[uruknet.info] - [daily information from occupied iraq] - [newsletter 9 Feb 2006 - Part Two]

uruknet.info   اوروكنت.إنفو :: information from occupied iraq :: informazione dall'iraq occupato

The Neocons' Long War Robert Dreyfuss The Pentagon’s latest Quadrennial Defense Review, the fancy name for the Defense Department’s "big think" strategy that is supposed to come out every four years, has to be seen as the Bush administration’s ultimate Plan for Empire. It lays out a Thirty Years' War-type battle plan for an expanding U.S. military presence worldwide, to fight a war against an enemy which is, at most, a few hundred strong. Officially, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld calls it "The Long War," a propaganda term designed to echo "the Cold War," and the Pentagon intends to brainwash Americans into supporting a generation-long struggle that will lay the groundwork for an American hegemony in the 21st century. It is, indeed, the Project for a New American Century... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=20483 Yet another campaign of Weapons of Mass Deception - Syria's Iraqi WMD Imad Khadduri, Free Iraq The following is a report (in Arabic) on a new misinformation campaign launched by both the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) to promote John Bolton and Kenneth Timmerman for the Noble Peace Prize for exposing Iran's nuclear weapon program (February 7, 2006 ), coupled with an International Intelligence Summit conference to be held on February 17, 2006 that will attempt to prove that Iraqi WMD was shipped to Syria in 2002 citing testimaony of the Iraqi Georges Sada and an as yet 'unidentified' witness with recorded tapes... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=20479 Euro factor to the Iran ‘crisis’ Finian Cunningham The referral of Iran to the UN Security Council by the International Atomic Energy Agency is not a step towards resolving the presumed nuclear problem between that country and the 'international community’. It is a step towards further confrontation, with the deliberate intention by the US-UK axis to provide political cover for its real aim: subjugation of Iran. This is phase three of the Anglo-American 'war on terror’ which, deciphered from its Orwellian doublespeak and put into intelligible language, means the ongoing Anglo-American war of aggression on humanity... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=20481 Cheney 'Authorized' Libby to Leak Classified Information Murray Waas, National Journal Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, testified to a federal grand jury that he had been "authorized" by Cheney and other White House "superiors" in the summer of 2003 to disclose classified information to journalists to defend the Bush administration's use of prewar intelligence in making the case to go to war with Iraq, according to attorneys familiar with the matter, and to court records... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=20484 Western Targets The Iraqi insurgency is still primarily an anti-occupation effort. Fred Kaplan, Slate New data reveal, surprisingly, that the vast majority of the Iraqi insurgents' attacks are still aimed not at Iraqi security forces or at civilians, but rather at U.S. and coalition troops. In other words, as much as was the case a year or two ago, the Iraqi insurgency is primarily an anti-occupation insurgency (...) This is a surprising finding because so many news stories from Iraq have been reporting a rise in attacks on Iraqi security forces and in clashes between Sunni and Shiite factions. The graph confirms that those attacks have risen, sharply. But they still constitute a small percentage of the attacks overall... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=20489 Bush Plays Terror Card With Bogus LA Attack Plot Bootlicking news networks follow suit with dramatic images of Library Tower being destroyed Paul Joseph Watson/Prison Planet.com In an orchestrated set-up, George W. Bush announced that a plan to fly a plane into the LA Library Tower was thwarted in 2002 and within minutes news networks were showing footage of the same building being destroyed in the movie Independence Day. Bush stated that the attack was prevented only with the help of NSA surveillance of communications, an attempt to shut up critics of the spying scandal in a move about as sophisticated as a 300lb Pittsburgh Steelers fan after a heavy drinking session. The mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villaraigosa, immediately went public with comments of his absolute bewilderment concerning the alleged plot... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=20487 U.S. troops likely to stay in Iraq for a long time: experts Xinhuanet Despite all the talks and signs that indicate a major draw down of U.S. troops in Iraq this year, it now looks as if the United States may have a long-term and substantial military presence there, some U.S. military experts said. Bruce Hoffman, a counterinsurgency expert with the Rand Corp, told U.S. media Thursday that he does not see any sign over the past year that the insurgency in Iraq will end anytime soon. "I don't see any development that would indicate 'light at the end of the tunnel'"... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=20486 Iraqi construction funds go to security Rowan Scarborough, THE WASHINGTON TIMES The State Department has spent nearly half the U.S. money allocated for Iraqi reconstruction on security, not on the projects themselves, according to testimony yesterday at a Senate hearing. The testimony from James Jeffrey, senior adviser on Iraq to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, shows the hurdles that the fledgling Iraqi government faces in erecting basic water and electrical services, hospitals and schools. Terrorists are so lethal at knocking out power and water that huge sums of money must be diverted to protect reconstruction projects... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=20485 New Swedish weapon in Iraq The Local American forces in Iraq will shortly start using new high accuracy artillery shells, incorporating explosives and other key parts from Swedish company, Bofors. The new shells are called Excalibur and have become operational three years ahead of schedule. They are the result of a collaboration between Bofors and American defence giant, Raytheon. American forces are keen to take delivery as soon as possible and they should be in Iraq in March... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=20482 Gas prices on the rise in Iraq Mariam Karouny, REUTERS Iraq will gradually increase state-controlled domestic fuel prices tenfold this year to meet International Monetary Fund demands, Iraqi officials said yesterday. The move is likely to spark public protests. Iraq already increased prices by 200 percent in December, igniting protests and creating a rift between the Oil Ministry and the government over external political pressure. Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=20480 Trapped Like a Rat William Rivers Pitt, t r u t h o u t ...On Tuesday, by his own design. George W. Bush was trapped like a rat on that stage. He was forced to listen to eloquent denunciations of his politics and his policies, perhaps for the first time since he took office. The effect upon him was clear; during the speeches delivered by Rev. Lowery and president Carter, Bush looked as if he was sucking on a particularly bitter lemon. When one speaks truth to power, especially arrogant power, that is usually the effect. Coretta Scott King would have approved... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=20478 GI Special 4B8: ArchAngel Reports: Help For Problems With VA - February 9, 2006 Thomas F. Barton ...An article in the US army’s "Stars and Stripes" magazine said that American soldiers serving in Europe to stay away from cinemas screening the film Kurtlar Vadisi: Irak (Valley of the Wolves: Iraq). The magazine cited an order sent to the US base in Hohenfels Germany. Apart from recommending US troops stay away from cinemas where the movie is being screened, the order also stressed the military personal should "not to discuss the movie with anybody they do not know." The magazine added that American soldiers serving at the Incirlik airbase close to the southern Turkish city of Adana should be wary of crowds. Kurtlar Vadisi has a number of scenes depicting US troops in Iraq in a poor light, showing them abusing prisoners, shooting innocent civilians and even being involved in the illegal trade of organs... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=20477 US offered to exile Saddam if he curbed insurgents: lawyer AP The United States offered to let Saddam Hussein live in exile like Napoleon on St Helena if he would use his influence to end the Iraqi insurgency, a lawyer for the deposed leader said. Lawyer Saleh al-Armouti said that when he met Saddam in prison in Baghdad last month, Saddam had said the Americans had offered to treat him "like Napoleon," whom the British imprisoned on St Helena island in the Atlantic ocean in the 19th Century, "if he called on the resistance to end its activities"... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=20474 Bush's War Plan includes the Use of Nuclear Weapons Jack A. Smith, Globalresearch.ca The United States government is preparing for an eventual nuclear war with a determination approximating Cold War standards, but this time with an expressed preemptive first-strike option against even non-nuclear countries. During the 15 years following the implosion of the Soviet Union, Washington has been upgrading the efficiency and kill power of its 10,000 warhead nuclear arsenal, and has been modernizing its delivery fleet of ballistic missiles, nuclear submarines, warships and bombers. Many aging weapons have been eliminated since the Cold War, but new and more deadly instruments of mass destruction have already been deployed, with many more on the way... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=20475 Pentagon spells out strategy for global military aggression Bill Van Auken, WSWS Only days before the Bush administration submitted its fiscal 2007 budget, which calls for a major increase in military spending, the Pentagon sent Congress a long-term strategy document that makes clear Washington’s intentions to use the additional billions to wage an aggressive campaign of global militarism. Envisioned in the document, the Defense Department’s Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), is a vaguely defined "long war" that will involve the use of military power all over the globe to suppress challenges to US interests both from popular insurgencies and geo-strategic rivals. In particular, the document singles out China as a potential military competitor that must be deterred... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=20473 MEDIA ALERT: IRAN - THE MEDIA FALL INTO LINE Media Lens Writing in the Guardian last month, Timothy Garton Ash observed: "Now we face the next big test of the west: after Iraq, Iran." Garton Ash thus blithely ignored the fact that every last scrap of evidence coming out of Iraq has pointed to only one conclusion - that Iraq's "big test" was in fact the West's big lie. Iraq was offering a threat to precisely no one outside its own borders. Nevertheless, Garton Ash warned: "we in Europe and the United States have to respond. But how?"... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=20472 Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Thursday, 9 February 2006 Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board, the Free Arab Voice ...In a dispatch posted at 2:10pm Mecca time Thursday afternoon, Mafkarat al-Islam reported that US troops shot and killed a 70-year old man who tried to approach their checkpoint in the northern Iraqi city of Tall 'Afar Thursday morning. The correspondent for Mafkarat al-Islam reported a medical source in Tall 'Afar as saing that the US troops shot and killed Nawfah Muhammad Sirhan, 70, when he approached one of the American observation posts in the middle of Tall 'Afar. After the murder, US troops lay down a security cordon around the body preventing car traffic and pedestrians from approaching. The medical source told Mafkarat al-Islam that the elderly man was hit by four bullets in the head and chest, killing him instantly. Then US troops refused to allow an ambulance to take the body away until three hours had passed after the killing... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=20470 "It's Not Enough to Criticize the President's Policies" Cindy Sheehan, t r u t h o u t ... I have decided not to run, but I am calling on all Californians and Americans to support all anti-war candidates to promote a paradigm of peace in the world, and I will be supporting and working for dozens of anti-war candidates all over the country. Our emphasis will be holding all of the pro-war candidates accountable for their tragic mistakes, and voting in representatives who will hold George Bush and his administration accountable for all of their mistakes in Iraq and here in America... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=20468 Iran: the next war John Pilger Has Tony Blair, our minuscule Caesar, finally crossed his Rubicon? Having subverted the laws of the civilised world and brought carnage to a defenceless people and bloodshed to his own, having lied and lied and used the death of a hundredth British soldier in Iraq to indulge his profane self-pity, is he about to collude in one more crime before he goes? Perhaps he is seriously unstable now, as some have suggested. Power does bring a certain madness to its prodigious abusers, especially those of shallow disposition... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=20467 The Right Wing Press How Conservatives Went Crazy PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS What happened to a formerly conservative press to reduce it to political partisanship and warmongering? Specifically, I have in mind National Review and the Wall Street Journal editorial page. When I was associated with National Review, the magazine understood that the US Constitution and civil liberty had to be protected from government. It was not considered unpatriotic to take the side of the Constitution and civil liberty against a sitting government, even if the government were Republican. Some things were still more important than party loyalty. No more... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=20456 Iraq Coalition Shrinking Associated Press The Ukrainians are long gone. So are the Norwegians. The Italians and South Koreans are getting ready to leave, and the Britons and Japanese could begin packing their bags later this year. Slowly but steadily, America's allies in Iraq are drawing down or pulling out as Iraqi forces take more responsibility for securing the country. By year's end, officials say, the coalition - now 25 nations supporting a dwindling U.S. contingent of 138,000 - may shrink noticeably... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=20469 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.