News & Views 11/09/07

Photo: Kurdistan Workers' Party(PKK) guerillas during conduct military exercises in the mountains of northern Iraq's Kurdish autonomous region in 2006. PKK guerrillas Abdullah and Zeena broke the cardinal rule of the rebel outfit -- they fell in love. For their transgression they were unceremoniously expelled from the group.(AFP/File/David Furst)

REPORTS – LIFE IN IRAQ

Iraq crisis: Abandoned kids, botched surgeries

The head of Iraq's main humanitarian group said an 18-year-old approached him with a baby suffering from leukemia. The desperate mother said she'd do "anything" for treatment for her child -- and then offered herself up for sex. Said Ismail Hakki breaks down in tears as he recalls that story. Leukemia can be treatable to a degree in much of the world, but not in Iraq. The baby died two months later. "It shook me like hell," said Hakki, the president of the Iraqi Red Crescent. "All my life I've been a surgeon. I've seen blood; I've seen death. That never shook me -- none whatsoever. But when I see the suffering of those people, that really shook me." The plight of Iraq's children is nearing epidemic proportions, he said, with mothers and fathers abandoning their children "because they're becoming a liability." The parents don't do it out of convenience, they do it out of desperation. Hakki says Red Crescent has the monumental task of treating and feeding more than 1.6 million children under the age of 12 who have become homeless in their own country. That's roughly 70 percent of the estimated 2.3 million Iraqis who are homeless inside Iraq.

…. Hakki says the spike in numbers of abandoned children is especially alarming, the result of sectarian violence and drastic socio-economic problems. The majority of parents in Iraq, he says, leave their children with a single relative who often has about 20 to 30 children to look after. Some parents just leave their kids altogether. Many of the families are living in areas without basic needs, like water and electricity, and there are no jobs available. "It's a desperate situation," he said. "Children are becoming a liability for both the father and the mother."

HOW TO HELP

IRAQ: Fewer Deaths Bring No Reassurance

Despite claims by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and Bush administration officials that violence in Iraq is decreasing, residents in the capital tell a different story. Attacks by Iraqi resistance groups against the U.S. military continue in Baghdad and Iraq's al-Anbar province, despite U.S. military support for certain Sunni militias in the areas. According to the U.S. Department of Defence, 18 U.S. soldiers were killed in Baghdad and al-Anbar in October. In all 39 U.S. soldiers were reported killed in Iraq for the month, making it the lowest monthly total since March 2006. Despite the relatively low October numbers, 2007 is on pace to be the deadliest year on record for U.S. troops since the invasion of March 2003. At least 847 U.S. military personnel have been reported killed this year in Iraq, making it the second highest toll yet. The deadliest year was 2004, when 849 U.S. military members were killed. But many Iraqis say that violence elsewhere continues unreported - and that where there is calm, it is hardly for reassuring reasons. "Sectarian killings are less because all the Sunnis have been evicted from mixed areas in Baghdad," Salman Hameed, a teacher who was evicted from the al-Hurriya area west of Baghdad eight months ago told IPS. "All my relatives and Sunni neighbours who survived the killing campaign led by the militias under the eyes of American and Iraqi forces have fled either to Syria or to other Sunni cities."

More Than Half of Christians Have Fled Iraq Since 2003

The Latin Rite Archbishop of Baghdad, Jean Benjamin Seleiman, said this week that of 700,000 Christians who were living in Iraq up until 2003, more than half have been forced by the violence to leave the country and take refuge in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. The archbishop also explained that Christians live amidst fear but that they are encouraged by ecumenical solidarity. He also warned that in regions like Bassora and Mosul, the faithful live with “daily terror.” Commenting on the country’s new Constitution, Archbishop Seleiman praised the new elements such as freedom of conscience, but he criticized other aspects such as the declaration that “any law that contradicts Sharia (Muslim law) is null.”

Iraq: When Killing Becomes Personal [Photo Essay]

Embedded photojournalist Ashley Gilbertson offers an unsanitized view of Iraq.

Bomber kills 5 local tribal leaders in Iraq

A suicide bomber wearing a vest packed with explosives killed five Sunni Arab tribal leaders in Iraq's Diyala province on Friday, police said.

Iraqi, U.S. soldiers kill 14 gunmen in Mosul raids

Iraqi and U.S. forces killed 14 suspected insurgents and detained 44 more in raids over the past 48 hours in northern Iraq, the U.S. military said on Friday.

Iraqi-U.S. forces kill, capture 58 gunmen in Ninewa

Perpetrator of Mosul attack captured - Iraqi army

The perpetrator of the last Tuesday attack in Mosul, where six policemen were killed, was captured along with four al-Qaeda elements on Friday morning in a security operation launched by Iraqi army forces west of Mosul, an Iraqi army commander said. "Five al-Qaeda gunmen were detained during a crackdown operation launched by the 3rd brigade forces of the Iraqi army in al-Eiwinat village in Rabiya district, west of Mosul," General Khorshed Saleem told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI). "Among the detainees was the leader of al-Qaeda in the region, Muqdad Bashir Hanash, one of the perpetrators of the last Tuesday attack in the city of Mosul," Saleem noted. "The forces found also amounts of weapons and ammunition and lists of the group's names," he added.

REPORTS – IRAQI MILITIAS, POLITICIANS, POWER BROKERS

Iraqi president makes 2008 pledge

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani says he will solve disputed issues with the United States by the end of this year. The Kuwaiti National News Service (KUNA) said the Iraqi president made the pledge Thursday during a meeting with U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker and Ambassador David M. Satterfield, senior adviser to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and coordinator for Iraq. The Iraqi government said in a statement that the two sides discussed issues of national reconciliation and the formation of a unity government, and renewed commitment to bolster bilateral ties between Iraq and the United States.

