[UrukNet] - [Daily Information from Occupied Iraq] - [newsletter 9 Apr 2006]

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APRIL 9 Malcom Lagauche Three years ago, many of us awoke to see Saddam Hussein’s statue being torn down in Baghdad. The media ate it up. This was as eventful as the tearing down of the Berlin Wall, George Bush stated. Iraq was free, most pundits wrote or spoke. The U.S. proved its naysayers to be wrong. Baghdad had fallen with a minimal loss of U.S. lives. A democratic Iraq was just over the horizon. What you saw wasn’t real. Saddam’s statue was not torn down by Iraqis. The event was staged and well-rehearsed by the U.S. military. Look at the aerial photo of the event. Maybe there are three or four dozen Iraqis. The "crowd" comprises U.S. military personnel and tanks, and about 50 or so journalists who were alerted in the Palestinian Hotel, near the venue, to come a witness this historic event... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22375 Silence kills and silence is complicity - email to IBC's Sloboda Gabriele Zamparini, The Cat's dream Dear Mr. Sloboda, I hope all is well with you and IBC. I have read your reply to Joe Emersberger on ML board. I would like to make just two points, even though I am afraid you won’t reply my email as you have never in the past. Hard to believe we both belong to the same antiwar movement and to the same international network, the BRussells Tribunal (...) Do you think that the IBC’s figures give a realistic picture o f the Iraqi civilian deaths? Since there are other studies and analysts talking about hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths in Iraq since the US-led invasion, what should one think of the enormous and terrifying difference between your IBC’s figures [max. 37943] and the hundreds of thousands of the other studies?... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22391 Resultant Documents of the Founding Conference of the Resistant Arab People's Alliance Cairo, March 27-29, 2006 ...We stand with the right of our people in Iraq to resist the occupation by all means and on top of these means: armed resistance. We refuse all the secretions of the occupation and their collaborators, and we consider the resistance the legitimate representative of the people in Iraq, and we stand with it in the same trench, and we refuse all the attempts aiming at mutilating the image of t he resistance, and we condemn the ordered, intentional assassinations of Iraq's scientific and academic expertise by the occupation and the collaborators. We consider the Arab struggle in Palestine a struggle of existence and not a struggle of borders, thus we refuse all "settlement" solutions, and we stand with our people in Palestine in one trench for the liberation of the entire Palestinian soil, and we stress on the right of all Palestinians to return to their homes and land... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22397 Three years on : ' ... the embargo years look like golden days.' Review of 'Winter in Baghdad.' (Dedicated : 'To the People of Iraq'.) Felicity Arbuthnot The 9th April marks three years since the fall of Baghdad. A time recently described by a Baghdad resident as: 'Making the embargo years look like golden days.' This film encapsulate the tragedies of daily life, the losses - and the indomitable spirit which successive invasions have always failed to extinguish. On the third anniversary of the invasion of I raq, this poignant, unforgettable, searingly moving film , first premiered at the Emirates FIlm Festical in February, was premiered in London. Part of the Human Rights Watch Film Festival, it was screened at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, in central Pall Mall, minutes walk from Buckingham Palace at one end and eqidistant from the Prime Minister's Downing Street residence. Had Prime Minister Blair dropped in for the viewing, he just might, finally, have realised the horror of historic proportions he had colluded in releasing, on the people of Iraq... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22408 Baath Party Statement The 9th of April 2003 is a black day in the generations' memory. The Arab Baath Socialist Party Three years have passed on the occupation of Iraq, a fourth and extremely heavy year started and from its very beginning it indicates incoming ugly and bloodthirsty strife seen through the piles of the immaculate bodies thrown into the streets of the Al Mansur capital city announcing the scope of what the Occupation has planned for! These ugly and horrible phenomenon against our Mujahid a nd persevering people have absolutely nothing to do with its reality and its social behavior.. A very heavy black dark cloud has spread over our immaculate land. This old good land of pure people, has been maculated by the evil troops, the evil allies of the bloodthirsty criminal US which has attacked and violated the rights and the sovereignty of the free peoples around the globe and in particular against Mujahid Iraq using its tyrannical military power and occupying the land of Iraq on 9th April 2003... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22416 The Iraqi Special Court Denies Defence request for time to prepare Defense and Support Committee of President Saddam Hussein, his Comrades and all P.o.W.s and Detainees in Iraq. (ISNAD) ...Defence lawyers coming from outside Iraq cannot even enter Iraq to visit their clients regularly. In Iraq, defence lawyers are held under virtual house arrest without access to telephones, faxes, computers, books, or any adequate facilities to do their work. Even their legal notes are read and only papers approved by American of ficials can be passed to their clients. "Such conditions violate the most basic human rights of fair trial and provide defendants in Iraq fewer rights than they ever had before," said Professor Curtis Doebbler, an American advisor to the defence team. According to Professor Doebbler, "it is quite incredible that the international community silently watches a process that continues to violate more and more human rights. We have called to have the trial brought under United Nations auspices, but while everyone agrees that human rights are not being respected they are too intimidated by the United States government to stand up for human rights"... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22388 CIA Torture Flights are Crimes Against Humanity Joel Wendland "The U.S. government is systematically outsourcing torture," says Bill Goodman, legal director for the Center for Constitutional Rights. Commenting on the release of an Amnesty International report earlier this week that provides evidence for the CIA's use of " torture flights" to evacuate terror suspects secretly to locations where interrogators are not bound by US laws against prisoner abuse, Goodman added, "It is shameful that the Bush Administration has used the CIA and private aircraft operators to send people abroad for torture"... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22409 US & EU cut aid to PA - it amounts to a boycott against the Palestinian people Peacepalestine The Pressure exerted by the US and the EU, against the right of the Palestinians to choose their own government through democratic elections is continuing and worsening. The decision on the part of the EU in suspending financial aid (see enclosure 1) to the Palestinian National Authority constitutes a grave violation, a brutal threat, a true and proper boycott. Instead of recalling Israel to adhere to international law ac cording to the decision of the International Court of Justice of 9th July 2004 on the Wall of Apartheid, Instead of strongly demanding that the Israeli government end its military operations, targeted assassinations, incursions in refugee camps and checkpoints that are becoming true borders between the Palestinian Bantustans, Instead of impeding that Palestinians be starved (see enclosure 2), Instead of assuming an autonomous position to that of the USA, The European Union: Aligns itself to the American positions on "the global war of terrorism",Sides with Israel and the USA, Is complicit with the war crimes that Israel continues to perpetrate against the Palestinians... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22406 THE WAR ON IMMIGRANTS Stephen Lendman "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore." Once that was true, but no longer. Emma Lazarus' beautiful and memorable words we've all heard many times and know well are fading into memory. If we're honest, they should be removed from "Lady Liberty" and be replaced with something like: We'll take your Anglos, especially well-off ones, and the ones we choose with needed skills; you keep the rest, esp ecially your poor, dark-skinned and desperate. We needed 'em once for our homegrown sweatshops. No longer. We've got plenty all around the world. It now looks like we'll make an exception though for the menial or toughest low pay, no benefits, no security jobs no one else wants. We're still debating it and will let you know... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22402 Memo paints grim picture of life in Iraq as killings worsen Eric Schmitt and Edward Wong AN INTERNAL staff report by the US embassy and military command in Baghdad provides a sobering province-by-province snapshot of Iraq's political, economic, and security situation, rating the overall stability of six of the 18 provinces "serious" and one "critical". The report contrasts with some recent optimistic public statements by top US politicians and military officials. Publication of the report's key findings comes as a senior official in the Iraqi Government for the first time said the country was in a state of civil war... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22413 America’s Noble Cause: Preserving Its Right to Murder, Exploit, Torture, and Impoverish with Impunity JASON MILLER I was involved in this exchange with a co-worker about two months ago. I was utterly perplexed at how this individual managed the obvious cognitive dissonance created by thinking that we are fighting to protect our "freedoms" while simultaneously holding the notion that non-violent dissidents "should be rounded up and shot". In retrospect, why was I so surprised? As a vehement critic of the United States government’s foreign and domestic policies, I have received numerous death threats from "patriotic" loyalists to the American Empire over the last year. Recently, a severely brain-washed US resident who maintains a site called American Jihad issued a "Farwa" (his spelling) against the editors of Counterpunch, Dissident Voice, and Uruknet and against dissident writers Mike Whitney and Kurt Nimmo. Many of my essays have appeared on Dissident Voice and Uruknet, so I suppose I am a target of the "Farwa" too... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22400 U.S. Lawyer: Saddam Lawyers Denied Rights JAMAL HALABY, Associated Press Writer Saddam Hussein's lawyers are denied the same rights and resources as the prosecutors in his trial, a U.S.-based legal adviser to the deposed Iraqi leader said Sunday (...) Doebbler, a Washington-based law professor specializing in international law, said the non-Iraqi lawyers for the defense "cannot even enter Iraq to visit their clients regularly." In Iraq, Saddam's attorneys are "held under virtual house arrest without access to tel ephones, faxes, computers, books, or any adequate facilities to do their work," he said (...) He rebuked human rights groups without citing any by name, saying they had failed to protest the conditions of Saddam's trial. "It is quite incredible that the international community silently watches a process that continues to violate more and more human rights," he said... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22401 DAILY WAR NEWS FOR SUNDAY, APRIL 9, 2006 Today In Iraq A Marine assigned to Regimental Combat Team 5 died from wounds sustained due to enemy action while operating in al Anbar Province April 7. Iraqi police arrest 30 employees of a security company, accuse them of plotting attacks on civilians. U.S. troops and air strike kill 8 "suspected insurgents" north of Baghdad. Also, 4 bodies, handcuffed and shot in the head, found in Dora district. At least five car bombs in and near Baghdad. A bomb meant for police killed a civilian when it exploded at Maysaloun Square in eastern Baghdad. One of the attacks targeted police near a Sunni mosque in the western neighborhood of Ghazaliyah, wounding at least three people... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22399 Does Israel Conduct Covert Action in America? You bet it does. Michael Scheuer ...For years – even decades – U.S. citizens have been the subject of a political action campaign designed and executed by Israel. Currently, Israel's campaign is part steady-as-she-goes and part improvisation to neutralize an unexpected and – for Israel – worrying development. So far, Israel's covert political action is succeeding hands down. Americans are gradually being indoctrinated to believe Islamists are today's Nazis and that the re is no "Israeli lobby" in America. Simply put, Israel is conducting a brilliant covert political action campaign in the United States, a campaign any intelligence service in the world would rightly be proud of... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22398 Tomgram: De la Vega on the President's Final Jeopardy Question Tom Engelhardt & Elizabeth de la Vega The latest in a parade of horrors emanating from the Bush administration appeared Thursday in the form of a revelation buried in papers filed in federal court by Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald in his investigation into the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame. I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, now under indictment on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice, told the Grand Jury Fitzgerald convened that President Bush had -- via Vice President Cheney -- authorized him to disclose selected information from a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) to New York Times reporter Judith Miller, which he did during a private breakfast meeting at the St. Regis Hotel on July 8, 2003... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22395 Iran reporting trip Christopher Allbritton Oh, President Bush, you rascal. You do so like to repeat yourself. Now that Iran is, unsurprisingly, number one — with a bullet! — on the "Countries We Don’t Like" list, the question in the White House is, what to do about it? Why, bomb the snot out of them, of course. I don’t think I need to go into why this is a horrible, no-good, very bad idea, but apparently, "Bush views Tehran as a serious menace that must be dealt with before his presidency ends, aides said, and the White House, in its new National Security Strategy, last month labeled Iran the most serious challenge to the United States posed by any country." Sy Hersh also weighs in with a terrifying article full of extra details... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22394 U.S. Is Studying Military Strike Options on Iran Any Mix of Tact, Threats Alarms Critics Peter Baker, Dafna Linzer and Thomas E. Ricks, Washington Post Staff Writers The Bush administration is studying options for military strikes against Iran as part of a broader strategy of coercive diplomacy to pressure Tehran to abandon its alleged nuclear development program, according to U.S. officials and independent analysts. No attack appears likely in the short term, and many specialists inside and out side the U.S. government harbor serious doubts about whether an armed response would be effective. But administration officials are preparing for it as a possible option and using the threat "to convince them this is more and more serious," as a senior official put it... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22393 Shiites Politicians Make No Decision on PM QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA, Associated Press Writer Shiite politicians met Sunday to discuss the crisis over their nomination of Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari for a new term but made no decision to replace him, officials said. Instead, they decided to form a three-member committee better ascertain the reasons for Sunni and Kurdish opposition to al-Jaafari, said Shiite official Ridha Jawad Taqi. He said representatives of the United Iraqi Alliance, the Shiite block, woul d meet again Monday to review the committee's findings. Sunnis and Kurds oppose al-Jaafari because they blame his government for failing to stop a rise in sectarian violence. Their reasons are well known, and it appeared the Shiites were playing for time... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22392 Iraqi prisoners vanishing in 'black hole': Blair envoy AFP Iraqis arrested by United States-led forces have been vanishing into a "black hole", British Prime Minister Tony Blair's human rights envoy told a Sunday newspaper. Had the United States taken this problem seriously from the beginning, it may have helped prevent the abuse of prisoners in Iraq, Ann Clwyd, a Member of Parliament for the governing Labour Party, told The Observer newspaper in a rare interview about her work. Clwyd, who reports directly to Bla ir, expressed concern about the "tremendous effort" required to trace detainees. "You did feel that people were disappearing into black holes and it's very difficult," she said... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22387 GI Special 4D9: "It Is Treason" - April 9, 2006 Thomas F. Barton ... SEC. 601. (50 U.S.C. 421) (a) Whoever, having or having had authorized access to classified information that identifies a covert agent, intentionally discloses any information identifying such covert agent to any individual not authorized to receive classified information, knowing that the information disclosed so identifies such covert agent and that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent's intelligence rel ationship to the United States, shall be fined under title 18, United States Code, or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22389 Criminally Insane Neocons Embrace Nuclear War Kurt Nimmo As Paul Craig Roberts, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during the Reagan administration, notes in his latest column, the Straussian neocons are so hubris-filled and suicidally arrogant they now endanger the very prospect of life on the planet. "An article in the current issue of Foreign Affairs," Roberts writes, "long regarded as a voice of the American foreign policy establishment, concludes that the Bush regime 'is openly seeking primacy in every dimen sion of modern military technology, both in its conventional arsenal and in its nuclear forces.’ The article suggests that the US has now achieved nuclear superiority and could succeed with a preemptive nuclear attack on both Russia and China... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22403 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.