounds like we’re really making some progress rounding up the bad guys, right?: To summarize the article: Three insurgents detained…two suspected terrorists detained…another bad guy captured…four suspected bombers detained…51 suspected terrorists arrested...19 suspects taken in a raid outside Baquba…10 suspected terrorists captured in Beiji…five other insurgents taken in Beiji…and three other suspects in Beiji… And there in the same article we read this: About 420 detainees, including five women, were to be released from coalition detention facilities in Iraq today and tomorrow, officials announced. The Iraqi-led Combined Review and Release Board reviewed the detainees' cases and recommended that they be released. The board, established in August 2004, consists of members from the ministries of Human Rights, Justice and Interior, as well as officers from the multinational forces, officials noted. To date, the board has reviewed the cases of more than 26,900 detainees, recommending more than 14,100 individuals for release. Hmm. 26,900 people imprisoned as suspected insurgents. 14,100, more than half, released. Now – we wouldn’t release a real insurgent, right? So more than 50% of the people who were detained were not insurgents. Man, we must be winning some hearts and minds with that ratio. Sort of puts things in a different perspective, doesn’t it? Kidnappers and Hostage Takers Iraqi: Kidnappers holding four Christian peace activists gave U.S. and Iraqi authorities a "last chance" to release all detainees in Iraq, threatening to kill the hostages if their demands were not met in a videotape broadcast Saturday. The hostages - two Canadians, an American and a Briton - were shown on a tape broadcast by Al-Jazeera looking gaunt and standing near a white wall in what appeared to be a house. The pan-Arab station's announcer said the hostage-takers, the "Swords of Righteousness Brigades," issued a statement warning of the "last chance" for U.S. and Iraqi authorities to "release all Iraqi prisoners in return of freeing the hostages." "Otherwise, their fate will be death," the statement added, without mentioning a deadline. American: The U.S. Army has been detaining Iraqi women to help track down husbands or fathers who are suspected terrorists, according to documents released Friday and an interview with a female detainee who was released Thursday after four months in prison. A series of e-mails written by U.S. soldiers and an internal Army memo, all released Friday in response to a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union, describe two cases of women who were imprisoned because American officials wanted information about their husbands. The Iraqi woman said Friday that she and eight other female detainees in her cell had talked often among themselves. She discovered that all were being held because U.S. officials had suspected their male relatives of having ties to terrorism. In some cases, men in their families were killed during U.S. raids, the woman alleged. The woman, whose voice trembled as she told her story, said she did not want to be named because she feared that she or a member of her family would be arrested. The Evisceration Of Iraqi Society Mental trauma: The Iraq war is reaping a fierce psychological toll, exposing a mental health crisis inside Iraq, and searing hundreds of thousands of US troops with combat trauma, experts warned. Iraq's doctors and specialists, subjected to persecution under Saddam Hussein, now the target of insurgent bullets and bombs, are struggling to assess the scale of the problem, they said. Brain drain: Iraq's top professionals — doctors, lawyers, professors — and businessmen have been targeted by shadowy political groups for kidnapping and ransom, as well as killing, some of them say. So many have fled the country that Iraq is in danger of losing the core of skilled people it needs most as it is trying to build a newly independent society. "It's creating a brain drain," said Amer Hassan Fayed, assistant dean of political science at Baghdad University. "We could end up with a society without knowledge. How can such a society make progress?" Professionals and businessmen with the means to escape are going to Jordan, Syria, Egypt or, if they have visas, to Western countries. Those left behind say they feel abandoned. Poverty: The number of Iraqis living below the poverty line has increased since the fall of the regime of Saddam Hussein in 2003 to one-fifth of the population, according to figures released today. "A study conducted by the (Labour) ministry in coordination with the International Monetary Fund and the United Nations Development Program shows that 20 per cent of the population is affected by poverty," Leila Kazem, director general of the department of social affairs at the Labour Ministry said. "Some two million Iraqi families live under the poverty line, as defined by international criteria, which is fixed at one dollar per day per person." Sectarianism: As sectarian tensions rise and talk of civil war spreads, more Iraqis are moving to areas where their religious group is dominant. The trend appears strongest among the country's Shiite majority, many of whom are targeted by the Sunni-led insurgency and live in religiously mixed or predominantly Sunni neighborhoods of Baghdad and other cities. Many are forced out by threats, often conveyed in written notes left in homes. It is unclear how many people have fled their homes, but the numbers clearly are rising. Hundreds of thousands are believed to have moved to Jordan or Syria. Those who cannot afford to leave the country simply head for new, safer neighborhoods or provinces. The reconstruction fiasco: "Spectacular misuse of tens of millions of dollars." That is what The Australian says an audit by the the US Special Inspector-General for Iraq Reconstruction of the former Coalition Provisional Authority office in Hilla, Iraq, has uncovered. The newspaper says the report details bundles of money stashed in filing cabinets, a US soldier who gambled away thousands of dollars, and stacks of newly minted notes distributed without receipts. The findings come almost a year after Stuart Bowen, the Inspector-General, found that more than $9 billion of Iraq's oil revenues, which was disbursed in 2004 by the then US-led CPA, could not be accounted for. Meanwhile the Times also reports that the Inspector General's office issued a separate audit Thursday showing that the American-financed reconstruction program in Iraq will not finish scores of projects. For example, only 49 of the 136 projects designed to improve Iraq's sanitation and water facilities will be completed, and only 300 of the 415 projects to improve electricity. Hope his oil production predictions are better than his WMD ones were: Iraq aims to boost crude oil exports by about 300,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 1.5 million bpd within six weeks, Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Chalabi said. "We will make it up to 1.5 million bpd within six weeks," Chalabi told Reuters on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos. He said improvements in water injection in southern oil wells and the resolution of some technical problems should increase exports from the main southern oil terminal near Basra. He said he also hoped exports would restart soon through the pipeline from the Kirkuk oilfields in the north to Turkey. Insurgents blew up at least two pipelines on Wednesday, halting exports through the northern pipeline to Turkey just one week after they had resumed. Sabotage attacks have mostly paralysed the line since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Saddam trial: Former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein walked out of court amid uproar within minutes of the resumption of his murder trial under a new presiding judge. He left in protest after his defence team walked out, and was followed by two more of his co-defendants. The walkouts came after the new chief judge, Raouf Abdul Rahman, had Saddam's half brother and co-defendant Barzan al-Tikriti removed from the courtroom. Wrecking The US Military How to achieve 100% recruitment, Bush style: President Bush will use his new budget to propose cutting the size of the Army Reserve to its lowest level in three decades and stripping as much as $4 billion from two fighter aircraft programs. Under the plan, the authorized troop strength of the Army Reserve would drop from 205,000 -- the current number of slots it is allowed -- to 188,000, the actual number of soldiers it had at the end of 2005. Because of recruiting and other problems, the Army Reserve has been unable to fill its ranks to its authorized level. Army leaders have said they are taking a similar approach to shrinking the National Guard. They are proposing to cut that force from its authorized level of 350,000 soldiers to 333,000, the actual number now on the rolls. Whatever you say, Don: Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld on Wednesday disputed reports suggesting that the U.S. military is stretched thin and close to a snapping point from operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, asserting "the force is not broken." Rumsfeld spoke a day after the Associated Press reported that an unreleased study conducted for the Pentagon said the Army is being overextended, due to the two wars, and may not be able to retain and recruit enough troops to defeat the insurgency in Iraq. Congressional Democrats released a report Wednesday that also concluded the U.S. military is under severe stress. Meanwhile, the top U.S. general in Iraq acknowledged today that American forces there are "stretched," but he said he will recommend withdrawals only based on operational needs. They must be rewarding competence: Congress has granted unusual authority for the Pentagon to spend as much as $200 million of its own budget to aid foreign militaries, a break with the traditional practice of channeling foreign military assistance through the State Department. The move, included in a little-noticed provision of the 2006 National Defense Authorization Act passed last month, marks a legislative victory for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who pushed hard for the new powers to deal with emergency situations. But it has drawn warnings from foreign policy specialists inside and outside the government, who say it could lead to growth of a separate military assistance effort not subject to the same constraints applied to foreign aid programs that are administered by the State Department. Such constraints are meant to ensure that aid recipients meet certain standards, including respect for human rights and protection of legitimate civilian authorities. This is one of the scarier stories I’ve read lately. This creates a system where the military can conduct a separate foreign policy from the State Department. I do not get a warm happy from this… I guess it’s question of priorities: A rehabilitation center for amputees and other wounded soldiers that's rising near Brooke Army Medical Center comes with a virtual-reality roller coaster, a $37 million price tag and a question: Why isn't the federal government paying for any of it? Instead, the four-story building is being paid for entirely by private donations, prompting some to ask why the government isn't meeting its obligations to those wounded in the war in Iraq — a war that has returned home amputees at twice the rate of Vietnam. Bush should try this sometime: The heavy human toll of the war in Iraq hasn't hit home to most Americans because it is "being borne by a very, very small group," said Gov. Ted Kulongoski, who has attended more than 50 funerals of slain service members. In a wide-ranging and at times emotional discussion of his thoughts about the war, Kulongoski told The Oregonian on Friday he doubts the strategy of training Iraq's military is working, and that he has deep concerns about planned cutbacks in the National Guard. But his strongest reaction came to questions about the personal impact of so many Oregonians coming home from Iraq in coffins. The governor tries to attend the funeral of every Oregon soldier killed in Iraq. Psychological damage: Zeiss said 120,000 soldiers have sought health care, and that 31 percent of them are being reviewed for possible mental health disorders, the top diagnosed being PTSD. A big difference from previous wars, she said, is that 13 percent of those soldiers are women. “We need to think not only about women veterans, but about women warriors,” she said. Many of them, she said, have dealt with sexual trauma. ??From who?? Soldiers are also living through trauma that, in previous wars, would have killed them, such as head wounds, Zeiss said. Doctors are just beginning to understand what those soldiers need. Future War Electronic warfare: Bloggers beware. As the world turns networked, the Pentagon is calculating the military opportunities that computer networks, wireless technologies and the modern media offer. From influencing public opinion through new media to designing "computer network attack" weapons, the US military is learning to fight an electronic war. Perhaps the most startling aspect of the roadmap is its acknowledgement that information put out as part of the military's psychological operations, or Psyops, is finding its way onto the computer and television screens of ordinary Americans. The only thing good about the article above is that the war on bloggers will probably be executed with the same level of competence as this: Homeland Security bureaucrats just look at pornography all day, a startling new government report suggests. The terror bureaucracy’s internal computer network logged a staggering 65 million security alerts in just 90 days, according to the study (PDF) released today by Homeland Security Department inspector general Dick Skinner. The DHS computer network is such an ineptly run mess that it's unknown how many of those 65 million porn alarms are really caused by Homeland Security employees looking at naked pictures. An expensive network of programs are used to constantly spy on all employee computers, but it all works so poorly that nobody can tell the difference between one cubicle drone looking for "oral sex" pictures or another typing the word "behavioral," Washington Technology reported today. Assassination, Our New Foreign Policy Kill ‘em all, let God sort ‘em out: Despite protests from other countries, the United States is expanding a top-secret effort to kill terrorism suspects with drone-fired missiles as it pursues an increasingly decentralized al-Qaida, U.S. officials say. The CIA's failed attempt to assassinate al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in Pakistan on Jan. 13 was the latest strike in the government's "targeted killing" program, a highly classified initiative that officials say has broadened as the terrorist network splintered into smaller cells and fled its haven in Afghanistan. Little is known publicly about the targeted-killing program. The Bush administration has refused to discuss how many strikes it has made, how many people have died or how it decides whom to target. No U.S. officials were willing to speak about it on the record because the program is classified. Although it is unknown how many times the targets have been missed, several U.S. officials confirmed at least 19 occasions since Sept. 11 in which Predators successfully fired Hellfire missiles on suspected terrorist leaders overseas. The Predator strikes have killed at least four senior al-Qaida leaders, but also many civilians. Critics dispute the program's legality under U.S. and international law and say it is administered with little oversight outside the CIA. U.S. intelligence officials insist that it is one of their most tightly regulated, carefully vetted programs. Politics Why do the Democrats cower?: A new Time magazine poll finds 60 percent of U.S. citizens disapprove of President George W. Bush`s handling of the war in Iraq. The country is split on whether the United States should have invaded Iraq, with 51 percent saying no and 44 percent yes. Forty-eight percent disapprove of Bush`s handling of the war on terrorism and 47 percent approve. Maybe the Brits will show us how it’s done: Mr Blair's supporters argue at one minute that he took Britain into the Iraq War courageously committed to the wellbeing of the Iraqi people. When this fails to impress, they suggest instead that he was a restraining influence on the White House. He cannot have been both these things. It is more likely that he was neither of them and instead was simply dragged along by the sheer force of President Bush's determination to have his war. The Blair version, just like the discredited, massaged intelligence dossiers which portrayed Iraq as an imminent threat, is so questionable that it almost asks to be exploded. So far it has not been. We do not know quite enough. But the moment may be fast approaching when the Premier is forced to explain the curious sequence of events that ended with Britain committing a huge part of its Armed Forces to a war whose justification weakens by the day, and which does not seem to have been in the interests of this country. A new account of the decisive hours of politics and diplomacy, shortly before hostilities began, is expected to surface this week. Commentary Jonathan Chait: ‘Republicans have a post-9/11 view of the world and Democrats have a pre-9/11 view of the world," asserted White House senior strategist Karl Rove in a recent speech. Rove is widely seen to be signaling the main GOP theme for the 2006 elections. This is no surprise because Republicans have been saying this since roughly five minutes after the World Trade Center towers collapsed. As former White House speechwriter David Frum wrote in "The Right Man," his hagiography of George W. Bush, after Sept. 11 "there was no more domestic agenda. The domestic agenda was the same as the foreign agenda: Win the war — then we'll see." Meanwhile, conservatives have ceaselessly accused Democrats of clinging to their petty pre-9/11 concerns. The odd thing about this complaint is that it fails even the most cursory examination. Did Bush alter, much less abandon, his domestic agenda after 9/11? Hardly. He crusaded for more tax cuts, enacted a huge Medicare bill, relentlessly promoted Social Security privatization and so forth. That is odd behavior for a man who understood at the core of his soul that his country faced an existential threat. You didn't see Winston Churchill in 1940 barnstorming the country demanding tax cuts. So how exactly was Bush transformed by 9/11 in a way Democrats were not? Eugene Robinson: Bush mentioned the new tape from Osama bin Laden that surfaced the other day, calling it a reminder that we face "an enemy that wants to hit us again." That's certainly true, but the warning would carry more gravitas if Bush and his administration didn't brag so much about how thoroughly al Qaeda has been routed and decimated. Is anybody keeping track of how many "No. 3" or "No. 4" al Qaeda lieutenants U.S. forces claim to have eliminated? And Americans would be better able to measure the threat from bin Laden if Bush and the rest of his administration didn't argue -- when it gives them an edge -- that Iraq is the "central front in the war on terrorism." If Iraq is the main event, then bin Laden, huddled in some cave in northern Pakistan, must be just a sideshow, right? But of course he's not a sideshow, he's the author of the Sept. 11 attacks, so what does that make Iraq? The answer seems to depend on whether, at any given time, Bush believes that cultivating fear of bin Laden or stoking fear of a terrorist spawning ground in Iraq would better help his administration achieve its ends. The thing is, fear works. The administration successfully invoked the fear of "mushroom clouds" to win support, or at least acquiescence, for the invasion of Iraq. By the time it was clear there were no weapons of mass destruction, the fear of losing to terrorists on the "central front" had been given primacy. We stopped hearing the name bin Laden so often -- no need to bring attention to the fact that he remained at large -- until reports emerged of secret CIA prisons, torture and domestic spying. Bin Laden does remain a threat. He would hit the United States again if he could. We do expect the president to protect us. But a great wartime leader rallies his citizens by informing them and inspiring them. He certainly doesn't use threats to our national security for political gain. He doesn't just point at a map and say "Boo." Palm Beach Post: The Bush administration promised and the Iraqi people expected by now clean water, reliable electricity — for more than half a day — and a rapidly recovering oil industry to pay for clinics, schools, roads and more. Fulfilling the promise first required establishing basic security, and the failure to provide that has been the biggest problem of all. So big, according to an audit released Thursday, that Iraqis will not get hundreds of projects they were promised. Just 49 of 136 water projects will be done by 2007 as scheduled, according to the Times, and 125 electricity projects also are behind. Billions of dollars were diverted from construction to security, but incompetence — at best — also led to delays. Republicans who control Congress owe the troops and U.S. taxpayers a complete investigation and most likely a full list of firings and prosecutions. A separate report issued last week showed the shocking lack of financial controls over reconstruction and training money. Officials kept millions in cash but no records of how it was spent. One soldier who was an assistant to the Iraqi boxing team lost $20,000 gambling. Or maybe it was $60,000. Officials don't know because they don't know how much money they gave him. Meanwhile, oil industry experts said last week that Iraqi production fell 8 percent last year and is at half the pre-invasion level. The World Bank estimates that it will cost at least $8 billion — and take years — just to get production back to the starting point. Economic and military security are interlocked. Failure to provide them leaves U.S. troops more vulnerable while they stay in Iraq. If the U.S. pulls out before Iraq is stable, Iraq could become the threat the Bush administration claimed it was before invading. Both those possibilities should motivate Congress, which has given the administration such a free hand. The administration's blind supporters have a special obligation to make amends. To support the troops and all Americans — not to mention the Iraqis we claim to be helping — Congress has to find out what has gone wrong, demand changes and keep watching. To rebuild Iraq, Congress has to rebuild its stature as an equal branch of government. Paul Craig Roberts: What does it say for democracy that half of the American population is unable to draw a rational conclusion from unambiguous facts? Americans share this disability with the Bush administration. According to news reports, the Bush administration is stunned by the election victory of the radical Islamist Hamas Party, which swept the US-financed Fatah Party from office. Why is the Bush administration astonished? The Bush administration is astonished because it stupidly believes that hundreds of millions of Muslims should be grateful that the US has interfered in their internal affairs for 60 years, setting up colonies and puppet rulers to suppress their aspirations and to achieve, instead, purposes of the US government. Americans need desperately to understand that 95 percent of all Muslim terrorists in the world were created in the past three years by Bush’s invasion of Iraq. Americans need desperately to comprehend that if Bush attacks Iran and Syria, as he intends, terrorism will explode, and American civil liberties will disappear into a thirty-year war that will bankrupt the United States. The total lack of rationality and competence in the White House and the inability of half of the US population to acquire and understand information are far larger threats to Americans than terrorism. America has become a rogue nation, flying blind, guided only by ignorance and hubris. A terrible catastrophe awaits. Awards and Commendations Sgt. Leigh Ann Hester – Silver Star, the first woman to win one since WWII Staff. Sgt. Timothy F. Nein – Silver Star Staff Sgt. Shannon Kay – Silver Star Spec. Ashley J. Pullen – Bronze Star Casualty Reports Killed: Marine Lance Cpl. Brandon Christopher Dewey Marine Cpl. Carlos Arellano Roland Barvels Army Spc. Sergio Gudino Staff Sgt. Lance M. Chase Pfc. Peter D. Wagler Sgt. Clifton "Tigger" Yazzie Staff Sgt. Rickey Scott Sgt. Dennis J. Flanagan Spc. Matthew C. Frantz Staff Sgt. Brian McElroy Cpl. Carlos Arrelanopandura Pvt. Lewis T. D. Calapini Lance Cpl. Joshua A. Scott Sgt. Matthew D. Hunter Sgt. Sean H. Miles Sgt. Joshua A. Johnson Staff Sgt. Jerry M. Durbin Jr US Air Force Tech Sergeant Jason Norton NOTE TO READERS: We at Today in Iraq would like to extend our heartfelt thanks and best wishes to Friendly Fire, who has resigned as a contributor to the main page because he really needed a break from all the bad news. We wish him the best and hope he continues to contribute to the Comments when he feels up to it. Please take a moment and send him your thanks for all the hard work he put into the blog over the past year. He really made a hell of a difference in keeping this thing afloat.

War News for Friday Jan. 27 and Saturday Jan. 28 Bring 'em on: Gunmen attacked a convoy of oil trucks with rocket propelled grenades in a western district of the capital, setting at least one truck on fire. Bring 'em on: Gunmen killed a policeman and wounded three civilians in southern Baghdad. Bring 'em on: Two clerics were killed and the sister of one of them wounded when gunmen opened fire on their car in southern Baghdad. Bring 'em on: Industry Minister Osama Abdel-Aziz al-Najafi escaped an assassination attempt when a roadside bomb hit his convoy near Balad, 90 km (55 miles) north of Baghdad. Three of his bodyguards were killed and another was wounded. Bring 'em on: Five soldiers were killed and two wounded on Wednesday when a roadside bomb hit their convoy in Ishaqi, near Samarra, 100 km (62 miles) north of Baghdad. Bring 'em on: A roadside bomb killed a U.S soldier and wounded another on Wednesday south of Baghdad. Bring 'em on: A civilian was wounded when a roadside bomb went off near a Shi'ite mosque in Mahaweel, south of Baghdad. Bring 'em on: Gunmen killed Juma'a Rashid, the brother of a leader in the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, in the northern oil city of Kirkuk. Bring 'em on: Othman Rashid, a member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, was killed by gunmen in a separate incident. Bring 'em on: A roadside bomb in Youssifiyah, 12 miles south of Baghdad, missed a passing U.S. military patrol but killed two Iraqi civilians and wounded two others. Bring 'em on: Five soldiers were killed and two wounded on Wednesday when a roadside bomb hit their convoy in Ishaqi, near Samarra, 100 km (62 miles) north of Baghdad. Bring 'em on: A roadside bomb killed a U.S soldier and wounded another on Wednesday south of Baghdad. Bring 'em on: A civilian was wounded when a roadside bomb went off near a Shi'ite mosque in Mahaweel, south of Baghdad. Bring 'em on: Gunmen killed Juma'a Rashid, the brother of a leader in the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, in the northern oil city of Kirkuk. Othman Rashid, a member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, was killed by gunmen in a separate incident. Bring 'em on: Othman Rashid, a member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, was killed by gunmen in a separate incident. Bring 'em on": Fierce fighting between police and insurgents in southwestern Baghdad areas such as Jihad and Saydiyah early Friday. Policemen blaring their theme song "Where is the terrorist today?" from car speakers raided homes in several suburbs, arresting about 60 people. Jihad was the scene of the fiercest street battles, with some insurgents brandishing rocket-propelled grenade launchers. Cars and shops were deserted in the areas as ordinary Iraqis fled for cover. An AP photographer saw at least one body lying in a shop. Another two men trying to escape the area were shot dead as they ran. Witnesses said insurgents killed the men, apparently civilians, after they were seized and tried to flee. With U.S. attack helicopters flying overhead, insurgent snipers positioned themselves on rooftops and masked gunmen roamed alleyways in the cordoned-off area. Bring 'em on: In Baghdad's southern neighborhood of Dora, two gunmen entered a barber shop and killed a man waiting for a haircut. Bring 'em on: Less than 30 minutes later in the same area, men firing from two speeding cars killed a driver for the Higher Education Ministry. It was unclear if both events were linked. Bring 'em on: Police found a man's bullet-riddled body slumped in a car in western Baghdad. Identity cards found among his belongings indicated that he was an interpreter for the U.S. military. Bring 'em on: Gunmen wearing police commando uniform stormed houses in Baghdad's Sunni al-Hurriyah neighborhood early on Friday, kidnapping 16 civilians. IRAQ NEWS Demonstration against al-Qaida militants in Samara: More than 1,000 protesters hit the streets of Samara, some 125km north of the capital, Baghdad, to demonstrate against al-Qaida militants blamed for killing more than 100 local police recruits this month. Even self-described insurgents, locked in bitter fighting with US and Iraqi military forces, joined in the condemnation. "We work against the US occupation without hurting innocents," said Abu Omar of the insurgent Islamic Army. "If al-Qaida is against the ideology behind the insurgency, it's time to force them out of our country." Five Iraqi women prisoners freed by US: The U.S. military in Iraq freed five women prisoners on Thursday, but U.S. and Iraqi officials said their release was pre-planned and not linked to the case of the kidnapped American reporter Jill Carroll. The five, among nine female security detainees held by U.S. forces in Iraq, were freed along with 414 other prisoners. Bulgaria's last Iraq unit disbanded: Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov disbanded the Bulgaria's fifth infantry Iraq battalion on Friday. Nearly all soldiers of the Bulgarian contingent in Iraq returned home by Dec. 30, 2005, according to the withdrawal decision made by the Parliament in last May. Bulgaria had counted 19 deaths - 13 military and six civilians - since the beginning of the operation in August 2003. Basra's provincial council threates to cut ties with British forces: Basra's provincial council threatened on Friday to cut ties with British forces in protest at their arrest of policemen suspected of murder and corruption in Iraq's second-largest city. Council member Munaadhil al-Mayahee said relations would be severed if British forces did not release policemen they are still holding, withdraw their troops from central Basra, and hand over control of security to local authorities. Basra residents plan to stage a demonstration against the detentions on Sunday, he said. German govt confirms contact with Iraq kidnappers: German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said on Friday that the government had made contact with the kidnappers of two Germans in Iraq and was trying to avoid anything that would endanger the pair's lives. Iraqi cameraman killed filming attack: An Iraqi cameraman was killed as he was filming an attack by Sunni fighters on two buildings used by US troops in the town of Ramadi on Tuesday. Eyewitnesses said that the man, identified as Mahmoud Za'al, was wounded in the leg and moments later killed by a US aerial attack. Za'al, according to Reuters, worked for the Baghdad Satellite Channel, owned by the Iraqi Islamic Party, Iraq's largest Sunni political group. Witnesses claim that gunmen used attacked the governorate directorate building and the Iraqi Nationality Department with mortar rounds, grenades and machinegun fire. "When they got very close to these buildings, helicopters and other military planes started shooting at them," one witness said, adding, "The cameraman was in the streets to film the clashes when he was wounded, first in his legs, and then when U.S. planes started shooting he was killed." US officials denied that they had attacked Ramadi on Tuesday, saying only that they had bombed an area within the city's vicinity the previous day, and caused no injuries. Arab troops in Iraq possible only if not under US command: Arab countries are willing to discuss sending troops to help stabilise Iraq once US-led forces eventually leave, but only if asked by an Iraqi national unity government,Arab League chief Amr Moussa said. "The start is that there must be a sovereign government in Iraq that requests such a serious step",Moussa told Reuters Television late on Tuesday at the World Economic Forum in Davos,Switzerland. "Then we'll see under what conditions, and when, and how, and how many (troops), and who will pay for it. It's a very big issue and it cannot be answered just simply." He said an Arab force would not serve under US command - a sticking point in previous discussions some 18 months ago - and the terms for sending it would have to be agreed separately from any arrangements between Washington and Baghdad for a pullout of US and coalition troops. US Army near breaking point: The U.S. army has been overstretched nearly to a "breaking point" by frequent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, risking collapse unless relief comes soon, according to a latest study commissioned by the Pentagon. The study, which is conducted by retired U.S. army officer and military analyst Andrew Krepinevich under a Pentagon contract, concluded that the U.S. army cannot sustain the pace of troop deployments to Iraq long enough to eradicate insurgency, according to U.S. media reports Wednesday. Number of Iraqis living below poverty line increased dramatically after US occupation: Recent estimates indicated that one fifth of the onetime rich Iraqis are living below the poverty line since the US invasion of Iraq in March 2003. "A study conducted by the ministry in coordination with the International Monetary Fund and the United Nations Development Program shows that 20 percent of the population is affected by poverty," Leila Kazem, director general of the department of social affairs at the labor ministry, told Agence France Presse (AFP) Wednesday, January 25. "Some two million Iraqi families live under the poverty line, as defined by international criteria, which is fixed at one dollar per day per person." A recent study by Iraq's health ministry in tandem with Norway's Institute for Applied International Studies and the UN Development Program (UNDP) said children are paying the silent cost of the US-led occupation with malnutrition rates exceeding by far those in the world's poorest and disease-plagued countries. The report added that acute malnutrition among Iraqi children has nearly doubled since the US-invasion-turned-occupation in March 2003. 5,000 UK troops to be sent to Afghanistan: The biggest Army deployment since the Iraq invasion will begin next month. Almost 5,000 servicemen will move to Afghanistan, with the majority in Helmand province, one of the most dangerous areas. The three-year operation will cost £1 billion. Almost a quarter of the RAF's heavy helicopter fleet will be used to ferry troops around the country. (...) Locals in the provincial capital Lashkar Gah were either unperturbed or defiant about the British operation. "I have cultivated 30 jiribs [six hectares] of poppy," said Haji Barak, 63, an imposing white turbanned man with piercing blue eyes and few teeth. "If the British come to eradicate poppy we will resist. "We will put landmines and roadside bombs and we will look to the Taliban for help. But this year I think we have enough time to harvest before they arrive." REPORTS, COMMENTARY AND ANALYSIS US Soldier Describes War In Poetry

*Ashbah

The ghosts of American soldiers wander the streets of Balad by night, unsure of their way home, exhausted, the desert wind blowing trash down the narrow alleys as a voice sounds from the minaret, a soulfull call reminding them how alone they are, how lost. And the Iraqi dead, they watch in silence from rooftops as date palms line the shore in silhouette, leaning toward Mecca when the dawn wind blows.

