Tuesday, October 31, 2006
DAILY WAR NEWS FOR TUESDAY, October 31, 2006
Photo: Iraqis celebrate on the streets of Sadr City. Iraqi Shiite militants have won a major political victory when Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki ordered US and Iraqi units to lift a blockade around the flashpoint Baghdad suburb of Sadr City.(AFP/Wissam Al-Okaili) [It's the first time I've noticed a pertinent news commentary being "reserved" for a photo caption; my emphasis; see below – zig]
U.S. troops abandoned checkpoints around the Shiite militia stronghold of Sadr City on orders from Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, the latest in a series of moves by the Iraqi leader to assert his authority with the U.S. administration. (…)
U.S. forces disappeared from the checkpoints within hours of the order to remove the around-the-clock barriers by 5:00 p.m. (1400 GMT), setting off celebrations among civilians and armed men gathered on the edge of the sprawling slum that is under the control of the Mahdi Army militia run by radical anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
Iraqi troops loaded coils of barbed wire and red traffic cones onto pickup trucks, while small groups of men and children danced in circles chanting slogans praising al-Sadr, who earlier Tuesday had ordered the area closed to the Iraqi government until U.S. troops lifted what he called their "siege" of the neighborhood.
Extra checkpoints were set up last week as U.S. troops launched an intensive search for a missing soldier, who has yet to be found.
Shortly after leaving Sadr city, U.S. troops dismantled other checkpoints in the downtown Karradah neighborhood where the soldier had been abducted, loading barbed wire coils onto their Stryker armored vehicles.
Al-Maliki's statement said U.S.-manned checkpoints "should not be taken except during nighttime curfew hours and emergencies."
Bring ‘em on: A Multi-National Division-Baghdad Soldier died at approximately 5:30 p.m. Monday when the vehicle he was riding in was struck by an improvised-explosive device south of Baghdad. (MNF – Iraq)
Bring ‘em on: A Multi-National Division - Baghdad Soldier died at approximately 5 p.m. Monday when he was hit by small-arms fire while conducting combat operations in western Baghdad. (MNF – Iraq)
US death toll hits 103 in Iraq in OctoberOTHER SECURITY INCIDENTS Baghdad: A suicide car bomber struck a wedding party in Baghdad killing 10 people, including four children, and wounding 12, police reported. The bomber drove an explosives-rigged sedan into a crowd of celebrants preparing to board vehicles outside the bride's home in the capital's northeastern Shaab neighborhood. A car bomb detonated in the neighbourhood of Sadr City, killing three people. Nine others were also wounded in the blast, which occurred outside a family court on the area's Palestine Street, close to the entrance of the neighbourhood. One Iraqi policeman was killed and three others were wounded when an explosive device targeting their patrol was detonated in eastern Baghdad's al-Gadeedah district. Clashes were reported between Iraqi army and police forces and militants in the al-Khadraa district in western Baghdad. Sources said the firefight continued for 30 minutes until US forces were deployed in the area. No information on casualties was however immediately available. Five unidentified bodies were found in Baghdad bearing bullet wounds and evidence of torture. Police commando unit commander Ali Abdul-Kadhim was killed by unknown gunmen in a car while standing near his home in eastern Baghdad. One Baghdad-based soldier died at about 5:00 p.m. on Monday after being hit by small arms fire in a western district of the capital. Baqubah: Clashes between gunmen and police left a policeman dead and three others wounded in Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad. Gunmen suspected of belonging to a militia run by Moqtada al-Sadr shot and wounded the owners of two shops in Baquba. The bodies of eight people were found, bound and gagged, in Baquba. All the victims were shot in the head. An Iraqi policeman and a young boy were killed while 4 other policemen were wounded when militants opened fire on a police patrol in al-Mafraq district in western Baquba. A police officer was killed and two others wounded when a roadside bomb targeted their patrol in the city's southern Kanaan district. Six Iraqis were meanwhile killed by militants in the al- Moallemeen, al-Garage al-Mowahhad, Abu Sida and al-Tahrir districts of Baquba. Suwayra: The bodies of three people were retrieved from the Tigris river in the town of Suwayra. Five more bodies in similar condition were floating in the Tigris River near Suwayrah, 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of Baghdad. The bodies of five gunmen were found in an orchard which was the scene of clashes between gunmen and the police several days ago near the town of Suwayra, 40 km (25 miles) south of Baghdad. Basra: One Iraqi coastguard soldier was killed while another was wounded in an exchange of fire with offshore smugglers in Basra, 550 kilometres south of Baghdad. Security sources said clashes with the smugglers were ongoing since since Monday night in an area called Shalhat al-Aghwat, near the border with Iran. Ten smugglers were arrested and 100 cars and boats used to smuggle fuel and goods in an out of the country were confiscated. Tarmiya: More than 40 people are missing after armed kidnappers ambushed minibuses travelling to Baghdad on a main road north of the Iraqi capital on Tuesday, police in the city of Tikrit said. An Iraqi spokesman for the Joint Coordination Centre of the Iraqi police and U.S. forces in the mainly Sunni Arab province of Salahaddin said "about 42" people were missing after the incident near Tarmiya, 30 km (20 miles) north of Baghdad. Unidentified gunmen ambushed a convoy of some 16 minibuses and kidnapped up to 42 people, including tribal leaders and prominent persons from the towns of Balad and Dujail. The convoy was carrying a delegation heading to Baghdad to meetIraq's top officials, including Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, when they were attacked by gunmen in Tarmiya area, some 40 km north of Baghdad. Mosul: Police found four bodies, including that of a policeman, in different parts of Mosul, north of Baghdad. A roadside bomb targeting an Iraqi army convoy injured one soldier in Mosul. Three Iraqis were reportedly killed when a US patrol opened fire on their car as it approached their patrol in Mosul. The incident occurred in the al-Mithaq district in eastern Mosul, security sources said, adding that the US soldiers suspected that the occupants of the car were militants. Fallujah: An Iraqi army soldier died in clashes with gunmen in Falluja, 50 km (30 miles) west of Baghdad. Tal Afar: Four gunmen and an Iraqi army soldier were killed in clashes in the town of Tal Afar, about 420 km (260 miles) north of Baghdad. >> NEWS Iraq is to ask the UN Security Council to renew the mandate governing the presence of US-led forces in the country for another year, said Hoshiyar Zebari, its foreign minister. Zebari said that despite differences between the US and Iraq over security, there was "no rift whatsoever" between the two over the ultimate goal of a democratic Iraq. "We believe still there is a need and the presence of the multinational force is indispensable for the security and stability of Iraq and of the region at the moment." "At the same time, the Iraqi government is ... willing to take more security responsibilities from these forces to do its part." UN Security Council resolution 1637, which mandates the US-led presence, expires on December 31. Tony Blair faced the possibility of a damaging defeat in parliament in a vote on whether he should order an inquiry into how Britain joined the war in Iraq. In a stormy debate ahead of the evening vote, Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett defended the government's opposition to the move, saying it would signal uncertainty and endanger Britain's 7,000 troops in the war-torn country. (…) The call for an immediate investigation by a committee of senior MPs was proposed by the minority Scottish and Welsh nationalist parties, who used the debate to lash the US-led war as a "monumental catastrophe." >> REPORTS Arab Links: TRIBAL GROUP PLANS MOBILIZATION AGAINST FEDERALISM Something called the Central Council for Iraqi and Arab Tribes, headed by Ali al-Faris al-Dulaimi, and a related group called the Republican Gathering, described their current activities as the start of a nation-wide mobilization for national unity, and reported on the first two general meetings, the first for tribes in the area around Baghdad, and the second in Karbala, with participation of a lot of tribes in the Middle Euphrates district, stressing that in both cases the consensus was opposition to any form of federalism. The statement said those promoting federalism as a cover for their narrow interests will earn nothing but disappointment and loss, because the tribes of Iraq have prepared themselves for the sacrifices that will be necessary in the struggle for the preservation of the unity of Iraq, its honor, and its sovereignty. read in full… Arab Links: ONE US-COUP CANDIDATE TAKEN TO AMMAN FOR SAFEKEEPING As noted a couple of days ago, Azzaman reported on the weekend details of what Washington had in mind as a possible military government for Iraq, and one of the points was there could be nine to eleven military people involved. Today's Al-Quds al-Arabi (Tuesday October 31) tells what happened to one of these persons already, Muhammad Abdullah al-Shahwani, described as head of Iraqi intelligence. Citing sources close to Shahwani in London, the paper says US forces had to suddenly airlift him to Amman after learning of a plan to assassinate him, along with members of his group. The Americans told Shahwani to stay in Amman until further notice, and someone else has been appointed to replace him as head of Iraqi intelligence. This report says the supposed assassination plot was involved "armed militia tasked with the protection and escort of senior officials in the government and ministers, and the protection of their houses in the Green Zone". The journalist adds: Shahwani's name has been one of those repeatedly mentioned as one of the "American candidates for an role in the military government "which Washington is rumored to be planning to set up in Baghdad at the end of this year." The latter point about rumored timing is new. The Azzaman item cited above implied this might be a November 7 thing. read in full… BBC: LANCET AUTHOR ANSWERS YOUR QUESTIONS A recent report published in the medical journal The Lancet estimated that around 655,000 people have died in Iraq as a result of the 2003 invasion. This figure, which is far higher than those reported in Iraq, resulted in claims that the survey had been exaggerated. Les Roberts, one of the report's authors, answered some of your questions on the methodology and findings. How do you know that you are not reporting the same fatality multiple times? For example, if you were to ask people in the UK if they know anyone who has been involved in a traffic accident most would say they do. Applying your logic that means there are 60 million accidents every year. _Andrew M, London, UK To be recorded as a death in a household, the decedent had to have spent most of the nights during the three months before their death "sleeping under the same roof" with the household that was being interviewed. This may have made us undercount some, but addressed your main concern that no two households could claim the same death event. It seems The Lancet has been overrun by left-wing sixth formers. The report has a flawed methodology and the counting process shows signs of deceit. _Ian, Whitwick, UK This study was the standard approach for measuring mortality in times of war, it went through a rigorous peer-review process and it probably could have been accepted into any of the journals that cover war and public health. Can you explain, if your figures are correct, why 920 more people were dying each day than officially recorded by the Iraqi Ministry of Health - implying huge fraud and/or incompetence on their behalf? _Dan, Scotland It is really difficult to collect death information in a war zone! In 2002, in Katana Health Zone in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) there was a terrible meningitis outbreak where the zone was supported by the Belgian Government, with perhaps the best disease surveillance network in the entire country. A survey by the NGO International Rescue Committee showed that only 7% of those meningitis deaths were recorded by the clinics and hospitals and government officials. You and your colleagues claim to have used the same method to estimate deaths in Iraq as is used to estimate deaths in natural disasters. Is there any evidence that the method is accurate?_Rickard Loe, Stockholm, Sweden That is a good question. In 1999, again in Katana Health Zone in the Congo, I led a mortality survey where we walked a grid over the health zone and interviewed 41 clusters of five houses at 1km spacings. In that survey, we estimated that 1,600 children had died of measles in the preceding half year. A couple of weeks later we did a standard immunization coverage survey that asked about measles deaths and we found an identical result. Why is it so hard for people to believe The Lancet report? I am an Iraqi and can assure you that the figure given is nearer to the truth than any given before or since._S Kazwini, London, UK I think it is hard to accept these results for a couple of reasons. People do not see the bodies. Secondly, people feel that all those government officials and all those reporters must be detecting a big portion of the deaths. When in actuality during times of war, it is rare for even 20% to be detected. It seems to me that the timing of the publication of the 2004 and 2006 reports - in both cases shortly before a U.S. election - was a mistake. _Mik Ado, London, UK Both were unfortunate timing. As I said at the time of the first study, I lived in fear that our Iraqi colleagues and interviewers would be killed if we had finished a survey in mid-September and it took two months for the results to get out. I think in Iraq, a post-election publication in 2004 would have been seen as my colleagues knowing something but keeping it hidden. read in full… >> COMMENTARY AND ANALYSIS LOSING HOPE AND POWER IN IRAQ With the death toll among the U.S. military in Iraq for October hitting 100 and the American President's current approval ratings stuck below 40 per cent, the Bush administration, struggling to win the public support ahead of the country's mid-term congressional elections, seems re-thinking its Iraq war strategy. Also political experts say that the American President seems to have given up his alleged mission of bringing democracy to Iraq; instead he's looking for an honourable exit strategy. The Washington Post reported yesterday that October 2006 may be remembered as the month that "the U.S. experience in Iraq hit a tipping point, when the violence flared and shook both the military command in Iraq and the political establishment back in Washington". read in full... CATAPULTING THE PROPAGANDA WITH THE WASHINGTON POST The ever persipacious Angry Arab, As'ad AbuKhalil, plucks out the hidden (or not-so-hidden) propaganda in a passing phrase in an otherwise unremarkable Washington Post story about Syria. Let the good doctor tell it in his own words:
[From the WP]: "Horror at the bloodshed accompanying the U.S. effort to bring democracy to Iraq has accomplished what human rights activists, analysts and others say Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had been unable to do by himself: silence public demands for democratic reforms here." (Notice the casual language of the Washington Post. Notice how they insert propaganda lines into articles. "US effort to bring democracy in Iraq"? Are you kidding me? Does the writer of the article really believe that this was what it was about?)Here we see the falsity of the supposed "objectivity" fetish of the mainstream media laid bare. The fetish is entirely focused on the word "objectivity," never on its practice. There is nothing remotely objective about using "the U.S. effort to bring democracy to Iraq" as a standard descriptor of the war and occupation. It is not an any way a neutral reflection of reality. It simply parrots a Bush Administration propaganda point without question, without nuance. You can see what the reporter, Ellen Knickmeyer, is trying to do here, I suppose. The article deals with the collapse of reform movements in Syria because "advocates of democracy are equated now with supporters of America, even 'traitors,' said Maan Abdul Salam, 36, a Damascus publisher who has coordinated conferences on women's rights and similar topics...'The people are not believing these thoughts anymore. When the U.S. came to Iraq, it came in the name of democracy and freedom. But all we see are bodies, bodies, bodies.'" So Knickmeyer wants to set up an ironic contrast: the Americans say they're in Iraq to bring democracy to the Middle East, but the bloody quagmire they've created is having the opposite effect, which is a demonstrable, undeniable reality. She could have done this easily, while remaining well within the dogma of the "objectivity" word cult, simply by attributing the war motive of "bringing democracy" to the Bush Administration, rather than embracing it as an unquestioned fact. But to do that would mean breaking with the iron-clad conventional wisdom of Beltway journalism: the war in Iraq is yet another noble cause gone FUBAR because it "wasn't done right." (This is also the prevailing wisdom of much of the Democratic Party as well.) read in full... IRAQ'S DEFIANT BUT DOOMED DEMOCRACY The Bush administration is finding out the hard way that a democratic Iraq is not likely to be cowed or bullied into following the priorities of congressional elections that will be held on November 7 in the United States. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has started to act in the manner of a proud democratically elected leader who will do what is best for Iraq. President George W Bush wanted democracy in Iraq; now he is getting a taste of how the head of a democracy deals with another democracy, even when one of the parties is also an occupying force. (...) With regard to Maliki and the issue of a timetable for curbing violence, two points should be made. First, the primary audience of Khalilzad's comments at his briefing, along with the top commander of US forces in Iraq, General George Casey, was not Iraqis or anyone else in the Middle East. They were an attempt to reassure US voters, who are increasingly questioning Bush's Iraq policies. Second, the event was also an attempt to show that the administration is really on top of things, and this includes trying to stamp out Shi'ite militias, which are now being blamed for most of the sectarian violence. The US wanted to twist Maliki's arm into giving a timetable for this, as if this would resolve everything. Maliki was on to the American game. He used a nationally televised press conference of his own to publicize his agenda to Iraqis. Thus it seems two campaigns are in progress to win hearts and minds. While Khalilzad and Casey are attempting to influence Americans, Maliki has started his own campaign of defiance, which has a high probability of winning support from a majority of Iraqis. read in full... THE U.S. FEAR OF LOSING POWER WHICH IT DOESN'T HAVE So, it is not the U.S. administration that has failed [in Iraq]. It is those who presented the war as a noble project and sold it to the public as such have failed. The question is, where does the U.S. go from here? Will it fail? Will it withdraw from Iraq? Should the Western governments go into sobering reassessments and launch contingency plans for the consequences of a possible American failure in Iraq? The simple answer to these questions is that the United States is going nowhere. Despite the much publicized time tables for withdrawal, the U.S. will never leave Iraq. It will never admit defeat until it is removed from its imperial pedestal. So, will the Iraq war leave the United States in a position in which former Soviet Union found itself after its war in Afghanistan? The answer is no. Iraq is not capable of doing so, but the United States is. It can undermine itself. That will happen as a result of the next wars on the U.S. agenda. America's inability to learn from history is unlikely to be remedied by the humiliation of failure in Iraq, which is not considered as a failure in the myopic circles which are busy planning next wars. But if one simple lesson is too hard for Washington to grasp, perhaps the rest of the world can hold the following idea in mind and use it to restrain the United States from any future efforts to impose its ignorance on others. In a contest between foreign power and native resistance, foreign power - however much material and military strength it can wield - will always lose regardless of staying in the Urban center or outside in the deserts and mountains. Even in an era when a sense of racial superiority and colonial entitlement led Western nations to have few qualms about subjugating others, eventually native power based on native knowledge and determined resistance would reassert itself. Nowadays the reclamation of power asserts itself much more quickly but it always rises out of the same awareness: this is our land, not yours; it is our life and we must live our way of life. The tragedy is that American leadership, both democrat and republican, does not seem to be in a position to understand and recognize that vis-à-vis the world suffering under its de facto colonization, the United States does not now possess the power that it fears losing. This denial of the reality will keep pushing it into more wars regardless of who is in power in Washington. That will ensure the actual failure of the United States and total destruction in the rest of the world it is trying to conquer completely. FORMER BUSH SPEECHWRITER MELTS DOWN. TOTALLY AND COMPLETELY. And they call us deranged.
I hate the Democrats who, in support of this strategy, spout lie after lie: that the president knew in advance there were no WMD in Iraq; that he lied to Congress to gain its support for military action; that he pushed for the democratization of Iraq only after the failure to find WMD; that he was a unilateralist and that the coalition was a fraud; that he shunned diplomacy in favor of war.Jesus. Sombody give the little twerp a good smack. He's obviously suffering from Impending Electoral Smackdown Derangement Syndrome. link THE SUBJECT THAT REFUSES TO BE CHANGED From the Associated Press this morning:
The American death toll for October climbed past 100, a grim milestone reached as a top White House envoy turned up unexpectedly in Baghdad on Monday to smooth over a rough patch in U.S.-Iraqi ties. At least 80 people were killed across Iraq, 33 in a Sadr City bombing targeting workers. A member of the 89th Military Police Brigade was killed in east Baghdad Monday, and a Marine died in fighting in insurgent infested Anbar province the day before, raising to 101 the number of U.S. service members killed in a bloody October, the fourth deadliest month of the war. At least 2,814 American forces have died since the war began.And with that, another couple of million dollars in Republican negative ads over the weekend just went to waste. link "WELL, I WOULDN'T BE HAPPY" A friend of mine in Baghdad wrote to me a few days ago about a conversation he'd had with an elderly lady from West Virginia who was seated next to him on an airplane between Los Angeles and Washington earlier this year. The subject under discussion was how Iraqis generally view the American invasion and occupation of Iraq, and my friend was trying to find an analogy that would work for a sweet eighty-five-year-old grandmother who had never traveled anywhere beyond the USA in her life. He came up with this:
Imagine you are visiting with one of your daughters who is married to a man who is a bit of a brute. He beats the kids occasionally and has knocked her about from time to time as well. You don't like it, she doesn't like it, the kids don't like it, but at the end of the day he's Dad, he works hard, he provides, and no one's going to break up the family after all this time - besides, the monster's mellowing with age and hasn't hit anyone very hard in a long while. So there you all are, watching TV one night, the kids doing their homework or playing downstairs, your daughter preparing dinner in the kitchen, the son-in-law having his beer and reading the sports page....When all of a sudden, the front door is smashed open, there are loud explosions all around the house, and five men come crashing in through the windows on ropes, as another five pour through the broken door firing guns. One of the kids is killed, another staggers around covered in blood screaming, a third lies groaning somewhere nearby, then flames erupt from the kitchen as your daughter runs out, her body on fire, and you feel something smash into your knee breaking the leg. Before anyone can work out what's happening, there's another terrifying explosion above and the house rocks from side to side as the roof caves in and the whole structure collapses around you in rubble and dust. As you wipe the gravel and concrete from your face, you see that some of the intruders have handcuffed the son-in-law and are dragging him away at gunpoint. One of these gunmen then comes over and identifies himself as a representative of the Chinese Children's Aid Society of Beijing, saying they would have come sooner but they had trouble getting visas. They were here now, though, and your family was at last free of the brute and you could finally relax. Another gunman sweeps a bit of rubble to one side with a broom and apologizes for the mess, giving you the business card of a local contractor who also happens to be a friend of his brother and specializes in fixing houses reduced to rubble for a reasonable price. The men then say in a chorus, Have a nice day! They throw the brute into a van and are off leaving you sitting there alone in the dark with raindrops starting to pitter-patter on your head. How do you think you would you feel about all this? "Well, I wouldn't be happy," the old lady apparently replied. "And that's pretty much how we feel," said my friend.read in full... ARE RATS AIRLIFTED OFF A SINKING SHIP? The Republicans can't decide whether they should renovate him [Bush] or pull him down. They have to build another one anyway, but is it credible to hang him out to dry so soon? Should he seem to have a plan for Iraq? Should he actually have a plan? What happens when rats leave a sinking ship? Are they okay? How do they leave it anyway? On another ship? Or are they airlifted off? What's wrong with leaving a sinking ship? Doesn't it make sense to leave it? Is it only the rats that leave? Doesn't that make the rats the smart ones? Rats really get a bad rap, don't they? Hey, boys: Can we get some spin for rats? Yeah, 'Nature's Sanitary Engineers' --- I love it! read in full… IMPERIAL DEFAULT FOR DUMMIES (...) As for a Strongman [for Iraq], there is one available who would be perfect for the job - in fact his credentials are impeccable - but someone will have to unlock his jail cell before he can apply for the position. There is, however, a somewhat better solution to providing the opportunity for "redeployment" of US forces in Iraq under an aura of dignity, if not precisely victory. You can called it whatever you like, but a retreat is still a retreat. Leaders of the Sunni resistance have apparently tabled an offer that will not make anyone happy, but will make most of the people in the region less unhappy than they would be with any other solution. Put us back in charge, say the Sunni, and we guarantee to keep the country western-leaning, keep the oil deals in place, keep the Iranians out, and keep ourselves from killing all the Shia, whom we promise henceforth to treat equitably as full citizens of Iraq's democracy, a shining example to the Arab world. No one in Kerbala or Teheran is going to like this, of course, but the Saudis, Jordanians, Israelis, Syrians and Turks are going to breath a great sigh of relief to find anything implemented that prevents a Shia theocracy opening for business on their doorsteps. And there is wiggle room for Washington to call it a mission accomplished -- if they have to. The Sunnis also have a little-discussed yet very persuasive additional bargaining chip. Syria is supplying them with new hi-tech Russian rifles equipped with digital telescopic sighting devices that allow trained snipers to pick off coalition soldiers regardless of body armour from distances so great that any defense against them or detection of the assassins is impossible. They do not have many rifles or trained snipers yet, but they will be getting more, and Syria's only condition for supplying them is that the targets not be Muslims. Every day for some weeks now, two or three US soldiers have been shipped out in body bags with high-velocity bullet wounds to the neck or face. Sunni leaders have stated grimly yet realistically that these numbers will only increase -- along with all the other more low-tech horrors now wearyingly familiar to life as usual in hell. These men, it must also be remembered, are mainly ex-Republican Guard commanders, and their fighters are the highly-trained elite core of Saddam's old army, not some undisciplined rabble. Just as the Romans liked to portray zealot forces during the Jewish Wars as if they were roaming bands of disorganized brigands, the Americans have never wanted it known that their "Sunni insurgency" is really a legitimate and ongoing war of resistance by members of Iraq's former army, who are merely keeping the oath they once swore to defend their country. Knowing this explains why the resistance is so organized, sustained, well-trained and formidable, just as knowing the zealots were actually a highly-trained, disciplined and brilliantly commanded army explains how they managed at one point to drive out all Roman legions from Palestine and raise the Jewish flag over Jerusalem again. But in the world of electric communications, the victor may no longer be able to remain the one who gets to write the history. Things change. (...) From deals that were done by US commanders with Iraqi generals like Ahmed Hussein to betray Saddam and avoid a Stalingrad at the gates of Baghdad, Washington has long known that the actual plan for Saddam's defense of Iraq consisted of a guerrilla war to be fought during the occupation, not any Mother of All Battles that would have achieved nothing except a battlefield of martyrs and a paragraph in the histories of military disaster. For this purpose, secret caches of weapons, explosives and ammunition had been concealed all over the Sunni Triangle, the locations known only to a handful of generals. The pretence of an "insurgency" has only served to keep those poor grunts, the sons and daughters of American poverty, from the hideous urban ghettoes, hopeless tenements and deserted factories along the shores of the Great Lakes, and from the tarpaper shacks and moonshine stills in the rolling hills of Tennessee, from knowing the "violence is going to go on for a long time". (…) Whether it is eternal damnation they know they will face, or whether it is a knowledge of what it really means to destroy something so precious and unique it can never be replaced and the world will always mourn its absence, doesn't really matter. They know they have done the most terrible thing it is possible to do in life, and they are fully aware that the universe's immutable need for balance, for order to be restored, has now bound them to a karmic wheel of fire that will never again allow them to know peace or joy until that same awful deed is done to them. Ask anyone who has killed without cause how it really feels, because no Battleground America video game is going to let you know. read in full… >> BEYOND IRAQ Afghanistan: A roadside bomb killed two NATO soldiers and wounded two others on patrol in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday, the alliance said. The roadside bomb struck the soldiers' vehicle in Nuristan province, NATO said. The two wounded soldiers were taken to a U.S. military facility in Asadabad in neighboring Kunar province. NATO did not release the nationalities of the soldiers, but U.S. troops are the primary NATO component in eastern Afghanistan. (update) More than 15,000 armed Pakistani tribesmen protested over a Pakistan Army helicopter attack on an al-Qaeda-linked religious school that killed around 80 suspected militants. Chants of "Down with America" and "Down with Musharraf" rang out as the tribesmen gathered in Khar, main town in the Bajaur tribal region close to the Afghan border, in anger at the air strike. "Our jihad (holy war) will continue and Inshallah (God willing), people will go to Afghanistan to oust American and British forces," Maulana Faqir Mohammad, a pro-Taliban cleric, told the crowd of turbaned tribals, many carrying Kalashnikovs and wearing bandoliers, and a few shouldering rocket launchers. While the government claimed the madrasa school at Chenagai was being used to train militants, protesters said the dead, mostly young men aged between 15 and 25, were merely students. NATO warplanes killed 12 insurgents in southern Afghanistan after spotting a group of rebels. The strike occurred in the southern province of Kandahar on Monday (October 30)
ISAF announced late on Monday its soldiers had killed 55 rebels in an intense battle in the neighbouring province of Zabul.HMM. THE PAKISTAN STORY CHANGES... Well, either ABC was wrong in their report this morning, or there's some major ass-covering going on here. Now the story is it was the Pakistani military that attacked the school this morning, not an American drone. The Pakistani military said today that it had destroyed a religious school used for training militants in the Bajur tribal area, which straddles the border with Afghanistan. The attack killed at least 80 people, the military said, describing them as militants. [...] Pakistani officials dismissed any suggestions that the United States was behind the attack. Tasnim Aslam, a spokesman for Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said at a news conference that the attack was not carried out under foreign pressure. Got that? We had nothing to do with it. Nothing. And even if we did, we'll deny it. Because Pakistan is a, you know, sovereign nation and all. link Robert Fisk: MYSTERY OF ISRAEL'S SECRET URANIUM BOMB Did Israel use a secret new uranium-based weapon in southern Lebanon this summer in the 34-day assault that cost more than 1,300 Lebanese lives, most of them civilians? We know that the Israelis used American "bunker-buster" bombs on Hizbollah's Beirut headquarters. We know that they drenched southern Lebanon with cluster bombs in the last 72 hours of the war, leaving tens of thousands of bomblets which are still killing Lebanese civilians every week. And we now know - after it first categorically denied using such munitions - that the Israeli army also used phosphorous bombs, weapons which are supposed to be restricted under the third protocol of the Geneva Conventions, which neither Israel nor the United States have signed. But scientific evidence gathered from at least two bomb craters in Khiam and At-Tiri, the scene of fierce fighting between Hizbollah guerrillas and Israeli troops last July and August, suggests that uranium-based munitions may now also be included in Israel's weapons inventory - and were used against targets in Lebanon. According to Dr Chris Busby, the British Scientific Secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk, two soil samples thrown up by Israeli heavy or guided bombs showed "elevated radiation signatures". Both have been forwarded for further examination to the Harwell laboratory in Oxfordshire for mass spectrometry - used by the Ministry of Defence - which has confirmed the concentration of uranium isotopes in the samples. read in full... THREE BILLION YEARS FROM AMOEBAS TO HOMELAND SECURITY
"The Department of Homeland Security would like to remind passengers that you may not take any liquids onto the plane. This includes ice cream, as the ice cream will melt and turn into a liquid."This was actually heard by one of my readers at the Atlanta Airport recently; he laughed out loud. He informs me that he didn't know what was more bizarre, that such an announcement was made or that he was the only person that he could see who reacted to its absurdity.[14] This is the way it is with societies of people. Like with the proverbial frog who submits to being boiled to death in a pot of water if the water is heated very gradually, people submit to one heightened absurdity and indignation after another if they're subjected to them at a gradual enough rate. That's one of the most common threads one finds in the personal stories of Germans living in the Third Reich. This airport story is actually an example of an absurdity within an absurdity. Since the "bomb made from liquids and gels" story was foisted upon the public, several chemists and other experts have pointed out the technical near-impossibility of manufacturing such a bomb in a moving airplane, if for no other reason than the necessity of spending at least an hour or two in the airplane bathroom. read in full... PRESS FREEDOM AROUND THE WORLD In October 2006, Reporters Sans Frontiers (Reporters Without Borders or RSF) published their 2006 worldwide press freedom index. (…) there were a few surprising findings:
- The U.S. slipped down to just 53rd. In 2005, they ranked 44th, and in 2004, they ranked 22nd which were not good, anyway; - France also slipped (to 35th), from 30th, in the previous year; - U.K. ranked just 27th, down from 24th the previous year, and behind Benin, a small nation in Africa which the United Nations classifies as being one of the poorest nations in the world, Jamaica, and Namibia, other very poor countries; - Italy and Spain ranked just 40th and 41st, respectively (they were both only 42nd and 40th, respectively in 2005, and joint 39th the year before). - Japan slipped to as low as 51st1 Finland 0,50 — Iceland 0,50 — Ireland 0,50 — Netherlands 0,50 5 Czech Republic 0,75 6 Estonia 2,00 — Norway 2,00 8 Slovakia 2,50 — Switzerland 2,50 10 Portugal 3,00 — Hungary 3,00 — Latvia 3,00 — Slovenia 3,00 14 (…) Canada 4,50 19 (…) Germany 5,50 27 (…) United Kingdom 6,50 35 (…) Australia 9,00 — France 9,00 50 Israel 12,00 51 Japan 12,50 53 United States of America 13,00 119 United States of America (extra-territorial) 31,50 168 North Korea 109,00 read in full… QUOTE OF THE DAY: "I am now prime minister and overall commander of the armed forces, yet I cannot move a single company without coalition approval because of the U.N. mandate. If anyone is responsible for the poor security situation in Iraq, it is the coalition." -- Iraq Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki UN-QUOTE OF THE DAY: (No audible response.) -- transcript of the DoD News Briefing at the Pentagon, October 26, 2006 after Rumsfeld was asked "Are the people of Baghdad safer than they were six months ago?",
Monday, October 30, 2006
DAILY WAR NEWS FOR MONDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2006
PHOTO: An Iraqi man cries over his relative's body at Baghdad's al-Sadr hospital in Shiite enclave of Sadr City Monday, Oct. 30, 2006. A bomb tore through a collection of food stalls and kiosks Monday morning, killing at least 31 people and injuring more than 50 others. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim) (Karim Kadim - AP)
Security Incidents for October 30, 2006
Baghdad:
Also in Baghdad five Iraqis were killed and 18 wounded when mortar shells inside a parked car exploded, witnesses said Monday. Witnesses told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa that the explosion took place in a commercial street in the Baiyagh district of south-west Baghdad.
