Today in The Endless War: News & Views 10/06/07

Photo: Majida Hamid Ibrahim, 40, the first confirmed case of Cholera in the Iraqi capital, is seen in al-Sadr hospital in the Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City in Baghdad, Iraq in this Friday, Sept. 20, 2007, file photo. The woman died on Sunday in Sadr General Hospital in Sadr City from Cholera and kidney failure, a hospital official said. The spread of cholera in Iraq highlights the creeping fractures throughout the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, the country's deepening sectarian gulf and a gangland-style lawlessness in which medical supplies are even fair game for bandits. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim, File)

REPORTS – LIFE IN IRAQ

US raid in Iraq kills 'civilians'

At least 17 Iraqi civilians, including women and children, have been killed in a US air raid, Iraqi officials and witnesses say. US military officials have yet to respond to the claim, but issued a statement that it had killed 25 Shia fighters in clashes near the city of Baquba, in the same area as the alleged attack on the civilians. US helicopters attacked the Shia village of al-Jaysani, close to the town of Khalis, at about 2am local time (2300 GMT), witnesses said on Friday. "Seventeen people were killed, 27 were wounded and eight are missing including women and children," an Iraqi defence ministry official, said. However, Ahmed Mohammed, a witness, said the death toll was higher. "There are 24 bodies on the ground in the village and 25 others wounded in Al-Khalis hospital," he said.

Confusion in night sparked fatal Iraq strike: villagers

A deadly US air strike on an Iraqi village was sparked by confusion in the night when civilian guards fired at US ground forces thinking they were Al-Qaeda rebels, police and witnesses said Saturday. The US military has meanwhile denied that women and children were among the 25 killed in Friday's raid on Jayzani Al-Imam village, 30 miles (50 kilometres) north of Baghdad, as claimed by Iraqi officials and villagers. "In this instance, we have confirmed that the 25 criminals who were killed were responsible for the attack on our forces and in fact were members of an extremist group operating in the Baqubah region," a statement said on Saturday.

Contradictory reports on US raid on Diyala persist

Contradictory accounts persisted Friday about adawn US raid on a village near Baquba which media reports said killed at least 25 civilians and wounded 40 others, while the US claimed the target was against people involved in criminal activity. Both Iraqiya State TV and independent Sharkiya TV reported that at least 25 civilians were killed and 40 others injured when US planes attacked the village of Gezani al-Imam north-west of Baquba. A further media outlet, the Al-Forat TV, which is the voice of the Shiite Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, reported that over 30 civilians were killed and 50 others were wounded in the operation. The number of casualties is most likely to increase as many bodies had yet to be recovered from the civilian houses destroyed during the attack, a police source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told independent Voices of Iraq (VOI) news agency. The victims, the source added, included women and children.

Iraq Struggles With Cholera Outbreak

Just days before, the 40-year-old woman from Baghdad's southern outskirts became the first confirmed cholera case in the Iraqi capital from an outbreak spreading around the country. The World Health Organization has confirmed more than 3,300 cholera cases in Iraq and at least 14 deaths from the acute and rapid dehydration it causes. The troubles, however, also point beyond the immediate struggle to control the deadly advance. They highlight the creeping fractures throughout the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, the country's deepening sectarian gulf and a gangland-style lawlessness in which even medical supplies are fair game for bandits. The health minister, Ali al-Shemari, fled the country after U.S. forces raided offices in February and arrested his deputy, accused of diverting millions of dollars to the biggest Shiite militia and of allowing death squads' use of ambulances and hospitals to carry out kidnappings and killings. The government official overseeing Iraqis living abroad was brought in as acting health minister in al-Maliki's shaky Cabinet — which was further jolted by the walkout of six Sunni ministers in August. Hospitals also are divided along Iraq's sectarian split, with Shiites and Sunnis often too scared to venture into any facility controlled by the other. For health workers, this leaves worrying gaps with cholera cases now reaching half of Iraq's 18 provinces. [While there are only 3,300 confirmed cases, there are tens of thousands of suspected cases. – dancewater]

Kurds Tackle 'Honor Killings' of Women

She is 18, unmarried and eight months pregnant. She hates it when the baby shifts and kicks in her womb. "I don't hate the child," she said. "But the movements keep reminding me of my past." After she gives birth in secrecy, she will give up her child for what she describes as her family's honor. Then she will travel home to the Kurdish area of northwestern Iran to find a husband who knows nothing of her story. Secrecy is essential, because in her world, a child out of wedlock can lead to an "honor killing" - her murder by a relative to protect her family's honor. So she is known in this city only as Banaz, a nickname. Tarza, 22, also uses a nickname. She sits on a sofa and weeps, wiping her nose with her leopard print head scarf. She gave birth out of wedlock in 2003, a few months after the U.S.-led invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein, and says her male-dominated clan wanted to kill her for sullying their reputation. Tarza, an Iraqi Kurd, said the threats persist. She lives alone with help from a women's center that arranged for an Iranian family in Sweden to adopt her child. "I don't want to see the child," Tarza said, her face taut.

