A man looks for a missing relative among the bodies in a morgue in Mahmoudiya, 30 km (19 miles) south of Baghdad June 24, 2007. Eight bodies, with gunshot wounds to the head, were found in Mahmoudiya, police said. REUTERS/Ibrahim Sultan (IRAQ) (Once again, this incident is reported only in a photo caption. This is particularly egregious because it is not included in Reuters security fact box, even though Reuters obviously has this report. It's just a reminder of how incomplete the reporting is that comes out of Iraq. Based on what I was able to find, it seems to have been a comparatively quiet day -- but was it really? -- C)
Security Incidents
Unspecified location near Baghdad
A Multi-National Division-Baghdad Soldier was killed during combat operations in an area northwest of the Iraqi capital June 23. One other Soldier was wounded in the attack. There isn't a whole lot northwest of Baghdad. Could be Taji.
Baghdad
A Multi-National Division - Baghdad soldier was killed when his patrol came under small arms fire during combat operations in a southern section of the capital June 23.
A roadside bomb killed a police commando and wounded three others when it exploded near their checkpoint in Mansour district in western Baghdad, police said.
15 unidentified bodies found by police in various districts of the capital. The bodies showed signs of torture and had been shot.
Tikrit
A Task Force Lightning Soldier died Saturday in a non-combat related incident, which is currently under investigation.
Balad
Police patrols found the body of a feminist in the district of Balad, Salah al-Din province, a police source said on Sunday. "The body of Rabha al-Hamzawi, a civil society activist, was found on Sunday morning in a field in the district of Balad," the source told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI) on condition of anonymity.
VoI also reports, in the same dispatch, that unidentified gunmen kidnapped Salem Mohammed, a member of the Yathrib local council, in an area east of Balad district. (Reuters confirms both incidents).
Ain al-Tamur (near Karbala)
The bodies of six people, including a member of the local city council, were found shot and tortured.
Suwayrah
Gunmen killed an Iraqi translator in a drive-by shooting near his house.
Near Kut
An off-duty Iraqi soldier was killed in a drive-by shooting.
Garma (west of Baghdad)
Iraqi and U.S. forces killed six al Qaeda militants and detained five others during raids near Garma, about 50 km (35 miles) west of Baghdad, on Thursday, the U.S. military said. Members of the cell were believed responsible for the Feb. 7 downing of a U.S. Marine CH-46 helicopter that killed seven Marines.
Basra
British reveal that an Iraqi army officer was kidnapped on Friday. Also, British barracks are shelled ineffectually.
Other News of the Day
In foregone conclusion, Iraqi High Tribunal sentences Ali Hassan al-Majid, two co-defendants to death for their role in the Anfal campaign against the Kurds. The condemned co-defendants are former defense minister Sultan Hashim Ahmad al-Tai and Hussein Rashid Mohammed, a former deputy director of operations for the Iraqi armed forces. Two other defendants are sentenced to life in prison, but a seventh, former Mosul governor Taher Tawfiq al-Ani, is acquitted.
U.S. commanders say "first phase" of Baquba campaign is nearly over. It appears that, contrary to claims that the operation had trapped large numbers of guerrillas, they managed to get away. Excerpt:
BAQUBA, Iraq (Reuters) - U.S. forces believe the initial combat phase of a major offensive to clear al Qaeda from the Iraqi city of Baquba is nearly complete and any militants left could be confronted in the next 24 hours. The operation in and around Baquba, capital of volatile Diyala province, is a major part of one of the biggest combined offensives by U.S. and Iraqi forces against the Sunni Islamist group in Iraq since the invasion of the country in 2003.
"We will either make enemy contact quickly, or we won't," Colonel Steve Townsend, commander of the 3rd Stryker Brigade, told Reuters and another news agency late on Saturday. "My company commanders' gut feel is that there won't be a big fight here," he said after a briefing late on Saturday with combat captains in the bombed-out remains of a building, once used by al Qaeda as a clinic, on Baquba's outskirts.
Townsend said latest intelligence indicated some fighters were still inside an American cordon, which has been steadily tightened since the operation was launched on Tuesday, cutting off options for the militants to escape. "They don't have any choice but to fight ... or put down their weapons and melt into the population," Townsend said.
Sunni Arab parties boycott parliament over the removal of Speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani. This is quite different from what we were first told about this situation, which was the the Sunni Arab blocs were willing to go along given Mashadani's erratic behavior. Excerpt:
BAGHDAD (AP)— Parliament's two Sunni Arab blocs boycotted the 275-seat house on Sunday because the Sunni speaker, Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, was not reinstated as they demanded. Muhannad al-Issawi, a spokesman for Adnan al-Dulaimi, leader of the Iraqi Accordance Front, had said that the 44-seat bloc decided in a meeting Saturday to demand that al-Mashhadani preside over Sunday's session.
