.Photo: Iraqis carry the body of their relative out of a hospital morgue in Kirkuk. Mass funerals are underway in Kirkuk as relatives buried their loved ones after a truck and two car bombs slaughtered 77 people. Elsewhere in Iraq, gunmen dressed in Iraqi military uniforms stormed a village in the restive Iraqi province of Diyala and murdered 29 people.(AFP/Marwan Ibrahim)
REPORTS – LIFE IN IRAQ
In A Remote Iraqi Village a World Ends, and the War Begins
Last Saturday's truck bomb in the remote northern village of Emerli killed at least 140 people, wounded hundreds more, and dragged a peaceful minority community into the maelstrom of civil war. Emerli's inhabitants are Shiite Turkmen, a minority within a minority, fearful of the Sunni Arab communities round about, which they believe shelter insurgents and sectarian extremists. Among the ruins, the scale of the disaster is apocalyptic, the village transformed into another haunted battlefield in a war that is creeping outward to Iraq's unguarded hinterlands. "My house was right here," says Abbas Abdullah, a 33-year-old carpenter, pointing to a pile of crumbled bricks next to a pockmarked palm tree. "I have no house, nothing, and most of my neighbours are dead. "This was no car bomb. It was a nuclear weapon, like what was dropped on Hiroshima," he says. Several days have passed since the bombing but the town's traumatised residents still wander listlessly through a sea of dirt mounds, homes and shops collapsed into tombs in a storm of dust and fire. "The children are scared," Zeid al-Abdin says as he leads his son and daughter through the rubble. "They think it was a storm, and they keep asking me if there's going to be another one. They are so nervous they haven't slept since the explosion." Down another crumbling street a bearded old man with the white shawl of a martyr draped over his head leans against a wall and trembles, his red eyes filled with tears at the loss of his four sons. In this town of 11,000 people -- whom many residents believe sprang from a common patriarch -- the losses are not measured in individual friends and family members, but in the deliberate murder of an entire community.
Just another day in Iraq: 100 more fathers, mothers, sons and daughters killed
The United States surge, the use of the American troop reinforcements to bring violence in Iraq under control, is bloodily failing across northern Iraq. That was proved again yesterday when a suicide bomber detonated a truck packed with explosives in Kirkuk killing at least 85 people and wounding a further 183. The truck bomb blasted a 30ft-deep crater in a busy road full of small shops and booths near the ancient citadel of Kirkuk, setting fire to a bus in which the passengers burned to death and burying many others under the rubble. Dozens of cars were set ablaze and their blackened hulks littered the street. Some 25 of the wounded suffered critical injuries and may not live. In Baghdad, at least 44 people were killed or found dead across the city, police said. They included the bullet-riddled bodies of 25 people, apparent victims of sectarian death squads. The attack is the latest assault by Sunni insurgents on Kurds who claim Kirkuk as their future capital. Adnan Sarhan, 30, lost both his eyes and had his back broken in the blast. He lay on the operating table as his anguished mother, Mahiya Qadir, sat nearby with her daughter-in-law. "Will I ever see my son alive again?" she asked.
Derby man who came to Iraq to wage war
The wars being waged by the US and a mosaic of Iraqi communities in northern Iraq have on the surface little to do with Britain. But Kurdish security men recently killed a man called Mala Isa in a shoot-out in his house in Kirkuk. His brother also died in the gun battle. Mala Isa was a Kurd and also a member of Ansar al Sunna, a particularly dangerous Sunni fundamentalist group. The Kurds say that he was previously a resident of Derby, where he raised money for jihadi causes. They point out that northern Iraq is now filled with people like Mr Isa, who are as willing to blow up Piccadilly as Kirkuk, and know exactly how to do so. Iraq has become a breeding ground for numerous groups who know the impacta few well-placed explosives can have. "Every shepherd in this country knows how to make a detonator," said one security specialist here. The idea pushed by the White House and Downing Street, that the manufacture of shaped charges to make bombs more effective can be blamed on Iran, was always unrealistic. Iraq is full of military specialists and unemployed engineers. After the invasion of Kuwait, Saddam Hussein claimed to have raised an army of one million men.
