News & Views 07/30/07

Photo: AMMAN - July 29: Iraqi exiles gather in the Iraqi enclave of Rabia in Amman to celebrate the Iraqi national football team's victory in the Asian Cup finals. Ghazwan Riyadh/Iraq Slogger

More photos here, a video Iraqi football fans in the Jordanian capital are seen chanting, "With our spirits and blood, we sacrifice ourselves for you, Saddam," as they celebrate the Iraqi team's victory in the Asian Cup finals.

Some photos from inside Iraq.

REPORTS – LIFE IN IRAQ

DID YOU LEARN THE LESSON?

Dear politicians - Words can never describe how grateful we are because our great heroes the Iraqi national soccer team made a miracle by winning Asia Championship. Maybe only the prayers of the widows and orphans of Iraq whom you brought joy to their hearts, maybe their prayers that Allah keeps you safe and blessed can give you your rights, its not the financial rewards of the Prime Minister or the President that give you your rights.

The most important thing our national team did is giving you an important lesson about the most important subject in the school of life. The lesson was (how to be A Real Iraqi). They worked together. We didn’t have 11 players in the field, we had only one player but with 11 bodies. This great player fought like a real lion and like real eagle. He controlled the ground and the sky and captured happiness in spite of his wounds. It was hard job but the Iraqi brave knight accomplished the mission successfully because this knight carries deep in his pure heart the tears of all the widows and all the orphans, the grief of all the old men and more than that, this honest knight carries the hopes of all the honest real Iraqis. This is the lesson I talk about and I hope that you (our politicians) who watched the match and rewarded the knight, I hope you understand the lesson very well and try to pass the exams you have. The political crisis is not more than an exam and you are failures until this moment. I hope you study the lesson of the Iraqi national team again and try hard to pass this final exam.

MAY ALLAH BLESS YOU OUR GREAT YOUNG MEN.

Men

It is dawn now, every one is asleep and I can not sleep. It is tears of joy not for winning the championship but for the men who played against all odds to bring joy to the sad widows, orphans and the wounded country. I am proud of you my brothers, all your people are proud of you. Thanks for every one of you who supported the team.

Third of Iraqis 'need urgent aid'

Nearly a third of the population of Iraq is in need of immediate emergency aid, according to a new report from Oxfam and a coalition of Iraqi NGOs. The report said the government was failing to provide basics such as food and shelter for eight million people. It warned of a humanitarian crisis that had escalated since the 2003 invasion. Meanwhile, the US agency overseeing reconstruction in Iraq said economic mismanagement and corruption were equivalent to "a second insurgency".

Iraq faces alarming humanitarian crisis

Iraq's people were poor and lacked most of the normal signs of development, even before the fall of Saddam Hussein. Then it was possible to blame the problems of dictatorship and international sanctions, but since the US-led invasion continuing poverty in this oil-rich state has had other causes. A new report by Oxfam says that the continuing failure to provide even the most basic services to many Iraqis will not only cause continuing suffering, but "serve to further destabilise the country". Oxfam are unable to work on the ground in Iraq in the way that they would elsewhere, but working with the NGO Co-ordination Committee in Iraq (NCCI), their new survey finds "eight million people in need of emergency aid". The survey recognises that armed violence is the greatest threat facing Iraqis, but finds a population "increasingly threatened by disease and malnutrition".

OXFAM: Report on the Humanitarian Challenge in Iraq

[I did not read this PDF in full, but the summary presented information that we are either already aware of, like the number of refugees and the number of Iraqis who are without adequate food and shelter, or report in other articles cited today. Eight million Iraqis are in need of assistance now. It also presented information on anonymous agencies still functioning in Iraq, and how they are in dire need of more funding. – dancewater]

VIDEO: Life in Iraq

AUDIO: “Weakness and Waste in Iraq Exposed

Economic mismanagement and corruption in Iraq have been uncovered in a report by the US agency overseeing reconstruction in the country. Special Inspector General for Iraqi Reconstruction Stuart Bowen explains the report's findings.

