News & Views 11/05/07

Photo: A follower of the anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr is greeted by his friends in the al-Sadr office in Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, Nov. 5, 2007, upon his release from a U.S. prison camp in southern Iraq. The Iraqi government freed 283 detainees from Iraqi and U.S. military prisons over the past week, as part of a months-long effort to review files of inmates jailed in American detention facilities inside the country. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim)

REPORTS – LIFE IN IRAQ

Sunday: 93 Iraqis Killed, 67 Wounded

The real “surge” in Iraq: Iraq: Nearly 2.3 Million Displaced

Nearly 2.3 million Iraqis — the vast majority of them women and children — have fled their homes but remain inside the country's borders and are in urgent need of basic care, according to a report issued Monday by the Iraqi Red Crescent. The number of internally displaced people, or IDPs, in Iraq grew by 16 percent in September — to 2,299,425, the Red Crescent said. That figure has skyrocketed since the beginning of 2007, when less than half a million people were listed as displaced. More than 83 percent of those displaced are women and children under the age of 12, the report said. Four and a half years after the U.S.-led invasion, the Iraqi government struggles to provide basic services — water, electricity and access to schools and medical care — to citizens across the country. Much of Iraq, especially the capital, is beset by violence, crumbling infrastructure and rampant crime, and most humanitarian groups are unable to reach victims who need help. "In addition to their plight as being displaced, the majority suffer from disease, poverty and malnutrition," the Red Crescent reported. "Children do not attend schools and are being sheltered in tents, abandoned government buildings with no water or electricity, mosques, churches, or with relatives," it said.

Iraqis fleeing homes in droves: Red Crescent

Iraqis are fleeing their homes in droves and the number of displaced within the war-torn country has reached almost 2.3 million, most of them women and children, the Iraqi Red Crescent said. The organisation's latest report, obtained by AFP on Monday, said 368,479 people had left their homes to escape sectarian violence in September alone. This brings the total number of internally displaced Iraqis to 2,299,425 since the US-led invasion in 2003, it said, adding that most of these urgently need basic care. At least another two million Iraqis have fled abroad -- mainly to neighbouring countries, according to UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) figures published in August. Children make up 65.3 percent of the internally displaced persons (IDPs) and women account for 18.6 percent of the total, the Iraqi Red Crescent report said. Most internally displaced Iraqis -- 63.6 percent or 1,462,468 people -- are in 16 camps within Baghdad province, the report said. Of these, 88.3 percent are women and children. "In addition to their plight as being displaced, the majority suffer from disease, poverty and malnutrition," it said. "Children do not attend schools and are being sheltered in tents, abandoned government buildings with no water or electricity, mosques, churches, or with relatives."

Ride home shows Baghdad's safe, dangerous sides

Ahmed Hassan was waiting for his ride home, and he was trying not to look like himself. No rings that might let someone know that he's a Shiite Muslim. No books that might reveal that he's a student at Baghdad University's Medical College. Standing next to the bridge that connects east and west Baghdad, he was hoping to be invisible. That, he hoped, would get him home alive. With the other medical students, he'd studied the maps, compared stories, checked violence reports and come up with that day's route home. "All we chat about at school these days is how to get home," Hassan said. It's the latest daily ritual in an ever-shifting Baghdad. Even as violence drops in Iraq's capital, residents have become obsessed with how to move around the city safely. Baghdad has become a crazy-quilt patchwork of sectarian fiefdoms, each controlled by a different armed group. Some are ruled by Sunni Muslim gunmen, others by Shiite militias, still others by the Iraqi army and yet others by U.S.-backed tribal groups. Their borders might be visible: concrete barriers swung into place by huge cranes or barbed wire coiled across a street. But many simply end and begin, with nothing to alert a hapless traveler. Stumbling into the wrong one can mean death at the hands of an armed member of a different sect. A street that's safe for Sunnis often isn't safe for Shiites. A block that's safe for Shiites may be dangerous for Sunnis. Fear is the only constant.

