Photo: Residents walk to a local hospital as U.S. army soldiers with First Platoon, Headquarters and Headquarters Battery, 2-17 field artillery patrol in the mixed Shi'ite and Sunni neighborhood of Zafraniyah in Baghdad October 30, 2007.
REPORTS – LIFE IN IRAQ
US troops kills 11, injure 4 Iraqis
According to DPA, an Iraqi civilian was killed and another wounded Monday evening after a US military patrol opened fire on them in the Iraqi city of Kut, the capital of the province of Wasit south-east of Baghdad. The US troops fired at a civilian vehicle at an intersection in the district of Kafat, north of the city, killing the driver and critically injuring a passenger, police sources told Voices of Iraq (VOI) news agency. This incident had been preceded by a double US air strike in east and west Tikrit city, 180 kilometers north of Baghdad, killing 10 Iraqis and injuring a woman and two children.
Iraqi forces set kidnapped young girl free, wound kidnappers
Iraqi security forces managed to set free a young woman seriously wounding two of her kidnappers and arresting the others during a late hour on Monday night, a security official said on Tuesday. "The girl was found and freed from her kidnappers, who were hiding her inside the trunk of their automobile, when they were stopped at a checkpoint on Muhammad al-Qassem street, the highway that links Baghdad to the southern provinces," Brig. Qassem Atta, the official spokesman for the Fardh al-Qanoon security plan, told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI). "The kidnappers tried to "open fire at our soldiers but security forces seriously wounded two of them, arrested the others and seized their vehicle," added Atta.
Iraq cholera outbreak slows - health ministry
The spread of cholera in Iraq is slowing thanks to health measures taken to curb an outbreak of the disease, the health ministry said on Tuesday. Cholera has killed 22 people since an outbreak in the northern province of Kirkuk in August and there have been 4,444 confirmed cases, almost exclusively in northern regions. "The rate of increase is very slow. October was better than September. Thanks to the monitoring of the disease and health awareness campaigns among citizens the situation has became better," a health ministry spokeswoman said. Cholera is characterised in its most severe form by a sudden onset of acute watery diarrhoea that can cause death by severe dehydration and kidney failure within hours. The virulent disease is mainly transmitted through water and food. With 2,968 cases and five deaths, Kirkuk province has been the epicentre of the outbreak. In neighbouring Sulaimaniya, 14 people have died and 1,217 cases have been recorded. In nearby Arbil province there have been 224 cases, the spokeswoman said. Health officials in Kirkuk said on Tuesday they were still monitoring places such as restaurants and water sources to try and prevent cholera making a comeback.
Editor of Baghdad weekly paper murdered
The editor of a Baghdad weekly newspaper was murdered at the weekend, Iraq's Journalistic Freedoms Observatory said on Tuesday. The Iraqi non-governmental organisation said Shehab Mohammed al-Hiti, a Sunni Arab editor of the al-Youm newspaper, was last seen leaving his home in the western Baghdad neighbourhood of Jamiaa on Saturday. He was heading for the newspaper's office in the centre of the capital. Iraqi security forces found his body later that day in the northern Baghdad district of Ur, which is a Shi'ite neighbourhood. In a statement the Journalistic Freedoms Observatory did not say how he had been killed. Many journalists in Iraq have faced threats from Sunni Arab militants and Shi'ite militias. Others have been killed by U.S. forces while reporting in the country.