Sunnis in Sadr City practice Shiite rituals

Hadja Fawziya, a Sunni Muslim woman from Sadr City, eastern Baghdad, returned to her beloved home after performing the rituals of a visit to the tomb of Imam Ali, the holiest figure for Shiite Muslims, along with other women from the same area. Not taking a few moments' rest from the long trip back home, the hadja, or female pilgrim, and her daughters cooked some rice mixed with milk in a large caldron to give out for families living nearby just before the iftar (fast-breaking meal in the holy Muslim month of Ramadan). One the customs practiced by Muslims in Iraq, cooking rice with milk is always associated with the anniversary of the death of Imam Ali Ibn Abi Taleb, the prophet's cousin, on the 21^st of the Hegira calendar month of Ramadan each year. "I always pay this visit to the tomb of Imam Ali to mark the anniversary of his martyrdom. I also vow to cook rice with milk and give out to my neighbors every year. My deceased mother used to do this for tens of years," Hadja Fawziya, 50, told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI). Sunnis in predominantly Shiite Sadr City attend Shiite Muslims' religious rituals through mourning, al-Husseini processions celebrating the day of Ashuraa and the al-Ziyara al-Shaabaniya, or the mid-Shaaban visit, as well as other occasions.

Kurds losing $1 million a day on Iran’s closing of border

Kurdish businessmen and investors have written a letter to U.S. President George Bush urging him to ask Iran to open its borders with their semi-independent enclave. The letter, Kurdish regional government officials say, has already been delivered to Iraqi President Jalal Talabani to pass over to Bush. Last month Iran closed its five border points with the Kurdish region in protest at the arrest of an Iranian by U.S. forces in the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniya. The U.S. says it detained the Iranian on suspicion of smuggling sophisticated roadside bombs to rebels fighting its troops in Iraq. Kurdish, Iraqi and Iranian officials say the Iranian was on an official trade mission in the region. The closure has led to shortages of basic stuffs in Iraqi Kurdistan and steep price hikes.

In Basra, vigilantes wage deadly campaign against women

Women in Basra have become the targets of a violent campaign by religious extremists, who leave more than 15 female bodies scattered around the city each month, police officers say. Maj. Gen. Abdel Jalil Khalaf, the commander of Basra's police, said Thursday that self-styled enforcers of religious law threatened, beat and sometimes shot women who they believed weren't sufficiently Muslim. "This is a new type of terror that Basra is not familiar with," he said. "These gangs represent only themselves, and they are far outside religious, forgiving instructions of Islam." Often, he said, the "crime" is no more than wearing Western clothes or not wearing a head scarf. Before the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, Iraqi women had had rights enshrined in the country's constitution since 1959 that were among the broadest of any Arab or Islamic nation. However, while the new constitution says that women are equal under the law, critics have condemned a provision that says no law can contradict the "established rulings" of Islam as weakening women's rights.

Rare march in Baghdad against new U.S. wall

More than a thousand Iraqis marched in west Baghdad on Saturday in a rare public demonstration to protest against a wall they say the U.S. military is planning to erect around their neighborhood. [RARE? WHERE DO THEY COME UP WITH THIS NONSENSE? There have been dozens, if not hundreds, of protests. – dancewater]

What Did Happen to the 80,000 Glocks Given to Iraq's Police?

They've been searching for months, but the US military has still not got to the bottom of what happened to tens of thousands of small arms handed to Iraqi forces, fearing many are now in the hands of insurgents. As an example, the Americans delivered 125,163 Austrian-made Glock semi-automatic pistols to Iraqi police between 2003 and late 2006, Pentagon figures shows. But in October 2006, senior US official Stuart Bowen compared deliveries carried out by a private American subcontractor and Iraqi stocks and discovered that 13,180 Glocks had vanished. Nine months later, a US Congressional body established that the American military had lost trace of some 190,000 weapons delivered in 2004 and 2005. That figure included 80,000 pistols -- mostly Glocks. The Americans handed Iraq's fledgling security forces, lauded as one of the key elements of Iraq's reconstruction, some 370,000 rifles and handguns between 2003 and 2006. [The CIA says they have pictures of Glocks in the hands of Iraqi insurgents. How nice that we armed the other side! US taxpayers pay for the bullets US soldiers shoot, and for the ones that kill them too! – dancewater]