IAF leader says PM "dictator"

Sheikh Khalaf al-Elyan, secretary general of the Iraqi National Dialogue Council, on Friday described Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki as "dictator", saying that the premier violated the constitution and Iraqis' freedom of expression. This came after al-Maliki have accepted the resignations of the IAF ministers. Al-Elyan is also a member of the Sunni Iraqi Accordance Front (IAF). The IAF, the third largest bloc in the Iraqi parliament with 44 out of a total 275 seats, quit Maliki's government in August 2007. Its five ministers, as well as Deputy Premier Sallam al-Zawbaie, resigned in protest of the government's "failure to meet the demands submitted by the front." Commenting on al-Maliki's decision, the sheikh told the London-based al-Sharq al-Awsat newspaper, "this is unconstitutional decision and violates Iraqis' freedom of expression right." "The premier did not appoint these ministers, but they were nominated by their parliamentary bloc. He did not even meet or talk to us to discuss our demands," al-Eliyan asserted.

Iraqi Government to UN: 'Don't Extend Mandate for Bush's Occupation'

The United Nations Security Council, with support from the British and American delegations, is poised to cut the Iraqi parliament out of one of the most significant decisions the young government will make: when foreign troops will depart. It's an ugly and unconstitutional move, designed solely to avoid asking an Iraqi legislature for a blank check for an endless military occupation that it's in no mood to give, and it will make a mockery of Iraq's nascent democracy (which needs all the legitimacy it can get). While the Bush administration frequently invokes sunny visions of spreading democracy and "freedom" around the world, the fact remains that democracy is incompatible with its goals in Iraq. The biggest headache supporters of the occupation of Iraq have to deal with is the occupation itself. As far back as the middle of 2004, more than nine out of 10 Iraqis said the U.S.-led forces were "occupiers," and only 2 percent called them "liberators." Things have only gone downhill since then, and any government that represents the will of the Iraqi people would have no choice but to demand a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign troops. This fact poses an enormous problem, as the great triumph of the Bush administration and its supporters has been in their ability to convince Americans that Iraqi interests and Washington's interests are in harmony, even when they're diametrically opposed. Crucial to this fiction is a U.N. mandate that confers legal cover on the so-called "multinational" forces in Iraq. The mandate is now coming up for renewal, and a majority of Iraqi legislators oppose its renewal unless conditions are placed on it, conditions that may include a timetable for the departure of American troops.

REPORTS – US/UK/OTHERS IN IRAQ

Reliance Industries bags two oil blocks in North Iraq

Mukesh Ambani-run Reliance Industries has bagged two oil blocks in the Kurdish region of Iraq that may hold one billion barrels of oil reserves. Reliance Industries has signed a contract for the blocks Rovi and Sarta in northern Iraq with the autonomous Kurdish Regional Government (KRG), company sources said. The blocks measuring 450-500 sq km have almost 80 per cent oil bearing structure and Reliance is confident of making a discovery soon. Reliance Industries paid a signing amount of USD 15.5-17.5 million for the two blocks. When asked if the KRG had awarded the two blocks to RIL along with five others to foreign companies defying Baghdad's proposed new oil law, the source said: "As per our understanding, KRG has made the awards in accordance with the proposed law."

US releases nine Iranians in Iraq

The US military in Iraq has released nine of the 20 Iranian citizens it has detained there, including two held on suspicion of helping Shia militants. The release followed a review of their cases which concluded that the men no longer posed a security risk and were "of no continued intelligence value". The Iranians were released to the Iraqi government, which later reportedly gave them to the Iranian embassy in Baghdad. Tehran has dismissed US accusations that it is aiding insurgents in Iraq. In October, the US declared the overseas operations arm of the Iranian Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) a "supporter of terrorism", saying it was supplying and training Shia militants in Iraq.

RESISTANCE

US judge blocks second court martial for Iraq war objector

A federal judge on Thursday temporarily blocked a second court martial for a US military officer who openly refused to go to war in Iraq. Judge Benjamin Settle issued a preliminary injunction saying a second court martial for First Lieutenant Ehren Watada might violate his constitutional rights to avoid legal double jeopardy, or being tried for the same crime twice. Watada's first court martial ended in a mistrial in February. The officer's attorney Ken Kagan called the decision an "enormous victory, but it is not yet over."

Dissent and War: High-School Protesters Face Expulsion

A school superintendent’s decision to suspend, and perhaps expel, about two dozen students who took part in a protest against the Iraq war at a suburban high school drew criticism Tuesday from the students and their parents, who demanded that their children be allowed to return to classes. In a statement issued after the protest on Thursday at Morton West High School in Berwyn, a working-class suburb just west of Chicago, the district superintendent, Ben Nowakowski, said the school’s reaction had to do only with the interruption of the school day, not with the students expressing themselves. The administration “did not say that the students could not protest,” Dr. Nowakowski’s statement said. “Rather, we asked that the students simply move their protest to an area of the school that would not disrupt the ability of the other 3,400-plus students at Morton West to proceed with their normal school day.”

Petition to protest this expulsion

Quote of the day: "There is no one left for them to kill," 55-year-old retired teacher Nathum Taha told IPS in Baghdad. "The Americans continue to use Arab Shia Iraqi militias to kill Sunnis, but most people have left by now."