When Blackwater Kills, No Questions Asked
Seventeen Iraqis were killed Sep. 16, and another 27 wounded at Nisoor square in western Baghdad when mercenaries from the company opened fire on them. Dozens of witnesses said that, contrary to Blackwater claims, the mercenaries had not come under attack. Several Kurds who were at the scene said they saw no one firing at the mercenaries at any time, an observation corroborated by forensic evidence. Kurds are one ethnic group that has been supportive of the U.S.-led invasion and occupation of Iraq. The Kurd witnesses work for a political party whose building looks directly down on the square where the bloodshed occurred. "I call it a massacre," Omar H. Waso, a senior official from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan told reporters. "It is illegal. They used the law of the jungle." "Some of the victims were Iraqis who were close to the government," an eyewitness speaking on condition of anonymity told IPS. "There was a notable fuss about five or six bodies in particular when the ministry of interior's inspectors arrived on the scene." The history of western mercenary companies, often referred to as "security contractors", is full of such stories. "They killed my young neighbour Sinan in cold blood," a 32-year-old using the name Ibrahim Obeidy told IPS. "They have killed so many Iraqis, and no one can even ask them why." "Iraqis in Anbar province (to the west of Baghdad) have always said that strange-looking forces have conducted executions in cold blood," Abdul-Sattar Ahmed, a lawyer from province capital Ramadi told IPS. "Groups of men in civilian outfits, but in armoured vehicles and sometimes helicopters, have carried out the most mysterious executions. They seldom arrest, they prefer to kill." Salih Aziz who works with the Iraqi Group for Human Rights, an NGO in Baghdad, told IPS that Blackwater convoys, which usually comprise several large, white SUVs, have proven deadly for Iraqi civilians since the early months of the occupation in March 2003. "Since the very beginning of the U.S. occupation of Iraq, Baghdad streets have seen peculiar looking groups of men in armoured cars with black glasses, killing anyone who approached them," said Aziz. "They were the first to be hated by Iraqis."
Power plants shut due to lack of fuel
Several Iraqi power plants are idle due to shortages in fuel supplies, exacerbating blackouts across the country. Electricity Minister Kareem Waheed blamed the stoppages on lack of fuel, saying neighboring countries have failed to honor contracts to ship fuel supplies. Iraq, sleeping on massive oil reserves, currently imports most of its fuel needs and the fuel import bill has surged to hundreds of millions of dollars a year. Iraqi refineries have the capacity to churn out up to 700,000 barrels a day but they are working much below capacity due to acts of sabotage, lack of maintenance and corruption. Waheed’s target in Kuwait is to persuade Kuwaiti authorities to sign a new fuel import contract as domestic fuel production is dwindling, electricity ministry officials said. They said several power plants were idle because there was no fuel to operate them.
Iraqi Dam Seen In Danger Of Deadly Collapse
The largest dam in Iraq is in serious danger of an imminent collapse that could unleash a trillion-gallon wave of water, possibly killing thousands of people and flooding two of the largest cities in the country, according to new assessments by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and other U.S. officials. Even in a country gripped by daily bloodshed, the possibility of a catastrophic failure of the Mosul Dam has alarmed American officials, who have concluded that it could lead to as many as 500,000 civilian deaths by drowning Mosul under 65 feet of water and parts of Baghdad under 15 feet, said Abdulkhalik Thanoon Ayoub, the dam manager. "The Mosul dam is judged to have an unacceptable annual failure probability," in the dry wording of an Army Corps of Engineers draft report. At the same time, a U.S. reconstruction project to help shore up the dam in northern Iraq has been marred by incompetence and mismanagement, according to Iraqi officials and a report by a U.S. oversight agency to be released Tuesday. The reconstruction project, worth at least $27 million, was not intended to be a permanent solution to the dam's deficiencies.
March in Khalis demanding preacher release
Hundreds of people in the district of al-Khalis, 15 km north of Baaquba, staged a demonstration on Tuesday morning demanding the release of a Muslim preacher and others arrested with him by U.S. forces on Saturday, a notable in Khalis said. "The march, which started from central Khalis and went in the direction of the mayor's building, called for the release of Sheikh Nazem al-Nusayrawi, the imam and preacher of the Grand Mosque in Khalis, and others who were arrested with him on Saturday," Sheikh Muhammad al-Saadi told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI). A security source had told VOI on Saturday that U.S. forces landed in al-Khalis killed two policemen "suspected of belonging to armed militias." No statements or comments were made by the U.S. side in this respect. "I have handed a memo signed in the name of the protesters to a U.S. commander demanding compensations for the martyrs' families, the immediate release of the detainees and stopping raids and searches in safe areas," Saadi told VOI.
