tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-55017712024-03-13T09:11:31.452-07:00Today in Iraq"There are some who, uh, feel like that, you know, the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is: Bring 'em on. We got the force necessary to deal with the security situation. “ - George W. Bush, July 2, 2003.yankeedoodlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02896437654960137670noreply@blogger.comBlogger1421125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5501771.post-1175766528599252512007-04-05T02:31:00.000-07:002007-04-05T03:00:58.486-07:00<p style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Today in Iraq's successor blog "Iraq Today" can be found:</span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://warnewstoday.blogspot.com/index.html"><span style="text-align: center;font-size:x-large;" >HERE: "Iraq Today"</span></a></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5501771.post-1174591430301050552007-03-22T13:03:00.000-07:002007-03-22T13:43:41.920-07:00<h4>Site News</h4>
<p>As you can see from Cervantes' posting below this site crashed badly after publication. It's not fixable I have rescued Cervantes' posting it can be found <a href="http://dailywarnewsblog.com/">here</a></p>
<p>I phoned Cervantes today and explained the problem to him, we are closing this site permanently for new postings and reader commenting as of tonight.</p>
<p>The archives here will of course continue to be available.</p><p><span style="font-weight: bold;">As a temporary measure for tonight I have turned off the ability to make comments on the new site.</span>
</p>
<p><img src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5613/1565/1600/773107/20070322_screenshot_tii_cursor.jpg" /></p>
<p>
markfromireland
</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5501771.post-1174580638491701842007-03-22T10:18:00.000-07:002007-03-22T12:59:55.970-07:00DAILY WAR NEWS FOR Thursday, March, 22, 2007<p>
<p>
In Country:
#1: Five months after the fact, the DoD <a href="http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/release.aspx?releaseid=10641">has announced the death</a> of Lieutenant Colonel Peter E. Winston, 56, of Plant City, FL. He is reported to have died on November 13, 2006, in Kaiserslautern, Germany, from a non-hostile unspecified cause that occurred while he was stationed in Iraq.<p>
<p>
#2: <a href="http://www.13wham.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=db8e4852-c5e6-41f0-91c8-0f7f77727856">A civilian contractor seriously injured while working in Iraq was released Wednesday from Strong Memorial Hospital. Joe Seoud was injured on Valentine's Day when the truck he was driving was hit by a roadside bomb. His job was escorting high officials and the military from one location to another. After treatment in Germany, Seoud was transferred to Strong. His injuries included a collapsed lung and a fractured shoulder. He also lost a kidney, and has a lot of rehabilitation ahead</a><p>
<p>
<a href="http://www.10nbc.com/news.asp?template=item&story_id=21964">It was Valentines Day and Joe was in the second phase of a two-day mission hauling military vehicles to Baghdad. He was the driver in the lead truck, a convoy of 14 vehicles. “The bomb went off under my vehicle,” said Seoud. “Just heard the bang, the truck lost control started going to the left. I couldn’t see. I was just trying to hold on.” The truck flipped over and was engulfed in flames. Joe took cover, in shock and unaware of his injuries. He knew two drivers were dead. An American convoy found what was left of Joe and his team</a><p>
