News & Views 06/20/07

Photo: The aftermath of a truck bomb attack on the Shia Khillani mosque in Baghdad, in which at least 75 people were killed. Photograph: Hadi Mizban/AP

REPORTS – LIFE IN IRAQ

Number Of Iraqis Slaughtered In America's War On Iraq - At Least 655,000 + +

Cluster Bombs: The Deadly Footprint

In late April 2003, I was traveling back to the Iraqi capital of Baghdad from the northern city of Mosul where I had been making an assessment of humanitarian needs after the U.S. invasion of Iraq. It was a bright spring day and under ordinary circumstances the drive would have been quite beautiful. The road took us through fertile farmland, vast wheat fields, and semi-arid regions where sheep grazed. But these were not ordinary times. The journey was slowed by massive convoys of the omnipresent U.S. military which had invaded Iraq just a few weeks earlier. We passed melted high wire towers, burnt out tanks, and demolished buildings. The driver skirted bomb craters in the roadway and made long detours to find bridges that had not been bombed. The debris of modern warfare littered the landscape and the destruction seared my heart. My traveling companion that day was a young woman from Denmark who had been a de-miner in Kosovo for several years. Christina’s considerable knowledge of the weapons of war added new layers of understanding to the devastation we were witnessing. Just outside a small town near Beji, Christina gasped and asked the driver to slow down. She pointed out the tell-tale signs of the use of cluster bombs and showed me where to look for the pattern of craters, or “footprint.”

………. Several days later, we were visiting the hospitals in the Babylonian city of Hilla, south of Baghdad. The doctors spoke of the injuries and deaths they had seen among the civilians from cluster bombs that had been used in the densely populated streets of Hilla, when the U.S. swept through the area in early April. In the months that followed, every meeting of international non-governmental organizations (INGo’s) included reports about the massive amounts of unexploded ordinance that littered Iraq. Cluster bombs pose a risk to the population until the day when all the bomblets are cleaned up. Children were particularly vulnerable, and a campaign was organized to educate the population to the risks.

TAKE ACTION: Urge your senators to cosponsor the Cluster Munitions Civilian Protection Act (S. 594) that would ban the use of cluster munitions in civilian areas and prohibit the sale, transfer, and stockpiling of cluster bombs. You can send a message through the FCNL website.

Baghdad mosque bombing kills 75

At least 75 people died today when a car bomb exploded near a Shia mosque in a busy commercial district of Baghdad after a period of relative calm in the Iraqi capital. The explosion, which also injured more than 200 people, sent smoke billowing over central Baghdad. The attack followed a four-day curfew imposed last week in the wake of an attack on a Shia shrine in the city of Samarra. One witness said a suicide bomber driving a truck rammed his vehicle into the mosque, destroying one of its walls and badly damaging the rest of the building. The explosion was so powerful it rattled windows across the city centre. Separately, the US deployed 10,000 soldiers backed by attack helicopters in an offensive against al-Qaida north of Baghdad, around the city of Baquba in Diyala province, a stronghold of Sunni extremists. One of the biggest military operations since the invasion in March 2003, the campaign is partly aimed at dismantling car bomb networks that have wreaked havoc in Baghdad and elsewhere.

Iraqi Orphanage Nightmare

On a daytime patrol in central Baghdad just over than a week ago, a U.S. military advisory team and Iraqi soldiers happened to look over a wall and found something horrific. "They saw multiple bodies laying on the floor of the facility," Staff Sgt. Mitchell Gibson of the 82nd Airborne Division told CBS News chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan. "They thought they were all dead, so they threw a basketball (to) try and get some attention, and actually one of the kids lifted up their head, tilted it over and just looked and then went back down. And they said, 'oh, they're alive' and so they went into the building." Inside the building, a government-run orphanage for special needs children, the soldiers found more emaciated little bodies tied to the cribs. They had been kept this way for more than a month, according to the soldiers called in to rescue the 24 boys. "I saw children that you could see literally every bone in their body that were so skinny, they had no energy to move whatsoever, no expression on their face," Staff Sgt. Michael Beale said. "The kids were tied up, naked, covered in their own waste — feces — and there were three people that were cooking themselves food, but nothing for the kids," Lt. Stephen Duperre said.

