News & Views 06/13/07

Photo: The destroyed Shiite Imam al-Askari shrine in the restive city of Samarra, north of Baghdad. The White House on Wednesday worriedly promised an all-out effort to prevent an attack on a Shiite shrine in Iraq from sparking a surge in sectarian violence that could doom US efforts there.(AFP/Dia Hamid)

REPORTS – LIFE IN IRAQ

Number Of Iraqi Civilians Slaughtered In War On Iraq - At Least 655,000 + +

An Absolute Living Hell

Civilian Toll In Iraq At 'Higher Levels'

Despite the recent U.S. military buildup in Baghdad, insurgent and militia attacks persist and "civilian casualties continue to mount" in Iraq as a whole, according to a report released Monday by U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon. The 15-page report, which tracks events in Iraq over the past three months, said U.S.-led efforts to restore calm in Baghdad have progressed "slower than had been hoped for" and that violence has spread to other parts of the country. The dire security situation has forced the United Nations to scale back its operations in Iraq and to relocate some staff at its headquarters in the U.S.-controlled Green Zone to temporary, reinforced quarters elsewhere within the zone. Citing an increase in rocket fire, Ban has asked the U.N. Security Council for money to construct a costly new headquarters in the walled-off Green Zone, where the U.S. Embassy and the Iraqi government are housed.

The U.N. needs "a hardened integrated compound, with the necessary structural integrity to withstand impacts from high-calibre ordnance," Ban wrote. The new facility "will make the difference between the U.N. mission being able to operate effectively in the future or having to wind down operations due to unacceptable security risks." Ban agreed with U.S. statements that the number of civilian casualties in Baghdad has declined in recent months, but said that the total number of attacks against civilians in Iraq has not. Iraqi and international forces, meanwhile, have "suffered higher levels of casualties."

Child labour on the rise as poverty increases

Iyad Abdel-Salim, 12, left school six months ago and has been working to boost the family income. His father was killed in Iraq's political violence. As the only boy in the family, and with three smaller sisters to look after, he was forced to go onto the streets and work. "I cannot see my family suffer without food. My mother cannot go to work because she has to stay with my sisters, and our uncles cannot help us as they are displaced and without money," Abdel-Salim said. "I feel tired when I get home. I usually stay 12 hours in the streets selling chocolates and pencils. I eat just one meal a day to save money, and when I return I just want to sleep," he said. Thousands of children, like Abdel-Salam, have moved onto the streets to help augment their family's income, either because they have lost their fathers in the violence, or because they are forced to help as their families do not consider education to be important. Some of the children have no one to look after them. "I have no choice. Life in Iraq has turned into hell. It is dangerous to work in the streets. Twice men tried to rape me. God protected me and I was saved, but maybe one day I will be abused," Abdel-Salim said.

Iraq Bombers Topple Samarra Minarets

In a bold blow to Iraqi hopes for peace, suspected al-Qaida bombers toppled the towering minarets of Samarra's revered Shiite shrine on Wednesday, adding new provocation to old wounds a year after the mosque's Golden Dome was destroyed. The attack stoked fears of a surge in violence between Muslim sects. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government rushed to contain Shiite wrath against Sunnis: It clamped a curfew on Baghdad and asked for U.S. troop reinforcements in Samarra, 60 miles north of here, and for a heightened American military alert in the capital. But sketchy reports of sectarian strife began to come in. Police told of at least four Sunni mosques in Baghdad and south of the capital attacked by arsonists and bombers, and of a smaller Shiite shrine bombed north of here. The Samarra attack also threatened to deepen Iraq's political crisis, as the 30-member bloc of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr immediately suspended its participation in parliament in protest.

Iraq losing one in six police: official

About one in six Iraqi policemen trained by US-led forces were killed, wounded, deserted or just disappeared, a US military official says. And continuing violence is prompting officials again to increase the size of the Iraqi army, said Lt Gen Martin Dempsey, who until recently headed the training effort. That will mean 20,000 more soldiers to be trained this year and yet another increase in 2008, Dempsey told a Pentagon press conference. He didn't give the amount of increase planned for next year. Dempsey said the 2008 increase would take into consideration the continuing violence, "which remains elevated", lessons learned during the US build-up for the ongoing Baghdad security operation, and the fact that "at some point we should anticipate a decline in US forces and should build the Iraqi army ... in anticipation of that". "These forecasts are not written in stone," Defence Secretary Robert Gates told reporters travelling with him in Europe. He said they were only estimates of what commanders expect will be needed, and that the latest change appears to come from "a realistic assessment" of the situation in Iraq.