<p>
#3: <a href="http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-03/22/content_5882875.htm">UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon arrived here on one-day unannounced visit to Iraq for talks with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, the Iraqi television reported</a>.<p>
<p>
Baghdad:<p>
<p>
#1: <a href="http://www.centcom.mil/sites/uscentcom2/Lists/New%20Casualty%20Reports/DispForm.aspx?ID=1665&Source=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Ecentcom%2Emil%2Fsites%2Fuscentcom2%2FLists%2FNew%2520Casualty%2520Reports%2FCurrent%2520Reports%2Easpx">While returning to base after conducting combat security operations, a MND-B patrol was attacked with small arms fire in a western ‹Æ_Ãj è%ùÿÿƒÄ Wÿ €p ‹Æ_áԀ ƒøÿ „¡ V‹t$ …öu Pÿ „p ‹ð…öt|‹F$…Àt Pè/þÿÿƒÄ ‹F(…Àt Pè þÿÿƒÄ ‹F0…Àt Pè þÿÿƒÄ ‹F8…Àt PèÿýÿÿƒÄ ‹F@…Àt PèïýÿÿƒÄ ‹FD…Àt PèßýÿÿƒÄ ‹FP=x£ t PèÌýÿÿƒÄ VèÃýÿÿƒÄ ¡Ô€ j Pÿ tp ÃìHSUVWh€ èÏüÿÿ‹ð3ÿƒÄ ;÷u j è=øÿÿƒÄ †€ ‰5 ¼ ;ðÇ ½ ³ s#ÆF Ç ÿÿÿÿˆ ‰~ ‹ ¼ ƒÆ$Á€ ;ñrÝT$ Rÿ ˜p f9|$F „ý ‹D$H;Ç „ñ ‹ x ù ‰L$ , | ÇD$ ‹D$ ‹ ½ ;È}p¾¤¼ h€ è üÿÿ3ÉƒÄ ;ÁtL‹ ½ ‰ ƒÂ ‰ ½ € ;Âs Æ@ Ç ÿÿÿÿˆX ‰H ‹ ƒÀ$€ ;Ârá¡ ½ ‹T$ ƒÆ ;Â|£ë ‹ ½ ‰T$ ë 3É‹D$ 3ö;Á~K‹M ƒùÿt6Š ¨ t0¨ u Qÿ ”p …Àt!‹Î‹ÆÁù ƒà À‹ ¼ ‹M ‰ Š ˆP ‹D$ FGƒÅ ;ð|µ‹ p 3í‹ ¼ Dí 4‹ ƒøÿuT…íÆF u ¸öÿÿÿë ‹ÅH÷Ø ÀƒÀõPÿÓ‹øƒÿÿt*Wÿ ”p …Àt %ÿ ‰>ƒø u ŠF @ë ƒø u ŠF ë ŠF @ë ŠF €ˆF Eƒý |‰‹ ½ Rÿ p _][ƒÄHÃSU‹-œp VW» ¼ ‹3…öt:†€ ;ðs ~ ‹Gü…Àt WÿÕ‹
<p>This posting is irretrievably damaged. It isn't fixable. The complete posting can be found </p>
<p><span style="font-size: 3em;"><a href="http://dailywarnewsblog.com/">here</a></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5501771.post-1174506243585123082007-03-21T13:33:00.000-07:002007-03-21T14:24:59.716-07:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20070321/capt.xmd10903211849.aptopix_iraq_security_plan_xmd109.jpg?x=380&y=253&sig=KnHvVgbt1uC0DfhqRQXVnw--"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 380px;" src="http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20070321/capt.xmd10903211849.aptopix_iraq_security_plan_xmd109.jpg?x=380&y=253&sig=KnHvVgbt1uC0DfhqRQXVnw--" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">DAILY WAR NEWS FOR WEDNESDAY, March 21, 2007
</span><blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://news.yahoo.com/photos/ss/events/iraq/082701iraqplane/im:/070321/481/xmd10903211849;_ylt=As0X2cFX1X6j_hECHPOU6VnKps8F">Photo</a>: Iraqi girls watch as a U.S. army soldier from the 1st Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment holds a hand gun that he found while searching their home in western Baghdad's Sunni neighborhood of Ghazaliyah, Iraq, Wednesday, March 21, 2007. U.S. troops conducted a major house to house search in parts of Ghazaliyah Wednesday. (AP Photo/Marko Drobnjakovic)
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">SECURITY INCIDENTS</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Baghdad:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://in.today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2007-03-21T165724Z_01_NOOTR_RTRJONC_0_India-291779-1.xml">U.S. soldiers killed five suspected militants</a> on Wednesday in a raid on a bomb-making factory north of Baghdad that was later destroyed in an air strike, the U.S. military said. The military said the operation near Taji, 20 km north of Baghdad, uncovered a number of 50-gallon barrels of explosive material.