REPORTS – IRAQI MILITIAS, POLITICIANS, POWER BROKERS

Key Shiite figures Sadr and Hakim forge deal in Iraq

Two of Iraq's most influential Shiite clerics and political figures, Moqtada al-Sadr and Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, agreed a deal on Saturday aimed at ending years of deadly rivalry. Sadr's movement, which ballooned in terms of support on the Iraqi streets after the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, is backed by a thousands-strong militia known as the Mahdi Army and is the most powerful Shiite group in Iraq. Hakim leads the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council (SIIC), another of the more significant Shiite factions in the country and a pillar of the ruling coalition. The two dynasties have clashed repeatedly in the past in their competition for control of Iraq's majority Shiite community. Saturday's accord mentioned three points aimed at "enhancing relations between the two groups and maintaining the Islamic and national interest," a statement from Hakim's office said. "First: the necessity to maintain and respect the Iraqi blood (to stop bloodletting) under whatever circumstances or by any party. Bloodletting is contrary to all legislations and morals," it said. The remaining two points talked of uniting media and cultural efforts and setting up a joint committee with provincial branches to keep order between their respective supporters.

Iraqis to Pay China $100 Million for Weapons for Police

Iraq has ordered $100 million worth of light military equipment from China for its police force, contending that the United States was unable to provide the materiel and is too slow to deliver arms shipments, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said yesterday. The China deal, not previously made public, has alarmed military analysts who note that Iraq's security forces already are unable to account for more than 190,000 weapons supplied by the United States, many of which are believed to be in the hands of Shiite and Sunni militias, insurgents and other forces seeking to destabilize Iraq and target U.S. troops. [Just what they need to spend their money on – more weapons for the blood-soaked land. – dancewater]

Iraqi Judge Says Maliki's Government Shields Officials Accused of Corruption

Widespread corruption in Iraq stretches into the government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, an Iraqi investigating judge told United States lawmakers on Thursday, and an American official said that efforts by the United States to combat the problem were inadequate. Judge Radhi Hamza al-Radhi, who was named by the United States in 2004 to lead the Iraqi Commission on Public Integrity, said his agency estimated that corruption had cost the Iraqi government up to $18 billion. Mr. Maliki has shielded relatives from investigation and allowed government ministers to protect implicated employees, said the judge, who left Iraq in August after threats against him. Speaking at a hearing before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Judge Radhi said that 31 employees of his agency had been killed. He said that he did not have evidence against Mr. Maliki personally, but that the prime minister had ''protected some of his relatives that were involved in corruption.'' One of these was a former minister of transportation, Judge Radhi said. The American official who testified, Stuart W. Bowen Jr., the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, said he also saw a ''rising tide of corruption in Iraq.'' He said American efforts to combat it were ''disappointing,'' lacking funding and focus. Representative Henry A. Waxman, the California Democrat who heads the panel, questioned whether the Maliki government was ''too corrupt to succeed,'' and contended that American efforts to address the problem were in ''complete disarray.'' He criticized what he said was State Department resistance to the panel's investigation. Larry Butler, the deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, declined to answer questions publicly about whether Mr. Maliki had obstructed corruption investigations, saying he could respond only in a closed session.

REPORTS – US/UK/OTHERS IN IRAQ

General Says 5 Iranians Should Stay In Custody

Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the top commander of day-to-day operations in Iraq, said he will recommend that five Iranians captured by U.S. forces in January not be released when their case is reviewed this month, a move that could further increase tensions between Washington and Tehran. "Militarily, we should hold on to them," he told reporters and editors at The Washington Post on Wednesday. The status of the captured Iranians is so sensitive that it is the only case of foreign detainees in Iraq that is being reviewed all the way up to the White House. Odierno's view reflects a deepening anger at both the State Department and the Pentagon over Iran's failure to cooperate in the stabilization of Iraq, even after the first bilateral public dialogue between U.S. and Iranian diplomats in 28 years was launched in March in Baghdad. ….The United States says the five Iranians, nicknamed the Irbil 5 because they were seized during a U.S. raid on Iran's Liaison Office in the northern Kurdish city of Irbil, are members of the Quds Force, an elite wing of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps charged with its foreign clandestine operations. Iran and Iraq say the men were credentialed officials working out of a diplomatic facility recognized by the Kurdish government and about to be recognized by Baghdad. Two more senior Iranian officials who were the targets of the U.S. raid escaped. [Now, why would Iran or Iraq have a say in this? - dancewater]

Opening of US Embassy in Iraq Delayed

The opening of a mammoth, $600 million U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, which had been planned for last month, has now been delayed well into next year, U.S. officials said Thursday. The Vatican-sized compound, which will be the world's largest diplomatic mission, has been beset by construction and logistical problems.

