News & Views 07/09/07

.Photo: An Iraqi woman weeps as she and her baby sit amid the mess left behind at her house following a raid by US and Iraqi forces in Baghdad's al-Orfali Shiite district, June 2007. Spooked by a sudden increase in calls in Washington for a rapid withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, Iraqi leaders on Monday scrambled to warn of catastrophe if their forces are left alone.(AFP/File/Wissam al-Okaili)

REPORTS – LIFE IN IRAQ

In Iraqi Hamlet, 'A Funeral Service In Every House'

Khider Walli Ahmad has nobody left. Not his wife or his 4-year-old son, not his father or mother or sister. They were killed Saturday when a suicide bomber detonated a truck packed with explosives in a crowded market. In the rubble of their mud-brick house and small shop, Ahmad found fragments of their bodies. His 69-year-old father, who sold cigarettes and dairy products, was closest to the blast. "What was left of my father were bits and pieces, which I and some of the neighbors collected into a bag while we wept," Ahmad, 39, said Sunday, the trauma plastered across his face. Last year, he said, Sunni militants killed his brother Ali and his nephew during a pilgrimage to the Shiite holy city of Karbala. "And today I lost all my family," he said.

…..Maj. Khalaf Abdullah, Amerli's deputy police chief, said the blast destroyed more than 50 houses, most collapsing over their inhabitants, and demolished 45 shops. It also badly damaged 20 houses and 35 vehicles. "There is a funeral service in every house in the town," Abdullah said.

……"We were wiped out mercilessly, and we blame the Americans, the Iraqi government, the criminals and all the politicians who brought us catastrophe and destruction," he said. "They have destroyed everything with their sectarianism and politics."

Photos of the damage

Violent weekend in Iraq kills over 220

Prominent Shiite and Sunni politicians called on Iraqi civilians to take up arms to defend themselves after a weekend of violence that claimed more than 220 lives, including 60 who died Sunday in a surge of bombings and shootings around Baghdad. The calls reflect growing frustration with the inability of Iraqi security forces to prevent extremist attacks. Sunday's deadliest attack occurred when a bomb struck a truckload of newly recruited Iraqi soldiers on the outskirts of Baghdad, killing 15 soldiers and wounding 20, a police official at the nearest police station said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information. Also Sunday, two car bombs exploded near simultaneously in Baghdad's mostly Shiite Karradah district, killing eight people. The first detonated at 10:30 a.m., near a closed restaurant, destroying stalls and soft drink stands. Two passers-by were killed and eight wounded, a police official said. About five minutes later, the second car exploded about a mile away near shops selling leather jackets and shoes. Six people were killed and seven wounded, said the official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

Elsewhere, a bomb hidden under a car detonated Sunday at the entrance of Shorja market — a mostly Shiite area of central Baghdad that has been hit repeatedly by insurgents — killing three civilians and wounding five, police said. Police also reported they found the bodies of 29 men Sunday scattered across Baghdad — presumed victims of sectarian death squads. Four other people were killed Sunday in separate shootings in Baghdad, police said on condition of anonymity because they were not supposed to release the information. The string of attacks in the Iraqi capital showed that extremists can still unleash strikes in the city despite a relative lull in violence here in recent weeks amid the U.S. offensives in and around Baghdad.

Ministry to insure and protect professors

The Iraqi Ministry of Finance is to give life insurance to university professors following an increase in the number of lecturers leaving the country because of violence. The initiative will also include providing university teaching staff with personal bodyguards.
“Professors are being targeted on a daily basis and they are fleeing the country, leaving a gap in the educational system,” said Marwan Imad, a press officer for the finance ministry. “They will be offered life insurance and bodyguards chosen by themselves.”
“They will receive a special budget so that they can hire bodyguards from private companies who will protect them and in case anything happens to them, their families will receive enough money to support themselves,” Imad added. According to Imad, the initiative aims to protect professors and also to convince university teaching staff who have fled Iraq to return and continue teaching at universities. The Ministry of Higher Education has expressed serious concern that most qualified professionals have left Iraq.

Edgy Iraqi couples opt for safety of mass wedding

Around 100 couples gathered in a spartan hall in the Babylon Hotel in central Baghdad for their big day, hosted by the Iraqi government amid tight security on Saturday. Brides queued to receive white shawls bearing a map of Iraq. Grooms got an envelope stuffed with one million dinars ($800) from the minister of youth and sports. Not many people smiled. "At least my bride and I could enjoy peace in this well- protected hotel," said Sami Waleed, sitting with other couples as musicians wandered among rows of plainly decorated tables. ….But joy at impending matrimony was hard to spot, along with most of the trappings of a traditional wedding. There was scant evidence of presents, many guests couldn't enter because of limited space in the hall, and one of the few bouquets of flowers was handed straight to the minister, by one of the only women wearing a formal wedding dress.