<blockquote></blockquote>
"<a href="http://english.people.com.cn/200703/21/eng20070321_359751.html">Two roadside bombs detonated near passing police patrols near the Beirut Square</a> in eastern part of the capital, damaging a police vehicle and wounding two policemen aboard," the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity. The blasts also damaged several nearby civilian cars and wounded three people, the source added.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.france24.com/france24Public/en/administration/afp-news.html?id=070321115749.a2evasv4&cat=null">Two people were killed when a roadside bomb targeting a passing police patrol in Palestine street exploded</a>. Three policemen were wounded.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.france24.com/france24Public/en/administration/afp-news.html?id=070321115749.a2evasv4&cat=null">A bystander was killed and two guards of the finance ministry were wounded when US troops detonated a car bomb</a> they discovered next to the ministry, a defence ministry official said. The controlled explosion rocked central Baghdad and shook windows in buildings as thick white smoke rose into the sky.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://english.people.com.cn/200703/21/eng20070321_359776.html">Police discovered a booby- trapped truck in downtown Baghdad</a>. Police experts were called in to conduct an under-control explosion, wounding 12 civilians and security members, the source added.
<blockquote></blockquote><blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/COL141269.htm">Iraqi police detonated a huge truck bomb near the Finance Ministry in Baghdad</a> on Wednesday in a controlled explosion that collapsed part of the main highway linking the north and south of the capital. Police said they discovered the truck bomb parked under the Mohammed al-Qassim highway just metres from the ministry building. The explosives were hidden under a pile of lettuces. They detonated the bomb in a controlled explosion but were apparently taken by surprise by the force of the blast, which reduced a section of the raised highway to rubble, punched holes in the ministry building and blew out its windows.</blockquote>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://english.people.com.cn/200703/21/eng20070321_359776.html">Three policemen were wounded when two roadside bombs detonated in quick succession</a> near a passing police patrol in Zaiyounah neighborhood, the source said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/KAM131100.htm">Gunmen killed police captain Hussein Abdullah</a> on Tuesday in the western Baghdad district of Mansour, police said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
A member of parliament and senior member of radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's movement, said <a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/KAM131100.htm">U.S. forces staged an overnight raid on his office in northern Baghdad's Kadhimiya district.</a> Araji said they seized a pistol, rifle and a computer memory card.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Diyala Prv:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
“<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=39970&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">A number of armed groups started to bring down satellite dishes in Muqdadiyah district</a>,” eyewitnesses told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI). They also warned residents against using the dishes.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=39970&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">A group of tribal forces in the district engaged in clashes with al-Qaeda-linked armed groups</a> in Diala province.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Al Madaen:</span>
<a href="http://www.france24.com/france24Public/en/administration/afp-news.html?id=070321115749.a2evasv4&cat=null"><blockquote></blockquote>
Eight people were killed and 18 wounded in twin mortar attacks in Al-Madaen</a>, a small town south of Baghdad, police said. One mortar landed in a residential area wounding several people, prompting crowds to gather. A second mortar then smashed into the crowd, causing most of the casualties.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=39956&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">Iraqi police patrols found in the wee hours on Wednesday two unidentified bodies</a> in al-Madaen district, southeast of Baghdad, said a police source.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Hilla:</span>
<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=39974&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0"><blockquote></blockquote>
Two Iraqi police officers escaped attempts on their lives</a> when two explosive charges went off near their houses in central Hilla, 100 km south of Baghdad, said a police source. “The bombs were planted outside their houses,” media spokesman from the Babel police department, Captain Muthana Khaled Ali, told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI). “The first bomb was detonated at 7:30 am on Wednesday in al-Shawi region in central Hilla, while the second bomb went off ten minutes later in Nader region, also in central Hilla,” he added. The blasts caused material damage to the two houses.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Diwaniya:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/KAM131100.htm">Police said they found the body of a man</a>, shot in the head and bound, on Tuesday in Diwaniya.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/KAM131100.htm">A policeman was killed and eight wounded, including four civilians, when clashes erupted</a> between police and gunmen on Tuesday in several districts of Diwaniya, 180 km (110 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/KAM131100.htm">The bodies of two police commandos were found with gunshot wounds</a> in the southern city of Diwaniya, 180 km (110 miles) south of Baghdad, police said