In Iraqi Kurdistan, sympathy for the PKK abounds

Near the edge of this dust-colored mountain village, a man dressed in military fatigues, his AK-47 casually lying near his feet and a grenade dangling from his waist, keeps sentry along a dry, rock-strewn creek bed. The trail is a well-known route for smugglers, and they pass by frequently, crossing between Iraq and neighboring Iran, a steady procession of donkeys hauling food, fuel canisters and boxes filled with who knows what. As each smuggler passes, the sentry stretches out his hand and the smuggler pays, sometimes a dollar's worth of Iranian tumans, sometimes $5 worth. The sentry identifies himself as a member of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, the PKK, the rebel group that has inflamed Turkish anger with attacks that have killed 30 Turkish soldiers in the last month. The U.S. State Department has included the group on its terrorist list for years. The sentry, however, is hardly in hiding. He's in plain view of a checkpoint atop a nearby bluff, manned by a member of the peshmerga, the regional militia of the Kurdish Regional Government, the U.S.-allied rulers of northern Iraq. That PKK guerrillas operate under the nose of the peshmerga angers Turkish officials, who say the Kurdish Regional Government inside Iraq has done nothing to prevent the rebels from launching attacks from northern Iraq that have killed thousands of Turks. Last month, Turkey's parliament authorized its military to enter Iraq to confront the PKK.

IRAQ: Families flee homes near Turkish border

About 120 Iraqi families living near the Iraqi-Turkish border have been forced to abandon their homes by fighters of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), according to the Kurdistan Campaign to Help Victims of War, an NGO, and local residents. "Militants broke into our home and told us to leave within an hour. They were armed and we couldn't resist," said Firamerz Adar, 48, from Deshtetek village, near the border. "One of my neighbours who complained was beaten and then forced to leave with his 11 family members. "They said we could return to our homes when the fighting with Turkish forces ended. We took a few things with us and started to walk south, trying to find a vehicle that could take us to a safer place," Adar added. Sergevaz Lafaw, a Kurdish rebel commander of the PKK, told IRIN: "Some families have been forced out of their homes because their residences are of strategic importance and also for their own safety as shells could fall on their homes and hurt their loved ones." The group of about 120 families has joined nearly 7,000 people who have fled areas near the border since mid-October, Kalif Dirar, a senior official in the Kurdistan regional government, said.

2,000-Year-Old Christian Community in Iraq Gains a Spiritual First in Baghdad

There is neither a cross nor a sign on the heavy metal gate to indicate that this is the official residence of one of the country’s most prominent Christians, the first in Iraq in modern times to be elevated to cardinal by the Roman Catholic Church. The simple structure, in a dilapidated neighborhood of this capital, opposite empty former ministry buildings, is the home of Cardinal Emmanuel III Delly, whom the pope named on Oct. 17 to the College of Cardinals along with 22 others from around the world. The only outward sign that this compound is Christian is in the garden, where a lawn surrounded by roses and zinnias is watched over by a graceful white statue of the Virgin Mary. Many of his fellow cardinals come from Latin America, Africa and the Far East, places where Catholic practice is only a few hundred years old. But Cardinal Delly, 81, the patriarch of the Baghdad-based Chaldean Church, comes from Mosul, in northern Iraq, a place where Christian rites have been practiced for nearly 2,000 years. There, as in Baghdad and other places where members of Iraq’s shrinking Christian population still live, it is possible to attend a Sunday Mass sung in Aramaic, one of the Semitic languages spoken at the time of Jesus. ……..The Chaldeans are the most numerous of Iraq’s Christians, although their numbers have plunged since the toppling of Saddam Hussein. Although there is no census, Christian priests estimate that fewer than 500,000 Chaldeans are left in the country, about one million fewer than when Mr. Hussein was in power, when the country had about 24 million people. Other Christian sects with small populations in Iraq include Assyrian Christians, Armenian Christians and Sabeans, an ancient sect.

Concrete barricades to be removed from most Mosul

Security forces started to remove concrete and dust barricades erected along the left coast of Mosul city, Ninewa Mayor Darid Kashmola said on Monday. "The procedure is meant to lessen the burden on local citizens and ease the flow of traffic," Kashmola told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI). According to the mayor, all barricades set up in front of police stations and party headquarters will be taken down, except those in the city's hot spots. The mayor did not specify the concerned hot spots, but said, "I ordered the formation of a committee from municipal council members, police directors and civil defense officials to follow up on the issue." In the aftermath of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, concrete and dust barricades were put up in front of security departments and party headquarters in Mosul in an attempt to prevent armed and suicide attacks.