Today, I was woken up by an american soldier.

I was sleeping in my room, it was early morning, I felt someone is knocking on my hand, I opened my eyes and I was too sleepy, I saw an American soldier standing next to my bed he was silent so it was like what??? am I in a dream or something? I spontaneously said "I'm sorry" and I don't know why I said it or what for it just came out that why.
He replied with "endak slah" but it was more like "indexellah" which I didn't understand, I said "sorry", he said "do you have any weapons" and I said "No" and I realized that I was not dreaming, then my mum came up with the rest of soldiers they were checking the house and they were finished with the upper and lower floor, the soldier returned to me as I stood up and said "sorry for waking you up" and the left. They were searching the whole area for weapons. Its funny though coz I always had this dream that one day I'll open my eyes and there will be an american soldier standing over my head with his M-16. they were very polite when dealing with me, my father and my mum but they were very aggressive when they dealt with my neighbours across the street, they called them bad names and trashed their house. (This is from the comment section of Nabil’s blog.)

Fearful first communion for Baghdad's Christian kids

For the sake of our country, that life may return to Iraq and all its sons enjoy safety, peace and stability, amen." With this nervous prayer of hope, 59 Iraqi boys and girls became full members of Baghdad's dwindling Christian flock. Dressed in habits like novice monks and nuns, the youngsters came to the Our Lady of Salvation church to take first communion, a rare sight in a city where their minority is keeping an increasingly low profile. As proud parents looked on, the latest generation of one of the world's oldest Christian communities prayed for an end to the bitter civil war that threatens to drive them from their ancestral homeland. "I prayed to God to keep my mum and dad and all the family safe. I asked Jesus Christ to keep everyone safe," said 11-year-old Rita Sabah, as her brother Yusif nodded and said: "Amen." Their playmate Matti had an even heavier burden to bear. "I prayed that Jesus returns my father safe," he said. Nine months ago, Matti's dad was kidnapped by one of the many kidnap gangs that roam Baghdad. He has not been heard from since.

A Postcard from Iraq

They blindfolded him, handcuffed him and shoved him in a car. His ordeal had started. His torture odyssey was about to unfold ... He was held for three full days and three full nights. He was tortured NON-STOP for three full days and three full nights. They used iron rods, chains, rubber hoose, sticks... Sometimes the three pounded him in unison. Sometimes they would take turns. The only respite he had is when they stopped for "prayers"!!!! Again, the interrogation, the senseless interrogation. "What have I done" he would scream. "We found an empty can of beer next to your house door - why are you not growing a beard - why are you not wearing a long "thob" ... and they would pound him some more. But fortunately they did stop for prayers and did not have drills!

……His voice was barely audible...He would speak and then his voice would gently fade away and his lips would stop moving. "It hurts to breathe" he says. "It really hurts to breathe." Then he manages another sentence, that he keeps repeating like some sacred mantra. " I will crawl on all four to the border. Am willing to beg or become a street sweeper in Damascus. But I will not stay here anymore. This is no longer my country."

Some of the Deadliest Attacks in Iraq

Some of the deadliest attacks in Iraq since the war began in March 2003:

-July 7: A suicide truck bomber rips through a market in a Shiite Turkoman town north of Baghdad, killing at least 115 people.

-April 18: A car bomb explodes at a Baghdad market as workers leave for the day, killing 127 people.

-March 6: Two suicide bombers blow themselves up in Hillah, about 60 miles south of Baghdad, killing 93 people in a crowd of Shiite pilgrims.

-Feb. 3: A suicide truck bomber strikes a market in a predominantly Shiite area of Baghdad, killing 137 people.

-Jan. 22: A parked car bomb followed immediately by a suicide car bomber strikes a predominantly Shiite commercial area in the Bab al-Sharqi market in central Baghdad, killing 88 people.

-Nov. 23, 2006: Mortar rounds and five car bombs kill 215 people in the Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City.

-April 7, 2006: Two suicide bombers attack the Shiite Buratha mosque in northern Baghdad, killing 85 people.

-Sept. 29, 2005: Three suicide attackers detonate car bombs in an outdoor market and two nearby commercial streets in the mostly Shiite town of Balad, north of Baghdad, killing at least 102 people.