*ashbah: arabic word for ghosts

Brian Turner is a soldier-poet who served for seven years in the U.S. Army. Beginning in November 2003, he was an infantry team leader in Iraq with the 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division. His book, Here, Bullet, reflects his war-time experiences in graceful and unflinching poetry. "CG wants the husband": Iraqi human rights activist Hind al-Salehi contends that U.S. anti-insurgent units, coming up empty-handed in raids on suspects' houses, have at times detained wives to pressure men into turning themselves in. Iraq's deputy justice minister, Busho Ibrahim Ali, dismissed such claims, saying hostage-holding was a tactic used under the ousted Saddam Hussein dictatorship, and "we are not Saddam." A U.S. command spokesman in Baghdad, Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, said only Iraqis who pose an "imperative threat" are held in long-term U.S.-run detention facilities. But documents describing two 2004 episodes tell a different story as far as short-term detentions by local U.S. units. The documents are among hundreds the Pentagon has released periodically under U.S. court order to meet an American Civil Liberties Union request for information on detention practices. In one memo, a civilian Pentagon intelligence officer described what happened when he took part in a raid on an Iraqi suspect's house in Tarmiya, northwest of Baghdad, on May 9, 2004. The raid involved Task Force (TF) 6-26, a secretive military unit formed to handle high-profile targets. "During the pre-operation brief it was recommended by TF personnel that if the wife were present, she be detained and held in order to leverage the primary target's surrender," wrote the 14-year veteran officer. He said he objected, but when they raided the house the team leader, a senior sergeant, seized her anyway. "The 28-year-old woman had three young children at the house, one being as young as six months and still nursing," the intelligence officer wrote. She was held for two days and was released after he complained, he said. The second episode, in June 2004, is found in sketchy detail in e-mail exchanges among six U.S. Army colonels, discussing an undisclosed number of female detainees held in northern Iraq by the Stryker Brigade of the 2nd Infantry Division. The first message, from a military police colonel, advised staff officers of the U.S. northern command that the Iraqi police would not take control of the jailed women without charges being brought against them. In a second e-mail, a command staff officer asked an officer of the unit holding the women, "What are you guys doing to try to get the husband - have you tacked a note on the door and challenged him to come get his wife?" Two days later, the brigade's deputy commander advised the higher command, "As each day goes by, I get more input that these gals have some info and/or will result in getting the husband." He went on, "These ladies fought back extremely hard during the original detention. They have shown indications of deceit and misinformation." The command staff colonel wrote in reply, referring to a commanding general, "CG wants the husband." "It's turning into our Vietnam": Aaron McGonigal knows all about patriotism and fighting terrorism. He was in the Illinois National Guard on Sept. 11, 2001. Soon after the attacks, he volunteered for active duty in the Army and ended up on a security force in Germany. McGonigal, 25, now a sales manager for a medical-technology company here, doesn't believe the war in Iraq has anything to do with battling terrorism. He also doesn't think his opposition to the war makes him less patriotic. "I don't think we should be there," he says. "It's turning into our Vietnam." The night the Americans came: Last weekend an American special task force unit raided my house. It was precisely the kind of terrifying experience I have had described to me over and over again by Iraqis I have interviewed in the past two-and-a-half years. My wife, Zina, described it as like something out of a Hollywood action movie. It began at half past midnight on Saturday when explosives blew apart the three entrances to my house. We thought we had been caught in a bombing, but then a rifle sneaked round our bedroom door and shot a couple of bullets blindly; suddenly our room was filled with the wild sounds of US soldiers. My three-year-old daughter Sarah woke to this nightmare. She pushed herself on to me and shouted "Daddy, Americans! They will take you! No, no, not like this daddy ..." She tried to say something to one of the soldiers but her tears stopped her from speaking. Instead of blaming the soldier I could see she was blaming me. I tried to calm her down but as I did so the soldier threw me on to the ground and tied me. They then took me downstairs and made me sit in the living room while they smashed every piece of furniture we have. There were about 20 soldiers inside the house and several others on guard on the roof. A blue-eyed captain came to me holding my Handycam camcorder and questioned me aggressively: "Can you explain to me why you have this footage?" I explained. "These are for a film we are making for Channel 4 Dispatches. There is nothing sinister about it." But that was not good enough. He seemed to think he had found very important evidence. Hooded and with my hands tied I was taken to an armoured vehicle. I was then driven to an unknown destination. I spent the entire journey thinking back on what has happened in the past two years of the occupation. I have so often heard of such things happening to others. But now I was experiencing it myself, and I too could feel the shame and humiliation. It is this kind of disrespect for the privacy of the home - that tribal people regard as a terrible humiliation - which Sunnis in the west of Iraq see as legitimising resistance. When the journey eventually ended I found myself in a small room, two metres square, with wooden walls, a refrigerator and an oval table in the middle. Soon two men came in, civilians, wearing vests. "Do you know why you are here, Mr Fadhil?" they asked me. I replied: "To be interrogated?" With a broad smile, one of them said: "No. There was a mistake in the address and we apologise for the damage." So that's it. They blew three doors apart with explosives, smashed the house windows, trashed all our furniture, damaged the car, risked our lives by shooting inside rooms aimlessly, hooded me and took me from my family who didn't know if they would ever see me again - and then, with a smile, they dismissed it as a small mistake. So was this intimidation or just a typical piece of bungled repression? I don't know and cannot tell, though I have yet to have my tapes returned. I do know, however, the effect it has had on my daughter. Sarah hates all soldiers and calls them Americans even if they are Iraqis. There is no way she will change her mind about them after that nightmare. There are many Iraqis - Iraqis who welcomed the fall of Saddam - who feel exactly the same today. "Maybe they just need to have their civil war": Not only the Embassy but the U.S. military was quite conscious of the serious consequences of its sectarian-ethnic strategy. Last May, for instance, Washington Post reporter Ann Scott Tyson wrote that "U.S. military analysts" conceded that, "by pitting Iraqis from different religious sects, ethnic groups and tribes against each other," the U.S. strategy "aggravates the underlying fault lines in Iraqi society, heightening the prospects of civil strife." With the Sunni community even more overwhelmingly behind the anti-occupation armed struggle than was the case a year ago, the U.S. command feels it has no choice but to depend on just such sectarian or ethnic units to help put down the Sunni insurgency. But even if they do not explicitly admit it, U.S. commanders know that this is a brutal and cynical policy. Thus, they have had to find a way to justify it to themselves. In October, a "senior military official in Baghdad" was quoted in another Tom Lasseter piece saying, "Maybe they just need to have their civil war. In this part of the world it's almost a way of life." That official was unconsciously echoing the words of General William Westmoreland, the former commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam, who rationalized the hundreds of thousands of deaths inflicted on the Vietnamese by the U.S. intervention in an infamous statement: "The Oriental doesn't put the same high price on life as does a Westerner... Life is cheap in the Orient." There is no doubt that the history of violence among the Sunnis, the Shiites, and the Kurds made for strong tendencies toward sectarian-ethnic violence in post-Saddam Iraq. But the fact that a senior American military official would resort to such a racist explanation to evade responsibility for creating civil-war conditions in Iraq only underlines the depths to which the United States has descended. Belafonte live on CNN: "I believe what our government does has terror in the center of its agenda": Transcript of "The Situation Room" hosted by Wolf Blitzer aired January 23, 2006 - 19:00 ET.

BLITZER: The new Gestapo. You know, those are powerful words, calling an agency of the U.S. government, the Department of Homeland Security with, what, about 300,000 federal employees, the new Gestapo. Do you want to take that back? BELAFONTE: No, not really. I stand by my remarks. I am very much aware of what this has provoked in our national community. People feel that I talk in extremes. But if you look at what's happening to American citizens, a lot is going on in the extreme. We've taken citizens from this country without the right to be charged, without being told what they're taken for, we've spirited them out of this country, taken them to far away places and reports come back with some consistency that they are being tortured, that they're not being told what they've done. And even some who have been released have come back and testified to this fact. BLITZER: But no one has taken you or anyone else, as far as I can tell, to an extermination camp and by the tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands, even millions decided to kill them, which is what the Nazis did. BELAFONTE: Well, Mr. Blitzer, let me say this to you, perhaps, just perhaps had the Jews of Germany and people spoken out much earlier and had resisted the tyranny that was on the horizon, perhaps we would never have had... BLITZER: Well, wait a minute, wait a minute, are you blaming the Jews of Germany for what Hitler did to them? BELAFONTE: No, no. What I'm saying is that if it an awakened citizenry, begins to oppose the first inkling of the subversion of government, of the subversion of our democracy, then perhaps an early warning would have saved the world a lot of what we all experienced. I'm not accusing the Jews at all. What I was getting at really is that if all citizens, the Jewish community, the Christian community and all else had taken a very early aggressive stand rather than somehow suggesting or thinking or feeling that this would have gone away, we might have found that Germany would have been in a far different place than it wound up in. BLITZER: When you were in Venezuela with Hugo Chavez, you said that Bush is the greatest terrorist, the greatest tyrant. Are you saying that President Bush is worse than Osama bin Laden? BELAFONTE: I'm saying that he's no better. You know, it's hard to make a hyperbole stick. I obviously haven't had a chance to meet all the terrorists in the world, so I have no reason to throw around the words like the greatest or make some qualitative statement. I do believe he is a terrorist. I do believe that what our government does has terror in the center of its agenda. When you lie to the American people, when you've misled them and you've taken our sons and daughters to foreign lands to be destroyed, and you look at tens of thousands of Arab women and children and innocent people being destroyed each day, under the title of collateral damage, I think there's something very wrong with the leadership. BLITZER: What you did say in Venezuela was that President Bush was, and I'm quoting now, the greatest tyrant in the world and the greatest terrorist in the world. BELAFONTE: Yes, I did say that. BLITZER: Now that raises the issue of moral equivalency. Are you saying what the Bush administration, what the president is doing is the moral equivalent of what al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden ordered on 9/11? BELAFONTE: I think President George W. Bush, I think Cheney, I think Rumsfeld, I think all of these people have lost any moral integrity. I find what we are doing is hugely immoral to the American people and to others in the world. BLITZER: And the same, or if not worse than al Qaeda? Is that what you're saying? BELAFONTE: Well, I don't want to make those kind of comparisons. I'm not too sure all of what al Qaeda has done. Al Qaeda tortures. We torture. Al Qaeda's killed innocent people. We kill innocent people. Where do the lines get blurred here? BLITZER: What about -- and these were very, very damning words that you said a few years ago, and I wonder if you still stick by them. When you call Colin Powell, the secretary of state at that time, or Condoleezza Rice, the president's national security adviser now the secretary of state, plantation slaves. It's one thing to disagree with them, but when you get involved in name calling with all the history of our country, plantation slaves, isn't that crossing the line? BELAFONTE: Not at all. As a matter of fact, there are a lot of plantations in America where people are slaving away their lives. You know, one of the big problems that we have in this country is the inability to be honest and to be straightforward. We've never had a dialogue in this country on the real issues of slavery. I don't even want to get stuck there. But what I said about Colin Powell is that he serves his master well. And in that context, I was asked to describe what that meant. And I used the metaphor of slavery and the plantation. And I stand by it.

Comment on this Belafonte interview by the Black Commentator:

Harry Belafonte is an esteemed elder, one of the tallest trees in the forest. Beside him, this president is a shrub. A bush.

General Odom: "The biggest threat to the U.S. empire is incompetent U.S. leadership": Retired General William Odom, who served as a national security adviser to President Ronald Reagan, spoke last Thursday to the Committee for the Republic in Washington, DC. He described the IRAQ WAR as a historic blunder that the United States should end. He was asked - if U.S. PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH sought your advice on IRAQ what would you say in a letter to him. Odom responded that he would tell the President that "he is losing in IRAQ" and that he "has made the most strategic foreign policy disaster in U.S. history." To get out he suggests the PRESIDENT sends Secretary of State CONDOLEEZZA RICE to Europe ostensibly to talk about Kyoto. In reality, the purpose of the visit would be to say the President wants to meet with you in the Azores to discuss IRAQ. Once a meeting is organized the President should tell other foreign leaders "I screwed up and am pulling out." He should make the point that the U.S. pulling out could make things worse for the region, Russia and the Far East because terrorists in Iraq will be freed up to go to other countries. The country least likely to be effected by this would be the United States. The President should seek the involvement of these countries in order to minimize the destabilization that might occur. Then he would instruct the Secretary of Defense DONALD RUMSFELD to develop the logistics for getting out of IRAQ. In order to bring stability to the region the best approach, according to Odom is to "develop an opening between the United States and Iran." The conflict with Iran needs to be turned on its head. THE PRESIDENT should send a private delegation to Iran to explain our common interests. We should be willing to make concessions on the nuclear bomb - get the nuclear bomb off the table and begin to work with Iran to stabilize the region. General Odom was asked by an IRAQ veteran who had just returned how he knew the war was lost when we have only been there for three years. Odom described the problems in IRAQ as beyond our ability to control. The multiple ethnic groups in IRAQ, the divisions in Arab culture and their lack of history with a limited state makes "IRAQ one of the hardest places on earth to put in place a liberal democracy." Odom sees spreading democracy, especially liberal democracy, as very difficult. When asked how we can bring THE PRESIDENT to heel? Odom responded with a question "how do you impeach THE PRESIDENT ?" He went on to express concern about the weakening constitutional balance in the United States. When it came to Congress, Odom talked about meeting with Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC) where he congratulated Jones for "taking the lead because then it won't go to the radical left and we won't be spitting on our soldiers." Regarding Rep. Jack Murtha (D-PA), Odom said he "absolutely agrees with Murtha." Odom came to oppose the VIETNAM WAR, not from the left but from the right and he is doing so on Iraq as well. He saw Vietnam as uniting our enemies and failing to contain China. He sees the same thing occurring in Iraq. The unintended consequences of strengthening Iran, undermining U.S. influence in the Middle East and the world and strengthening Osama bin Laden make this a war counterproductive to U.S. interests. He pointed out that like Vietnam the Iraq War was justified by false intelligence comparing the Gulf of Tonkin with the Weapons of Mass Destruction claims. Odom saw three stages in Vietnam: 1961-65 getting into the war; 1965-68 understanding we are not fighting it right, changing approach to a pacification policy; 1968 to end - Vietnamization and phony diplomacy in Paris. He sees us at the end of Phase II in Iraq and beginning Phase III this year. We are seeing the Iraqization of the war and concludes we will see Congress starting to break with the President more and more; and the final conclusion will be the U.S. leaving the "Green Zone" much like the U.S. left the embassy in VIETNAM. Odom noted that the United States is "running out of Army" and that people underestimate how difficult the Iraq War is on the Army. Indeed, he said "if we took a referendum among U.S. troops 80 percent would favor leaving. We might be winning tactically, but we are losing strategically." He predicted a dramatic draw down by next Christmas with some type of political cover invoked to accomplish it. As to the idea that the Iraq War is a war for oil, Odom described oil as a "red herring. Oil is a commodity. Our enemies will sell us oil." However, Odom did see a need to break U.S. addiction to oil. He recommended a $2 tax on oil to build up a research and development fund for alternative energies. He realized the political leadership may not be able to accomplish this feat. On the larger issue of American Empire, and the lessons from Iraq. Odom urges that "the United States should be an empire that acts like a Republic. We should use our power like a teacher on a playground - not like one of the kids." It is possible that the U.S. Empire is history, but he hopes not. Is Bush once again going to allow Israel to pull America into another quagmire?: Remember this when thinking about warfare-Iran was called Persia-they have 5000 years of military history behind them-with a lot more wisdom than these upstarts and uneducated men who are running our military. If this is the best that West Point and our other military academies have to offer for leadership-then we'd be ready to revamp those institutions and get some wiser and cooler heads to run our armed forces and maybe some men with courage enough to tell the president that he doesn't know a damn thing about war or strategy. As I said months ago, if Israel or the U.S. attacks Iran, "you ain't seen nothin' yet." Bush has already lost a war in Iraq, he has no victory in Afghanistan, and it seems his only solution is to start another war that he can't win-thus destroying our image as a democratic peace-loving nation, getting thousands more Americans killed in needless wars, totally busting the economy so that his friends at Halliburton and Blackwell and other firms can make money, and in the meantime, with his legal team in place, he's preaching democracy while destroying democracy and dissent at home in America. Does all of this sound like it's a madhouse? A friend of mine, Marvin X wrote a book recently, The Crazy House Called America. I'm afraid he's right, we've become a crazy house, led by an idiot, a man who should be treated for mental disorders and possibly dry alcoholism or worse, according to some prominent psychologists and psychiatrists in America and in the world. If he's not run out of office soon, the craziness will get further out of hand, and what is left of America as we knew it will be lost. US Tries to Pressure Iran with Attack Stories: Recent reports in the Turkish and German press of the U.S. asking the Turkish government to support a possible attack on Iran and alerting allied countries of preparations for such an attack appear to be part of a strategy to pressure the Iranian regime rather than the result of a new policy to strike Iran. The reports are unlikely to be effective in getting Iran to be more forthcoming, however. None of the stories suggested that the military option was anything more than a possibility. That would not represent anything new, because the administration's public posture since August 2005 had been that the "military option" was on the table. The press reports do refer to possible air attacks on Iran, but since fall 2004, Bush administration planning for possible military action against Iranian nuclear facilities appears to have focused on commando operations to sabotage them rather than on air attacks. The choice of covert operations instead of air strikes in administration planning reflected the serious downside associated with an overt attack on Iran. Administration policymakers were concerned about the likelihood of Iranian retaliation - in Iraq, Afghanistan, or elsewhere in the Middle East - for an open military air attack against Iranian targets. Having failed to get agreement by the European three to exploit the military option in the diplomatic maneuvering with Iran, the Bush administration apparently felt that it needed to take other steps to increase the pressure on Tehran, including arranging for sensational newspaper articles to appear in the Turkish and German press. The destruction of the myth of the "virtuous" Europe and the "civilized" West: In the face of the arrogance and the abuses committed by the United States over the past years - in particular, as Jacob Singer recalls, due to the huge demonstrations against the war in Iraq - a myth was created: that Europe serves as "counterweight" to the neoconservatives' imperial wishes. The absence of a true reaction to the case of human rights violations in its own territory seriously undermines this myth. In Al Watan, Kuwaiti intellectual and Parliament member Ahmed Yussef Al Daiij notes that this is a clear example of the double speech used by politicians. While, on the one hand, the West continues to make calls to respect human rights and takes to court those countries considered to be violating them, on the other hand, it submits itself without any resistance to a US administration that institutionalizes torture and disdain for human rights. Not only has the credibility of the United States but also that of the West, which likes to give lessons, been seriously put into question. Lebanese writer Hazem Saghieh, who had supported the United States during the two wars in Iraq, says nothing different in the Pan-Arab newspaper Dar Al-Hayat. He regrets that Europe and the United States, in other times champions of human rights, are every day seeing how this image is destroyed due to the new scandals that break after the abuses committed by the United States with European complicity. We should hope that this disappointment serves to accelerate the destruction of the myth of the "virtuous" Europe and the "civilized" West - two main ingredients of the war of civilizations and the moral justifications of colonial adventures. Torture worked perfectly: Let us then speak of interrogations justified by national security needs and let us evaluate its reliability: Lebanese citizen Ibn al Shaykh al-Libi was sent to be tortured by the Egyptians; he gave "evidence" of the links between Saddam Hussein and Osaama bin Laden, an assertion that proved to be completely wrong. But, as Robert Sheer recalls in AlterNet, "we should not pay attention to the conclusions of the majority of the experts in torture who explain that the method is not effective as the one who is tortured only says what they want him to say. In the case of al-Libi, torture worked perfectly to obtained precisely the necessary evidence needed to launch a long-desired war". The superpower without complex: From now on, the American empire assumes itself with no complex at all, it's even theorized by the elites of a country that accepts that democratic ideals are not theirs anymore. Thus, the Heritage Foundation held a conference on the lessons of the Roman empire for today's America (The Lessons of the Roman Empire for America Today). As in Rome, the United States is called to play its role as a superpower by means of war and devastation. The American imperialism is not a mental construction of leftists or other alter-worldists. It's a reality, in fact. In Defence of International Law: It is clear that the United States, and also those who support the actions of that country in the name of human rights, oppose the strengthening of that international order. It is very likely that the UN reforms currently being studied will lead to the legitimization of more unilateral actions. According to the argument most commonly used, it is an outrage to put democratic and undemocratic countries at the same level in the United Nations and particularly in its human rights commission. This argument ignores that in all the meetings of the Movement of Non Aligned Countries and in all the summits of the South, who represent 70% of humanity, they - not only "dictatorships" - have condemned all forms of unilateral interference, namely embargos, sanctions or wars. Anyway, liberal imperialists, that is, the majority of US Democrats and most of the European Greens and Social-Democrats - who defend democracy at the internal level while they support interference, that is, the dictatorship of a country or a small group of countries, at the international level - are completely incoherent. Finally, when complaining, as it often happens, about the inefficiency of the United Nations, we have to think of all the disarmament treaties or accords prohibiting weapons of mass destruction, whose main opponent is the United States. It is precisely the big powers the ones that more firmly oppose the idea of law acting against their last resort: the use of force. But, in the same way that no one suggests that, at the internal level, the mafia's hostility towards law can justify the abolition of the latter, no one can use the US's sabotage of the United Nations as an argument to discredit this organization. There is one last argument in favour of international law that may be even more important than all the others: international law is the paper shield that the Third World thought it could use against the West during the decolonization. Those who use human rights to undermine international law in the name of the "right to interfere" ignore that, during the entire colonial period, there were neither borders nor dictators preventing the West from establishing the rule of human rights in the submitted countries. If that was their intention, the least that colonized countries can say is that they did not prove it. Probably, that is one of the main reasons why the countries of the South so strongly condemn the so-called "right to interfere." "Fight the net": A newly declassified document gives a fascinating glimpse into the US military's plans for "information operations" - from psychological operations, to attacks on hostile computer networks. The declassified document is called "Information Operations Roadmap". It was obtained by the National Security Archive at George Washington University using the Freedom of Information Act. The operations described in the document include a surprising range of military activities: public affairs officers who brief journalists, psychological operations troops who try to manipulate the thoughts and beliefs of an enemy, computer network attack specialists who seek to destroy enemy networks. Perhaps the most startling aspect of the roadmap is its acknowledgement that information put out as part of the military's psychological operations, or Psyops, is finding its way onto the computer and television screens of ordinary Americans. "Information intended for foreign audiences, including public diplomacy and Psyops, is increasingly consumed by our domestic audience," it reads. "Psyops messages will often be replayed by the news media for much larger audiences, including the American public," it goes on. The roadmap, however, gives a flavour of what the US military is up to - and the grand scale on which it's thinking. It reveals that Psyops personnel "support" the American government's international broadcasting. It singles out TV Marti - a station which broadcasts to Cuba - as receiving such support. It recommends that a global website be established that supports America's strategic objectives. But no American diplomats here, thank you. The website would use content from "third parties with greater credibility to foreign audiences than US officials". It also recommends that Psyops personnel should consider a range of technologies to disseminate propaganda in enemy territory: unmanned aerial vehicles, "miniaturized, scatterable public address systems", wireless devices, cellular phones and the internet. When it describes plans for electronic warfare, or EW, the document takes on an extraordinary tone. It seems to see the internet as being equivalent to an enemy weapons system. "Strategy should be based on the premise that the Department [of Defense] will 'fight the net' as it would an enemy weapons system," it reads. The slogan "fight the net" appears several times throughout the roadmap. The authors warn that US networks are very vulnerable to attack by hackers, enemies seeking to disable them, or spies looking for intelligence. "Networks are growing faster than we can defend them... Attack sophistication is increasing... Number of events is increasing." And, in a grand finale, the document recommends that the United States should seek the ability to "provide maximum control of the entire electromagnetic spectrum". US forces should be able to "disrupt or destroy the full spectrum of globally emerging communications systems, sensors, and weapons systems dependent on the electromagnetic spectrum". Consider that for a moment. The US military seeks the capability to knock out every telephone, every networked computer, every radar system on the planet. WORLDWIDE Fidel Castro's prophecy has been fulfilled: One of the most significant events in 500 years of Latin American history will take place in Bolivia on Sunday when Evo Morales, an Aymara Indian, is inducted as president. Morales's victory is not just a symptom of economic breakdown and age-old repression. It also fulfils a prophecy made by Fidel Castro, who claimed the Andes would become the Americas' Sierra Maestra - the Cuban mountains that harboured black and Indian rebels over the centuries, as well as Castro's guerrilla band in the 50s. His prophecy exercised US governments in the 60s. Radical elected governments were destroyed by the armed forces - guardians of the white settler states - supported by Washington. Countries such as Brazil, Chile, Argentina and Bolivia were prevented from following anything that might have resembled the Cuban road. Today the rules have changed. The cold war no longer provides an excuse for intervention, and the US is stretched in other parts of the world. The ballot box, for the first time in Latin America, has become the strategy of choice for revolutionaries and the poor majority. The result in Bolivia is a president who invokes the memory of the silver miners of Potosi and Che Guevara, who dreamed of a socialist commonwealth of Latin America. Castro's prophecy looks close to fulfilment, and, in his 80th year, he will go to Bolivia to savour the moment. Why the West must reOrient: The West in recent decades has been attempting to change China through criticism and apocalyptic predictions. These help China to avoid traps, to prevent possible stumbles and to be careful about the direction it takes and the decisions it makes. For instance on human-rights issues, all the criticism helps the Chinese Communist Party to be on its toes, and in this way we Westerners help to make China a more harmonious society. Yet while we help China to change, we overlook the fact that we should change ourselves, because China's growth has brought a systemic change to the world at large. As it spearheads the general growth of Asia, particularly Southeast Asia and India, it foreshadows a different world, where for the first time in at least two centuries the West will become an economic minority. It is as if we were facing a huge climatic change, as if we went from the glacial era to a temperate era, or vice versa. In this climatic change, we are going to die if we don't change our habits. It is not because China is a threat, that it is malevolently planning an attack on the West. It is because there is a change of climate, and those who do not adapt to the new environment will inevitably suffer. Just a funny joke about Bush [from Russia]: A man enters a bar and orders a drink. The bar has a robot bartender. The robot serves him a perfectly prepared cocktail, and then asks him, "What's your IQ?" The man replies "150" and the robot proceeds to make conversation about global warming factors, quantum physics and spirituality, biomimicry, environmental interconnectedness, string theory, nano-technology, and sexual proclivities. The customer is very impressed and thinks, "This is really cool." He decides to test the robot. He walks out of the bar, turns around, and comes back in for another drink. Again, the robot serves him the perfectly prepared drink and asks him, "What's your IQ?" The man responds, "about a 100." Immediately the robot starts talking, but this time, about football, NASCAR, baseball, cars, beer, guns, and breasts. Really impressed, the man leaves the bar and decides to give the robot one more test. He heads out and returns, the robot serves him and asks, "What's your IQ?" The man replies, "Er, 50, I think." And the robot says... real slowly... "So............... ya ... gonna ... vote . for . Bush .. again???"

Alive in Baghdad Cross-post, January 26, 2006

In this post over at Alive in Baghdad, I again attempt to discuss the media's failure to draw sensible, nuanced conclusions from events in Iraq. If Hamas, which, btw, just won a major victory in the Palestinian election, is calling for the release of Jill Carroll and all foreign hostages, why does the mainstream press still see little reason to discuss the confusing nuances and contradictions within Iraq's competing/conflicting resistance and insurgent/terrorist forces?

I've recently had an article published by IPS about the ongoing dangers for Iraqi journalists, again repeatedly overlooked by the mainstream media. I'll be posting a segment from that later today.

Hamas Calls For Jill Carroll’s Release, and Other Things Outside the Mainstream Press

On Monday a top official of Hamas, Saeed Syam, called for the release of American journalist, Jill Carroll. “Hamas joins those who ask to release American citizen Jill Carroll. Hamas is against the kidnapping of innocent people, of foreigners who are guests in the Arab countries, and those who introduce humanitarians services and help for the Arab people - and for any people in general - especially when they are not interfering in internal Arab affairs. We have declared many times we are totally against kidnapping civilians.”

Mr. Syam is the latest in a lengthening line of militant and anti-occupation leaders to oppose the kidnapping of Jill Carroll. Many of these groups have also condemned the kidnapping of Christian Peacemaker Team members in November of last year.

Despite the recurring and increasing calls by Sunni clerics and others, the mainstream press still has not bothered to question whether we can be certain that Sunni resistance groups are responsible for these kidnappings. Kidnappings have been a constant threat in Baghdad and the rest of Iraq, and they seem to be directed mainly by criminal elements, not resistance or insurgent forces.

Over the last three years we have repeatedly seen instances where those in leadership roles in Iraq have abused their power. It appears to be a running theme across Iraq’s entire history. Recently however, corruption in Iraq’s governing agencies has been exceptionally bad.

Off-topic post for Thursday, January 26, 2006 Rant: Who is the Wanker? Atrios says this. Steve Gilliard says this. Some journo' in the LA Times says this. Some LGF wankers say this. MoA says this. As far as I am concerned the journalist at the LA Times is not a wanker. .