How to Resurrect Fallujah
After the November 2004 battle that pulverized the city and snuffed out what was left of its economy, a succession of American infantry units developed a security plan for Fallujah that eventually carved it up into nine precincts along traditional divisions. The districts are now separated from each other by concrete barricades and Iraqi police checkpoints and watched by thousands of Iraqi police and armed neighborhood watchmen, leading to the nickname "Fortress Fallujah." "It's an unfortunate side effect of securing the city," Miller explained, reminding his Iraqi partners that the main drag through the city, which used to feed the district its lifeblood of customers and commercial traffic, is also part of the traditional "rat line" or infiltration route for insurgents.
With a current driving ban limiting traffic on the road mostly to buses and taxis, it will be some time before Fallujah allows full access to Sinaa. Eventually, the plan is to tear down the barriers one at a time to allow the city to gradually return to normal and end the state of martial law. Doing that in Sinaa could jump start Fallujah's economy and revive a general sense of well being and promise, solidifying gains and allowing the Marines to finally leave. "It's the key," said Waleed al Fallujy, Sinaa's mukhtar, or neighborhood chief, and charter member of the Fallujah Chamber of Commerce. "If we fix Sinaa, we fix all of Fallujah," he said.
While Al Qaeda remains the Americans' chief hang-up, locals say security is only one of their obstacles. The government in Baghdad stunts Fallujah's growth as much as Al Qaeda. After the two massive U.S. attacks on Fallujah in 2004, the government commission set up to assess damage and calculate compensation for residents and business owners. The commission, however, fixated on some issues and dropped the ball on others, making some residents rich while leaving others empty-handed and disgruntled.
How persistence pays for a Baghdad baker
Over the summer, rarely a day passed without a car bomb going off near the neighborhood where Hussein Faleh has persevered through the worst days in Baghdad. Since 2004, he's kept The Vanilla Pastry Shop open – and filled with some of the best raspberry-kiwi tarts and hazelnut-chocolate cakes in Iraq. Although Jadriyah has always been safer than most areas in the city (it sits across the river from the fortified Green Zone and is home to both Iraqi and US officials), Mr. Faleh says that in recent weeks he has seen the fruits of improved security throughout Baghdad.
His story is one of dogged persistence in the face of adversity, and it's now paying off. More of his customers – the ones who haven't joined the millions who've fled to neighboring Jordan or Syria – are venturing back for his famous pastries and slices of cake that sell for up to 1,750 dinars ($1.50), about three times the price charged by a typical bakery in the capital. This month, according to Iraq's Interior Ministry, Iraq is set to post the lowest death toll in 18 months. The ministry said Monday that violence throughout the country has dropped 70 percent since June, when the US completed its surge of troops. So far this month, according to state numbers, 285 Iraqis have been killed. In January, that number topped 1,992.
Lonely in Baghdad? Chat up a bird
But the demand from Iraqis, traditionally known as bird-lovers, has not dried up and they are willing to pay a high price for rare species. "The price of a parrot depends on its ability to speak. Some may utter 50 words and another 500. Such a bird can fetch up to 2,000 dollars," says Casco. But the high price does not discourage enthusiasts. "I already have two in my house," says Mohammed Arshad, a student of natural sciences. "One is from Africa and one from Brazil." The young man has used the Internet to learn how to make the birds talk and now claims to be a "real professional." "I am now looking for another parrot to teach as I taught the other two. Those who take to this passion can't live without it." But in these troubled days where Baghdad is still reluctant to believe that the relative calm in recent weeks may last permanently, buyers quickly disperse after their purchases. In March, three explosions rocked the neighbourhood killing and wounding dozens of people. The past few months have, however, seen a dip in the violence, though not enough to make Baghdadis venture out for long. Though he is not nostalgic about the former regime, Casco can not help but regret the relative calm under Saddam. "Even the officials came to buy birds. I remember that one of them wanted a parrot who could sing the praises of the president," he said. "In three days I taught a bird a song glorifying Saddam and offered it to the official who wanted to present it to the president." But times have changed. Casco points a finger to a group of animals and suddenly an African Grey parrot -- a new arrival -- shouts out "Down with Bush!"