What is new about the war in Iraq since 2003 is the use of suicide bombers on an industrial scale. This has never happened before. The US and Britain have kept very quiet about the origins of these young men prepared to kill themselves, but 45 per cent are reportedly from Saudi Arabia, 15 per cent from Syria and Lebanon and 10 per cent from north Africa. This fits in with the pattern set by 9/11, when 15 out of the 19 men who hijacked the planes and flew them into the twin towers were Saudi. But because the US and Britain are closely allied to the Saudi kingdom they have never seriously tried to staunch the flow of suicide bombers from there. President Bush and Tony Blair reserved all their criticism for Iran, which is not known to have provided a single suicide bomber. There is a further reason why the expertise and motivation of suicide bombers is likely to spread further. The war in Iraq has created a diaspora of Iraqis across the world. In Syria and Jordan alone there are 1.8 million refugees. This is the biggest exodus from a single country ever in the Middle East, surpassing even the flight or expulsion of Palestinians in 1948. The world is full of angry Iraqis.
Partition Fears Begin to Rise
Many Iraqis are now beginning to see the rising sectarian violence as part of a larger plan to partition the country. "Americans want to alter the shape of our cities, dividing Iraqis into ethnic and sectarian groups living separately from each other," Khali Sadiq, a researcher in statistics at Baghdad University told IPS. "They are not doing this directly, but they have obviously given room to militias and Iraqi forces to do the job," he said. "We are more than halfway towards a sectarian Iraq." A recent report has raised further suspicions that there is a U.S.-backed plan to partition the capital city, and possibly the country along sectarian and ethnic lines. According to the Initial Benchmark Assessment Report issued by the White House Jul. 12, "the government of Iraq has made satisfactory progress towards enacting and implementing legislation on procedures to form semi-autonomous regions." The report also states that the U.S.-backed Iraqi government formulates "target lists" of Sunni Arabs. These lists are compiled by the Office of the Commander-in-Chief, which reports directly to U.S.-backed Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The report says fabricated charges are brought to purge Sunnis from the Iraqi security forces.
Samara city, 100 km north of Baghdad, seems to be one of the current targets of this demographic change. The bombing of the shrine of al-Askari in February 2006 ignited a sectarian wave of violence that swept Iraq. Shia clerics in Baghdad and other Iraqi provinces who are supportive of the occupation began to speak of a need to change the city from predominantly Sunni to predominantly Shia. Shula and Hurriya in western Baghdad, and most areas on the eastern bank of Tigris River are now purely Shia after years of killings by death squads. It has been known for over a year now that Shia death squads have been operating out of the U.S.-backed Ministry of Interior, often in the guise of the Facilities Protection Service (FPS).
Hundreds of Iraqis protest draft oil law
About 300 oil industry workers gathered in Iraq's main oil port of Basra on Monday to protest a draft law that they said would allow foreigners to pillage the country's wealth. "To compensate for the military and political failure of the US administration in Iraq, this administration is trying to control the country's wealth," the organisers said in a statement distributed to reporters. "If this is endorsed by the parliament it would abolish sovereignty and hand over the wealth of this generation and the generations to come as a gift to the occupier," the statement said. The protesters, employees of the Oil Pipelines Company, wore black surgical masks over their faces and carried banners and black coffins with the word "freedom" written on the sides. At issue is a clause in the draft hydrocarbon law allowing for production-sharing agreements with foreign oil companies, which many Iraqis see as a throwback to an earlier era of colonial exploitation.
Iraqi river carries grotesque cargo
Five hundred mutilated bodies dumped into the River Tigris have been washed up in two years in the town of Suweira, 100km (62 miles) south of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad. The BBC's Mona Mahmoud and Sebastian Usher have spoken to the community through an Iraqi journalist to find out how they cope. It is a normal day on the murky waters of the Tigris for two fishermen near Suweira. The catch they have made is nothing new to them, but it unveils its grim secrets slowly. "Wait a minute," the first fisherman shouts out to his partner in their little fishing boat after he finds a body in the river. "His body is so decomposed... His belly is cut open - he can't be lifted out." "Does he have a head?" he asks. "No, it's been cut off," the other fisherman replies as he looks down into the water.