Fallujah security crackdown preventing access for aid workers

A month-long security crackdown is preventing aid workers from getting to displaced families in the central Iraqi city of Fallujah and its outskirts, while a curfew imposed by US forces is restricting residents' ability to go out and buy much-needed supplies. "We are living like prisoners, lacking assistance at all levels. Aid support, which last year was always here, can't be seen any more. We depend solely on ourselves, drinking dirty water to survive, even knowing that our children are getting sick from it," said Muhammad Aydan, 42, a resident of Fallujah, some 70km west of the capital, Baghdad. "Power supply is less than two hours a day in some areas of Fallujah and sometimes we have to go three days without taking a shower to save water," Aydan added. Local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) said they had been denied entry to Fallujah by the Iraqi and US military as a security crackdown in the area, which started on 21 May, could put their lives at risk. The NGOs have called upon security forces to help in the delivery of aid to families who are in dire need of assistance. "We have supplies but it is impossible to reach the families. They are afraid to leave their homes to look for food and children are getting sick with diarrhoea caused by the dirty water they are drinking. We have information that pregnant women are delivering their babies at home as the curfew is preventing them from reaching hospital," Fatah Ahmed, spokesman for the Iraq Aid Association (IAA), said. "[What is happening in Fallujah] is a crime against the right to live. Such behavior is seen by locals as a punishment for recent attacks on US troops, but innocent civilians are the only ones who are paying," Ahmed added.

REPORTS – IRAQI MILITIAS, POLITICIANS, POWER BROKERS

An Iraqi City Resists Violence

When a truck bomb blew off the front of the Quoria district police station here and killed seven people in January, fear raced through this ethnically and religiously mixed northern city that it, too, would face the sectarian strife tearing apart Baghdad. But on a recent afternoon, Police Chief Abdullah Taja Salahudin showed US soldiers the progress in rebuilding the station, presenting it as a sign of Kirkuk's determination to reestablish peace. "Kirkuk is in better condition than most cities in Iraq, and that is because for so long we have all these religions and populations in this one place," he says. "People have known for a long time how to live together, and now they refuse to give in to any trouble." It's this resistance to provocation that has kept Kirkuk from descending into the kind of vengeful violence that has flared elsewhere, Kirkuki and US military officials say. A Muslim Turkoman, Chief Taja has demonstrated this resolve while promoting the security of this city of Kurds, Turkomans, Chaldean and Assyrian Christians, and Sunni and Shiite Arabs. Aside from that January truck bomb, he has survived four improvised explosive device (IED) attacks. And in June 2006, a car bomb destroyed his house.

As encouraging as that determination has been, all agree that Kirkuk remains one of the biggest tests of Iraq's future. A major hurdle will be the resolution on its status - either as an Iraqi province linked with Baghdad or joined to the adjacent autonomous Kurdish Regional Government. Iraq's Constitution calls for this issue to be resolved by a referendum among Kirkuk's population by the end of 2007. Most observers agree that sticking to the constitutional calendar is problematic at least - a census is supposed to be taken first and boundaries redrawn - and disastrous at worst. A referendum, which the Kurds would expect to win, could open the door to deeper strife and even the breakup of Iraq. Underlying all this is Kirkuk's vast oil wealth and the struggle for its control. Who controls the oil, people here say, will determine who controls Kirkuk.

REPORTS – US/UK/OTHERS IN IRAQ

Heavy mortar bomb attack on Baghdad Green Zone

Plumes of smoke could be seen rising from the heavily fortified compound, which houses the U.S. embassy and Iraqi government ministries. It was unclear if there were any casualties.