REPORTS – IRAQI MILITIAS, POLITICIANS, POWER BROKERS
Freed Sheiks Describe Kidnapping Ordeal
It had to be done quickly. Rogue Shiite militiamen were holding hostage a group of Sunni and Shiite tribal sheiks who had joined a revolt against al-Qaida. For the Iraqi government and its U.S. backers, the seven men represented a rare symbol of national unity. A daring rescue operation secured their freedom. A meeting Tuesday between most of the former captives and military officials - including the Iraqi commander of the rescue operation - offered the first detailed picture of the tense and fast-moving events: the kidnapping, the slaying of one captive and the seven-hour rescue mission Monday converging on an area that was "not fit for rats." The sheiks, recounting their 30-hour ordeal to a small group of reporters including The Associated Press, said they were tortured and humiliated. At least three of the sheiks were visibly bruised. One man's left eye was red and swollen. The two others had bruises on their backs, arms and legs. But they insisted that they emerged from captivity more determined than ever to continue their fight.
Iraq PM appoints two new ministers
It was the third time Nouri al-Maliki had tried to fill some of the empty posts in a bid to foster national reconciliation and rebuild his cabinet. According to Reuters parliament approved on Tuesday the appointment of Saleh al-Hasnawi as health minister and Ali al-Bahadeli as agriculture minister. The posts were previously held by Sadrists, politicians loyal to prominent Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr who quit the government in April in protest at Maliki's refusal to set a timetable for US troops' withdrawal from Iraq. The appointments mean Maliki has filled two of the six cabinet posts left vacant by the Sadr group. However, the Prime Minister has indicated he will not replace three other Sadrist ministers, leaving just one post to fill.
Senior al-Qaeda leader killed by his son over loot division in Diala
The official spokesman for the Diala Salvation Council said on Tuesday that the irrigation minister of what is called the Islamic State of Iraq armed group was killed by his son over loot division, south of Baaquba. "Shalal Youssef Zidan, the irrigation minister of the al-Qaeda's Islamic State of Iraq armed group, was killed on Tuesday afternoon in Abu Khamis village in Bahraz district, south of Baaquba, by his son over loot division," Sheikh Sabah Shukr told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI). "Zidan was hit by several gunshots to several parts of his body after differences with his son over loot division," he also said, providing no more details. For his part, an official source in Dial confirmed the death of Zidan. "Zidan was included in a list of wanted men," the source added.
Iraq cabinet okays law to end foreign firms' immunity
Iraq's cabinet approved a draft law on Tuesday to end foreign security firms' immunity from prosecution by scrapping a controversial decree that Iraqis say amounts to a "licence to kill". The bill, which has to be approved by parliament, follows a Sept. 16 shooting incident involving Blackwater in which 17 Iraqis were killed. The U.S. security firm said its guards acted lawfully, but the shooting enraged the Iraqi government. In Washington, a U.S. government official said efforts to bring charges in U.S. courts could be complicated by an offer of limited immunity to Blackwater security guards by State Department investigators. The New York Times said the investigators did not have the authority to make such an offer. "The cabinet has approved a law that will put non-Iraqi firms and those they employ under Iraqi law," Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh told Reuters after a cabinet meeting. Iraq says there are more than 180 mainly U.S. and European security companies in Iraq, with estimates of the number of private contractors ranging from 25,000 to 48,000.
REPORTS – US/UK/OTHERS IN IRAQ
Democrats Criticize Immunity Offers to Guards
Prominent Democrats in Congress reacted angrily today to disclosures that State Department investigators made apparently unauthorized offers of immunity to Blackwater security guards in the case of last month's deadly shooting of 17 Iraqi civilians. Calling the offers of immunity "an egregious misjudgment," Representative Henry A. Waxman of California wrote Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and demanded details about the offers, which he said "raises serious questions about who conferred the immunity, who approved it at the State Department, and what their motives were." Most of the guards who took part in the episode were offered what officials described as limited-use immunity, which means that they were promised they would not be prosecuted for anything they said in their interviews with the authorities as long as their statements were true. Some government officials are calling these offers of immunity a potentially serious investigative misstep that could complicate efforts to prosecute the company's employees involved in the episode. Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and head of the appropriations subcommittee that has budget jurisdiction over the State Department, also issued an angry statement. "In this administration, accountability goes by the boards," he said. "If you get caught, they will give you immunity. If you get convicted, they will commute your sentence."
