[UrukNet] - [Daily Information from Occupied Iraq] - [newsletter 01 Apr 2006]

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Divide and rule Imad Khadduri Since 9 April 2003, the US has been trying to foment sectarian tendencies. This may explain the tensions we see today. Doctrinal differences within Islam were never a big deal. Islam is open to many interpretations after all. Shias and Sunnis are more united by religion than divided by interpretation. Islam has also been a uniting force for Kurds and Arabs. This is not something that occupiers wished to encourage. The occupiers adopted a policy of divide and rule. The US had only one post-war scenario, and it was based on pitting Sunni against Shia. The moment the occupation was complete, the countdown to civil war began. The media spoke of parallels between Lebanon and Iraq... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22161 DAILY WAR NEWS FOR SATURDAY, APRIL 1, 2006 Today in Iraq Four militants and an Iraqi Army major were killed in fighting when an army patrol stopped several men trying to steal a truck south of Baquba 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad, the U.S. military said. THULUIYA - Soldiers at a joint U.S.-Iraqi army checkpoint killed three gunmen who opened fire on them in the town of Thuluiya, 70km (45 miles) north of Baghdad, Iraqi authorities said. MOSUL - A suspected militant was killed and five were arrested on Friday, the Iraqi army said. US helicopter down near Baghdad, no word on crew. Mortar shell killed three women and injured three more in Baghdad while they are in their homes. Six bullet-riddled male bodies found handcuffed in Baghdad. Three car bombs go off simultaneously in market in southern Baghdad, killing one person and injuring seven... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22175 Iranian militiamen were brought in by Britain Dominic Kennedy, Times MILITIAMEN from an Iranian-backed force were deliberately recruited by Britain to join the new Iraqi security services after Saddam Hussein was overthrown, the Government has admitted. The sectarian Badr organisation, trained in exile by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, is suspected of violently pursuing its own agenda after being allowed to enlist in national units. John Reid, the Defence Secretary, disclosed in a Commons written answer to the Plaid Cymru MP Adam Price that it had been official policy to welcome the Shia gunmen. "Following the end of the conflict in Iraq, the Coalition Provision Authority sought to reintegrate militia members into civil society," Mr Reid said. "This process included members of the Badr organisation, formerly known as the Badr Corps, among others."... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22156 US and UK forces establish 'enduring bases' in Iraq Andrew Buncombe The Pentagon has revealed that coalition forces are spending millions of dollars establishing at least six "enduring" bases in Iraq - raising the prospect that US and UK forces could be involved in a long-term deployment in the country. It said it assumed British troops would operate one of the bases. Almost ever since President Bush claimed an end to "major combat operations" in Iraq on 1 May 2003, debate has focused on how quickly troops could be withdrawn. The US and British governments say troops will remain in Iraq "until the job is done". Yet while the withdrawal of a substantial number of troops remains an aim, it has become increasingly clear that the Pentagon and the Ministry of Defence (MoD) are preparing to retain some forces in Iraq for the longer term. The US currently has around 130,000 troops in Iraq; Britain has 8,000... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22174 U.S. helicopter down near Baghdad, no word on crew Reuters A U.S. military helicopter went down southwest of Baghdad today and it was unclear if there were casualties, the military said.nA militant group said it shot down a helicopter in the same area and residents said they heard gunfire. ''A ... helicopter went down southwest of Baghdad at approximately 1730 hrs (1330 GMT)'' the military said. ''The status of the crew is unknown.'' A spokesman declined to say how many were on board or the type of helicopter involved (...) In an Internet posting, a group calling itself the Rashedeen Army said it had shot down a U.S. helicopter near the town of Yusufiya, an area that sees considerable Sunni insurgent activity just southwest of the capital... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22173 War Against Iran, April 2006 Biological Threat and Executive Order 13292 Jorge Hirsch History repeats itself, but always with new twists. We are back to the good old days when a Declaration of War preceded the start of a war. Such declaration occurred on March 16th, 2006. Reversing the old order, we are now in the "Sitzkrieg", to be followed shortly by an aerial "Blitzkrieg" in the coming days. In the old days, Congress declared war, and directed the Executive to take action. In the new millenium, the Executive declared war last March 16th, then Congress will pass H.R. 282, "To hold the current regime in Iran accountable for its threatening behavior and to support a transition to democracy in Iran." This bill and previous ones like it are in direct violation of the legally binding Algiers Accords[pdf] signed by the United States and Iran on January 19, 1981, that states "The United States pledges that it is and from now on will be the policy of the United States not to intervene, directly or indirectly, politically or militarily, in Iran's internal affairs"; however, this is clearly of no interest to the 353 policymakers sponsoring the bill... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22172 GI Special 4D1: Pentagon Wants Suicide Soldiers - April 1, 2006 Thomas F. Barton In a change to Army tactics, U.S. soldiers will stand and fight instead of shooting and pressing on when their convoys are attacked on Iraqi roads, according to the Army's Training and Doctrine Command at Fort Monroe, Va. The change is part of Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker's underlying philosophy of a more rigorous response to attacks, a spokesman said. [Thanks to Schoomaker, now every resistance soldier and every resistance commander in Iraq will know exactly what tactics to adopt to set up even more elaborate and lethal concealed attacks on supply convoys]... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22170 "Saddam chose to deny inspectors" Bush repeated this bald-faced lie recently. The cowering press still lets him get away with it, but the public is no longer fooled. Joe Conason, Salon.com ...For the third time since the war began three years ago, Bush had falsely claimed that Saddam refused the U.N. weapons inspections mandated by the Security Council. For the third time, he had denied a reality witnessed by the entire world during the four months when those inspectors, under the direction of Hans Blix, traveled Iraq searching fruitlessly for weapons of mass destruction that, as we now know for certain, were not there. But forget about whether the weapons were there for a moment. The inspectors definitely went to Iraq. They left only because the United States warned them to get out before the bombs started to fall on March 19, 2003. But for some reason the president of the United States keeps saying -- in public and on the record -- that the inspectors weren't there... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22169 Civilians in Iraq Flee Mixed Areas as Killings Rise EDWARD WONG and KIRK SEMPLE The war in Iraq has entered a bloodier phase, with American casualties steadily declining over the past five months while the killings of Iraqi civilians have risen tremendously in sectarian violence, spurring tens of thousands of Iraqis to flee from mixed Shiite-Sunni areas. The new pattern, detailed in casualty and migration statistics and in interviews with American commanders and Iraqi officials, has led to further separation of Shiite and Sunni Arabs, moving the country toward a de facto partitioning along sectarian and ethnic lines — an outcome that the Bush administration has doggedly worked to avoid over the past three years... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22167 Bush still sidesteps questions on Iraq Ed Tant, Athens Banner-Herald Commander in Mischief George W. Bush talks tough, but he gets rattled by a question from an 85-year-old woman. Helen Thomas, the octogenarian "dean of the White House press corps," had not been called on to question the president in more than three years. When her name finally was called at the president's news conference on March 21, she made up for lost time. Her simple but unanswered question for the chief executive was, "Why did you really want to go to war?" against Iraq. Bush responded with the cliché that "no president wants war." He then sidestepped the question about his Iraq Blitzkreig-turned-bust by switching the topic to the fanatical Afghan Taliban and the 9/11 tragedy that he and his henchmen have been milking for more than four years. "The Taliban provided safe haven for al-Qaida," dodged the president. "That's where al-Qaida trained." As Bush blithered and blathered, Helen Thomas icily interjected, "I'm talking about Iraq". She never got an answer to her question and no member of the moderate and mainstream White House press corps backed her up with follow-up questions... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22166 Halliburton's War Jeffrey Steinberg, thepeoplesvoice.org ...Instead of a comprehensive solution to the Persian Gulf crisis, we got what can only be called "Halliburton's War," the three-year descent into Hell, during which time, thousands of American GIs were killed or maimed, Iraq became engulfed in an ever-growing asymmetric warfare insurgency, and a parade of private military corporations (PMCs), led by Halliburton, raked in tens of billions in U.S. taxpayers' dollars and Iraqi Oil-for-Food funds, left over from the Saddam Hussein era. Pentagon and Congressional investigations have confirmed that the PMCs, particularly Halliburton, have engaged in crass war profiteering, with the latest Pentagon audit concluding that Halliburton's Kellog Brown and Root (KBR) subsidiary has systematically over-billed U.S. taxpayers by 25% on all of their Iraq logistics and reconstruction contracts, since the beginning of the Iraq imbroglio.... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22165 A Review of Anthony Arnove's "Iraq: the Logic of Withdrawal" Leaving Iraq Now is the Only Sensible Solution RON JACOBS Coherent. That's the one word review of Anthony Arnove's latest book, Iraq:The Logic of Withdrawal. Incoherent. That's what Washington's policy in Iraq seems to be. What makes Arnove's book so important is that he dissects that policy and proves that the war in Iraq is not an incoherent bumble that's gone awry. In fact, as Arnove makes abundantly clear, it's US foreign policy as it's always been. This remains the case even in the light of Condoleeza Rice's admission of thousands of tactical errors. After all, Ms. Rice didn't admit that the war itself was an error, only the manne in which it is fought... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22163 Gasp! If Attacked Iran Would Actually Defend Itself Kurt Nimmo According to the CIA’s favorite newspaper, the Washington Post, it is breaking news that Iran, if attacked by the United States, would respond in kind. "As tensions increase between the United States and Iran, U.S. intelligence and terrorism experts say they believe Iran would respond to U.S. military strikes on its nuclear sites by deploying its intelligence operatives and Hezbollah teams to carry out terrorist attacks worldwide," writes Dana Priest. "Iran would mount attacks against U.S. targets inside Iraq, where Iranian intelligence agents are already plentiful, predicted these experts. There is also a growing consensus that Iran’s agents would target civilians in the United States, Europe and elsewhere, they said."... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22178 Jill Carroll Statement The Christian Science Monitor ...During my last night in captivity, my captors forced me to participate in a propaganda video. They told me they would let me go if I cooperated. I was living in a threatening environment, under their control, and wanted to go home alive. I agreed. Things that I was forced to say while captive are now being taken by some as an accurate reflection of my personal views. They are not (...) I also gave a TV interview to the Iraqi Islamic Party shortly after my release. The party had promised me the interview would never be aired on television, and broke their word. At any rate, fearing retribution from my captors, I did not speak freely... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22176 42 Bodies found in Iraq today Bahrain News Agency It was announced here today the finding of 42 bodies in different roads during the last 24 hours. Radio Sawa quoted the Iraqi police as saying that 10 bodies were found in Al Shoala suburb, 10 bodies in Al Dowri town, 6 bodies in Al Zaida town, 3 bodies in Al Ameen town and another 13 bodies in Al Mohmoudia town... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22177 Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Friday, 31 March 2006. Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board, the Free Arab Voice. http://www.freearabvoice.org In a dispatch posted at 3:50pm Makkah time Friday afternoon, Mafkarat al-Islam reported that sources in the Iraqi puppet police in the city of al-Hillah, some 100km south of Baghdad, had disclosed that the US-installed puppet "Iraqi Interior Ministry" is running a secret prison in which more than 100 victims, mostly Sunni have been confined. The al-Hillah correspondent for Mafkarat al-Islam reported an officer in the local puppet police who asked not to be identified as saying that the prison is located in the building that housed the Iraqi Security Directorate before the American occupation of the country. The source said that high-ranking officers in the puppet "Interior Ministry" oversee the secret prison, all of them concurrently commanders in the pro-American Shi'i sectarian Badr Brigades... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22155 When the Violent Enforce the Peace America's Brutal Tactics in Iraq JOHN CHUCKMAN Naturally enough, few details of what American troops do in Iraq and Afghanistan reach the nation's television screens, the main source of news for most Americans. American television takes the approach of the New York Times when it refers to professional soldiers as GIs, as though they were humble mechanics and bricklayers of America drafted into the titanic struggle against Hitler and Tojo. But if you are genuinely interested in discovering the truth, there are plenty of sources for first-hand information. And anyone taking a little time to search through some of these comes away with a sick feeling... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22162 Keeping It Quiet: The Israel Lobby's Crushing of Dissent Charley Reese The first weapon of choice for the Israeli lobby when someone with prestige publishes a soundly researched paper or book critical of Israel or its powerful lobby is silence. If it's a book, it rarely gets reviewed; its author doesn't get interviewed. If it's a paper, there are no news stories in the big corporate press, no interviews with the authors, no television appearances. For the average American who depends on the press to tell him what's going on, it's as if the criticism never existed. The second weapon is, of course, to launch vicious personal attacks. Both methods are being used against an astounding paper titled "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy."... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22158 An Open Letter to New Exxon/Mobil CEO, Rex Tillerson The Corporate Superpower of Superpowers RALPH NADER Mr. Tillerson: You have to be feeling pretty good about your new position heading the world's largest oil and gas company. You stand astride the globe where, with few exceptions, the Congress is like putty in your hands, the White House is your House and the consuming public is powerless. Governments in the Third World may huff and puff, but Exxon/Mobil pretty much gets its way in dozens of arrangements completed and about to be concluded. Seven years ago, your predecessor, Lee Raymond, took over Exxon's main competitor, Mobil Oil Company, through a merger approved by the misnamed Antitrust Division of the Justice Department. Really, what is left of antitrust standards when the when the number one and number two companies in an industry are permitted to marry?... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22157 US Media Dead Silent On Israel Lobby Report George S. Hishmeh Never before have the mainstream US media performed so atrociously, if not discouragingly, as they did this month when the editors ignored a damning report by two prominent university professors who are on the faculties of some of the country's most respectable institutions, Harvard University and the University of Chicago. The case in point is the well-documented "working paper" titled "The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy"... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22154 Iraq Shiites urge PM to quit Reuters Leaders of Iraq's ruling Shiite Alliance bloc have called publicly for the first time for Ibrahim al-Jaafari to step down as Prime Minister to break weeks of deadlock over a national unity government. The call declared by one leader and echoed, anonymously, by others sparked consternation in the Alliance ranks as parties held their latest round of talks on a grand coalition with Kurds and Sunnis, who are adamant in their rejection of Mr Jaafari... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22153 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.