REPORTS - IRAQI LAWMAKERS, POWER BROKERS
Shiite Lawmakers End Boycott of Iraqi Parliament
REPORTS – US/UK/OTHERS IN IRAQ
US plans robot air attack in Iraq
The US army is to deploy a squadron of modern drones in Iraq as part of its programs aimed at reducing the military mortality rate. The airplane is the size of a jet fighter, powered by a turboprop engine, able to fly at 300 mph (480 kph) and reach the height of 50,000 feet (15,240 meters). It is outfitted with infrared, laser and radar targeting, and with a ton and a half of guided bombs and missiles. The Reaper is controlled by a video console 7,000 miles (11,265 kilometers) away in Nevada. ………The Associated Press has learned that the Air Force is building a 400,000-square-foot (37,161-square-meter) expansion of the concrete ramp area now used for Predator drones at Balad, the biggest US air base in Iraq, 50 miles (80 kilometers) north of Baghdad. That new staging area could be turned over to Reapers. It is another sign that the Air Force is planning for an extended stay in Iraq.
Marine testimony: All Iraqi men viewed as insurgents
"We were told to crank up the violence level," said Lopezromo, testifying for the defense. When a juror asked for further explanation, Lopezromo said: "We beat people, sir." Within weeks of allegedly being scolded, seven Marines and a Navy corpsman went out late one night to find and kill a suspected insurgent in the village of Hamdaniya near the Abu Ghraib prison. The Marines and corpsman were from 2nd Platoon, Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 5th Regiment. Lopezromo said the suspected insurgent was known to his neighbors as the "prince of jihad," and had been arrested several times and later released by the Iraqi legal system. Unable to find him, the Marines and corpsman dragged another man from his house, fatally shot him, and then planted an AK-47 assault rifle near the body to make it appear he had been killed in a shootout, according to court testimony. Four Marines and the corpsman, initially charged with murder in the April 2006 killing, have pleaded guilty to reduced charges and been given jail sentences ranging from 10 months to eight years. Thomas, 25, from St. Louis, Missouri, pleaded guilty but withdrew his plea and is the first defendant to go to court-martial.
Air Force Quietly Building Iraq Presence
Statistics tell the story: Air Force and Navy aircraft dropped 437 bombs and missiles in Iraq in the first six months of 2007, a fivefold increase over the 86 used in the first half of 2006, and three times more than in the second half of 2006, according to Air Force data. In June, bombs dropped at a rate of more than five a day. Inside spacious, air-conditioned "Kingpin," a new air traffic control center at this huge Air Force hub 50 miles north of Baghdad, the expanded commitment can be seen on the central display screen: Small points of light represent more than 100 aircraft crisscrossing Iraqi air space at any one time. The increased air activity has paralleled the reinforcement of U.S. ground troops, beginning in February, to try to suppress the insurgency and sectarian violence in the Baghdad region. Simply keeping those 30,000 additional troops supplied has added to demands on the Air Force. "We're the busiest aerial port in DOD (Department of Defense)," said Col. Dave Reynolds, a mission support commander here. Working 12-hour shifts, his cargo handlers are expected to move 140,000 tons of cargo this year, one-third more than in 2006, he said.