Iran's troop offer for Iraq captures Iraqi press

Iraqi newspapers on Monday focused on a recent Iranian proposal for troops from Iraq's neighboring countries to replace the Multi-National Force (MNF) in Iraq and the heated controversy over a U.S.-Iranian meeting, scheduled to take place in a few weeks.
On the Iranian proposal, the independent daily al-Zaman newspaper quoted the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, as describing Tehran's idea to replace MNF with regional forces as a "fantasy" that should not be "dignified" with a response. During a high-level gathering of Iraq's neighbors and world powers in Istanbul on Saturday, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki suggested that a coalition from Iran, Syria and other Arab countries take over from the U.S.-led MNF in the war-torn Iraq. The newspaper also quoted Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zibari as promising host Turkey to hunt down Kurdish separatists who attack Turkey from bases in northern Iraq. In an article entitled, 'U.S.-Iranian meeting on the cards,' the newspaper cited the Iranian government as saying that it has not yet received an invitation from Iraq to hold meetings with U.S. officials on Iraq.

REPORTS – IRAQI MILITIAS, POLITICIANS, POWER BROKERS

Turkish premier says he's 'happy' with Bush's offer on Kurdish rebels

President Bush on Monday promised Turkey's prime minister improved intelligence-sharing and high-level military contacts to counter Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq, easing fears of a major Turkish cross-border incursion in the coming days. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said after talks with Bush at the White House that Turkey remains prepared to strike into northern Iraq, where the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, is launching deadly attacks on Turkey. "Turkey has the power to defend itself," Erdogan said in a speech at the National Press Club in Washington. "We are on the point of using our rights emanating from international law," he added, apparently referring to the right of self-defense.

Trial Nearer for Shiite Ex-Officials in Sunni Killings

An Iraqi judge has ruled that there is enough evidence to try two former Health Ministry officials, both Shiites, in the killing and kidnapping of hundreds of Sunnis, many of them snatched from hospitals by militias, according to American officials who are advising the Iraqi judicial system. The case, which was referred last week to a three-man tribunal in Baghdad, is the first in which an Iraqi magistrate has recommended that such high-ranking Shiites be tried for sectarian violence. But any trial could still be derailed by the Health Ministry, making the case an important test of the government’s will to administer justice on a nonsectarian basis. The Iraqi investigation has confirmed long-standing Sunni fears that hospitals had been opened up as a hunting ground for Shiite militias intent on spreading fear among Sunnis and driving them out of the capital. Even before the case, Baghdad residents told of death threats against doctors who would treat Sunnis, of intravenous lines ripped from patients’ arms as they were carried away, and of relatives of hospitalized Sunnis who were killed when they came to visit. The case centers on Hakim al-Zamili, a former deputy health minister, and Brig. Gen. Hamid al-Shammari, who led the agency’s security force, which is charged with protecting the ministry and its hospitals. The former officials were taken into custody in February and March amid reports that they had been implicated in sectarian violence and corruption. But the status of the judicial inquiry into their activities and its findings have not previously been reported. The inquiry included testimony from nine witnesses, some of whom have been granted visas to live in the United States for their protection.

Parliament's speaker threatens to sack absent MPs

The Iraqi Parliament's Speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani called on the parliamentary blocs to commit to the parliament's decision to replace members who do not attend more than 20 sessions, while the Iraqi Accordance Front (IAF) rejected accusation made by a member of the Unified Iraqi Coalition to the Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi, who was described as "practicing dictatorship."

Parliament votes on crude oil refining investment draft

The Iraqi parliament will debate in a session on Monday reading and voting on a number of draft laws, including the one on crude oil refining investment, which the parliament had asked to have amended, a parliament's media source said. "Today's session also includes voting on a draft law to cancel two decisions by the dissolved Revolutionary Command Council and another on Iraq's joining the international railway agreement," the source told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI). "The parliament will also hear a report by legislator Mahmoud Othman on landmines in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region with some proposals as well as a report by legislator Walid Sharka, from the Kurdistan Coalition (KC), on the suffering and cares of the inhabitants of the Turcoman village of Girdaghlo," the source said. The agenda also includes the first reading of the draft law on Iraqi information network organization, the second reading of the draft on endorsing the revised international health regulations and readings of other drafts, he added.

REPORTS – US/UK/OTHERS IN IRAQ

Bush says PKK is an enemy of the United States

President George W. Bush on Monday called the Kurdish Workers' Party "an enemy of the United States" and offered to share intelligence with Turkey to try to halt the rebel group's attacks. "The PKK is a terrorist organization. They're an enemy of Turkey, they're an enemy of Iraq and they're an enemy of the United States," Bush said in an Oval Office meeting with Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan. As Ankara weighs a possible cross-border incursion into northern Iraq to go after the Kurdish rebels, the Turkish prime minister has made clear he wants concrete action from Washington to counter Kurdish rebels who have been launching attacks on Turkey from Iraqi soil.