Thursday, January 26, 2006 War News for Thursday, January 26, 2006 Bring 'em on: Baghdad Soldier was killed and another Soldier was wounded when terrorists detonated a roadside bomb south of Baghdad Jan. 25. Bring 'em on: North of Baghdad, three Iraqi soldiers were killed and four wounded by another roadside bomb on Wednesday afternoon Bring 'em on: On Wednesday five Iraqi soldiers were killed and two wounded in a roadside bomb attack in Samarra, north of Baghdad. Bring 'em on: in Balad Ruz, Iraqi police also found the bodies of two men and one woman Tuesday, the official said. All had been shot Bring 'em on: In Baquba, to the northeast, gunmen killed two police officers and an employee of the Water Resource Ministry in separate attacks Tuesday Bring 'em on: a well-known Iraqi TV presenter described how she jumped off her second-floor balcony Tuesday in southeastern Baghdad to escape five masked gunmen trying to kidnap her and her husband. Nagham Abdul-Zahra spoke from her hospital bed where she is recovering from multiple fractures. Bring 'em on: Using mortars and light machineguns, unidentified gunmen attacked two government buildings where American troops were present in central Ramadi city earlier today, eyewitnesses said, American troops fought back. American helicopters and artillery were called in to assist. Medical sources in Ramadi hospital said three Iraqis were killed and four others injured. A week from the forgotten battlefield: Critical shortages of doctors, nurses and other medical staff mean the Canadian army and its allies in Afghanistan are being forced to rely on each other in emergencies like Sunday's suicide bomb attack, Forces doctors say. Pte William Edward Salikin and Cpl. Jeffrey Bailey suffered head injuries in the roadside bombing. Doctors are attempting to reduce the pressure on Salikin's and Bailey's brains. It's uncertain if the men have suffered permanent damage. CTV's Matt McClure, reporting from Kandahar, said a car packed with artillery shells and explosives was discovered Thursday about three kilometres from the Canadian base. The security situation in Afghanistan has taken a turn for the worse in the past year, according to a team of foreign policy and terrorism experts recently returned from a fact-finding mission there. Tactics employed by insurgents in Iraq, including roadside bombs and suicide bombers, appear to have migrated to Afghanistan and threaten to derail what has been one of the few bright spots in the four-year war on terror, the experts said Jan. 19 during a panel discussion at The Brookings Institution. Pakistan's president told a senior U.S. official on Saturday that the airstrike on a Pakistani village last week cannot be repeated, a foreign ministry official said. Gap between rich and poor widens in Afghanistan. Some buy watches for $4,000, others heat homes with dung. Afghan security forces have been ordered to step up operations against militants amid an unprecedented spate of suicide attacks and fighting that has killed 14 insurgents and 2 soldiers in the last month, the Defense Ministry said Sunday. Suspected Taliban militants attacked the staff of the American security firm USPI (U.S. Protection and Investigations) and snatched their vehicle in the troubled southern Helmand province on Sunday, a local official said. A helicopter used by the Red Cross for earthquake relief operations in Pakistan has gone missing with seven crew members on board, an official said Sunday. Several aircraft from NATO and coalition forces in Afghanistan are searching for a helicopter chartered by the Red Cross that has been missing for two days with seven crew on board. A bomb exploded just feet away from a Canadian military convoy in Afghanistan Monday morning, but no soldiers were injured, a Canadian military officer said. Seven Taliban rebels have escaped from Afghanistan's main high-security prison, officials said Tuesday. Afghan security forces arrested two suspected suicide bombers wearing vests packed with explosives on Wednesday Militants dropped a hand grenade on Tuesday night in front of the Indian consulate in Afghanistan's southern province of Kandahar but there were no casualties, a local official said on Wednesday. Finnish peacekeepers were fired upon in Afghanistan on Wednesday. According to information received by the Finnish defence administration, the seven-man patrol is unhurt. The event occurred north of Maimana in the Kunda Sang region at around noon local time. Here's what I could dig up on what's left of the "coalition of the willing" Albania--One Albanian commando company Armenia--46-strong contingent Australia--By 25 February 2003, over 2000 ADF personnel Azerbaijan--one peacekeeping infantry company Belgium--One C-130 made available in the frame of the United Nations World Food Program Bulgaria--120-member contingent Canada--some support Czeck Republic--251 personnel deployed to Camp Doha, Kuwait Denmark--battalion comprises in total approximately 500 soldiers--and support Djibouti--? Estonia--39 soldiers Finland--five police officers as instructors to the Iraqi police training center in Jordan. Great Britain--Some 10,000 Italy--2,600 troops Japan--some 600 troops Kazakhstan--?--a few Kuwait--support only Latvia--135 soldiers Lithuania--120 Macedonia--34 Mongolia--131 infantrymen Netherlands--1265 plus support Norway--support only Poland--about 1500 Korea--2,300 from 3,200 some time soon Romania--about 800 Saudi Arabia--support only Slovak Republic--a few for mine-clearing operations. Solvenia--5 5 police instructors based in Jordan Tajikistan--? perhaps a few Tonga few 36? Moldova--contingent of twelve soldiers Slovenia--four soldiers to the NATO Training Mission in Iraq-- Future unspecified date OIL: Syria, Iran to launch joint projects on oil, transport: Syria and Iran have agreed to launch joint projects in oil and land and air transport, the official Syria Times newspaper reported on Friday. Web post urges jihadists to attack Alaska pipeline: A recent posting on a Web site purportedly affiliated with al-Qaida urges attacks against the trans-Alaska oil pipeline and Valdez tanker dock, calling on jihadists to either shower the pipe with bullets or hide and detonate explosives along its length. The unknown author encourages small cells of four or five mujahedeen, or Muslim guerrillas, living in the United States or in Canada or Mexico to mount the attacks. The 10-page posting includes numerous links to Web sites providing maps and other basic information about the pipeline. Nigerian militants to resume oil attacks shortly: Oil unions threatened to withdraw from Nigeria's delta on Friday if security worsens as militants hardened their rhetoric, vowing to resume their attacks and execute three hostages if another one dies. The militants, whose violent campaign has driven oil prices to a four month high, are demanding the release of two Ijaw ethnic leaders, compensation for oil pollution and more local control over the delta's enormous oil wealth. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta said they would not stop their raids, which have crippled a tenth of Nigeria's oil production, even if Shell pays the $1.5 billion they say it owes villages in the delta for years of pollution. Explosions Hit Gas Pipelines in Russia: The blasts, which hit two pipelines in the southern Russian region of North Ossetia near the border with Georgia, also cut supplies to Armenia, said Viktor Beltsov, a spokesman for Russia's Emergency Situations Ministry. U.S. construction workers in Iraq have completed a stretch of pipeline deemed the country's most critical piece of oil infrastructure. A U.S. airstrike inadvertently damaged crucial pipelines running beneath the Al Fatha bridge. The crossing connects the oil fields of Kirkuk to Baiji, Iraq's largest refinery. It is also the gateway to a 600-mile pipeline that carries crude to Turkey, the Boston Globe reported. Success is elusive in Iraq's oil fields: After two years of cost overruns and attacks, American construction workers in Iraq are finally completing a stretch of pipeline deemed the country's most critical piece of oil infrastructure. Three years after Bush administration officials predicted that oil revenues would fund the country's reconstruction, the industry is in turmoil. Attacks that knocked out pipelines in the north have combined with bad weather in the south to drive Iraq's oil exports last month to their lowest level since September 2003, in the aftermath of the US-led invasion. The oil industry, which accounts for about 60 percent of Iraq's gross national product and more than 90 percent of government revenue, has been hit with nearly 300 major attacks since 2003, according to Iraq Pipeline Watch, an arm of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, a Washington-based energy think tank. In July, Iraqi government officials estimated that the attacks had cost the fledgling government $11 billion in lost revenue. Iraq's Oil Shock: We know that the Bush administration was flat wrong about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. And now, nearly three years after the beginning of the war, it's also clear that top Bush officials were just as delusional about Iraq's energy business and how critical the energy sector would be to achieving security and stability in Iraq. Continuing failure with this vital part of the reconstruction is costing the United States -- and the Iraqi people -- very dearly. During the run-up to the war, the Bush administration denied that oil was a factor in its desire to oust Saddam Hussein from power: Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, during a November 2002 interview with CBS News' Steve Kroft, declared that the approaching U.S. invasion had "nothing to do with oil, literally nothing to do with oil." But four months later, as U.S. troops seized Iraq's oil infrastructure and closed in on Baghdad, then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz (now the president of the World Bank) made it clear that Iraq's oil was going to save American taxpayers a lot of money. Wolfowitz told Congress on March 27, 2003, that the U.S. was "dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon." He added that Iraq's oil revenues could "bring between $50 billion and $100 billion over the course of the next two or three years." Nine killed in oil company attack: Officials of the Italian oil company Eni SpA said an armed assault on its offices left nine people dead Tuesday in Nigeria's petroleum-rich south, where four foreign oil workers also are being held hostage. Recent attacks and sabotage in the Niger Delta region have helped drive up international crude prices, although the Italian company said there was no evidence the latest violence was linked to those incidents. War News: New generation engine air particle separator from CGTM is selected by the Royal Danish Air Force: A first order of five filters was launched in November 2005 and after two months of successful operational use, the RDAF has decided to adopt this system for installation in the rest of its AS550C2 Fennec fleet fitted with the Arriel 1D1, 12 machines in all. "The system has significantly improved the single engine reliability in a very hostile environment. I can say for sure that Royal Danish Air Force has been very satisfied with the support and engagement we have seen from CGTM”, tells Lau M Andersen, Technical Manager AS 550 at the Royal Danish Air Force. As a result of the success of this new product, CGTM has now established a distribution network for the new filter. Useful contacts have already been established with the Meravo Helicopters Company, who became customer and distributor of the filter for Germany, and the Michael Savbäck Company, distributor for Sweden. In these countries the filter is of particular interest to operators engaged in lime spraying operations for the treatment of forests affected by acid rain. Politics: Suspected Iraqi agent’s home searched: The government paid for a trip to Disney World for an Indiana truck driver suspected of trying to sell information to Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi government so the FBI could secretly search his home. Testimony during Shaaban Hafiz Ahmad Ali Shaaban’s trial Thursday recounted how FBI agents searched his home after a federal magistrate authorized an undisclosed search under the Patriot Act. Casualty Reports: Legion of merit: Salisbury Firefighter Posthumously Awarded Silver Star: A trained paramedic with the Salisbury Fire Department, according to a narrative accompanying the honor, McMullen "saved the life of Sgt. (Randal) Divel by moving him away from a burning vehicle, extinguishing the flames on his body and protecting him when a second IED (improvised explosive device) went off," according to the Army's narrative of the incident. Killed: Chief Warrant Officer 3 Rex “Chris” Kenyon Chief Warrant Officer 2 Ruel Garcia Army soldier Katherine P. Singleton Staff Sgt. Rickey Scott Sgt. Dennis Flanagan Sgt. Clifton Yazzie Spc. Matthew C. Frantz Marine Lance Cpl. Brandon Dewey Cpl. Carlos Arrelanopandura Technical Sgt. Jason L. Norton Staff Sgt. Brian McElroy Sgt. Matthew D. Hunter Private Lewis Calapini Lance Corporal Joshua Scott Stephen Enright (civilian) Rick Hickman (civilian) Roland Barvels (civilian) Samuel E. Parlin Jr (civilian) Wounded: Capt. Furat--12 bullets--paralyzed from the waist down, a bullet-shattered arm Jesus Bocanegra--PTSD--head-splitting flashbacks, paralyzing panic attacks and painfully vivid nightmares Christopher Shelhamer--shot--went through his stomach, lost a kidney Jeff Gavett--roadside bomb--facial injuries, extensive damage done to one of his hands. Sgt. Eddie Ryan--friendly fire--shot in the head twice, one to the brain and one to the jaw Travis Greene--explosion--lost both of his legs, acute respiratory distress syndrome Jason Poole--roadside bomb--is blind in his left eye, deaf in his left ear, weak on his right side and still getting used to his new face, which was rebuilt with skin and bone grafts and 75 to 100 titanium screws and plates. Damarcus Wilson--shrapnel--in a coma and paralyzed on his left side for two and a half weeks, brain was swelling very badly, and they said he had had several strokes

I suspect this article will be of great interest to Today In Iraq's readers. I'll also be posting a commentary regarding who might be holding Jill Carroll, and the general complicity of the media in the Iraq conflict. Ending Iraq's Reconstruction Doesn't Bode Well

BAGHDAD, Jan 23 (IPS) - While politicians deliberate over Iraq’s future, Iraqis are dealing with the reality of the present. They are looking at the debris of a country where reconstruction has come to a standstill.

They are also looking at a situation in which the capital of the oil-rich country has been stricken recently by a dire shortage of gas and kerosene.

Iraqis in Baghdad had been receiving 12 to 13 hours of electricity a day on average over recent months. Over the past few weeks they say supply has fallen to just a few hours a day.

“We have no services at all,” Usama Asa’ad, a 31 year-old mechanic told IPS. “Our electricity is on only one or two hours a day.”

Many Iraqis thought the United States would improve their situation when the occupation began in April 2003, but those expectations are long over. Iraqis complain that the situation in Baghdad now is worse than it ever was under Saddam.

War News for Wednesday, January 25, 2006 Bring 'em on: A roadside bomb attack on the convoy of army Brigadier Shuja'a al-Saadi killed five of his bodyguards and wounded two others in the town of Ishaaqi. Bring 'em on: A U.S. marine was killed by small arms fire on Tuesday in the town of Karma. Bring 'em on: At least two people, including a policeman, were wounded when a motorcycle bomb aimed against an Iraqi police patrol exploded in central Baghdad. Bring 'em on: Police found a body, blindfolded and handcuffed, in Iskandariya. Bring 'em on: Iraqi police found a body dumped in the Euphrates River near the town of Musayyib. Bring 'em on: Iraqi police shoot dead a Sunni cleric in Baghdad. Bring 'em on: Gunmen shoot dead a police sergeant in Sadr City. Bring 'em on: Iraqi TV cameraman killed in a US airstrike in Ramadi. Executions at Gitmo: New US military rules mean that executions of condemned "war on terror" detainees could be carried out at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, the US Army said. The new rules authorize the army to set the location for executions "imposed by military courts-martial or military tribunals and authorized by the president of the United States." Linkage: Five Iraqi women prisoners whose release has become linked to the case of kidnapped American journalist Jill Carroll will be freed from U.S. custody on Thursday, a Justice Ministry official said on Wednesday. Sovereignty: Hundreds of British and Danish troops staged early morning raids on the homes of Iraqi policemen in the southern city of Basra on Tuesday in an operation to root out rogue elements of the police force. Stealing from Iraqi and US citizens: The 42-page report by the U.S. Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction found problems with 907 contracts and over 1,200 micro-purchase contracts totaling $88.1 million. Many of the contracts lacked documentation, were not properly authorized or competitively awarded, and across the board, officials failed to keep track of where the materials they paid for actually went, it said. Cash was stolen during insurgent raids, but not reported as such; one U.S. military assistant gambled away $40,000 while accompanying the Iraqi Olympic team to the Philippines; and tens of millions of dollars went into and out of the region's cash vault with no record-keeping whatsoever, it found. Warriors and Wusses: Joel Stein said he has been "bombarded" by hate mail over the incendiary article -- which was headlined "Warriors and Wusses" and held that U.S. soldiers in Iraq were "ignoring their morality" -- but does not regret writing it and stands by the premise. "I don't support what they are doing, and I don't the see point of putting a big yellow magnet on your car if you don't," Stein told Reuters in an interview. "I don't think (soldiers) are necessarily bad people. I do plenty of things that are wrong too. But I don't agree with what they are doing so I don't see the logic of supporting it." ARAB Peacekeepers: Arab countries are willing to discuss sending troops to help stabilise Iraq once U.S.-led forces eventually leave, but only if asked by an Iraqi national unity government, Arab League chief Amr Moussa said. "The start is that there must be a sovereign government in Iraq that requests such a serious step," Moussa told Reuters Television late on Tuesday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. "Then we'll see under what conditions, and when, and how, and how many (troops), and who will pay for it. It's a very big issue and it cannot be answered just simply." He said an Arab force would not serve under U.S. command -- a sticking point in previous discussions some 18 months ago -- and the terms for sending it would have to be agreed separately from any arrangements between Washington and Baghdad for a pullout of U.S. and coalition troops. Saddam Trial: The trial of Saddam Hussein has been delayed again, with judges apparently divided after a series of setbacks. A court spokesman said the postponement to Sunday was due to witnesses failing to appear, but Saddam's lawyer contested that and blamed it on disarray after the resignation of Rizgar Amin, the chief judge. Amin had complained of government meddling, and allegations that the judge's deputy had ties to the ousted Baath party. Bomb Damascus: Iraqi insurgents are being trained in the use of shoulder-fired, anti-aircraft missiles by Syrians, according to US intelligence sources. A group operating just south of Baghdad is said to have close ties with Syrian intelligence and to have received training from them in the use of Russian-made SA-7 surface-to-air missiles, Defensenews reports, citing unnamed military intelligence officials. Bombs in Iran: Iran on Wednesday accused Britain of cooperating with bombers who killed eight people in the southern Iranian city of Ahvaz on Tuesday. "Their (British) co-operation, either in London or Basra, is clear and we will seriously express this to British officials," Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told a news conference. Opinion and Commentary The Air War:

After most American ground troops leave Iraq, a sizable number, perhaps a few thousand, will stay behind to be embedded as advisers with the Iraqi forces. Seymour Hersh, in a recent New Yorker piece, reported that some military sources are expressing concern that Iraqi commanders will eventually be given the power to select targets for the American planes. The worry is that in ethnically fragmented Iraq, targets might be chosen to settle old scores, thus increasing civilian casualties and endangering the embedded U.S. advisers. Publicly, the Pentagon insists that target selection will be in American hands. My own experience in Indochina tells me it's rarely that neat and tidy. Keep in mind that no nation-state gives out complete military information. The Pentagon is no different; it's not overly trusting, especially not at a time when anyone can chat on the Internet and unthinkingly give away information that could cause harm. Also, the Pentagon spins information like any other government power center. For example, in the early stages of the Iraq war, U.S. forces hit Iraqi troops with incendiary bombs that exploded into fireballs like napalm and stuck to human skin and kept burning—just like napalm. American officers on scene told reporters it was napalm. The reporters wrote stories. Higher officials denied it was napalm. The Pentagon insisted that napalm—in response to international protests about its use in Vietnam and U.N. strictures approved in 1980—had been removed from the American arsenal. The last batch of napalm in storage, it said, had been destroyed on April 4, 2001. Some reporters, notably James Crawley of The San Diego Union-Tribune, kept digging. Five months later, in August 2003, the Pentagon finally admitted that while it wasn't exactly napalm, it was a very close relative. The napalm formula used in Vietnam was made from polystyrene (the jellying agent), benzene, and gasoline. After the protests and the U.N. ban, the military substituted jet fuel for the gasoline and benzene—and were now calling the weapon a Mark 77 firebomb. Its effects on a target were "remarkably similar" to the old napalm, the Pentagon said, but this version had "less of an impact on the environment." The Pentagon's moral of the story: We did not seek to deceive. If only the reporters had referred to the device by its correct name, there would have been no confusion.

Destroying Iraq's Heritage:

In the preparations for the first Gulf war under Dick Cheney, then defence secretary, the Pentagon brought together detailed advice on the cultural heritage of Iraq and Kuwait from around 80 international experts and institutions. Several hundred specific sites, archaeological zones and monuments, and important historic buildings - including the National Museum in Baghdad and the Babylon and Ur archaeological zones - were identified for protection from direct acts of war such as air and ground attack, and from any postwar situation. The protected sites were then identified on military maps used for both aerial targeting and the ground campaign. The system worked extremely well, with only one or two apparently genuine mishaps due to missiles going off target. A postwar evaluation of these measures was reported to Congress by the department of defence in January 1993, in response to a Congressional inquiry into the war's environmental and heritage impact. In the concluding section of the report, the Pentagon gave an assurance that "similar steps will be taken by the United States in future conflicts". Two years later, the joint chiefs of staff unanimously recommended that the president and Congress ratify the key international treaty in this area - the 1954 Hague convention on the protection of cultural property in the event of armed conflict - which had been signed by the US in 1954 but had then been left in abeyance, apparently due to pressure from the nuclear-weapons lobby. (Though submitted to the Senate for approval in 1998, the Hague convention still has not been tabled for debate.) It is simply inconceivable that, during the planning of military action in 2002-3, the Pentagon did not turn up the detailed heritage-protection rules and maps applied so relatively successfully in the first Gulf war. Almost the first move of military planners in preparing for a possible conflict is to dust down records and maps, perhaps many decades old, and build on these. In this case, many of those responsible for developing and implementing the Desert Storm policy were still in the Pentagon. Someone or some group must have taken a positive decision to scrap the US's established protection policies and ignore the January 1993 assurance to Congress given by the defence department, still under Dick Cheney at the time. Who made that fatal decision? Who back in Washington refused to allow the Baghdad commander to move a tank 200 yards to protect the National Museum from looting - despite pleading by the museum and international experts - and who authorised the building of a gigantic military base in the middle of Babylon's archaeological zone and allocated an adjacent area of the site to the Kellogg, Brown, Root subsidiary of Halliburton, Vice-President Cheney's old firm?

Hipocrisy:

An unexpectedly light sentence for a US army interrogator who once faced life in prison for the death of an Iraqi general could tarnish the US government and hurt human-rights efforts around the globe, observers say. Prosecutors said during Chief Warrant Officer Lewis Welshofer Jr's court-martial that his interrogation of Major-General Abed Hamed Mowhoush "could fairly be described as torture" and had stained the military's reputation. During the trial, testimony showed he stuffed Mowhoush in a sleeping bag and straddled his chest. Eugene Fidell, president of the National Institute of Military Justice, said if the tables were turned and an American general had fallen into enemy hands and suffered the same fate from interrogators, there would have been an uproar in the US. "How is this going to look overseas?" he said. Mowhoush, the former commander of Saddam Hussein's air defences, surrendered to the Army on 10 November 2003, in hopes of seeing or securing the release of his four sons. Sixteen days later, Mowhoush died after Welshofer covered him in a sleeping bag, straddled his chest and put his hand over the general's mouth, already covered by the bag.

War News for Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Bring ‘em on: Police raided the Toubji district in Baghdad on Monday. The Sunni Muslim Scholars' Association said 30 people had been detained and two killed.

Bring ‘em on: Twenty schoolchildren wounded, two seriously, when a roadside bomb targeted a British patrol in the southern city of Basra.

Bring ‘em on: Gunmen killed a senior member of Sunni Endowments, a group which administers Sunni mosques, in Baghdad on Monday evening.

Bring ‘em on: Two civilians killed and four wounded when U.S. forces and insurgents clashed in the Sunni rebel stronghold of Ramadi.

Bring ‘em on: A bomb exploded Tuesday under a pipeline linking an oilfield near Kirkuk with the terminal at Ceyhan, Turkey, causing a fire and a partial reduction in pumping. Meanwhile, security forces defused two bombs that had been placed under another pipeline in the Dibs area, 55 kilometres (34 miles) north of Kirkuk.

Bring ‘em on: A bomb exploded Tuesday in the southern Iraqi city of Basra, damaging a British tank and a nearby civilian car.

Bring ‘em on: Roadside bomb killed two U.S. soldiers in Baghdad.

Vehicle accident: Two Marines died in a vehicle accident near Taqaddum, about 45 miles west of Baghdad.

Bring ‘em on: US soldier killed in roadside bombing in Baghdad.

Bring ‘em on: Four US soldiers killed in a roadside bombing near the northern town of Hawijah.

Bring ‘em on: Car bomb exploded in eastern Baghdad shortly before the resumption of the Saddam Hussein trial, wounding at least one policeman and one civilian.

Bring ‘em on: Two German engineers working at detergent plant in northern Iraq abducted.

Bring ‘em on: Two bombs in Kirkuk killed one policemen and injured eight people including two civilian bystanders.

Bring ‘em on: Mortar attack on a US military base in Fallujah.

Bring ‘em on: Woman working as cleaner at US base in Tikrit shot dead by gunmen.

Bring ‘em on: Seven carloads of armed men, some wearing police commando uniforms, raided homes and a mosque in Baghdad’s neighbourhood of Toubji, shooting dead three men and detaining more than 20. Three were later freed, but the rest remained unaccounted for.

Bring ‘em on: Eight bullet-riddled bodies found in a field near Dujail, about 80km north of Baghdad. They were among 35 men who failed to get accepted into a police academy in Baghdad, 23 of whom were found slain on Sunday.

Bring ‘em on: Two policemen killed and three wounded when a car bomb exploded in the southern Dura district of the capital.

Bring ‘em on: Two civilians wounded when a roadside bomb exploded near an Iraqi police patrol in central Baghdad.

Bring ‘em on: Iraqi army soldier killed and another wounded when their patrol was struck by a roadside bomb in eastern Mosul.

Bring ‘em on: Two civilians wounded when a car bomb exploded near a joint Iraqi-US patrol in southern Baghdad.

Bring ‘em on: Iraqi civilian killed and four wounded when a car bomb exploded in Mahmudiya. The target of the explosion was not clear.

Bring ‘em on: Armed men killed an official with the Kurdistan Democratic Party as he was driving to work on Monday, east of Mosul, 360km northwest of Baghdad, Abd al-Ghani Yahya, a party spokesman, said on Tuesday.

Bring ‘em on: In the northern town of Kirkuk, a pedestrian was killed and four other people wounded when a roadside bomb exploded near a US patrol, police said. US soldiers were uninjured, they added.

NEWS

Attacks in Iraq jumped 29% in 2005: The number of attacks against coalition troops, Iraqi security forces and civilians increased 29% last year, and insurgents are increasingly targeting Iraqis, the U.S. military says. Insurgents launched 34,131 attacks last year, up from 26,496 the year before, according to U.S. military figures released Sunday.

Insurgents are widening their attacks to include the expanding Iraqi forces engaged in the fighting, said Brig. Gen. Donald Alston, a coalition spokesman.

The new statistics show:

•The number of car bombs more than doubled to 873 last year from 420 the year before. The number of suicide car bombs went to 411 from 133.

• Sixty-seven attackers wore suicide vests last year, up from seven in 2004. Suicide and car bombs are often targeted at Iraqis, causing high casualties.

• Roadside bombs, or improvised explosive devices, as the military calls them, continue to be the most common weapon. Roadside bombs increased to 10,953 in 2005 from 5,607 the year before. Those numbers include roadside bombs that are discovered and defused. These bombs account for nearly one-third of all insurgent attacks.

Jailbreak in Nasiriyah: On Sunday, 13 prisoners of the Nasiriyah jail attempted to escape the prison. Two of the involved were shot dead by police and security guards and four arrested. The remaining seven were being sought by police.

Sunnis call for self-defense: A leading Sunni Arab party on Tuesday called on fellow Sunnis to confront armed attacks on their community "by any suitable means" in the wake of a raid on a Sunni neighbourhood in Baghdad in which three men were killed and more than 20 abducted.

The call for Sunnis to defend themselves was made in a statement issued by the Iraqi Islamic Party a day after armed men, some wearing uniforms of the Shia-led security forces, swept into the Toubji area of Baghdad, raiding houses, abducting males and shooting three men dead.

An Interior Ministry official denied police involvement, saying an investigation is under way and the armed men may have been disguised as commandos.

In Samarra, 95km north of Baghdad, Sunni leaders have called for a three-day strike to condemn the killings of at least 31 Sunnis who were kidnapped from their bus last week after being rejected entry into the police academy.

Ongoing Military Operations: On Tuesday, US marines and Iraqi soldiers conducted a ninth day of sweeping operations through fields and villages along the western Euphrates River valley, in an attempt to isolate fighters and confiscate weapons and ammunition, the military said.

Operation Wadi Aljundi (Koa Canyon) in the troubled western province of al-Anbar has yielded thousands of pieces of ordnance, the US military said, but there was no word on any arrests.

The Iraqi army said it raided areas around the city of Baquba, 65km north of Baghdad, arresting 19 wanted men and seizing a number of weapons, ammunition and explosives.

Thousands of mines along with other explosive substances confiscated: Iraqi police forces confiscated today 3,252 mines and other explosive substances, Iraqi police spokesperson told KUNA in a phone call.

He added the police pulled over a suspected vehicel between Western and Eastern Ali area in Misan governorate and found 2,800 mines in the car. The mines were confiscated and the driver was arrested.

Moreover, Misan police confiscated another 452 mines wound in Sayd Noor area along with other explosive substances.

KBR accused of providing contaminated water to US troops: A Halliburton Co. subsidiary provided water to U.S. troops at a camp in Iraq that was twice as contaminated as water from the Euphrates River, former employees of the company said on Monday.

The subsidiary, Kellogg Brown and Root, also blocked employees' attempts to inform the U.S. military at Camp Junction City in Ramadi that the water was foul or tell them that water tanks should immediately be chlorinated, the workers said. "We exposed a base camp population (military and civilian) to a water source that was not treated," said an internal e-mail from Will Granger, who was KBR's water quality manager for all of Iraq and Kuwait.

"The level of contamination was roughly 2x the normal contamination of untreated water from the Euphrates River," continued the e-mail dated July 15 of last year and released at the hearing. It said the exposure lasted for up to a year.

Oahu losing medevac transport to Iraq war: Army helicopters that have flown severe medical emergencies to Oahu hospitals for 32 years are being deployed to Iraq and will no longer be available as of April 1. Oahu's emergency medical service community has known that this day could come "from the day we went to war," Robert Pedro, a supervisor for the city's Emergency Medical Services, said yesterday.

American contractors leaving Iraq: American private contractors are preparing to leave Iraq as US money runs out and government ministries take charge of the reconstruction effort, according to the Washington Times. (…)

The Times said most US-funded projects are scheduled to be completed by the end of this year, and it is unlikely that any significant new US funds will be forthcoming. Iraqi government ministries, which will be taking over responsibility for the reconstruction effort, tend to issue much smaller contracts that do not interest large US companies. It quoted retired Col Paul Hughes of the United States Institute of Peace saying that the US Congress has made it clear that it will not provide any more money.

Some contractors say privately that they do not want to deal with the Iraqi government and that without the protection and support of the US military, it is simply not safe to work in Iraq. Last week, fatal attacks were launched against US and Iraqi personal security details in Baghdad and in the southern city of Basra.

China Increases ties with Iraq: China is keen to train Iraqi personnel working in the oil sector and other fields, a foreign ministry statement said. The statement, faxed to the newspaper, said the Chinese were willing to provide training in the spheres of telecommunications, power generation and diplomacy as well as oil.

“China is keen to do whatever it takes to press ahead with the Iraqi reconstruction,” the statement quoted the envoy as saying.

Saddam Trial Postponed: The court trying Saddam Hussein cancelled the resumption of his trial Tuesday, delaying the session for five days. The postponement came amid a dispute among judges over a last-minute shakeup in the court, according to judges. The delay was the latest sign of disarray in the trial of the ousted Iraqi leader and his former regime officials. It came a day afer one judge was removed from the five-member panel and a new chief judge was appointed.

Iran, Iraq natural allies, says Iran top cleric: Iran and Iraq are natural allies and have always stood by each other, said Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council Ali Larijani here on Sunday.

"We will continue to side with them (Iraqis) until the establishment of a broad-based and popular government," Larijani told reporters after a meeting with senior Iraqi political-religious figure Moqtada Sadr.

After Iraq's occupation, Sadr made intense efforts to launch a sound movement in Iraq and there is a good cooperation between him and various Iraqi Shiite groups. In view of his stances, "We have high hope for Iraq having a powerful and popular government in the future to be able to settle Iraq's security and economic problems."

Sadr for his part commented on unity among various Iraqi groups, saying, "If the unity is further consolidated, Israel and the US will not be able to have constant presence in Iraq." The American enemies have targeted neither oil nor other things in Iraq but Islamic thought, said Sadr, adding that to foil the plot of the occupiers, extensive cultural activities should be done.

Sadr pledges to defend Iran: An Iraqi Muslim cleric who leads a major Shiite militia pledged to come to the defense of neighboring Iran if it were attacked, aides to the cleric, Moqtada Sadr, said Monday.

The commitment, made Sunday in Tehran during a visit by Sadr, came in response to a senior Iranian official's query about what the cleric would do in the event of an attack on Iran. It marked the first open indication that Iraq's Shiite neighbor is preparing for a military response if attacked in a showdown with the West over its nuclear program.

The pledge was also one of the strongest signs yet that Iraq could become a battleground in any Western conflict with Iran, raising the specter of Iraqi Shiite militias - or perhaps even the U.S.-trained Shiite-dominated military - taking on American troops here in sympathy with Iran.

COMMENTARY AND ANALYSIS

Nothing depleted about 'depleted uranium': Iraqi and visiting doctors, and a number of news reports, have reported that birth defects and cancers in Iraqi children have increased five- to 10-fold since the 1991 Gulf War and continue to increase sharply, to over 30-fold in some areas in southern Iraq. Currently, more than 50 percent of Iraqi cancer patients are children under the age of 5, up from 13 percent. Children are especially vulnerable because they tend to play in areas that are heavily polluted by depleted uranium.