IRAQI REFUGEES
Band on the run - Iraqi rockers seek new home
Acrassicauda, which claims to be Baghdad's only heavy metal band, fled to Syria and on to Turkey to avoid the violence in Iraq and specific death threats from insurgent groups, but now the four young musicians may be forced to return home. "We're stuck, we're lost," Marwan, at 23 the youngest member of the group, said by telephone from Istanbul where he is staying with bandmates Firas, Tony and Faisal. He said the musicians were not welcome in Turkey, particularly since fighting has escalated between Turkish forces and Kurdish rebels near the Iraqi border, but they could not find another country willing to take them in as refugees. "If we ever made it back to Baghdad, and we ever made it back to our families, where would we rehearse?" said Marwan, frustrated at talking about politics and personal troubles rather than tours and tracklists. "If we go back to Baghdad now, we'll just stay at home as prisoners, not even go out to buy and packet of cigarettes. "I live in a Shi'ite neighborhood and I'm a Sunni," he added, referring to sectarian divisions behind much of the killing. "There are gangs who deny us the simple choice of free will."
Number of displaced Iraqis is soaring
American officials report that the number of sectarian and other killings in Iraq has declined since the onset of the military "surge" that began earlier this year. But while the number of killings may, indeed, have fallen, does that mean Iraq is really safer? Insecurity in Iraq is most strikingly illustrated by the number of people fleeing their homes. The United Nations estimates that, since July, the number has risen by 60,000 every month. The best estimate is that around 16 percent of Iraq's population, or one in six Iraqis, no longer live in their homes. …. Mixed neighborhoods across Iraq have been targeted by one side or another as sectarian violence has risen and local militias wield power. The inability of the government or the multinational force to curb this intimidation reflects the absence of the rule of law. Other factors causing displacement include operations of the multinational force itself, crime, the lack of basic services and desperate poverty. The complexity of Iraq's society and history means that many people have been displaced more than once, or have returned from exile only to become internally displaced. According to the U.N., 69 percent of those displaced since February 2006 come from Baghdad, which demonstrates the extent of the "sectarianization" of the capital. Thus, one reason for the "success" claimed by supporters of the military surge may well be that sectarian cleansing in Baghdad has been hugely effective and is now nearly complete.
How to Help Iraqi Refugees
ANOTHER Way to help: The Collateral Repair Project
COMMENTARY
A Virus
Today Iraq has 1/3 of the doctors it needs. Those who remained, are daily harassed by armed militias storming into their clinics. Some have closed shop and work from home instead. The Health Ministry has a DELIBERATE policy of not providing Hospitals in the Sunnis areas with funds, equipment, medicine and staff. This is a deliberate act that falls in perfect line with the overall sectarian nature of the puppet government. Another way of furthering the smaller genocide within the grander genocide. The Iranian genocide against the Sunnis within the grander American genocide against the Iraqis. The same applies to the Ministries of Works, Transport, Interior, Education, etc...But I will leave those out for the moment as I really want you to focus on the “Health Service” disaster that is now the norm in Iraq.
I will not even start mentioning the rampant diseases that we had ERADICATED before our “Liberation,” now making a comeback. Cholera, Typhoid, Malaria, T.B, Hepatitis, Dysentery, Polio and AIDS. This latter was virtually unheard of in Iraq. I will not even go through the cancer cases in particular soft tissues and blood cancer that have been multiplied by 600 thanks to D.U. This alone is a tragedy in itself. And will not cover other common illnesses such as heart disease, diabetes, hypertension for which people can’t find adequate treatment and can’t afford the medication either. Nor will I touch upon the very serious mental health degradation of the majority of Iraqis. An ongoing PTSD with no end in sight. Nor will I mention the lack of pre-natal and post-natal care. Nor the forced ceasarians before their terms. Nor the increasing number of miscarriages. Nor the infants who do not stand a chance of seeing the light of day. Nor the children dying in loads...No, I will not mention any of that. The current Health situation in Iraq is a tragedy of monumental proportions. It is yet another crime that both the U.S and the Iranian puppet government in Baghdad have committed.