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Basra:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=39980&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">British forces launched a crackdown operation in Hussein neighborhood,</a> west of Basra, in the early hours of Wednesday that targeted two houses, believed to be involved in indirect shooting against the British Consulate in central Basra,” Captain Katie Brown told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI) by phone. “Three suspected gunmen fled from the place during the operation, while the forces managed to arrest a suspect in the second house,” she added. “The British patrol came under attack while leaving the area and a shootout started with a group of gunmen, during which one of the attackers was wounded,” she said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Mosul:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/KAM131100.htm">Police said that they found the bodies of seven people shot dead</a> on Tuesday in different districts of the northern city of Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Al Anbar Prv:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.newsone.ca/hinesbergjournal/ViewArticle.aspx?id=79188&source=2">U.S.-Iraqi troops backed by American warplanes battled al-Qaida-linked insurgents</a> for more than five hours in clashes near Fallujah that left eight killed and five Iraqi policemen wounded, the military said. Local police then killed two al-Qaida fighters and wounded five in a gunbattle, Hollenbeck said in an e-mailed statement, adding that five policemen also were wounded. Insurgents using a roadside bomb during the 10-hour operation killed one civilian and wounded five, it said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/KAM131100.htm">Gunmen killed a former army brigadier and a friend in a drive-by shooting in the city of Falluja</a>, 50 km (35 miles) west of Baghdad, police said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">>> NEWS</span>
<a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/iraq;_ylt=AoQouFZOfaiNpQHWTnbzpBRX6GMA"><blockquote></blockquote>
Iraq's vice president called for talks with the country's myriad insurgent groups</a> as the only way to tame violence more than a month into a massive security plan to quell Baghdad.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Tareq al-Hashemi, a Sunni, made the remarks as it emerged that the US Army had released an aide of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, one of America's sworn enemies in Iraq, apparently on the request of the prime minister. (…)
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Hashemi told the BBC in an interview broadcast a day after the fourth anniversary of the US-led invasion that militants, terror network Al-Qaeda excluded, were "just part of the Iraqi communities."
<blockquote></blockquote>
"I do believe there is no way but to talk to everybody," said Hashemi, who was due in Tokyo later Wednesday.
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All groups "should be invited, should be called to sit down around the table to discuss their fears, their reservations," he said, despite saying Al-Qaeda was "not very much willing, in fact, to talk to anybody."
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<a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070321/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_070319204589;_ylt=Ahm0mIlwXbUnKhtT2Ko4GV5X6GMA">Hundreds of chanting mourners buried Saddam Hussein's former vice president near the ousted dictator</a>, his sons and two other executed deputies Tuesday in a spot that has become the graveyard of the ousted regime.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Taha Yassin Ramadan's body, which was covered with the Iraqi flag, was interred in a building courtyard in the Tigris River village of Ouja hours after he was hanged for his part in the killings of 148 Shiite Muslims following a 1982 assassination attempt on Saddam.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">>> COMMENTARY AND ANALYSIS</span>
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<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Left I on the News: CONVENTIONAL "WISDOM" ON IRAQ</span>
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A lot of people, politicians and pundits and "regular" people, take the attitude that "we" just can't leave Iraq, because we'll be abandoning the Iraqi people to chaos, and the occupation is the only thing preventing that from happening. This is something you hear from people who supported the war but now say they realize it was a bad idea (but they still don't think we can actually leave) as well as from people who were opposed to the war from the start. This line is said with absolute authority - the speaker <span style="font-style: italic;">knows</span> this is what will happen if U.S. forces leave Iraq.