The Pentagon has been using radiooactive weapons for at least a decade and a half with full complicity of at least three White House administrations and Republican and Democratic congressional legislators. Conservatively, at least 300 tons and 1,700 tons of depleted uranium were used in the Gulf War and the current Iraq War, resectively. This is about 70 grams of depleted uranium per Iraqi citizen, and if inhaled or ingested, it is enough to kill them all.

Is this not radioactive genocide, especially when our troops used and continue to use most of the depleted uranium munitions in densely populated areas such as Baghdad and Fallujah? Depleted uranium has a half-life of billions of years. Consequently, Iraq will be a wasteland forever and essentially uninhabitable for anyone.

After the 1991 Gulf War, about 1 in 4, or 150,000, U.S. veterans came down with what is referred to as "Gulf War Syndrome." Most of the ailments characteristic of Gulf War Syndrome are consistent with radiation or heavy-metal poisoning. Veterans' children are now also born with higher proportions of birth defects and other genetic disorders, according to sporadic accuonts. The Pentagon continues to deny the harmful effects of depleted uranium or its role in Gulf War Syndrome.

Our troops in Iraq will be severely affected by this radioactive war, not only because a lot more depleted uranium has been used and continues to be used, but also because they have been there a lot longer than during the Gulf War. Hundreds of thousands of our troops will come down with Gulf War Syndrome as a result of depleted uranium poisoning, and thousands will die from it. Thousands of their children will be born with genetic diseases, cancers and birth defects.

A New Strategy for Victory in Iraq?: All unheralded, the United States seems to be embarking on a massive shift in its Iraq strategy. The first inkling came on December 20, when U.S. ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad, while uttering the usual bromides about the elections, also had this to say:

"It looks like people preferred to vote for their ethnic or sectarian identity. But for Iraq to succeed, there has to be cross-sectarian and cross-ethnic cooperation."

Months earlier, in the midst of the mindless triumphalism over the constitutional referendum, it was mostly us in the antiwar movement and a few other critics who pointed out that the vote on that, as well, had been an ethnic census. Suddenly, we were hearing it from the highest civilian representative of the U.S. government in Iraq. Since that time, that evaluation has been repeated until it is a standard of mainstream “respectable” commentary.

On the flip side, where once it was wishful thinkers among antiwar activists who constantly proclaimed that Iraqis had strong national unity and minimal sectarian conflict, now it is wishful thinkers like President Bush and Christopher Hitchens who say it.

Another clue is the fact that, as reported in the New York Times a week ago, the United States is in serious talks with Sunni insurgents, the idea being to separate the mainstream insurgency from the sectarian jihadists like Zarqawi’s Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia, eliminate the latter, and integrate the former into the political process. As a goodwill gesture, the Americans even released Satam Quaood, a former associate of Saddam’s, and the type that so far U.S. forces have been more likely to beat to death than to release.

These official signals have also been picked up by various establishment-serving pundits and analysts, culminating in an article by Roger Cohen in the New York Times that makes a point of distinguishing the “resistance” from the “insurgency.” “The resistance,” he says, is “the great mass of Sunni Arabs for whom the American invasion turned life on its head” and who have, in turn, “granted insurgents safe passage, turned a blind eye to myriad acts of sabotage, taken small payments for small services, and generally wished America ill.” This resistance, he says, is “composed for the most part of people who want jobs and a stake in the new Iraq and may start to think differently should those be provided.” Now, it’s the establishment using the term “resistance.”

Indian Wars Not Over Yet: I'd like to suggest another way of looking at the War on Terror: as a twenty-first century continuation of, or replication of, the American Indian wars, on a global scale. This is by no means something that has occurred to me alone, but it has received relatively little attention. Here are ten reasons why I'm making this suggestion:

1. Key supporters of the War on Terror themselves see GWOT as an Indian war.

2. The essential paradigm of the War of Terror – us (the attacked) against them (the attackers) – was no less essential to the mindset of white settlers regarding the Indians.

3. GWOT is based on the principle of preventive strike, meant to put off "potential, future and, therefore, speculative attacks" – just as U.S. Army conflicts against the Indians often were.

4. While U.S. mainstream thinking about GWOT enemies is that they are total aliens – in religion, politics, economics, and social organization – there are Americans who believe that individuals in these "primitive" societies can eventually become assimilated and thus be rendered harmless through training, education, or democratization. This is similar to the view among American settlers that in savage Indian tribes hostile to civilization, there were some that could be evangelized and Christianized and brought over to the morally right, Godly side.

5. GWOT is fought abroad, but it's also a war at home, as the creation after 9/11 of a Department of Homeland Security illustrates. The Indian wars were domestic as well, carried out by the U.S. military to protect American settlers against hostile non-U.S. citizens living on American soil.

6. America's close partner Israel, which over the years has taken over Arab-populated lands and welcomes U.S. immigrants, can be considered as a kind of surrogate United States in this struggle. Expanding into the Middle East, the Israelis could be seen as following the example of the American pioneers who didn't let Indians stand in their way as they settled, with the support of the U.S. military, an entire continent, driven by the conviction that they were supported by God, the Bible, and Western civilization.

7. As for the current states that are major battlefields of GWOT, Afghanistan and Iraq, it appears that the model for their future, far from being functional democracies, is that of Indian reservations.

8. The methods employed by the U.S. in GWOT and the Indian wars are similar in many respects: using superior technology to overwhelm the "primitive" enemy; adapting insurgency tactics, even the most brutal ones, used by the opposing side when necessary; and collaborating with "the enemy of my enemy" in certain situations (that is, setting one tribe against another).

9. As GWOT increasingly appears to be, the Indian wars were a very long conflict, stretching from the seventeenth century to the end of the nineteenth – the longest war in American history, starting even before the U.S. existed as a nation. And GWOT is a war being fought, like the Indian wars in the Far West, over large geographical areas, including the Mediterranean basin, through the Fertile Crescent, and into the remote valleys and gorges of the Caucasus and Pakistan, the deserts of Central Asia, the plateaus of Afghanistan."

10. Perhaps because they are drawn-out wars with many fronts and changing commanders, the goals of GWOT and the Indian Wars can be subject to many interpretations. For many abroad, GWOT is a brutal expression of a mad, cowboy-led country's plans to take over the world and its resources. In the United States, a large number of Americans still interpret these two wars as God-favored initiatives to protect His chosen people and allow them to flourish. But just as attitudes in the U.S. toward Native Americans have changed in recent years (consider, for example, the saccharine 1990 film Dances with Wolves, which is sympathetic to an Indian tribe, in contrast to John Wayne shoot-the-Injuns movies), so suspicious views among the American public toward the still-seen-as-dangerous "them" of GWOT might evolve in a different direction. Such a change in perception, however, is unlikely to occur in the near future, especially under the current bellicose Bush regime, which manipulates voters' fear of terrorists to maintain its declining domestic support.

Pepe Escobar on the new Bin Laden tape: Just a slow, composed, husky voice out of a telephone line recorded on a scratched tape (not digital; a mere cassette). No video. Just a voice - capable of sending the markets into a tailspin and the networks into hysteria, spiking the oil bourses in London and New York, resetting the global agenda, unleashing armies of US intelligence analysts scrambling to confirm if the voice is real or fake.

You had totally vanished from the face of the Earth for more than a year. You are the most wanted man in the world. You re-enter the global stage just with your voice, a mere whisper. The simplicity of it. What politician would not dream of such power?

What type of relations does the US want with the Caliphate?: Not so long ago, President Bush announced his much coveted Greater Middle East Initiative. The aim of the plan was to preserve the existing secular order across the region through the promotion of freedom and democracy. But in today’s Middle Eastern societies, Bush’s initiative is having just the opposite effect. Islamists throughout the region have shown unprecedented gains in recent elections and now pose a direct challenge to the dictatorships and monarchies that thrive under American patronage.

The collapse of Bush’s plan to advance democracy in the Middle East has not escaped the attention of policy makers back home. A bitter dispute has broken out between supporters of Bush and the critics of his plan. The opponents of his plan argue that Bush is not doing enough to isolate the Islamists and promote the moderates as part of the democracy push in the Middle East. They also maintain that Islamists, especially those that are vociferously anti-American cannot be trusted and must be excluded from the democracy experiment. Their view is based on the idea that the refusal of the Muslim world to accept western values lies with the ideology of Islam. In their opinion the Islamic texts have to fundamentally change before the Arab world can be accepted by the West.

The supporters on the other hand advocate a more pragmatic approach. They believe that by co-opting Islamists in the democratic process, the Arab world can be moulded into a region that accepts western values, is substantially less anti-American and willingly accepts American hegemony. Their belief rests on the premise that by keeping Islamists out of the democratic process will only breed resentment and violence against the West. They cite Turkey as the ideal model for the Arab world to follow. A major proponent of this view is the neoconservative Marc Gerecht who recently argued in an article entitled ‘Devout Democracies’ that self rule in the Muslim world will have a religious component and the West should not be afraid of this phenomena.

Whichever of the two views succeeds in guiding America’s democracy experiment in the Middle East, it will have a negligible impact on curbing the rise of political Islam. This is because the people of the Middle East will never forget or forgive America’s unstinting support for Israel, her unflinching support for the brutal Arab dictatorships, her exploitation of their natural resources, her imposition of capitalist solutions and values, and her determined efforts to wage wars against the people of Iraq and other Muslims. These painful realities are permanently etched on the minds of the Arabs and continuously urge the Arab populace to seek solace in political Islam.

The Middle East is the heart of the Islamic world and right now it is pulsating with political Islam that will inevitably lead to the re-emergence of the Caliphate. Promoting democracy or eschewing its implementation, substituting Islamic texts with secular interpretations, isolating Islamists and encouraging moderates, destroying regimes and replacing them with compliant US surrogates is not going to change the outcome. America’s past relations with the Arabs has sealed her fate with the present Arabs. The time has come for US policy makers to think about the future – what type of relations does the US want with the Caliphate?

Iraqi journalist directs sarcasm at Bush: Many Iraqis have expressed their indignation and disappointment at U.S. President George W. Bush’s predictions that violence is set to intensify further this year.

They were even angrier when the president openly supported the government’s decision to boost fuel prices nearly fivefold.

Some even accused the president of negligence and inaction. His predictions show that he is aware of the calamities that are to come while he does nothing about them, they said.

This is a president Iraqis have come to know and in many respects even better than the U.S. citizens he rules.

Many of them believe in the hands of this president rests their destiny and that he has a hand in whatever has been happening to the country since his 2003 invasion.

Two months ago he raised Iraqis’ expectations when he presented U.S. legislators with a new strategy for what he described as ‘victory’ in the war against the violence plaguing the country.

He also promised to speed up the reconstruction of the war-torn country.

Then he made his New Year remarks that violence was to continue and even intensify.

The president, many now say, has dumped our hopes of ‘victory’. He simply gave us no time to relish the good news of his new strategy for ‘victory’ in Iraq, they said.

In the nearly three years since the president dispatched his troops to deliver the country from dictatorship, many Iraqis receive his remarks with sarcasm.

Here are a number of ideas of what Iraqis say they will do if the president fails to deliver his promise of ‘victory’ in the war:

We will launch another November 11 attack

We will establish a new sovereign government that will prevent our own president from visiting America and meeting with U.S. president

We will not prevent our own president from addressing the U.S. congress using a script prepared for him by the State Department

We will persuade our forthcoming parliament to regain the control of our oil output and exports, scrap latest fuel increases and hike prices on international markets that will eventually lead to a fivefold increase in fuel rates in the U.S.

We will withdraw our support to the U.S. in its war on terror

We will torpedo the Middle East peace process

There are of course many other ideas which I cannot mention here for fear of accountability.

But I would like to end my article by giving President Bush credit for being frank and candid with the Iraqi people.

Unlike our politicians whose statements are far from reality and work behind concrete walls and closed doors, at least the president of the United States now talks the truth about his expectations for the course of events in Iraq.

Introduction to Human Rights Watch World Report 2006: “Practice what I preach, not what I do” is never terribly persuasive. Yet the U.S. government has been increasingly reduced to that argument in promoting human rights. Some U.S. allies, especially Britain, are moving in the same disturbing direction, while few other powers are stepping in to fill the breach.

This hypocrisy factor is today a serious threat to the global defense of human rights. Major Western powers historically at the forefront of promoting human rights have never been wholly consistent in their efforts, but even their irregular commitment has been enormously important. Today, the willingness of some to flout basic human rights standards in the name of combating terrorism has deeply compromised the effectiveness of that commitment. The problem is aggravated by a continuing tendency to subordinate human rights to various economic and political interests.

The U.S. government’s use and defense of torture and inhumane treatment played the largest role in undermining Washington’s ability to promote human rights. In the course of 2005, it became indisputable that U.S. mistreatment of detainees reflected not a failure of training, discipline, or oversight, but a deliberate policy choice. The problem could not be reduced to a few bad apples at the bottom of the barrel. As evidenced by President George W. Bush’s threat to veto a bill opposing “cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment,” Vice President Dick Cheney’s lobbying to exempt the Central Intelligence Agency (“CIA”) from the bill, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’s extraordinary claim that the United States is entitled to subject detainees to such treatment so long as the victim is a non-American held overseas, and CIA Director Porter Goss’s defense of a notorious form of torture known as water-boarding as a “professional interrogation technique,” the U.S. government’s embrace of torture and inhumane treatment began at the top.

Late in 2005, increasing global attention to the U.S. policy of holding some terror suspects as “ghost detainees”—indefinitely, incommunicado, and without charges at undisclosed locations outside of the United States—further damaged U.S. credibility.

Key U.S. allies such as Britain and Canada compounded the leadership problem in 2005 by seeking to undermine certain critical international rights protections. Britain sought to justify sending terrorist suspects to countries that torture, and Canada worked aggressively to dilute key provisions of a new treaty on enforced disappearances.

These governments, as well as other members of the European Union, also continued to subordinate human rights in their relations with others whom they deemed useful in fighting terrorism or pursuing other goals. That tendency, coupled with the European Union’s continued difficulty in responding firmly to even serious human rights violations, meant that the E.U. did not compensate for this diminished human rights leadership.

Essay: Morality and foreign policy: Powerful states are generally `satisfied powers' which uphold the status quo. The weak are revisionists, agitators who seek change. Common to both is the task of devising an agreed world order, which is thus invested with legitimacy.

IRAN STANDOFF

Achieving a nuclear capacity is the ultimate aspiration of the Iranian regime: The development of a nuclear capacity has come to epitomise the Iranian national dream, the interpretation and pursuit of which is monopolised by the power centres of the Islamic republic. Moreover, there is a closer meeting of minds than ever in these power centres, now that the conservatives have come to dominate all the country's executive and legislative institutions, to the almost total exclusion of the reformists, a development that was crowned with the rise of Ahmadinejad as president of the republic. Certainly this helps to account for the current tenor of Tehran's diplomatic and media drive. If achieving a nuclear capacity is not just one of the aims, but the ultimate aspiration of the regime and the cornerstone of its legitimacy, it has little alternative, in view of the logic of domestic politics, but to meet mounting pressures from abroad with an escalation of its own. This has taken the form of the decision to restart uranium enrichment operations regardless of the consequences.

Iranian Nuclear Ambitions and American Foreign Policy: The controversial issue of Iranian ambitions for a civilian nuclear energy project ironically began with the assistance of the United States during the reign of Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlevi. In 1957, Iran signed a civil nuclear cooperation agreement with the United States as part of the United States Atoms for Peace Program. Additionally, under this program Iran purchased a research nuclear reactor from the United States that was put into operation in 1967.

Thus, these recent Iranian aspirations for nuclear weapons as purported by American policy makers are not a recent occurrence; the Shah in 1974 established the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran and stated that Iran would have nuclear weapons without a doubt very soon. This pursuit of nuclear aspirations both for civilian power and regional military deterrence of Egypt and Iraq began before Israel was considered as a target, as is widely purported today; in fact during this period prior to the 1979 Revolution in which the Arab coalition had an oil embargo in place, Iran was an implicit supplier of petroleum products to Israel.

In addition to the financial and technological assistance from the United States, France and Germany signed several agreements with the Shah to provide Iran with enriched uranium, nuclear reactors and research centers. However, following the 1979 Revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini immediately suspended construction indefinitely at all nuclear facilities in the “Islamic State” because as aforementioned, fundamental Islamic religious and jurisprudential beliefs consider all weapons of mass destruction as immoral.

Even during the Iran-Iraq War, Iran never explicitly announced a decision to pursue proliferation of weapons of mass destruction albeit their neighbor to the West, Iraq, was offered arms and military guidance from the United States and its Cold War allies. Throughout this period of internal institutional change and external military engagement with Iraq, Iran never resorted to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction even though Saddam Hussein, a secular dictator in control of a nation with a Muslim majority, began to produce and amass a stockpile of lethal nerve agents such as Sarin and VX nerve gas and other unconventional weapons which he would later use on his own populace in the first Gulf War.

Additionally, it has been widely reported in intelligence circles but never truly confirmed, that Israel has a nuclear program in place for defensive military purposes which was assembled hastily with American and Norwegian support during the Six-Day War against the Arab coalition. Thus, despite these aforementioned geopolitical threats throughout the Cold War and the collapse of Arab nationalism which were great periods of instability in the region, Tehran never restarted their nuclear program which was originally started by the Shah nor resorted to proliferation of non-conventional weapons.

What is the Iranian Bourse and what has a Russian natural gas curtailment got to do with it?: Well, to answer the second question; in future, some gas delivered to Ukraine and perhaps on to Western Europe via pipeline will be Iranian.

And, according to Iranian officials, the Iranian Bourse will be a state-owned international oil, gas and refined products exchange, operating principally over the Internet, with transactions denominated principally in Euros.

The Iranian Bourse will be competing directly with London’s International Petroleum Exchange and New York’s Mercantile Exchange, both of which are owned by US corporations, and whose transactions are denominated in Dollars.

At present, the Dollar is the global monetary standard for petroleum exchange. Hence, all petroleum consuming countries – including China and Japan – must buy and keep a large cache of dollars in their central banks.

What would be the effect of an Iranian Bourse operating on petroeuros rather than petrodollars?

Well, back in 2000, Saddam Hussein converted Iraqi bank reserves from the Dollar to the Euro, and began demanding payments in Euro for Iraqi oil. Central banks of many countries – most notably Russia and China – began keeping Euros and Dollars as monetary "reserves" and as an exchange fund for oil.

And, perhaps at least partially because of Saddam’s conversion to it, by 2003 the Euro was stronger than the Dollar.

So, there are some observers who fervently believe that the real reason Bush-Cheney launched a war of aggression against Iraq was to restore the primacy of petrodollars and to demonstrate to any country – such as Iran, who had begun serious planning for the Iranian Bourse in 2000 – what would happen to them if they followed Saddam’s lead.

Of course, once occupied by the US-UK-Halliburton coalition, Iraqi oil sales were once again denominated in petrodollars.

Living without Iranian oil?: In a worrisome article in the Christian Science Monitor, “On Iran, the West looks for a Plan” reporter Howard LaFranchi notes, “For some experts the time is ripe to prepare the world economy for living without Iranian oil—by developing pipelines in the oil-rich Gulf region to circumvent Iran-dominated transport routes”….”countries should take steps now to ease the burden of future moves”.

“If you’re not prepared to do this”, says Henry Sokolski, executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center of Washington, “you’re not going to do very much.”

“Living without Iranian oil”?!?

This shows us how grave the situation really is, and how the administration and Israel may be willing to disrupt the global economy and sent oil prices shooting through the ceiling to achieve there mutual objectives.

Nuclear Threat: What on earth was going through Chirac's mind?: French President Chirac’s announcement on Thursday that France would consider using nuclear weapons against any country that launches a terrorist attack against it is political bombshell. Not even George Bush has gone as far as saying that, even though he might like to. Chirac’s threat is alarming. Clearly, had Al-Qaeda flown hijacked planes into the Eiffel Tower or the Montparnasse Tower rather than the World Trade Towers, Chirac might have nuked Kabul. Again, not even George Bush considered that — or if he did, he wisely kept quiet about it.

What on earth was going through his mind? Where is the threat to France? Which country would want to unleash a terrorist attack on it? Yes, there are terrorists out there who might want to attack; they have done it before. But a state? The one worry is that Chirac was thinking of Syria; relations between Damascus and Paris are at their lowest ebb for years. Or maybe Iran? In which case, it raises questions about the French naval force currently in the Gulf of Oman as part of the US-led Operation Enduring Freedom and the war on terror — except that Operation Enduring Freedom is about Afghanistan and the French media have showed that the force could attack unnamed targets in the Middle East. Does the force possess nuclear missiles?

Whatever the answer, it is still inconceivable that France would launch a nuclear attack on any country. It is, after all, the same France that three years ago argued so convincingly in the UN against intervention in Iraq without international consensus and due legal process. But here is Chirac threatening to act unleash nuclear weapons unilaterally. If the threat is real, the world will have to re-evaluate its attitude to France.

Note To Readers: This is zig’s first main page post. Nice job, eh? He ran into some technical difficulties (read: Blogger) so I put it up for him. Thanks zig! But please let us know – does it look ok in Internet Explorer? The formatting was different from what I usually do, it looks ok in Mozilla, but IE can be touchy...

Today in Iraq

Usually TiI is all about the links and to be frank there is no way I can offer the exhaustive and insightful news that the regular posters post. As a habitual reader of this site I’m in quiet awe of YD FF, Matt, waterdance and other’s daily bounty. How do they do it and how do they do it without going mad with depression is beyond me. But I’m glad they do because they remind everyone who reads this vital publication about the cost of this war and in turn they can remind others. Thanks to them for that! Now pardon me while I ramble in my usual freeform and free from the rules of spelling and grammar way: From the President of the United States:

“Had we to do it over again, we would look at the consequences of catastrophic success being so successful, so fast, that an enemy that should have surrendered or been done in, escaped and lived to fight another day

From the CIA Fact Book on Iraq:

Coalition forces remain in Iraq, helping to restore degraded infrastructure and facilitating the establishment of a freely elected government, while simultaneously dealing with a robust insurgency.

From the Vice President of the United States:

"I think we may well have some kind of presence there over a period of time," Cheney said. "The level of activity that we see today from a military standpoint, I think, will clearly decline. I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency."

So. Created by a catastrophic success the robust insurgency is in its last throes? One of the many frustrations about the whole Iraqi quagmire is that Bush (the older, smarter one) saw this mess coming:

most significantly had we gone the invasion route, the U.S. could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different--and perhaps barren--outcome.

I wonder what would the reaction on the right would be if Elder Bush published something like that today? I’m sure they’d start by trashing his World War II heroics as exaggerations if not lies and then denounce Bush as a traitor. There is a bizarre cognitive dissonance at play that one day may be studied as some sort of syndrome. It seems that no matter what happens, Iraq is going fine and that the Bush Administration is doing the exact right thing. Examples of this veracity deficiency can be found on right wing blogs all over the Internet. I think this Power Line post is a perfect representation:

Why We're Winning In Iraq Power Line reader Jean Palmer sent us this great photo of her brother, Brigadier General Pete Palmer, in an Iraqi hospital with a boy named Ahmed Hameed (click to enlarge): Here is what General Palmer wrote about the photo:

Visited the hospital today (I try and swing by and say hello to soldiers that have been wounded and make sure they are doing as well as possible) and ran into this young guy. He is 4 yrs old and was shot 7 times in the one leg. Appears they were able to save the leg too. As you can see he was in a great mood and wanted his picture taken so we did.

The Iraqis have pretty well figured out who is shooting at them, and who is trying to heal them. The "insurgency," as we've said before, is, for practical purposes, over.

Now where is the reasoning there? The insurgency isn’t over for practical or even impractical reasons; it is exactly as it was last year and the year before, yet based on a photo they’re declared “over”! If that isn’t a delusion that demands professional study and help I don’t know what is. Now I wonder, what would John Hinderaker say to another photo of another Iraqi child? If a smiling Iraqi adolescent with a U.S. soldier is all that some need to be convinced that Iraq is being won what does a photo of a little screaming girl soaked in her family’s blood say? Can I, with the confidence of a lawyer from Time Magazine’s Blog of the Year, declare it “Why the U.S. is losing in Iraq”? It seems to me that no matter what happens anywhere, good, bad it all means the same thing to them; Bush (and us!) were Right. Case in point: From the blog of Congressman Conaway:

Bin Laden Tape Proves Strategy is Working This is an admission of great significance, because it proves that al-Qaeda’s operatives are on the defensive. Bin Laden’s transition from jihadist rhetoric to reasoning with the United States government is evidenced in his call for a ‘truce’ and it is a sign that we are winning the war. Now, more than ever, we must continue to stay on the offensive in Iraq and do what is necessary here at home to keep Americans safe.

Of course bin Laden’s message to the world means no such thing, all it proves is that the man who killed 3,000 Americans four years ago continues to be free to make tapes. It proves that Bush failed in his word and duty. This isn’t the first time I’ve read something like this and flash-backed to Lisa Simpson’s wonderful enlightenment of spurious reasoning:

Homer: Not a terrorist in sight. The Bush Patrol must be working like a charm. Lisa: That's spacious reasoning, Dad. Homer: Thank you, dear. Lisa: By your logic I could claim that this Iraq keeps terrorists away. Homer: Oh, how does it work? Lisa: It doesn't work. Homer: Uh-huh. Lisa: It's just a stupid Iraq. Homer: Uh-huh. Lisa: But I don't see any terrorists around, do you? [Homer thinks of this, then pulls out some money] Homer: Lisa, I want to buy your Iraq. [Lisa refuses at first, then takes the exchange]

Vice President Cheney perhaps needs a Lisa of his own to explain it to him after declaring:

It is no accident that we haven't been hit in more than four years.

Really? I guess the American soldiers and civilians in Iraq don’t count as “we”. And finally from The Conservative Voice, outright denial. Don’t like the reality? Customize it!

So let's recap. In four years we have liberated two countries, 48 million people, democracy is beginning to take root in places where it had never been before. We toppled two bloodthirsty, fascist, regimes in two quick campaigns. We have reduced the Taliban to a memory and have the Baathists in jail and standing trial.

Is there anything in that statement that can stand up to any sort of scrutiny? If so I couldn’t find it. Iraq and Afghanistan are occupied nations, they will be liberated when it’s their armed forces and police keeping order rather that the Coalition’s. While both nations have had elections would the democratic roots live without the Thomas Jefferson style “watering” by the Coalition forces? It would seem unlikely so I’m not sure you can call them democracies. And is it really a democracy when you have to shut the entire country down under martial law to hold an election? I voted today in Canada, I was able to drive right up to the polling station, I wonder how it would feel to vote while being watched by armed foreign soldiers? Perhaps my memory is a little foggy but wasn’t bringing bin Laden to justice part of the mission of Afghanistan? So how can that campaign be over? Or am I being pedantic with Bush’s “Dead or Alive” statement? Would it be difficult to imagine if it were President Gore that every right-wing news and web site having a little counter in the bottom right hand corner counting the days that bin Laden remained free? Anyone who says the Iraq campaign is over is either a liar or a madman or a startling combination of both and really needs to be medicated. The Taliban killed 26 people last week and the Baathissts are part of the insurgency in Iraq, so both are still fighting, hardly just “a memory”. And that is why I think Today in Iraq is so important, these fantasies of the right wing have of Iraq need to be balanced off and not with rhetoric from mouthy jerks like me but with the simple and hard realities; Iraq is still a troubled land and only the source of her misery has changed. So please keep it up, the links, the stories that I, and many others, wouldn’t have found on our own. At some point the American people are going to want to know where their blood and treasure is going and Today in Iraq provides the unvarnished truth that only the deeply delusional could deny. Thanks to FF for the opportunity!

Off-Topic Post: Blowjobs and Going to War Across the pond, Chicken Yogurt is covering a news scandal concerning a heretofore unknown politican (to me anyway) who made a bid to become the leader of the only effective opposition party in the UK and was then "outed" by the gutter press that Rupert Murdoch runs. In reading Chicken Yogurt's blog he linked a piece by Max Hastings in the Guardian.

Most striking of all, there is something shockingly wrong with our process of democratic accountability when Tony Blair remains in Downing Street after taking the country to war on a false pretext. Yet we can be confident that he would be obliged to resign if exposed in dalliance with a prostitute of either sex. For the media to investigate misgovernment requires endless labour for uncertain results and often little thanks from readers or viewers. Uncovering sexual lapses is incomparably easier. All that is needed is to persuade a second party to talk, usually for cash. It is even possible for newspapers to argue that to refuse lovers a right to tell their stories is to compromise free speech.

My point: Well George and his poodle say there is a "special relationship" between the USA and the UK, I think I know what it is now, it is the gutter that journalists live in.