A car bomb exploded in Baghdad's Hurriya district, wounding two people, Interior Ministry said.
Baiji:
Basra:
Suwayra:
Mahmudiya:
Baqubah:
Police also found four unidentified bodies in Mafraq district bearing gunshot wounds.
Khalis:
Mosul:
Mortar rounds slammed an electricity power unit in eastern Mosul wounding five people, police said.
Kirkuk:
Al Anbar Prv:
Waleed:
NOTE: A BIG THANKS TO WHISKER FOR PUTTING TOGETHER THE SECURITY INCIDENTS IN IRAQ AND FORWARDING THEM TO ME.
REPORTS – Everyday Life in Iraq Today
AUDIO: Shi’ite Neighborhood Disrupted by Search for US Soldier Residents of Sadr City, a Shiite neighborhood in Baghdad, complain they are under siege. The U.S. military has installed roadblocks in the area as part of their search for a missing U.S. Soldier. [They said that Iraqi TV filmed Iraqis protesting the road blocks in this area, and I could clearly hear that they were chanting “Saddam” and some other things. – dancewater]
Twofold Operation Seals Sadr City
American military police backed by Iraqi troops maintained their cordon of Baghdad's Sadr City on Sunday, manning barricades and checkpoints in and around the Shiite slum in an operation to find a kidnapped U.S. soldier and to capture the man considered Iraq's most notorious death squad leader. The soldier, an Iraqi American translator whose name has not been released, has been missing for six days. He was abducted by armed men while making an unauthorized visit to see relatives in the Karrada neighborhood of central Baghdad last Monday. U.S. forces have effectively sealed off Sadr City and its 2.5 million residents from the rest of Baghdad, and within Sadr City, they have isolated the neighborhood around the home of alleged death squad leader Abu Deraa, according to an Iraqi Interior Ministry official who would not be named because he was not authorized to release the information. U.S. officials have refused to comment on whether they believe that Abu Deraa is holding the missing soldier, and it was unclear whether the two goals of the U.S. operation -- finding the soldier and capturing Abu Deraa -- are related.
Baghdad's Residents Protest US Siege
Hundreds of residents of Baghdad's Sadr City demonstrated on Sunday against what they branded the siege of their notorious district by US forces searching for a kidnapped comrade. American troops set up a cordon around Sadr City, a huge slum and a bastion of Shia militia fighters, after one of their number was abducted by gunmen in another city district on Monday night. Traffic into and out of the area has been delayed by searches and US forces have made two incursions into the flashpoint suburb, at one point clashing with militants and calling in an air strike that left four civilians dead. "No, no to America! No, no, to Israel! Yes, yes to Islam! Yes, yes to unity!" ran the chant as more than 2,000 flag-waving protesters marched through the area from the office of radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's movement. Sadr City is a stronghold of Sadr's Mahdi Army militia and, while no weapons were openly on display, black-uniformed cadres from its political wing the Office of the Martyr Sadr policed the march and searched participants. "The reason for this demonstration is to lift the siege on this city, this bleeding city, this city that was oppressed under Saddam and is now oppressed under the Americans," said Sheikh Rahim al-Alak, a Sadr supporter. "We demand that the siege be lifted immediately. If it's not lifted in the next few days, we'll declare a general strike. We'll shut down the ministries," he declared, complaining about the nightly roar of US jets and helicopters. Alak was dismissive of talk of the kidnapped US soldier. "This story is a lie and, if he was really kidnapped, it happened in Karrada, not here. We're a peaceful city," he said. A local cleric, Haider al-Saedi, complained: "For several days the city has been under siege because of the alleged kidnapping. We can't move around. When we want to get someone sick or injured to the hospital we can't get out." US commanders have said that they had intelligence information that the missing soldier was held in a Sadr City mosque, where they arrested three suspects earlier this week after a gunbattle left 10 activists dead. They have yet to find the captive-an American of Iraqi descent who left his base to see a secret Iraqi wife in the city-but say that the cordon around Sadr City may have contributed to a city-wide fall in violence.
Security Firms 'Abusing Iraqis'
Private security firms operating in Iraq are committing human rights abuses, a charity has claimed. A report by War on Want says no prosecutions have been brought despite hundreds of complaints of abuse. And the charity is calling on the government to introduce legislation to ban private security in war zones. Lt Col Tim Spicer, whose Aegis security firm operates in Iraq, said they worked under "very strict rules" and could be prosecuted if they did anything wrong. War on Want claims UK ministers are increasingly using private security firms with a total of 48,000 employees in Iraq - six to every British soldier. John Hilary, the group's campaigns and policy director, said the Iraq war "has allowed British mercenaries to reap huge profits". "But the government has failed to enact laws to punish their human rights abuses, including firing on Iraqi civilians. "How can Tony Blair hope to restore peace and security in Iraq while allowing mercenary armies to operate completely outside the law? "We call on the government to introduce tough legislation as a matter of urgency to ban the use of mercenaries in these conflict situations." The report is published on the opening day of the first annual conference of the British Association of Private Security Companies in London. Earlier this year the US army launched an inquiry after a video posted on the internet showed an Aegis Defence Services contractor firing at civilian cars in Iraq. But it said no charges should follow and an investigation by Aegis found that the incident was within the rules on the use of force by civilian personnel. [Seems like the more accurate term would be "killing Iraqis" rather than "abusing Iraqis". - dancewater]
REPORTS – Iraqi Politicians and Power Brokers and Militias
Iraqi Government Accused of Protecting Death Squad Members
The Iraqi government must move quickly to prosecute all Ministry of Interior personnel responsible for "death squad" killings in Baghdad and elsewhere, the New-York based NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Saturday. "Evidence suggests that Iraqi security forces are involved in these horrific crimes, and thus far the government has not held them accountable," said Sarah Leah Whitson, director of HRW's Middle East division. "The Iraqi government must stop giving protection to security forces responsible for abduction, torture and murder." Sectarian violence between the majority Shi'ite Muslims and Sunni Muslims in Iraq has been steadily escalating since a revered Shi'ite shrine was bombed in the northern city of Samarra in February. Since then, local and international sources say thousands of ordinary Iraqis have been killed and the UN's refugee agency (UNHCR) says some 365,000 people have been forced to flee their homes. Brig. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, the Iraqi interior ministry's spokesman, said that the ministry and the Supreme Judicial Council have begun investigating all officers and employees suspected of collaborating in the ongoing sectarian violence. "Those who committed crimes will be punished 100 percent and the ministry will not hesitate to punish anyone for any wrongdoing he did," Khalaf told IRIN. Khalaf said that as part of the interior ministry's restructuring plan, which started in October, 3,000 policemen were fired on corruption or rights abuses charges. A total of 600 of the 3,000 personnel fired will face prosecution, according to Khalaf. Khalaf added that the Shi'ite-dominated ministry also sacked two officers in charge of commando units that have been accused by Sunnis of running death squads that kill Sunnis. On 15 October, Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shi'ite Muslim, pledged in a nationally televised address to crack down on militias. "The state and the militias cannot coexist. Arms can only be in the hands of the government and no one has the right to be above the law," al-Maliki said. However, analysts say that government rhetoric is not being matched by action. "He [al-Maliki] has issued repeated statements against illegal armed groups, but he is not able to take any concerted action against these militias because of their political weight in his government," said Emad al-Janabi, a Baghdad-based political sciences professor at the University of Mosul.
Iraqi Opposition Group Joins Conference
A delegation of Iraq lawmakers met with a newly formed group of Iraqi political activists in the Jordanian capital on Monday and agreed to hold a national reconciliation conference next month, a leader of the advocacy group said. The conference will take place on Nov. 15 in Baghdad under the auspices of the Iraqi prime minister, said Hassan al-Bazzaz, the secretary general of the Patriotic and National Forces Movement opposition group. The movement was formed by both Sunni and Shiite Muslims, and includes Iraqi politicians, former military officers, former leaders of Saddam's Baath party, intellectuals and tribal chiefs representing most of Iraq's ethnic and religious factions. Created in Amman in August, it is headed by prominent tribal leader Hamid al-Gaoud of Anbar province _ where many insurgents are based _ and aims at helping maintain Iraq's unity and ending the bloodshed. Its leader has denounced the U.S.-led occupation and called for the "liberation of Iraq." However, al-Gaoud also said in August the movement was willing to establish ties with the United States, Britain, Europe and Arab countries based on "mutual understanding and peaceful means." The group held two-day talks that ended Monday at Iraq's embassy in Jordan with a government delegation, which was headed by lawmaker Saleh al-Fayadh, said al-Bazzaz, a professor of political sciences at Baghdad's university. The reconciliation conference was initiated by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to discuss a 24-point plan to heal the nation's severe political wounds. Al-Bazzaz said his group, called Heqooq _or "rights"_ in Arabic, supported the prime minister's initiative and sensed that the Iraqi government had "true intentions of reconciliation."
REPORTS – US/UK in Iraq
President George W. Bush's national security adviser Stephen Hadley has arrived in Baghdad for talks with the Iraqi government, a U.S. embassy spokesman said on Monday. The spokesman gave no further details.
British to Evacuate Consulate in Basra
The British consulate in Basra will evacuate its heavily defended building in the next 24 hours over concerns for the safety of its staff. Despite a large British military presence at the headquarters in Basra Palace, a private security assessment has advised the consul general and her staff to leave the building after experiencing regular mortar attacks in the last two months. The move will be seen as a huge blow to progress in Iraq and has infuriated senior military commanders. They say it sends a message to the insurgents that they are winning the battle in pushing the British out of the southern Iraqi capital, where several British soldiers have died and dozens have been injured. The evacuation also comes halfway through Operation Sinbad, which has experienced some success in restoring control in Basra. The operation ends early next year but Basra will need massive investment by the Foreign Office and the Department for International Development to build on its successes. Without the British officials' presence the stability of the city's fragile economy and political infrastructure could unravel, paving the way for Iranian-influenced militias to take control. There are about 200 staff at the impressive consulate building - formerly one of Saddam's palaces - including a team of bodyguards and ex-Gurkha guards. There were 12 full-time staff, some hand-picked by Tony Blair. A handful have already left by helicopter and the rest are expected to go this week, some of them to Basra air station eight miles outside the city and the rest back to Britain. A skeleton staff will continue to man the building until it is deemed safe enough for the rest to return. A Foreign Office spokesman insisted last night that its officials were "not bailing out". "This is a temporary measure as a response to increased mortar attacks," the spokesman said. "Core staff will remain at Basra Palace and the consulate will continue to maintain a full range of activities."
Weapons to Iraqis Can’t Be Accounted For
Thousands of weapons the United States has provided Iraqi security forces cannot be accounted for and spare parts and repair manuals are unavailable for many others, a new report to Congress says. The report, prepared at the request of the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. John Warner, R-Va., also found that major challenges remain that put at risk the Defense Department's goal of strengthening Iraqi security forces by transferring all logistics operations to the defense ministry by the end of 2007. A spokesman for Warner said the senator read the report over the weekend in preparation for a meeting Tuesday with Stuart W. Bowen Jr., the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction. Warner, who requested the report in May, "believes it is essential that Congress and the American people continue to be kept informed by the inspector general on the equipping and logistical capabilities of the Iraqi army and security forces, since these represent an important component of overall readiness," said Warner spokesman John Ullyot. The inspector general's office released its report Sunday in a series of three audits finding that nearly one of every 25 weapons the military bought for Iraqi security forces is missing. Many others cannot be repaired because parts or technical manuals are lacking.
COMMENTARY
OPINION: They Must Go, and Soon
US policy in Iraq is not working and George W Bush should consider radical changes, according to a panel of advisors trying to find politically face-saving ways for Bush to slowly extract the United States from war. The panel of "wise men" includes James Baker, the old Texan Republican with a network that stretches all the way from the West Sahara to Azerbaijan. He represents, via the Carlyle Group, the most pragmatic, "commercial" exit options from this failed neo-con adventure. On the ground, the pace of events on the resistance and political fronts is ever accelerating. It all echoes events of 40 years ago. In late-July 1965 President Lyndon B Johnson consulted with advisors on the future of American forces in Vietnam. He was informed that the situation was worse than a year before. The South Vietnamese were failing to make progress and the North Vietnamese refused to negotiate on his terms. The idea of dispatching more troops depressed him. One advisor, Undersecretary of State George Ball, was against the idea of escalating the war. He told Johnson that: "There is no assurance that we can achieve our objectives by expanding US forces in South Vietnam." Ball believed that it was the last chance for the US to leave Vietnam. Johnson knew it was the right advice to follow, but he chose to stay the course. It took the US another 10 years to withdraw its soldiers from Vietnam. Three million Vietnamese were killed, 15 million were displaced, over one million persons had to flee the country, infrastructure was destroyed and 58,000 Americans killed, and far more injured.
The same is happening in occupied Iraq now.
With the carnage going on in Iraq, together with Bush, Blair, Maliki and their propaganda machine, IBC’s Sloboda is arguing methodology, when the scientific world in this field is unanimously supporting the Lancet study. Why has IBC decided to be so active to discredit this Lancet study that the scientific world unanimously supports? What does this have to do with counting the Iraqi deaths reported by the English language media? American historian and activist Howard Zinn titled his bio “You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train”. The Lancet study is a train bringing us 655,000 bodies of Iraqis slaughtered with our money and in our name by people we have elected to power. And that train is still running.
STOP FUNDING THE WAR: Progressive Democrats of America is committed to cutting off all funding for deployment of US troops in Iraq and for the removal of all funding for the occupation of Iraq. The PDA will be collecting 100,000 signatures over the upcoming weeks so Rep. McGovern may deliver them personally to House and Senate leaders shortly after the November 2006 election.
PEACE ACTION: Take the voters’ peace pledge. "I will not vote for or support any candidate for Congress or President who does not make a speedy end to the war in Iraq, and preventing any future war of aggression, a public position in his or her campaign.”
SUPPLEMENT TO POST FOR MONDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2006
Peak: U.S. military deaths in Iraq climbed to 100 on Monday, making October the deadliest month for American troops in a year as militias and al Qaeda stage fierce battles in Baghdad and elsewhere.
Violence had been blamed on the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, when attacks generally rise, and on increased patrols in tense areas. The Pentagon also said insurgents are stepping up attacks to influence U.S. elections in November, but a spokesman said he had not seen intelligence to confirm that.
The Salvador Option: Iraq's savage sectarian war is now regarded as a greater obstacle to any semblance of peace returning than the insurgency, and was the main reason for the Americans recently pouring 12,000 troops into the capital - an operation that, they now acknowledge, has failed.
Yet, ironically, the death squads are the result of US policy. At the beginning of last year, with no end to the Sunni insurgency in sight, the Pentagon was reported to have decided to train Shia and Kurdish fighters to carry out "irregular missions". The policy, exposed in the US media, was called the "Salvador Option" after the American-backed counter-insurgency in Latin America more than 20 years ago, which led to 70,000 deaths and countless instances of human rights abuse.
Some of the most persistent allegations of abuse have been made against the Wolf Brigade, many of whom were formerly in Saddam's Baathist forces. Their main US adviser until April last year was James Steele, who, in his own biography, states that he commanded the US military group in El Salvador during the height of the guerrilla war and was involved in counter-insurgency training.
Kidnapping: As if the atrocities committed by terrorists and sectarian death squads in Iraq weren't bad enough, kidnapping has become one of the country's most common forms of crime since the fall of Saddam Hussein. U.S. officials say that up to 40 people are kidnapped every day, a phenomenon highlighted last week when a U.S. soldier in Baghdad went missing, an apparent abduction victim. With ransoms ranging from a few thousand dollars to more than a million and with the police often unwilling or unable to even register such cases, officials say kidnapping has become an increasingly lucrative business. It helps the kidnappers that their criminal activity is often confused with the routine hostage taking by both sides in the Shi'ite-Sunni civil war. "Kidnapping for ransom is an industry," says Dan O'Shea, former coordinator of the U.S. embassy's Hostage Working Group. "It is governed by the profit motive, not religion or race or politics."
Iraqi Politics
Resignation threatened: Political tension deepened in Baghdad when Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi, the country's highest-ranking Sunni politician, threatened to resign if Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki did not act quickly to eradicate two feared Shiite militias.
Al-Maliki, a Shiite, depends heavily on the backing of the two Shiite political parties that run the militias and has resisted American pressure to eradicate the private armies — the Mahdi Army of radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and the Badr Brigade, the military wing of Iraq's biggest Shiite political bloc, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.
Shiite gunmen, especially those of the Mahdi Army, are deeply involved in the sectarian killings that have brutalized Baghdad and central Iraq for months.
Mandate extension: Iraq plans to ask the United Nations Security Council to extend the mandate governing the presence of U.S.-led forces in Iraq for another year, Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari said on Monday.
He said a continued foreign troop presence under the mandate, which expires on Dec. 31, remained "indispensable" for Iraq's security despite the government's desire to expedite the training of its own security forces.
Hadley trip: President George W. Bush's national security adviser Stephen Hadley took an unannounced trip to Baghdad for talks with leaders of the Iraqi government and U.S. military to assess the situation on the ground on Monday, as the American death toll climbed to 100 for October.
Hadley met with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki following strains between his Shi'ite-led government and U.S. officials over political and security steps intended to restore stability to Iraq and allow U.S. troops to withdraw.
Life In The Civil War
Dancing as an act of courage: The members of the national dance troupe of Iraq are performers without an audience. They rehearse daily, but hardly ever put on a show.
Yet each turn of the hip and dip at the waist in their choreographed pieces has become weighted with a dangerous new reality, even as they wait for the chaos around them to subside so they can perform again. In today’s Iraq, with conservative religious parties and radical militias exerting growing influence over every aspect of life, even dancing is an act of bravery.
“Society is overwhelmed by these religious ideologies,” said Tariq Ibrahim, a male dancer in the Baghdad troupe, the Iraqi National Folklore Group. “Now a woman on the street without a head scarf attracts attention. What about a woman onstage dancing?”
Together they are a band of 10 women and 15 men from varied religious backgrounds. Once they toured the world together. Today they are simply trying to survive, hoping one day to thrive again as a troupe. But the religiosity sweeping Iraq does not bode well for their future.
Politics Elsewhere
Blair troubles: Tony Blair faces a humiliating blow to his Iraq policy after the Tories threatened to withdraw their support in the first Commons vote on the issue since the invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003.
On Tuesday the Scottish Nationalist Party is to lead a debate on the crisis. MPs will vote on a motion calling for senior MPs to lead an inquiry into all aspects of the run-up to the war in Iraq and the handling of the conflict, including the aftermath and occupation.
Some 33 Labour MPs have already put their name to an identical motion tabled last November, and if they support it on Tuesday they will reduce Blair's 67-seat majority to a single vote at a stroke.
Lipstick, meet pig: Bush and Maliki…agreed to create a top-level committee to come up with recommendations for speeding up the training of Iraq's security forces, moving ahead on efforts to put Iraq in control of those forces, and making the Iraqi government responsible for the country's security. Maliki's spokesman, Ali Dabbagh, said the recommendations would include timelines.
The proposed commission, which is to include Iraqi government ministers, U.S. Army Gen. George W. Casey Jr. and U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, will be at least the second high-level U.S.-Iraqi commission established here since the summer of 2005 to try to speed up Iraq's takeover of security and the withdrawal of U.S. forces.
Since formation of the first panel, sectarian warfare between Sunnis and Shiites has exploded, taking Iraqi civilian casualties this summer to the highest level of the war and helping to push American combat deaths this month to their third-highest figure since U.S. troops entered Iraq in March 2003.
For the Bush administration, Saturday's accord gave hope of closing an embarrassing rift that broke open just as Bush was trying to show that his much-criticized Iraq policy was adapting to the increasing violence. Congressional elections, just 10 days away, are focused heavily on the unpopular 3 1/2 -year-old war.
Cole interview: TIME.com: The U.S. is demanding that Prime Minister al-Maliki tackle sectarian militias, but Prime Minister al-Maliki is pushing back against deadlines and castigating the U.S. for military operations against some of those militias. Are Washington and Maliki on a collision course?
Juan Cole: Maliki is protecting himself by being feisty, showing Iraqis that he is not taking orders from Washington. But he also has a serious policy dispute with the U.S., and a sense of betrayal. They promised him, last summer when they launched the major security offensive to retake Baghdad, that the U.S. would take care of Sunni guerrilla movement in Baghdad before moving against Mahdi Army [the Shi'ite militia of Moqtada al-Sadr, whose stronghold is in Baghdad]. That way, Maliki could to go to the Shi'ite elders in Baghdad and say, you are safe, you no longer need militias and they are a source of discord, so they must be disbanded. But the Americans failed to dislodge the Sunni insurgents, and then they go after the Mahdi army anyway — and that enrages Maliki because it weakens his government in such a way that it could fall.
So Maliki's outrage over attacks on the Mahdi Army are not a matter of principle; it's about the fact that the U.S. hasn't first done what it said it would do, which was to eliminate the threat of the Sunni insurgents in Baghdad. The reason Shi'ite communities believe they need militias is to protect them from the Sunni guerrillas, which they say the government and the U.S. are not doing. And Maliki can't go and tell them to get rid of their militias while they remain vulnerable to attack by Sunni guerrillas.
Flailing: As congressional Republicans peeled away from the president, the White House grew more isolated. Debate over a National Intelligence Estimate's conclusion that Iraq had become a "cause celebre" for Islamic extremists and several books critical of the administration's handling of the war kept interfering with the White House message.
Democrats, once deeply divided over the war, coalesced around the idea of a phased withdrawal and aired television ads on Iraq in most of the competitive races around the country. Republican candidates, on the other hand, started ignoring Karl Rove's advice to talk about the war. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) told an interviewer that "the challenge is to get Americans to focus on pocketbook issues, and not on the Iraq and terror issue."
Other conservatives grew more skeptical that there is anything the United States can now do to fix Iraq. "I don't know what the new course would be," said Richard N. Perle, former head of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board and an early supporter of the war. "The options are extremely limited now. The new course that's necessary is new Iraqi leadership."
The last full week of October underscored the fitful attempts by the White House to get on top of the situation. U.S. officials announced plans for benchmarks for Iraqis to assume more security duties, but Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said his government had not agreed to any deadlines. Bush called his second news conference in as many weeks to assure the American public that he is "not satisfied" with the way things are going, while still asserting that "absolutely, we're winning."
Military Response
Rumor: MARK SHIELDS: The highest ranking or certainly one of the highest ranking men in the United States military today has recommended that we remove all troops from Baghdad, all American troops from Baghdad.
JIM LEHRER: Who's this?
MARK SHIELDS: I cannot tell you.
Snip
JIM LEHRER: Move all of the troops?
MARK SHIELDS: All of the troops out of Baghdad, secure the road to the airport, secure the oil fields and the borders, and say that the pacification and the maintaining of order in Baghdad is the responsibility of the Iraqis. That is the recommendation of probably one of the most -- probably the most respected man in uniform today.
JIM LEHRER: You mean in uniform, serving on active duty today?
MARK SHIELDS: That's right.
JIM LEHRER: So who did he make this recommendation to?
MARK SHIELDS: He made it to the civilian leadership of the United States.
Sharing responsibility: Senior and mid-level officers — all of whom either fought in Iraq or were involved in operations there, and none of whom were willing to be identified by name — are beginning to assert privately that Abizaid and other top generals must inevitably share responsibility for the setbacks in Iraq. Many of those officers have lost men on the battlefield in Iraq and saw their requests for more troops go unheeded. Others worked in positions where they saw the planning for Iraq or the execution of the war go wrong. "Iraq will go down as the greatest military and strategic blunder since Vietnam," says a former officer who dealt with Iraq planning. "And no one has ever been held accountable — including senior military leaders."
In a culture that values accountability and leadership, the military has been slow to look inward on Iraq. The fact that no senior officer has admitted to any serious mistakes, or been reprimanded or sidelined for tactical, operational or strategic errors, is troubling to many officers. In contrast, they point to the example of Israel, which had barely withdrawn all its troops from southern Lebanon before it launched investigations into the conduct of the war against Hizballah.
There have been previous suggestions of military missteps. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice touched a nerve in April when she said the U.S. had made "thousands of tactical errors" in Iraq. But many officers dismissed her comments as coming from a civilian politician. Others have criticized the military leaders for failing to dispute the flawed war plan set in motion by the President and his top advisers. "Flaws in our civilians are one thing; the failure of the Pentagon's military leaders is quite another," former Marine Lt. Gen. Greg Newbold wrote in TIME last spring. "Those are men who know the hard consequences of war but, with few exceptions, acted timidly when their voices urgently needed to be heard."
The Incompetence Is Staggering
Lost weapons: The American military has not properly tracked hundreds of thousands of weapons intended for Iraqi security forces and has failed to provide spare parts, maintenance personnel or even repair manuals for most of the weapons given to the Iraqis, a federal report released Sunday has concluded.
… The American military did not even take the elementary step of recording the serial numbers of nearly half a million weapons provided to Iraqis, the inspector general found, making it impossible to track or identify any that might be in the wrong hands.
Exactly where untracked weapons could end up — and whether some have been used against American soldiers — were not examined in the report, although black-market arms dealers thrive on the streets of Baghdad, and official Iraq Army and police uniforms can easily be purchased as well, presumably because government shipments are intercepted or otherwise corrupted.
…The inspector general’s office, led by Stuart W. Bowen Jr., also a Republican, responded to Mr. Warner’s query about the Iraqi Army’s logistical capabilities with another report released at the same time, concluding that Iraqi security forces still depended heavily on the Americans for the operations that sustain a modern army: deliveries of fuel and ammunition, troop transport, health care and maintenance.
Mr. Bowen found that the American military was not able to say how many Iraqi logistics personnel it had trained — in this case because, the military told the inspector general, a computer network crash erased records. Those problems have occurred even though the United States has spent $133 million on the weapons program and $666 million on Iraqi logistics capabilities.
No support for vets: For America's veterans, plus the thousands of soldiers now returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, the investigation identified three points where cases often go wrong: the selection of a special representative called a veterans service officer, the review by a regional VA office and the filing of an appeal.