Early Cholera Season Adds To Iraq's Woes

Pre-summer cases among children augur ill, as war has made an unreliable supply of safe drinking water worse. Iraq has reported five cases of cholera among children in the last three weeks, a worrying sign as summer sets in and the war leaves sewage and sanitation systems a shambles. All of the cases were among children younger than 12 in the southern city of Najaf and were reported by medical officials on alert for signs of the potentially lethal ailment, Claire Hajaj of the United Nations Children's Fund, or UNICEF, said Tuesday. Cholera, which is caused by bacteria in contaminated water, is easily treatable, but if not treated it can cause rapid dehydration and death. Cholera pandemics have killed tens of thousands of people worldwide, most recently in South America in the early 1990s.

Although the number of cases so far is low, and none has been fatal, the emergence of cholera this early in the year is ominous, Hajaj said. Cholera outbreaks usually don't arise until July, when temperatures can soar above 120 degrees. As the temperature rises, Iraq's chronic electricity shortages make it difficult to operate pumps at sewage and drinking-water treatment plants, creating a dangerous mix of desperate people and dirty water. Already, the number of diarrhea cases, which can be a sign of cholera, is twice the seasonal average, Hajaj said. "Water is an enormous need and people take it where they can get it, and they are getting it from places where it is not always clean," she said.

Violence Now Corners Christians

For Janet Petros's family it all started when the al-Mahdi militia of the radical Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr took control of their mixed neighbourhood Hay Muwasalat in Baghdad last year. That was after long fighting between Shia and Sunni armed groups for dominance in the area. One summer morning, Janet's younger daughter Maha Faiq, 26, was hit in the leg by a bullet as she slept. She was lucky it was no worse. It was not an accidental shot. Janet's family, the only Christian family in that district, had been harassed and threatened by the militias on both sides for long to follow their imposed Sharia rules. "It was a very bad situation in Baghdad," said Sahar Faiq, 28, Janet's elder daughter. "We couldn't mix with the neighbours any more and were so afraid." Sahar quit her job with a British security company after being threatened by militias.

Last February, Janet's family decided to move to Arbil, in the relatively safe Kurdistan region in the north. "After what happened, I was afraid that someone will come in and do something bad to my daughters," Janet, 55, told IPS in her two-room house in Arbil's Christian district Ainkawa. Christians, who have lived in peace with their Muslim neighbours for years are today badly hit by the rising tide of religious extremism. In his meeting with U.S. President George W. Bush in the Vatican last week, the Pope expressed concern that "the society that is evolving (in Iraq) would not tolerate the Christian religion." That is already happening. Hundreds of Christians have been killed, their churches bombed and a ferocious campaign is under way to intimidate them, particularly in the insecure parts of the country.

….."The only dream we now have is to leave Iraq," Janet told IPS. "We don't feel that we belong to this country any more."

US forces shut down all Sadr city exits leading to central Baghdad

US forces closed down on Wednesday all of Sadr city exits that connect the suburb to central Baghdad. Correspondent of Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) said he saw US military tanks and bulldozers being stationed, blocking bridges over the waterway that separates Sadr city and central Baghdad. Iraqi security members jointly with the US forces erected several checkpoints to check pedestrians and vehicles, according to military sources. A curfew will be effective at 3 p.m. (local time) later today, a source of the premiership told KUNA. The curfew is a measure intended to withstand possible flare-up of violence in retaliation for the earlier attack on a holy shrine of Samara.

REPORTS – IRAQI MILITIAS, POLITICIANS, POWER BROKERS

Iraq's Parliament Leaders Agree To Remove Speaker

Iraq's leading political blocs on Sunday agreed to replace the speaker of Parliament, Mahmoud Mashhadani, a Sunni, after hearing accusations that his bodyguards assaulted a Shiite lawmaker as the speaker cursed him and then dragged him to the speaker's office. Four lawmakers and an aide confirmed the details of the skirmish and the effort to remove Mashhadani, including Saleem Abdullah, a member of Parliament and spokesman for Mashhadani's bloc, the Iraqi Consensus Front. Abdullah said the new speaker would probably be another Sunni Arab. "We are now in negotiations to find another candidate," he said. Abdullah said discussions about "how to arrange the exit" were not complete, suggesting that Mashhadani had not agreed to leave. On Sunday night, Mashhadani could not be reached for comment. If carried out, however, the move would come at an already difficult time for Iraq's largest elected body. Mashhadani's tenure, which began after the December 2005 election, has been characterized by personal volatility, sectarian division among members and legislative inertia.