IRAQI REFUGEES

Misery in the desert for Iraq's dispossessed

Hussein Abd-al Zahra fled the violence around Baghdad but now feels he is fighting a losing battle against the heat and dust in the Iraqi desert. "This place is not even fit for animals. Look at my four children. They have not washed for two weeks. Look at their clothes, their bodies, they're filthy," he said. More than 2 million Iraqis are seeking refuge among their own religious or ethnic communities after being driven from their homes by sectarian bloodshed. The United Nations refugee agency UNHCR estimates a further 1.5 million Iraqis have crossed into neighbouring countries like Syria and Jordan where they are officially classed as refugees. Jointly, this tide has created the largest exodus in the region since the Palestinians were uprooted when Israel was founded in 1948. However, the Iraqis who remain inside the country may be the most vulnerable. UNHCR's Iraq Support Unit coordinator Andrew Harper said that the security risks of operating in Iraq complicated getting aid to these people and has masked the scale of their hardship. "We don't know the real extent of the humanitarian crisis in Iraq because people or humanitarian aid workers just can't get out to Diyala or other provinces where security is so poor," said Harper, speaking from Geneva.

Iraq: The World’s Fastest Growing Refugee Crisis

“Iraqis who are unable to flee the country are now in a queue, waiting their turn to die,” is how one Iraqi journalist summarizes conditions in Iraq today. While the US debates whether a civil war is raging in Iraq, thousands of Iraqis face the possibility of death every day all over the country. Refugees International has met with dozens of Iraqis who have fled the violence and sought refuge in neighboring countries. All of them, whether Sunni, Shi’a, Christian or Palestinian, had been directly victimized by armed actors. People are targeted because of religious affiliation, economic status, and profession – many, such as doctors, teachers, and even hairdressers, are viewed as being “anti-Islamic.” All of them fled Iraq because they had genuine and credible fear for their lives and the lives of their loved ones.

National Call-In Day: Tell President Bush to Increase Funding for Iraqi Refugees

We were wondering if you might possibly want to promote our National Call-In Day for Iraqi Refugees on June 19th. We're hoping that Americans can call attention to the 4 million Iraqis who have been forced out of their homes. We would really appreciate it if you could support us in any way you can. Here's the link to our National Call-In page.

Our homepage (www.refugeesinternational.org) is a good source of information for everything we're working on. Currently, we have a mission out to Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria assessing the refugee situation, interviewing refugees, and speaking to NGO's to get a better idea of how the situation is going. Here's a link to our Iraqi mission page.

How to Help Iraqi Refugees

RESISTANCE

Why I Fight for Peace

Because I can’t forget no matter how hard I try.
They told us we were taking out advancing Iraqi forces,
But when we went to check out the bodies
they were nothing but women and children
desperately fleeing their homes because
they wanted to get out of the city
before we attacked in the morning.

Because my little brother, who is my job to protect,
decided to join the California National Guard
to get some money for college and
they promised he wouldn’t go to Iraq.
instead three months after enlisting
he was sent to Iraq for one year.

He called me a few weeks ago for the first time
And told me he’s having nightmares.
I asked what they were about and
He said they’re about picking up the pieces
Of his fellow soldiers after a car bomb hit them.

Quote of the day: And, a government that has been told by this president and vice president to pass an oil law that transfers control -- and profits -- to Western oil companies, just like the good old days in Iran. Overthrowing Iran in 1953 was all about oil. Invading Iraq was all about oil. And the new secret plot against Iran is all about oil. Oil is the only benchmark this president and vice president want, and they will keep American soldiers fighting and dying until an oil law is passed in Iraq that gives Western oil companies control of the spigot. It is time to unmask the latest doomed plot to overthrow Iran and past time to get out soldiers out of Iraq. - US Representative Jim McDermott

Iraq Moratorium Day – September 21 and every third Friday thereafter

"I hereby make a commitment that on Friday, September 21, 2007, and the third Friday of every subsequent month I will break my daily routine and take some action, by myself or with others, to end the War in Iraq."