Among Knight Ridder's findings:
* Many of the VA-accredited experts who help veterans with their cases receive minimal training and are rarely tested to ensure their competence. These veterans service officers work for nonprofit organizations such as the American Legion, as well as states and counties, but their quality is uneven, and that often means the difference between a successful claim and a botched one.
* The VA's network of 57 regional offices produces wildly inconsistent results, which means that a veteran in St. Paul, Minn., for example, is likely to receive different treatment and more generous disability checks than one from Detroit.
* Veterans face lengthy delays if they appeal the VA's decisions. The average wait is nearly three years, and many veterans wait 10 years for a final ruling. In the past decade, several thousand veterans died before their cases were resolved, according to an analysis of VA data.
The New American Values
Official lies: A U.S. military propaganda program used in the Iraq war was legal under the rules for psychological operations, a Pentagon investigation has concluded.
A classified Defense Department inspector general's report said regulations were followed when the military paid to have favorable stories about coalition forces planted in Iraqi newspapers, according to the unclassified executive summary obtained Thursday by The Associated Press.
"Psychological operations are a central part of information operations and contribute to achieving the ... commander's objectives," the summary said. They are aimed at conveying "selected, truthful information to foreign audiences to influence their emotions ... reasoning, and ultimately, the behavior of governments" and other entities, it said.
It faulted only one contract, saying the military hadn't maintained required documentation.
Death of due process: In a jail cell at an immigration detention center in Arizona sits a man who is not charged with a crime, not suspected of a crime, not considered a danger to society.
But he has been in custody for five years.
His name is Ali Partovi. According to the Homeland Security Department, he is the last to be held of about 1,200 Arab and Muslim men swept up by authorities in the United States after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
There has been no full accounting of these individuals. Nor has a promised federal policy to protect against unrestricted sweeps been produced.
Human rights groups tried to track the detainees; members of Congress denounced the arrests. They all believed that those who had been arrested had been deported, released or processed through the criminal justice system.
Just this summer, it was reported that an Algerian man, Benemar "Ben" Benatta, was the last detainee, and his transfer to Canada had closed the book on the post-9/11 sweeps.
But The Associated Press has learned that at least one person — Partovi — is still being held. The Department of Homeland Security, which enforces immigration law, insists he really is the last one in custody.
Treaty violations: Washington's new anti-terrorism law could end up violating international treaties protecting detainees, with some provisions denying suspects the right to a fair trial, a key UN rights expert said today. Martin Scheinin, the United Nations' expert on protecting human rights in the fight against terrorism, said the Military Commissions Act signed into law earlier this month by US President George Bush contains provisions "incompatible" with US obligations to adhere to treaties on human rights and humanitarian law.
Life as a rendition star: The Marriott Son Antem was not the only luxury hotel in Palma frequented by CIA agents. The rendition crews also liked to stop off at the Gran Melia Victoria, a five-star hotel in the centre of the Majorcan capital. On one occasion, they ordered three bottles of fine Spanish wine, and five crystal glasses from Mallorcair, one of the plane's ground handling agents - refreshments for the flight home, all charged to the CIA's bill.
Agents displayed a similar taste for luxury in Milan where Italian prosecutors accuse the CIA of involvement in the seizure and rendering of Abu Omar, a radical Egyptian cleric, to Cairo in 2003. Italian investigators found the CIA agents spent nearly $150,000 (£80,000) on accommodation. Two spent nearly $18,000 during a three-week stay at Milan's Savoy hotel.
Suskind interview: SPIEGEL ONLINE: With all your access to high-level sources, have you come across anyone who still thinks it is a good idea for the US to torture people?
Suskind: No. Most of the folks involved say that we made mistakes at the start. The president wants to keep all options open because he never wants his hands tied in any fashion, as he says, because he doesn't know what's ahead. But those involved in the interrogation protocol, I think are more or less in concert in saying that, in our panic in the early days, we made some mistakes.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Because they could have gotten information through normal interrogations ...
Suskind: ... yes, and without paying this terrific price, namely: America's moral standing. We poured plenteous gasoline on the fires of jihadist recruitment.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: So the average interrogator at a Black Site understands more about the mistakes made than the president?
Suskind: The president understands more about the mistakes than he lets on. He knows what the most-skilled interrogators know too. He gets briefed, and he was deeply involved in this process from the beginning. The president loves to talk to operators.
The Idiots Who Lead Us
Bestest thing: STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me just ask one more question on this. Your own senators, I said Mike DeWine, thinks Rumsfeld has to go. Do you agree?
BOEHNER: I think Donald Rumsfeld is the best thing that’s happened to the Pentagon in 25 years. This Pentagon and our military needs a transformation and I think Donald Rumsfeld is the only man in America who knows where the bodies are buried at the Pentagon, has enough experience to help transform that institution. Let’s not take the problems in Iraq, the tough fight that we’re in there and blame it on anyone. We’re in a tough fight. Al Qaeda is doing everything they can to disrupt our efforts in Iraq, to disrupt the new government, creating more violence than anyone can imagine and defeating al Qaeda there is important, because if we were to pull out before we win, we will embolden every terrorist in every corner of the world and then instead of fighting them in Iraq, we’ll be fighting them on every street in America.
Pathetic: Think Progress has obtained this internal memorandum sent from Hughes to National Security Council Principals earlier this month entitled “Thinking ‘bigger.’”
A key section of this memo offers the Bush administration’s strategy for “Public Diplomacy to Counter Insurgency in Iraq.” Far from “thinking bigger,” the recommendations for defeating the insurgency are small-minded, unambitious, and disconnected from reality. Here are Hughes’ three ideas:
– Substantially expand…[the] “Micro scholarship” program…targeted at youth in key disadvantaged areas in Iraq, such as Sadr City or Anbar Governorate.”
– Create a fund to support media projects by Iraqis, such as documentaries, short films, animation, audio-visual productions and other material that would show Iraq’s reality to pan-Arab and pan-Islamic audiences.
– Revive book publishing in Iraq to fill the intellectual vacuum…and support…Iraq’s hard-pressed intellectuals.
See the full memo HERE.
Reality: Even if Democrats win control of Congress in elections next week, an immediate change of course in Iraq policy is unlikely, the party's chairman said on Sunday.
Countering Republican campaign charges that Democrats would "cut and run" from Iraq, chairman Howard Dean said the party did not believe there should be a sudden pullout of all U.S. troops.
"The president will still be in charge of foreign policy and the military ... I don't imagine we're going to be able to force the president to reverse his course," he told the CBS "Face the Nation" program.
"But we will put some pressure on him to have some benchmarks, some timetables and a real plan other than stay the course," he added.
Commentary
Dr. Sayyar Al Jamil: The numbers published by The Lancet are staggering, and should galvanize all of those who wish to see Iraq survive. To stand in silence is to ignore those who day and night are being killed like flies. A colleague of mine has written that the number of Iraqis killed in this savage war is now multiple times more than the number of Japanese killed at the end of World War II in the nuclear bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. The entire world sympathized with the Japanese, but today, few care about the fate of the Iraqis. Even if President George Bush doubts the credibility of the numbers, they didn't appear out of the void. The report was produced by a team that willingly risked their collective lives to go into neighborhoods across Iraq to question thousands of families.
I can say that many of those killed every day are never disclosed. The innocent Iraqi people falling like leaves from trees are human beings, not a herd of beasts! There is nothing but silence from the Arabs, and a total Islamic political and media blackout! Trapped under an oppressive occupation with sectarian parties, a weak government, murderous gangs and covert death squads, Iraqis have no one to turn to. I appeal to all people of conscience, whether in or out of the country, to stand up against what is happening to Iraqis.
Linda McQuaig: Much has changed in the way the mainstream media deal with the war in Iraq. Most commentators now acknowledge the war is a disaster and will hurt the Republicans badly in the upcoming U.S. midterm elections.
But one thing hasn't changed — the willingness to believe that the motives for war, however misguided, were basically honourable.
So the criticism centres instead on the Bush administration's inept handling of the war.
Canada's own Michael Ignatieff, the Liberal leadership front-runner, tries to slough off his former enthusiastic support for the war by now saying he hadn't "anticipated how incompetent the Americans would be."
But incompetence is a side issue. The real problem is, and always has been, that it is illegal — not to mention immoral — for a country to invade another country, in other words, to wage a war of aggression.
Noted war and administration critic George F. Will: A surreal and ultimately disgusting facet of the Iraq fiasco is the lag between when a fact becomes obvious and when the fiasco's architects acknowledge that fact. Iraq's civil war has been raging for more than a year; so has the Washington debate about whether it is what it is.
In a recent interview with Vice President Cheney, Time magazine asked, "If you had to take back any one thing you'd said about Iraq, what would it be?" Selecting from what one hopes is a very long list, Cheney replied: "I thought that the elections that we went through in '05 would have had a bigger impact on the level of violence than they have ... I thought we were over the hump in terms of violence. I think that was premature."
He thinks so? Clearly, and weirdly, he implies that the elections had some positive impact on the level of violence. Worse, in the full transcript of the interview posted online he said the big impact he expected from the elections "hasn't happened yet." "Yet"? Doggedness can be admirable, but this is clinical.
Frank Rich: In keeping with the political cynicism that gave birth to this war and has recklessly prolonged it, the only ones being kept in the dark about this inevitable denouement are our fighting men and women. They remain trapped, dying in accelerating numbers in a civil war that is now killing so many Iraqi civilians that Mr. Maliki this month ordered his health ministry to stop releasing any figures. Our troops are held hostage by the White House’s political imperatives as much as they are by the violence. Desperate to maintain the election-year P.R. ruse that an undefined “victory” is still within reach, Mr. Bush went so far at Wednesday’s press conference as to say that “absolutely, we’re winning” in Iraq. He explained his rationale to George Stephanopoulos last weekend, when he asserted that the number of casualties was the enemy’s definition of success or failure, not his. “I define success or failure as to whether or not the Iraqis will be able to defend themselves,” the president said, and “as to whether the unity government” is making the “difficult decisions necessary to unite the country.” Unfortunately, the war is a calamity by both of those definitions as well. The American command’s call for a mere 3,000 more Iraqi troops to help defend Baghdad has gone unanswered. As we’ve learned from Operation Together Forward, when Iraqis do stand up, violence goes up. And when American and British troops stand down, murderous sectarian militias, some of them allied with that “unity” government, fill the vacuum, taking over entire cities like Amara and Balad in broad daylight. As for those “difficult decisions” Mr. Bush regards as so essential, the Iraqi government’s policy is cut and run. Mr. Maliki is not cracking down on rampaging militias but running interference for their kingpin, Moktada al-Sadr. Mr. Maliki treats this radical anti-American Shiite cleric, his political ally, with far more deference than he shows the American president. The ultimate chutzpah is that Mr. Bush, the man who sold us Saddam’s imminent mushroom clouds and “Mission Accomplished,” is trivializing the chaos in Iraq as propaganda. The enemy’s “sophisticated” strategy, he said in last weekend’s radio address, is to distribute “images of violence” to television networks, Web sites and journalists to “demoralize our country.” This is a morally repugnant argument. The “images of violence” from Iraq are not fake — like, say, the fiction our government manufactured about the friendly-fire death of Pat Tillman or the upbeat news stories the Pentagon spends millions of dollars planting in Iraqi newspapers today. These images of violence are real. Americans really are dying at the fastest pace in at least a year, and Iraqis in the greatest numbers to date. To imply that this carnage is magnified by the news media, whether the American press or Al Jazeera, is to belittle the gravity of the escalated bloodshed and to duck accountability for the mismanagement of the war. Mr. Bush’s logic is reminiscent of Jeffrey Skilling’s obtuse view of his innocence in the Enron scandal, though at least Mr. Skilling has been held accountable for the wreckage of lives on his watch.
Joe Galloway: The president declared himself confident that Republicans would sweep to victory and maintain their stranglehold on both houses of a Congress that's done nothing but rubberstamp Bush's war policies and Republican efforts to enrich their fat-cat donors and themselves, of course.
If he's right and that's the result of the Nov. 7 elections, then the American people will finally have fulfilled H.L. Mencken's prophecy that we'd continue choosing the lowest common denominator until, in the end, we get precisely the government we deserve.
Meantime, Vice President Dick Cheney confirmed that some of the senior al-Qaeda terrorists in our custody have been subjected to "water-boarding," a torture that brings the victim within a hair of drowning and suffocation. Cheney declared that it was a "no-brainer." My thoughts exactly: Only people with no brains opt to torture a captive in violation of domestic and international law.
This unseemly circus and its clowns in Congress can't go away fast enough and with enough dishonor and disgrace to suit the circumstances. Their place in America's history is secure: They will go down as the worst administration and the worst Congress we've ever had. Period.
They deserve to lose both the House and the Senate on Nov. 7, and the White House in 2008. They bullied their way into a war that they thought would be a slam-dunk and then so bungled things that the only superpower left in the world has been humbled and hobbled in a world that they've made more dangerous for us.
Thanks, guys. You've done a heckuva job. We won't forget it.
Casualty Report
Lance Cpl. Jonathan B. Thornberry, 22, died Wednesday while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar province, Iraq, the Department of Defense said. He was assigned to Marine Forces Reserve's 3rd Battalion, 24th Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division, in Johnson City, Tenn.
Sunday, October 29, 2006
An Iraqi woman gestures as a policeman uses a metal detector to search a corpse during a funeral procession in the holy city of Najaf. American forces have fought off a botched insurgent ambush, killing at least 17 attackers, as US and Iraqi commanders sought a new joint strategy to end the violence in Iraq.(AFP/Qassem Zein)
Casualty reports
Marine Luke Zimmerman of Green Bay,Wisc. is reported killed, apparently on Friday. "The Department of Defense had not yet given public notification of Zimmerman's death Saturday afternoon. That announcement from the military normally takes a day or two after family is told of the death. But the news had spread among family and friends."
DoD Identifies Army Casualty. First Sgt. Ricky L. McGinnis, 42, of Hamilton, Ohio, died on Oct. 26, in Balad, Iraq, from injuries suffered that same day in Muqdadiyah, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device detonated near his dismounted patrol. McGinnis was assigned to the 1st Squadron, 9th Cavalry Regiment, 4th Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas.
Security Incidents
Baghdad:
#1: Interior Ministry sources said Baghdad police found 25 bodies, most tortured by death squads, in the past day.
#2: Gunmen fired at the convoy of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al Maliki, injuring one guard, in a southern suburb of the capital on Sunday. Al Maliki was not in the convoy at the time, as it travelled in Baghdad’s Rasheed district.
#3: A sports presenter at state television station Iraqiya was killed with her driver in Baghdad on Sunday, an official at the station and police said, in the second murder of a sports reporter in five months. The Iraqiya official said Naqsheen Hamad was a presenter on Iraqiya's sports division, al-Atyaf. She and her driver, Anas Qasim, went missing on the way to work on Sunday morning and police later said their bodies had been found in central Baghdad. Police said the bodies were among six found in different parts of the city on Sunday. (I'm not sure how this relates to the 25 bodies reported by the Interior Ministry. Reuters goes on to say that 85 journalists have been reported killed in Iraq since the invasion, but that this is an undercount and does not include translators and other assistants. -- C)
#4: Gunmen in a car attacked a police patrol, killing two policemen in central Baghdad, police said.
Diyala Province:
#1: Gunmen opened fire on a convoy of Iraqi Sunni pilgrims bound for the holy city of Mecca on Sunday, killing at least one person, while U.S. forces said they killed 17 insurgents preparing to ambush American troops. The pilgrims were about 15 miles from the city of Baqouba when gunmen showered their convoy with machine gunfire
Baqubah:
#1: In Baqouba, gunmen shot dead two policemen at a downtown intersection, said an officer, who asked not to named because of procedures to protect the identity of police. (This AP article by Sinan Salaheddin has more detail on other incidents as well.)
From Reuters Alertnet, the following three incidents:
#2: Gunmen killed three people and seriously wounded two, including a police major, in two different incidents on Saturday in Baquba, police said.
#3: Gunmen in a car attacked a police patrol, killing two policemen and a civilian in Baquba. One gunman was killed, said police Lieutenant Colonel Sattar Jabbar.
#4: A roadside bomb struck an Iraqi army patrol killing five soldiers in southern Baquba, police said.
Muqdadiya:
#1: Gunmen shot dead two civilians in Muqdadiya on Saturday, police said.
Kut:
#1: Gunmen shot dead a policeman near a checkpoint in Kut on Saturday, police said.
#2: Gunmen attacked the house of a former military Brigadier, Nasir al-Sadoun, killing his son and three of his relatives in Kut on Saturday, police said.
Al Shirqat:
#1: A roadside bomb struck a police patrol, killing one policeman in the town of al-Shirqat, police said.
Balad:
#1: U.S. military says air strikes near Balad killed 17 militants. "No American soldiers were hurt in the overnight battle near Balad, 80 km (50 miles) north of the capital, the U.S. military said in a statement which described air strikes on militants preparing two separate ambushes for ground forces on the move. Coalition aircraft thwarted two separate terrorist ambushes as ground forces moved toward their objective early Sunday morning near Balad," the U.S. military said in a statement, adding four rebels died in one attack and about 13 in the other.
Iraqi sources have a slightly different count, also not clear whether all the dead were combatants. U.S. helicopters struck the eastern side of Thuluiya, killing 11 people, including three brothers, and wounding six on Saturday evening, according to police and the Tikrit Joint Coordination Centre. Asked about the strike, the U.S. military referred reporters to a statement saying that U.S. forces and Iraqi police killed 17 suspected insurgents in an airstrike and subsequent ground clashes early on Sunday near Balad.
#2: Also from Alertnet Gunmen clashed with the Iraqi army on Saturday, killing three soldiers and wounding four in Tal al-Thahab village near Balad, police said.
Samarra:
#1: A car bomb exploded near a primary school, wounding eight in Samarra, police said.
Dinwaniyah:
#1: On Saturday night, gunmen shot dead a translator for U.S. forces outside a restaurant in Diwaniyah, 80 miles south of Baghdad, police said.
Kirkuk:
#1: A roadside bomb exploded near a police patrol, seriously wounding two people, including a policeman, in the centre of the northern oil city of Kirkuk, police said.
Hawija:
#1: Iraqi and U.S. forces encircled the town of Hawija, 165 miles north of Baghdad, and searched for armed men who had fired on patrols, said Brig. Sarhat Qadir of the police force in the nearby city of Kirkuk.
Thanks as always to Whisker for parsing the security news for us. -- C
Ramadi:
A family of six was killed during fighting in the Iraqi town of Ramadi yesterday as US forces battled to regain control of an area claimed by Al Qaeda-led insurgents. "Six members of one family were killed when US planes bombed their place, a nursery school they were using as a house in 17th of July Street in the centre of the city," said Dr Kamal Al Hadithi of Ramadi Hospital. (Juan Cole discusses this story from the Gulf News, and the gulf in perceptions between Arabs and Americans:
The implication is that we are serial family-killers. And, the US is relatively popular in the Gulf, so imagine what the other Arab newspapers think of us. As Bobby Burns once put it with a brogue, "O wad some power the giftie gie us/ to see oursels as ithers see us!/ It wad frae monie a blunder free us and foolish notion . . ." The US military said it had no record of launching the air strike. US forces have been fighting guerrillas in Ramadi and have been firing tank and mortar shells. They also point out that the guerrillas are firing RPGs, which could have it the house. Except that what happened to the family sounds to me like big firepower, of a sort I am not sure the guerrillas can muster.OTHER NEWS OF THE DAY Nouri al-Maliki is showing increasing resentment over U.S. control. Apparently, this guy is under the impression that he is the Prime Minister of an independent nation. Where did he get that idea?-- C Excerpt:
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - After a hastily arranged video conference with George W. Bush, Iraq’s prime minister said yesterday that the U.S. president promised to move swiftly to turn over full control of the Iraqi army to the Baghdad government. A close aide to Nouri al-Maliki said later the prime minister was intentionally playing on U.S. voter displeasure with the war to strengthen his hand with Washington. Hassan al-Suneid, a member of al-Maliki’s inner circle, said the video conference was sought because issues needed airing at a higher level than with U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad. Al-Suneid said the prime minister complained to Bush that Khalilzad, an Afghan-born Sunni Muslim, was treating the Shiite al-Maliki imperiously. "The U.S. ambassador is not" Paul "Bremer," the former U.S. administrator in Iraq. "He does not have a free rein to do what he likes. Khalilzad must not behave like Bremer but rather like an ambassador," al-Suneid quoted al-Maliki as saying. The remarks were the fourth time in a week that al-Maliki challenged the U.S. handling of the war. The ripostes flowed from an announcement by Khalilzad on Tuesday that al-Maliki had agreed to a U.S. plan to set timelines for progress in quelling violence in Iraq. Al-Maliki’s anger grew through the week until on Friday, al-Suneid said, the prime minister told Khalilzad: "I am a friend of the United States, but I am not America’s man in Iraq." After yesterday’s talks, White House spokesman Tony Snow said of al-Maliki: "He’s not America’s man in Iraq. The United States is there in a role to assist him. He’s the prime minister - he’s the leader of the Iraqi people." snip Snow said Bush told al-Maliki not to worry about U.S. politics "because we are with you and we are going to be with you." Al-Suneid, however, said al-Maliki was intentionally using the displeasure of U.S. voters over Bush’s handling of the war to strengthen his position.Read in Full Army is increasingly concerneda about snipers. (Note: The intro to this story seems odd -- presumably they already know when they're taking sniper fire. I'm not sure what the formal distinction is between "sniper fire" and "small arms fire," since I presume that the vast majority of Iraqis who attack U.S. forces with small arms do so from concealed locations. Whatever -- C) Excerpt:
By Paul Holmes BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The U.S. military has begun looking more closely at shooting attacks on troops in Iraq to establish whether they are carried out by snipers, according to a spokesman. The change reflects concern over an insurgent video-CD that appears to show a series of shooting attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces in Baghdad by a purported sniper brigade from the Sunni militant Islamic Army. The video, which Reuters has seen, was handed out in Sunni parts of western Baghdad last week as a "gift" to mark the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. It shows 28 separate attacks, several of them involving precision shots to the head. Narrated by a man described as the brigade "commander" and subtitled in English, it claims the marksmen use a training manual written by a retired U.S. Army Special Forces officer. "Ultimate Sniper", written in 1993 by Major John L. Plaster, is freely available through online bookstores. It was updated this year "for today's Global War on Terror", according to www.ultimatesniper.com, which calls it the bible of sniping. Spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Christopher Garver said the U.S. military was aware of the video. He said the military was taking unspecified steps to reduce the possible new threat and had begun to examine killings by small arms fire in greater detail. "We are being more specific in trying to hone in on sniper tactics," Garver said. U.S. casualty reports list three killings by sniper fire in Baghdad this year, all since July, and 24 by small arms fire, 10 of them in October. Read in Full IN-DEPTH REPORTING AND ANALYSIS NYT's Sabrina Tavernese chronicles the ruined lives of Baghdad's middle class. Excerpt:
By SABRINA TAVERNISE BAGHDAD, Oct. 28 — The things the women missed were almost too small to notice at first. Simple numbers and dates began to elude their memories. They were hugging their children less. Past pleasures, eating and listening to music, began to feel flat. They were shouting at their husbands like army commanders. Small as they seemed, these scraps of life were the effects of the war as discussed by four Iraqi women on a cloudy Saturday afternoon in a women’s center in Baghdad. Their stories began with a familiar theme: the shrinking lives of middle-class families in the capital. Social clubs have emptied out. Weddings have been sparsely attended. But as the circle has become smaller, and as they focus intensely on just staying alive, they said, even the basics are being stripped away. “All the elements of society have been dismantled,” said Fawsia Abdul al-Attiya, a sociologist and a professor at Baghdad University. “You are afraid because you are a woman, a man, a Sunni, a Shiite, a Kurd. “All these things start to change society.” In a room in the Amal Women’s Network that was strewn with remnants of a morning meeting — a half-eaten piece of cake, an orange peel, some crumpled tissues — the women talked about the changes forced on their lives by that fear. One of the women, a senior employee in an Iraqi ministry that is now run by religious Shiites, recalled recently walking through the gate of her office building with several colleagues, two wearing form-fitting dresses with bare heads and a third in a hijab, when security guards pulled the third woman aside. “They told her to tell her friends to be more cautious,” she said, leaning out of her high-backed chair. She asked that her name not be used because it would be recognized. She has received two threats on her life. Her own office was a measure of just how far relations between Iraqis have unraveled. She has worked with her colleagues for 21 years, but in the past year, strange new alliances and rivalries have emerged. In business trips abroad, lists of those permitted to go were compiled along sectarian lines. Shiites chose Shiites. Sunnis chose Sunnis. Basma al-Khateeb, a 47-year-old mother of three, shook her head sadly at the familiar tale. “We never dreamed it would be like this,” she said. Ms. Khateeb, who runs a program for youths at the center, said she missed the very simple pleasures that gave life its texture. “Walking. Riding a bicycle down the street. We gave up so many things we used to do,” she said. “Now we call them accessories.”Read in Full Antonio Castaneda describes the desperate effort to save the life of a Marine injured in Anbar. Excerpt:
SURGICAL, Iraq — The chaplain assigned to the medical camp was drafting a homily. The heart surgeon was using the quiet spell to edit a medical paper. The medics ate lunch. Twenty miles away, on the desert plain outside Fallujah, an insurgents bullet tore through the body of a young Marine. Less than a half-hour later, Camp Taqqadum Surgicals men and women watched a roaring helicopter land at their patch of sand-colored tents. And so began an urgent, hour-long effort to save the life of Lance Cpl. James W. Higgins, 22, of Thurmont, Md. For the 75 Navy doctors and medics here, it was in many ways just a normal case — one of the roughly 100 seriously wounded Marines and Iraqi soldiers and civilians they see each month from this section of the violent Anbar province. They stabilize the wounded, who then are taken to larger U.S. military hospitals. But when a 22-year-old man is fighting for his life, nothing is normal. I always go at it with the mindset that we can save this person, said Cmdr. Subrato Deb, 42, a heart surgeon from Alexandria, Va. — part of a team of roughly 15 doctors and medics who would work on the Marine over the next hour. The team knew Higginss injuries were bad. He was an urgent surgical, the most severe category. His heart had stopped while he was carried onto the helicopter. Medics pumped his chest as the chopper landed. The Marine would begin to suffer brain damage after just five minutes without oxygen. As the helicopter landed, medics rushed him by gurney into the hot and crowded surgical tent. The first step took only 60 seconds — a clamshell procedure that entailed cutting the Marines sternum and pulling open his rib cage. Inside, the surgeons found terrible damage. The bullet had pierced Higgins back, searing diagonally across his body before leaving the front of his chest. His diaphragm had been torn off. His liver was damaged, one lung had collapsed and his right chest cavity was full of blood. Worst of all, the bullet had clipped the right atrium of his heart in two places, letting blood build up around the heart. The surgeons had to do two things immediately and simultaneously — get the heart beating and stop the internal bleeding. Deb drained the blood around the heart, then raced to sew up the first hole. Then he noticed the second hole was much bigger — about the size of a dime. He asked a surprised medic for a urinary catheter. Instead of sewing the second hole, Deb used the catheter balloon to plug the wound. Then he used the catheter tube connected to a unit of blood to pump fresh blood into the Marines heart. Thats what really got him kind of responding, said Capt. H.R. Bohman of Oceanside, the senior surgeon at the facility, who — as Deb worked — was trying to stop internal bleeding. But the young Marines heart still was not beating. The job of massaging it back into a rhythm fell to the hands of Lt. Cmdr. Barbara Drobina, an emergency medical doctor who had never performed such a procedure before. It was a delicate task: taking the heart between her two hands and gently and firmly pressing. Am I doing it right? Am I doing it right? Drobina remembered asking Deb repeatedly. Then a monitor began showing a heart rate. Drobina could feel the rhythm in her fingers. Yeah, just keep doing what youre doing, said Deb, focusing on clamping the rest of the wounds. In the background, Navy chaplain Lt. Wilfredo Rodriguez, of New Brunswick, N.J., had pulled out his prayer book and was silently reading. Of his great mercy, may he forgive you your sins, release you from suffering and restore you to wholeness and strength, he mouthed. Then the chaplain stepped in to help. The surgeons already had stapled closed the hole in Higgins lung and wrapped his liver in gauze to stop the bleeding. They had clamped his aorta to send all available blood to his brain and heart, not his lower body. And they were pumping in blood, urgently, unit by unit — 18 in all. I figured I could pump blood and pray ... I said, Hey, looks like youve been holding that bag of blood for a long time. Can I chime in?'" said Rodriguez. He took the dark-red bag from a doctor who had been holding it and kept it high above his head. Five minutes passed — five minutes in which the Marines heart beat. Then it stopped again. She kept on massaging. But this time, it wasnt working. The heart would not beat again. The surgeons knew the end was near.Read in Full Let Freedom Reign Department: Baghdad Gays Fear for Their Lives. Homosexuals across the capital are being hunted down and murdered by Islamic militants and even the police. Excerpt:
By Basim al-Shara'a in Baghdad (ICR No. 199, 20-Oct-06) Faris Thamir carefully watches the street in his Al-Batawin neighbourhood, afraid the police or militia men might try to kill him. In Iraq, where religious radicals consider homosexuality a sin punishable by death, gays have good reason to worry about being “outed”. Thamir, 35, is wary of the extremist Islamic groups that prowl the streets of the capital - but neither does he trust the police who are supposedly there to protect him. Thamir and other gay men complain about frequent mistreatment by police, accusing them of blackmail, torture, sexual abuse and theft. "Policemen raped me several times at gunpoint and threatened to hand me over to extremist groups if I refuse," said Thamir. Concern about the involvement of policemen in criminal acts have also been raised by western officials and Sunni Arab leaders who say the Shia-controlled interior ministry has been infiltrated by Shia militias, like the Badr Brigades, who allegedly use their uniforms as cover to kidnap, torture and murder. Earlier this month, the head of 8th National Police Brigade, one of Baghdad's frontline police units, was detained on suspicion of involvement with sectarian death squads. Several thousand policemen have been dismissed and face prosecution for criminal acts. Thamir does not count on any official help anymore. After spending a month in prison - during which he said he was tortured and beaten - police continued to pursue him. So he hid at a friend’s house - and only dares to go out twice a month, disguised as a woman. For him, the Saddam era seems like a "golden" time because homosexuality was discreetly tolerated. "Now I am desperate because I expect either to be shot or beheaded at any moment," he said.Read in Full Iraqi tribunal may defy Karl Rover, delay sentencing of Saddam till after U.S. election. "Delaying the sentence, which was originally due for Nov. 5, could be a disappointment for U.S. President George W. Bush and his Republican Party. Polls suggest Republicans could lose control of Congress in elections on Nov. 7 and a guilty verdict against Saddam could be used by Bush and his allies as a vindication of their policy to overthrow him." Homecomings This seems to be the flavor of the day for U.S. newspapers -- C A Southern California Marine Corporal comes home, while an Army Sergeant on leave will soon return to Iraq. They've made it through great hardships, but they don't seem to know why. Excerpt:
By ANNIE BURRIS The Orange County Register War affects people in different ways. Marine Cpl. Luis Torres wants to forget his experiences on the front lines of Iraq, while Army Sgt. John Villanueva takes the heat and improvised explosive devices in stride. With violence increasing in Iraq, the two Anaheim residents returned home this month and discussed their experiences. Torres finished his tour in Iraq and wants to forget about the war. Army reservist Villanueva still has five more months to serve in Iraq, where he's a truck driver. After seeing 22 comrades die in Iraq, Luis Torres is just glad to be home. Marine Cpl. Luis Torres doesn't consider himself a hero – despite the fact that he volunteered to go to Iraq in place of a friend whose wife was pregnant. Not heroism, says the 21-year-old Torres: "I just saw it as my duty." Torres spent seven months in Iraq helping fortify Marine bases and positions west of Baghdad. Off base, Torres and his fellow Marines ate bags of dried food that they mixed with water, and with no toilets available they burned bags of waste. "There was nothing really civilized out there," he said. During a mission near Fallujah, a mortar exploded nearby, killing 22 fellow Marines. He said that he feels the lives of many Iraqis are improving, but that the insurgents have developed a new and desperate style of guerrilla warfare. "I feel more mature than kids my age because I've been through a lot more," he said. "I've lost friends and seen different aspects of life." Now that Torres is home, he sums up life in Orange County with one word: privilege. "You go from the worst ever and a month later you are looking at the beach, eating El Torito," Torres said. "It's a trip on your mind." Torres came home to Anaheim Hills two weeks ago. He attended Canyon High School before entering the Marines. "It was the greatest experience," Torres said of his reunion with family and friends. "I shed some tears. Watching everyone was such a relief." However, even back at home Torres said he can't forget. "Relax, relax, relax, you're back home," Torres said he told himself. "Nothing is going to hurt you. You are fine." Torres has 10 more months in the Marines that he hopes to spend at Camp Pendleton, unless tensions with North Korea send him across the Pacific Ocean. After the Marines, he hopes either to go to a police academy or become a history teacher. "Thank God I'm home," Torres said. Despite the IEDs and RPGs exploding around him, Army reservist John Villanueva stays positive. "There is a lot of joking around among the squad mates," said Sgt. Villanueva, 27. "But the driving separates the men from the boys." One of his primary jobs is to find "improvised explosive devices" and dodge the "rocket-propelled grenades" hidden along on the road. At the beginning of his tour – eight months ago – his convoys were rarely hit, but these days he said he expects an attack during most missions. "It's crazy," Villanueva said. "I don't know how they are going to fix it. There is more violence compared to when I first got here, especially in Baghdad." He said the increased violence doesn't scare him but makes him more aware: "Sometimes, you see two or three (IEDs) in one night and it is not fun. Of course, we laugh about it. When everyone is talking, it keeps you alert." On Oct. 19, he was given a two-week leave to visit family and friends in Anaheim. "It feels like a vacation," he said. "It doesn't feel like home because I know I am going to be going back."Read in Full Boston Globe's Thomas Farragher tells the story of two soldiers who survived an attack that killed their comrade Spec. Jeremy Regnier. The Globe introduces the story this way: "They were an Army of Three — fun-loving, young, courageous, afraid. And when the bomb went off outside Baghdad, killing New Hampshire's Jeremy Regnier, the survivors of the squad found their lives upended. What they suffer has a name — post-traumatic stress — but a label can't describe it. This is a story of a death and its descendants." Excerpt:
By Thomas Farragher, Globe Staff | October 29, 2006 First of four parts It was circled on his calendar, a day he'd looked forward to for months. But as Andy Wilson stood on the wind-swept airfield and the chartered plane glided out of a leaden Texas sky, he was anything but upbeat. An unsettling cocktail of emotions swirled inside. The balloons and marching bands, the confetti and welcome-home banners were not for him, though they could have been. Should have been. As a noncommissioned officer, Wilson had sworn to stick by the men he led in combat, no matter what. And to bring them all home. But after that night in Baghdad when the bomb went off and his friend and comrade slumped against his shoulder, Wilson's war was over. He left Iraq on leave in late 2004, his mind and spirit broken, and never returned. Doctor's orders. "It gnaws at me," he said. Three months later, as the troops he served with stepped off the plane at Fort Hood after a year at war, the emotional torque of it all bore down on him again. The grapevine had carried the whispers from the war zone: Wilson's lost it. Wilson's a coward. And when some of the returning officers refused his outstretched hand or grabbed it limply with looks of disappointment or disdain, he knew who the whisperers were. But for now, it didn't matter. As the troops lined up to return their weapons, their gas masks and the other gadgetry of warfare, Wilson searched the crowd for a single face. Dustin Jolly was the only other soldier who really knew what happened that night in October 2004 when Jeremy Regnier, the cocksure gunner from Littleton, N.H., died. Like Wilson, Jolly had felt the blast and seen the unspeakable injury -- and knew how easily that memory reel could unspool. But unlike Wilson, who sought help and went home, he had bottled up his demons and gone back out on patrol. And so as Jolly -- near the front of the line -- stepped into view, the reunion sequence was anything but certain. Wilson held his breath. "I saw him," Wilson said, "and once he gave me that dumb-ass Jolly look, I knew he was OK." The men hugged and smiled and shook hands. They made promises to drink beer and catch up. "It made me feel good," Wilson said. "It made me feel proud. It made me still feel loved, I guess." In the months to come, what the two men shared, the darkness and the love, would come to mean everything. The war after the war had begun.Read in Full Chicago Tribune's James Janega and Aamer Madhani discuss the difficulties of returning veterans more generally. Excerpt:
CHICAGO - It's been more than three years since Martin Binion navigated minefields and sniper fire as he made his way to Baghdad with a combat assault team in the opening days of the Iraq war. Now the former U.S. Army soldier is trying to make it through the Veterans Affairs system, and Binion, 33, is barely getting by. He has flirted with homelessness, been turned down for more than a dozen jobs, and is trying to be treated for post-traumatic stress disorder. More than five years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and two wars later, advocates fear too many young veterans share Binion's difficulty readjusting to life in America. Hoping to end the pervasive problems faced by earlier generations of veterans in accessing services, the veterans support group Amvets opened a national symposium in Chicago to address issues facing young veterans. The goal is to present Congress with a new set of policy priorities after the November elections. An online survey of 600 veterans unveiled by the group hinted at what those priorities would be. It found eight in 10 veterans felt more could be done to help troops leave the military and join the civilian workforce. Nearly four in 10 felt underemployed, and two-thirds had trouble accessing disability benefits in a veterans affairs system most agree is overwhelmed to the point that soldiers like Binion have fallen through the cracks. ''When you join the Army, they tell you that they got your back 'till the end,'' Binion said. ''From my experience, it's not been that way.'' Complaints about an underfunded and overburdened VA system are a perennial problem, but some veterans' advocates say a bad situation has been exacerbated by ongoing conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq that have inundated the system with a new and younger generation of veterans looking for help. Demands for health-care services by veterans have climbed by 34 percent since 2000, while a third of soldiers who returned from Iraq in the first two years of the war required mental health services within a year of ending their deployment, according to the New England Journal of Medicine. Meanwhile, veterans groups forecast a $1 billion shortfall in health-care funding for veterans in 2007, according to independent analysis by Amvets, Disabled American Veterans, Paralyzed Veterans of America and the Veterans of Foreign Wars.Read in Full QUOTE OF THE DAY We've emphasized this many times here, but in the United States, it's about as widely understood as tensor calculus. So I'm making this the QoD to make sure we don't forget it. -- C
Iraq's savage sectarian war is now regarded as a greater obstacle to any semblance of peace returning than the insurgency, and was the main reason for the Americans recently pouring 12,000 troops into the capital - an operation that, they now acknowledge, has failed. Yet, ironically, the death squads are the result of US policy. At the beginning of last year, with no end to the Sunni insurgency in sight, the Pentagon was reported to have decided to train Shia and Kurdish fighters to carry out "irregular missions". The policy, exposed in the US media, was called the "Salvador Option" after the American-backed counter-insurgency in Latin America more than 20 years ago, which led to 70,000 deaths and countless instances of human rights abuse.Kim Sengupta, writing for The Independent
Saturday, October 28, 2006
Site News: "Today In Iraq" is getting a makeover
Greetings :-),
Some time ago Matt asked on behalf of the editors for somebody with web coding skills to contact him with a view to fixing the various bugs in the code for this blog and give the place a general make over.
As I've a lot of experience in the field and for a while was a lecturer in the topic, I volunteered, and am now the site administrator.
I'm developing a new site structure for "Today in Iraq" and at this point the code is sufficiently bug free that I'm running it in parallel at this location:
I plan on running the parallel site for about a month. Thereafter I'll migrate the code to here and republish "Today In Iraq" so that it takes on its new structure and appearance. You should notice several improvements to the site:- It copes with a wider number of screen resolutions.
- Internet Explorer users will no longer have to resize their view port to see the entire page.
- The text should be more readable.
- The design is liquid and uses font size relative metrics. - What that particular piece of gobbledygook means is that people who use properly written browsers (such as Firefox, or Opera,) can adjust the text on their screen to a size that suits their eyesight and lighting conditions and their browser will automatically adjust what is on their screen to meet their requirements.
- Sight impaired users and blind users should also find the site much more usable (this is a particular passion of mine.)
- People who visit the site using PDAs and mobile 'phones should also find the site much more usable.
- The site is structured so that each posting has its own page.
- There is a listing of the most recent postings to the top of the screen.
- I also plan on adding a search facility to the blog using a google search box.
- The presentation of the information is also improved and the editors have available to them a wider range of ways of presenting it.
The aim is that the place should have the "look and feel" of a professional news site.
I'll be staying on as site admin after the "new look" is launched. Partly to provide on-going assistance to the editors, and partly to make sure that when blogger.com launch their new version 2.0 of blogspot that there's as little dispruption as possible to the readers and editors.
markfromireland
DAILY WAR NEWS FOR SATURDAY, October 28, 2006
Photo: U.S. soldiers from the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team stand guard at a checkpoint in Baghdad, October 27, 2006. (Thaier al-Sudani/Reuters)
Six Iraqis including three women and two children were killed in a U.S. air strike in Ramadi, a doctor at Ramadi hospital said. A police brigadier said five civilians were killed in the attack. There was no immediate comment from the U.S. military several hours after a request for information. Doctor Kamal al-Ani said the bodies of six members of a single family killed in the strike had been brought to Ramadi hospital, before being released to relatives for burial. Police Brigadier Hamid Hamad Shuka confirmed there was an airstrike in the south of the city at dawn. He said five civilians were killed in the strike.
Asked to clarify whether the US military was referring to the same incident as reported by Iraqi officials, a spokeswoman said there were no reports of airstrikes around dawn on Saturday. Asked about the report, the US military said that the troops came under attack several times on Friday and responded with tank fire and "precision munitions" - a phrase commonly associated with air-launched missiles. US forces killed "numerous insurgents", including some waiting in an ambush and gunmen firing at a US outpost, the military said. Residents reported clashes in the streets of Ramadi, and said U.S. troops were using loudspeakers to order people to stay in their homes. U.S. forces were also blocking entrances to the city. "Coalition forces also noted two unexplained explosions that were possible IED and rocket-propelled grenade misfires," it said, adding that it was not able to assess civilian casualties in the incident.Bring 'em on: One Marine assigned to Regimental Combat Team 5 died Friday from injuries sustained due to enemy action while operating in Al Anbar Province.
98 U.S. GIs killed in Iraq this monthOTHER SECURITY INCIDENTS Baghdad: One person was killed and 35 wounded when a rocket slammed into an outdoor market in Baghdad's southern neighborhood of Dora. A person was killed and nine were wounded when a bomb went off in a minibus in an eastern Baghdad district. A roadside bomb targeting security forces guarding an oil industry facility wounded two police officers in eastern Baghdad. A total of 12 bodies were recovered throughout Baghdad. Mortar shells killed three Iraqis and wounded five others south of Baghdad. It was not immediately known who fired the shells. (South of) The U.S. military said U.S. troops killed a suspected insurgent who was disguised as a woman and detained 10 more suspects in a raid south of Baghdad on Saturday. Nasiriya: A private security guard from Nepal was wounded when gunmen attacked an electricity power unit in Nasiriya, 375 km (235 miles) south of Baghdad. Kut: Gunmen killed a former member of the Baath Party in the town of Wihda, south of Kut, 170 km (105 miles) southeast of Baghdad. Numaniya: Police retrieved one body with signs of torture and bullet wounds from a river near the town of Numaniya, 120 km (72 miles) south of Baghdad. Suwayra: Police retrieved five bodies with signs of torture and bullet wounds from the Tigris River in the town of Suwaira, 40 km (25 miles) south of Baghdad. Shujeiriya: Iraqi and U.S. forces killed 15 gunmen near Kut. Iraqi and U.S. forces clashed with gunmen in a raid near Kut in southern Iraq on Saturday, Iraqi Major General Hussein Abdul Hadi said. Hadi said a joint U.S. and Iraqi force raided a target in the town of Shujeiriya, north of Kut, and detained eight suspects. Baqubah: Police say they found two bodies in the central district of Baqouba 35 miles northeast of Baghdad. A third body was pulled from a river earlier today. Udhaim: Gunmen have kidnapped 11 Iraqi soldiers travelling in a minibus at a fake checkpoint in a town north of Baghdad, a joint US and Iraqi policing centre said. The soldiers were wearing civilian clothes and were taken out of the bus at gunpoint after the gunmen found their military IDs. The abduction took place in Udhaim, some 50 kilometres north of Baquba Diyala Prv: Unknown militants opened fire at a bus carrying people returning from a funeral in Diyala. Four people were killed and five others were wounded, some of whom with serious injuries. Khalis: Four people were killed on Friday and five wounded when gunmen opened fire on their minibus in the village of Muradiya near the town of Khalis, 80 km (50 miles) north of Baghdad. The minibus was heading back from a funeral in Najaf. Mahdudiya: A roadside bomb exploded near an Iraqi police patrol, killing one policeman and wounding three others. Dujail: A car bomb exploded near a municipal building in Dujail, wounding five people including a policeman in the town, 90 km (55 miles) north of Baghdad. Kirkuk: Police found two bodies dumped near a road between Kirkuk and Hawija. The bodies had signs of torture and bullet wounds, a police source said. Hawija: Gunmen broke into the house of an Iraqi women's rights campaigner and shot her dead in front of her three children, police have said. Captain Imad Khudhir of the Kirkuk police said Saturday 38-year-old Halima Ahmed Hussein al-Juburi was killed late on Friday by 10 unidentified attackers who broke into her home in the northern town of Hawijah. Juburi was the head of the Human Rights organisation of Maternity and Childhood in Hawijah. One Iraqi soldier was killed and three wounded when they raided a house in Hawija, 70 km (43 miles) southwest of Kirkuk, and clashed with gunmen inside. Fallujah: At least two soldiers and one civilian were killed in clashes between Iraqi army and insurgents. Another three civilians were wounded. >> NEWS Iraq's Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki mended fences with his chief foreign ally, US President George W. Bush, after a fractious week of testy exchanges and diplomatic mis-steps. The embattled leader talked with Bush by video conference from Baghdad and afterwards reaffirmed the countries' joint vision of building stronger Iraqi security forces to fight for a stable, democratic administration. Statements issued in Washington and Baghdad announced the creation of a high-level working group to oversee security comprising Iraqi security ministers, the US military commander in Iraq and the US ambassador. This came after Maliki warned Washington's envoy to Iraq, ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, that "I consider myself a friend of the United States, but I'm not America's man in Iraq", according to a senior aide Saturday. >> REPORTS IRAQI LEAGUE DISCOVERS SIGNIFICANT DETAILS OF THE SITE OF AL-CHALABI DEATH SQUADS - MAPS Translation was kindly provided by Camren Cross, a professional Arabic>English translator: carmen@professionaltranslating.com _-------------------- Al-Hurriya district has been witnessing a series of horrendous crimes perpetrated by squads from Mashtal Awwad (Awwad's Orchard)-which was confiscated by Ahmad Chalabi after the war. This orchard consists of an old house, repaired just last year, with a giant swimming pool, dance and party hall, and, most importantly, iron cages!__One hundred and forty iron cages, large enough for only one person to sit still in, can be found within the area of the orchard. In addition, more than 70 brand new Land Cruisers without license plates were found along with cars used for death and kidnapping. The following makes were among them: six Opals, 9 BMWs, as well as an area where stolen cars were stored after their owners were killed. We turn your attention to the fact that corpses of entire families of There was a corpse of a man who had been crucified on the wall of the orchard on June 13, 2006. Today, he is nothing but a skeleton! If you would like to see for yourself, go and walk near the outer wall of the orchard (al-Mashtal Street) across from the Flour Factory (as on the accompanying maps). Because many of the corpses were found precisely at that wall, their numbers increase and decrease daily due to Chalabi's squads throwing the corpses in garbage heaps around Baghdad. read in full... >> COMMENTARY AND ANALYSIS Pepe Escobar: IT'S UP TO ANCIENT AND PROUD BAGHDAD TO SPOIL THE PARTY "Stay the course also means don't leave before the job is done. And that's ... we're going to get the job done in Iraq. And it's important that we do get the job done in Iraq." - George W Bush, October 11 Quagmire Iraq is not a 21st-century video game of Arabs playing extras in a slow-motion Armageddon. This is a wrenching story with rivers of real blood and a terrible accumulation of real corpses. The story was engineered in Washington - and the plot would not be advancing were it not for the United States. The US bears all the moral and legal responsibility for the destruction of the fabled former capital of the caliphate and the de facto Western flank of the Arab nation. It is in this context that the current avalanche of Iraq-related newspeak in the US should be placed. The recent bloody holy month of Ramadan in Iraq has reflected the hellish mechanism unleashed by the invasion and occupation - the daily, gruesome banquet of death provoked by state-sponsored terror, counterinsurgency, stoked by sectarian hatred or the total collapse of the social contract. This logic of extermination of a society and culture was inbuilt in the process since March 2003. In fact, the systematic annihilation of 2-3% of the entire Iraqi population, according to a study by The Lancet, not to mention the 1 million people displaced since March 2003, follow the more than 500,000 children who died during the 1990s as victims of United Nations sanctions. Iraq has been systematically destroyed for more than 15 years, non-stop. And it gets worse, because for the Bush administration all this death and destruction is just a minor detail in the "big picture". (...) Vast swaths of the US electorate have now understood how the whole Iraqi adventure has been built on lies: lies about the causes of war, lies about the methodology of war, lies about the terrible consequences of war. Inevitably, the current media-targeted avalanche of Iraq-related newspeak had to be also meaningless. This includes "phased withdrawal", "empowering" the Iraqi government, "putting security ahead of democracy" and "partitioning Iraq". Surrealism in international relations would reach new highs (or lows) with the US ordering by decree that a sovereign nation must dismember itself. Compared with it, the current carnage in Baghdad - which is already divided anyway - would be a Disney flick. There's more: the Shakespearean despair over "Redeploy and Contain" or "Stability First" - newspeak coined by Bush family consegliere James Baker's Iraq Study Group, staffed with plenty of pro-war neo-conservatives. A notorious casualty of the newspeak war seems to be "stay the course" - replaced, according to Press Secretary Tony Snow, by "a study in constant motion". Anyway, the winner - after the mid-term elections - will be "Stability First", which is basically a remix, with a horn section, of "stay the course". How can Americans - and world public opinion - be engaged in serious, meaningful debate when the Iraq tragedy is reduced to a mere catch phrase? This incoherent whirlwind, this "study in constant motion", is the travesty that passes for Iraqi policy debate among educated elites. Another reading is more ominous. It spells the Bush administration and its attached elites losing control - of everything. And that's how they can become even more dangerous. On October 19, Vice President Dick Cheney once again stated that the only way out in Iraq was "total victory". A recent historical parallel is nothing but gloomy. When the US was confronted with defeat in Vietnam, it did not "Redeploy and Contain": on the contrary, death and destruction were extended to Laos and Cambodia. Baker's "Stability First" might contain undisclosed subtexts. "Total victory", in Cheney's world view, means that the Bush administration was not, is not and will never be interested in Iraqi, or Middle Eastern, "democracy". What matters is control of the lightest, sweetest, most profitable crude oil on the planet, 112 billion barrels of it in proven reserves plus 220 billion barrels still to be exploited, at a cost as low as US$1 a barrel; a cluster of sprawling military bases; the largest embassy/fortress-by-the-Tigris in the world; and the indispensable client regime. In sum: a "Coalition of the Drilling" secured by the Pentagon's Long War apparatus. It's up to ancient and proud Baghdad to spoil the party. Baghdad survived and buried Hulagu. Baghdad survived and buried Tamerlan. Baghdad may as well survive and bury George W Bush. read in full... Manuel Valenzuela: INSIDE THE MINISTRY OF TRUTH What strategic defeats such as Vietnam and Iraq do is to plant doubt and uncertainty in the minds of Americans regarding the fictions taught and inculcated from cradle to grave. What wars that are not won and incompetent occupations accomplish is to irrigate the fields of slumbering minds with the enriching fluids of emancipation, if not throughout the population then certainly in the realities of tens of millions, enough for a movement to grow and a momentum to infiltrate into the collective conscious of the American people. Thus, the danger to the Establishment of the Iraq War disaster is that if it is allowed to fester and continue hemorrhaging, just as its momentum dictates that it will continue to do, the American mind may indeed sprout forth the reason and logic and cognitive thinking that has been appropriated for decades by the system, creating the necessary mind shock and thought tempest that might spring in the masses the enlightenment and renaissance that the elite are frightened to death of. (...) For the Iraq War will never be seen as illegal, immoral or as the catastrophe it has become; it will never be seen as a failure created by the Establishment itself, which of course it is. Erased from American reality will be the role the elite and its media whores had in cooking up and serving on a hot plate a war of choice that was always fated to end in disaster. The decision made by America's Establishment will never be given the aura of predestined failure, which it was, but instead will be marketed as a triumphant struggle made all the more difficult by the arrogance and incompetence of a few bad apples that deviated away from the steadfast leadership of the elite. It will be said that the war became what is has turned into not for failure to learn or apply history's lessons but because it was badly managed by who else but by a few bad and seemingly notorious apples who failed to listen to the sage advice of who else but the Establishment. As with any Hollywood production, fall guys and patsies must be and will be sacrificed, and this narrative will offer no divergent plots from any previous incarnation. The Iraqi resistance, or mujahadeen, will never be given the credit objective history will invariably give them, nor the respect earned on the field of battle. They will never receive commendation for outthinking, out-planning, outsmarting and outmaneuvering the occupying forces and its leadership. The American people will never know Iraqi freedom fighters outstrategized the occupying military, though America's future military leaders certainly will, for they will be made to study the tactics, thought processes and strategies of the resistance, only clandestinely acknowledging respect to the mujahadeen by absorbing the lessons it taught America in Iraq. Inside the Ministry of Truth, hard at work implementing the American narrative, Iraq's freedom fighters will have their triumph erased from American memory, their success never given light, its curtain of reality never lifted for the masses to see. Instead, peasants, sons and fathers, the meat of the Iraqi resistance, at one time average people like you and me, most fighting for their nation, their resources, their honor and their way of life, dong what millions of Americans would do if it was invaded and occupied, will always be known inside America as Al-Qaeda, as the terrorists we had to fight over there so we would not have to fight them over here. Of course to the rest of the world the truth will always be known, the resistance will always be acknowledged, its victory will always be real. In America, however, resistance and freedom fighters will have never existed in the cities and towns of Iraq, for to the American narrative, good always triumphs over evil and, since America has the exclusive monopoly over good, then certainly Iraqi resistance must be labeled as evil, though international law and opinion would beg to differ. read in full GEORGE LAKOFF SAYS "THANKS" TO BUSH Commenting on Dubya's recent "stay the course" PR fiasco, George Lakoff at the Rockridge Institute writes:
The Bush administration has finally been caught in its own language trap. "That is not a stay-the-course policy," Tony Snow, the White House press secretary, declared on Monday. The first rule of using negatives is that negating a frame activates the frame. If you tell someone not to think of an elephant, he'll think of an elephant. When Richard Nixon said, "I am not a crook" during Watergate, the nation thought of him as a crook.I attended the UC Berkeley event last night featuring Lakoff along with Markos of Daily Kos and others, and Lakoff said he was very grateful to Dubya for demonstrating his concept. link BAGHDAD: A DOCTOR'S STORY This video filmed by an Iraqi doctor is a must see. I am amazed that someone could actually film the terrible conditions inside one of Iraq's most dangerous hospitals, Al-Yarmouk Hospital in western Baghdad, in these troubled days. I was struggling to keep my tears from flowing because I was watching it with an American friend 2 days ago. But at one point, when an injured Shi'ite woman lying in an ambulance started screaming at the camera, "Bring Saddam back! It wasn't like this under his rule!" I lost control. This should be on every American tv channel. Go see it. read in full... PLEASE, GEORGE, GIVE US SOME GOOD NEWS Haven't seen much in the blogosphere about Bush's confab with his right wing media buddies, but I did pick this out of the transcript. I wish I knew who the questioner was. Anyone have an idea? (Looks like it might have been Kudlow.) (...)