The 275-member Parliament has yet to produce a law establishing how to share revenues from the country's oil, a plan for local elections or any of the other so-called benchmark laws that American officials have been demanding. Frequently, attendance has fallen short of a quorum, and in April a suicide bomber killed one lawmaker and wounded 22 people in the Parliament's cafeteria. The scuffle on Sunday was the third time this year that Mashhadani or members of his staff have been accused of physically assaulting members of Parliament. Last month, Mashhadani slapped a Sunni lawmaker who questioned his decision to rush out of a legislative session in disgust after a Shiite colleague questioned the government's sensitivity to the plight of displaced Shiite families. In that instance, Mashhadani apologized and kept his job. This time, Kurdish, Shiite and some Sunni leaders said they would no longer tolerate Mashhadani's short temper and thuggish approach.

Iraq's Parliament Speaker Says He'll Sue

Iraq's parliament speaker warned on Tuesday he will take his case to court if lawmakers stick to their decision to replace him, complaining that the 275-seat legislature acted irresponsibly in voting to remove him. Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, a Sunni Arab, told a news conference he had no intention of resigning as demanded by the lawmakers, who voted in a closed session Monday to appoint his deputy, Shiite Khaled al-Attiyah, to take over the speaker's job until a Sunni Arab replacement is found. "The speaker of the Council of Representatives is not a toy in the hands of juvenile politicians," he said. "I refuse to resign and will take my case to the federal court if I must." Lawmakers gave the Iraqi Accordance Front, the largest Sunni Arab bloc in parliament, a week to name a replacement. Al-Mashhadani, a former physician once jailed by Saddam Hussein, will keep his seat but lose his position as speaker.

Al-Sadr reasserts authority over his movement

The anti-American Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr is reasserting authority over his movement after disappearing from public view for three months. A top Sadr aide, Salah al-Obaidi, said Monday that since Sadr had reappeared during religious services two weeks ago at a shrine in Kufa, he'd replaced 11 local leaders of his movement, including two in Baghdad. Obaidi, who speaks to Sadr regularly and is considered his spokesman, also disavowed what appears to be a final push by Sadr's militia, the Mahdi Army, to seize control of contested neighborhoods in south and west Baghdad, where Shiite forces are pressing a campaign to push out Sunni Muslims. He said local leaders in the Bayaa and Amil neighborhoods had acted without orders from Sadr. "Sayed Muqtada refuses all kinds of violence and he refuses to answer violence with violence," Obaidi said. "Sayed" is an honorific used for descendents of the Prophet Muhammad. Obaidi acknowledged that there'd been "complaints" that some of the replaced leaders had been involved in kidnapping and killing Sunni men and that some of the leaders had "committed mistakes." He denied, however, that that was the reason for the overhaul. He declined to be specific about what mistakes the leaders had made.

Other Sadr loyalists said some local officials had taken actions that Sadr hadn't approved. "Many of the people in the Sadr trend are not real Sadrists and they don't have a real belonging to the Sadr front," said Sheik Abdul Hadi al-Mohammadawi, the head of the Sadr office in Karbala, a major Sadr stronghold. "They corrupted the reputation of the Sadr office." News of the purge comes amid other signs that Sadr intends not only to assert primacy over Shiite politics but also to claim the leadership of a Sunni-Shiite coalition to oppose a continued U.S. presence in Iraq. The move comes as the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki appears incapable of major action and the parliament is in turmoil.

REPORTS – US/UK/OTHERS IN IRAQ

U.S. Arming Sunnis In Iraq To Battle Old Qaeda Allies

With the four-month-old increase in American troops showing only modest success in curbing insurgent attacks, American commanders are turning to another strategy that they acknowledge is fraught with risk: arming Sunni Arab groups that have promised to fight militants linked with Al Qaeda who have been their allies in the past. American commanders say they have successfully tested the strategy in Anbar Province west of Baghdad and have held talks with Sunni groups in at least four areas of central and north-central Iraq where the insurgency has been strong. In some cases, the American commanders say, the Sunni groups are suspected of involvement in past attacks on American troops or of having links to such groups. Some of these groups, they say, have been provided, usually through Iraqi military units allied with the Americans, with arms, ammunition, cash, fuel and supplies.