Half of Iraq 'in absolute poverty'

Said Arikit, a spokesman for the UN mission in Iraq, told Al Jazeera the report painted a "grim picture". "Many of the figures and percentages in the report were actually derived from UN sources… so we concur with the findings," he said. "The government of Iraq is definitely the authority in Iraq and it bears responsibility for the welfare of its people." Iraqi services have been left in crisis as most of those seeking refuge are professionals, according to the report. "The 'brain drain' that Iraq is experiencing is further stretching already inadequate public services, as thousands of medical staff, teachers, water engineers, and other professionals are forced to leave the country," it said. The entry of Iraqi refugees to neighbouring countries has placed a growing strain on health, education and social services in the two countries.

Families in south displaced as former Baathists targeted

Militants in southern areas of Iraq are reportedly targeting former members of the Baath Party in a bid to exterminate them, causing new displacements, according to local non-governmental organisations (NGOs). At least 200 ex-members of the Baath Party of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein have been killed so far. According to local police, hundreds of families have been forced to flee their homes. “Militias are conducting a campaign to exterminate over 4,000 members of the Baath Party,” said Hassan Dureid, spokesperson for Iraqi Brothers Relief, a local NGO working in southern Iraq. “Most of these people didn’t have a choice and were obliged to join the party during the ex-regime.”

REPORTS – IRAQI MILITIAS, POLITICIANS, POWER BROKERS

Iraq Parliament Adjourns for August

Iraq's parliament adjourned Monday for an August recess without receiving from the government a series of U.S.-backed draft laws designed to promote national unity and stem support for the Sunni-led insurgency. Speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani closed the three-hour session without a quorum present and declared it would not resume work until Sept. 4. Legislators blamed the government of Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for failing to construct compromise versions of the key pieces of legislation such as the so-called oil law, intended to ensure a fair distribution of Iraq's considerable oil wealth. ``We were supposed to discuss important issues in the month of July, but we did not. Sitting in August is unconstitutional and even if we sit next month, that's no guarantee that the important business will be done,'' said Mahmoud Othman, a prominent Kurdish lawmaker. ``There are Iraqi-Iraqi and Iraqi-American differences that have not been resolved. The government throws the ball in our court, but we say that it is in the government's court and that of the politicians. They sent us nothing,'' he said.

Interior Ministry mirrors chaos of a fractured Iraq

This is Iraq's Ministry of Interior — the balkanized command center for the nation's police and mirror of the deadly factions that have caused the government here to grind nearly to a halt. The very language that Americans use to describe government — ministries, departments, agencies — belies the reality here of militias that kill under cover of police uniform and remain above the law. Until recently, one or two Interior Ministry police officers were assassinated each week while arriving or leaving the building, probably by fellow officers, senior police officials say. That killing has been reduced, but Western diplomats still describe the Interior Ministry building as a "federation of oligarchs." Those who work in the building, like the colonel, liken departments to hostile countries. Survival depends on keeping abreast of shifting factional alliances and turf.

On the second floor is Gen. Mahdi Gharrawi, a former national police commander. Last year, U.S. and Iraqi troops found 1,400 prisoners, mostly Sunnis, at a base he controlled in east Baghdad. Many showed signs of torture. The interior minister blocked an arrest warrant against the general this year, senior Iraqi officials confirmed. The third- and fifth-floor administrative departments are the domain of Prime Minister Nouri Maliki's Islamic Dawa Party, a Shiite group. The sixth, home to border enforcement and the major crimes unit, belongs to the Badr Organization militia. Its leader, Deputy Minister Ahmed Khafaji, is lauded by some Western officials as an efficient administrator and suspected by others of running secret prisons. The seventh floor is intelligence, where the Badr Organization and armed Kurdish groups struggle for control. The ninth floor is shared by the department's inspector general and general counsel, religious Shiites. Their offices have been at the center of efforts to purge the department's remaining Sunni employees. The counsel's predecessor, a Sunni, was killed a year ago.