Q: I want to go on the air - THE PRESIDENT: You want to say, 12 million people voted, or we killed Zarqawi. Q: I want to go on the air tonight, I want some good news. I need some good news, sir. THE PRESIDENT: Yes, I do, too. Q: I really do. THE PRESIDENT: You're talking to Noah about the flood. I do, too. Q: It's a hard thing. THE PRESIDENT: I appreciate that, but - go ahead. Q: You said if we leave Iraq they'll come after us - THE PRESIDENT: Yes. Q: - we've heard you say that quite specifically. So maybe that's a sign of victory, is that they haven't come here."Oh, please, George, give us some good news. Just a morsel. Just something to feed to the needy masses who are starving for a ray of hope. Pleeeze!" Jeez. Talk about pathetic grasping at straws. I mean, is that what Bush offers up as good news -- that we killed Zarqawi and that 12 million Iraqis voted? For cryin' out loud, when did those two events happen? Was it even this year? Seriously. That's what he's got? Is he kidding? link TRUTHS OF A LOST WAR (OR WHY BAGHDAD WILL KEEP BURNING) If someone could protect the polls and there were a plebiscite tomorrow, there seems little question what the majority of Iraqis would vote for: The withdrawal of American troops, the end of the occupation. And these are people who know that things could get a lot worse. Like Riverbend, they are there to witness or experience the present bloodbath. Like Riverbend, like most human beings, among their fondest wishes is surely not to die, nor to live without water or electricity, without easy access to fuel in one of the energy-richest lands on the planet; to be secure from car bombs, death squads, assassins, kidnappers, and criminals in a land that is losing its educators, its engineers, its doctors, its middle class, in a land where so much has been deconstructed, where women are being sent home, where ever more extreme theologies are gaining the upper hand, where militias rule the streets, killing grounds dot cities, bodies float in the rivers, and anarchy rules. That is how we have liberated and protected the Iraqi people thus far. In this case, if the history of the last few years is our guide, until we decide that we are at the heart of the problem and begin to draw back and out, things will only get exponentially worse in Iraq. Shoring up Maliki will make no difference. A coup is only likely to destabilize the situation further. Even the return of a Saddam-style Baathist strongman under our aegis would be unlikely to restore order. After all, along with doing more than our fair share of the killing -- only the other day, for instance, four firemen in Falluja mistaken for "insurgents" were gunned down by American troops -- we have also destroyed an intangible of every state that wants to establish some version of law and order: sovereignty. It's gone and, no matter what James Baker's Iraq Study Group or any other group in Washington may suggest, we are incapable of restoring it. Had the United States left Iraq in 2003, the country would certainly have been a mess and there would have been explosive tensions waiting to be relieved, but it's unlikely such a bloodbath as has already happened would have occurred. Time, as I wrote in October of that year, was never on our side. It was always going to get worse as long as American forces remained an occupying power in an alien land. If such things were possible for imperial powers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, they are no longer possible in our world. That is the simplest -- and most truthful -- analogy you can make between the otherwise disparate Iraqi and Vietnamese situations. It seems such an obvious conclusion today. It seemed obvious enough before the invasion of Iraq ever began. It is, after all, a large part of the history of the previous century. The longer we stayed, the worse it was always going to be. When we finally do leave -- one year, two years, five years from now -- it's likely to be even worse, possibly far worse than the "all-out civil war" predicted if we left tomorrow. Here, to my mind, is the deepest truth of the present situation, and the hardest for Americans to grasp: We are part of the problem, not part of the solution. read in full... WHAT'S WRONG WITH "CUT AND RUN"? Imagine this: You're tied to a stake and savages are about to light the logs under your feet. So, class, what do you do? Cut and run! How about this one? Evil-doers have tied you to the railroad tracks and the Teheran Express is bearing down on you. If you have any brains at all, whatcha gonna do? Cut and run! President George Bush has been accusing Democrats of having a reasonable, coherent Iraq policy: getting out alive. "Cut and run" for short. Of course, most Democrats have denied having a "clear-cut" program on Iraq, preferring, "setting a firm date for phased withdrawal." We don't know what that date is, but if it's anything later than Thursday, the policy is a fudge. Sorry, but "gnaw and wiggle" won't do. Cut and run gets the job done. Gets you the heck out of harm's way. When that runaway truck is careening down the jogging track, you don't 'Stay the Course.' Try it yourself: Cut and run can be fun! If pirates tie a boulder to your neck, what should you do, kids? Cut and run! Or, let's say you've got the wires to Dick Cheney's pacemaker in your hand. What should you do? (No, no, no! Be kind.) link IRAQ IS POST-TET You can always count on Thomas Friedman to figure a novel way to shore up support for the neo-con project in Iraq. At the start of this war of choice, Friedman made his position very clear. In his very own words, he was "all for a war for oil." Among other things, the man who started his career as an oil analyst for the New York Times predicted that the "cakewalk" in Mesopotamia would be followed by a decline in crude prices. Sulzberger's foreign policy "guru" was just slightly off the mark. Oil prices have tripled. In the interest of brevity, let's put aside Thomas Fraudulent's economic talents and focus instead on how economical he is with the truth on all matters Middle Eastern. But before we forget some of his many limitations, it's worth keeping in mind that this scribe writes for the same rag and the same publisher that gave Judith Miller a free pass to market the war by disseminating fabricated WMD intelligence. How likely is it that Friedman was not aware of Miller's scam? Is it possible that he had no clue about the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans -- the neo-con canard factory set up by Douglas Feith with the explicit purpose of corrupting WMD intelligence? Which brings us to Friedman's recent comparison of the current situation in Iraq to the 1968 Tet offensive. Tom, we're way post-Tet in Iraq. But it was a nice try, mister Fraudulent. A lot of analysts were surprised that the administration embraced this "Thomas Fraudulent" analysis from the New York Times. Because when the "V" word in Iraq goes from "Victory" to "Vietnam" -- America takes notice that something is not going according to the original plan. Isn't it a bit out of character for a President who can't be bothered to read a newspaper to take immediate notice and make extensive commentary on an article that uses the "V" word -- as in Vietnam? Is it not entirely possible that Friedman is putting on his Judith Miller hat and setting up the stage for yet another neo-con campaign to shore up domestic support for the war? Bush and Friedman have a simple plan -- extend the war and hope for some miraculous change of fortune. If things keep going down hill -- blame the outcome on the weak stomachs of an American public that wasn't up to the challenge of their generation. And while they're at it -- castigate the Iraqis for being ingrates who didn't appreciate all our efforts to "liberate" them. The new rationale for extending the war goes something like this: "The United States militarily defeated the Vietcong and North Vietnam's army in the 1968 Tet offensive -- but the American public lost heart and couldn't stomach the losses and we snatched defeat from the mouth of victory. If Johnson had "stayed the course," like the current lineup of formidable Vietnam-era draft dodgers in the White House, we could have won that war. Victory is still an option in Iraq. The American people have a choice -- Victory or Vietnam." read in full... BUSH'S SHIITE RELATIONSHIP ON THE ROCKS; WHO WILL BE HIS NEXT PARTNER? There's broad agreement Bush is threatening to topple the government he himself created in Baghdad, but the unanswered question is: What will his next creation look like? One immediate reaction to the recent threat is to welcome the boost this gives the opponents of the occupation generally. An editorial in the Egyptian opposition daily Al-Gomhuria says the latest developments are evidence not only of the failures on the military and security levels, but more importantly the failure of the effort in Baghdad to stigmatize all opponents of the occupation as terrorists. This is a great victory for the national resistance, the editorialist says it is also an incentive for the Iraqi population to continue "with all strength and defiance" on the road of resistance, taking care to prioritize national unity at the same time, "lest the occupation be forced out the door of nationalism, only to return by the window of factionalism." But from the other side, the follow-up question has to be: Bush will replace Maliki with what? The Al-Quds al-Arabi editorial today is titled "The days of the Maliki government are numbered" and it says Bush is looking for new interlocutors on the Iraqi scene, now that the honeymoon with the Shiites is over. The editorialist says the "political and possibly military coup" that will oust Maliki is just a matter of "time and timing", adding this could come faster than most people in and outside of Iraq think, because the "situation is has gone beyond what is tolerable for the US, not to mention the Iraqis". But the editorialist doesn't say much about who the new local allies will be, except to note recent intermittent reports about US meetings with armed Sunni resistance groups, leaving that puzzle really unanswered. A columnist in Al-Hayat today (link gone missing) poses an interesting and relevant question in a piece called "Why is the resistance in Iraq limited to the Sunni Triangle?" (Thursday October 26, on the opinion page). He notes that the traditional type of "national resistance" groups, focused on fighting the occupier, are pretty much limited to central Iraq, aka "the Sunni triangle". And he calls attention to what he says is the non-ideological nature of a lot of the Sunni resistance, which he links primarily with the disasterous decision to disband the Iraqi army at the same time that the general security situation was deteriorating, and families were struggling economically. What the Americans did was to create a whole class of people with their backs to the wall economically, and who possessed weapons, knew how to use them, had military training, and had ample reason to hate the occupation. While the Americans tarred all of these groups with the Baathist-Saddamist stigma, this writer cites one group that specifically denied it had any Saddam loyalties. If anything, the writer says, these groups had more Islamists than Saddamists. (With respect to the Shiite south, this writer says immediately after the American invasion, there were signs of Shiite resistance, but this suddenly went silent, and the Shiites under Sistani's leadership devoted themselves to the democratic process. The writer speculates: This could be partly an Iranian strategy to ward off real American pressure on their nuclear program. Putting the matter the other way, he says the fact the US is keeping the Iran-sanctions issue alive could be to make Iran think twice before unleashing Shiite resistance in Iraq.) read in full... >> BEYOND IRAQ THE LESSON OF GERMANY TO BE LEARNED AGAIN Americans always claimed it couldn't happen to them. That they had checks and balances that didn't permit dictatorship. They spoke arrogantly, using this as a way to feel superior to everyone else. Imagining themselves to be above all others because of their constitution. Yet, now, they find themselves in a de facto dictatorship. Shrub has some amazing new powers unheard of in civilized societies. Overturning laws 791 years old that grant people the right from arbitrary arrests. Using torture and hearsay as "evidence". And the American people sleep on. There is no mass demonstrations, there nor are there any complaints that have any meaning. The so called leaders of the free world are nothing more than a sham. Shrub was right in one thing. There is no going back. He has utterly destroyed any and all vestiges of morality that US once claimed. Even when he and his ilk are gone the US is finished as a world power. The entire world has seen the US for what it is - even if the American people refuse to see what is right in front of their eyes. I used to wonder about Nazi Germany and how that was permitted to happen. Now I don't wonder. We have all seen it right before our eyes. A corrupt government leading a population with dreams of Empirehood and the self- justification that comes from feelings of superiority. This is backed by a military who exist only to be self serving. So drunk on power and delusions of self grandeur that they think they can own it all. The lesson of empires is this. They come into being through an over inflated sense of self worth. They come into being through greed and lust of power. And they all fall. The reason they fall is corruption. The become ineffective as they are unable to adjust to the changes around them. There is no going back. America is finished. All that remains is to watch what I believe will be an ugly crash. Followed by a few decades of decline. Remember Americans, you did this to yourselves. Shrub is the natural extension of all that you are. If not him then some other Tyrant would have done it and the result would have been the same. You grew fat and lazy and uneducated as to what was really going on. As in all empires you didn't care because you're oh so superior. But you're not. It was all just a dream. And the nightmare is just beginning. America RIP read in full... QUOTE OF THE DAY: "The significant disadvantage we have in this war [is] the enemy gets to define victory by killing people" -- Bush in an interview eight columnists in the Oval Office, October 25 (See above "Please, George, Give Us Some Good News")
Friday, October 27, 2006
DAILY WAR NEWS FOR FRIDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2006
PHOTO:Residents look for survivors in a house hit in a US air strike early morning Friday Oct. 27, 2006, in Ramadi, 115 kilometers (70 miles) west of Baghdad. The airstrike that killed three and wounded 3 more followed a clash between US troops and gunmen, according to witnesses. (AP Photo) [Thanks, Bob, for pointing out this photo. - dancewater]
Security Incidents for October 27, 2006
Baghdad:
Najaf:
Baqubah:
Mussayab:
Mosul:
Fallujah:
Ramadi:
Also note photo above.
NOTE: A BIG THANKS TO WHISKER FOR PUTTING TOGETHER THE SECURITY INCIDENTS IN IRAQ AND FORWARDING THEM TO ME.
REPORTS - Everyday Life in Iraq Today
Tribute to Four Friends - A beautiful tribute to a loss that goes beyond all words andwill echo for generations.
FILM: BAGHDAD - A Doctor’s Story
A Shi’ite women calls for the return of Saddam.[This film brought me to tears several times.I don’t know how the Iraqi people will recover from this extensive violence.I think every American should be required to watch this film. - dancewater]
43 Dead in Baqouba Clashes as Baghdad Calm
The U.S. military said Friday that the fighting between Sunnis and Iraqi police near Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, killed one civilian and 24 police. U.S. troops later joined the fight, aiding in a counterattack in which 18 Sunni figters died, the military said."Anti-Iraqi forces" ambushed a police unit based in Baqouba at about 6:30 a.m. Thursday, the military said. According to the AP, eight "insurgents" were also injured and 27 others captured, the military said.Meanwhile, no shootings or bomb attacks were reported Friday in Baghdad, which saw violence, especially sectarian attacks, spike over Ramadan. Since Ramadan's end, killings in parts of Baghdad where security forces have established a firm presence have dropped by 10 percent to 20 percent, U.S. military spokesman Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell said Thursday.
In Balad, Age Old Ties Were ‘Destroyed in a Second’
At midweek, Shiite Interior Ministry commandos and their Shiite militia allies cruised the four-lane hardtop outside the besieged city of Balad, trying to stave off retaliation for a deadly four-day rampage in which they had all but emptied Balad of Sunnis. Sunni insurgents pouring in to take that revenge patrolled the same highway, driving battered white pickups and minivans, their guns stashed out of sight. Affecting casualness, more Sunni men gathered on rooftops or clustered on the reed-lined edge of the highway, keeping an eye on the Shiite forces and the few frightened civilians who dared to travel the highway past Balad. What brought this Tigris River city north of Baghdad to this state of siege was a series of events that have displayed in miniature the factors drawing the entire country into a sectarian bloodbath: Retaliatory violence between Sunnis and Shiites has soared to its highest level of the war, increasingly forcing moderates on both sides to look to armed extremists for protection. The Shiite-led government's security forces, trained by the United States, proved immediately incapable of dealing with the sectarian violence in Balad, or, in many cases, abetted it, residents and police said. More than 20,000 U.S. troops are based within 15 miles of Balad, but, uncertain how to respond, they hesitated, waiting for Iraqi government forces to step up, according to residents, police and U.S. military officials. And all that was left holding Balad, and Iraq, together -- the desire for peace and normality still held by the great majority of Iraqis, and the generations of intermarriage and neighborliness between ordinary Shiite and Sunni Muslims -- was ripping apart.
Curfew in Amarah Cripples Daily Life
Residents of Amarah, a half-million strong city in south-eastern Iraq, say they are being severely restricted by an indefinite daily 20-hour curfew. Imposed by the Iraqi government on Monday after clashes between militia fighters and the Iraqi army intensified, the curfew is crippling daily life."We cannot access medical facilities. My two children are sick with high fever and when I tried to take them to hospital, they [Iraqi Army] just forced me back into my house," said mother-of-three Hamidiya Bint al-Hussein, 32."If I go out, they might kill me and my children. And if I stay in my house, my sons will get worse and could even die. We cannot stand the constant fighting anymore, we are tired," al-Hussein said.
"They" came in more than ten cars, each car had four Armed men in it, they closed the street from both sides, they entered the house and abducted a young man, they put him in the trunk of a Car, I called 130 six times, continuously the phone rang without any answer.I was standing in the Roof with my AK-47 and just stared at them.This is the first time I witness such an event, and I felt so hopeless, there were too many of them.
Violence Making Exiles of Many Iraqis
Recently I got a disturbing e-mail from a friend in Baghdad who wrote as follows: "I'm leaving Iraq for good, leaving all my life behind, my memories and friends, leaving the way I'm used to living and heading for the unknown. Why am I leaving? You know better than many why." I do know why, and it raises troubling questions about what we Americans owe the Iraqi people. What is our moral responsibility as it becomes clear that our bungled occupation has sunk Iraq into chaos - and that the country is approaching all-out civil war? My friend, call him George, is an Iraqi Christian, a middle-age engineer who became a fixer for foreign journalists. He was my first Iraqi translator, and I was his first client. He called me "teach," but he taught me more than I taught him.George lived in Amariyah, a Sunni neighborhood from which Shiite families have been expelled. Most shops closed after three markets were bombed. George's wife stopped attending church after a series of attacks on Christians and was afraid to go out without veiling. George had to keep his work secret lest he be killed. But the final blow came when he returned home one evening and saw a wounded man lying on the sidewalk in a pool of blood and trying to wave down help. George - like everyone else - was too scared to stop, lest he be shot for helping the victim. As he hesitated, a white Volkswagen pulled up, and a gunman fired three more bullets into the man, then sped off. That was when George decided to take his wife and daughter and leave for Jordan. He has no idea whether any foreign country will take his family or how they'll survive.
REPORTS - Other Aspects of Life in Iraq
Stop the Looters Destroying History
THE cultural treasures of Iraq - the birthplace of writing, codified law, mathematics, medicine and astronomy - are being obliterated as looters take advantage of the country’s bloody chaos. Fourteen of the world’s leading archaeologists have written to the President and Prime Minister of the country, demanding immediate action to stem the vandalism after seeing photographs of sites left pockmarked by enormous craters. Among examples in the letter, seen yesterday by The Times, was a Babylonian sculpture of a lion dating from about 1700BC that lost its head because the terracotta shattered as looters tried to remove it. Another was the destruction of the Ana Minaret on the Euphrates about 190 miles (310km) west of Baghdad, revered for 1,000 years as a unique construction. It was blown up by Islamic extremists apparently for fear that it would be used as an American observation post. In 1986 the minaret, an 85ft (26m) stone structure dating from the 6th century, was threatened by the waters of the al-Qadisiya dam project. Saddam Hussein ordered his military to dismantle it and transport it in 18 sections to a new site on a plateau above the lake.
TV Comedy Turns Unconventional Weapon on Iraq's High and Mighty: Fake News
Iraqis weary of the tumult around them have been turning on the television to watch a wacky-looking man with a giant Afro wig and star-shaped glasses deliver the grim news of the day. In a recent episode, the host, Saad Khalifa, reported Iraq's Ministry of Water and Sewage had decided to change its name to the Ministry of Sewage - because it had given up on the water part. In another episode, he jubilantly declared "Rums bin Feld" had announced American troops were leaving the country on 1/1, in other words, on Jan. 1. His face crumpled when he realized he had made a mistake. The troops were not actually departing on any specific date, he clarified, but instead leaving one by one. At that rate, it would take more than 600 years for them to be gone.
Mariam, 16, relives the day her father in Baghdad sold her off as a domestic worker in one of the prosperous Gulf nations. Instead, she was forced into the sex trade."I was a virgin and didn't understand what sex was. I was told that they [the traffickers] were going to get good money for my first night with an old local man who paid for my virginity. He was aggressive and hit me all the time," Mariam, who refused to reveal her real name, told IRIN.Thousands of Iraqi women are being taken advantage of by unscrupulous sex worker traffickers seeking to exploit young girls' desperate socio-economic situation for profit, United Nations agencies have reported.In Mariam's case, she was taken to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and kept in a house with 20 young girls, all of them sex workers, she said.Before she left Iraq, she and her three sisters were being cared for by her father. Their mother was killed during the US-led invasion of the country in 2003.Mariam said her father couldn't cope with looking after the children on his own and wanted her to go abroad, particularly given the increasing insecurity and daily violence in Iraq.
Embedded reporters are fleeing the barracks in Iraq, leaving the burden of telling the story to the brave few un-embedded. But whereas Western reporters could once travel freely, they now rely on their Iraqi "fixers" to bring the reporting to them. Brooke tells the story of three of those fixers, pulled into journalism by a trick of fate.
All Eyes in Iraq Turn To The Ticking Time Bomb of Oil-Rich Kirkuk
THE tribal chiefs, in traditional robes and chequered headdresses, emerged from the dust stirred up by their convoy of utility trucks and walked towards the big white tent, gesturing welcomes to each other as they sat.Accompanied by about 500 clansmen and a gaggle of local journalists, the 35 Sunni sheiks - from Mosul, Tikrit, Samarra and Hawija - converged last week on Hindiya, on the scrappy western edges of Kirkuk, to swear their undying opposition to "conspiracies" to partition Iraq and to pledge allegiance to their president, Saddam Hussein.Under banners exalting the man now standing trial in Baghdad for war crimes and genocide, the gathering heard speeches from prominent northern Iraqi sheiks, Sunni Arab politicians and self-declared leaders of the Baath party calling for the former dictator's release."If the Iraqi government wants national reconciliation to succeed and for the violence to end, they have to quickly release the President and end the occupation," said Sheik Abdul Rahman Munshid, of the Obeidi tribe. "But most important of all," he added, "Kirkuk must never become part of Kurdistan. It is an Iraqi city, and we will take all routes to prevent the divisions of Iraq."The heated debate about federalism in Iraq is no better exemplified than in Kirkuk. Though it is largely free of the sectarian wars taking place in Baghdad and its surrounding area, observers say the ethnic faultlines running through the city, which lies atop Iraq's second-largest oilfield, make it a time bomb that could pit Kurd against Arab and draw in neighbours such as Iran and Turkey.
REPORTS - Iraqi Politicians and Power Brokers and Militias
VIDEO: Who Are We Fighting in Iraq?
Rival Militias Threaten Iraq’s South
The intensifying battle between Iraq's strongest Shiite militias _ the Mahdi Army and Badr Brigades _ threatens to destabilize Iraq's oil-rich south and compound chaos in the capital. The outcome also could decide whether Iraq stays whole or breaks up. The militias have become the largest security threat to a country already rocked by more than three years of attacks by Sunni Arab insurgents on U.S. and Iraqi forces and the Shiite population. Despite repeated vows to crush the militias, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has resisted U.S. pressure to move against the groups and their roaming deaths squads because he draws most of his support from the politicians who run them. The Mahdi Army and Badr Brigades have repeatedly clashed since the 2003 overthrow of Saddam Hussein, most recently in the southern city of Amarah. Mahdi militiamen briefly took control of the city this month and fought gunbattles with the Badr Brigades-dominated police that killed 31 and wounded dozens. "That was the worst time we had to go through in the city," said Abdul-Hussein Adnan, a 37-year-old teacher from Amarah. "Given the high number of casualties and the tribal nature of the city, I expect things to get worse. It's impossible in Amarah for someone to be killed and his killers not hunted down and killed in revenge."
REPORTS - US in Iraq
CENTAF RELEASES AIRPOWER SUMMARY FOR OCTOBER 27, 2006
U.S. to Review Process for Briefing Iraqi Leader
The way American officials inform the Iraqi government about raids by coalition forces will be reviewed, a spokesman for the US military command in Iraq said today, after the country's prime minister criticized an American-backed operation against a Shiite militia enclave. Cooperation between American and Iraqi forces can be a sensitive balancing act, and it has political overtones for the prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. Maliki complained on Wednesday that the Iraqi government should have been informed about the raid into a Shiite enclave in the Sadr City neighborhood of Baghdad, and should have a role in such operations.
Selling Satan: Iraqi War Dead and the Collateral Damage to America's Soul
History reveals: What a nation inflicts upon the world -- its own people will, sooner or later, inflict upon each other. There is no need to warily scan the horizon line for its arrival, because we're already living in the midst of the angst and emptiness we have wrought. Ergo, when dreams mean nothing -- when words and images are rendered meaningless -- our lives reflect these dismal states.
Eye On Iraq:Why the US Lost Baghdad Battle
The U.S. strategy for suppressing the militias of Baghdad has failed disastrously. The reasons are far-reaching.The price of adopting an unsuccessful confrontation policy with the militias of Baghdad has been very high for the United States. American troop casualties for October soared to very high levels. Political and strategic tensions and distrust between the U.S. government and the Iraqi government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki are worse than they have been in the half a year since Maliki took office. The militias are stronger and more credible than ever. And the Bush administration has been forced to make an urgent reassessment of its Iraq strategy when it never expected to have to do so at this time.Little time need be assigned to considering U.S. officials` demand for the Iraqi government to meet 'benchmarks' in taking over responsibility for controlling the militias and ending the widespread sectarian violence that is in reality a state of civil war in many regions of the country.For all previous U.S. official predictions and timetables for progress in Iraq have proven to be unfounded fantasies with no tangible connection to evolving political and security realities on the ground there. There is no indication that the latest projected 'timetables' will be any different.Nor does President George W. Bush`s widely reported comment at his news conference Wednesday that 'we are winning' in Iraq conform in any way to the widely reported realities on the ground there.The grim truth is -- as we have repeatedly noted in these columns since the metastasizing of the sectarian conflict in late February this year, the Iraqi government produced by the ambitious and convoluted political process imposed by Bush administration policymakers on Iraq is not an independent or viable national government in any significant sense of the word.
There still seems to be little understanding within the Pentagon and none whatsoever in the White House or among Republican congressmen as to why that policy has failed.
Labor Complaints Mount at US Fortress in Iraq
Several months before U.S. construction foreman John Owen would quit in disgust over what he said was blatant abuse of foreign laborers hired to build the sprawling new U.S. embassy in Baghdad, Rory Mayberry would witness similar events when he flew to Kuwait. The U.S. Army veteran had previously worked in Iraq for Halliburton and the private security company, Danubia. Mayberry snagged a 10,000-dollar a month job with MSDS consulting company, working as a medic.MSDS is a consulting company that assists U.S. State Department managers in Washington with procurement programming. Never before had the firm offered medical services or worked in Iraq, but First Kuwaiti - Owen's employer - hired MSDS on the recommendation of Jim Golden, the State Department contract official overseeing the embassy project. Within days, an agreement worth hundreds of thousands of dollars for medical care was signed.Like Owen, Mayberry immediately sensed things weren't right when he boarded a First Kuwaiti flight on Mar. 15 to Baghdad.At the airport in Kuwait City, Mayberry said, he saw a person behind a counter hand First Kuwaiti managers a passenger manifest, an envelope of money and a stack of boarding passes to Dubai. The managers then handed out the boarding passes to Mayberry and 50 or so new First Kuwaiti laborers, mostly Filipinos."Everyone was told to tell customs and security that they were flying to Dubai," Mayberry said in an interview. Once the group passed the guards, they went upstairs and waited by the McDonald's for First Kuwaiti staff to unlock a door - Gate 26 - that led to an unmarked, ageing white 52-seat jet."All the workers had their passports taken away by First Kuwaiti," Mayberry claimed, and while he knew the plane was bound for Baghdad, he's not so sure the others were aware of their destination. The Asian laborers began asking questions about why they were flying north and the jet wasn't flying east over the ocean, he said. "I think they thought they were going to work in Dubai."
YEAH, RIGHT:Rumsfeld Claims Terrorists Use Media To Manipulate American People
[Coming from the guy who set up a propaganda office in Iraq and paid Iraqi media to publish their propaganda, this is pretty funny….. or would be, if so many people weren’t getting hurt or killed. - dancewater]U.S. troops serving on the ground are doing amazing things, the secretary said."I never cease to be impressed. If I want to be inspired, I go visit the troops," Secretary Rumsfeld said. "And they are doing just a superb job for the country. They're proud of what they're doing. They're professional. They are highly skilled at what they do."
AND MEANWHILE: US Troops On Active Duty Call For Iraq Withdrawal
COMMENTARY
Arab Press Gloomy Over US / Iraq Plans
Newspapers in the Arab world doubt any good can come from any possible rethink of US policy in Iraq, following President Bush's speech expressing dissatisfaction with the situation in the country. Syrian and Qatari commentators believe that Mr Bush's refusal to set a timetable for troop withdrawal means there can be no end to the bloodshed. One Lebanese paper predicts America is close to admitting defeat, while there is also speculation that US troops may be withdrawn, leaving a destroyed Iraq "to an uncertain fate".
Syria: It is a feast soaked with Arab blood. In Iraq dozens die every day because of the US occupation and its policy of divide and rule. There is no hope of achieving an end to these tragic incidents or an end to the occupation, because President Bush insists on saying that the presence ofUS forces in Iraq is necessary to spread democracy, for the future of Iraq and to protect the US from terrorists.
Qatar: President Bush has caused the death of large numbers of Iraqis, more than those killed by the regime of Saddam Hussein. Nevertheless, the US president is still defending the invasion of Iraq claiming that this is driving Iraq towards a democratic regime, which will be a centre for enlightenment for the entire Arab region. This is completely untrue, if we take into consideration the sectarian and ethnic fighting we see in this Arab country.
Iraqis Were Better Off Under Saddam, Says Former Weapons Inspector
Former UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix on Wednesday described the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq as a "pure failure" that had left the country worse off than under the dictatorial rule of Saddam Hussein. In comments to Danish newspaper Politiken, he said the U.S. government had ended up in a situation in which neither staying nor leaving Iraq were good options. "Iraq is a pure failure," Blix was quoted as saying. "If the Americans pull out, there is a risk that they will leave a country in civil war. At the same time it doesn't seem that the US can help to stabilize the situation by staying there." War-related violence in Iraq has grown worse with dozens of civilians, government officials and police and security forces being killed every day. At least 83 American soldiers have been killed in October - the highest monthly toll this year. Blix said the situation would have been better if the war had not taken place. "Saddam would still have been sitting in office. OK, that is negative and it would not have been joyful for the Iraqi people. But what we have gotten is undoubtedly worse," he was quoted as saying. Blix led the UN inspectors that searched for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq before the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. He came under heavy fire from Washington when he urged U.S. President George W. Bush to allow the weapons inspectors and the IAEA to continue their work as a way to stave off a war. Ultimately a U.S.-led coalition invaded Iraq and no weapons of mass destruction were found.
It is Eid now, the three-day feast that Muslims celebrate after the end of Ramadan, and mercifully the level of violence in Baghdad seems to have moderated, at least somewhat. Eid is effectively equivalent to a western Christmas - when you meet someone on the street, even strangers, you typically say "Eidkum mubarak", "may your Eid be blessed" - similar to the "Happy Christmas" or "Happy Holidays" greetings in the west.Also like Christmas, Eid is a time for giving presents, for family and friends - children in particular. And so traditionally on the eve of Eid the markets and shopping districts are crowded with shoppers, looking for food, clothes and gifts. The eve of Eid this year was marred by a number of bombing attacks on markets, and several dozen people were killed, but since then things have calmed down. The streets are also quite quiet now, as many people are staying at home for the holiday period.The neighborhood where our bureau is located is particularly quiet now, because the US has cordoned off the entire area as they continue their search for the American soldier who was abducted here on Monday evening. We walked down to the end of the street today where a big Stryker armored vehicle is parked, the soldiers barely visible above the hatch openings (less of a target for snipers). They were friendly enough when we approached, and a couple came out to talk to us briefly, but they didn’t smile, and their eyes constantly scanned the road and the building roofs around them as they talked. Baghdad has become a scary city for them, every window could hold a gunman, every pile of garbage in the gutter could conceal a roadside bomb.
BEYOND IRAQ
In Syria, Iraq's Fate Silences Rights Activists
Horror at the bloodshed accompanying the U.S. effort to bring democracy to Iraq has accomplished what human rights activists, analysts and others say Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had been unable to do by himself: silence public demands for democratic reforms here.The idea of the government as a bulwark of stability and security has long been the watchword of Syrian bureaucrats and village elders. But since Iraq's descent into sectarian and ethnic war - and after Israel's war with Hezbollah in Lebanon, on the other side of Syria - even Syrian activists concede that the country's feeble rights movement is moribund.Advocates of democracy are equated now with supporters of America, even "traitors," said Maan Abdul Salam, a Damascus publisher who has coordinated conferences on women's rights and similar topics. "Now, talking about democracy and freedom has become very difficult and sensitive," Salam said. "The people are not believing these thoughts anymore. When the U.S. came to Iraq, it came in the name of democracy and freedom. But all we see are bodies, bodies, bodies."