American officers who have engaged in what they call outreach to the Sunni groups say many of them have had past links to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia but grew disillusioned with the Islamic militants' extremist tactics, particularly suicide bombings that have killed thousands of Iraqi civilians. In exchange for American backing, these officials say, the Sunni groups have agreed to fight Al Qaeda and halt attacks on American units. Commanders who have undertaken these negotiations say that in some cases, Sunni groups have agreed to alert American troops to the location of roadside bombs and other lethal booby traps. But critics of the strategy, including some American officers, say it could amount to the Americans' arming both sides in a future civil war. The United States has spent more than $15 billion in building up Iraq's army and police force, whose manpower of 350,000 is heavily Shiite. With an American troop drawdown increasingly likely in the next year, and little sign of a political accommodation between Shiite and Sunni politicians in Baghdad, the critics say, there is a risk that any weapons given to Sunni groups will eventually be used against Shiites. There is also the possibility the weapons could be used against the Americans themselves.

Tribal Coalition In Anbar Said To Be Crumbling

A tribal coalition formed to oppose the extremist group al-Qaeda in Iraq, a development that U.S. officials say has reduced violence in Iraq's troubled Anbar province, is beginning to splinter, according to an Anbar tribal leader and a U.S. military official familiar with tribal politics. In an interview in his Baghdad office, Ali Hatem Ali Suleiman, 35, a leader of the Dulaim confederation, the largest tribal organization in Anbar, said that the Anbar Salvation Council would be dissolved because of growing internal dissatisfaction over its cooperation with U.S. soldiers and the behavior of the council's most prominent member, Abdul Sattar Abu Risha. Suleiman called Abu Risha a "traitor" who "sells his beliefs, his religion and his people for money." Abu Risha, who enjoys the support of U.S. military commanders, denied the allegations and said the council is not at risk of breaking apart. "There is no such thing going on," he said in a telephone interview from Jordan.

Lt. Col. Richard D. Welch, a U.S. military official who works closely with the tribal leaders in Iraq, said that relations inside the group were strained and that he expected a complete overhaul of the coalition in coming days. U.S. military leaders hailed the creation of the nearly nine-month-old Anbar Salvation Council, first known as the Awakening, as one of the most important developments in the four-year war, signaling that insurgents and the local population in Anbar, which is overwhelmingly Sunni, have begun to see al-Qaeda in Iraq as their worst enemy, rather than the United States and its allies. Since the tribes began working with U.S. forces to resist al-Qaeda in Iraq - and since they began receiving significant amounts of weapons and vehicles - violence in the province and deaths of U.S. soldiers there have fallen dramatically. But the divisions within the coalition underscore what many see as a central dilemma: Should the United States be sponsoring profit-oriented tribal groups that involve themselves in sometimes fragile alliances and that could turn against U.S. troops? "The question with a group like this always is, does it stay bought?" said Anthony H. Cordesman, a military analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, referring to suggestions that the United States is paying for loyalty from the tribes.

Human rights laws ‘apply to Iraq death’

The prospect of an independent public inquiry into the case of Baha Mousa, an Iraqi hotel receptionist who died in British military custody, was raised last night after a panel of Law Lords ruled that human rights legislation did apply to his case. Civil rights campaigners hailed the ruling as a landmark judgment. "There could now never be a British Guantanamo," said Shami Chakrabati, director of Liberty. "The British will never be able to build a prison anywhere in the world and say it is a legal black hole," she added. However, the Law Lords also ruled against five other Iraqi civilians, who were shot in the streets of Basra. They rejected appeals by the families, on the grounds the deceased were not covered by the same human rights laws because the military was not "in effective control" of the circumstances and so was not in a position to discharge obligations under the human rights laws.

Mr Mousa, 26, died while in the custody of the British Army in Basra in 2003. It was alleged he was tortured over a period of 36 hours. He was found to have 93 separate injuries, including fractured ribs and a broken nose. In March, a court martial convicted one soldier of inhumane treatment but acquitted five others charged in the case. Last night, the dead man's father, Colonel Daoud Mousa, said he was "very pleased" with the ruling: "It means I have not lost hope of getting justice for my son. I hope, as a result of this judgment, the truth will come out. No other family should have to experience what I and my grandchildren have gone through."