House votes to bring all Iraq security contractors under U.S. law

The House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly Thursday to bring all private security contractors working in Iraq and Afghanistan under a federal code of conduct, despite strong opposition from the White House and some Republican members of Congress. The bill, by Rep. David Price, D-N.C., gained attention this week after a September shooting in Baghdad in which Blackwater guards killed at least 11 Iraqis. Witnesses said the shootings were unprovoked, though Blackwater defended its actions. The State Department, which employs the Blackwater guards, is investigating with the help of the FBI. The bill passed 389-30. Sen. Barack Obama, an Illinois Democrat and presidential candidate, is expected to offer a companion bill in the Senate.

IRAQI REFUGEES

LEBANON: "Not Going to School Is Like Being Put Back in Time"

High costs for private education following displacement has caused major gaps in provision of assistance to Iraqi refugees living in Lebanon, especially in the area of education. Access is limited in Lebanon's overcrowded public schools, and private schools are too expensive for most refugees. Those already enrolled in schools face the risk of dropout due to differences in curriculum. "English is by far the most difficult subject for my children in school," says Fatima, mother of five from Basra. "By the time we came to Lebanon, before the war in 2003, my child had been out of school for nearly two years." "Transport is so expensive here, nearly 50 dollars per month, and I can't afford that," says Haifa, mother of three from Baghdad. She adds: "I would rather not eat or drink if it means my children could go to school. Not going to school is like being put back in time." Ali, 14, has been in Lebanon for two years. His parents and five brothers fled Baghdad after their lives were threatened. "The conditions were very bad. They would slaughter people in front of our eyes." Living in a mainly Shia suburb of Beirut, Ali is one of few Iraqi children with access to education. "We are learning reading, writing and how to use the computer." Not so many others. The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates there are currently over 540,000 Iraqi children of school age dispersed across the Arab region.

Reports: Iraq Interpreters to Get Asylum

Iraqi interpreters and aides who assisted British forces in Iraq will be allowed to settle in Britain, newspapers said Saturday. Iraqis who have worked as translators or support staff for the British government for 12 months or longer will be granted asylum status, The Times of London and The Sun reported, citing unnamed diplomatic sources. Those unable or unwilling to move to Britain will be given money to help them settle elsewhere, the papers said, adding that those with less than 12 months' experience would have their case looked at sympathetically.

Government allocates $25 million for Iraqi refugees abroad

The government has earmarked $25 million for the millions of Iraqi refugees fleeing ongoing U.S. military operations and violence at home to Syria and Jordan. $15 million will go to Syria where nearly 1.5 million Iraqis are seeking refuge. Jordan will get $8 million and Lebanon $2 million. The exodus of Iraqis to Syria and Jordan is reported to have strapped the countries’ meager resources, strained their public utilities and caused steep prices hikes as well as shortages of some basic commodities. The Syrian Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs Abdullah Al-Durdi says the presence of the huge numbers of Iraqis costs his country $1.6 billion a year. As the numbers of Iraqis fleeing their country surges, the occupying powers, mainly the U.S. and Britain, have shown no concern or moral responsibility towards their plight.

Iraqis increasingly "trapped" - UNHCR chief

Iraqis trying to flee conflict and persecution at home are increasingly trapped, especially after Syria reimposed rules this week virtually blocking their last escape route, the U.N. refugee agency said on Friday. Antonio Guterres, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, said the world was still turning a blind eye to the crisis and he urged all countries to open their borders to Iraqi refugees. Some 2.2 million people are now uprooted within Iraq, where internal borders hinder travel from one province to another. Another 2.2 million have fled to neighbouring countries, including 1.4 million in Syria and 500,000 to 750,000 in Jordan. "It is important to realise that we are facing an extremely dramatic situation," Guterres told a Geneva news conference. "All ways are looking more and more closed for Iraqis to leave the country ... The situation is extremely worrying from our perspective because people are getting more and more trapped in extremely dangerous situations," he said. International support for Iraqis has fallen short of the dimension of the crisis, he said.