War News for Monday, January 23, 2006 Bring 'em on: A U.S. soldier was killed when a roadside bomb exploded while he was patrolling on foot in southwest Baghdad. Bring 'em on: Police said three people were killed -- two policemen and a television sports journalist -- when a suicide car bomber struck a police checkpoint near the Green Zone in central Baghdad. Bring 'em on: Two policemen were killed and three wounded when a car bomb exploded in the southern Dora district Baghdad. Bring 'em on: Two civilians were wounded when a roadside bomb exploded near an Iraqi police patrol in central Baghdad. Bring 'em on: An Iraqi army soldier was killed and one wounded when their patrol was struck by a roadside bomb in eastern Mosul. Bring 'em on: Police said gunmen killed a female employee working for a U.S. army base in the town of Ad-Dawr. Bring 'em on: Two civilians were wounded when a car bomb exploded near a joint Iraqi-U.S patrol in southern Baghdad. Bring 'em on: Two U.S. airmen were killed and one wounded on Sunday by a roadside bomb while they were escorting a convoy near Taji. Bring 'em on: Five Iraqi civilians were wounded when a car bomb exploded in Mahmudiya. Bring 'em on: A suicide car bomber attacked a security checkpoint in central Baghdad on Monday, killing at least two people and wounding six others close to the Green Zone. The Constitution: According to reports, many Iraqis do not fully understand the national constitution ratified in a referendum on 15 October and there are fears that the document could exacerbate existing ethnic tensions. The constitution divides the country into three largely self-governing regions along ethnic and religious lines. As each region will control future oil discoveries, the Sunni minority, which lives in the oil-poor centre of Iraq, may not benefit equally from the riches, and some say this is the formula for civil war. Karim Shamaa, an oil consultant, said: "The articles on oil are so blurred and so unclear and so contradictory, that it will never work." Returning Exiles Cannot Stay:

Many Iraqis living abroad opted to return home in the aftermath of the fall of former leader Saddam Hussein. But most of them are now taking the opposite journey, returning once again to the foreign countries which sheltered form Saddam’s oppression. Meantime, Minister of Replacement and Migration Suhayla Abd-Jaafar has said conditions in the country were not safe for Iraqi refugees abroad to return. Iraqi expatriates are disappointed with the course of events since the 2003-U.S.-led invasion. They cite violence, insecurity, instability and unemployment as the main reasons for their decision to return to exile once again. Some said they were targets of attacks by armed groups battling the U.S. occupation and the government. Many members of these armed organizations were affiliated to Saddam’s Baath party and they see the expatriates as enemies. “I escaped the country 25 years ago fearing for our lives as we were communists. I decided to return when the former regime fell. But I had to return to exile because it was impossible for me to live in the country,” said Qassem Khalifa. Saddam Hussein was friendly to Iraqi communists in the early years of his Baathist rule. But he turned against them when he felt his position was secure. “I left the country 20 years ago to protect my son from persecution. We lived in America for the whole period and decided to return home when Saddam was overthrown. But there was no security and we could not stay,” said Majeed Saadoun. Mohammed Saleh, a dentist, left Canada for home after 18 years of exile. “But I had to go back. True exile is hard but what can I do? I only returned to my exile when I felt that there was no hope at the end of the tunnel,” said Saleh. Human rights activists say Iraqis abroad were shocked and disappointed on their return home. “The main reason compelling Iraqi expatriates to go into exile again is lack of security,” said Mohammed al-Mawsawi, the head of Iraqi human rights organization, a non-governmental group. Abd-Jaafar, the migration minister, said she would not encourage Iraqi refugees to return. Rather “I would advise the countries hosting them to grant them residency.” However, she said, her ministry has plans to help those returning home to get “reintegrated in the society”.

Opinion and Commentary Joe Wilson:

He asked how many people in the packed auditorium knew his wife's name and indicated that obviously all or nearly all did. But how many people knew who had inserted the statements into the president's speech about uranium? No hands were raised. "This administration decided well before 9/11 that Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein" would have high priority, he said. The invasion and occupation of Iraq has been costly to the United States, Wilson said. He cited 2,200 Americans killed, 10 times the number who died in the first war with Iraq. Also, 14,000 have been wounded. The war has cost $150 billion and possibly will cost much more, he added. Wilson added that at the end of the first war with Iraq, America's international prestige was high. But it is suffering badly because of the second, he said. During a question-and-answer session, he was asked why the United States had invaded, if not because of the issue involving weapons of mass destruction. The reason, according to one political opponent Wilson debated, was that it would change the political dynamics in the Middle East. Wilson said that was not the reason Americans thought they were going to war. Wilson said the United States should not set a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. But the government should determine what the military needs to do and how many troops are needed. That role would be different from what it is today, he said. "It's absolutely inappropriate for Americans to be easy targets. . . . It does us no good at all" for U.S. soldiers to go on patrol and get attacked. Also, he said, the country should get out of the position where Americans are "unnecessarily killing Arabs. . . . Iraqis should be fighting their civil war, not Americans." According to him, "The big winner so far has been Iran." Wilson said America is a great country, a great democracy. But he warned that it would be great only so long as Americans remain vigilant in the oversight of their government.

Sorry for the short post today, I will update it later, in addition there may be posts from other bloggers put up.

War News for Sunday, January 22, 2006

Bring ‘em on: Two US Marines were killed by a suicide car bomber while on a combat mission near Ramadi.

Bring ‘em on: Two African telephone engineers were kidnapped last week after their convoy was attacked in a daylight ambush on a busy Baghdad street. Twelve security guards and bystanders were killed in the attack.

Bring ‘em on: Two civilians were killed in one of several bomb attacks on US and Iraqi patrols, location of attacks not stated in this article.

Bring ‘em on: Five people were wounded, including an adviser to the president, when a roadside bomb struck a motorcade carrying members of President Jalal Talabani's staff. Talabani himself was not present.

Bring ‘em on: Four children, aged 6-11, and their uncle killed when insurgents fired rocket propelled grenades at the home of an Iraqi police officer in Balad Ruz. The officer was unharmed, but his wife was wounded.

Bring ‘em on: The bodies of a prominent Sunni Arab tribal leader and his son were found in a field near Hawija. Sayid Ibrahim Ali, 75, and his 28-year-old son Ayad were shot as they left a funeral Saturday.

Bring ‘em on: Four policemen were killed and nine were wounded in a pre-dawn roadside bomb blast that targeted their patrol in Baqouba.

Bring ‘em on: A car bomb exploded midday near the crowded Medina Market in eastern Baghdad, killing one person and wounding six. One shop was destroyed by the blast.

Bring ‘em on: The bodies of two people were found, bound and blindfolded, on Saturday in Mahaweel. They had been shot in the head.

Bring ‘em on: Three policemen were wounded when a roadside bomb went off near their patrol in Hawija, southwest of the northern oil city of Kirkuk.

Bring ‘em on: Ibrahim Ali al-Nuiemei, a tribal leader, and his son were found shot dead several hours after being kidnapped in the village of Minzila just south of Kirkuk.

Bring ‘em on: U.S. troops opened fire at civilian cars Saturday night in Baiji town, some 200 km north of Baghdad, killing three people, who turned out to be U.S.-trained Iraqi army soldiers. "The Multi National force opened fire last night at four civilian cars travelling on the main road between Tikrit and Baiji, setting fire to all the cars," the source from the Joint Coordination Center in Tikrit said. The U. S. shoot-out killed three people and wounded four others and the U.S. soldiers detained six other people, who turned out to be Iraqi soldiers travelling to their base in Samarra in the south of the country.

More on the above story: Iraqi police accused US soldiers today of shooting dead at least three civilians after an attack on their patrol, but the US military said the dead men were insurgents. The differing accounts of the shooting on Saturday in the town of Baiji, 180 km (110 miles) north of Baghdad, is not uncommon in such incidents in Iraq. Lieutenant Colonel Najim Ahmed of Baiji police said four civilians had been killed and six wounded when US soldiers fired at a passing car filled with civilians after a roadside bomb exploded nearby. ''US forces began shooting randomly. Civilians were in the car,'' he said.

Bring ‘em on: Security contractor killed by a roadside bomb according to British officials, no location given in this article.

Bring ‘em on: Police said a man was gunned down at a west Baghdad gas station.

Bring ‘em on: In the central city of Mashru, police found the bodies of two blindfolded men who had been shot in the head and chest.

Bring ‘em on: A Latvian soldier was wounded in a small-arms attack on a military base southeast of Baghdad. The soldier, part of a 135-member Latvian contingent in Iraq, was in a stable condition.

Bring ‘em on: Bodies of twenty-three Iraqis found shot to death and partially buried in a village about 50 miles north of Baghdad. They were returning to their homes in Samarra after failing to be accepted as police recruits.

Argument: Iraq's Justice Ministry said on Sunday it still expects U.S. forces to release six Iraqi women prisoners this week, despite U.S. comments to the contrary.

The issue of the detainees has become central to the release of kidnapped U.S. journalist Jill Carroll, whose abductors have threatened to kill her unless all female prisoners are freed.

Iraqi officials have since been at odds with their U.S. counterparts over the release of the six, among eight women terrorism suspects in American custody. The Justice Ministry said last week the six were about to be freed, but U.S. officials have insisted no releases are imminent.

Plot foiled: Iraqi forces foiled a plot to mount an attack with gunmen and suicide bombers against a senior Shi'ite Islamist leader coinciding with the release of election results, a senior Iraqi military source said on Friday.

Speaking hours before results were issued showing continued domination by the Shi'ite Islamist Alliance, the source said several suspects had confessed to a role in a plot by Sunni Arab rebels to attack the Baghdad headquarters of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, a key figure in the Alliance.

"About 50 people, including several suicide bombers, were going to take part in the attack just as the election results were being announced," the source said, showing Reuters official documents to support his statement.

Gee, they even have official documents to prove there was really a plot. Boy, those Iraqi forces are really getting their act together, aren’t they? We should just turn the whole country over to them and get out.

Iraqi Politics

Shiites in charge: Iraq's Shi'ite Islamists sealed power yesterday and security forces went on alert in Baghdad against attacks by Sunni Arab rebels.

Election results released gave Shi'ites a near-majority and paved the way for negotiations to begin on a national unity government.

The Shi'ite Islamist Alliance won 128 seats, 10 short of retaining the slim majority it enjoyed last year in the Sunni-boycotted interim assembly. The main Kurdish bloc won 53 seats while the two main Sunni groupings shared 55 seats.

Still a long way from a government: Iraq's elections commission announced the final results for the December 15 elections yesterday, giving a Shia Islamist coalition just under half the seats in the country's first permanent postwar parliament.

Disputes both inside the Shia-led United Iraqi Alliance and between ethnic and sectarian groups, however, mean that the formation of a government is probably weeks, if not months, away.

Fading US influence: Disappointed by the election performance of Iraq's moderate parties, U.S. officials have established a more modest goal as Iraqi leaders divide power in a new government: preventing religious or nationalist parties from gaining a strong hold on the army and police. American officials have made it a priority to persuade the winners in the election not to give top posts in the defense and interior ministries to anyone linked to armed groups such as the Shiite Muslim-controlled Badr and Al Mahdi militias, and the Kurds' peshmerga forces, U.S. and Iraqi officials say.

Washington fears that such ties could again alienate Sunni Muslims — many of whom are being drawn into the political process — sparking violence and slowing efforts to withdraw U.S. forces.

Sunni concerns: Sunni Arab politicians called for a government of national unity Saturday and signaled they will use their increased numbers in parliament to curb the power of rival Shiites, who have claimed the biggest number of seats in the new legislature.

In separate press conferences Saturday, two leading Sunni politicians expressed interest in joining a coalition government. But they made clear they will insist on curbing the trend toward sectarianism, which many Sunnis blame on policies of the outgoing government led by Shiites and Kurds.

"We will participate actively in the political process and we will cooperate with many political entities that share us the same principles," said Adnan al-Dulaimi, whose Iraqi Accordance Front won 44 seats.

"We believe in achieving stability, halting random arrests, releasing all detainees, eliminating sectarianism and preventing any sectarian group from dominating the government and rule the country in a dictatorial manner."

Drawing lines: Sunni Arabs will reject certain officials returning to key posts in Iraq's new government, a Sunni leader said Sunday in a clear reference to complaints of violence allegedly committed by Shiite-backed security forces against Sunnis.

The warning comes as Iraq's dominant Shiite leaders prepare for talks with Kurdish and Sunni politicians in a U.S.-backed bid to form a national unity government following Friday's announcement of uncertified final results from Iraq's Dec. 15 elections.

Better hope the politicians can make a difference: An official assessment drawn up by the US foreign aid agency depicts the security situation in Iraq as dire, amounting to a "social breakdown" in which criminals have "almost free rein".

The picture it paints is not only darker than the optimistic accounts from the White House and the Pentagon, it also gives a more complex profile of the insurgency than the straightforward "rejectionists, Saddamists and terrorists" described by George Bush.

The USAid analysis talks of an "internecine conflict" involving religious, ethnic, criminal and tribal groups. "It is increasingly common for tribesmen to 'turn in' to the authorities enemies as insurgents - this as a form of tribal revenge," the paper says, casting doubt on the efficacy of counter-insurgent sweeps by coalition and Iraqi forces.

Meanwhile, foreign jihadist groups are growing in strength, the report said.

As the talks go on: In the past year, there have been close to 20 large-scale assaults on or around Fatah, part of Iraq's largest oil-production complex in Bayji, deep in the Sunni Triangle northwest of Baghdad. Last month the Bayji site shut down completely for two weeks. It reopened with the New Year, but three days later insurgents pinned down a 60-truck fuel convoy there in an hourlong gun battle. Across the country, insurgents mount a major attack on oil facilities about once every three days, and the situation is getting worse. December was the third month in a row that Iraqi oil production went down, marking the lowest level of exports since the invasion. At a time when global supplies are stretched thin, the Iraqi oil bust helps keep world prices near record highs. Instead of looking forward to the prospect of their country standing on its own, after final results in polls to elect a new, permanent government were announced last week, Iraqis are now facing a massive oil and gas price hike designed to ease part of a crippling $120 billion debt.

Only three years ago, before the United States led the invasion of Iraq, the Bush ad—ministration dreamed of liberating the country on the cheap. Billions in untapped oil reserves would pay for reconstruction and nation-building. But hundreds of billions of American tax dollars later, Iraq's oil still isn't flowing at prewar levels. And in a country where 90 percent of the government's $35 billion in revenues comes from petroleum, the old promise has come to seem a curse. "Some people wish we didn't have all this oil," says National Assembly Speaker Hajim al-Hassani, "because it has brought us all these problems."

Is US policy interfering with stabilization?: The regiment's success and the mayor's concern about its departure raise two important questions about America's strategy in Iraq:

The first is whether the American practice of rotating troops in and out of Iraq - typically one-year tours of duty for soldiers and seven months for Marines - may be undermining the fight against Iraq's insurgency.

Limiting tours as the United States did in Vietnam helps relieve stress, support families and maintain morale. It also means that soldiers and Marines who are new to an area have to learn all over again what their predecessors discovered, often the hard way. And it disrupts personal relationships, such as the one al-Jibouri has developed with McMaster and Hickey, which are indispensable in Iraq.

The second question is whether the United States has sent enough troops to Iraq to duplicate the 3rd ACR's success in Tal Afar in bigger cities and nationwide. Al-Jibouri said the American cavalrymen in Tal Afar had conducted "the best operation in Iraq, with none of the big destruction like in Fallujah."

Declare victory and go: Colin Powell, who warned President Bush on the eve of the Iraq war that US forces would have to stay for the long haul after toppling Saddam, yesterday predicted that troop withdrawals would begin by the end of this year.

Yeah, my bet is that we’ll see a big PR blitz about a few thousand being pulled out right around, hmmm…September? October? Before November for sure…

Rule of Law

Negligent homicide: A U.S. Army officer was found guilty on Saturday of negligent homicide in the death of an Iraqi general during an interrogation in Iraq but the jury said he was not guilty on the more serious charge of murder.

A jury of six Army officers convicted Chief Warrant Officer Lewis Welshofer Jr. in the suffocation death of Iraqi Maj. Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhush. The general was placed head-first in a sleeping bag while Welshofer covered his mouth and sat on his chest during an interrogation in November 2003.

Due process: The United States has brought criminal charges against a 10th Guantanamo Bay prisoner, charging an Afghan man with conspiracy, aiding the enemy and attacking civilians, the Pentagon said.

The case against Abdul Zahir means that 2% of the estimated 500 foreign terrorism suspects held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have been charged with a crime.

US Military News

Traumatic brain injuries: The survival rate among Americans hurt in Iraq is higher than in any previous war, thanks to improved body armor, advances in battlefield medicine and swift evacuation.

There are seven to eight survivors for every death, compared with just two survivors per death in World War II.

But these survivors are coming home with serious injuries that will transform their lives.

More than 1,700 of those wounded in Iraq are known to have brain injuries, half of which are severe enough they could permanently impair thinking, memory, mood, behavior and the ability to work.

When mommy or daddy comes home from Iraq with a traumatic brain injury, this should help: The Pentagon has gained a very welcome and popular reinforcement for the home front — a furry red monster called Elmo.

As the third anniversary of the war in Iraq approaches and the casualties continue to mount, the creators of Sesame Street, the American educational television show, have announced plans to make an episode for the children of military families.

It is one of several such initiatives to have emerged in recent months as America starts to confront the consequences back home of what looks increasingly like a very long-term commitment to combating terrorism.

Sesame Workshop, the production company behind -Sesame Street, plans to distribute about 125,000 of the new DVDs starring the famous muppets to military families across the country.

The aim is to help children of pre-school age tackle the stress of their parents’ deployment, the absences, and, more sensitively, death and injury.

It is estimated that there are nearly half a million children of serving military below the age of five, and nearly 200,000 of reservists and national guardsmen.

This makes me want to puke. It encapsulates the Bush Republican approach to everything. Create, through incompetence, arrogance, and ideological blindness, the ugliest problems and most unworkable solutions, destroy lives forever, and then put a propaganda bandaid on the festering putrescent wounds they’ve created. Daddy comes home from an illegal immoral war based on lies with half his face blown off and Elmo is going to help little Susie get used to it. Bastards.

Suck it up, Kansas: Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius will fly on President Bush’s helicopter Monday, when she hopes to bring up the return of Kansas military equipment.

In a Dec. 30 letter to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Sebelius urged the return of Kansas National Guard equipment shipped to Iraq and Afghanistan.

“The Guard was critical to responding to recent blizzards and floods in Kansas, yet its ability to respond to similar situations is being diminished by a lack of equipment,” she wrote.

She said Rumsfeld had not responded.

Attention Anti-War Leftists It's time to reach out to all Americans. On January 30, the College Republicans will sponsor "Finish the Job: Support Our Troops" Rallies in Washington DC and All Over America to support President Bush's January 31 State of the Union address. All of you can support every American's First Amendment rights and make a patriotic impression on our great country. Red States and Blue States together, we're all Americans. Cindy Sheehan said it best: If you support the war, I think you should join it. I hear recruiting numbers are low. It's the College Republicans' day; don't spoil it with anti-Bush counter-protests against the war itself. Instead, encourage the College Republicans and their supporters, including Protest Warrior, to volunteer for military service: Be A Man! Enlist! Iraq, Afghanistan and other veterans of all ages can help by wearing their uniforms and personally inviting military recruiters to join them. The Washington DC rally will take place Monday, January 30, at 6:30 p.m., at American Legion Post No. 8, 224 D St., SE (Metro Capitol South). Be there! Let's do this right.

Commentary

Letter to the editor: The new year finds our nation still "bogged down in the quagmire inside Iraq," as Dick Cheney had predicted when he warned against taking over the country on April 29, 1991. Cheney was tragically right then about what would happen if Iraq were invaded.

More than 2,200 of our brave military service personnel have been killed in George W. Bush's immoral, disastrous war, 841 of them in 2005. Also slaughtered were many thousands of Iraqi men, women and children -- more than 4,000 civilians, along with 1,700 policemen and soldiers dying last year. Every one of these deaths is the fault of the corrupt president and indirectly that of all Bush supporters. The carnage is unabated.

On Jan. 1, he stated, "I'm going to work as hard as I can to lay down the foundation for peace." This warmonger has no conscience or shame.

Instead of promoting peace and combating terrorists, he has waged an evil war and unleashed terrorism worldwide.

Also, he has authorized torture, numerous violations of human rights and rampant unconstitutional abuses of power.

In addition he has continued to mislead and blatantly lie to the American people, as he did about bugging citizens' telephones, and to the world. He must be called to account for malevolence and crimes of which he is clearly guilty.

In Iraq, no more of our young people should have to die to satiate Bush's egomania. Bring our troops home.

Casualty Reports

Killed:

Robert Timmann

Major Douglas La Bouff

Lance Cpl. Raul Mercado

Chief Warrant Officer Mitch Carver

Quote of the day: “When the people clamor to be shielded from reality, when they praise their government for keeping things from them, when they choose to conduct their lives within the limits of whatever fantasy the government supplies, then they are no longer consenting to be governed, they are begging to be ruled.”