Early this year, with little fanfare, the Air Force sent a squadron of A-10 "Warthog" attack planes - a dozen or more aircraft - to be based at Al-Asad Air Base in western Iraq. At the same time it added a squadron of F-16C Fighting Falcons here at Balad. Although some had flown missions over Iraq from elsewhere in the region, the additions doubled to 50 or more the number of workhorse fighter-bomber jets available at bases inside the country, closer to the action. The reinforcement involved more than numbers. The new F-16Cs were the first of the advanced "Block 50" version to fly in Iraq, an aircraft whose technology includes a cockpit helmet that enables the pilot to aim his weapons at a target simply by turning his head and looking at it. [And how precise would that be? – dancewater]
Britain says to withdraw 500 Iraq troops in weeks
Britain expects to withdraw 500 of its 5,500 troops from southern Iraq within weeks and will then assess how soon it can remove the remainder of its forces, Defence Secretary Des Browne said on Monday. "We've got to the point where we presently have 5,500 troops in Iraq and if, as we expect to do, within a matter of weeks manage to hand over the Basra Palace to the security control of the Iraqis, we'll be able to draw down a further 500," Browne told parliament. "At that stage we will make an assessment of the ability of the Iraqi security forces in consultation with our allies -- and principally with our principle ally the United States of America -- about our ability to move from there to the point where we can withdraw our forces," he said.
War Games Play Out Scenarios for Iraq
(They later renamed it “Exit Strategies” How clever. Pretending that the US forces are leaving Iraq.)
If U.S. combat forces withdraw from Iraq in the near future, three developments would be likely to unfold. Majority Shiites would drive Sunnis out of ethnically mixed areas west to Anbar province. Southern Iraq would erupt in civil war between Shiite groups. And the Kurdish north would solidify its borders and invite a U.S. troop presence there. In short, Iraq would effectively become three separate nations. That was the conclusion reached in recent "war games" exercises conducted for the U.S. military by retired Marine Col. Gary Anderson. "I honestly don't think it will be apocalyptic," said Anderson, who has served in Iraq and now works for a major defense contractor. But "it will be ugly."
….Some military officers contend that, regardless of whether Iraq breaks apart or outside actors seek to take over after a U.S. pullout, ever greater carnage is inevitable. "The water-cooler chat I hear most often . . . is that there is going to be an outbreak of violence when we leave that makes the [current] instability look like a church picnic," said an officer who has served in Iraq. [Another anonymous military person! How clever! How original! Well, the whole article is stenography and speculation, most of it from anonymous sources, with this really intelligent comment: “impossible to predict what will happen in Iraq -- with or without U.S. troops.” Now really, we CANNOT PREDICT what will happen if the US troops STAY there??? Did the last four years not happen, or did these WaPo stenographers not notice them? OF COURSE, there is not a single Iraqi comment or prediction included. What do those people know about their own country? Why, nothing, of course! Remember, I read WaPo so you don’t have to. – dancewater]
COMMENTARY
Iraqi politicians deadline passed
There are some Iraqi politicians who see U.S. public opinion as naïve and there are others who believe that the U.S. mentality itself is superficial and credulous. Those entertaining such ideas would have been right five years ago when a bunch of lies prompted the White House to move armies and spend recklessly on Iraq invasion. [Still true today, also. – dancewater] Iraqi politicians naively thought that marching on the same path of lies would hold the U.S. administration a hostage to their shortsightedness. Instead of using their own capabilities to run the country, they thought no matter what happens the world’s most powerful country would remain on their side and believe their lies. Iraqi politicians believed they could extort the U.S. The extortion was mutual, they thought, because the U.S. would never give up Iraq. [What they intend to do is DESTROY Iraq, and they are well on their way. – dancewater] Little did they know that the best strategies are those which adapt to the situation and that time would come when Iraq would turn into such a liability and burden that the U.S. itself would like to get rid of. Iraqi politicians should have taken good lessons from recent history. The U.S. has always altered its strategy in a manner that benefits its national interests. It has always been ready to change tact despite huge sacrifices. It is a cheap excuse to say the country will fall in the hands of ‘terrorists’ if the U.S. withdrew its forces. There are many in the U.S. now who no longer believe in this. There are no foreign troops in neighboring countries to protect them from ‘terrorists’. The question is why Iraq needs a huge U.S. military force to protect it from ‘terrorism’ while other countries do not.
