[UrukNet] - [Daily Information from Occupied Iraq] - [newsletter 27 Mar 2006 - Part One]

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Madaen People Fearing "Another Fallujah" Mazen Ghazi & Nada Omran, IOL Correspondents Arbitrary arrests and pre-dawn house-to-house raids have cast a pall over the picturesque Iraqi town of Al-Madaen, southeast of Baghdad, with locals fearing that the aggressive tactics were a prelude for "another Fallujah." (...) Scores of people have been detained by Iraqi security forces, backed by US troops, during crackdown operations in the city since the February bombing of the Shiite shrine of Imam Ali Al-Hadi in Samarra. Up to 450 civilians, mostly Sunnis, were killed and 81 Sunni mosques targeted, including eight completely destroyed, in reprisal attacks triggered by the bombing of the celebrated Shiite shrine (...) Residents furthers said threats by self-styled and sometimes government-sanctioned Shiite militias have added insult to injury (...) Tension has also escalated after Shiite leader Muqtada Al-Sadr's Mahdi Army controlled the "Salman Al-Farisi" mosque, run by the Sunni Wakfs Authority... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=21982 Torture and Task Force 121 Sarah Meyer A recent important NY Times article by Eric Schmitt and Carolyn Marshall was about abuse in the 'Black Room’1 at Camp Nama near Baghdad. The NY Times map and the map of Baghdad Airport at US Camp Victory – al Nasr appear undistinguishable. Schmitt and Marshall say that Task Force 6-26 was 'renamed’ Task Force 121 and moved to Balad. Balad is now the largest US airbase in Iraq and is situated in the Sunni Triangle, upon which anti-US-occupation Iraqis lob mortars. However, Task Force 121 was already in existence. TF121 was formed from TF5 (Afghanistan) and TF20 (Iraq)... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=21966 Rival Shia groups unite against US after mosque raid Jonathan Steele and Qais al-Bashir, The Guardian Senior ministers from the three main Shia factions united yesterday to denounce an American raid on a Baghdad mosque complex in which at least 20 people died, opening the biggest rift between the US and Iraq's majority Shia community since the toppling of Saddam Hussein. "At evening prayers, American soldiers accompanied by Iraqi troops raided the Mustafa mosque and killed 37 people," said Abd al-Karim al-Enzi, the security minister, who belongs to the Dawa party of the prime minister, Ibrahim al Jaafari. "They [the victims] were unarmed. They went in, tied up the people and shot them all. They did not leave any wounded." Baghdad's governor, Hussein Tahan, a member of the rival Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution of Iraq (Sciri), announced that local officials were ending their contacts with the Americans in protest at the killings... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=21979 Bush was set on war. Who knew? Eli Stephens, Left I on the News Following well behind other news sources, the New York Times is out with the shocking news that George Bush was intent on war in January, 2003. As if anyone with two eyes and two brain cells to rub together didn't recognize that fact well before that January. What's interesting about this story isn't what the Times is "revealing." What's interesting to me is that more and more government insiders are trying in some way to jump ship (or perhaps to salve their guilty consciences) and get this information out to the public (e.g., slipping copies of memos to Times reporters), and more and more news outlets (like the Times) are willing to run with such stories... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=21978 Saddam deputy calls Arab summit to back resistance Al-Bawaba Saddam Hussein's deputy, who has eluded capture since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, has called for Arab leaders to back Iraq's resistance, in an audiotape aired Monday. Izzat_IDouriThe tape, which Al-Jazeera television said was made by Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, appeared to be an address to the Arab League summit in Khartoum, Sudan, which will start Tuesday. The voice on the tape said Iraq's Sunni-led resistance was "the sole legitimate representative of the Iraqi people." The voice added Arab leaders should "boycott the regime of mercenaries and treason and besiege it by taking the necessary decision to support the people of Iraq, its courageous, national resistance and its jihad until liberation"... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=21977 Death Squads in Iraq & The Likelihood of Civil War Interview with Robert Dreyfuss Scott Harris ... I would say that at the beginning, back when we had the interim government in place and we were creating the beginnings of an Iraqi security force, the CIA and the Pentagon did help to create these so called "Wolf Brigades" and other units within the Interior Ministry -- kind of police commando units that began on a small scale to engage in death squad-type activity. And I think we turned a blind eye to it because we were so obsessed with combating the insurgency. I have to say that now I think it's gotten completely out of hand... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=21974 Poverty chronic in Iraq Azzaman More than 20% of Iraqis live in abject poverty despite the boost in government’s social security program, a report by the Ministry of Planning reveals. The poverty level is bound to increase due to inefficiencies in the distribution of food rations which are credited for saving the country from starvation. Facing tough armed resistance and political inaction, the government has proved much less efficient than the former regime which U.S. troops ousted three years ago in handing out food rations... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=21971 Iraq's Missing Billions Imad Khadduri In a dilapidated maternity and paediatric hospital in Diwaniyah, 100 miles south of Baghdad, Zahara and Abbas, premature twins just two days old, lie desperately ill. The hospital has neither the equipment nor the drugs that could save their lives. On the other side of the world, in a federal courthouse in Virginia, US, two men - one a former CIA agent and Republican candidate for Congress, the other a former army ranger - are found guilty of fraudulently obtaining $3m (£1.7m) intended for the reconstruction of Iraq. These two events have no direct link, but they are none the less products of the same thing: a financial scandal that in terms of sheer scale must rank as one of the greatest in history... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=21970 The Theater of the Barbarians radlexi, Blood On Our Hands I was arrested before we went to war, for protesting the governments’ plan to invade Iraq. I was arrested by men who had lost their friends and family in 9-11 and had been told that the only vengeance for 9-11 was the war that I was protesting. It was then that I began a process of dissociation. I had been rendered powerless and shrunk. The one consistent image I have had during the entire war was our governments’ leaders having nightmares that would bring them to their knees and call for an end to the war. I felt that the horror of their nightmares would allow them to look for an alternative plan. I wanted them to be affected on a deep level. It has been more than three years at war... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=21969 Deadly blast hits U.S.-Iraqi base in Mosul, 40 killed Alajazeera.com More than 40 people have been killed by a bomb explosion inside a joint U.S.-Iraqi military base in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, police said, according to BBC. One witness said the explosion took place around 11:15 a.m. (3:15 a.m. ET) at the Kifak Base, which is located between Tal Afar and Mosul. Police said the blast targeted Iraqi army recruits and officers. The attack was carried out by a human bomber strapped with explosives, officials said... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=21967 US Soldiers Massacre 22 in Baghdad Mosque War Crime in a Mosque PATRICK COCKBURN US forces killed 22 people and wounded eight at a mosque in east Baghdad in an incident likely to lead to increased tensions with the Shia community. Police said the US troops had retaliated after coming under fire. Videotape showed a heap of male bodies with gunshot wounds on the floor of the Imam's living quarters in what was said to be the Al Mustafa mosque. There were 5.56mm shell casings on the floor, which is the type of ammunition used by US soldiers. A weeping man in white Arab robes is shown stepping among the bodies... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=21972 The mosque massacre Eli Stephens, Left I on the News Either 17 or 37 people were killed by "coalition" forces (Americans and their Iraqi "allies") in a Baghdad mosque Sunday, including the 80-year-old imam. The Iraqi national security minister says they were all unarmed and not a single shot was fired against the invading troops. The U.S. military says that U.S. troops never entered the mosque, and that they were just there "supporting" Iraqi forces. That may (or may not) be true. But they use that word "support" to try to leave the impression that, whatever happened, they weren't responsible... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=21976 The Evil Men Do Robert Klassen Just when I think things can’t be worse, I find out they are. Like a good many people, I’ve gradually become accustomed to the blatant tyranny emanating from the District of Criminals. It’s almost a relief to have the executive tell us point blank that the Constitution, the congress, and the courts don’t matter. Neither do the people, as long as we obediently labor for the state. Wars of aggression? No surprise. Rendition, torture, concentration camps? No surprise. Universal snooping? No surprise. What about depleted uranium bombs, bullets, and armor? Oh my. I suspect that Americans have little idea of the evil being done in our name... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=21983 Wave of violence kills at least 81 Iraqis AP Police found 30 more victims of the sectarian slaughter ravaging Iraq -- most of them beheaded -- dumped on a village road north of Baghdad on Sunday. At least 16 other Iraqis were killed in a U.S.-backed raid in a Shiite neighborhood of the capital. Accounts of the evening raid in Baghdad varied. Aides to the Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and Iraqi police both said it took place at a mosque, with police claiming 22 bystanders died and al-Sadr's aides saying 18 innocent men were killed... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=21965 The Splendid Failure of Occupation Part 42: Postwar aftermath or imperialist mutatis mutandis? B. J. Sabri, Online Journal Contributing Writer In addressing Soviet concerns on the American intentions in Iraq (early fall, 1990), former Secretary of State James Baker, borrowed from the vast repertoire of deception long experimented with by U.S. imperialist circles. He solemnly declared that once the United States "liberated" Kuwait from the Iraqi occupation, not even one American soldier would remain in the Gulf region. Baker never meant what he said. In fact, once the U.S. "liberated" Kuwait, American military bases spread like fungi across the Arabian Peninsula, and, de facto, all Gulf Sheikdoms (with the exception of Yemen that voted against the use of force against Iraq) fell under American tutelage as undeclared protectorates and semi-colonies... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=21963 Remembering Jesús David Howard, Online Journal Contributing Writer On March 27, 2003, a week after President Bush began the Iraq War, Jesús Suárez, a 20-year-old Marine, went on reconnaissance patrol near Baghdad. He stepped on a cluster bomb and died, becoming one of the first casualties of our catastrophic occupation of Iraq. The spring of 2003 was the heyday of "shock and awe." The president had taken us to war on cooked-up claims of WMD and Iraqi ties to Al Qaeda. Until those false pretenses unraveled, the White House would bask in callow triumphalism. Mr. Bush would masquerade in his military flight suit while performing a campaign publicity stunt on the USS Abraham Lincoln. These were heady high-poll-number days of taunting insurgents with cheap bravado: "Bring 'em on."... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=21964 Sliding towards the vortex GAVIN GATENBY ..."Have you noticed how Bush, Blair, and the right-wing columnists have shifted their rhetoric over the last few weeks? Not so long ago their whole Iraq dialogue was about evil Sunni Baathist terrorists. Now it’s all about evil Iranian Shiites and they’re saying the Tehran mullahs are supplying the roadside bombs used to target Coalition troops. "Of course, that’s sillier than absurd. In fact, the pro-Iranian Shiite militias in Iraq are currently the Coalition’s only allies – apart from the Kurds – and the puppet Iraqi army is recruited mostly from their followers. The people fighting the occupation are Sunnis and Baathists. Every half-bright person in the world knows that"... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=21962 Iraq’s Militia Problem: Go Blame Iran Kurt Nimmo ...No mention here of the fact the CIA promised to spend $3 billion over three years, beginning in early 2004, to recruit and train "Iraqi exile groups, Kurdish and Shi’ite forces" and "former mukhabarat agents" to "quell the insurgency," according to the UK Telegraph. Obviously, so long as CIA fostered "militia groups" were "patrolling cities and towns in many areas of Iraq" and engaging in "an increasing number of extra-judicial killings of prominent former Ba’athists," there was no problem for Khalilzad and the neocons. However, the predictable (and in fact engineered by the neocons) internecine violence must now be portrayed as out of control and a threat to the entire "democracy" project in Iraq—more of a threat, if we are to believe Zalmay Khalilzad, than the "insurgency" itself. It is relatively easy to see where all of this is going... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=21960 GI Special 4C22 - Somebody Else Came Back In His Body - March 26, 2006 Thomas F Barton ...The truth about the Iraqi resistance is: There are no terrorists: none. Even if we accept the neocon definition of terrorism (which conveniently exempts sovereign nations — otherwise, Shock & Awe would be the operative model), an act of terrorism requires the intent to terrorize. In Iraq, the intent of roadside or suicide bombs is not to terrorize the most powerful military force on earth but to exact a price on the enemy occupiers and their collaborators. supremacy and preemptive strike, at this juncture of international affairs, there is not a single nation on earth less peaceful and more threatening than our own... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=21959 NY Times obtains secret memo of Bush, Blair meeting before Iraq war RAW STORY The New York Times reports that a secret memo from January 2003 reveals that President Bush and Prime Minister Blair agreed to invade Iraq even without U.N. backing (...) The memo also shows that the president and the prime minister acknowledged that no unconventional weapons had been found inside Iraq. Faced with the possibility of not finding any before the planned invasion, Bush talked about several ways to provoke a confrontation, including a proposal to paint a U.S. surveillance plane in the colors of the United Nations in hopes of drawing fire, or assassinating Saddam... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=21958 Is This a Strategy For Success? Washington's good news in Iraq isn't quite what it seems. Rod Nordland, Newsweek International At last, President Bush had news he could use from Iraq. He devoted an entire speech in Cleveland last week to the story of how the town of Tall Afar was wrested from Qaeda control and has become a model for defeating the enemy. Praise came not just from the administration; CBS's "60 Minutes" ran a glowing segment on what had been accomplished under Col. H. R. McMaster and his Third Armored Cavalry (...) What it is, though, like so many places in Iraq now, is a city increasingly divided along sectarian lines. The neighborhoods we patrolled were largely Shia; those our reporter found barricaded and dangerous were mostly Sunni. "I'd say that zero percent of Bush's talk about Tall Afar is true," said Ahmed Sami, 45, a Sunni laborer. "They turned Shiite neighborhoods into havens, and Sunni neighborhoods into hells." Even in the Shia neighborhoods, people were far from satisfied. "This is all just an outdoor prison for us," said school teacher Abu Muhammed... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=21980 www.uruknet.info: a site gathering daily information concerning occupied Iraq: news, analysis, documents and texts of iraqi resistance available in Italian and English.   You receive this newsletter because you subscribed it. If you think it was an abuse, or simply if you don't want to receive it any more, click here to unsubscribe from the newsletter.