Iran to open consulate in northern Iraq

Iran will open a consulate in the northern Iraqi city of Arbil on Tuesday, Tehran's third such office in the war-ravaged country, a senior Kurdish official told AFP on Monday. "The Iranian consulate will be opened tomorrow officially," said Falah Mustafa, director of foreign relations in the Kurdistan regional government, the autonomous Kurdish administration of northern Iraq. There was no immediate confirmation from Tehran's mission in Baghdad. But on Sunday, Iran's ISNA news agency quoted Hassan Kazemi Qomi, the ambassador, as confirming the planned opening of the consulate in Arbil, the the capital of the Kurdish administration of Iraq. On January 11, US forces raided an office in Arbil and detained five Iranians for allegedly aiding the anti-American insurgency. Tehran says those held are diplomats and that they were seized in a consular building. The office has been closed ever since.

Turkey says Kurdish MPs caught "red-handed" in Iraq

The presence of pro-Kurdish parliamentarians at the release by Kurdish rebels of eight Turkish soldiers proves their party has links to the militants, Turkey's Deputy Prime Minister Cemil Cicek said on Monday. NTV television said an Ankara prosecutor had launched a probe into the presence of the Democratic Society Party (DTP) deputies in northern Iraq, where the soldiers were handed over by Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) guerrillas on Sunday. The troops' release could ease public pressure on Ankara to launch an incursion into northern Iraq against around 3,000 PKK rebels who launch attacks into Turkey from bases there. The three DTP lawmakers had gone to Iraq to help secure the release of the soldiers, who were captured in an ambush last month. They were handed over to Iraqi Kurdish officials before being sent back to Turkey. "They were caught red-handed," Cicek said of the three MPs in an interview with CNN Turk television.

683 Iraqi detainees freed in three weeks from US prisons

At least 683 detainees held in US-run prisons across Iraq have been released since the middle of last month, a statement from Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi's office said Monday. Of those released, 283 were freed last week, it said. Their release is part of a programme undertaken by Hashemi's office in collaboration with the US military for the speedy release of those held for a long time without formal charges being pressed. Around 20,000 detainees are held in US-run prisons in Iraq, mostly in Camp Bucca near the southern port city of Basra and at Camp Cropper near Baghdad. Most of them are held for a long time and without being charged formally. The US military says the average time that a detainee spends at one of the two prisons is one year.

Saudi Minister confirms building a wall along Iraq borders

Saudi Interior Minister, Prince Naif bin Abdulaziz, has confirmed the Kingdom's plan to build a security wall along the borders with Iraq. The Saudi Ministry received 14 applications from local and international firms to build the iron curtain-style security wall, Prince Naif said in statements Sunday night noting that the offers were being studied. Meanwhile, the Saudi Minister warned against any attempts for "sectarian divisions" in Iraq, a matter that would take a heavy toll not only on the country's stability but on the region as a whole. On a potential US strike against Iran, Prince Naif said he hoped such strike would not take place. He also stressed the close collaboration among the Interior Ministries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member states for combating terrorism. Saudi Arabia signed anti-terrorism agreements with Oman and the UAE and will soon sign similar ones with Kuwait and Qatar.

US: Significant Drop in Air Raids in Iraq

A "significant" fall in US air raids in Iraq has been recorded over the past few weeks, a top US air force officer told reporters on Sunday. "Yesterday, for the first time in a long time, we dropped no ammunitions," said Major General David Edgington, a coordination director for the US-led multinational forces. "We were called several times, but we dropped no ammunitions. This is an indication of an improved security situation." Edgington also reported a drop in air raids in the past few weeks. "For the last three to four weeks, we saw a significant decrease of our interventions," he said. "We are having less calls for kinetic operations. We are still there, but we have less calls."

The Mega-Bunker of Baghdad

The new American Embassy in Baghdad will be the largest, least welcoming, and most lavish embassy in the world: a $600 million massively fortified compound with 619 blast-resistant apartments and a food court fit for a shopping mall. Unfortunately, like other similarly constructed U.S. Embassies, it may already be obsolete. When the new American Embassy in Baghdad entered the planning stage, more than three years ago, U.S. officials inside the Green Zone were still insisting that great progress was being made in the construction of a new Iraq. I remember a surreal press conference in which a U.S. spokesman named Dan Senor, full of governmental conceits, described the marvelous developments he personally had observed during a recent sortie (under heavy escort) into the city. His idea now was to set the press straight on realities outside the Green Zone gates. Senor was well groomed and precocious, fresh into the world, and he had acquired a taste for appearing on TV. The assembled reporters were by contrast a disheveled and unwashed lot, but they included serious people of deep experience, many of whom lived fully exposed to Iraq, and knew that society there was unraveling fast. Some realized already that the war had been lost, though such were the attitudes of the citizenry back home that they could not yet even imply this in print. [This last sentence indicates that the press does not report the “facts” - they report what the citizenry want to hear. What nonsense! They “report” what the elites want them to write down. – dancewater]