-Sept. 14, 2005: A suicide car bomber strikes as day laborers gather shortly after dawn in a heavily Shiite neighborhood of Baghdad, killing 112 people.

-July 16, 2005: A suicide bomber detonates explosives strapped to his body at a gas station near a Shiite mosque in Musayyib, killing at least 90 people.

-Feb. 28, 2005: A suicide car bomber targets mostly Shiite police and national guard recruits in Hillah, killing 125 people.

-March 2, 2004: A suicide bomber kills at least 85 people at the Imam Hussein shrine in the Shiite holy city of Karbala.

-Feb. 1, 2004: Twin suicide bombers kill 109 people in two Kurdish party offices in the northern city of Irbil.

-Aug. 29, 2003: A car bomb explodes outside a mosque in Najaf, killing more than 85 people, including Shiite leader Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim.

Oil law to plunge country into more chaos

Disappointment will be the only fruit that we are going to reap from the new oil law as we did from all other U.S.-sponsored ‘milestones’. Instead of “a gift to all the Iraqi people” as Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki described the draft oil law his government approved a few days ago, there are clear signals that the bill will turn into ‘poison’ for Iraq as a nation. It is an oppressive bill that Maliki and his ministers signed and passed to parliament for approval. Many believed the government’s assertions that it would substantially review the bill originally drafted almost a year ago and rejected outright by almost all of the country’s political hues. Iraqi oil experts, national figures, Iraqis of note, politicians and numerous factions in the government had warned that unless redrafted, the bill will definitely become a cause for infighting and eventual division of the country. But the government paid no heed to the warnings and, according to a senior official who took part in the recent deliberations hardly any changes or revisions were made. The official, who did not wish his name be revealed, accused Maliki’s government of undermining the very national reconciliation it says it is pursuing. “The target behind the idea of the oil law was to cement national unity and reconciliation and not undermine them. We wanted this law to bring Iraqis together and not drive them apart,” the official was quoted as saying.

REPORTS – IRAQI MILITIAS, POLITICIANS, POWER BROKERS

Moderates Try To Break Iraq's Sectarian Logjam

With Parliament and the cabinet barely able to function, some senior political figures in Iraq's government have begun reaching out to try to address a long-stagnating list of legislation seen as crucial to the country's future. A moderate group of four parties, two Shiite and two Kurdish, appear to be close to an agreement to work together on the legislation, party representatives say, and they are hoping to persuade the most moderate of the Sunni Arab parties, the Iraqi Islamic Party, to join them. "We are so eager to have the Iraqi Islamic Party be part of it; we don't want to have four plus one, we want to have five, and this is the reason for the delay in announcing the group's formation," said Amar al-Hakim, a politically prominent Shiite cleric, whose father, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, leads the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council, one of the leading Shiite parties. "We have talked to them, and we are waiting to hear." In a sign of movement on the Sunni side, the main Sunni Arab bloc in Parliament elected Ayad al-Sammarai, a moderate from the Iraqi Islamic Party, as its new leader, replacing Adnan Dulaimi, a more hard-line figure. However, the obstacles are formidable. At least 12 ministers from the 38-member cabinet are no longer attending cabinet meetings. There has been little progress on benchmark legislation, including oil revenue-sharing and a law to set a date for provincial elections. Seventy-four members of Parliament are boycotting the 275-member body, which, when combined with the members who rarely attend anyway, means that Parliament often lacks a quorum and cannot do any official business. More important than sheer numbers, however, is that even though one Sunni Arab party is considering compromise, the larger main bloc, Tawafiq, is still refusing to participate. Although Parliament can pass legislation without the bloc, it would be a hollow exercise, because the whole point of the bills now under consideration is to try to heal differences between the Sunni Arab minority and the Shiite majority.

Iraqi Sadrists to come up with ‘reconciliation initiative’

The movement led by Iraqi Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr says it intends to present a new reconciliation plan to end the current political stalemate. Differences between Iraqi political factions with representatives in the parliament have aggravated recently mainly due to the government’s passage of a controversial oil law under which foreign firms will be given the right to exploit and administer Iraqi oil fields. The law also gives a big say for Iraqi regions and governorates in oil exploration, output and export. Sunni Scholars have issued a decree branding anyone accepting the law a traitor and Sunni members of parliament, who have already boycotted its sessions, have vowed to resist the law. The Sadr movement had withdrawn its 30 deputies but, according to Bahaa al-Aaraji, a senior Sadr aide, the deputies have decided to rejoin with the specific aim of defeating the passage of the law. Aaraji said the movement’s leader would announce the initiative which he described as a ‘new national reconciliation plan.’ Araji gave no details of the move but Sadr had previously made such initiatives which never saw light.