STOP FUNDING THE WAR: Progressive Democrats of America is committed to cutting off all funding for deployment of US troops in Iraq and for the removal of all funding for the occupation of Iraq. The PDA will be collecting 100,000 signatures over the upcoming weeks so Rep. McGovern may deliver them personally to House and Senate leaders shortly after the November 2006 election.
PEACE ACTION: Take the voters’ peace pledge. "I will not vote for or support any candidate for Congress or President who does not make a speedy end to the war in Iraq, and preventing any future war of aggression, a public position in his or her campaign."
Thursday, October 26, 2006
WAR NEWS FOR THURSDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2006
"It's hard to conceive that it would take more forces to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq than it would take to conduct the war itself and to secure the surrender of Saddam’s security forces and his army. Hard to imagine." –Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, testifying before the House Budget Committee prior to the
Bring ‘em on: A
A journalist who used to work for the former state news agency INA was killed with his wife in the Amiriya district of Baghdad.
Bani Saad
There were reports of clashes between militants and the police in Bani Saad, 22 kilometres south of Baquba, and in Abu Saida, 25 kilometres east of Baquba.
Baquba
Reports indicate substantial turmoil in Baquba and it appears the situation is ongoing and fluid. There is overlap among the casualties reported in the entries below. -m
Gunmen ambushed an Iraqi police convoy in a town north of
Iraqi insurgents have killed eight police, security and medical sources said, in the latest in a series of deadly clashes between Sunni rebels and an embattled rapid reaction unit. "The police lost eight officers, including Colonel Abbas Tamimi, the police chief from Kham Bani Saad," interior ministry spokesman Brigadier General Abdel Karim Khalaf told AFP on Thursday. "Dozens of terrorists were killed in the raids." The fighting erupted in Diyala province, north of
At least eight Iraqi police officers have been killed in clashes with gunmen in the Iraqi town of
Six Iraqi policemen were killed and 10 others wounded in two synchronized attacks by unidentified militants around the city of
SCIRI and Badr forces have repeatedly clashed and a SCIRI leader was severely wounded along with two bodyguards in an attack Thursday morning in the southern city of Basra, said a police captain, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to fear of reprisals. He said a pair of unknown gunmen sped up to Sheik Dhiyaa al-Ibadi on a motorcycle and opened fire with assault rifles.
Diwaniya
Gunmen killed Iraqi soldier Hussein al-Khalidi outside his home in the Shi'ite city of
Gunmen attacked a police checkpoint in Diwaniya, wounding two officers.
Gunmen killed an Arab local official in front of his home in a town south of the ethnically mixed city of
Police found seven bodies, shot and bound, in different parts of
Tal Afar
A suicide bomber detonated his explosive-laden belt and injured two Iraqi soldiers.
Statistics: October's death toll ties the number of fatalities from October 2005. Only three other months have worse tolls: January 2005 (107), November 2004 (137) and April 2004 (135). When accidental deaths are discounted, 92
Oh, and let’s not forget: Three hundred Iraqi troops have also died in October.
Shrine closed: The Iraqi interior ministry has ordered the holiest shrine in Shiite Islam closed for several hours, the last day of the Eid al-Fitr holiday, amid fears of an imminent sectarian attack.
Authorities ordered pilgrims to stay away from mosques and shrines in the holy city of
Ghost troops: On paper,
But those figures, which have often been cited at Pentagon news conferences as an indicator of progress and a potential exit strategy for American troops, paint a distorted picture. When the deep-seated reluctance of many soldiers to serve outside their home regions, leaves of absence and AWOL rates are taken into account, only a portion of the Iraqi Army is readily available for duty in
The fact that the Ministry of Defense has sent only two of the six additional battalions that American commanders have requested for
Coup rumors: Iraqi army officers are reportedly planning to stage a military coup with
Cairo-based Iraqi and Arab sources said Monday several officers visited
One Iraqi source told United Press International that the Iraqi army officers' visit to the
The Liars Who Rule Us
Blah blah blah: The president talked repeatedly about "benchmarks" for progress in
That response left unclear how the benchmarks would be different from previous times when the
Getting one thing right: Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist says if Republican candidates want to succeed on Election Day, they should turn their focus away from the
Assclowns: On Sunday, President Bush told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos that his
Moments ago on Fox News, White House Press Secretary Tony Snow said “we went back and looked today and could only find eight times where he [Bush] ever used the phrase stay the course.
Apparently, the White House research team isn’t very good at “the Google.” ThinkProgress has documented 30 times that Bush has used the phrase to describe his policy in
The Popular Will
If the people lead will the leaders follow?: Politicians, top administration officials -- and editorial writers -- may be reluctant to do it, but a majority of Americans now embrace the concept of a speedy
Gutsy move: More than 100
"Staying in
"As a patriotic American proud to serve the nation in uniform, I respectfully urge my political leaders in Congress to support the prompt withdrawal of American military forces and bases from
Organize your town: For a week and a half, 81-year-old Hamer Lacey hauled his broken back and clipboard to a
His work over the summer put
Voters in several cities in
Organizers said they do not expect the results to turn
"There's a gap between what the public wants and what public officials want," said Steve Burns of the Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice. "They're not acting in our name. We hope, in time, we can bring them around."
Don’t Worry About The Money, Your Grandkids Are Getting The Tab
When you think corruption - think Halliburton: Overhead costs have consumed more than half the budget of some reconstruction projects in Iraq, according to a government estimate released yesterday, leaving far less money than expected to provide the oil, water and electricity needed to improve the lives of Iraqis.
The report provided the first official estimate that, in some cases, more money was being spent on housing and feeding employees, completing paperwork and providing security than on actual construction.
Those overhead costs have ranged from under 20 percent to as much as 55 percent of the budgets, according to the report, by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction. On similar projects in the
The highest proportion of overhead was incurred in oil-facility contracts won by KBR Inc., the Halliburton subsidiary formerly known as Kellogg Brown & Root, which has frequently been challenged by critics in Congress and elsewhere.
The actual costs for many projects could be even higher than the estimates, the report said, because the
The report said the prime reason was not the need to provide security, though those costs have clearly risen in the perilous environment, and are a burden that both contractors and American officials routinely blame for such increases.
Instead, the inspector general pointed to a simple bureaucratic flaw: the
Shameless: A report released yesterday by the inspector general's office overseeing Iraq spending found that at least 55 percent, or $163 million, of $296 million in total costs rung up by Halliburton unit KBR went to expenses such as back-office support, transportation and security. That percentage was significantly higher than it was on work by other firms in
The findings are the latest that call into question KBR's work under the deal, which required the company to rehabilitate oil facilities in southern
According to internal government documents released in March, auditors found that the company had repeatedly overcharged the government by, among other things, billing for work it didn't actually do and paying suppliers more than they were owed. Meanwhile, work schedules slid and company officials balked at requests for accurate cost estimates. At one point, officials threatened to terminate the deal. Instead, KBR -- which has received more money from the
Haditha
Rules of Engagement: On November 19, 2005, in Haditha, during Kilo Company's third tour of duty in
Commentary
Glenn Greenwald: Our highest government officials now talk openly and enthusiastically -- almost playfully -- about taking people and "dunking them in water" -- meaning strapping them to a board, wrapping their faces in cellophane, and causing them to feel as though they are drowning to death -- only to then sermonize about the need for serious leaders to spread our civilized and democratic values around the world. And finally, Bush followers accuse their political opponents of being allies of The Terrorists and working to defeat the U.S. in its War -- indeed, that has become one of their core "arguments" -- and then afterwards piously lament that "the Left" engages in such angry and mean-spirited political dialogue and that people "in the Heartland" (who are always on their side) so very much wish the tone of politics would improve. Most politicians are, to one degree or another, artificial, manipulative and hypocritical. One can argue that that's just the nature of what they do, particularly close to an election. But the mindset of the Bush movement is far beyond any of that. It is detached from reality in the most fundamental way, and the willingness to disregard and deny even the clearest of facts is literally without limits. It is difficult to overstate how urgent it is for our country that some serious limits be placed on what has been their unlimited and unchecked rule and how completely that need overrides all other considerations. I think there is a tendency for many political commentators (myself included) to think about political matters in a more partisan-driven way than is typical as this election approaches, but there is good reason for that. Try to imagine the damage that will be done if they can act at will, without any real limits, for another two years, knowing that they face no other election and no real obstacles. What would be a more important political objective than doing what one can to prevent that?
Recordonline Editorial: OK. We imagine that your heads are spinning as much as ours after the series of announcements from the White House in the past two days about the situation in
Pierre Tristam: President Bush, Karl Rove and other members of the administration, campaigning in the few places where Other Republicans would let them, have been talking up Osama's agenda by comparing it to Hitler's "Mein Kampf." The more fitting comparison is with "My So-Called Jihad." Have a listen: Here's how Osama responded when the journalist Peter Arnett asked him what kind of society he would create if he had his way in, say, Saudi Arabia: "We are confident, with the permission of God, praise and glory be upon him, that Muslims will be victorious in the Arabian Peninsula and that God's religion, praise and glory be to him, will prevail in this peninsula. It is a great pride and a big hope that the revelation unto Mohammad, peace be upon him, will be resorted to for ruling. When we used to follow Mohammad's revelation, peace be upon him, we were in great happiness and in great dignity, to God belongs the credit and the praise."
That's Saturday Night Live material, not the sort of thing an Islamic revolution can hang its sword on. Al-Qaida's theology is no less crude and overwhelmingly rejected by mainstream Islam's clerics -- beginning with al-Qaida's cult of violence and death. But the administration bought the delusion whole, giving Osama the disproportionate fight he wants with the Great Satan and elevating him to an enemy status he could never manage on his own. Give him enough rope, and Osama will lynch himself in Arab and Muslim eyes. Instead, the Bush doctrine gives him ammunition and caps off the calculated paranoia by shackling
Bob Geiger: In the wake of a press conference today that had George W. Bush babbling such inanities as "my view is the only way we lose in Iraq is if we leave before the job is done" and asserting that "Al Qaeda is on the run" despite the unknown whereabouts of the guy who attacked us on September 11 -- you know, that dude named bin Laden? -- Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) was quick to call Bush on his contrived, newly-discovered flexibility on
Joe Conason: Fear of a humiliating electoral defeat has now revealed the confusion and incoherence long hidden behind the bluster of Republican war rhetoric. As the White House and its Congressional allies face an angry
These shallow politicians have never known what they were doing in
Meanwhile, two weeks before Election Day, George W. Bush and his spokespersons have abandoned “stay the course” as their political slogan for Iraq policy. We were either supposed to believe they never uttered that obtuse phrase, which was recorded emerging from their mouths on many, many occasions—or at least that those three words never expressed what the President meant, anyway.
Hoffmania: Elizabeth Dole: "Democrats around the country are seeking to exploit the
Uh...YEAH.
We want to take this war out of the hands of the Republicans who have horribly botched our entire foreign policy. The
After another.
And in the process, we've multiplied terrorism severalfold. We've allowed the Taliban to return and prosper in a fed-up
Only your party avoided to get the guy who did it.
So yeah, Liz. It's
Harold Meyerson: As Iraq descends into a Hobbesian bloodbath, it's every man for himself within the Grand Old Party. In
If a Democrat offered Weldon's remedy for
Simon Jenkins: Over
Glenn Greenwald: For months, the standard neoconservative complaint has been that their Great War was failing because it wasn't being prosecuted with enough violence, enough force, enough troops, enough killing. If only we would step up and act like we want to win, things would be great there.
This seems a critically important issue to note. Escalation of this war -- not a draw-down of it -- will become the new strategy after the election. There are simply no other choices. What we are doing now simply isn't working, so much so that not even the White House bothers to deny that any more. At the same time, the President yesterday made expressly clear what has been obvious for some time -- we aren't leaving
Tom Engelhardt: The Vietnam analogy, never far from American consciousness, has been back in the press recently, but here's an apt
It's hard to avoid the thought that a similar attitude toward Iraqi lives and deaths is at work in our government and in the media. After all, the kinds of denatured discussions now taking place about Iraqi deaths would be inconceivable if American deaths were at stake. Just consider, for instance, that the recent discovery of scattered human remains ("some as large as arm or leg bones") overlooked at Ground Zero in New York City has raised a furor and demands that all construction at the site be halted while it is thoroughly searched. Try to put that sort of concern for the dead back into the Iraqi situation or into perfunctory, daily, inside-the-newspaper passages like:
"In addition, about 50 bodies were collected Sunday around
How, then, do you even begin to grasp such losses in a war of "liberation" launched by your own country? How do you even begin to imagine such levels of suffering, death, and destruction, or the increasingly chaotic and degraded conditions in which so many Iraqis now live and for which we are certainly responsible?
Glenn Greenwald: If the Republicans lose, efforts to assign blame amongst themselves are going to explode. Neocons, in particular, will be very vulnerable to the most vicious attacks, and that is only just and right. But the reality is that the Republican Party itself bears responsibility not just for the strategic disaster we have wrought in Iraq -- a disaster that will take years if not decades to recover from (and that's if it ends sometime soon) -- but also for the entire Bush debacle, the destruction of our country's credibility, and the grotesque distortion of its character. Anyone who supported this President, particularly in 2004 when it was glaringly evident what he was, is culpable. With very rare exception -- way too rare to matter -- it was "conservatives" and Republicans who embraced this President eagerly and enthusiastically and enabled his empowerment and the pursuit of these policies. The vicious civil war they will have amongst themselves might be enjoyable to watch and well-deserved, but it will also be deeply dishonest. Anyone (including in the pundit and political classes) who supported this presidency and the Bush movement -- regardless of which specific policies motivated that support -- are all to blame for what this administration has done to our country, and it's important not to allow these last-minute, ship-jumping conversions to obscure just how pervasive and widespread the culpability is.
Casualty Reports
1st Lt. Amos C. R. Bock, 24, of New Madrid, Mo., died on Oct. 23 in
The Department of Defense announced today the death of two soldiers who were supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom. They died Oct. 22 in
The Department of Defense announced today the death of two Marines who were supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Lance Cpl. Richard A. Buerstetta, 20, of
Lance Cpl. Tyler R. Overstreet, 22, of
Both Marines died Oct. 23 while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar province,
Seaman Charles O. Sare, 23, of
Spc. Nicholas K. Rogers, 27, of
Sgt. Willsun M. Mock, 23, of Harper,
Maj. David G. Taylor, 37, of
Staff Sgt. Ronald L. Paulsen, 53, of
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
WAR NEWS FOR WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2006
"We will stay the course until the job is done…and the temptation is to try to get the President or somebody to put a timetable on the definition of getting the job done. We're just going to stay the course." – George W. Bush, Press Conference, December, 2003
A roadside bomb targeting a police patrol wounded two policemen in the Christian neighbourhood of
Iraqi special forces backed by
The
Fourteen bodies were found dumped or pulled from the
Police in the al-Yarmouk district found four unidentified bodies of people who had been handcuffed, tortured and shot in the head.
Balad Ruz
Six people were killed when a roadside bomb destroyed their vehicle in Balad Ruz, about 40 miles northeast of
Baquba
A pickup truck driven by a suicide bomber was detonated Wednesday near a hospital north of Baquba Wednesday killing two policemen and injuring three civilians.
Sources at Baquba general hospital said two more Iraqis, including a policeman, were killed Wednesday morning in separate attacks in the district of Garf al-Malh in eastern Baquba.
Diwaniya
A grenade thrown at a house wounded four people in the southern city of
Gunmen wounded a policeman in Diwaniya.
Husayba
Two people were killed and two injured when a vehicle exploded on Tuesday in a marketplace in Husayba, a town on
Mahmudiya
The bodies of four people, bound and gagged, were found in the town of
Ramadi
Tal Afar
A bomb killed three Iraqi soldiers and wounded three others as they entered a house in the northern town of
Yusufiya
A mortar round killed a man and wounded three others in Yusufiya, 15 km south of
You and what army, Nouri?: Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Wednesday his government was determined to crack down on private militias blamed for the country's spiraling sectarian violence, warning he would "strike hard" against any group that challenges state authority.
Confrontation coming:
Sunni leaders and
…Speaking in the holy Shi'ite city of
Refugees times two: Palestinians living in Iraq have increasingly come under threat since the US-led occupation of the country began in 2003, according to a recent report by the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR.
The report said that Palestinians, who are predominantly Sunni Muslims, have become targets of Shi'ite death squads because of resentment towards them for their perceived support of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's government, which was also Sunni and which sympathised with their cause. This targeting has forced thousands of Palestinians to flee their homes, UNHCR says.
In the popular Palestinian neighbourhood of al-Baladiya in the capital,
Brits ready to bug out: The British military hoped to withdraw troops from
British officials had told
The official's comments offered the first hint
"It's about a year, give or take a few months," the official said.
Speaking Of Timetables
Ok, here’s the situation: The
First, they lean on al-Maliki: President George W. Bush's national security adviser said on Tuesday
With
They reverse policy from ‘stay the course’ to a timetable for withdrawal:
But in a sign of the challenges the Iraqi government faces in achieving Washington's "benchmarks", Prime Minister Nuri al- Maliki was the object of fresh anger after airstrikes and raids by U.S. and Iraqi troops killed five people in the Shi'ite stronghold of Sadr City in Baghdad overnight, witnesses said.
They claim the Iraqi puppets are on board: Iraqi leaders have assured the
Two weeks ahead of U.S. congressional elections that have put President George W. Bush's Republicans on the defensive over their Iraq strategy, the U.S. ambassador and military commander in Baghdad told voters directly via a rare televised joint news conference success was still possible, and on a "realistic timetable."
Insisting sectarian bloodshed had not caused
Then they release a list of stuff that makes good sound bites: Khalilzad variously described the steps as benchmarks and milestones rather than conditions and spoke of timelines rather than deadlines.
Following are the steps he outlined:
* Khalilzad said it was of "critical importance" to enact a new oil law to share the profits of
* Implementing a plan to deal with militias and death squads.
* Amending the constitution "to make all Iraqis understand that their children will be guaranteed democratic rights and equality"
* Reforming the De-Baathification Commission "to transform it into an accountability and reconciliation program".
* Setting a date for provincial elections.
* Increasing the credibility and capability of Iraqi forces. The
But as usual there’s no real plan for implementation: The plan was made public a day after White House press secretary Tony Snow said the U.S. was adjusting its Iraq strategy but would not issue any ultimatums.
The lack of any real political consensus even among Shiites, however, has made it extremely difficult for Iraqi leaders to keep deadlines; for example, they missed targeted dates on naming a government and in moving forward on constitutional amendments. Moreover, Tuesday's declarations lacked specifics on how to accomplish the goals.
The experts see it for the sham it is but the average American changes the channel: Disarm sectarian militias, quell insurgents and equitably distribute Iraq's oil: These are some items from the latest U.S. list of problems the Iraqi government needs to confront within 12 months to assure the United States that it is capable of running the country without American help.
…But
Of course, the Bushies deny their policy reversal is a reversal: In the firmest indication yet of a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, America's most senior general there and its top civilian official have drawn the outlines of a political and military plan that could see a substantial pullout of US troops within 12 to 18 months.
Yesterday's announcement looked like a strategy change carrying implications for British troops in
And sadly, someone always seems to be out of the loop: As the U.S. death toll in
"Just because we have taken some serious sacrifices this month and that the fighting has been remarkably violent, that doesn't make it any less necessary for us to be there and make sure we prevail," Bush adviser Dan Bartlett told CNN.
Then the main puppet gets off the story line:
The defiant al-Maliki also slammed the top
"I affirm that this government represents the will of the people and no one has the right to impose a timetable on it," al-Maliki said at a news conference.
U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said Tuesday that al-Maliki had agreed to the plan...
Fortunately there are some scapegoats in the wings:
The comments from ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and General George Casey were among the strongest
Woopsie
That pesky reality stuff sure has a way of intruding: This morning, coverage of
The TurkishPress notes that “the hall was plunged into darkness by one of
Political language…is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. –George Orwell, Politics and the English Language, 1946
Don’t change the policy, change the definitions: Words have never been a strong point for President Bush, who has even joked about his habit of mangling the English language.
But two weeks before elections likely to hinge on growing public frustration over
…Banished from Bush's vernacular is "stay the course," which was his mantra for conveying America's resolve in Iraq until Democrats seized on the phrase as a sign that he and his fellow Republicans were unresponsive to mounting U.S. casualties.
Bush and his team are also insisting on a distinction between "tactics," which he is willing to change, and "strategy," which he isn't.
And the White House is willing to talk only of "milestones" and "benchmarks" for getting Iraqis to shoulder more of the security burden -- never "deadlines" or "ultimatums," which imply penalties if they fail to do so.
Even the definition of victory has undergone a makeover, with Bush no longer focusing on the goal of transforming
Instead, with sectarian violence raging, he now speaks -- as he did at a
Image over substance: The American public wants a timeline for withdrawing
Unfortunately, this rhetoric is not accompanied by any change in strategy. The Iraqis have agreed to a 12-18 month “timeline” to control violence in
We’ve always been at war with Oceania: Much was made on Monday, in and out of the blogosphere, concerning top White House aide Dan Bartlett stating on TV this morning that President Bush really did not believe in "stay the course" in Iraq, but actually was quite flexible in his views. Bush himself had said on ABC on Sunday, "we've never been stay the course."
This surprised many observers, since the president had often used this phrase to describe our
I guess this means
Repeatedly since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of
As recently as August, during a speech in
But no more of that from the president, said White House press secretary Tony Snow.
More On The Timeline
This is novel - a timeline for withdrawal that requires more troops to implement: Two weeks before
How many projected withdrawals have we heard about now?: U.S. officials said Tuesday that Iraq's security forces won't be able to stand on their own for another 12 to 18 months, meaning substantial numbers of U.S. forces will likely remain in Iraq through next year.
If they’re waiting for proficient Iraqi units they’ll be waiting a while: While military commanders may not be discouraged, Republicans fighting to keep control of Congress are frustrated with the lack of progress in
In a letter released Tuesday, 33 House Republicans urged Bush to send into
While Republicans want more troops for political reasons, the people with their butts on the line say no thanks: Sixty five active duty service members are officially asking Congress to end the war in
No real changes planned before the elections: The U.S. military and political chiefs in
Significant policy or tactical shifts such as an influx of
So two weeks before a congressional election that is shaping up as a referendum on the war, the administration is repackaging rhetoric and ideas it has offered before. For example, Gen. George Casey, the top
When Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited
"Certainly at the end of this year, there should be a sizable gross reduction in the troops" and within the next couple of years "most of the coalition forces would go back home safely."
It’s all about the politics. And Jim Baker is a whore: Michael O'Hanlon, a foreign policy scholar at the Brookings Institution who is part of the Baker-Hamilton study group, deemed it unlikely that Baker would lend his support to a phased withdrawal such as some Democrats have advocated. "Baker's not a political novice," O'Hanlon said.
Still, he said, the
Here’s the real course change. Oh, and sorry about all the dead soldiers: American forces are negotiating an amnesty with Sunni insurgents in Iraq to try to defuse the nascent civil war and pave the way for disarmament of Shia militias, The Times has learnt.
The tactic marks a dramatic reversal of policy by the
The U-turn comes amid the bloodiest fighting for two years and growing domestic opposition to the war as Americans prepare to vote in crucial midterm elections.
And the split state alternative is still hanging in there too: Q: How would a split work, both in ethnic terms and geographically?
A: US military planners believe that to help quell sectarian violence,
However, the country is not as neatly divided along ethnic grounds as some strategists would like to believe. For example, the capital is already seeing forced relocation of ethnic groups such as Sunnis - who once lived peacefully next to their Shia neighbours east of the
And more than half of
Q: Why are these plans being considered now?
A: They are not new. As early as 2002, before the invasion, the
Then again, maybe the problem will just go away by itself: The number of Iraqis applying for asylum in the 25 European Union countries rose by nearly 50 per cent to 7,300 in the first six months of the year, bucking a downward trend in the total number of asylum-seekers, new United Nations' statistics show.
One-third applied to
Video:
Your Tax Dollars At Work, Part 12,453,893,345
Are CEO paychecks administrative costs?: Administrative costs for a handful of reconstruction projects in Iraq ate up 11 percent to 55 percent of the total costs and were not monitored well by officials there, according to a government audit.
The audit, done by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, looked at a number of contracts and detailed five totaling $1.3 billion. It found that more than $460 million was spent on overhead costs, including transportation, mobilization, administration, personnel support and security.
The report suggested that some of the costs may be underestimated because the government did not consistently track the administrative amounts or require companies to report them in the same way. Congress has approved $18.4 billion in reconstruction money for
Press freedom: Some poor countries, such as Mauritania and Haiti, improved their record in a global press freedom index this year, while France, the United States and Japan slipped further down the scale of 168 countries rated, the group Reporters Without Borders said yesterday.
…Although it ranked 17th on the first list, published in 2002, the United States now stands at 53, having fallen nine places since last year.
"Relations between the media and the Bush administration sharply deteriorated after the president used the pretext of 'national security' to regard as suspicious any journalist who questioned his 'war on terrorism,' " the group said.
Who says we’re not still an example?: Several governments around the world have tried to rebut criticism of how they handle detainees by claiming they are only following the U.S. example in the war on terror, the U.N. anti-torture chief said Monday.
Manfred Nowak, the U.N. special investigator on torture, said that when he criticizes governments for their questionable treatment of detainees, they respond by telling him that if the
"The
Nowak said that because of its prominence, the
God, that’s so pre-9/11! -m
This Is Not Exactly News
But it’s still worth repeating: The Iraq War is getting "a lot more difficult" and also is serving as a motivating force for Muslim terrorists all over the world, a top official of the Central Intelligence Agency said in
Associate Deputy Director Michael J. Morell, the agency's No. 3 official, quickly added that he sees the war as just one of many motivating factors for terrorists.
"If you're a young extremist in
Commentary
EarlG: Last week, during an interview with the editorial board of the Bucks County Courier Times, Santorum said this:
“As the hobbits are going up
So let's see if I can parse this. The "Eye of Mordor" (Sauron, representing Osama bin Laden) is focused "somewhere else" (Gondor, representing
…What the
They said that when plans were being made within the administration to go to war with
Mr. Suskind and Mr. O'Neill made the point that in policy-making, good process creates good outcomes. If a thesis is put forward, then examined critically by a number of informed people from different points of view, it is more likely that a sound decision will be reached. This process has become debased under the Bush administration and the damage to
William Greider: The facts are so stark, even American military commanders are now speaking openly about an approaching climax for our bloody misadventure in
Learned policy experts from all sides are now debating the various alternatives for an exit plan. Preferably with honor, they hope, but getting out is becoming unavoidable, regardless. They would like to dream up a some sort of fig leaf that gives cover to our failed warrior president. Not that he deserves one, but they want a plan will encourage Bush--finally--to accept reality.
Who is being left out of this momentous discussion? The Iraqi people, whom we were allegedly teaching how to become small-d democrats. Bush relentlessly touted "democracy" as his true goal. He cited the three Iraqi elections as proof that he was succeeding.
So let's have one more election in
Tom Engelhardt: On Friday, the New York Times reported that the Pentagon Inspector General's audit of a secret Pentagon Iraqi propaganda program contracted to the Lincoln Group (which calls itself "a strategic communications & pubic relations firm providing insight & influence in challenging & hostile environments") had cleared the Pentagon of violating laws or its own regulations So challenging and hostile was the Iraqi environment, it seems, that the Lincoln Group spent its time using U.S. military personnel to create good "news" stories, having them translated into Arabic, and then secretly paying bribes to members of the newly "free" Iraqi media to publish them as Iraqi-generated news reports.
According to a brief summary of the investigation released by the Inspector General's office, "Psychological operations are planned to convey selected, truthful information to foreign audiences to influence their emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately, the behavior of governments, organizations, groups, and individuals. The purpose of Psychological Operations is to induce or reinforce foreign attitudes and behavior favorable to
Get that mouthful? Now, all you have to do is translate it into Arabic and bribe an Iraqi news editor to publish it. Think of your goal as messing up a few more Iraqi minds when it comes to "objective reasoning."
The New York Times, which saw some of the other unclassified documents in the investigation, summarized the clearing of the Pentagon of illegal activity this way: "The report said that the secret program, run by the military in conjunction with the Lincoln Group, a Washington contractor, was lawful and that it did not constitute a ‘covert action' designed to influence the internal political conditions of another country."
Now, to a normal human being, a secret Pentagon operation to produce propaganda pieces--call it "selected, truthful information," if you wish--and slip them into the Iraqi press for a price might sound remarkably like a "'covert action' designed to influence the internal political conditions of another country."
Nicholas Kristoff: “The total costs of the war, including the budgetary, social and macroeconomic costs, are likely to exceed $2 trillion,” Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel-winning economist at Columbia, writes in an updated new study with Linda Bilmes, a public finance specialist at Harvard. Their report has just appeared in the Milken Institute Review, as an update on a paper presented earlier this year.
Just to put that $2 trillion in perspective, it is four times the additional cost needed to provide health insurance for all uninsured Americans for the next decade. It is 1,600 times Mr. Bush’s financing for his vaunted hydrogen energy project.