"If the demand is rejected by other blocs, then the Accordance Front will suspend its participation in parliament," al-Issawi had told The Associated Press. The Accordance bloc was joined in the boycott by the National Dialogue Front.
Two prisoners die in MNF custody. According to MNF, one died of heart failure, the other as a result of a mortar attack on Camp Bucca last Friday in which several prisoners were killed and scores injured. Note: MNF calls its prisoners "detainees," which I guess is supposed to sound nicer. -- C
Thousands of demonstrators outside Labor Party conference in Manchester call on new PM Gordon Brown to remove troops from Iraq. Excerpt:
TONY Blair was today branded a “dangerous warmonger” as anti-war activists called on his successor to pull troops out of Iraq.
Thousands of people staged a noisy demonstration outside Labour’s special leadership conference in Manchester, marching with banners which read: “Troops Out”.
The Stop The War Coalition said one of the first announcements by Gordon Brown when he becomes Prime Minister on Wednesday should be the withdrawal of British forces from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Chairman Andrew Murray said at a city centre rally: “We are here to wave goodbye to the most dangerous and warmongering prime minister in modern British history and to demand that he takes his policies with him.
“The Pope may forgive Tony Blair but the British people will not. We are demanding that Gordon Brown gives us a fresh start by pulling troops out of Iraq and breaking with George Bush’s foreign policy.”
The Coalition’s convener Lindsey German said: “Four million Iraqis are now refugees and the number of deaths in that country is now greater than all the British civilian and military casualties in the Second World War, so I say good riddance to Tony Blair.
“Our message to Gordon Brown is that he cannot carry on with the same disastrous policies. The so-called war on terror has created two failed occupations which has led to incredible instability across the Middle East.
In-Depth Reporting, Commentary and Analysis
WaPo's Barton Gellman and Jo Becker begin a four-part series describing the dark power of the Boy Emperor's Grand Vizier. This is weird, creepy stuff. Excerpt:
Just past the Oval Office, in the private dining room overlooking the South Lawn, Vice President Cheney joined President Bush at a round parquet table they shared once a week. Cheney brought a four-page text, written in strict secrecy by his lawyer. He carried it back out with him after lunch.
In less than an hour, the document traversed a West Wing circuit that gave its words the power of command. It changed hands four times, according to witnesses, with emphatic instructions to bypass staff review. When it returned to the Oval Office, in a blue portfolio embossed with the presidential seal, Bush pulled a felt-tip pen from his pocket and signed without sitting down. Almost no one else had seen the text.
Cheney's proposal had become a military order from the commander in chief. Foreign terrorism suspects held by the United States were stripped of access to any court -- civilian or military, domestic or foreign. They could be confined indefinitely without charges and would be tried, if at all, in closed "military commissions."
"What the hell just happened?" Secretary of State Colin L. Powell demanded, a witness said, when CNN announced the order that evening, Nov. 13, 2001. National security adviser Condoleezza Rice, incensed, sent an aide to find out. Even witnesses to the Oval Office signing said they did not know the vice president had played any part.
Sharp drop in African-American military enlistment since the Iraq war began. Excerpt:
Washington (AP) - The number of blacks joining the military has plunged by more than one-third since the Afghanistan and Iraq wars began, as other job prospects soar and relatives of potential recruits increasingly discourage them from signing up. According to data obtained by The Associated Press, the decline covers all four military services for active duty recruits, and the drop is even more dramatic when National Guard and Reserve recruiting is included.
The findings reflect the growing unpopularity of the wars, particularly among family members and other adults who exert influence over high school and college students considering the military as a place to serve their country, further their education or build a career.
Walking past the Army recruiting station in downtown Washington, D.C., this past week, Sean Glover said he has done all he can to talk black relatives out of joining the military. "I don't think it's a good time. I don't support the government's efforts here and abroad," said Glover, 36.
Quote of the Day
For God's sake, tell me where to begin?
I was set out to write about Father's day and the thousands of fatherless Iraqi children. The thousands of killed fathers, the thousands of fathers trying desperately hard to feed their families, daily putting their lives at great risk, in a country gripped by demonic violence. The exiled fathers, selling scraps in Amman and Damascus, bearing the brunt of daily insults. Or the unemployed fathers, feeling torn inside watching their kids go hungry. Or maybe the head bent down father, slouched posture, hiding scars beneath a worn out shirt. The father that has been imprisoned, humiliated, tortured and sodomized, unable to look his children in the eyes...
Or maybe I should write about sexual torture and sodomy instead...
The further horrors emerging from Abu Ghraib and the Taguba report...
Layla Anwar, Arab Woman Blues. This is a tough post to read. Don't go there if you aren't prepared to plunge right into the horror of Iraq today.
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