Americans 'are being defeated'

An audiotape assumed to be of Saddam Hussein's deputy said his group will keep fighting until the last foreign soldier withdraws from Iraq, saying the Americans were being defeated. The audiotape purportedly from Izzat Ibrahim Al Douri said the leadership of Saddam's former Baath Party declared that "its only alternative is jihad and escalating jihad, until the last soldier of the enemy flees the land of Iraq." "My dear comrades, your enemy is collapsing and is being defeated, so are its followers, agents and spies as a result of your giant jihadi march," Al Douri said.

Regime change: De-Sadrization won't be good news for the American forces

Mostly overlapping reports in Al-Quds al-Arabi, Azzaman and Al-Hayat indicate the following: (1) Prime Minister Maliki, under pressure from the Americans for some semblance of progress on the "benchmarks", stepped up his verbal attacks on the Sadrist current to an unacceptable level, triggering not only the Sadrist protest demonstrations in Baghdad yesterday, but also statements by Sadrist spokesmen to the effect that this shows Maliki is in the process of being dumped by the Americans. (2) Within the Shiite bloc, there is a restructuring that excludes the Sadrist movement (and the Fadhila, presumably), involving a re-allocation of benefits to the Dawa and Supreme Council (Hakim) parties. Sadrists talk about a Dawa-Supreme Council coordinating committee that is doing this. (3) As for the government coalition as a whole, president Talabani announced an agreement that brings the (Sunni) Iraqi Accord Front ministers back into the government, after a two- or three-week absense that was triggered by the criminal proceedings against one of their leaders.

Iraqi politicians call on civilians to arm themselves

Prominent Shiite and Sunni politicians called on Iraqi civilians to take up arms to defend themselves after a weekend of violence that claimed more than 220 lives, including 60 who died yesterday in a surge of bombings and shootings around Baghdad. The calls reflect growing frustration with the inability of Iraqi security forces to prevent extremist attacks.

REPORTS – US/UK/OTHERS IN IRAQ

Ghosts of Abu Ghraib

Film Summary Through startling interviews with perpetrators, witnesses and victims, GHOSTS OF ABU GHRAIB examines and contextualizes the ... all » abuses that occurred in the fall of 2003 at the notorious Iraqi prison abuses documented in photographs that are etched in our national consciousness. The film probes the psychology of how typical American men and women came to commit these atrocious acts and, on a parallel track, explores the policy decisions that eroded our compliance with the Geneva Conventions and contributed to making the abuse a reality. Ultimately, the film asks what these events say about America, our government, our military and our human nature.

Lessons Unlearned in Iraq

The "peace" of summer 2006 was tenuous and began to erode in August. There was a U.S. troop "surge" into Baghdad -- the current "surge" isn't the first or, some say, even the second -- and we felt the results of insurgents fleeing into Diyala long before it became popular to talk about it. Then came an unfortunate development in the Iraqi forces. The Shiite commanding general was replaced by Maj. Gen. Shaker Hulayel, another Shiite who was said to have been appointed by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's office. Hulayel was sectarian to the core. He talked the talk of peace and reconciliation, but his walk was down corridors lined with Sunni detainees, illegally held and tortured. His walk was in front of death squads, sent to take out important Sunnis. His walk was laced with hatred and contempt for the precepts of democracy and order. His presence was not helpful to the reconciliation process.

There was also an unfortunate development in the U.S. military. In the fall, the battalion from the 4th Infantry Division was replaced by a cavalry battalion. Our new colonel was eager to finish the job his predecessor had not. He chose to fight with weapons, not words, as a first option. He dropped the "speak softly" and resorted to the big stick. Out of necessity, as our directions were to work with and train Iraqi forces with a goal of handing responsibility to them, the sectarian Hulayel became an "ally."

Petraeus in Baquba photos

Iraq war costs could top $1.4 trillion

According to a new report by the non-partisan Congressional Research Service, "in the first half of this fiscal year, the Defense Department's "average monthly obligations for contracts and pay is running about $12 billion per month, well above the $8.7 billion in FY2006."