— Michael Ventura

DAILY WAR NEWS FOR SATURDAY JANUARY 21, 2006 Photo: Cars burn after a car bomb attack in Baghdad January 21, 2006. One civilian was killed and three were wounded in the latest attack in the Iraqi capital, witnesses said. REUTERS/Stringer Bring ‘em on: Three personnel from a gas company wounded by fire from US troops in Kirkuk. Bring ‘em on: Still no information on Brazilian engineer kidnapped in Iraq one year ago. Bring ‘em on: IED wounds five on Iraq president’s staff north of Baghdad in the town of Tuz Khurmatu. Mortar attacks on two US bases near Ramadi, causing minor injuries among US soldiers. Bring ‘em on: Iraqi army major and his son and bodyguard were killed in a drive-by shooting in the town of Qadisiyah. Bring ‘em on: A car bomb exploded in the Median Market in Baghdad wounding four people. Bring ‘em on: A former Iraqi army major, Haider Mohammed, was shot outside his home in Diwaniyah. Bring ‘em on: Gunman killed three butchers standing in a street in Dora neighborhood of Baghdad. Bring ‘em on: One civilian killed and two wounded by IED intended for Iraqi police in Karbala. Bring ‘em on: Iraqi commando Ali Hussein and Baath party member Abdun Hamid found shot dead near Karbala. British contractor Stephen Enwright killed by IED on Thursday. Bring ‘em on: One died from the car bomb in Median Market (mentioned above) in Baghdad. Bring ‘em on: Gunman killed an engineer working for US military base in Dujeil (north of Baghdad) as he drove out of the base. Bring ‘em on: One person killed and two wounded by IED in Dour. Bring ‘em on: One policeman killed and another wounded by IED in al Rasheed area south of Baghdad. Bring ‘em on: Two policemen killed and six wounded by car bomb near Baquba. Bring ‘em on: Five civilians injured by IED near US base in Siniyah on Thursday. Bring ‘em on: Two Iraqi army officers killed by gunman on Saturday in Tikrit. Bring ‘em on: Four suspects detained that are believed to be involved in explosion that leveled the As Siniyah city government building on Thursday. No injuries from that explosion. Bring ‘em on: Four detained after a reported IED detonated prematurely near Tikrit. One man was injured. Bring ‘em on: Iraqi militant group kidnapped son of Iraq Defense official. Bring ‘em on: US soldiers killed six reported insurgents when tanks returned fire at a checkpoint in Ramadi. More information on the attacks against US bases in Ramadi on Friday also. These events left one Iraqi and seven US soldiers wounded. Bring ‘em on: US soldier killed in Iraq. Not confirmed by Dept of Defense. Bring ‘em on: Iraqi forces foil a plot against Shi’ite leader in Baghdad. Bring ‘em on: Two Marines killed by suicide car bomber in western Iraq. Not confirmed by Dept of Defense. REPORTS THE TRAGEDY OF IRAQ: A Town Becomes a Prison "Our city has become a battlefield," 35 year-old engineer Fuad Al-Mohandis told IPS at a checkpoint on the outskirts of the city. "So many of our houses have been destroyed, and the Americans are placing landmines in areas where they think there might be fighters, even though most of the time it is near the homes of innocent civilians." Soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division have been coming under nearly daily attack from roadside bombs. Fuad said the U.S. military was now enforcing a curfew from 5pm. He said "so many explosions occur now which terrify our children." The U.S. military began to use bulldozers Jan. 7 to build a large sand barrier around the town in an effort to isolate fighters who have been attacking U.S. patrols. Oil pipelines from the area which lead to Turkey have been regularly sabotaged by resistance groups. The drastic measures have enraged many of the 3,000 residents of the town. "They think by these measures they can stop the resistance," Amer, a 43-year-old clerk at the nearby Beji oil refinery told IPS. "But the Americans are creating more resistance by doing these things. The resistance will not stop attacking them unless they pull out of our country." THE TRAGEDY OF IRAQ: Kurds announce the discovery of a mass grave near Chamchamal. This was found during routine roadwork, and four human remains were discovered. THE TRAGEDY OF IRAQ: Iraq Rebels Plan Bombs, Not Talks After Polls Sunni Arab rebels say they are digging in for a long fight with the next Iraqi government after a December election in which large-scale Sunni voting still failed to win their community a firm grip on political power. "We'll spread snipers in all of Iraq's cities," said Abu Huda al-Aslam, a senior member of the Iraqi militant group Mujahideen Army Brigades, who served in Saddam Hussein's army. "The coming period will witness a military escalation against occupation forces and the Iraqi army. We will focus on planting roadside bombs," he added. Such attitudes, echoed by some other insurgent leaders interviewed by Reuters, contrast with hopes of U.S. and Iraqi officials that the high Sunni Arab turnout in the polls heralded success for their strategy of drawing the once-dominant minority into politics to defuse the insurgency. THE TRAGEDY OF IRAQ: Iraq Tops List of Threatened Minorities Iraq topped the report's list of areas where minorities are under threat, scoring the highest total of a combination of factors which include "major armed conflicts" and "rise of factionalised elites". Minority Rights Group International, a British advocacy organisation, found that violence was targeted at religious, ethnic and other minority groups in three-quarters of the world's conflicts in 2005. Mark Lattimer, the group's executive director, told a press conference on Thursday: "In every world region, minorities and indigenous peoples have been excluded, repressed and, in many cases, killed by their governments. In war today, the targeting of minorities is no longer the exception, but has become the norm." The group used data collected by the World Bank, conflict prevention institutes and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development in preparing its first State of the World's Minorities report. While Lattimer acknowledged that Iraq's parliamentary elections were a huge step towards democracy, he said: "The likely result is a political pattern in Iraq which shows an increased division between different ethnic or religious groups." He cited a series of mistakes since the US-led war in 2003 which "helped encourage a division by ethnicity or by religion" starting with the decision to split up membership of the Iraqi governing council by religion. He said it has continued with one-sided criticism of insurgent killings of Shia but a failure to criticise human rights violations against Sunni civilians "by the governing forces in Iraq". NEWS: US General Describes Insurgent Fight in Northern Iraq General Turner says most of the insurgents in northern Iraq are Iraqis, but he says there are still some organized al-Qaida groups, and sometimes the Iraqi and foreign forces work together. However, the general says the goals of the two groups are different and while he has not seen any rift between them in his area he is encouraged by reports of splits between Iraqi and foreign insurgents in other parts of Iraq. General Turner also reports that the 105,000 Iraqi troops in his area are taking more and more responsibility for security operations. "We have four Iraqi battalions that have assumed battle space in our area, and one brigade," he added. "The division that has responsibility for Mosul is doing very well, and in the next couple of months they will have battalions that will begin to assume battle space in that area, and the same is true in Kirkuk." NEWS: Kurdish Court Rules out “30 year sentence” for Articles Written Criticizing KDP. A Kurdish online journal reported today that the Hewler (Erbil) Appeals Court has today rejected the decision of the Erbil Court which sentenced Dr. Kamal Sayid Qadir on 19th of December 2005 for 30 years in prison. According to “Kurdistan Net”, Dr. Kamal Sayid Qadir (48), who was kidnapped and later sentenced by the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) for 30 years in prison for writing two articles criticising the leadership of the KDP, will have a fresh trial. Kurdistan Net reported that the Hewler Appeals Court has ruled that the sentence of Dr. Qadir is not appropriate and has transferred the case to a civil court, in which according to the Kurdish journal, he might either be freed or face a small fine. Observers monitoring the legal case Dr. Kamal Sayid Qadir told TheKurdistani.com that the Kurdistan Regional Government’s handling of Dr. Kamal Sayid Qadir’s case reflects the lack of the rule of law and the chaos, which faces the legal, and judiciary system in Kurdistan. There was no media presence during the sentencing of Dr. Kamal Sayid Qadir in December 2005. The news surrounding his sentence was reported solely by his family. NEWS: Families of Kenyans Kidnapped in Iraq Urge Release The families of two Kenyan telephone engineers kidnapped in Iraq appealed on Friday for their quick release saying they only went to the country to earn money. Moses Munyao and George Noballa worked for a unit of Egyptian-owned Orascom Telecom group and were snatched on Wednesday after an elaborate ambush in which at least nine of their security guards were killed on a busy Baghdad street. "I appeal to them not to harm him, all he was doing was to fend for his young family," Florence Munyao, the wife of one of the kidnapped men, told Reuters from her home in Nairobi. Many Africans go to Iraq in search of jobs that pay much better than salaries at home. LIFE IN IRAQ: The common way to warn people of a moving car is to honk the horn, and of the emergency vehicles is to use siren. A brand new way of warning people of a coming procession is used nowadays in Iraq, that’s shooting guns in air. So a driver may be totally taken by surprise by an IP or National Guard vehicle shooting in the air to make their way. The American troops use a developed method by shooting directly at cars to draw attention of other drivers. What makes such conduct dangerous, dealing with a chosen sample, is the repetition of it. As an example, in the past month two of my neighbors witnessed such incident. One of them died and the other barely escaped being killed. I’m speaking about a neighborhood of less than 35 houses and a period of time less than month. BATTLEFIELD IRAQ: Three US veterans are in a film about the war in Iraq, called “The Ground Truth”. This is a documentary film showing at the Sundance film festival. Sean Huze: It all comes down to weapons of mass destruction, for me. And they weren't there. Dick Cheney's going around accusing all of us of being revisionist now. But if you're trying to say that the war in Iraq was about anything other than WMD, that's revisionism. I don't care how many times Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, George Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, whoever, says that this war was about anything other than WMD, or that we were given a justification or rationale other than WMD. I've got a long memory, and it was only a couple of years ago. I know why I was sent to Iraq; I know why I went to war. And when that proved to be false, I think that's when we lost our credibility and our world standing. And ultimately we're in a quagmire right now. It's not like two armies went out there on a battlefield. This war was fought in an urban environment amongst the civilian population, and ultimately it is that civilian population that has paid the heaviest toll. It's difficult as a husband and as a father to reconcile who I was over there with some of the things that I saw. I mean, a dead child on the side of the road in Nasiriyah, about the same age as my son right now. And how unfeeling I was at the time about it, with who I am now, how I feel about it now. Paul Rieckhoff: Well I think, like Sean and Jimmy, when I came home I was pissed off and dissatisfied with the dialogue. In the spring of 2004, John Kerry and George Bush were throwing the Iraq war back and forth like a political football. And to be honest with you, nobody really knew what the heck they were talking about. The news media was dominated by Martha Stewart and what color pajamas Michael Jackson was wearing, and the country didn't really seem connected with the war. We felt it was about time to inject people who'd been on the ground into the discussion. We formed IAVA last summer, and have been focused primarily on trying to connect people with the war, giving them a way to get involved. Jimmy Massey: Yes, primarily the killing of innocent civilians. That's where I really began to question our overall motives. My questions to my command became, how do you tell a 25-year-old Iraqi male who just witnessed his brother being killed at a checkpoint, how do you tell this young man not to become an insurgent? So I was very critical of our mission and what we were performing and the lack of humanitarian support to the Iraqi people. Interviewer: If you could say one thing to the American people, what would you say? Sean Huze: Accountability and responsibility. I bring up these two words because the American public is largely responsible for where we are right now, therefore they are accountable for our nation's failure in Iraq and diminishing status abroad. We sat idly by and accepted the Supreme Court's anointment of George Bush. We allowed ourselves to be manipulated following 9/11 and adopted the "any Muslim will do" attitude that afforded the administration the opportunity to use 9/11 to justify Iraq, a nation that had nothing to do with the attacks. THE WAR AT HOME: US Governors Aim to Prevent Cuts in National Guard U.S. state governors called on the Pentagon Thursday not to make cuts in the National Guard, calling such a move "inconceivable" considering the role played by Guard troops in Iraq, disaster relief and homeland defense. "We need more Guard troops at this time, not less," the National Governors Association wrote to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in a letter signed by Govs. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, Janet Napolitano of Arizona, Dirk Kempthorne of Idaho and Michael Easley of North Carolina. THE WAR AT HOME: Heads Roll at Veterans Administration Preventive Psychiatry E-Newsletter charged Monday that the reason Veterans Affairs Secretary Anthony Principi stepped down earlier this month was the growing scandal surrounding the use of uranium munitions in the Iraq War. Writing in Preventive Psychiatry E-Newsletter No. 169, Arthur N. Bernklau, executive director of Veterans for Constitutional Law in New York, stated, “The real reason for Mr. Principi’s departure was really never given, however a special report published by eminent scientist Leuren Moret naming depleted uranium as the definitive cause of the ‘Gulf War Syndrome’ has fed a growing scandal about the continued use of uranium munitions by the US Military.” Bernklau continued, “This malady (from uranium munitions), that thousands of our military have suffered and died from, has finally been identified as the cause of this sickness, eliminating the guessing. The terrible truth is now being revealed.” He added, “Out of the 580,400 soldiers who served in GW1 (the first Gulf War), of them, 11,000 are now dead! By the year 2000, there were 325,000 on Permanent Medical Disability. This astounding number of ‘Disabled Vets’ means that a decade later, 56% of those soldiers who served have some form of permanent medical problems!” The disability rate for the wars of the last century was 5 percent; it was higher, 10 percent, in Viet Nam. “The long-term effects have revealed that DU (uranium oxide) is a virtual death sentence,” stated Berklau. “Marion Fulk, a nuclear physical chemist, who retired from the Lawrence Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab, and was also involved with the Manhattan Project, interprets the new and rapid malignancies in the soldiers (from the 2003 Iraq War) as ‘spectacular … and a matter of concern!’” (No mention of how DU might affect Iraqi civilians. – Susan) ELECTIONS and POLITICS IN IRAQ NEWS: Horse-trading Begins After Iraq Result Iraq's elections commission announced the final results for the December 15 elections yesterday, giving a Shia Islamist coalition just under half the seats in the country's first permanent postwar parliament. Disputes both inside the Shia-led United Iraqi Alliance and between ethnic and sectarian groups, however, mean that the formation of a government is probably weeks, if not months, away. Results may also be subject to appeal over the next few days. But as Iraqi elections officials have been checking and cross-checking allegations of irregularities for over a month it is unlikely that the count will be significantly altered. In yesterday's results the UIA took 128 seats of 275 - roughly what was forecast from preliminary counts after the election but fewer than the 146 seats won in the January poll. In an indication that Iraqi voters cast ballots largely along ethnic and sectarian lines, a Kurdish alliance took 53 seats and two predominantly Sunni Arab groupings, the Islamist-leaning Iraqi Consensus Front and the more nationalist Iraqi National Dialogue Front, took 44 and 11 seats respectively. The list of Iyad Allawi, the secular Shia former prime minister, took only 25 seats, underlining the weakness of cross-sectarian groups and independents. The coalition led by another secular-leaning Shia, Ahmed Chalabi, did not take a single seat. NEWS: Iraq Vote Turnout Over 75 % - Official Turnout in last month's Iraqi election was much higher than originally estimated, electoral data indicated on Friday, and one senior official confirmed it was more than 75 percent. Shortly after the Dec. 15 vote, the Electoral Commission estimated turnout at 70 percent. On Friday, Commission chief Hussein al-Hendawi told Reuters a final turnout figure was not yet ready but that it would be at least 75 percent. Results issued on Friday put the total number of votes cast at 12.4 million, including 0.21 million spoiled or blank ballots. That would put turnout at more than 78 percent on the basis of registered voters numbering 15.8 million, Hendawi said. Turnout in the previous election on Jan. 30 last year, when many Sunni Arabs boycotted the vote, was 58 percent. NEWS: Iraq Leaders Set for Tough Talks Iraq's political leaders are preparing for a tough round of negotiations after parliamentary elections left no party with an absolute majority. The Shia-led United Iraqi Alliance took 128 of the 275 seats, Kurdish parties 53 and the main Sunni Arab bloc 44 in results announced on Friday. The US called on all groups to work together but insisted all decisions would be taken by the Iraqi parties. Some Sunnis still allege poll fraud and may challenge the result. When the results are confirmed, President Jalal Talabani will have two weeks to convene parliament, which will choose a new president within a month. NEWS: Iraq’ Talabani, Barzani Agree to One Kurdistan Government Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and Kurdish regional president Massud Barzani signed an agreement that paves the way for a single administration to run their autonomous northern region. Until now Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party was solely responsible for running Arbil and Dohuk, while Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan ran Sulaimaniyah province. However the agreement does not merge the PUK's and KDP's departments of interior, finance, justice or peshmerga forces. "This is an important development which will protect Kurdistan which has become a solid base for democracy, unity and national accord," Talabani said. Barzani said a sole administration would "help reclaim other parts of Kurdistan," in a reference to the ethnically mixed oil-hub of Kirkuk that Kurds consider their own, located just south of their autonomous region. Since 1998, rivalries between the two formerly warring Kurdish factions have prevented repeated attempts to set up a joint administration. The move, originally announced on January 7, was approved by the Kurdish regional parliament after an extraordinary session in Arbil. NEWS: Some Iraqis Seek Constitutional Amendments Under a deal to win Sunni Arab support for the constitution, parliament must consider amendments in its first four months. If legislators approve the changes, they will be sent to voters in a new referendum. The main issues of contention: The influence of religion on daily life. One clause prohibits any law that "contradicts the established provisions of Islam," raising concerns about whether Iraq will become a Muslim theocracy like neighboring Iran. The constitution divides the country along ethnic and religious lines into three largely self-governing regions. Some see this as the best way to protect the interests of each group, but others worry it is a formula for civil war. Because each region will control future oil discoveries in its own area, the Sunni minority, which lives in the oil-poor center, may not benefit equally from the riches. The constitution does little to protect women's or human rights. And many of the constitution's provisions are unclear or contradictory, raising doubts that it can serve as a set of rules for self-government. NEWS: Shiite-Kurd Bloc Falls Just Short in Iraqi Election The first official results in Iraq's landmark December elections showed Friday that the Shiite and Kurdish coalitions once again dominated the voting, but came up just short of the two-thirds majority needed to form a government on their own. Sunni Arab parties won 58 of the new Parliament's 275 seats - the second-largest bloc of seats - giving them a much stronger political voice than they had before. That raised hopes that the Sunnis, who dominate the insurgency, might choose the political process over violence, and underscored the looming question of what role they would play as Iraq's leaders begin negotiating in earnest to form their first full-term government. COMMENTARY OPINION: Returning Home Alive On January 16th, after having talked quite normally on the phone with at least two other people that same day, Douglas Barber, a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) living in Lee County, Alabama, changed the answer-message on his telephone. "If you're looking for Doug," it said in his Alabama drawl, "I'm checking out of this world. I'll see you on the other side." He then called the police, collected his shotgun, and went out onto his porch to meet them. From the sketchy reports we have now, it seems the police wouldn't oblige him with a "suicide by cop" and tried to talk him down. When it became apparent he wasn't able to commit cop-suicide, 27-year-old Douglas Barber did an about-face, rotated the shotgun and killed himself. We do know, from Doug's interviews, that the stress of those convoys - each confronting its participants with the possibility that this could be one's last road trip - were hard on Doug. In July 2003, his convoy was hit with an improvised explosive device, and the mortar attacks at Anaconda were so regular that they were almost a weather pattern. But Doug said there was something else that was even harder on him. When the grunts came in, they would describe how many civilians they'd killed. When Doug was in a traffic jam one day, feeling very vulnerable, and the US units dismounted to clear the traffic jam - angry and afraid and waving weapons at the civilians - a woman in a bus held up her baby for them to see ... like that window-sign we see in cars on American highways, "Baby on Board." Only she wasn't cautioning other drivers to be careful. She was trying to prevent an armed attack that could kill her child. Post-traumatic stress is not a disorder. Calling it that earns it a place in the DSM IV, professionalizes and medicalizes this very accurate perception that the world is not safe, and that life is not a comforting film convention. Calling it an individual "disorder" cloaks the social systems responsible for experiences like Vietnam and Iraq. (Military recruiters….) went, as they have always done, to places like Lee County, Alabama, where simple people have formed powerful affective attachments to the myth of our national moral superiority. When that world view, that architecture of meaning, collapses in the face of realities like convoy Russian roulette, and women holding babies up to prevent being shot, and daily stories of slaughter by the people one sleeps with, the profound betrayal of it is not experienced as some quiet, somber sadness. It is experienced like bees swarming out of a hive that has been broken, as a howling chaos. OPINION: Not. Backing. Hillary. If no one in conventional-wisdom politics has the courage to speak up and say what needs to be said, then you go out and find some obscure junior senator from Minnesota with the guts to do it. In 1968, Gene McCarthy was the little boy who said out loud, "Look, the emperor isn't wearing any clothes." Bobby Kennedy -- rough, tough Bobby Kennedy -- didn't do it. Just this quiet man trained by Benedictines who liked to quote poetry. What kind of courage does it take, for mercy's sake? The majority of the American people (55 percent) think the war in Iraq is a mistake and that we should get out. The majority (65 percent) of the American people want single-payer health care and are willing to pay more taxes to get it. The majority (86 percent) of the American people favor raising the minimum wage. The majority of the American people (60 percent) favor repealing Bush's tax cuts, or at least those that go only to the rich. The majority (66 percent) wants to reduce the deficit not by cutting domestic spending, but by reducing Pentagon spending or raising taxes. The majority (77 percent) thinks we should do "whatever it takes" to protect the environment. The majority (87 percent) thinks big oil companies are gouging consumers and would support a windfall profits tax. That is the center, you fools. WHO ARE YOU AFRAID OF? OPINION: US Has Hidden Agenda in Iraq: Official Security, stability, the installation of the new government, the problem of insurgents creating terror and the increase of oil production to reach the Saddam Hussain era level are the among main issues that Iraq and the country’s people are mainly concerned with, a senior Iraqi government official has said here yesterday. Speaking to the Khaleej Times exclusively, on the sidelines of the three-day Fifth Middle East Refining and Petrochemicals Conference and Exhibition (Petrotech 2006) that opened here yesterday, Riyadh Al Ani, the head of the Iraqi delegation to the event who is from the Studies, Planning and Follow-up Directorate at his country’s Ministry of Oil, also said that the majority of Iraqis were not happy with the continued presence of the US-led coalition forces in Iraq, and that they were particularly against the Americans, because “most of them believe that the US is in Iraq for its own hidden agenda and interest, and not for Iraq or Iraqis, as it is being projected.” When asked to elaborate, he said that “if attacking Iraq and liberating the country by toppling the Saddam Hussain regime, was the agenda, then there is no explanation for overstaying in the country for them a day longer once that objective was accomplished.” He also underlined that the US veil of “restoring democracy in Iraq, is all lies.” OPINION: After The War The war against Iraq, the assault on its people, the occupation of its cities, will come to an end, sooner or later. The process has already begun. The first signs of mutiny are appearing in Congress. The first editorials calling for withdrawal from Iraq are beginning to appear in the press. The anti-war movement has been growing, slowly but persistently, all over the country. And while we work with increased determination to make this happen, should we not think beyond this war? Should we begin to think, even before this shameful war is over, about ending our addiction to massive violence and instead using the enormous wealth of our country for human needs? That is, should we begin to speak about ending war - not just this war or that war, but war itself? Perhaps the time has come to bring an end to war, and turn the human race onto a path of health and healing. There is a persistent argument against such a possibility, which I have heard from people on all parts of the political spectrum: We will never do away with war because it comes out of human nature. The most compelling counter to that claim is in history: We don't find people spontaneously rushing to make war on others. What we find, rather, is that governments must make the most strenuous efforts to mobilize populations for war. They must entice soldiers with promises of money, education, must hold out to young people whose chances in life look very poor that here is an opportunity to attain respect and status. And if those enticements don't work, governments must use coercion: They must conscript young people, force them into military service, threaten them with prison if they do not comply. Furthermore, the government must persuade young people and their families that though the soldier may die, though he or she may lose arms or legs, or become blind, that it is all for a noble cause, for God, for country. War, I decided, creates, insidiously, a common morality for all sides. It poisons everyone who is engaged in it, however different they are in many ways, turns them into killers and torturers, as we are seeing now. It pretends to be concerned with toppling tyrants, and may in fact do so, but the people it kills are the victims of the tyrants. It appears to cleanse the world of evil, but that does not last, because its very nature spawns more evil. Wars, like violence in general, I concluded, is a drug. It gives a quick high, the thrill of victory, but that wears off and then comes despair. OPINION: Wolfowitz Busy Neo-Conning the World Bank Wolfowitz, architect of America's failing foray into Iraq as Rumsfeld's former Deputy at the Pentagon, now heads the World Bank and finally seems like his true self is coming out of the closet. In recent months, picking up steam in recent weeks, there has been a massive exodus of top talent from the World Bank. According to reports, the senior Ethics Officer at the Bank has departed. Also on the exit roster are the Vice President for East Asia & Pacific, the Chief Legal Counsel, the Bank's top Managing Director, the Director of Institutional Integrity (which monitors internal and external corruption), the Vice President for Environmentally and Socially Sustainable Development, and the head of ISG (Information Solutions Group). "He is appointing political hacks into positions that should be filled by highly qualified personnel through competitive and transparent processes." OPINION: War on Iraq: A Formula for Slaughter How the US military’s new strategy in Iraq guarantees massive civilian casualties, not victory. A little over a year ago, a group of Johns Hopkins researchers reported that about 100,000 Iraqi civilians had died as a result of the Iraq war during its first 14 months, with about 60,000 of the deaths directly attributable to military violence by the U.S. and its allies. The study, published in The Lancet, the highly respected British medical journal, applied the same rigorous, scientifically validated methods that the Hopkins researchers had used in estimating that 1.7 million people had died in the Congo in 2000. Though the Congo study had won the praise of the Bush and Blair administrations and had become the foundation for U.N, Security Council and State Department actions, this study was quickly declared invalid by the U.S. government and by supporters of the war. This dismissal was hardly surprising, but after a brief flurry of protest, even the anti-war movement (with a number of notable exceptions) has largely ignored the ongoing carnage that the study identified. One reason the Hopkins study did not generate sustained outrage is that the researchers did not explain how the occupation had managed to kill so many people so quickly -- about 1,000 each week in the first 14 months of the war. This may reflect our sense that carnage at such elevated levels requires a series of barbaric acts of mass slaughter and/or huge battles that would account for staggering numbers of Iraqis killed. With the exception of the battle of Falluja, these sorts of high-profile events have simply not occurred in Iraq. The Real Rules of Engagement in Iraq We can gain some perspective on this military strategy by imagining similar rules of engagement for an American police force in some large city. Imagine, for example, a team of criminals in that city fleeing into a nearby apartment building after gunning down a policeman. It would be unthinkable for the police to simply call in airships to demolish the structure, killing any people -- helpless hostages, neighbors or even friends of the perpetrators -- who were with or near them. In fact, the rules of engagement for the police, even in such a situation of extreme provocation, call for them to "hold their fire" -- if necessary allowing the perpetrators to escape -- if there is a risk of injuring civilians. And this is a reasonable rule because we value the lives of innocent American citizens over our determination to capture a criminal, even a cop killer. But in Iraqi cities, our values and priorities are quite differently arranged. The contrast derives from three important principles under which the Iraq war is being fought: that the war should be conducted to absolutely minimize the risk to American troops; that guerrilla fighters should not be allowed to escape if there is any way to capture or kill them; and that Iraqi civilians should not be allowed to harbor or encourage the resistance fighters. As one American officer explained to New York Times reporter Dexter Filkins, the willingness to sacrifice local civilians is part of a larger strategy in which U.S. military power is used to "punish not only the guerrillas, but also make clear to ordinary Iraqis the cost of not cooperating." A Marine calling in to a radio talk show recently stated the argument more precisely: "You know why those people get killed? It's because they're letting insurgents hide in their house." This is, by the way, is the textbook definition of terrorism -- attacking a civilian population to get it to withdraw support from the enemy. What this strategic orientation, applied wherever American troops fight the Iraqi resistance, represents is an embrace of terrorism as a principle tactic for subduing Iraq's insurgency. POLITICS: Women’s Anti-War Petition Circles the Globe Eminent female writers, artists, lawmakers and social activists in the United States are reaching out to women leaders across the world in an attempt to forge a global alliance against the U.S.-led war in Iraq. A U.S.-based women's group has launched a global campaign to gather 100,000 signatures by Mar. 8, International Women's Day, when they will be delivered to the White House and U.S. embassies around the world. "We are unleashing a global chorus of women's voices shouting, 'Enough!" said Medea Benjamin, cofounder of CODEPINK: Women for Peace, a California-based rights advocacy group that has spearheaded the global women's campaign, called "Women Say No to War". Describing the initial response to the group's call for signatures as "overwhelming", Benjamin says that more than 200 high-profile women from various walks of life endorsed the campaign even before it was launched earlier this month. The petition can be signed HERE. POLITICS: Progressive Members of Congress to Offer Progressive Alternative State of the Union Members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) will present an alternative, inclusive, and uplifting vision for the United States of America on the morning of the President's State of the Union address. The Members will convene a special forum at the Democratic National Committee headquarters to propose a new direction for the country and articulate concrete plans for achieving change. The meeting will feature Progressive Caucus leaders discussing issues ranging from how to bring our troops home from Iraq to ending the Republican culture of corruption and cronyism to healthcare reform to rebuilding New Orleans and the Gulf Coast and achieving broad-based economic growth. "The Congressional Progressive Caucus has a bold vision for America," said Rep. Woolsey. "Our agenda speaks to hard working Americans who play by the rules and want a bright future for themselves and their families." “We offer a fresh, vigorous alternative for the 21st century, and we’re going to present an unapologetic plan that offers hope and a better quality of life for all Americans--- not just the powerful and privileged,” said U.S Representative Barbara Lee (D-CA), Co-Chair of the CPC. PEACE ACTION: URGENT APPEAL TO SAVE IRAQ’S ACADEMICS A little known aspect of the tragedy engulfing Iraq is the systematic liquidation of the country's academics. Even according to conservative estimates, over 250 educators have been assassinated, and many hundreds more have disappeared. With thousands fleeing the country in fear for their lives, not only is Iraq undergoing a major brain drain, the secular middle class — which has refused to be co-opted by the US occupation — is being decimated, with far-reaching consequences for the future of Iraq. This situation is a mirror of the occupation as a whole: a catastrophe of staggering proportions unfolding in a climate of criminal disregard. As an occupying power, and under international humanitarian law, final responsibility for protecting Iraqi citizens, including academics, lies with the United States. With this petition we want to break the silence. We appeal to organisations which work to enforce or defend international humanitarian law to put these crimes on the agenda. We request that an independent international investigation be launched immediately to probe these extrajudicial killings. This investigation should also examine the issue of responsibility to clearly identify who is accountable for this state of affairs. We appeal to the special rapporteur on summary executions at UNHCHR in Geneva. -------------------------------------- You can sign this petition by clicking HERE. CASUALTY REPORTS Local Story: Minnesota native killed by IED in Iraq. Local Story: Ohio soldier died in Iraq from illness. Local Story: What does one say to the family of Sarasota’s first Iraq war casualty? Local Story: Services to Honor Fallen Army Pilot from North Carolina QUOTE OF THE DAY: "As nightfall does not come all at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all must be aware of change in the air however slight, lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness." -Justice William O. Douglas

DAILY WAR NEWS FOR FRIDAY JANUARY 20, 2006

Photo above: A man grieves for a relative who died in an ambush on a convoy of telecommunications workers in Baghdad. Ten security guards were killed and two African engineers were kidnapped. By Hadi Mizban -- Associated Press

Bring ‘em on: Wave of violence kills 50 in Iraq on Wednesday. Gunman ambushed a convoy of telecommunications workers in Baghdad, killing ten security guards and kidnapping two African engineers. The kidnapped sister of Interior Minister Bayan Jabr was freed Wednesday. Bring ‘em on: In the oil city of Baiji, a formidable foe for US troops. This month, Army commanders frustrated by fatalities from bombs, mines and, more recently, suicide car bombings began building up sand walls with bulldozers, digging ditches and setting up barricades to sharply restrict entry to the city. They completely sealed off a section of Baiji -- the village of Siniyah -- with a six-mile-long, eight-foot-high berm.

"Most of the people fighting the Americans tell me they do nothing for us but destroy the houses and capture people," Adil Faez Jeel, a director at the Baiji refinery, said of the U.S. forces.

"There are no jobs, no water, no electricity." Bring ‘em on: Police station in Zubair attacked by rockets. No casualties reported. Bring ‘em on: Three killed after placing IED near Tal Afar. US soldiers destroyed the IED. Bring ‘em on: Two policemen killed and five wounded when a suicide bomber targeted a police patrol near the home of politician al Hakim. Bring ‘em on: Bodies of five men, all wearing civilian clothes, found with bullet wounds to the head. They were found floating in the Qaid River near Swera, south of Baghdad. Bring ‘em on: Iraq police fear 34 recruits killed after ambush. Bring ‘em on: This report says fifty police recruits were kidnapped north of Baghdad on Monday (yesterday’s reports said 35), and their fate is unknown at this time. Meanwhile, Iraqi army found 30 bodies in an open area north of Meshahadah, which is north of Baghdad. These bodies are Iraqi army and police, including two officers, and some were government employees. They all had their hands tied behind their backs and were shot in the head. This has raised the fears that the 50 kidnapped police recruits may also be killed.

Also, 15 civilians were kidnapped, and two civilians were killed, after US troops cordoned off a main road after a helicopter crash on Monday and forced the civilians to take back roads. Bring ‘em on: Two civilians killed and three wounded by IED targeting a US patrol in Baghdad, Karada district.

Bring ‘em on: Bodies of seven civilians found in the village of Dujail, where 35 police recruits were abducted on Tuesday.

Bring ‘em on: One policeman killed and four wounded by IED in Miqdadia.

Bring ‘em on: US patrol hit by IED in southern Baghdad, but no injuries reported.

Bring ‘em on: Police commando shot dead in Kerbala.

Bring ‘em on: Former Baath party member, Abdoun Hmood, found dead from gunshot in playground in Kerbala. He was blindfolded and his hands were bound.

Bring ‘em on: Iraqi police detained five insurgents trying to launch rockets in Mussayib, near Kerbala.

Bring ‘em on: Seven people wounded, including four policemen, when a car bomb targeted a police patrol in northern Baghdad. Bring ‘em on: Four Christian Peace activists still held in Iraq. Bring ‘em on: Five Iraqis kidnapped late Thursday by 15-masked gunman dressed like Iraqi police. They were kidnapped from a restaurant in central Baghdad, and the victims included the restaurant owner and his son, and Iraqi police colonel, a businessman and a man who worked under the prior regime as a bodyguard.

Bring ‘em on: Gunman fatally shot two people working inside a cell phone shop in Baghdad around 6 PM on Thursday. Also, two barbers where shot inside their shop in Baghdad. Bring ‘em on: Attacks in the city of Baquba wounded 13 people, including 10 members of the Iraqi police and military. Bring ‘em on: Irving, Texas company (Dyncorp) has lost 26 employees in Iraq war. This company offers military support services. Bring ‘em on: Three Iraqi policemen were seriously injured when a bomb on a bus exploded in Mustansiriya. Bring ‘em on: 230 British troops have been injured in the Iraq war, including 40 with life-threatening injuries. Bring ‘em on: U.S. and Iraqi troops also launched a major military operation in southern Baghdad's Dora neighborhood at dawn Friday in the hunt for two local insurgent leaders believed to control several hundred militants, including non-Iraqi Arabs, said Iraqi Army Gen. Mehdi al-Gharawi. Bring ‘em on: Three people killed in area near Ramadi. They were thought to be involved with trafficking trucks and small vehicles on the highway linking Iraq with Jordan and Syria. According to the source, an armed group identified as the Factions of the Mujahedeen Army pursued the gang and decided to killed them after leaving leaflets beside their corpses reading “This is the fate of thieves, road pirates and saboteurs.” Bring ‘em on: The provinces will be sealed off for 48 hours starting Friday morning to prevent acts of terrorism at the time of the announcement of the election results," television said. There were no immediate details on the measures taken, but they likely included the closing off of roads and increased security checks in towns. Bring ‘em on: Iraq rebels plan bombs, not talks, after polls. "We'll spread snipers in all of Iraq’s cities," said Abu Huda al-Aslam, a senior member of the Iraqi militant group Mujahideen Army Brigades, who served in Saddam’s army. "The coming period will witness a military escalation against occupation forces and the Iraqi army. We will focus on planting roadside bombs," he added. Such attitudes, echoed by some other insurgent leaders interviewed by Reuters, contrast with hopes of U.S. and Iraqi officials that the high Sunni Arab turnout in the polls heralded success for their strategy of drawing the once-dominant minority into politics to defuse the insurgency.

Bring ‘em on: Insurgents fired rockets at two US bases in Ramadi on Friday. Bring ‘em on: Baghdad roadside bomb kills four Iraqis. Target was passing US military convoy. Bring ‘em on: 77 journalists have been killed since March 2003 while doing their job.

Two other journalists are still missing : Frédéric Nérac of ITV News (UK), since 22 March 2003 and Isam Hadi Muhsin Al-Shumary Suedostmedia, 15 August 2004

These are the names and affiliations of those journalists who died in the line of duty in Iraq starting as early as the first days of war:

Terry Lloyd, 22 March 2003, ITV News correspondent; disappeared in southern Iraq and was declared dead a day later.

Paul Moran, 22 March 2003, freelance Australian cameraman; killed when an apparent human bomber detonated a car at a military checkpoint in north-eastern Iraq.

Gaby Rado, 30 March 2003, correspondent for Britain’s Channel 4 TV; fell to his death from the roof of his hotel in the town of Sulaymania in northern Iraq.

Kaveh Golestan, 2 April 2003, Iranian freelance cameraman on an assignment for the BBC; killed after stepping on a landmine in northern Iraq.

Michael Kelly, 3 April 2003, US journalist and Washington Post columnist; killed while traveling with the US army’s 3rd infantry division in Iraq.

Kamaran Abd al-Razaq Muhammad, 6 April 2003, translator working for BBC; killed in northern Iraq in a "friendly fire" incident.

David Bloom, 6 April 2003, NBC journalist; died due to illness.

Julio Anguita Parrado, 7 April 2003, New York correspondent for El Mundo daily Spanish newspaper; killed in a missile attack while accompanying the US army’s 3rd infantry division south of Baghdad.

Christian Liebig, 7 April 2003, reporter of German weekly magazine, Focus; killed in a missile attack while accompanying the US army’s 3rd infantry division south of Baghdad.

Tariq Ayoub, 8 April 2003, Aljazeera TV channel correspondent; killed in a US air strike at Aljazeera office in Baghdad.

Taras Protsyuk, 8 April 2003, Reuters cameraman; killed when a US tank opened fire on Palestine hotel.

Jose Couso, 8 April 2003, cameraman for Spain’s Telecinco TV; killed when a US tank opened fire on Palestine hotel.

Mario Podesta, 15 April 2003, correspondent for Argentina’s America TV; died in a car crash while travelling from the Jordanian border to Baghdad.

Veronica Cabrera, 15 April 2003, freelance camerawoman for Argentina’s America TV; died in a car crash while travelling from the Jordanian border to Baghdad.

Elizabeth Neuffer, 9 May 2003, foreign correspondent for the Boston Globe; killed in a car accident in Iraq.

Walid Khalifa Hassan Al-Dulami, 9 May 2003, translator accompanying foreign correspondent for the Boston Globe in Iraq; killed in a car accident.

Richard Wild, 5 July 2003, British freelance cameraman; gunned down in central Baghdad.

Jeremy Little, 6 July 2003, Austrian journalist with NBC News and embedded with the US 3rd infantry division; died of post-operative complications, days after being injured in a grenade attack.

Mazin Dana, 18 August 2003, a Palestinian cameraman with Reuters; shot dead by US soldiers while filming outside Baghdad’s Abu Gharaib prison.

Mark Fineman, 23 September 2003, Los Angeles Times correspondent in Baghdad; died as a result of an apparent heart attack while waiting for an interview in the office of the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC).

Ahmad Shawkat, 28 October 2003, editor of the Iraqi weekly Bilah Ittijah (Without Direction); killed by unknown gunmen in the city of Mosul.

Duraid Isa Muhammad, 27 January 2004, producer and translator for CNN; killed in an ambush carried out by unknown assailants outside Baghdad.

Ali Abdul Aziz, 18 March 2004, cameraman for Dubai-based al-Arabiya TV channel; shot dead by US troops in central Baghdad.

Ali al-Khatib, 18 March 2004, al-Arabiya TV channel journalist in Iraq; shot dead by US troops in central Baghdad.