Who holds the American card in Iraq?
It is not difficult for any analyst to find out how the U.S. tried to ally itself with almost all Iraqi factions with their different hues in the past five years. The alliance with these parties has usually come as they were seen by the U.S. to be at the apex of their power. The ultimate aim has been to appease almost everybody as a means to extricate itself from the Iraqi debacle. Initially, the U.S. implicated itself in the woes of the ethnic and sectarian strife in Iraq by siding and backing one particular group against the other. This policy continued while at least one important part of the country was burning. And not long ago, it realized it had to extend a helping hand to opposite groups, too. So it is clear now that the U.S. is not sympathetic to one sect only. It wants to have a foot in the disparate worlds of Iraq’s uncompromising sectarian, tribal and political factions. Even the groups resisting U.S. presence in the country have come to realize that almost everyone in Iraq now relies on U.S. assistance to maintain its share of power and influence. Therefore, Iraqi resistance has wisely chosen to ignore the Iraqi government and any other group whose existence depends on America. If they wan to talk, these groups say, they will only talk to the U.S. This shows that both friend and foe in Iraq see the U.S. as the common denominator. Without U.S. occupation troops, the government cannot survive. The tribes now need U.S. support to maintain the surge in their standing, influence and power. Resistance groups need to talk to the U.S. and explore a diplomatic and political avenue to achieve their target of driving its occupation troops without shedding more blood.
The Catastrophic Iraq Occupation the U.S. Media Rarely Reports
Kevin Zeese: Compare your experiences in Iraq with how the media generally described the events. Do you think most people, Americans in particular, are getting an accurate picture of what has occurred in Iraq? Is occurring in Iraq?
Dahr Jamal: From the invasion until now, with few exceptions the so-called mainstream media in the West has portrayed a drastically different picture of what Iraq is really like under U.S. military rule. We regularly see stories from the military point of view, and rarely, if ever, how catastrophic the occupation has made life for the average Iraqi. Thus, most people are in no way getting an accurate picture of what has occurred, or what is occurring today. For example, how many mainstream outlets cite the only scientific survey which has been done to tally the number of Iraqis killed? Known as the Lancet report, and conducted by scientists from John's Hopkins Bloomberg School of Health in conjunction with Iraqi doctors from al-Mustanceriya University in Baghdad, it found that 655,000 Iraqis had died as the direct result of the U.S.-led invasion and occupation. Over 90 percent of the people they tracked had death certificates provided by family members to the researchers. Yet the mainstream media does not cite this survey, which was authenticated by British Government. Why not? This is but one example of countless examples.
Zeese: You were in Fallujah, describe how long, when and under what circumstances. I understand you were there right after the four Blackwater operatives were killed in Fallujah? I've heard commentators describe the U.S. role in Fallujah in heroic terms, like something out of a World War II movie. How do you see the role of the U.S. military in Fallujah?
Jamail: I went into Fallujah several times; first-before the siege to see that the military had an ongoing policy of collectively punishing the cities residents by cutting water and electricity everytime they were attacked. Then during April I went as the siege was in progress. After the siege ended I returned several times in May to chronicle what happened. Later, during the November siege, I covered it by interviewing doctors and refugees from the city.
What the U.S. military did in that city, under orders from the White House, likens it to a modern Guernica. Most of the city was destroyed during the second attack-70% of it was destroyed. Restricted and illegal weapons like cluster bombs and white phosphorous were used by the military. Marine snipers were shooting anything that moved in the city.
Quote of the day: “Torture dehumanizes those who try to ignore it, saying it is an “internal affair” or a passing phase. Such indifference dries up the wellsprings of human sympathy and compassion and breaks the social contract of the world community to be concerned for the whole family of man. Civilization and freedom are not built, and cannot be maintained, by those who assume the posture of indifference.” ~ Rev. Fred Morris
Photo: A man grieves over the coffin of a relative, a victim of sectarian violence, in 