Islamic Bomb-Making Militants the Big Winners in Iraq Occupation

It is in Iraq that al-Qa'ida has come into its own. The US proclamation of the group as its most dangerous enemy served only as effective advertising among young Sunni men. Such denunciations also made it much easier for al-Qa'ida to raise money in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf. The three car bombs used in Glasgow and London are far inferior to anything used in Iraq. This is an ominous pointer for the future because Iraq is now full of people who know exactly how to make a highly-effective bomb - and the means to detonate it. It is only a matter of time before this knowledge spreads.

The expertise of the Iraqi bombers attained a high level almost as soon as the first explosions occurred in Baghdad in August 2003. The Jordanian embassy was attacked and then the UN headquarters. Assassination by suicide bomber began with the killing of Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim, the leader of the largest Shia party, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, along with 85 of his followers in Najaf. By November, Jihadists were able to attack half a dozen targets at the same time. There also appeared to be an endless supply of suicide bombers from Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Syria and almost every state in the Arab world. The one Muslim country that suicide bombers did not come from was Iran, though the Iranians have been far more vigorously denounced than the Sunni states that produce the bombers. In the immediate aftermath of the latest bombings in the UK there were immediate suspicions that Iraqi methods had spread. The opposite is true. It is surprising, given that one of the alleged bombers comes from Jordan, home to one million Iraqi refugees, that they did not know more about making a bomb. It is the political not the technical influence of the Iraq war that we are now seeing.

Turkey has 140,000 troops on Iraq border

The Turkish army has 140,000 soldiers along its border with northern Iraq as part of a "great mobilization", Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari said on Monday. Turkey's armed forces have urged its government to allow an incursion into neighboring, mainly Kurdish, northern Iraq to crush up to 4,000 Turkish Kurdish militants who use the region as a base to attack security and civilian targets inside Turkey. Rumors of a possible Turkish incursion have rattled financial markets and have drawn warnings from the United States, Ankara's NATO ally, to stay out of Iraq. "There is a great mobilization on Iraq's northern international border that the security services and intelligence (agencies) estimate at more than 140,000 military personnel with all sorts of equipment," Zebari told a news conference. Asked to confirm the number, Zebari, who is himself a Kurd, said it was 140,000. While Turkey has not said how many troops had been sent to the border, it had been believed to be in the tens of thousands.

COMMENTARY

Consider the Source: 'NYT' Reporter Targets Iran

As if he hadn't done enough damage already, helping to promote the American invasion of Iraq with deeply flawed articles in The New York Times, Michael R. Gordon is now writing scare stories that offer ammunition for the growing chorus of neo-cons calling for a U.S. strike against Iran - his most recent effort appearing just this morning. What's most lamentable is that editors at The New York Times, who should have learned their lessons four years ago, are once again serving as enablers. The Times carried Gordon's latest opus at the top of its front page today. The Washington Post, in contrast, carried the same claims by an American military spokesman, in an article by Joshua Partlow, on page A8. After a brief accounting of the military's assertion, Partlow devotes much of the rest of the story to a general war roundup (including news of civilians south of Baghdad killed by our bombs). The latest official effort to blame-blame Iran so that perhaps we can bomb-bomb Iran revolves around new claims by Brig. Gen. Kevin J. Bergner that the deaths of five American soldiers in Karbala in January were actually plotted by Iranian militants. Gordon's breathless article first appeared on the Times' site yesterday with absolutely no caveats - revealing his true motives and standards. "In effect, American officials are charging that Iran has been engaged in a proxy war against American forces for years," Gordon declared.

Perhaps even his editors were concerned or embarrassed. The same story suddenly gained a couple of qualifiers, though not nearly enough, later yesterday (first spotted by Salon blogger Glenn Greenwald), and then got enlarged somewhat today, and with the byline of John F. Burns added to Gordon's. The story even has a lead character reminiscent of "Curveball" and "Baseball Cap Guy" from Judy Miller's reporting on Iraq in 2003. Our new star informer is a Lebanese citizen named Ali Musa Daqdug aka "Hamid the Mute" who supposedly (this is all coming from Gen. Bergner) has a "24-year history in Hezbollah&hellip.The general said Daqdug had been sent by Hezbollah to Iran in 2005 with orders to work with the Quds Force, an elite unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, to train 'Iraqi extremists.'" The Times article contains a number of howlers delivered with all seriousness. Here's one: "General Bergner, seemingly keen to avoid a renewal of the criticism that the American command has used the allegations of Iranian interference here to lend momentum to the Bush administration's war policy, declined to draw any broader political implications...."