Here is a full list: 28.11.2005 - Akeel Abdul Rwdha, AL-Iraqia 07.11.2005 - Ahmed Hussein Al Maliki, Tall Afar 19.10.2005 - Mohamed Haroun, Union of Iraqi Journalists general secretary 21.09.2005 - Firas Al-Maadhidi, Al-Safir 20.09.05 - Hind Ismail, Al-Safir 19.09.2005 - Fakher Haydar Al-Tamimi, New York Times 27.08.2005 - Rafed Al Rubaii, Al Irakiya 02.08.05 - Steven Vincent, freelance journalist 22.06.2005 - Yasser Al Salihy, Knight Ridder 03.07.2005 - Maha Ibrahim, Baghdad TV 01.07.2005 - Khaled Sabih al Attar, al-Iraqia 28.06.2005 - Wael Al Bakri, Al Charkiyah 22.06.05 - Jassim Al Qais, Al Siyada 15.05.2005 - Najem Abed Khodair, Al-Madaa and Tariq al-Shaab 15.05.2005 - Ahmad Adam, Al-Madaa and Sabah 23.04.2005 - Saleh Ibrahim, Associated Press 15.04.2005 - Shamal Abdallah Assad, Kirkuk TV, Kurdsat 14.04.2005 - Ali Abrahim Aissa, Al-Hurriya TV 14.04.2005 - Fadel Hazem Fadel, Al-Hurriya TV 01.04.2005 - Ahmed Jabbar Hashim, Al Sabah 14.03.2005 - Houssam Hilal Sarsam, Kurdistan-TV 10.03.2005 - Laik Ibrahim, Kurdistan-TV 25.02.2005 - Raeda Mohammed Wageh Wazzan, Iraqiya 09.02.2005 - Abdel Hussein Khazaal, Al-Hurra TV 01.11.2004 - Dhia Najim, Reuters 27.10.2004 - Liqaa Abdul-Razzaq, Al-Sharqiya 14.10.2004 - Karam Hussein, European Pressphoto Agency 14.10.2004 - Dina Mohamad Hassan, Al Hurriya Television 7.10.2004 - Ahmad Jassem, Nivive television 12.09.2004 - Mazen al-Tomaizi, Al-Arabiya 26.08.2004 - Enzo Baldoni, Diario della settimana 15.08.2004 - Mahmoud Hamid Abbas, ZDF 15.08.2004 - Hossam Ali, freelance 03.06.2004 - Sahar Saad Eddine Nouami, Al-Mizan, Al-Khaima, Al-Hayat Al-Gadida 27.05.2004 - Kotaro Ogawa, Nikkan Gendai 27.05.2004 - Shinsuke Hashida, Nikkan Gendai 07.05.2004 - Mounir Bouamrane, TVP 07.05.2004 - Waldemar Milewicz, TVP 19.04.2004 - Assad Kadhim, Al-Iraqiya TV 26.03.2004 - Bourhan Mohammad al-Louhaybi , ABC News 18.03.2004 - Ali Abdel Aziz, Al-Arabiya 18.03.2004 - Ali Al-Khatib, Al-Arabiya 18.03.2004 - Nadia Nasrat, Diyala Television 28.10.2003 - Ahmed Shawkat, Bila Ittijah 17.08.2003 - Mazen Dana, Reuters 02.07.2003 - Ahmad Karim, Kurdistan Satellite TV 07.04.2003 - Julio Anguita Parrado, El Mundo 07.04.2003 - Christian Liebig, Focus 08.04.2003 - Tarek Ayoub, Al Jazeera 08.04.2003 - Taras Protsyuk, Reuters 08.04.2003 - José Couso, Tele 5 04.04.2003 - Michael Kelly , Washington Post 02.04.2003 - Kaveh Golestan , BBC 23.03.2003 - Terry Lloyd, ITV News 22.03.2003 - Paul Moran, Australian Broadcasting Corporation Luaay Salam Radeef, Al-Baghdadia Cameraman Allan Enwiyah, American journalist Jill Carroll’s interpreter 21.09.05 - Ahlam Youssef , Al-Iraqiya TV 17.09.2005 - Sabah Mohssin, Al-Iraqiya 28.08.2005 - Waleed Khaled, Reuters TV 23.07.2005 - Adnan Al Bayati, Rai, Mediaset, TG3 and Panorama 02.09.2004 - Ismaïl Taher Mohsin, Associated Press 25.08.2004 - Jamal Tawfiq Salmane, Gazeta Wyborcza 29.05.2004 - Mahmoud Ismael Daood, bodyguard, Al-Sabah al-Jadid 29.05.2004 - Samia Abdeljabar, driver, Al-Sabah al-Jadid 27.05.2004 - Unknown, translator 25.05.2004 - Unknown, translator 21.05.2004 - Rachid Hamid Wali, cameraman assistant, Al-Jazira 29.04.2004 - Hussein Saleh, driver, Al-Iraquiya TV 26.03.2004 - Omar Hashim Kamal, translator, Time 18.03.2004 - Majid Rachid, technician, Diyala Television 18.03.2004 - Mohamad Ahmad, security agent, Diyala Television 27.01.2004 - Duraid Isa Mohammed, producer and translator, CNN 27.01.2004 - Yasser Khatab, driver, CNN 07.07.2003 - Jeremy Little, sound engineer, NBC 06.04.2003 - Kamaran Abdurazaq Muhamed, translator, BBC 22.03.2003 - Hussein Othman, translator, ITV News REPORTS THE TRAGEDY OF IRAQ: Veteran Reporter Says 3,000 – 4,000 Iraqis Killed Every Month

Between 3,000 and 4,000 Iraqis are killed every month, rendering "ridiculous" US President George W. Bush's estimate of about 30,000 civilian casualties since the start of the war, veteran British journalist Robert Fisk said Wednesday. The figures were compiled during several recent trips to the country occupied since March 2003 by US-led forces, The Independent newspaper's Beirut-based correspondent told a news conference in Madrid where he was promoting his book "The Great War for Civilisation". The casualty rate meant up to 48,000 Iraqis a year were dying in the conflict, "the figure of 30,000 plus is ridiculous", Fisk said, adding that the West did not care about Iraqi deaths. NEWS: US Military Called on to Compensate Iraqi Civilians

U.S.-based humanitarian groups are urging the administration of President George W. Bush to compensate the families of innocent Iraqi citizens killed as a result of aerial bombings by the U.S. military. The call comes after U.S. military officials admitted that they had mistakenly bombed a civilian residence in the northern Iraqi town of Baiji over a week ago. The air raid that killed at least six people in their home prompted widespread anger among local communities. "When mistakes happen, we have a responsibility to help the victims and their loved ones," said Sarah Holewinsky, director of the Washington, D.C.-based Campaign for Innocent Civilians in Conflict (CIVIC). "Keeping as accurate a record as possible and compensating victims is important for the U.S. to maintain the respect and support of the Iraqi people," Holewinski said.

Like CIVIC, other groups have not merely expressed their concern over the loss of innocent Iraqi lives, but have scathingly criticized the way the Pentagon has conducted the war operations in Iraq. Last year the New York-based Human Rights Watch released a report deploring the U.S. military for resorting to indiscriminate aerial strikes. It accused the U.S. of "imprecise targeting" of strikes against Saddam loyalists. Out of 50 so-called "decapitation strikes" against members of Saddam Hussein's regime, none were hit, the group said, but 40 civilians were killed because planners relied on rough Global Positioning System locations derived from satellite phones. THE TRAGEDY OF IRAQ: US Forces Close Road, Forcing Iraqi Drivers Onto a Killing Field

The horror began after American and Iraqi forces cordoned off part of a highway north of Baghdad following the deadly crash of a U.S. helicopter. With traffic directed onto narrow dirt roads, insurgents turned the area into a killing field. They set up makeshift checkpoints, grabbed motorists and slaughtered about 40 over a two-day period, police said.A local tribal leader, Mohammed al-Khazraji, told The Associated Press he saw "dozens of corpses" strewn over the ground Wednesday, victims of the insurgents' culling.

Two pilots died in Monday's crash of the U.S. Army AH-64 Apache helicopter near Mishahda, 25 miles north of Baghdad. "Hundreds of people were detained by the militants and many were killed all because of a helicopter crash that killed two Americans," al-Khazraji said.Thirty people were dragged from their cars Wednesday and shot dead execution-style in farming areas in Nibaei, a town near Dujail, about 50 miles north of the capital, said police Lt. Qahtan al-Hashmawi. "Most of the victims were Iraqi policemen, soldiers or commandos," he said.

Another 11 men were killed in similar fashion Tuesday and dumped about a mile from Nibaei, said another policemen, Capt. Ali al-Hashmawi. THE TRAGEDY OF IRAQ: Calls Intensify for Release of Kidnapped American Journalist

According to figures compiled by the Washington-based Brookings Institution, there was an average of two kidnappings a day of Iraqis in Baghdad in January 2004 and 10 a day in December of that year. Last month, the think tank said kidnappings of Iraqis averaged 30 a day nationwide. NEWS: Iraqi Criticizes Secret US Contacts with Insurgents

Iraq’s national security adviser complained bitterly in an interview published about secret US contacts with Iraqi insurgents, warning that the "policy of appeasement" would undermine security. National Security Adviser Mowaffak Rubaie told the Washington Times that the contacts with so-called Iraqi "rejectionists" were being carried out behind the back of the Shiite-dominated government.

"I think the Americans are making a huge and fatal mistake in their policy of appeasement and they should not do this. They should leave the Iraqi government to deal with it," he was quoted as saying. "I repeat: Any policy of appeasement is a fatal mistake. It makes them misinterpret their opponents' actions as coming from a position of weakness," he said. THE TRAGEDY OF IRAQ: Power Shortages Continue to Affect Millions

Lengthy power cuts over the past two weeks due to insecurity and a decrease in oil production are seriously affecting the lives of Iraqis in the capital, Baghdad. With temperatures below zero degrees centigrade, residents of the city are currently getting fewer than eight hours of electricity per day, making them dependant on generators which require fuel that is both in short supply and prohibitively priced.

Khalid Ala'a, a senior official at the electricity ministry, blames the deteriorating security situation: "The difficulties in guaranteeing security to our employees and the increase of demand for power during the winter season have caused a decrease in the production of power at our plants," Ala'a said. Iraqi employees working for foreign energy companies have received threats on a regular basis, while dozens have been killed for what insurgents see as a betrayal.

At least four power plants were critically affected during the invasion of Iraq in early 2003, when energy infrastructure represented a primary target for insurgents fighting US-led forces. Three years later, local electricity production remains lower than pre-war levels. After more than three years of occupation, Iraqis have become increasingly frustrated by an overall deterioration of living conditions. "During Saddam's time, we always had power, clean water and better food than we have now," complained Baghdad resident, Bassan Yacoub. NEWS: Iraqi Insurgents Fighting Foreign Militants, Says US Military

Foreign fighters and Iraqi insurgents are battling each other in the western town of Ramadi, and elsewhere in the country, the US military said. “We are finding indications where Iraqi rejectionists are taking up arms and informing on terrorists and foreign fighters," US military spokesman Major General Rick Lynch said. "The area where we are seeing it is in Ramadi." The US military believes that the rejectionist element of the insurgency can be neutralized through political progress in the country. Lynch also said that Iraqis are increasingly informing coalition forces about the activities and whereabouts of foreign Islamist militants in Salaheddin, Diyala and particularly Anbar province. NEWS: Cleric Sees No End to Insurgency in Iraq

Despite his calm demeanor, al-Hakim has a reputation for toughness honed by years as the commander of the Badr Brigade, a Shiite militia which fought Saddam's regime until it collapsed in the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. That has given al-Hakim a fearsome reputation among Sunni Arabs, many of whom believe the Badr militia has infiltrated government security forces and are responsible for abuses against Sunnis. The Badr Brigade and al-Hakim's Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq deny the allegations.

During the interview, al-Hakim, who speaks a little above a whisper and was accompanied only by an aide acting as a translator, acknowledged the need to bring Sunni Arabs into the new government, which will be formed once the new parliament convenes. "The doors are open for them and no one wants to confront, harm or deprive them from their legitimate, constitutional rights," he said. "They are our brothers and they will get their rights."

We are convinced of the necessity that the Sunnis should participate along with us in the government because they are an important component in Iraq," al-Hakim said. "As for who is going to join the government with us, this matter is related to who is closer to us regarding the principles we believe in." But al-Hakim added: "The important thing is that (Sunnis) believe that there is a new reality in Iraq. The important thing that is they believe in the necessity of the participation and shouldering responsibility in the (parliament) and government."

"Every day we are getting closer to accepting this reality. But there are some groups that will not accept this," al-Hakim said, citing religious extremists and Saddam loyalists. "Those people will continue confronting the government. ... Those people should be confronted firmly by the government." To do that, al-Hakim said the Iraqis and their coalition partners must agree on a greater counterinsurgency role for Iraqi forces and "allow the Interior and Defense ministries to operate and to allow the leaderships in those two ministries to make decisions and move to achieve their goals." The Interior Ministry, currently controlled by al-Hakim's party, has been particularly criticized by Sunnis for alleged abuses. NEWS: Iraq’s Oil Shock

We know that the Bush administration was flat wrong about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. And now, nearly three years after the beginning of the war, it's also clear that top Bush officials were just as delusional about Iraq's energy business and how critical the energy sector would be to achieving security and stability in Iraq. Continuing failure with this vital part of the reconstruction is costing the United States -- and the Iraqi people -- very dearly.

During the run-up to the war, the Bush administration denied that oil was a factor in its desire to oust Saddam Hussein from power: Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, during a November 2002 interview with CBS News' Steve Kroft, declared that the approaching U.S. invasion had "nothing to do with oil, literally nothing to do with oil." But four months later, as U.S. troops seized Iraq's oil infrastructure and closed in on Baghdad, then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz (now the president of the World Bank) made it clear that Iraq's oil was going to save American taxpayers a lot of money. Wolfowitz told Congress on March 27, 2003, that the U.S. was "dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon." He added that Iraq's oil revenues could "bring between $50 billion and $100 billion over the course of the next two or three years."

Instead of the energy riches predicted by Wolfowitz, millions of Iraqis are now living in dire energy poverty. In Baghdad, there is little or no electricity, little or no motor fuel, and little or no kerosene for home heating. Moreover, according to energy expert Jim Placke, who has been following Iraq's oil business since 1959 when he worked for the State Department in Baghdad, the situation appears to be getting worse.

Last year, Iraqis were paying about 5 cents for a gallon of gasoline. The International Monetary Fund agreed to forgive much of Iraq's debt if the country cut its fuel subsidies. In December, the Iraqi government agreed and raised prices. But the resulting surge in prices has led to widespread anger among Iraqis who are now paying up to 65 cents per gallon. That may sound cheap by U.S. standards, but even the best-paid workers in Iraq make only about $130 a month, and a quarter of the population lives on just $1 per day.

The U.S. military's energy consumption in Iraq is soaring. According to recent data from the Defense Department, the U.S. military is now using about 3 million gallons of fuel per day in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. While fuel prices are soaring, Iraq's oil exports are falling. In December, exports were just 1.1 million barrels per day. That's less than half of the 2.8 million barrels per day Iraq was exporting back in 1990. NEWS: Sunni Areas Are Under Destruction!

Yarmouk neighborhood, a predominantly Sunni neighborhood. Yarmouk is where the most famous streets in Baghdad are. They are called The Four Streets. they are know because they are extraordinarily beautiful and there are no streets like them in a resident neighborhood anywhere else in Iraq. These are four streets, the main two ones are three-lane streets, and the other two are two-lane ones. They go through Yarmouk neighborhood from the beginning to the end and are very vital to Baghdad’s traffic. Two months ago, suddenly, the government decided to do some reconstruction in these streets. I don’t know what the deal is or why these streets need to reconstructed so badly that they should be done before the rest of Baghdad’s poor neighborhoods, which some of them are not paved yet even. So, the municipality workers started digging. Two months ago, they dug a huge hole in the middle of the Four Streets that prevented cars from using the streets the normal way and people now have to make a detours and U turns to find a way to go to their destinations. After they dug that hole, nothing happened. The bulldozers surprisingly jammed and died in the middle of the Four Streets and no one is trying to move them or fix the hole that ruined the neighborhood. It’s been two months and I pass by that place every day to see the bulldozers in their place, not an inch away. (Pictures are included, and be sure to read the opinion piece below called “You Missed My Point! As Usual!” by the same author. – Susan) NEWS: Detainees In Iraq

The U.S. military was holding 14,105 security detainees following the release of about 500 guerrilla suspects on Sunday; such periodic amnesties keep down numbers among the majority of prisoners who are held for months without charge. Eight of those held are women, a U.S. military spokesman said; the detention of women offends many Iraqis and U.S. forces seek to avoid it in most cases; two high-ranking women, both weapons scientists for Saddam Hussein, were freed last month.

Most suspects are held at Abu Ghraib prison on the western outskirts of Baghdad, notorious under Saddam Hussein and for a U.S. military abuse scandal in 2003, and at Camp Bucca, a temporary base near Umm Qasr in the south of the country. The U.S. military justifies detentions under powers given to it in 2004 by the U.N. Security Council under Resolution 1546; detainees are guaranteed a review of their case every six months by a nine-member Combined Review and Release Board, comprising six Iraqi officials and three U.S. officers. The United Nations human rights chief in Iraq criticised the system last month, complaining of a lack of due process. The Iraqi Justice Ministry says it holds 7,000 convicted criminals, including an unspecified number of women. The Interior Ministry holds up to 2,000 suspects, the U.N. says, and was the focus of controversy when U.S. troops found dozens of abused Sunni men in a secret jail last year. NEWS: Reuters Journalists Among 509 Detainees Freed in Iraq.

The prisoners had been held for several months without charge at Abu Ghraib prison on the outskirts of Baghdad, at Camp Bucca, a US jail in southern Iraq, and at Camp Suse near to the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah. "The US military freed all the prisoners this morning," said a spokesman for the ministry, adding that they had been cleared of terror-related charges. US-led coalition forces are still holding more than 12,000 Iraqis in prisons across the country on suspicion of taking part in the insurgency that has plagued Iraq for almost three years.

Reuters welcomed the release of television cameraman Ali al-Mashhadani, who was arrested in August, and correspondent Majed Hameed, who was taken in September. Hameed also works from the television channel Al-Arabiya. Both men are based in the restive Sunni-stronghold of Ramadi in western Iraq. NEWS: Release of Iraqi Female Detainees Not Imminent: Pentagon

Kidnappers on Tuesday threatened to kill 28-year-old freelance reporter Jill Carroll if the United States failed to meet a 72-hour deadline to free all female prisoners. "I don't have any information on any imminent releases," said Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman. Iraq's justice ministry said Wednesday that six of eight women detainees held by US forces would be released within days, but it denied there was any link with the kidnappers' demands.

"I have no insight on that," Whitman said. NEWS: Iraqi Workers Organize!

Following the fall of Saddam Hussein, oil workers in Basra reorganized one of Iraq's oldest unions, and faced the occupation's prohibition on collective bargaining in the public sector. Oil workers forced US contractor KBR to leave the oil districts, and defended Iraq's oil against the threat of privatization. They helped dockers organize in the ports, and together forced Stevedoring Services of America and the Maersk Corporation to give up their privatized concessions. Workers in power generation and other industries have organized as well. This photodocumentary project shows people at work on the rigs in the refineries and the ports, their unions and leaders, and their life at home with their families. NEWS: Regiment’s Rotation Out of Tal Afar Raises Questions about US Strategies.

The mayor of this city in western Iraq is unhappy that his friends in the U.S. Army's 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment are going home soon, and he's written to President Bush and Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, begging them to extend the regiment's tour of duty until it's finished pacifying Tal Afar.

The mayor, Najim Abadullah al Jibouri, is a Sunni Muslim Arab and a former officer in Saddam Hussein's army who's not from Tal Afar. The provincial police chief in Mosul last summer appointed him a brigadier general to replace the local police chief, a Shiite who was turning a blind eye to police commando units that were "disappearing" suspected insurgents, all Sunnis. Terrorists had blown up the police stations and driven out most of the policemen who weren't killed. On a U.S. recommendation, he was later promoted to mayor.

Since then, al Jibouri has worked hand in glove with Col. H.R. McMaster, the commander of the 3rd ACR, and Lt. Col. Christopher Hickey, who commands Sabre Squadron, which is based inside Tal Afar. The mayor doesn't want them to leave when their yearlong deployment is over in March. NEWS: Iraq Needs $20B to End Chronic Electricity Crisis

Iraq needs 20 billion dollars over the next five years to solve a chronic electricity crisis after US reconstruction funds failed to flick the right switches, the Iraqi electricity minister said. "When you lose electricity the country is destroyed, nothing works, all industry is down and terrorist activity is increased," said Mohsen Shlash. Power cuts are part of daily life for millions of Iraqis who paradoxically have an ever increasing need for energy because of an influx of electronic goods, such as air conditioners, over the past three years.

Total power production is lower than before the March 2003 US-led invasion, at about 3,700 megawatts, because of insurgent attacks and other reconstruction problems, according to a Western diplomat with expertise in the sector. Pre-war production peaked at about 4,300 megawatts -- well under half of Iraq's potential capacity. The United States earmarked 4.7 billion dollars for the neglected electricity sector in 2003, but much of the money has gone and there is little to show for it, Shlash said. THE SHAME OF AMERICA: Some Iraq Rebuilding Funds Go Untraced

More than 18 months after the Pentagon disbanded the Coalition Provisional Authority that ran Iraq, neither the Justice Department nor a special inspector general has moved to recover large sums suspected of disappearing through fraud and price gouging in reconstruction. Earlier audits by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction -- a post Congress created in late 2004 -- found that oversight of contractors by the Authority was so lax that widespread abuse was likely. An audit in April 2005, for example, found "significant deficiencies in contract administration," which meant that "there was no assurance that fraud, waste, and abuse did not occur in the management and administration of contracts" the U.S. awarded with Iraqi oil money administered by the United Nations.

Nevertheless, there hasn't been a concerted effort to trace what happened to the money and make recipients pay back any ill-gotten gains. The inspector general's office said it doesn't plan to ask the Justice Department to file lawsuits or to conduct widespread audits of individual contracts to look for fraud.

It isn't clear how many contracts the Authority issued, in part because the inspector general's office says it hasn't located many of the contracts. But among those awarded large ones were Fluor Corp., Parsons Corp. and Washington International Group. One question facing the government is whether to seek recovery of funds paid to the largest contractor, Halliburton Co.'s KBR unit, which was awarded multibillion-dollar no-bid contracts beginning shortly before the U.S. invaded Iraq to rebuild oil fields and provide logistical support to the U.S. military.

A series of 2004 audits by the Defense Contract Audit Agency, the Pentagon's contract-auditing arm, found expenses of $1.48 billion unsupported by adequate documentation on KBR's two largest contracts, which were valued at a total of $9.5 billion.

In a recently disclosed letter, the audit agency said it has passed on findings about Halliburton to the Justice Department, to consider whether a criminal investigation is warranted. THE SHAME OF AMERICA: Soldier Thought Iraqi Had Information on Saddam

A soldier charged in the death of an Iraqi general testified Thursday that he thought the man knew where to find Saddam and weapons of mass destruction when he used an improvised interrogation technique as a last resort. Chief Warrant Officer Lewis Welshofer Jr. is accused of murder in the slaying of Maj. Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush in 2003. He faces life in prison if convicted. Welshofer said he had been unable to get any useful intelligence from Mowhoush during five interrogation sessions before covering him in a sleeping bag and straddling his chest while asking questions. Prosecutors say Mowhoush, placed headfirst in a sleeping bag and bound with an electrical cord, died from suffocation. THE SHAME OF AMERICA: Officer Said Interrogation Rules Not Followed

An Army officer charged with killing an Iraqi general during questioning said interrogation rules were being flouted "every day" in Iraq, a witness testified late Wednesday at the officer's court-martial. The witness, who testified from behind a screen to cloak his identity, said he spoke with Chief Warrant Officer Lewis Welshofer Jr. on Nov. 25, 2003, the day before Maj. Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush's death at an Iraqi detention camp. The witness said he asked Welshofer if he was aware of a memorandum from Welshofer's commanding general that required authorization for the use of certain interrogation techniques. "He said he was aware of them, but said he was pretty sure they were breaking those rules every day," said the witness. THE SHAME OF AMERICA: Former NC Soldier Must Pay Toward Son’s Funeral

A former Army sergeant who served in Iraq must pay $1,000 for his son's funeral after pleading no contest to a charge of involuntary manslaughter in the boy's death. In a Johnston County courtroom Thursday, a judge ordered Jessie Ullom to pay the money to the baby's grandmother to reimburse her for the funeral of his son, Christian Norris. A violent shaking in 2002 left Christian blind. He never walked or talked before he died in December 2004 a few weeks before he turned 3.

Military officials have admitted that Ullom should have been kicked out after his child-abuse conviction in March 2004. Federal law and military policy ban soldiers convicted of domestic violence - including child abuse - from being sent overseas, because they can't legally carry a gun. Ullom spent much of 2004 with the 82nd Airborne in Iraq. Ullom led soldiers on home raids in Iraq and confiscated an untold number of illegal weapons. (Imagine what he did to the Iraqi people, if he is capable of killing his own son. – Susan) THE WAR AT HOME: Army raises enlistment age to 40. (USA) They are also doubling signing up bonuses. (I’m hoping some of those pro-war keyboarders will sign up! – Susan) THE WAR AT HOME: A Message From Kevin Benderman

Monica Benderman recalled the Army’s reactive, paranoid strategy to deal with Sgt. Benderman’s CO request, and she witnessed it up close. At one point, Mrs. Benderman was even asked to sign paperwork for her husband, and she was encouraged to try and change his mind. Right and wrong are not something easily or casually impressed upon someone. Ethics and morality are not a suit of clothing worn until something more comfortable is offered. Too bad for the U.S. Army. And in some ways, too bad for Prisoner Benderman – convicted and sentenced to fifteen months confinement, then transferred in the dark of night 3000 miles away from Kentucky to Washington in what may only be assumed was punitive harassment of both Benderman and his spouse.

In a fascinating irony, at the time the Army was fumbling Benderman’s CO paperwork, one of the officers in Sgt. Benderman’s chain of command was under investigation for and later convicted of privately selling bulletproof vest plates purchased by taxpayers for our soldiers deploying to Iraq. A military court sent down a far shorter sentence than the one they deemed appropriate for Sgt. Benderman. It is clear which type of "crime" the Army brass considers more dangerous.

From Benderman:

“I, for one, believe in the Constitution when it says that the ultimate responsibility for ensuring that this country is run correctly lies with the American people and not solely with this government. While we do hire people to do the work of government it is up to us, the citizens, to ensure that they are doing this in accordance with the law of the land.

True freedom requires eternal diligence and it will take everyone doing their share of keeping watch to prevent freedom from slipping out of our hands. It is the small things that add up to keep all of us in line. Which brings to mind three small words spoken by a woman who had had enough, "I ain't movin'." The woman was Rosa Parks. We should think about her courage when we feel as if we are too small to matter.

"I ain't movin'." Are you?” ELECTIONS IN IRAQ NEWS: Iraqi Shias Win Election Victory

The alliance took 128 of the 275 seats - 10 short of an outright majority. Kurdish parties have 53 seats and the main Sunni Arab bloc 44. The Shias will now be expected to form a coalition government. The UIA's 128 seats was down from its total of 146 in the old transitional parliament elected last January. The main Kurdish alliance also lost ground, down from 75 to 53, as a smaller rival group gained five seats. Sunni Arabs increased their representation - a boycott of the January 2005 elections left them with just 17 seats in the old chamber.

275-seat Council of Representatives will have four-year term

18 provinces are taken as separate constituencies

230 seats allocated according to population

45 seats distributed to parties whose ethnic, religious or political support is spread over more than one province

15 million eligible voters

One third of candidates in each party must be women. NEWS: Sunnis Must Form Coalition to Rule Iraq

A Sunni ticket, the Iraqi Accordance Front, won 44 seats. Another Sunni coalition headed by Saleh al-Mutlaq finished with 11 seats, Rasheed said. A few other Sunnis won seats on other tickets. That will give the Sunni Arabs a bigger voice in the legislature than they had in the outgoing assembly, which included only 17 from the community forming the backbone of the insurgency. Many Sunnis had boycotted the January vote. Kurds saw their seat total reduced. An alliance of the two major Kurdish parties won 53 seats, down from the 75 they took in the January 2005 vote. A rival Kurdish ticket, the Kurdish Islamic Group, won five seats, a gain of three from the outgoing parliament.

A ticket headed by former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, a secular Shiite, won 25 seats, down from 40 in the outgoing assembly. The United States installed Allawi as interim prime minister in 2004 and applauded both his tough stand against insurgents and his secular approach to politics. This time, however, American diplomats in Baghdad appeared resigned to the fact that Iraqis would generally vote along sectarian lines and that secular candidates would not fare well.

U.S. officials here had said privately they hoped only that religious Shiites would win fewer seats to curb their power somewhat, and that more-moderate Sunnis candidates like Adnan al-Dulaimi would fare better than hard-liners - which was the case. Sunnis fared better - and Kurds poorer - because of a change in the election law between the two national elections last year. In the Jan. 2005 balloting, seats were allocated based on the percentage of votes that tickets won nationwide. In the December vote, candidates competed for seats by district. This meant that Sunnis were all but guaranteed seats from predominantly Sunni areas. NEWS: Iraqi Voting Found to Be Flawed But Mostly Fair; Sunnis Are Skeptical

Experts who were asked to investigate allegations of fraud in Iraq's elections in December released a positive report on Thursday, concluding that the vote was flawed but declining to endorse calls for new elections. The report came as Iraqis braced for the expected release of the election results on Friday, an event that is likely to be met with a surge of insurgent attacks, American military officials say.

The report, by the International Mission for Iraqi Elections, a monitoring group based in Jordan, noted that some vote-rigging had been documented, and added that "some additional fraud in all probability went undetected, although its exact extent is impossible to determine under current circumstances." But the panel generally praised the election as an impressive exercise of democracy under difficult conditions. Sunni Arab and secular politicians, whose accusations prompted the investigation, expressed disappointment about the report, which was released via e-mail. COMMENTARY

OPINION: US Raid Killed Qaeda Leaders, Pakistanis Say

I'm sure that as a good liberal, Kevin Drum doesn't think of himself as a racist, but let's suppose that the 18 innocent bystanders had included a group of American journalists. Would Drum still be so cocksure that their deaths were justifiable? The dead were of course tribal people whose names we'll almost certainly never know. I've yet to hear anyone argue that in the war on terrorism it's acceptable that Americans run the risk of becoming "collateral damage." If it's not acceptable that American bystanders get ripped to shreds, why should it be an acceptable for anyone else?

So, on the question about when such as attack would be justified? The answer is simple: Never!

Choice might not determine the outcome of a counterterrorism operation but it is always applied to the means. Saddam Hussein and his sons Uday and Qusay were all wanted dead or alive, yet if any of them was to be put on trial we all know which of them was preferred captured rather than killed. If you think that extra judicial killings are a matter of necessity when it comes to combating terrorism, how do you then go about arguing against any of President Bush's other ends-justify-the-means policies? OPINION: You Missed My Point! As Usual!

I cant believe you guys. I cant believe you attacked me this way. At least give yourself another entry to decide that this “totally cool blog,” is biased now and not worthy reading! I am frustrated and disappointed. “Hey, Sunni Areas Are Under Destruction” is Part One of a three-entry projects I wanted to publish here. It is a political-reconstruction-related point I am trying to make. Are you serious? I cant even believe how easy you are to change your mind people!One lesson I learned from this harsh experience: There is no such bullshit as “Free Press.”