Power greedy Democrats battle victory-obsessed Republicans over Iraq
U.S. Democrats are gathering momentum to blame their adversaries, the Democrats, over the Iraq debacle. [That’s both funny and TRUE! – dancewater] The former have come to the realization that victory is no longer possible while the latter, and particularly their boss in the White House, are proceeding with their folly that triumph is still within reach. Neither policy is of any benefit to Iraq. Both ways we are doomed. [So, there’s a third way between failure and victory? – dancewater] While the two continue sparring in Congress, their master in the White House remains unmoved. The Democrats want to see President Bush leaving the White House in humiliation and are using his miscalculated Iraq adventure as a pretext to achieve that aim. [Bush will never feel humiliation over anything. – dancewater] The Republicans have placed own standing and that of their country on the performance of their troops in the country. If they cut and run, it will be a reminder for the world and future generations of their foolishness and politically immaturity. [Let’s hope future generations only see them in this light. I suspect, however, they (and all Americans) will be judged far more harshly. – dancewater] But their skirmishes in the Congress and the pages of U.S. newspapers are doing no good for the Iraqi people. Their fearsome army has failed in winning the war in Iraq and taming barefoot rebels in central Iraq. [Now this last statement is the truth. – dancewater]
Ask This:The Privatization of Iraq’s Oil Reserves
From time to time we read about the Iraqi oil law; but, with few exceptions, we hear only that the law will force the Kurds, Sunnis and Shia to share oil revenues. Who else will be sharing in those revenues? On May 23, 2007, Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), on a point of personal privilege, got an hour to talk about the Iraqi “hydrocarbon” law, which he sees as a White House effort to privatize the oil of Iraq. “This administration has led Congress into thinking that this bill is about fair distribution of oil revenues. In fact… except for three scant lines, the entire 33-page hydrocarbon law creates a structure to facilitate the privatization of Iraq oil,” Kucinich said. In his hour, Kucinich referred to the few articles I have seen about the underlying aspects of this law. As far as I know his speech got little or no coverage, but it is well worth reading.
……..Lewis Seiler and Dan Hamburg wrote in the San Francisco Chronicle on April 30, 2007, “The new Iraqi oil law, largely written by the Coalition Provisional Authority… cedes control of Iraqi’s oil to western powers for 30 years. There is major opposition to the proposed law within Iraq, especially among the country’s five trade union federations that represent hundreds of thousands of oil workers. The United States is working hard to surmount this opposition by appealing directly to the al-Maliki government...” How many articles have we read about this oil law? Hundreds. Almost all concentrate on the “sharing” aspect. Only a handful talk about the potential benefits for big oil companies. For example, since it ran “Whose Oil Is it, Anyway?” the New York Times, in article after article, refers exclusively to the oil revenue sharing aspect of the law. Why is this issue—which is obviously volatile, controversial and of great public interest—being almost totally ignored?
Ask This:The Media’s Targic Misunderstanding of Iraqi Domestic Politics
The conventional wisdom is that Iraqis can’t get their act together; that Iraqi politicians are hopeless squabbling, fratricidal hate-mongers; and that there’s really no use trying understand what passes for Iraqi politics. The narrative continues like this: that Iraq’s civil war is hundreds of years old, with Sunnis and Shia killing each other since the dawn of Islam;.that Iraq isn’t really even a country, since its borders were arbitrarily drawn up by a cigar-smoking Winston Churchill in the 1920s; and that there is no chance that Iraq will meet the 18 so-called “benchmarks” that were enacted by Congress earlier this year because it’s impossible that Iraqis will ever forge a consensus that can hold their country together. Is any of that true? Even careful consumers of news about Iraq would be hard-pressed to challenge any of it, since by and large the press has failed to ask the kinds of questions that might shed light on Iraqi politics and society: Is the real cleavage in Iraqi politics between Shia and Sunni? Or is it something else? Is it possible that the real division within Iraq is not the cut along sectarian lines, but one that pits Iraqi nationalists against separatists? [This is a very kind way of pointing out that our media FAILS US, and I cannot imagine that this failure is due to a “misunderstanding”. – dancewater]
Quote of the day: Paradoxically, the benchmarks suppose that the Iraqi government is, at one and the same time, so powerful that it can introduce and implement unpopular policies, but is also under the thumb of the United States. – Patrick Cockburn, The Independent
0 comments:
Post a Comment