That's topped by this, in explaining that "Hamid the Mute" had suddenly started talking: "The official said the shift had been achieved without harming Daqduq. 'We don't torture,' the official said. 'We follow scrupulously the interrogation techniques in the Army's new field manual, which forbids torture, and has the force of law.'" And who is Gen. Bergner? He arrived in Iraq just a few weeks ago from his previous job, as special assistant - to President Bush in the White House. At his press conference on Monday, which supplied quotes for Gordon, he admitted he could not explain the motivation for the attack on the five U.S. soldiers; why the Iranians would feel any need to outsource to Hezbollah; or why they would risk this kind of "exposure." The danger of the Times article - given the prominence attached to it - is real. For example, Sen. Joe Lieberman responded to the allegations by asserting that this means Iran "has declared war on us." You may recall that this past February, Gordon had trumpeted the charge that Iran was now supplying a new form of IED - or as the Times put it, the "deadliest weapon aimed at American troops" in Iraq. This charge, promoted by the U.S. military and given prominent play by the Times, also came at a time of rising calls for taking action against Iran. Experts subsequently disputed key parts of evidence cited by Gordon and the charge largely subsided - until now. [Iraqis on the scene claimed the people dressed as American military were in fact, Americans. An American military person on the scene claimed that the kidnappers were Israeli. Whoever it was, they sure convinced the US and Iraqi guards into thinking they were Americans. – dancewater]

HISTORY

A Farewell to Arms Control

Republicans are not the only ones guilty of misrepresenting the truth regarding Iraq and weapons inspections; President Bill Clinton had the gall to claim that Saddam Hussein had refused to cooperate with weapons inspectors in December 1998, evicting the WMD sleuths from Iraq on the eve of the 72-hour bombing campaign known as Desert Fox.

A Message From The "Iraq Resistance"

Video: Islamic Jihad Army - A message in English - "We are simple people who chose principles over fear."

‘The Salvador Option’

The Pentagon may put Special-Forces-led assassination or kidnapping teams in Iraq. What to do about the deepening quagmire of Iraq? The Pentagon’s latest approach is being called "the Salvador option"—and the fact that it is being discussed at all is a measure of just how worried Donald Rumsfeld really is. "What everyone agrees is that we can’t just go on as we are," one senior military officer told NEWSWEEK. "We have to find a way to take the offensive against the insurgents. Right now, we are playing defense. And we are losing." Last November’s operation in Fallujah, most analysts agree, succeeded less in breaking "the back" of the insurgency—as Marine Gen. John Sattler optimistically declared at the time—than in spreading it out. Now, NEWSWEEK has learned, the Pentagon is intensively debating an option that dates back to a still-secret strategy in the Reagan administration’s battle against the leftist guerrilla insurgency in El Salvador in the early 1980s. Then, faced with a losing war against Salvadoran rebels, the U.S. government funded or supported "nationalist" forces that allegedly included so-called death squads directed to hunt down and kill rebel leaders and sympathizers.

Eventually the insurgency was quelled, and many U.S. conservatives consider the policy to have been a success—despite the deaths of innocent civilians and the subsequent Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages scandal. (Among the current administration officials who dealt with Central America back then is John Negroponte, who is today the U.S. ambassador to Iraq. Under Reagan, he was ambassador to Honduras. There is no evidence, however, that Negroponte knew anything about the Salvadoran death squads or the Iran-Contra scandal at the time. The Iraq ambassador, in a phone call to NEWSWEEK on Jan. 10, said he was not involved in military strategy in Iraq. He called the insertion of his name into this report "utterly gratuitous.")

Following that model, one Pentagon proposal would send Special Forces teams to advise, support and possibly train Iraqi squads, most likely hand-picked Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and Shiite militiamen, to target Sunni insurgents and their sympathizers, even across the border into Syria, according to military insiders familiar with the discussions. It remains unclear, however, whether this would be a policy of assassination or so-called "snatch" operations, in which the targets are sent to secret facilities for interrogation. The current thinking is that while U.S. Special Forces would lead operations in, say, Syria, activities inside Iraq itself would be carried out by Iraqi paramilitaries, officials tell NEWSWEEK.

*********************************************************************

Quote of the day: "Until you stop the bombing, gassing, imprisonment and torture of my people we will not stop this fight," Mohammed Sidique Khan declared. (London suicide bomber of 2005, convicted today of conspiracy to commit murder – WHEN ARE THE ONES WHO STARTED THIS SLAUGHTER GOING TO HAVE THEIR DAY IN COURT? THEY ARE INVOLVED IN CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT GENOCIDE AND OTHER SERIOUS HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES!!!)