IRAQI REFUGEES

Iraq: One in seven joins human tide spilling into neighbouring countries

Two thousand Iraqis are fleeing their homes every day. It is the greatest mass exodus of people ever in the Middle East and dwarfs anything seen in Europe since the Second World War. Four million people, one in seven Iraqis, have run away, because if they do not they will be killed. Two million have left Iraq, mainly for Syria and Jordan, and the same number have fled within the country. Yet, while the US and Britain express sympathy for the plight of refugees in Africa, they are ignoring - or playing down- a far greater tragedy which is largely of their own making. The US and Britain may not want to dwell on the disasters that have befallen Iraq during their occupation but the shanty towns crammed with refugees springing up in Iraq and neighbouring countries are becoming impossible to ignore. Even so the UNHCR is having difficulty raising $100m (£50m) for relief. The organisation says the two countries caring for the biggest proportion of Iraqi refugees - Syria and Jordan - have still received "next to nothing from the world community". Some 1.4 million Iraqis have fled to Syria according to the UN High Commission for Refugees, Jordan has taken in 750 000 while Egypt and Lebanon have seen 200 000 Iraqis cross into their territories.

….. Kalawar is a horrible place. Situated behind a petrol station down a dusty track, the first sight of the camp is of rough shelters made out of rags, torn pieces of cardboard and old blankets. The stench is explained by the fact the Kurdish municipal authorities will not allow the 470 people in the camp to dig latrines. They say this might encourage them to stay.

….. Asked to list their worst problems Mr Nayef said they were the lack of school for the children, shortage of food, no kerosene to cook with, no money, no jobs and no electricity. The real answer to the question is that the Arabs of Kalawar have nothing. They have only received two cartons of food each from the International Committee of the Red Cross and a tank of clean water.

….. Governments and the media crudely evaluate human suffering in Iraq in terms of the number killed. A broader and better barometer would include those who have escaped death only by fleeing their homes, their jobs and their country to go and live, destitute and unwanted, in places like Kalawar. The US administration has 18 benchmarks to measure progress in Iraq but the return of four million people to their homes is not among them.

Syria Provides Healthcare for Iraqi Refugees

Syria's minister of health said providing free medical care to the over 1.5 million Iraqi refugees in Syria is costing the country around US$60 million a year, a burden he criticised the international community for failing to take responsibility for. "It was the duty of the international community to take the initiative long before now to stop the suffering of our Iraqi brothers," said Maher Housami, speaking on 30 July at the end of a two-day conference in Damascus organised by the World Health Organization (WHO) to address the health crisis among Iraqi refugees' displaced by the four-year-old US-led invasion. The WHO conference, attended by the health ministers of Syria, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt, as well as WHO and UN officials, met to discuss Iraqi refugees' access to health care in Syria and the need to formulate a plan to counter the strain being placed on the national health system. Housami expressed his disappointment that the USA had not provided countries in the region, particularly Syria and Jordan - who between them currently shelter an estimated 2.25 million Iraqi refugees - with greater financial support.

Video: Child Refugees From Iraq Desperate in Syria

Children are nearly always cited as the most desperate group in any refugee crisis. They are also, unfortunately, too often depicted in archetypal photos, too simplistic to depict the reality of the crisis. This week Hayder Fahad speaks with several Iraqi children living in Syria about their experiences in Syria and Iraq and their expectations for the future.

How to Help Iraqi Refugees

RESISTANCE

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."

Quote of the day: Got that? The president of the United States just issued a public pronouncement declaring, as a matter of U.S. policy, that a single man has the authority to detain any person anyplace in the world and subject him or her to secret interrogation techniques that aren't torture but that nonetheless can't be revealed, as long as that person is thought to be a "supporter" of an organization "associated" in some unspecified way with the Taliban or Al Qaeda, and as long he thinks that person might know something that could "assist" us. But "supporter" isn't defined, nor is "associated organization." - Rosa Brooks