…Of course, many of the costs are hidden and haven’t even been spent yet. For example, more than 3,000 American veterans have suffered severe head injuries in
Cynthia Tucker: Bush had a major advantage in persuading Americans to support his Iraqi misadventure: Voters wanted to believe that ousting Saddam would take care of terrorists. The president offered the certainty that the nation craved. It's easier to believe in a highly unlikely proposition if you desperately want it to be true.
But three and a half years after the invasion, with bloodshed escalating, the spell has worn off. American voters no longer support our involvement in a conflict that has all the signs of a civil war; a CNN poll earlier this month showed 64 percent of respondents opposed to the war. And while a handful of Republican congressional candidates still try to justify the decision to topple Saddam, most GOP candidates try to avoid the subject.
Meanwhile, we are less secure than we were five years ago. Terrorists are using our invasion of
All in all, we've paid a high price for our refusal to see ourselves as we really are, not the way we want to be seen. We wanted to be "the shining city on the hill," set apart from the rest of the world, immune from its problems, better, safer, smarter than anybody else.
The
That nuanced approach doesn't appeal to the bully boys who want to send other people's children out to blow up a country. But we should have learned by now to stop listening to them.
The Guardian: There is something profoundly selfish - arrogant even - about
Casualty Reports
A Marine from Marine Corps Base Hawaii in
Relatives say patriotism and faith led Eric Herzberg to join the Marines and fight in
Three more
The Pentagon says that two Marine lance corporals from southeastern
Another Army medic from Deltona was killed in combat in
A fallen soldier from
The 10th Mountain Division is mourning the loss of another soldier killed in
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
DAILY WAR NEWS FOR TUESDAY, October 24, 2006
Photo 1: A 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team soldier is on guard in central Baghdad's Karradah district, Tuesday Oct. 24, 2006. U.S. and Iraqi forces threw a security cordon around Karradah on Monday night and continued door-to-door searches Tuesday in search for a missing officer of Iraqi descent who may have been abducted. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim)
Photo 2: Masked insurgents patrol a road while onboard a vehicle in Ramadi, Iraq, October 22, 2006. (Stringer/Reuters)
An American soldier was abducted in war-torn Baghdad after he left the heavily-fortified Green Zone to visit his family in the city, the US military has said. The soldier, an American of Iraqi descent working as a translator, was last seen inside the zone at 2:30 pm (1130 GMT) on Monday, after which he is thought to have gone to a relative's house. (…)
Squads of American soldiers set up a cordon around the downtown district of Karrada Tuesday and searched cars, showing bystanders a photograph of a man of Arabic appearance in a US army uniform.
"He was reportedly at a relative's house at the time of the abduction when three cars pulled up to the residence," a US military statement said."The men, who were described to have dark coloured rags over their noses and mouths, handcuffed the soldier and forced him into one of the vehicles.
"The soldier's relative, who claimed to be at the residence when the abduction occurred, was reportedly contacted by the kidnappers using the soldier's cell phone," the statement continued.
Bring 'em on: Five more US soldiers have been killed in attacks and fighting with rebels in Iraq, the American military announced, bringing the death toll for the month of October to 91.
One soldier died on Tuesday "from wounds he received when his patrol was struck by an improvised-explosive device in central Baghdad", it said. (...)
The military had earlier said that an army soldier was killed on Sunday by a roadside bomb in Baghdad, bringing the number of dead over the weekend to 12.
If the toll continues to mount at the same rate until the end of October it will become the deadliest month for US forces in Iraq since November 2004, when they famously fought fierce street battles in the western town of Fallujah.
Two Marines assigned to Regimental Combat Team 5 died Monday from injuries sustained due to enemy action while operating in Al Anbar Province. (MNF - Iraq) One Sailor assigned to Regimental Combat Team 7 died Monday from enemy action while operating in Al Anbar Province. (CENTCOM)Fierce clashes occurred between insurgents and US soldiers in the western Iraqi stronghold of Ramadi, according to the al-Arabiya news channel. OTHER SECURITY INCIDENTS Baghdad: Clashes erupted between gunmen and police in Baghdad's southern Zaafaraniya district, killing two civilians and wounding eight others. A roadside bomb exploded in Sadriya area wounding seven Iraqi civilians. The explosion also destroyed several stores in the same street. A bomb inside an ice-cream shop killed one person and wounded seven others in Baghdad's central Sadriya district. Two Iraqi civilians were killed when gunmen clashed with an Iraqi police patrol in Diyala Bridge. Another three were wounded. Amarah: Mahdi Army fighters loyal to Moqtada al-Sadr, the radical Shia cleric, have killed four policemen affiliated with the Badr Brigades, a rival militia, in the southern city of Amara. The attack came despite a public call by al-Sadr to halt the tribal vendetta, suggesting that splinter groups were developing within his militia. At least two policemen were murdered in the southern Iraqi city of Amarah. Police captain Hussein Salih Hassan was killed Tuesday in a pre-dawn gunbattle with attackers who forced their way into his home, Ali Challoub, an administrator at Amarah's al-Sadr Public hospital, said. A noncommissioned officer, Ala' Ghlayyim Zned was killed in his home by machine gun-toting attackers at around the same time, Challoub said. Kirkuk: A bodyguard and five children were injured when an explosive device targeting a police patrol detonated near a police station in Kirkuk, 250 kilometres north of Baghdad. The patrol had been assigned to guard General Torhan Yousef, the police chief of Kirkuk, but he was not in the convoy at the time of the attack. A soldier was killed and three injured in two more attacks on security forces in Kirkuk. A roadside bomb targeting an Iraqi army patrol killed two soldiers and wounded another one in central Kirkuk. Fallujah: U.S. troops pulled over a fire truck and killed four Iraqi firefighters in a case of mistaken identity on Monday after a report that a fire truck had been hijacked in western Falluja, the military said. The firefighters, whom U.S. troops first believed were armed insurgents, were responding to a call. >> NEWS The United States ambassador to Iraq has assured US voters that victory can still be achieved in this war-torn country within a year as long as Iraqi leaders live up to their promises. At a news conference Tuesday that was briefly plunged into darkness by one of Baghdad's daily power cuts, Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad described the battle to save Iraq from extremists as "the defining challenge of our era". But as he and the top US commander in Iraq, General George Casey, briefed reporters in the heavily-fortified Green Zone, gunfire and bomb blasts echoed around the city beyond as the war's grim death toll continued to mount.
“We're on the verge of chaos, and the current plan is not working," Sen. Lindsey Graham R-S.C., said Monday in an Associated Press interview. U.S. and Iraqi officials should be held accountable for the lack of progress, said Graham, a Republican who is a frequent critic of the administration's policies. Asked who in particular should be held accountable - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, perhaps, or the generals leading the war - Graham said: "All of them. It's their job to come up with a game plan" to end the violence.US IN SECRET TRUCE TALKS WITH INSURGENCY CHIEFS American officials held secret talks with leaders of the Iraqi insurgency last week after admitting that their two-month clampdown on violence in Baghdad had failed. Few details of the discussions in the Jordanian capital Amman have emerged but an Iraqi source close to the negotiations said the participants had met for at least two days. They included members of the Islamic Army in Iraq, one of the main Sunni militias behind the insurgency, and American government representatives. The talks were described as "feeler" discussions. The US officials were exploring ways of persuading the Sunni groups to stop attacks on allied forces and to end a cycle of increasingly bloody sectarian clashes with members of the majority Shi'ite groups. According to the source, the key demand of the Islamic Army was the release of American-held prisoners in allied jails. read in full...
A man claiming to be a member of Saddam Hussein's outlawed Baath Party told a television interviewer the United States was seeking a face-saving exodus from Iraq and that insurgents were ready to negotiate but won't lay down arms. The interview with "Abu Mohammed", a pseudonym, was taped several days ago in Beirut, Lebanon, according to Ghassan Ben Jeddou, the network's bureau chief in the Lebanese capital. "The party and other insurgency factions are ready to negotiate with the Americans," said the man, whose face was concealed. "The occupier has started to search for a face-saving way out. The resistance, with all its factions, is determined to continue fighting until the enemy is brought down to his knees and sits on the negotiating table or is dealt, with God's help, a humiliating defeat."The US is not winning in Iraq and will not be able to stay the course in the long-term, a US state department insider has said. Former intelligence official Wayne White told the BBC that violence in Iraq was "getting worse". A senior US state department official earlier said that the US has shown "arrogance and stupidity" in Iraq. But the department distanced itself from the comments, saying Mr Fernandez had been mistranslated. Mr White was the head of the state department's Iraq intelligence section until last year. He told the BBC that the US position in Iraq was untenable. "The effort can't be sustained over the long haul, and so we can't stay a course, I think, that requires years and years more." He said: "We're not winning. It's apparent. "I checked with almost a dozen sources in Baghdad in just the last 24 hours," Mr White said. "Every single one of them answered the question as to whether the violence was lessening, or getting worse, with - 'worse'." >> REPORTS BBC: A new poll suggests two-thirds of Americans believe the US is losing the war in Iraq. CENTAF Airpower Summary for Oct. 24 PAYING THE PRICE: KILLING THE CHILDREN OF IRAQ A documentary film by John Pilger Sanctions enforced by the UN on Iraq since the Gulf War have killed more people than the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan in 1945, including over half a million children - many of whom weren't even born when the Gulf War began. Broadcast 03/06/2000 ITV Runtime 75 Minutes link Alive in Baghdad: MARWAN SPEAKS ABOUT HIS KIDNAPPING - 10.20.2006 Aside from death, abduction of a correspondent is just about the last_thing anyone involved in a media organization wants to hear. On July_23rd, that is exactly what happened. Kidnappings have now_become routine in Baghdad. Luckily Marwan was released approximately_three days after his kidnapping. Unfortunately when Marwan was first kidnapped, we could not tell his_story, due to his parent's request and fear for his safety. Today we_bring you the first segment of a two part interview about his_kidnapping and detention by one of Baghdad's militias, apparently the_Mahdi Army. Marwan was kidnapped while shooting b-roll, that is supporting footage_depicting life around Baghdad. It is an unfortunate reality that_shooting footage on the streets of Baghdad is an incredibly dangerous_prospect. Marwan had only been working for one week when he was_kidnapped, he had not even received his ID card. link BAGHDAD NOW FORCED TO 'EXPORT' BODIES Islamic custom dictates that a body should be buried within 24 hours of its death, but with sectarian death squads and suicide bombers roaming the streets of Baghdad, the city's mortuaries are overflowing with unclaimed corpses. The city's health authorities have come up with the best solution they can think of in these dark days. Each body is photographed with a digital camera, and assigned a number in a computer database. Then, it is loaded in one of the refrigerated vans and taken to one of the Shiite holy cities for burial. Once upon a time, all bodies just went to the massive graveyard of Najaf, but authorities there could not cope with the constant stream of corpses and now overflow cemeteries have been established in Karbala. read in full... >> COMMENTARY AND ANALYSIS MORE GOOD NEWS FROM IRAQ Five minutes ago, the CNN.com front page was led by the "Developing Story" that some Iraqi officials had agreed on a timeline for steps to reduce violence. As I type this, the CNN.com front page is led by a "Developing Story" that "U.S. General George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, says American forces have never lost a battle since the Iraqi war began". We should all be worried that the Republican's IT department is hacking CNN's web site; it means they've finished reprogramming the voting machines. link IRAQIS TO STAND UP IN 3 FRIEDMANS? So says General George Casey:
Oct. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Iraqi forces should be able to take over the country's security from coalition soldiers within 18 months, the top U.S. commander in Iraq said. The Middle Eastern country's own troops and police are 12-18 months away from being ``completely capable of taking over their own security,'' General George Casey said at a news conference in Baghdad aired live by international broadcasters.The Bush administration's "strategy" in Iraq was summed up perfectly in an editorial in today's NY Times:
The administration, for all its hints about new strategies and timetables, is obviously hoping to slog along for two more years and dump the problem on Mr. Bush's successor.The simple fact of the matter is that there will be no "victory," no "mission accomplished," during Bush's remaining two years. The administration is clearly focusing its attention and energy now on simply kicking the can down the road and having Bush's successor clean up the mess he's made, which is pretty much the story of his life. By the time Bush leaves office at the end of '08, his misadventure in Iraq will be about 5 1/2 years old. Hardly what the neocons promised. No cake walk. No six days, six weeks, I doubt six months. No flowers. Not greeted as liberators. No oil paying for reconstruction. No $12/barrel oil. No stability in the region. Just a bloody mess that's cost us in every conceivable way. link TIME TO COUP? Rumors abound that the US government is looking to replace the Maliki government with a troika of strongmen. First it was Tet, now it's Diem
JFK and the Diem Coup by John Prados_ By 1963, about mid-way through America's involvement in the wars of Vietnam, the policymakers of the Kennedy administration felt trapped between the horns of a dilemma. South Vietnam, the part of the former state of Vietnam which the United States supported, remained in the throes of a civil war between the anti-communist government the U.S. favored and communist guerrillas backed by North Vietnam. Government forces could not seem to get a handle on how to cope with the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam, as the communist movement was known. American military and intelligence agencies disputed progress in the war. While denying journalists' observations that the United States was slipping into a quagmire in Vietnam, the Kennedy administration was privately well aware of the problems in the war and tried measures of all kinds to energize the South Vietnamese effort. (…)The rest of the story is simple: they murder Diem, appoint a strongman and lose anyway. IS this the new strategy for Iraq? Without an army to enforce the new rule? With Sadr having enough bodies to collapse any government? Well, I guess we really have to leave Iraq in a shambles. read in full… Missing Links: "AMERICA DICTATING THE IRAQI PARTITION SCHEME" Al-Quds al-Arabi prints a selection of recent gems from the Iraqi press, as usual picking papers that mostly aren't themselves available on the web, leading off with an article in the weekly Al-Shahid al-Mustaqbal (independent, publishing since summer 2003, I believe), bearing the title: "Open Bidding for Import of new Rulers for the Democratic Iraq". Actually the bidding hasn't started yet, but this is the threat the journalist says Condoleeza Rice brought with her on her recent visit to the Green Zone. By way of background, the journalist notes there have been many governments in Iraq in the last three years, the original Governing Council of Lords (Bremer and his group), then the two "provisional" governments, the first (Allawi) with a strong reputation for skimming and corruption, and the second (Jaafari) with an "international reputation for the disregard of human rights, violating the honor of Iraqi men and Iraqi women, with the identity and the nationality of [here Al-Quds inserts three dots]." Bush, faced with the need to boost his sagging approval ratings, and "raise the level of his terrorist occupation administration of Iraq", decided to send Rice to meet in the Green Zone with people called "the business coalition", apparently meaning the Malaki group, and told them that they had a probationary two-month period, after which if the performance wasn't satisfactory, there would a call for bids from the "rulers in the anterooms of the Bush administration", for creation and import of a government that would provide security and basic services. Criteria would include low-cost and low-maintenance. And it was made clear that the candidates would include persons from the same factions as those who came to Iraq with the advancing tanks, but they would be personally unknown, either to Iraqis or to Arabs in general. Al-Quds doesn't give a date for the article, but clearly it was published before the NYT announcement--I beg your pardon, the "leak"--in its edition of Sunday October 22 to the effect the US is working out details of just such a threat. Nicer language though. Another item in the Al-Quds selection for this week is an editorial in the newspaper of the Muslim Scholars Association, (Sunni), Al-Basa'ir, about the recent vote on the bill respecting procedures for federalism. The editorialist says this isn't just a case of feeling our way, of the free play of domestic politics. On the contrary this is "literally the application of the American wishes", for a division into sect- and race-based regions. It was already their policy in the Bremer era. And the extraordinary efforts that went into passage of the bill [in the famous disputed vote of October 11] appears to have been the result of specific instructions from Rice during her visit of Oct 7. The idea is to first partition Iraq, and then to partition the rest of the region, to produce what they are calling the "New" or the "Greater" Middle East. read in full… BENCHMARKS ARE FROM MARS, TIMETABLES ARE FROM VENUS In today's Gaggle, Tony Insert-Snow-Related-Pun-Here said that there are indeed benchmarks ("benchmarks" is the word Bushies are using because evidently "timetables" are the devil's work, or only pussies have timetables, or timetables, we don' need no stinkin' timetables, or something) for progress in Iraq: "For instance, by the end of the year, there will be a hydrocarbon law." See, and you thought it was a quagmire. Elsewhere in the Gaggle:
Q Is the President responsible for the fact people think it's stay the course since he's, in fact, described it that way himself? MR. SNOW: No.All right, then. read in full… BENDING WITH THE WIND When weapons of mass destruction were not found in Iraq, "spreading democracy to the Middle East" became one of the chief objectives of the Iraq war. In the worsening pace of civil war, the explanation from Washington was there was no civil war, just violence getting out of control. Recently, we were told that the US was not going to pull out of Iraq. "We don't cut and run," was the favorite line of top Bush officials. Now, the new operative phrase is "flexibility", which sounds as though all options are being considered, including withdrawal. In other words, defeat by any other name is anything but defeat. This is how the ultimate truth is being spun from Washington. read in full… BUSH LOSES THE "BATTLE OF BAGHDAD, THE BATTLE FOR IRAQ" (...) So far, however, the Iraq Study Group fails to impress. Washington Post's Dana Millbank says the group has nothing to report:
If President Bush and the Iraqi government are hoping for some solutions from the congressionally commissioned Iraq Study Group, they might want to start thinking about a Plan B. Former secretary of state James Baker and former congressman Lee Hamilton (D-Ind.), the study group's co-chairmen, called a briefing yesterday to give a "progress report" on their activities. A dozen television cameras and scores of reporters filled the hall -- only to discover that Baker and Hamilton had revived Jerry Seinfeld's "show about nothing" format. -Dana Milbank, This Just In: The Iraq Study Group Has Nothing to ReportMillbank has a point. "Helluva mess" tells us as much about Iraq as "stay the course". "Helluva mess" is, of course, the result of having no course to stay. Indeed it would appear that the Iraq Study Group has already made Bush's biggest mistake: it cannot define success. That may be because the purpose of the group was never designed to make of Iraq a success but, rather, to come up with a way to save George W. Bush's ass -if not his face. Bush cannot save face, however, when nothing will ever change the fact that his war was lost when he began it upon a pack of malicious lies. Already the ISG has ruled out victory which Bush had clearly hoped to avoid having to define. Bush calls "victory" his objective; he talks about the "enemy". What he has utterly failed to understand is that the enemy in Iraq is the people themselves for whom the US presence is an abominable violation of their nation's sovereignty and the personhood of each citizen of Iraq. What, therefore, is victory when the people themselves oppose the occupation. Does victory consist of the brutal murder of every last Iraqi who dares to oppose the illegal aggression waged against him and his nation? Bush might have gotten away with an endless string of lies and platitudes had not the lack of victory been so spectacular that it will neutralize any "October Surprise" that Karl Rove might have wanted to stage. read in full... THE PERSISTENCE OF REALITY One of the most freqent, but seemingly unnoticed tactics used by Bushites to minimize the raw human toll of the continuing disaster in Iraq is to imply that somehow it's just a TV show Americans are watching. Consider these comments from just the past two weeks:
. Donald Rumsfeld: "Their battlefield is not just Baghdad or Kabul, but American living rooms and television screens." . Dick Cheney: "[They] use the media to gain access through technical means that are available now on the Internet and everything else to create as much violence as possible, as much bloodshed as possible and get that broadcast back into the United States..." . Condoleezza Rice: "What the American people see on their television screens is the struggle... It is harder to show the political process that is going on at local levels, at provincial levels and indeed at the national level." . Dubya himself: "I fully understand the American people are seeing unspeakable violence on their TV screens."This kind of repetition clearly is no accident... someone's told them this is a useful way to make the carnage seem more distant. But, then, why isn't it working? Consider this note from the latest polling analysis by Democracy Corps (PDF download):
Nearly three-quarters of likely voters nationwide report knowing someone personally serving in Iraq or Afghanistan. Among white rural voters that number swells to 80 percent, which may explain why this formerly Republican base group - who gave Republicans a 17-point edge in 2004 - now give Democrats a 14-point advantage.When these people hear about violence in Iraq, they instinctively wonder, "Is that where ________ is?" They know it's not fiction. link CLOUD KOOKOO LAND When Gotthard Heinrici was given command of Army Group Vistula, he described the atmosphere around Hitler as cloud kookoo land. A world where fantasy trumped reality and the impossible expected. Kind of like the White House today, one where they expect the Iraqi "government", one where most of the parliment lives in London, to actually lead a country controlled by guerrillas and militias. (...) Bush is a bully and a coward at heart. Iraq was chosen because Iraq would be easy, and then the rest of the Middle East would follow. It was the easy way to solve our problems, not our real problems, but our emotional pain, the unresolved conflict over being attacked. And Bush would resolve his lifelong lack of success. Bush will not leave Iraq, not because he thinks we can win, or he thinks it's part of the war on terror. But because he cannot face another failure. Which is why Scowcroft and Baker have had no influence on him. They are his father's men, veterans, despite their politics, realists. Bush is not and never has been. When he wasn't hiding from his failure with booze and coke, he hid from it with Jesus. Now he has Henry Kissinger whispering in his ear, telling him what he wants to hear. He doesn't want advice, he wants support and only support. Those who do not support him, are diminished, then banished. This is a man who has never honestly looked himself in the face and said I have failed. He has always been protected from failure. Which is why Rumsfeld keeps his job. To admit he was incompetent, and some days he seems positively addled, would reflect poorly on Bush. When people look to understand Iraq, they look at the facts and see failure, but that isn't what Bush sees. He sees one more chance for personal glory and he will not quit until he is forced to. Many Republicans have no idea that they have bought into was as psychodrama. It isn't psychodrama to the Tillmans or the Sheehans, but it is for Bush, who seeks redemption as desperately as he drank. And his redemption is in Iraq. (...) As bad as Saddam was, you could walk the streets without being kidnapped by criminals or having your daughters raped on the way to school. We have created a charnel house in Iraq because of Bush and his refusal to listen to advice he didn't want to hear. Phased withdrawal is bullshit. Once you start withdrawing troops from Iraq, the demand to do it quicker will mount. Because Iraq is a house of cards. once it goes, it goes quickly. Anyone who would serve in an occupation government isn't strong enough to lead a real government and Maliki is doomed to join Kerensky as the leader of a failed state. Iraq is only now become fact, not emotion, and we have to find a way out of it. George Bush's psychodrama is going to end badly. read in full... OCCUPATION OF IRAQ: ONE CRIME TOO MANY In Washington, President Bush has brushed aside a new survey which shows that over 600,000 Iraqis have been butchered in his "war of choice". The "peer-reviewed" epidemiological study appeared in "The Lancet" and has thus-far been supported by every reputable analyst familiar with the methodology used to determine the number of casualties. As Dr. Curren Warf, professor of pediatric medicine and board member of the Physicians for Social Responsibility, said:
"I wish to set the record straight. "The Lancet" study is superb science. The study followed a strict, widely accepted methodology to arrive at its sobering conclusion. The study is being attacked not on scientific grounds, but for ideological reasons."To Bush, it makes no difference whether the number is 600,000 or 6 hundred million; the cost in human terms is irrelevant. In America, the life of one microscopic stem-cell is of more value that the entire population of Iraq. That's what happens when racism merges with apathy; the dead simply don't count. Compare Bush's indifference to the Iraqi death-toll to his "pro-life" rhetoric at home. Consider how he cancelled his Crawford vacation to speed back to Washington to sign legislation to save the life of Terri Schiavo even though Schiavo was showing no mental-activity and 19 courts had already ruled in her husband's favor to allow her to die peacefully. Later, an autopsy confirmed that her brain had calcified and shrunk to half its normal size. Still, Schiavo's political value was of greater importance to Bush than the 650,000 men, women and children he has slaughtered in Iraq. There's simply no way to measure this degree of cynicism. (...) (Note: Colin Powell stated that "genocide" was taking place in Darfur when the figures showed that approximately 200,000 Sudanese had been killed. Applying Powell's standard to Iraq, which has half the population of Sudan, The Lancet statistics prove that the United States is perpetrating genocide in Iraq. ) read in full... >> BEYOND IRAQ GOD BLESS AMERICA (AND OUTER SPACE) Recently, George Bush read a statement that should have been headline news worldwide, yet few publications gave it any ink. He said that outer space belongs to the United States and if anybody tries to get in the way, they will be quickly eliminated. On October 19, 2006, The Register, a British publication, ran an article called "U.S. Stakes Claim on Space." The author, Lucy Sherriff, stated:
The U.S. has claimed "dibs" on the Universe with its new space policy. The document, signed by President Bush, was released on a Friday, just before a long weekend in the States. This, in itself, has caused a bit of a stir, but no more so than the tone and content of the document. In it, the U.S. government allocates itself rights to access and use outer space without anyone else getting in the way. It also sets security at the heart of the space agenda, frequently citing its right to use space as part of its national defense. Significantly, however, it does not commit to restrict, or even join the talks about restricting the development of space-based weapons. This is despite a U.N. vote last year in which 160 nations voted in favor of such talks ... ... The document then warms to its military theme. The first fundamental goal of the program is not given as being to explore the solar system or better understand the Universe, but: "To strengthen the nation's space leadership and ensure that space capabilities are available in time to further U.S. national security, homeland security, and foreign policy objectives."The implications are immense and disastrous. Bush was not speaking of defensive weapons, but offensive projectiles that could create deadly havoc on Earth. And, he says the U.S. has the right to destroy any space object from another country. When finished, the system will be much like the U.S. current spy satellite network: there will be portions linked to each other so the entire globe will be monitored and a satellite will be able to launch a weapon that can hit any target within 15 minutes. There will be no opposition in space to stop this scenario. read in full... QUOTE OF THE DAY: "Well, I've been talking about a change in tactics ever since I - ever since we went in, because the role of the commander in chief is to say to our generals, `You adjust to the enemy on the battlefield.'" -- Bush in a CNBC interview ("He stopped using it," White House press secretary Tony Snow said of the "stay the course" phrase)
Monday, October 23, 2006
WAR NEWS FOR MONDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2006
"The battle of
About 50 corpses were collected around
A bomb exploded under an unattended car in the capital’s Shorja market, an area filled with wholesale stores that is
A series of bombs ripped through a
A bomb exploded and wounded four people near the al-Farasha bakery in eastern
A suicide bomber, wearing an explosive belt, detonated it on
A roadside bomb targeting a police patrol killed three people and wounded 13 others, both police and civilians, near the shrine of a Sunni cleric in central
A civilian contractor working as a international police liaison officer was killed and four
A
A
The
Bring ‘em on – a summary: Six U.S. soldiers were killed Sunday, in five separate attacks in and around Baghdad, the Defense Department said in e-mailed statements. Iraqi gunman killed two soldiers with small-arms fire west of the capital, and another soldier southwest of
Balad
The
Baquba
In Sunday's bloodiest attack, gunmen in five sedans ambushed a convoy of buses carrying police recruits near the city of
Hamza al-Gharbi
Gunfights broke out between fighters from Sadr's Mahdi Army and a rival Shiite militia, the Badr Organization, after a bomb went off near the offices of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, Badr's parent political party. Iraqi authorities called for backup from American forces, who imposed a curfew in Hamza al-Gharbi, about 60 miles south of
In Country
In all Sunday, at least 44 Iraqis were killed or their bodies were founded dumped along roads or in the
The battle for Amara: The Iraqi government said it had imposed a curfew in the tense southern town of
"We have imposed the curfew due to the security situation there," defence ministry spokesman Mohammed al-Askari said.
The clashes between Shi'ite militias and Iraqi security forces, fuelled by tribal divisions, left at least 25 dead last week in Amara, which was handed over by British troops to Iraqi security forces two months ago.
The plan will be tweaked, adjusted and modified in the weeks ahead, as American commanders try to reverse the dismaying increase in murders, drive-by shootings and bombings.
But military commanders here see no plausible alternative to their bedrock strategy to clear violence-ridden neighborhoods of militias, insurgents and arms caches, hold them with Iraqi and American security forces, and then try to win over the population with reconstruction projects, underwritten mainly by the Iraqi government. There is no fall-back plan that the generals are holding in their hip pocket. This is it.
We’re negotiating with ‘terrorists’?: American officials held secret talks with leaders of the Iraqi insurgency last week after admitting that their two-month clampdown on violence in Baghdad had failed.
Few details of the discussions in the Jordanian capital
They included members of the Islamic Army in
Unavoidable fact: Behind the maze of men with guns in
But when the prime minister speaks of disarming militias — those mushrooming armies of men with guns that carry out most of the killing here — Iraqi brows begin to furrow.
“He’s just talking,” snapped Fadhil Sabri, a 37-year-old generator repairman in a grease-stained shop in
“Not now. Not even in 10 years. You need arms to defend yourself,” he said.
Iraqi Diaspora: Mohammed al-Mawla is adjusting to life in his new home as an Iraqi refugee living in
He fled the violence in his homeland in 2003 and is now one of more than 500,000 Iraqis living in
But al-Mawla, 42, fears the comfort he has found in
"I sold my car in
Though Iraqis who have fled to
As a result, many say the money they have saved is quickly dwindling. Their plight is not likely to ease, with more Iraqis arriving every day.