Turkish Premier Opposes Move On Militants In Iraq

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan took a strong public stance against a military incursion into northern Iraq on Tuesday, in an indication that he would not back the military's request for a major offensive. For weeks, the Turkish Army has been pushing for a broad military response to attacks by the Kurdistan Workers' Party, a militant separatist group that takes refuge in northern Iraq. The military has already increased its presence along the border and has been conducting operations against the militants in Turkey. On Tuesday, Erdogan said Turkey should first continue to fight the militants on Turkish soil before fighting them in Iraq, slowing the movement toward an incursion. He said far more militants were in Turkey than in Iraq. The Turkish Parliament would need to approve a major military action, and Erdogan's party controls the legislature, so his view on the wisdom of an invasion is important. "Has the struggle against 5,000 terrorists inside Turkey come to a close, so that we can now start dealing with the 500 in northern Iraq?" Erdogan said in Ankara, according to the state-run Anatolian News Agency. It was the first time a cautious tone had been struck in weeks of sharp language, and Erdogan's message will likely be welcomed by the United States, which is trying to navigate a position between its two allies: Turkey, a NATO member, and Iraqi Kurds, the most reliable partner in Iraq.

Bring ‘em Home – Bruce & Seegar Sessions Band

COMMENTARY

The Siege of Baghdad

The American surge is the latest in an attempt to stave off defeat; the moral battle was lost long ago. The political battle a stalemate, between the forces of timid stupidity verses the forces of entrenched insanity. The greatest megalomaniac’s of the 20th century had drawn up battle plans for the conquest of England and one of the cornerstones of operation sea lion was in avoiding London. Even a madman knew a large metropolis would swallow an army, and as the tide turned at Stalingrad the mad man began to cashier his own generals.

……..A new and perhaps last chapter has begun, new in the names and places but as old as war itself. The military is well aware of the coming checkmate and are fired for their candor in saying so only the media and the madman soldier on. Fighting on not to achieve victory or even to forestall defeat but to sacrifice the blood of innocents on all sides but to preserve protect and defend the fragile ego of the leader.

Collateral genocide

Two elements are necessary to commit the crime of genocide: 1) the mental element, meaning intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, and 2) the physical element, which includes any of the following: killing or causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the group’s physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births; or forcibly transferring children to another group. Considering that such clear language comes from a UN treaty which is legally binding on our country, things could start getting a little worrisome -- especially when you realize that since our government declared economic and military warfare on Iraq we’ve killed well over one million people, fast approaching two.

…Of course our government didn't intend to commit genocide, it just sort of happened. The Iraqis kept getting in the way while we were trying to complete the mission. Mistakes were made as we were building democracy, but surely no genocide was intended.

O'Reilly: CNN, MSNBC "delight in showing Iraqi violence" and "are actually helping the terrorists"

During the "Talking Points Memo" segment on the June 12 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, host Bill O'Reilly responded to a study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, which found that Fox News spent less time covering the Iraq war than CNN and MSNBC in the first three months of 2007. O'Reilly asserted: "In my opinion, CNN and especially MSNBC delight in showing Iraqi violence because they want Americans to think badly of President Bush. And that strategy has succeeded." O'Reilly also stated that he "can't speak for Fox News" but that his program does not "highlight every terrorist attack because we learn nothing from that. And that's exactly what the terrorists want us to do. I mean, come on, does another bombing in Tikrit mean anything other than 'War is hell'? No, it does not."

Discussing the study during the June 12 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio program, O'Reilly claimed: "The terrorists are going to set off a bomb every day, because they know CNN and MSNBC are gonna put it on the air. That's a strategy for the other side, the terrorist side. So I'm taking an argument that CNN and MSNBC are actually helping the terrorists by reporting useless explosions." O'Reilly later stated: "I'm not gonna cover every bomb that goes off in Tikrit, because it's meaningless." [While O’Reilly does not believe in covering what is happening in Iraq, particularly to Iraqi civilians, we are trying to cover everything security incident that happens in Iraq. – dancewater]

RESISTANCE

Responsibility - By Sgt. Kevin Benderman

I was trained and trained well to sacrifice myself to war and I was also training others to make the same sacrifice. But what is it all for? Money for the power elite? A chance to prove my manhood? No, in the end all you get if you kill someone is a dead human being, or you are dead. That is all there is. There is no glory. There is no honor. The hardest thing I have done in my life is go to a memorial for a fallen soldier and to see his family grieving his death. I had to watch his wife break down, I had to watch his children break down and I realized that I did not want to see another family have to go through this. This human sacrifice has to stop.

How to Help Iraqi Refugees

Quote of the day: “So let us regard this as settled: what is morally wrong can never be advantageous, even when it enables you to make some gain that you believe to be to your advantage. The mere act of believing that some wrongful course of action constitutes an advantage is pernicious.” Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 B.C.)