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Even if this conventional wisdom were true, it wouldn't justify an illegal occupation. But there's one more little problem though - <span style="font-style: italic;">by a 2-1 margin, the Iraqi people, who are in a lot better position to know than American politicians and pundits, don't think it's true!</span> This is what I think is the key result of a new poll (pdf link) that the media are writing and talking about. The question was, "do you believe that the security situation in Iraq will get better or worse in the immediate weeks following a withdrawal of Multi National Forces?" 29% said it would get "a great deal better," 24% said "a little better," and 6% said "stay the same." Only 26% thought it would get a little or a lot worse. So that's three out of five Iraqis, a clear majority, who think that the security situation in Iraq will not get worse, and only one in four who think it will get worse.
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With all the coverage of this poll I've read and heard, though, (e.g., <span style="font-style: italic;">Washington Post, New York Times</span>), not a single one has highlighted the result of this particular question, which relates directly to the major rationale offered why U.S. troops have to stay in Iraq. Funny, that.
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<a href="http://lefti.blogspot.com/2007_03_01_lefti_archive.html#117442482157022555">link</a>
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<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Firas Al-Atraqchi, The Daily Star Egypt: </span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">FOUR YEARS LATER, THE ANNIHILATION OF IRAQ IS STILL ON COURSE</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
Four years ago, US-led forces began a vicious aerial bombardment of the oil-rich country of Iraq. Referred to as Operation Iraqi Freedom, the opening salvo ushered the vital Arab nation into an era of darkness, dread and destruction.
<blockquote></blockquote>
The first signs that Iraqis were in for a bloody and inhumane occupation were felt in the "precision bombing" of Baghdad and other cities. Arab media clamored viciously to broadcast the freshest images of civilian dead which were coming in to news bureaus every hour.
<blockquote></blockquote>
In the 1,461 days that have since passed, Iraq as a nation is in decay; its people are displaced — refugees in neighboring countries. Nearly 700,000 Iraqis of all religions and sects have died. Public order is in disarray; gunshots and explosions in schools, marketplaces, and parks have replaced the chirp and chatter of everyday life.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Mosques and churches have been leveled. Towns and villages have been cleansed. Cities have been occupied and systematically destroyed. Sectarian hatred has become civil law as thousands of families escape persecution and death.
Nearly five million Iraqis have escaped the carnage that is their once-loved country and now rely on the kindness — and patience — of Egypt, Jordan, Syria and others.
<blockquote></blockquote>
I have met many of these refugees in said countries; all are worn out. A sadness … a heaviness is to be found in their countenances, their eyes are sleepless and empty. They tell tales of horror, describing Iraq as a country fallen to zealotry, terrorism, and religious fanaticism.
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They used to grimace when hearing of a 10-year-old neighbor kidnapped, raped, and beheaded. They used to gasp when hearing of a young Christian woman garroted because she refused to don the veil. They used to cry out in anger upon hearing a 14-year-old girl was raped by four US soldiers.
<blockquote></blockquote>
They do these things no longer. Iraqis are the waking dead. Zombies, if Hollywood analogies are permitted here.
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<a href="http://www.dailystaregypt.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=6260">read in full…</a>
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<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Khalid Jarrar: THE FOURTH YEAR</span>
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The fourth year has arrived.
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and counting.
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my biggest fear is that i will be sitting on a chair every year, posting about the fifth year, seventh year, 20th year of occupation and it's harvest of blood, pain and disappointment.
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The policy and decision makers of the United states of American has turned into the most arrogant idiots, drunk with power to the point that they can't drive their way home from Iraq anymore.
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We have a saying: God supports a just nation even if it was an infidel nation, and destroys an unjust one even if it believed in him. And it's about the time to say it, USA have became the unjust nation that needs to be removed, not removed off the map with a nuclear bomb i mean, but removed from it's position as the leader of the world.
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USA doesn't have the moral superiority propaganda on it's side anymore. It's a mere mission of greed and aggression that its leading in the world now: If we don't like you, we shoot you. If you don't give us your wealth, we shoot you, and if you don't like us for doing this to others, we gladly shoot you too.