We are deceiving ourselves. We ourselves Do Not want free press. Because free press sometimes means to contradict with our points of view and that is exactly what we don’t want to see or hear! What if I was biased? What if I were a Sunni and wrote about Sunni areas only?

Isn’t this “Free Press”? Isn’t it free press that I am allowed to write what I feel and what a faction of my people, that is the Iraqis, feel? Isn’t it free press that someone else writes about the Shiites and I should listen and try to check the facts? OPINION: “Why We Fight” Director Says He’s No Michael Moore.

Why We Fight" starts from President Dwight Eisenhower's 1961 farewell speech when the former World War Two general invented the term "military industrial complex" and warned Americans to be on their guard against its influence. The film examines links between politicians, think-tanks, arms manufacturers and defense contractors. It argues that with the economic livelihood of voters at stake, members of Congress are inclined to approve greater and greater spending on defense and the government has an economic motive to wage war. It also examines the argument for the policy of spreading democracy around the world, questioning whether the motive is to open up markets for U.S. companies and secure oil supplies. The character who holds the film together emotionally is retired New York City police officer Wilton Sekzer, whose 31-year-old son Jason died in the World Trade Center attacks. Sekzer describes in the film how he wanted revenge after 9/11. In 2003, Sekzer e-mailed military commanders to ask them to write the name of his son on a bomb. The Marines agreed and the bomb was dropped near Baghdad in April 2003. "Right after 9/11 when Bush gave us absolutely every indication that Saddam Hussein was responsible ... if my son had been called upon, I would have said to him 'Yes, go answer your country's call,'" said Sekzer, a Vietnam veteran. "When Bush said, 'I never said that Saddam Hussein had anything to do with this (9/11),' I almost jumped out of my chair," he said in an interview, describing the film as "an awakening."

"Each time we have a war it is later found out the reasons that were given to the public turn out not to be those that really drove us to battle," Jarecki said. "We have lost our way and the question is how are we going to get back." OPINION: Death From Above

U.S. Drone Planes Have a Nearly Perfect Record of Failure

In the dark, pre-dawn hours of Friday, the thirteenth of January, near the Afghan-Pakistani border, the buzz of an unmanned robot plane broke the silence. Half a world and 12 and a half time zones away, someone on the sixth floor of CIA headquarters keyed a command into a computer. The digitized message, relayed through the building's circuitry and transmitted skyward, bounced along an array of aircraft and satellites before arriving at the RQ-1 Predator drone plane hovering above the Bajaur region of Pakistan's Federally Administrated Tribal Areas (FATA). Four AGM-114N Hellfire II missiles, each purchased by American taxpayers from Lockheed Martin at a cost of $45,000, streaked off toward the hamlet of Damadola, five miles into Pakistan.

The four missiles, each carrying enough explosives to take out an armored vehicle, slammed into three local jewelers' houses at 950 miles per hour, nearly twice the speed of a passenger jet at cruising altitude. "The houses have been razed," reported a neighbor, a member of the Pakistani parliament. "There is nothing left. Pieces of the missiles are scattered all around. Everything has been blackened in a 100-yard radius." The target of this latest assassination attempt via missile strike, Al Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri, wasn't there. At least 22 innocent civilians, including five women and five children, were killed. "They acted on wrong information," a Pakistani intelligence official said of the Americans.

This was only the latest botched U.S. attack. Eight days earlier, another attempt to kill al-Zawahiri failed when a missile blew up a house in the Saidgi area, also in the FATA, based on another incorrect report. Eight innocent civilians died. If insanity is repeating an action in expectation of different results, the assassination-by-joystick squad at Langley is clearly nuts. How many must die before they notice that precision airstrikes are anything but?

Attempted assassination bombings attempted by flesh-and-blood pilots haven't fared better. At the start of the 2003 invasion of Iraq George W. Bush ordered 40 cruise missiles fired at a Baghdad restaurant where Saddam Hussein was reported to be eating dinner. He wasn't. No Baathist officials died. Fourteen members of two Christian families, mostly women and children, did. PEACE ACTION: Woolsey for Peace is a national effort to raise funds for the reelection campaign of a leader in working to end the Iraq war. Congresswomen Lynn Woolsey, Co-Chair of the Progressive Caucus, has been at the forefront of the movement to bring our troops home. She was demanding an exit strategy long before the idea became popular.

Let’s thank her, and let’s keep her in Congress!

CASUALTY REPORTS Local Story: Fallen Soldier Returns to the Carolinas

Local Story: Funeral Services for Fourth Pendleton Soldier killed in Iraq Local Story: Fort Hood Division Suffers Heavy Casualties in Iraq. The 4th Infantry Division moved into Iraq in force in late December for another year-long deployment, and in less than a two-week period, 11 of its soldiers were killed. Local Story: Conway (Arkansas) Soldier Dies in Iraq QUOTE OF THE DAY: "The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate.... Returning violence for violence multiples violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." -Martin Luther King, Jr.

War News for Thursday, January 19, 2006 Bring 'em on: A British soldier was wounded in a roadside bombing today in the southern Iraqi city of Basra. The blasts come a day after two US citizens employed by the Texas-based security company DynCorp were killed Bring 'em on: Two gunmen were killed and 22 others arrested on charges of involvement in killings, armed attacks and robbery in al-Diwaniya Bring 'em on: A suicide attacker detonated an explosive vest in a crowded downtown coffee shop Thursday and another bomb exploded seconds later under a nearby car, killing at least 23 people and wounding 26, police and hospital officials said. Bring 'em on: A huge explosion caused by a makeshift bomb struck a convoy of U.S. Sport Utility Vehicles (SUV)in central Baghdad Thursday morning, an Interior Ministry source told Xinhua. Bring 'em on: Colonel Emad Mohammed said 35 recruits were being driven to Samarra on Tuesday when they were stopped by gunmen near Tarmiya; one wounded man told police he was the sole survivor of a group of 15 thrown into a well and sprayed with bullets. The fate of the other 20 recruits was unclear Bring 'em on: A Multi-National Division – Baghdad Soldier died Jan. 17 from non-combat related injures. Bring 'em on: The bodies of three men, including a relative of Iraq's defense minister, were also found Wednesday with gunshot wounds to the head in a Baghdad apartment, a police official said. Bring 'em on: five policemen were killed and nine others injured on Wednesday in a roadside bomb targeting their patrol in Saada township north of Baquba, 60 km northeast of Baghdad. Bring 'em on: Mohammed Sadagi al-Batah, a tribal leader, was shot dead along with his nephew and another person while they were in their office in Baghdad's Bayaa' district, police said. Batah is a relative of the Iraqi defence minister. Bring 'em on: An Oil Ministry security officer was seriously wounded on Tuesday when gunmen ambushed his car in Baghdad, killing his driver and seriously wounding one of his guards, the government said. Bring 'em on: At least one gunman was killed and two policemen wounded in a failed attempt to seize a police station in the town of Iskandiriya, 40 km (25 miles) south of Baghdad, police said. Bring 'em on: Baghdad police also discovered the bodies of seven people, believed to be Shiites, who had been left in a deserted area of the Wahdah neighborhood Bring 'em on: In the town of Nibaei in northern Iraq, police found the bodies of 25 people who had been shot in the back of their heads, a police spokesman there said in an interview. A witness told police that armed men had set up checkpoints and scanned the identity cards of passersby with the goal of killing police officers and other government employees Bring 'em on: a roadside bomb exploded near an Iraqi police patrol in the town of Saadiya to the east of Baghdad, killing three officers and one civilian Bring 'em on: Police found the bodies of 11 men shot to death and wearing civilian clothes with Iraqi army and police commando ID cards on a farm in Dujail, 50 miles north of Baghdad, said police Capt. Ali al Hashmawi. Bring 'em on: A roadside bomb killed two U.S. private security contractors and seriously wounded a third in the southern Iraqi city of Basra on Wednesday, the U.S. embassy said. Bring 'em on: Thirty-five Iraqi men are missing Wednesday after being abducted following failed bids to be accepted into a police training academy, police said. The aspiring police trainees were seized Monday when their bus was stopped about 30 miles (50 kilometers) north of Baghdad. A week from the forgotten battlefield: A powerful explosion early Thursday ruptured a section of a state-owned gas pipeline in a remote area of southwestern Pakistan, briefly disrupting supplies, but injuring no one, police said. A Pakistani security official and residents of a border region said U.S. aircraft from Afghanistan killed 18 people, including women and children, when they fired missiles at pro-Taliban Islamists early on Friday. At least three security personnel were killed and another two injured in a rocket attack by suspected tribal militants in Pakistan's restive southwestern Balochistan province late Thursday night, a local official said Friday. U.S.-led coalition and Afghan forces killed six suspected militants during fighting in southern Afghanistan, the U.S. military said Saturday. Gunmen shot and killed a former Taliban leader who renounced the extremist regime after it was ousted in 2001 and has since supported Afghanistan's U.S.-backed government, witnesses said. Two blasts in the southeastern town of Khost wounded 22 people, officials said. Twenty were wounded in a bomb attack on men playing an outdoor gambling game and two by a blast in a music shop, they said. a government soldier and two suspected Taliban insurgents were killed in a clash in neighbouring Paktia province. U.S.-led and Afghan government troops killed about six insurgents and had no casualties themselves in a clash in the central province of Uruzgan on Friday after an attack on a patrol, the U.S. military said. An American soldier was wounded in a suicide car bombing which slightly damaged a U.S. military convoy in southern Afghanistan on Saturday, police said. A car driven by an apparent suicide car bomber swerved into a military convoy and exploded Sunday in the southern city of Kandahar, killing one Canadian and injuring three others. Officials in Afghanistan said two civilians were also killed and 10 others injured in the blast. A suicide car bomb hit a Canadian military convoy Sunday in southern Afghanistan, killing two civilians and a senior Canadian diplomat, officials said. Glyn Berry, 59, who was Canada's senior diplomat in southern Afghanistan and the political director of a 250-member provincial reconstruction team died. A suicide bomber hurled himself in front of an Afghan army vehicle on Monday, killing himself, three soldiers from the country's U.S.-trained army and two civilians, officials said. Four Afghan soldiers and 10 civilians were also wounded in the attack in the heart of the southern city of Kandahar, where a Canadian diplomat and two civilians were killed in an apparent suicide attack a day earlier, the officials said. Pte. William Edward Salikin and Cpl. Jeffrey Bailey were in critical condition and in "medically induced unconsciousness," while Master Cpl. Paul Franklin, who lost a leg in the blast, was in serious but stable condition. With part of his leg blown off, Master Cpl. Paul Franklin wrapped a tourniquet around his thigh, then went to help three other wounded passengers after a suicide bomber destroyed the military vehicle he was driving. "This afternoon in the provincial capital of Khost city, a mine explosion in a crowded area killed one person, and injured 70 others," Shir Ahmat Quchai, the commander of the border force in Khost said. "But most of the injured persons were slightly injured, and some of them have out of the hospital," he added. A suicide attacker on a motorbike killed 20 people and wounded more than 20 Monday in the Afghan border town of Spinboldak, the provincial governor said. The attacker drove the motorbike into a crowd watching a wrestling match in the town, a key crossing point into southern Pakistan, and detonated a bomb, said Kandahar provincial Gov. Asadullah Khalid. 31 Fatal Chopper crashes 03/21/03--Umm Qasr--12 killed--UK 03/22/03--Persian Gulf--7 killed--UK 03/30/03--Southern Iraq--3 killed--US 04/02/03--Karbala--6 killed--US 04/04/03--Ali Aziziyal--2 killed--US 05/09/03--Samarrah--3 killed--US 05/19/03--Al Hillah--4 killed--US 09/02/03--Camp Dogwood--1 killed--US 11/02/03--Fallujah--16 killed--US 11/07/03--Tikrit--6 killed--US 11/15/03--Mosul--17 killed--US 01/02/04--Fallujah--10 killed--US 01/23/04--Qayyarah--2 killed--US 01/25/04--mosul--2 killed--US 02/25/04--Hadithah--2 killed--US 04/11/04--Baghdad--2 killed--US 07/19/04--Basra--1 killed--UK 08/11/04--Al Anbar Prv.--2 killed--US 10/16/04--Baghdad--2 killed US 12/09/04--Mosul--2 killed--US 12/15/04--Karbala--3 killed--Pol 01/26/05--Ar Rutbah--31 killed--US 01/28/05--Baghdad--2 killed--US 05/27/05--Ba’qubah--2 killed--US 05/31/05--An Nasiriyah--4 killed--It 06/27/05--Taji--2 killed--US 11/02/05--Ramadi--2 killed--US 12/26/05--Baghdad--2 killed--US 01/07/06--Tall Afar--9 killed--US 01/13/06--Mosul--2 killed US 01/16/06--Mishahda--2killed--US Deaths by country in chopper crashes: U.S.--141 U.K.--20 Poland--3 Italy--4 --------------- Total--168 U.S. Army deaths in chopper crashes: By Branch: Marines--47 Army--91 Navy--2 dod civilian--1 --------------- total--141 Officer--26 Warrant--35 Enlisted--77 unknown--2 dod civilian--1 U.S. Marines by rank in chopper crashes: E1--0--private E2--0--private first class E3-15--lance corporal E4--11--corporal E5--3--sergeant E6--5--staff sergeant E7--0--gunnery sergeant E8--0--master/first sergeant 01--0--2nd lieutenant 02--3--1st lieutenant 03--8--captain 04--2--major 05--0--Lieutenant Colonel 06--0--colonel Army by rank in chopper crashes: ( 2 unknown) E1--0--private E2--0--private second class E3--7--private first class E4--15--corporal/specialist E5--12--sergeant E6--5--staff sergeant E7--2--sergeant first class E8--0--master/first sergeant E9--1--command sergeant major WO1--19--warrant officer WO2--7--warrant officer WO3--5--warrant officer WO4--3--warrant officer WO5--1--warrant officer 01--0--2nd lieutenant 02--5--1st lieutenant 03--5--captain 04--2--major 05--0--Lieutenant Colonel 06--0--colonel Navy by rank: E4--1--Petty Officer Third Class O3--1--Lieutenant Osama Sighting: After numerous repetitions of "We don't know if Osama is still alive," Osama himself decided to send George Bush a letter in his own handwriting to let him know he was still in the game. Bush opened the letter and it appeared to contain a single line of coded message: 370HSSV-0773H Bush was baffled, so he e-mailed it to Condi Rice. Condi and her aides had no clue either, so they sent it to the FBI. No one could solve it at the FBI so it went to the CIA, then to the NSA. With no clue as to its meaning they eventually asked Britain's MI-6 for help. Within a minute MI-6 cabled the White House with this reply: "Tell the President he's holding the message upside down." Politics and News: Zogby poll: Bush approval rating drops among supporters: The deterioration in the president's numbers appears to be the result of eroding support among the investor class and others who supported him in his 2004 re-election bid, said pollster John Zogby. And the problem is the Iraq war — just 34 percent of respondents said Bush was doing a good or excellent job managing the war, down from 38 percent approval in a Zogby poll taken in mid-October. US military calls off spy plane contract: The U.S. military has called off an 879-million-U.S.-dollar contract with Lockheed Martin Corp. to build a new spy plane for cost and weight concerns, U.S. media reported Friday. The new plane, called as Aerial Common Sensor, had been aimed to serve as a new surveillance aircraft for both U.S. army and navy. The army had planned to buy five fully configured such aircraft and the navy two through 2010. But the U.S. military ordered production work to stop in September and gave Lockheed 60 days to come up with options for fixing development problems that had emerged. Documents tie shadowy US unit to inmate abuse case: Newly released military documents show U.S. Army investigators closed a probe into allegations an Iraqi detainee had been abused by a shadowy military task force after its members used fake names and asserted that key computer files had been lost. The documents shed light on Task Force 6-26, a special operations unit, and confirmed the existence of a secret military “Special Access Program” associated with it, ACLU lawyer Amrit Singh said on Thursday. FAULTY RIFLE SAFETY RISK TO FORCES PERSONNEL: Problems continue to dog a controversial combat rifle that is standard issue to military personnel, including Plymouth Royal Marines. Official figures released by the Ministry of Defence show the much-criticised SA80 weapon failed on more than 100 occasions during recent operations in Iraq, Kuwait, and Afghanistan, including where it posed a threat to life or personal injury. Web site of the week: Impeach Bush and Cheney: Iraq's reconstruction funding drying up: The $18.6 billion the United States allocated for Iraq's reconstruction will run out this year, and foreign governments aren't fulfilling pledges. The commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Iraq, Gen. William McCoy, said at a briefing that the last of 3,100 reconstruction projects would soon be awarded, and almost all would be completed before the year ends. We were never intending to rebuild Iraq, McCoy said. We were providing enough funds to jump-start the reconstruction effort in this country. Units see shortages as Guard follows Army reorganization: The National Guard faces equipment, funding and personnel issues under the U. S. Army’s ongoing transformation plan, with Arkansas blazing the trail as one of the first states to undergo the organizational overhaul. The active Army is transforming into what it calls Brigade Combat Teams, more selfsufficient, modular units that can be rapidly deployed. Brigade Combat Teams are smaller units that can deploy separately and operate in combat as a cohesive unit under the guidance of an Army division commander. Chomsky: 'There Is No War On Terror' Zogby poll: Majority supports impeaching Bush for wiretapping: By a margin of 52 to 43 percent, citizens want Congress to impeach President Bush if he wiretapped American citizens without a judge's approval, according to a new poll commissioned by AfterDowningStreet.org, a grassroots coalition that supports a Congressional investigation of Pres. Bush's decision to invade Iraq in 2003. Second Republican quits amid scandal: The lobbying scandal threatening to loosen the Republicans' once iron grip on Congress claimed its second major casualty after Bob Ney stepped down as chairman of a powerful house committee. The move by Mr Ney, whose previous claim to fame had been ordering the house cafeteria to replace french fries with "freedom fries" over France's opposition to the war in Iraq, follows intense pressure from Republican party leaders who fear that the Jack Abramoff bribery case may cost them seats in mid-term elections this November. Earlier this month, Tom DeLay quit as majority leader in the House of Representatives when one of his former aides was linked to the corruption charges against Mr Abramoff. US torture undermines global rights drive: report: A human rights group said on Wednesday that torture and other abuses committed by the United States in its war on terrorism have damaged American credibility and hurt the global human rights cause. In a survey of world conditions, U.S.-based Human Rights Watch said Washington should appoint a special prosecutor and Congress should set up an independent panel to investigate U.S. abuses. The annual report covered rights developments in more than 70 countries. "The U.S. government's use and defense of torture and inhumane treatment played the largest role in undermining Washington's ability to promote human rights," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. President George W. Bush's administration has come under heavy criticism from rights groups at home and abroad, and from many foreign governments, over how it has handled the interrogation and detention of suspects in the war on terrorism Washington launched after the September 11 attacks. The 532-page report said efforts by U.S. officials in 2005 to defend inhumane interrogation methods or seek exemptions from planned anti-torture legislation showed the "U.S. government's embrace of torture and inhumane treatment began at the top." The Army's Weapons are Wearing Out Fast: Much of the equipment deployed in Iraq is beginning to wear out as a result of heavy use, harsh operating conditions, and the frequent attacks launched by insurgents. Furthermore, the quantity and quality of weapons in units away from the war zone is eroding as equipment is transferred to deploying units. The latter problem is particularly pronounced in the reserves, which already were functioning with a deficit of modern equipment when the war began. According to the Association of the United States Army, during fiscal 2005 the Army deployed 23% of its trucks, 15% of its combat vehicles and 15% of its helicopters in Iraq. Much of this equipment does not rotate out when troops do, either because the Army is trying to minimize transportation costs or because it wants to retain key items such as up-armored vehicles in the war zone. As a result, the equipment is exposed to continuous use for long periods of time -- over two years in the case of some Chinook helicopters -- and may not received scheduled maintenance in a timely fashion. The Army conducted an analysis of how such stresses affect fielded equipment, and concluded that a single year of deployment in Iraq would cause as much wear and tear as five years of peacetime use. That is hardly surprising, given the fact that much of the equipment in Iraq is being used at a rate several times higher than typically prevails in peacetime. The operating tempo, or "optempo," of helicopters is twice as high in the war zone as elsewhere. Combat vehicles such as the Abrams tank and Bradley fighting vehicle operate at five or six times normal rates. And trucks are utilized at up to ten times their peacetime rates (which helps explain why so many are washed out by the end of their time in Iraq). But high utilization rates are only the beginning of the problem, because the conditions under which systems operate in Iraq are harsher than those encountered in peacetime training exercises. For example, Abrams tanks are designed to operate in open country but in Iraq they often travel on paved roads, accelerating wear. Their mechanical and electronic systems are exposed to sand, wind, precipitation and vibration far in excess of what would be experienced in peacetime. Maintenance is deferred, or carried out in sub-optimal circumstances. And then there is the enemy, who seldom misses an opportunity to shoot an RPG at whatever U.S. vehicle is going by. Considering all the insults visited on Army equipment in Iraq, it is impressive that the mission-capable rates of ground vehicles such as Abrams and the humvee have been maintained at 90% in the war zone, and the mission-capable rate for helicopters is a respectable 77%. But this high state of readiness is being bought at a price. The equipment in Iraq is being rundown rapidly, while reserve equipment in the U.S. is being transferred to deploying units so extensively that non-deploying National Guard units have virtually no night-vision goggles, up-armored humvees or chemical-agent detection equipment. Extent of soldiers' injuries in Iraq 'hidden by MoD' The Ministry of Defence has conceded that 4,017 personnel have been medically evacuated from Iraq, but it has repeatedly hidden behind the Data Protection Act, patient confidentiality or Freedom of Information restrictions in failing to provide a greater picture of the wounded. Oil: Kuwait say emir‘s death won‘t change oil policy: Emir Sheikh Jaber al-Ahmed al-Sabah died on Sunday after a long illness, and the Gulf Arab state‘s cabinet named his heir, Crown Prince Sheikh Saad al-Abdulla al-Sabah, as the new emir. Senior officials at government-run Kuwait Petroleum Co (KPC) and state refiner Kuwait National Petroleum Co (KNPC) said oil sector operations were normal, including refining and exports. "Kuwait‘s (oil) policy will not change. It will continue to cooperate with OPEC in the interest of both producers and consumers," an official, who declined to be named, told Reuters. Kuwait rides road to prosperity as oil prices soar: The tiny emirate, which sits on 10 percent of the world's proven oil reserves, has amassed $30 billion in budget surpluses during the past six fiscal years and is forecast to post about a $23 billion windfall in the current fiscal year, which ends on March 31. Oil rises on Nigeria, Iran concerns: With U.S. markets closed for a holiday, the focus was on London's Brent crude. It climbed as much as 93 cents to $63.18 a barrel and stood at $63.06, up 80 cents, at 7:09 a.m. ET. Heavily armed militants from the Ijaw ethnic group killed six people in a raid on a Shell platform Sunday, the fourth in five days. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta said in an e-mail to Reuters it had 5,000 fighters and vowed to cripple the world's eighth largest oil exporter. Oil product export to Iraq could be suspended: State Minister Kursat Tuzmen said yesterday that Turkish companies could suspend export of oil products on Jan. 21 if Iraq doesn't pay the amount owing for previous shipments. "It is seen that if necessary measures won't be taken, then the amount of Iraq's debt will increase considerably," he said. Tuzmen stated that Iraq has met an important part of its oil need from Turkey since May 2003, adding that Ankara exported more than 10 billion tones oil to Iraq. Oil surges to 3-1/2 month high: U.S. crude surged about 2 percent to $65.53 a barrel in electronic trading after Monday's U.S. holiday, then eased to $65.29, up $1.27. Oil is within sight of its $70.85 record of Aug. 30, fired by Nigerian violence and Iran's duel with the West over its nuclear program. London Brent crude was up 94 cents to $64.12 after rising 58 cents on Monday when European markets were open. Meanwhile Iraq has resumed oil exports from its northern oilfields with deliveries to the Turkish port of Ceyhan, the national broadcaster Al-Iraqiya reported Tuesday. Exports to Ceyhan had stopped late December after insurgents attacked a pipeline. Militants threaten Nigeria supply: World oil prices hit a three and half-month high on Tuesday after militants said they would broaden attacks on Nigeria's oil industry, threatening to cut deeper into supplies from the world's eighth biggest exporter. US crude surged US$1.80, or more than two per cent, to US$65.72 a barrel -- the highest since early October. Oil is within sight of its US$70.85 record of Aug 30, fired by Nigerian violence and Iran's duel with the West over its nuclear programme. Tuesday's push came as militants behind a spate of kidnappings and attacks on oil facilities in the West African nation's oil-rich Niger Delta threatened to use more aggressive tactics against oil workers and their families from Feb 1. "Nigeria's escalating problems ... are boosting prices. Nigeria puts almost 2.5 million barrels of crude into the market daily -- around three per cent of global oil output," said analyst Tobin Gorey of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia. The country's biggest foreign operator, Royal Dutch Shell, has already evacuated staff from some facilities and scaled back output as violence escalated over the past week. Exxon Mobil denied reports it had suspended exports. The country's biggest foreign operator, Royal Dutch Shell, has already evacuated staff from some facilities and scaled back output as violence escalated over the past week. Exxon Mobil denied reports it had suspended exports. Casualty Reports: Killed Chief Warrant Officer 2 Kyle Jackson Chief Warrant Officer 3 Mitchell Carver Jr Lance Cpl. Jonathan Kyle Price Petty Officer 1st Class Michael Anthony Jordan Cpl. Justin J. Watts Army Spc. Dustin L. Kendall Rick Hickman (civilian) Samuel E. Parlin, Jr (civilian) Wounded: Sgt. Matthew P. Dalrymple--roadside bomb--shrapnel to both arms Lance Cpl. Neil Schalk--IED--lost two fingers on his right hand and is in the process of having his left hand almost completely reconstructed. Chad McCafferty--training exercise by friendly fire--shot struck the back of his left thigh Jeremy Feldbusch--artillery round--Shrapnel pierced the sergeant's right eye, damaged the optic nerve of his left eye, and lodged in his brain. Joey Mushin--Mortar round--did walk again, though he suffers from back pain. Staff Sgt. Gwendolyn Harman--series of bombs--Her right arm took so much shrapnel Army Pfc. Marissa Strock--IED--woke up from her coma, lost her left leg below the knee, and doctors are fighting to save her right leg, She broke her right arm in multiple places, as well as her collarbone and shoulder blade Specialist Alexander Aguilar--suicide car bomber--suffered serious injuries but survived

Monkey Mail! From: xxxx@yahoo.com To: yankeedoodle@gmail.com Subject: I agree Yes I agree with you I hate America and love seeing those soldiers killed. I hope you and the terrorist succeed in bringing down this president who is a mean guy and worst of all a republican. So go terrorists kill the American troops and bring down bush down with bush down with bush. Yeah! Signed The village idiot.

War News for Wednesday, January 18, 2006 Bring 'em on: Thirty five Iraqi men are missing Wednesday after being abducted following failed bids to be accepted into a police training academy in Samarra. Bring 'em on: Twenty five executed bodies found in Nabaei. Bring 'em on: A roadside bomb has killed two Americans and injured a third when it hit a convoy carrying a U.S. security team near the southern city of Basra. Bring 'em on: Gunmen kidnapped a Malawian engineer, and possibly his Madagascan colleague, in an attack on a private security convoy in Baghdad. Bring 'em on: Five policemen were killed and nine wounded when a makeshift bomb went off near their patrol in the small town of Sa'adiya. Bring 'em on: At least one gunman was killed and two policemen wounded in a failed attempt to seize a police station in the town of Iskandariya. Bring 'em on: An Oil Ministry security officer was seriously wounded, his driver killed, on Tuesday when gunmen ambushed his car in Baghdad. Bring 'em on: Three suspected insurgents were killed in an air assault on Tuesday after being observed placing a roadside bomb near the town of Tal Afar. Bring 'em on: Mohammed Sadagi al-Batah, a tribal leader, was shot dead along with his nephew and another person in Baghdad. Bring 'em on: Eleven Iraqi security personnel killed in ambush in Baghdad. Bring 'em on: Shiite cleric gunned down in Baghdad. Bring 'em on: One woman killed and three injured by US troops at a checkpoint in Hawijah. Bring 'em on: Gunmen shoot dead seven workers who supply food to the Iraqi army in Baghdad. Bring 'em on: The bodies of five murdered Iraqi found in Al-Rustumiyah. Bring 'em on: Two Iraqi policemen and two civilians injured by a roadside bomb in Baghdad. Bring 'em on: Two female Interior Ministry workers kidnapped in Al-Sadr city. Bring 'em on: One oil security guard killed and three injured in an insurgency attack in Jirf al-Sakhar. Bring 'em on: Seven civilians injured by a roadside bomb in Baghdad. Bring 'em on: Seven US soldiers injured by a roadside bomb in Karbala. Bring 'em on: Oil infrastructure attacked in Samarra. Bring 'em on: Two civil defence workers gunned down in Baghdad. OIF veteran commits suicide:

Just wanted to share this with you. It hit me pretty hard last night. Back on Dec. 16, a little over a week after you appeared on my show, I had Specialist Douglas Barber as my guest, an Operation Iraqi Freedom veteran suffering from PTSD. He was telling us how the VA had abandoned Iraqi vets, and how he couldn't get help for his PTSD. Last night, at the top of my 3rd hour, I received this email... Mr. Basham: I was a dear friend of Douglas; I say was, because Douglas committed suicide today on the front porch of his trailer around 2:30 pm Opelika, Alabama time. I was just listening to your interview with him so I could hear his voice again. Just thought you might like to know.

SA-7: Pentagon officials tell ABC News they believe Iraqi insurgents used a Russian-made SA-7 surface-to-air missile to shoot down a U.S. military helicopter on Monday. It's a troubling new development because there are hundreds — and by some estimates thousands — of SA-7 missiles that are unaccounted for in Iraq. The weapons had been part of Saddam Hussein's arsenal, much of which was looted after the invasion. But until now, insurgents had never successfully used them against an American aircraft. No Audit: More than 18 months after the Pentagon disbanded the Coalition Provisional Authority that ran Iraq, neither the Justice Department nor a special inspector general has moved to recover large sums suspected of disappearing through fraud and price gouging in reconstruction. Earlier audits by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction -- a post Congress created in late 2004 -- found that oversight of contractors by the Authority was so lax that widespread abuse was likely. Kid