Regional tensions: The vote in
Perspectives
Iraqi Deputy PM: Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih warned against defeatism and panic on Monday as his
Congressional Research expert: A very blunt and disturbing assessment of things in
Kenneth Katzman is with the Congressional Research Service, which advises lawmakers on Capitol Hill. And the way he see it,
Ex-administration official: President Bush and other administration officials have been smearing anyone who suggests we begin to withdraw troops from
Now Richard L. Armitage — who served as deputy secretary of state from 2001-2005 — is advocating a phased withdrawal of
Ex-State Dept. expert: Mr White was the head of the state department's
He told the BBC that the
"The effort can't be sustained over the long haul, and so we can't stay a course, I think, that requires years and years more."
He said: "We're not winning. It's apparent.
"I checked with almost a dozen sources in
Top diplomat: Washington's top foreign affairs spin doctor has described US policy in Iraq as "a failure", and accused his government of "arrogance" and "stupidity". Speaking in Arabic on al-Jazeera television Alberto Fernandez, director of public diplomacy at the state department's bureau of near eastern affairs, gave viewers an unusually sharp assessment of the administration's efforts in
"We tried to do our best [in
One Dem Senator and a dozen cowardly partisan whores: On Fox this morning, Sen. Joseph Biden (D-DE) said the upcoming elections in November may determine whether the
Biden said three conservatives have told him personally that they want to change course, but won’t state so publicly until the outcome of the elections is determined. If Biden’s assertions are true, nearly a dozen conservative Senators have come to the determination that the course in
2,791
Two phony "independent Republicans" and one former administration official: 'I don't believe that we can continue based on an open-ended, unconditional presence,' Senator Olympia Snowe, a centrist Maine Republican, told the Washington Post last week. 'I don't think there's any question about that, there will be a change.'
Snowe is not alone. Senator John Warner, the Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has also weighed into the fray after returning from a fact-finding mission to
Most damning of all, however, were the comments of Richard Haass, a former Bush administration foreign policy official, who told reporters yesterday that the situation is reaching a 'tipping point' both in
'More of essentially the same is going to be a policy that very few people are going to be able to support,' said Haass, now the president of the Council on Foreign Relations. He added that the administration's current strategy - of a stable, democratic
But no one can tell C-plus Augustus anything, can they: President Bush on Saturday reviewed
"Our goal in
Under bipartisan, pre-election pressure for a significant re-examination of the president's war plan, the White House is walking a fine line.
It made sure to publicize the president's high-level meeting on the deteriorating conditions in
Department Of Bet You Never Saw This One Coming
Yes, in the Bush administration, telling the truth is misspeaking: A senior
"We tried to do our best (in
Fernandez, the State Department's director of public diplomacy in the bureau of Near Eastern affairs, said that he had misspoken during the interview.
"Upon reading the transcript of my appearance on Al-Jazeera, I realized that I seriously misspoke by using the phrase 'there has been arrogance and stupidity' by the
The State Department had said that the English translation of the comments posted on Al Jazeera's English-language Web site had misquoted Fernandez.
Ha ha! First he tells the truth (great career move in this administration) - on al-Jazeera of all places! - then the State Department lies and tries to blame it on the translation - and then this bozo - the director of public diplomacy! - admits to the quote, thus revealing his Department as the lying bunch of skanks they are. Hell of a diplomat, this guy. I wonder if he was in the Arabian horse business before he took this gig. Pure comedy gold, except all the mangled bodies and dead kids and destroyed lives sort of take the edge off the humor. -m
Their coffins are propaganda too: The chairman of the House Armed Services Committee asked the Pentagon on Friday to remove CNN reporters embedded with
Opinion – Joan Vennochi: Sometimes, a newspaper photograph or piece of television footage is so striking it cannot be ignored. When that happens, I find myself staring at the skeletal remains of cars and trucks that were ripped apart by bombs deliberately set in the vicinity of markets, police stations, and other public buildings. I try to comprehend the damage done to human beings who happened to be in that doomed spot. I think of the men, women, and children who were standing in line one moment -- and were obliterated the next, by people who live in the same country but do not see each other as fellow countrymen.
Any parent of a teenage son knows the stomach lurch that comes when military recruiting material arrives in the mail. Regularly now, I read news stories about soldiers from my area who died in
The truth is often controversial. It often hurts, but that is no reason to hide it.
CNN was right to broadcast the truth of these sniper attacks. It's well past time to rip off the blinders, so we are forced to see reality, even when it is filmed by insurgents.
Habeas Corpus Is Objectively Pro-Terrorist
Farewell, Rule of Law: Moving quickly to implement the bill signed by President Bush this week that authorizes military trials of enemy combatants, the administration has formally notified the U.S. District Court here that it no longer has jurisdiction to consider hundreds of habeas corpus petitions filed by inmates at the
In a notice dated Wednesday, the Justice Department listed 196 pending habeas cases, some of which cover groups of detainees. The new Military Commissions Act (MCA), it said, provides that "no court, justice, or judge" can consider those petitions or other actions related to treatment or imprisonment filed by anyone designated as an enemy combatant, now or in the future.
Beyond those already imprisoned at
Mustered Out
The living: Sgt. Morrow, barrel-chested with salt-and-pepper hair, says he still gets headaches. He says his eyesight has been diminished by the explosion. He has lingering back problems, and says that his doctors told him that "my injuries are degenerative. Because of my age. Which is crazy."
His stint in
…The anger over his injuries and treatment has bled into other areas. He feels, for example, that other members of his platoon were wrongly nominated for a Bronze Star medal for heroism. He's not thrilled with the burgeoning Mexican population in Beechview, or with the rest of the population, for that matter:
"There's a lot of things that [tick] me off about the civilian population," he says.
He said he's worried that his troubles, physical and mental, are taking a toll on his wife, Nicolette, and his 6-year-old twins, Gemini and Robert.
Then he lit another cigarette. He's up to two packs a day.
The dead: Spread across several tables in a vast warehouse here are the pieces of one soldier's life.
There is the photo album with images of graduations and family gatherings, tanks and smiling military buddies. There are piles of brown T-shirts and socks, a jumble of sneakers and boots, a plastic bag filled with handwritten letters. A knife. A stack of video games.
Nearby, surrounded by walls of metal mesh, are rows of dusty black footlockers that have just returned from war. Inside each are the artifacts of other lives cut short.
This is the Joint Personal Effects Depot, a pair of warehouses on this base northeast of Baltimore that serve as the military's main repository for the possessions of U.S. troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Within days of troops' deaths in action, their clothes, pictures and books and everything else that defined their lives on the battlefield wind up here.
Commentary
Beaumont, Helmore and Hinsliff: The difficulty for the British government is that American policy on Iraq is now likely to be determined by the outcome of the November elections: if Bush does badly, an early exit becomes more likely, but if he does unexpectedly well there could even be a push to send more troops to Iraq to quell the insurgency.
As the junior partner in the coalition,
And Bush is not the only one with elections on his mind. If the midterm contest goes badly for the Republican Party, Labour minds will inevitably turn to the elections due here in May for local councils and the Scottish and Welsh assemblies. In
All of which, however, is academic for those in the killing fields of
James Wolcott: Cokie Roberts made a cogent point on ABC's This Week--I know, I couldn't believe it either--when she said that all you had to do was look at the photograph of this weekend's high-level pow-wow on Iraq featuring the three principle architects of the Iraq war, Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld, and wonder: How much can the policy actually change with those three still in charge--the ones who set the policy to begin with? It isn't as if any of them are prey to serious second thoughts and soul-searching. As of his most recent interview, Cheney is still relatively sanguine, whereas for Bush, as Steve Gilliard points out, it's personal:
"Bush will not leave
"This is a man who has never honestly looked himself in the face and said I have failed. He has always been protected from failure.
"Which is why Rumsfeld keeps his job. To admit he was incompetent, and some days he seems positively addled, would reflect poorly on Bush.
"When people look to understand
New York Times Editorial: The generals who told President Bush before the war that Donald Rumsfeld’s shock-and-awe fantasy would not work were not enough to persuade him to change his strategy in
So what finally, after all this time, caused Mr. Bush to very publicly consult with his generals to consider a change in tactics in
Robert Parry: The Republican National Committee has released a new campaign ad to rally the GOP base and other voters by showing threatening quotes from al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden followed by the pitch: “These are the stakes. Vote Nov. 7.”
President George W. Bush has flogged the same theme in lashing Democrats who favor a military withdrawal from
“If we were to follow the Democrats’ prescriptions and withdraw from
But these appeals from the RNC and Bush ignore
In effect, Bush and bin Laden share a common goal in
But if, as appears more likely,
A change of course won't necessarily rescue the U.S mission in
A priest was beheaded last week. A bomb blast at a
But the truth has been present all along for those who would dare to see it.
Within months of the
But the White House and its cheerleaders would have had us think otherwise -- that the source of trouble was solely foreign infiltrators and remnants of Hussein's Baathist Party.
There is a new
It is an Iraq that torments Christians, that indulges in unrelenting sectarian bloodbaths, that cheers for Hezbollah, that is no more a friend to Israel than is Iran, all despite the lies sold to the White House and Pentagon by self-serving, power-hungry Iraqi expatriates.
The new
Sally Quinn: It is hard for the American people to turn completely against the president. It seems tantamount to patricide. We're much more comfortable being able to blame someone else for the president's mistakes. Laura Bush will never be the scapegoat. For now, it's Rumsfeld.
Vice President Cheney is not eager to replace him. And he would never fire Rumsfeld, who was his mentor and who hired him for three government jobs during the Ford administration, including as his deputy when Rumsfeld was chief of staff. (In fact, Cheney's Secret Service code name was "Back Seat.") In any event, Cheney is low-profile, secretive, nonconfrontational -- and presumably too experienced to allow himself to be easily made the scapegoat. But if Rumsfeld goes, the attention and criticism can be directed only to Cheney, or to Bush.
And it's improbable that Rumsfeld can last. He may not have an exit strategy for
I suspect that he has already told the president and Cheney that he will leave after the midterm elections, saying that the country needs new leadership to wind down the war. And he will resign to take a job in some sort of humanitarian venture, thereby creating the perception that he is a caring person who left of his own accord to devote the rest of his life to good works.
Bush and Cheney, who don't want him gone, will then have to contend with the reality of the new situation: One goat must be sent off into the wilderness. Who will it be?
The Independent: What is it that turns the modern American presidency into a family psychodrama? We saw it with Bill and Hillary Clinton and the endless speculation over this marriage of two extraordinarily talented people. A marriage , depending on your point of view, either made in heaven or a mere alliance of convenience -especially after Monica Lewinsky. But, pace
Not so, however, the other psychodrama that has been playing out here for four years, and whose climax may be yet to come - the relationship between Bush the elder and Bush the younger - "41" and "43" as they like to call each other - the first father and son to become president since John Adams and John Quincy Adams ("2" and "6" in Bush parlance) almost 200 years ago. It is a tangled tale of love and rivalry, of admiration and intense competition. And it may have brought us the disaster of
David Broder: No one speaks more authoritatively for the Democrats on defense and national security issues than Sens. Carl Levin of
In a conference call with reporters the other day, the two senators outlined the changes in
…On
David Sarasohn: In every day's news, inescapable and bloody and increasingly dismal, there is
There is
You won't find it on any map, and you won't see it in the news reports, and
"They've had three national elections with higher turnout than we have here in the
To see Cheney's
In Cheney's
"Well," the vice president told Limbaugh, "I think there's some natural level of concern out there because, in fact, it wasn't over instantaneously."
Three and a half years -- about as long as American involvement in World War II -- is a while longer than "instantaneously," especially if it arrives with no end in sight. But in Cheney's
The vice president's
Sunday, October 22, 2006
DAILY WAR NEWS FOR SUNDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2006
PHOTO: Masked insurgents take their positions on a road in Ramadi, 100 km (62 miles), west of Baghdad October 22, 2006. REUTERS/Stringer (IRAQ)
Security Incidents for October 22, 2006
Baghdad:
Three people were killed and fourteen injured in a market where two bombs exploded in Baghdad. A third bomb killed two civilians and injured ten more.
Bring ‘em on: US Marine dies in fighting west of Baghdad.
Five gunmen killed and one wounded by US army while trying to plant IED in al Doura district.
Two civilians injured by a roadside bomb in east Baghdad.
Gunmen killed a barber in Amil, in southern Baghdad, police said.
The Defence Ministry said 29 suspected insurgents were arrested around Iraq in the past 24 hours.
Mahaweel:
One person killed and another injured by roadside bomb.
Shujeiriya:
Clashes broke out Saturday night between tribes south of the capitol of Baghdad, killing nine. About 80 panicked families fled the area.
Suwayrah:
Eight fighters of the Mahdi army died in clashes with the US military and Iraqi police.
Haditha:
Mahmudiya:
Madaen:
Kut:
Mosul:
REPORTS – Everyday Life in Iraq Today
Iraq Province Loses 9,000 To Sectarian Killing
The bloodsoaked Iraqi province of Diyala has seen 9,000 of its citizens killed and at least 31,500 forced to flee since the fall of Sadda, it’s police chief has said. Defending the scope of an aggressive new security operation, Major General Ghassan Adnan al-Bawi told lawmakers Saturday that his force was dealing with a massive campaign of sectarian cleansing in the killing fields north of Baghdad. In the three years and seven months since the US invasion, Sunni and Shiite death squads in Diyala have been battling it out for one of Iraq’s most fertile and religiously mixed areas. "The situation in Diyala needs widescale rather than limited operations," Bawi told the provincial council when a Sunni legislator claimed his security drive had contributed to a climate of fear choking life in Diyala. Bawi said 420 date palm plantations had been burned down in the fighting -- 350 belonging to Shiites and 70 to Sunnis -- while 45 Shiite shrines and mosques have been blown up or defiled by Sunni extremists. Giving an example of the dangerous task facing his officers, he said a squad had been unable to recover six bodies lying in a major Baquba street that morning because of the cross-fire and were waiting for US air cover. Among the 9,000 dead, 7,000 were Shiites, as were 4,500 of the 5,200 displaced families driven from their homes, Bawi said. Diyala's civilians have been particularly targeted by Sunni extremists attempting to set up a religiously pure emirate, but more recently there have also been reports of Shiite militia groups mounting bloody counterattacks. Bawi's comments came after a Sunni member of the provincial council, Mahdi al-Juburi blamed the police "quick response operation" for the paralysis of business and administration in the provincial capital Baquba. But the police officer countered with the accusation that notes distributed in the city asking people not to go to their offices "were printed at some government offices with the support of the officials at these offices".
Medics Beg For Help As Iraqis Die Needlessly
The disintegration of Iraq's health service is leaving its civilians defenceless in the continuing violence that is rocking the country, Iraqi doctors warn today. As many as half of the civilian deaths, calculated at 655,000 since the 2003 invasion, might have been avoided if proper medical care had been provided to the victims, they say. In separate appeals, the doctors beg for help to stem the soaring death rate and ease the suffering of injured families and children. They say governments and the international medical community are ignoring their plight. In the first 14 months after the 2003 invasion almost $20bn (£11bn) was spent on reconstruction by the British and American funds, including hundreds of millions on rebuilding and re-equipping the country's network of 180 hospitals and clinics. But billions went missing because of a combination of criminal activity, corruption, and incompetence, leaving Iraqis without even the essentials for basic medical care. The violence for which the Allied forces failed to plan has meant a $200m reconstruction project for building 142 primary care centres ran out of cash earlier this year with just 20 on course to be completed, an outcome the World Health Organisation described as "shocking".
In March, the campaign group Medact said 18,000 physicians had left the country since 2003, an estimated 250 of those that remained had been kidnapped and, in 2005 alone, 65 killed. Medact also said "easily treatable conditions such as diarrhoea and respiratory illness caused 70 per cent of all child deaths", and that " of the 180 health clinics the US hoped to build by the end of 2005, only four have been completed and none opened". Writing in the British Medical Journal today, Dr Basssim Al Sheibani and two colleagues from the Diwaniyah College of Medicine in Iraq says that, as the violence escalates, "the reality is we cannot provide any treatment for many of the victims." "Emergency departments are staffed by doctors who do not have the proper experience or skills to manage emergency cases. Medical staff ... admit that more than half of those killed could have been saved if trained and experienced staff were available."
Medical notes
34,000 The number of Iraqi physicians registered before the 2003 war.
18,000 The estimated number of Iraqi physicians who have left since the 2003 invasion.
2,000 The estimated number of Iraqi physicians murdered since 2003.
250 The number of Iraqi physicians kidnapped.
34 The number of reconstructive surgeons in Iraq before the 2003 invasion.
20 The number who have either been murdered of fled. 72 per cent of Iraqis needing reconstructive surgery are suffering from gunshot or blast wounds.
164 The number of nurses murdered - 77 wounded.
$243,000,000 The amount of money set aside by US administration to build 142 private health clinics in post-invasion Iraq.
20 The number of such clinics built by April 2006.
$0 The amount of money left over.
$1bn The amount of money the US administration has spent on Iraq's healthcare system.
$8bn The amount of money needed over the next 4 years to fund the health care system
70 the percentage of deaths among children caused by "easily treatable conditions" such as diarrhoea and respiratory illnesses.
270,000 The number of children born after 2003 who have had no immunisations.
HEALTH INDICATORS:
68 per cent of Iraqis with no access to safe drinking water.
19 per cent of Iraqis with sewerage access.
Baghdad Bakers and Barbers at Risk
This is a snapshot of life for two people in one Baghdad neighbourhood. Before I introduce you to the baker and the barber though, a little background... They both work in Karrada which sits on the east bank of the river Tigris. It is one of the wealthier parts of the city and right now it is seen as something of a haven. In this case that means bombings and shootings only once or twice a week, rather than every day. This is a majority Shia area, but many of its residents are Sunni, and there are large numbers of Christians too. So far though it has avoided the fate of other traditionally mixed neighbourhoods which have become ever more homogeneous, as death squads and militias drive out whichever group is in the minority. The question though everyone in Karrada has at the back of their minds is: how long before it starts happening here too? The threats are coming from both Sunni and Shia extremists - the same people are behind much of the sectarian violence. "I am very worried," says Sami. "I know what has happened to barbers in other districts." For the moment though, he is benefiting from these attacks on his profession. Because in some areas, all the barbers' shops have now closed and their customers are coming to areas like Karrada. But, like Hussein the baker, he keeps an eye on the street outside. "It's very sad," he says. "Before the war, we would just cut hair the way people wanted. Now we're not allowed to." And he went on: "Before we would never talk about whether someone was Sunni or Shia or Christian. You would never hear those words, we all lived peacefully. I don't know what is going to happen now." Then, with another furtive look at the street outside, he calls for the next customer, the father with his small boy, still screaming, to come and take his place on the red leather barber's chair.
VIDEO: Marwan Speaks About His Kidnapping
‘It is either us or you,’ Iraqi Rebels Tell U.S.
Iraqi rebels are determined to turn the Muslim holy month of Ramadan this year into a turning point in their struggle to defeat the United States. In interviews with residents and insurgents in violence-ridden areas, particularly in central Iraq, it appears that rebel tactics of turning the holy month into the bloodiest for the occupiers have been ‘a resounding success.’ “We have long queues of people willing to have themselves killed if they guarantee they will take one of the ‘Olooch’ with them,” said and Iraqi man who had spent sometime with a few rebels in a prison. ‘Olooch’ is the Arabic term the rebels use to refer to U.S. troops which is invariably translated into infidels. It was first used by former leader Saddam Hussein to describe U.S.-led troops that had assembled to topple him in 2003. One rebel said there were hundreds of fighters who would refuse to fight with a gun but would prefer to suicide bomb themselves if they know the bombing would end up in killing an American. The rebel, who refused to be named like all the sources in this story, cited the latest battles in Anbar, one of the most violent provinces in Iraq, in which U.S. troops were dealt heavy blows. “U.S. military operations there were met with stiff resistance. Fighters jointed the resistance from across the country and neighboring states. Many of them would rather blow themselves up in the face of the Olooch,” he said. Residents in rebel-held areas denied reports that Iraqi resistance was losing its popular base. “Everybody would opt for resistance and support it. There is little choice. It is hard for anyone in our area to even sympathize with these Olooch,” said a farmer in a village close to Falluja. The use of disproportionate force and policies and actions hostile to the religious and cultural aspirations of the population in these areas has apparently turned most of the people against U.S. troops. Stories of U.S. atrocities – mistreatment of prisoners, molesting of females, killing of innocent Iraqis as well as reported rape and murder – are the main topics of conversation almost everywhere in this volatile region. “There is no way to drive a wedge between us and the resistance. We are all one voice that it is either us or them (U.S.),” said a tribal chieftain, also not willing to reveal his name. There were reports that the tribes were unhappy with the rebels but the tribal leader said if differences existed they “will never be at the expense of efforts to humiliate and defeat the Olooch and their backers in Iraq.”
An Early Calculation of Iraq’s Cost of War
Published information on the subject is very limited, although one economist, Colin Rowat, has made some preliminary calculations using the best sources available. Professor Rowat, a specialist on the Iraqi economy at the University of Birmingham in Britain, relied mainly on data from the International Monetary Fund to estimate the war’s overall effect on the Iraqi economy. His calculations are a work in progress, but what he has found so far is sobering: the cost amounts to a cut of at least 40 percent in Iraq’s national income. Professor Rowat looked at the six-year stretch from 2000 to 2005 and divided it into thirds. During the first period, 2000-2001, United Nations trade sanctions against Iraq were beginning to crumble; the Security Council lifted the cap on Iraqi oil sales to the rest of the world, and the Iraqi government was becoming adept at getting around the remaining trade restrictions. The second period, 2002 -2003, covers the buildup to war and the invasion itself. The last period, 2004-2005, covers post-invasion years when sanctions were removed. Professor Rowat made several kinds of calculations. First, he estimated the actual change in the size of Iraq’s economy. Then he considered the economic effects of foreign aid in 2005, much of it from the United States. (Because foreign aid is regarded as temporary and is expected to taper off, he said, excluding it reveals Iraq’s underlying economic performance.)
Iraqi Youth Want US Troops To Withdraw
Majorities of Iraqi youth in Arab regions of the country believe security would improve and violence decrease if the U.S.-led forces left immediately, according to a State Department poll that provides a window into the grim warnings provided to policymakers. The survey — unclassified, but marked "For Official U.S. Government Use Only" — also finds that Iraqi leaders may face particular difficulty recruiting young Sunni Arabs to join the stumbling security forces. Strong majorities of 15- to 29-year-olds in two Arab Sunni areas — Mosul and Tikrit-Baquba — would oppose joining the Iraqi army or police. The poll has its shortcomings; regional samples are small and the results do not say how many people refused to respond to questions. The private polling firm hired by the State Department also was not able to interview residents of al-Anbar, a Sunni-dominated province and an insurgent stronghold. But the findings of the summer survey — circulated to policymakers last month and obtained by The Associated Press last week — nevertheless provide a solemn reminder of the difficulty that the U.S.-backed Iraqi government faces as it tries to add ethnic diversity to its security institutions. [Poll after poll after poll after poll in Iraq shows one thing: THEY WHAT THE US FORCES TO LEAVE. But, I guess the fact that it is THEIR country means nothing to “Democracy Boy”. – dancewater]
REPORTS – Other Aspects of Life in Iraq
Later he takes me, via the same back road, once more to avoid the Americans, to his brother's home in this town 20 miles south of Baghdad. It is a typical Iraqi farmhouse surrounded by palm and fig trees. "When I arrived that morning there was still a smell of burning plastic," Ahmad recalls. Inside the modest house, the walls and ceiling are covered with soot at the far right end of the room. Under the window sill, the wall and part of the floor are covered with a thick layer of burned grease, and next to it the corner wall is stained with an arc of spattered blood. "Abeer, was lying there," gestures Ahmad. "Part of her body was burned." In an adjacent room, he points at another blood-stained wall: "My brother was sitting there, his head slumped down. His wife was here by the door. And in the middle of the room was the little girl." While we are looking round the house, a woman wearing a shapeless black dress and a black hijab comes in with her 13-year-old son, Omar. Omar explains how he was outside the house showing his bicycle to Ahmad's brother, Hamza [Abeer's father] in the yard next door when he heard noises. "I told him: I think the Americans have gone into your house." Hamza went to see what was happening. About half an hour later, the boy said he heard a sound, "like beating a tin barrel with a stick few times". He went outside and saw five Americans leaving. One carried two guns. His mother takes up the story: "We went to the house and shouted through the door, are you OK? Are you OK? No one answered, then we saw the smoke coming from that window. I went to the street screaming for help, the young men from the street came in and we broke the door down. "The poor girl, she was so beautiful she lay there, one leg was stretched and the other was bended and her dress was lifted to her neck." …………Iraqi tribal society is deeply patriarchal. Honour and reputation are valued much more highly than property. Shame can only be wiped clean by blood and there is no worse shame for a family than rape. Shifting his weight uneasily and drinking his tea in a single gulp, Ahmad went on: "If we knew the soldier we would kill him but who is he? They all look the same." He dismissed claims by Sunni insurgent groups that the kidnapping and killing of two US soldiers in an area near the scene of the rape was in retaliation for the attack on Abeer.
Kurds Angry at Appointment of Turkmen
Kader Aziz, representative of autonomous Kurdish region leader Masoud Barazani, criticized Saturday the Iraqi premier's decision to appoint a Turkmen representative to the higher council responsible for implementation of the much-debated article 140 in Kirkuk. The amendments which were made in order to include a Turkmen leader in the executive committee were deemed 'surprising and were taken without the counsel of the Kurdish side,' said Aziz. The Kurdish leader said he expected 'barriers to be set, and problems to arise,' as a result of this decision. The article outlines a three-stage plan whereby 'the Arabization' policy formerly adopted by ousted leader Saddam Hussein would be completely abolished. A referendum would also take place to decide on the leadership of the oil-rich Kirkuk city, which the Kurds have their eyes set on amid Turkmen concern.
REPORTS – Iraqi Politicians and Power Brokers and Militias
Shia militias fought gun battles with Iraqi police for a second day running yesterday, and at least 16 people were killed in a market bombing as worsening violence tested the Shia-led government's ability to rein in militias. It also exposed a power struggle that threatens to further complicate the US task in Iraq. The escalation in Shia infighting comes as Shias and Sunnis are engaged in a vicious sectarian conflict and insurgents are battling both Iraqi and US troops. Violence erupted in Suwayra after some 150 Mahdi Army militiamen loyal to Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr attacked a police station in the town 30 miles south of Baghdad. Eight gunmen died and two civilians were wounded. And in Mahmoudiyah, a late afternoon mortar and bomb attack killed at least 30 in the marketplace. Meanwhile, a lull of unpredictable length in the battle for Amarah settled on the southern Iraq city after government security forces retook control of streets where 750,00 people live in conditions of almost perpetual violence. Two days of clashes between elements of the Mahdi Army loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's faction and police controlled by Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim's Badr Brigades, left 25 dead, underscoring alarm about the growing influence of such virtual private armies, both of whose leaders exert influence within the national parliament.
Iraq’s Government Envoy Meets Tribal Leaders in Tense Amara
An envoy of Iraq’s prime minister on Saturday met tribal leaders in the southern town of Amara in efforts to ease the tension after fierce battles between militia gunmen and police. National Security Minister Shirwan al-Waeli, sent to Amara on Friday by prime minister Nuri al-Maliki to restore order, said the clashes, which left at least 25 dead in two days, had been fueled by tribal divisions. The fighting between the police and the Mehdi Army, loyal to the fiery Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, started after the assassination of the head of police intelligence in the town. Police subsequently arrested figures loyal to Sadr. The Mehdi Army then attacked police stations with rocket-propelled grenades and rifle fire. Sadr sent a letter urging calm, a leader in the Shi'ite militia said. Sadr also sent an envoy to Amara on Friday. The clashes have tested the Iraqi government's ability to rein in sectarian groups, and U.S.-led plans to hand over control to Iraqis. Witnesses said Amara was quiet on Saturday morning and shops were open.
REPORTS – US Military in Iraq
On Baghdad Streets, A Police Partnership Falters
When Lt. Col. John Norris led his Stryker battalion to the Baya district of Baghdad last month he planned to work hand in glove with the Iraqi police. But no sooner did he venture onto the streets than he discovered that the police who were to be his partners were part of the problem. As his Stryker command vehicle drove along a crowded avenue Colonel Norris spied several Shiite women in black abayas wailing over a body sprawled near a mosque as distraught relatives smeared the dead man’s blood on their faces. The American officer tried to wave down an Iraqi National Police truck for help, but the driver gave him an icy stare and kept going. “I was disgusted by that,” Colonel Norris recalled. An investigation by the American battalion later determined that the murder victim was a Sunni army captain visiting his family while on leave. He had been shot in the head and neck by two men armed with 9-millimeter pistols who escaped in a white van that drove unchallenged through a National Police checkpoint less than 200 yards away. On Thursday, the American command acknowledged that the Baghdad security plan had yet to stem the escalating bloodshed in the city. A week spent with American units demonstrated a major reason: After spending billions on building up Iraqi forces, and making withdrawal contingent on that buildup, the Americans have discovered that many of the Iraqi security forces are still not ready to handle security on their own. Throughout much of the city many Iraqis do not trust their own police forces.
Another Disastrous Cover-up [True or not, I don't know. - dancewater]
When the flames had been brought under control on the morning of the 11th of October, primarily because the entire camp had been gutted, nine large American military transports with prominent Red Cross markings were observed by members of the foreign media taking off, laded with the dead and the wounded. Over 300 American troops, including U.S. Army and M