IRAQI REFUGEES

IRAQ: Millions Trapped in Their Own Country

At least five million Iraqis have fled their homes due to the violence under the U.S.-led occupation, but half of them are unable to leave the country, according to well-informed estimates. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), there are more than 4.4 million displaced Iraqis, an estimate that many workers among refugees find conservative. The UNHCR announced last week that at present 2,000 Iraqis are fleeing their homes every day. Most of them have received direct threats from death squads or militias. The provinces that have suffered the greatest displacement are the largely Sunni Baghdad, Diyala, al-Anbar and Salahadeen in central Iraq. Members of many families who have not fled told IPS they have stayed on because they had no choice. "We could not leave our city despite the security situation because we don't have the money to travel and live outside Iraq," Ali Muhsin, an official with the directorate general of education and a father of five told IPS in Baquba, 40 km northeast of Baghdad. "For more than a year, we used to receive the salary only every 50 or 60 days because the militants had taken over the entire city. They even controlled the banks, which prevented our offices from receiving the money."

IRAQ: Christians seek new life in Europe

Members of the Iraqi Christian community in the northern cities of Mosul and Kirkuk have asked European countries to expedite their visa applications and grant them asylum, according to Christian leaders there. "Most of the Christians in Iraq have moved to northern provinces as they flee violence against their religious group. Most of them were taking refuge in Mosul and Kirkuk but in the past two months, at least 27 Christians were killed in Mosul and Kirkuk as they were leaving their churches or community prayers in private residences," said cleric and spokesman for the Christian Peace Association (CPA), Lucas Barini. "Panic has spread, especially since women and children were among the victims," Barini added. "In the past two weeks, at least 120 families have received threatening letters at their homes giving them a month to leave Mosul and Kirkuk but they don't have anywhere else to go."

How to Help Iraqi Refugees

ANOTHER Way to help: The Collateral Repair Project

COMMENTARY

A Disaster We Have Chosen To Forget

“You think you are innocent, but you're not," said the British Muslim suicide bomber in the Channel 4 television drama Britz last week. As the compelling actor Manjinder Virk recited her suicide statement to camera, she went on: thousands of women and children are dying every day in Iraq and Afghanistan, and yet the governments responsible have been returned to power. Her assertion sticks in the mind because it goes straight to the heart of how we choose to forget, choose not to understand; and how from such choices it becomes possible to imagine our innocence. That's not to say that her own moral choices were defensible - she blew up herself, her beloved brother, fellow Muslims and plenty of women in the crowd - but the challenge even from such a morally flawed character persists. Can we claim innocence of the chaotic violence of Iraq now normalised into the background of our lives? Suicide bombs have long since become routine radio noise. We're numbed to the atrocities; except for some stalwarts, the initial anti-war activism has been crowded out by other responsibilities. Life goes on, even if in Baghdad it frequently doesn't. And to accompany the indifference is the creeping denial of responsibility. Government ministers now talk of Iraq as a tragedy, as if it was a natural disaster and they had no hand in its making. There's a public revulsion at the violent sectarian struggles best summed up as "a plague on all their houses", as even the horror gives way to exhaustion. The irony is that in this great age of communications and saturation media, this is perhaps the most important war to become nigh on impossible to report. Unless the reporter is embedded with the occupation forces, it takes either terrifying courage or extraordinary ingenuity to bring images to our screens of those caught up in the awful maelstrom of this imploded country. [This last sentence is just rubbish. There are plenty of Iraqi reporters bringing “images to our screens” without being embedded with the occupation forces, but they are ignored. And it is not an “imploded country” it is a DESTROYED COUNTRY and the invaders are the ones who destroyed it. – dancewater]

RESISTANCE

Photos from actions on October 27, 2007

Letter from James Circello, Iraq war veteran who is now AWOL

Quote of the day: We may know nothing of such routine details of the prosecution of this war, but these are the stories filling the Arabic media. – from the commentary above titled “The Disaster That We Have Chosen To Forget” [What she fails to notice that we may know nothing of this war, because we choose, and our corporate media chooses, to remain ignorant. – dancewater]