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This has to come to an end. (…)
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I say again: if it wasn't that the American army is losing by all means, most of Americans wouldn't have moved a hand, or a tongue to demand the withdrawal of the army from Iraq.
So after all, resistance does work.
<blockquote></blockquote>
of course it does work. Haven't you read the history?
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Any occupied people revolt immediately or eventually, and when people do, armies never stand a chance, says history.
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Yes the resistance, the national patriot resistance, the one that is attacking the American army and the other occupying armies, and everyone that helps them and protects them. Not the terrorists that are killing Iraqis, weather Sunna or Shea, no not those. Those nobody knows who they are and where were they before the occupation, they somehow grew and flourished under the umbrella of the occupation, and i dare say as a direct reason of it; when Bramer created the concept of the sectarian based distribution of government, it all started, and that was over a year after the war, so for a whole year Iraqis were heavily loaded with weapons and under a completely safe environment, and they didn't jump on each other, no sectarian tension was registered that led to battles, no Iranian or Iranian based militias killing Sunna and definitely no Sunni militias killing Shea too, neither, and if you go to Jordan or Syria now, there are about a million Iraqi refuge in each of these countries alone, ran out for their lives from the hell-y situation in Iraq, and among those millions of people we never heard till this very moment of any fight or any sort of sectarian based problems, which means that as i said: this sectarian tension was created politically by the occupation: divide and conquer.
But back to what i was saying: The national patriot resistance, the simple everyday Iraqis that can't be self centred and say: let Iraq fight on it's own, we will hide in our houses. No sir, no madam, they didn't. They left their lives and Jobs, as any hero in any occupied country would do, held their weapons and started to fight. And they did indeed make the life of the strongest army in the world a living hell, no doubt,they taught them the lesson: if we bite each other's fingers, you will be the ones to scream first.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Iraqis are in Iraq, the proper place for Iraqi people!, and have no where else to go, and will stay there and will fight there till the end, because simply they are too proud to be occupied, and simply because they have no where else to go after most of the countries in the world decided they won't open their doors to Iraqis and won't hold their burden, countries including USA itself, that accepted a tiny number of Iraqi refuges since the war, a shameful three figures number.
<blockquote></blockquote>
what a shame. what a shame.
<blockquote></blockquote>
And even terrorism itself, which is the killing of innocent people for no crime they did [excluding that done by the occupation at this particular context], is not making the life of the US army any easier too, it's just another indicator of how bad they are running the battle ground and how much they lack the ability to control the security in Iraq. Hell, news here are nothing but the death toll of the day.
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So as a conclusion i have to say: That it's shameful enough, and hurtful enough to say, and sad enough yet truthful enough, that for most Americans it actually requires terrorism that kills innocent people, and resistance that kills thousands of Americans and burns billions of American money, to make them demand an end to an occupation, but still basing on their own losses and not because of the feeling of responsibility or guilt over what they did to Iraq, now correct me if i am wrong here, but there is something seriously wrong with this moral equation here. (…)
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Sad fourth birthday hateful spiteful occupation, Sad fourth birthday dear beloved Iraq, i miss you, and i promise you that there will be an end, soon.
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<a href="http://secretsinbaghdad.blogspot.com/2007/03/fourth-year.html">read in full…</a>
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<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Joseph Cannon, Cannonfire: THE WAR OF WORDS</span>
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Just a thought on this distressing anniversary (at least to us, if not to King George, the sports fan)….
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Let’s stop dignifying this messo’potamia in Iraq by calling it a war. What has happened in Iraq is NOT a "war," it was never a "war," and the only real "war" that could ever come of our presence there is a civil war that no one in this administration can admit, and that we should not be party to in any way, shape or form. Certainly not now, after all.
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Instead, let’s loudly insist that this very undignified mess be called what it is, an invasion of a sovereign nation that has led to our occupation of that nation.
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We invaded Iraq, and we now occupy Iraq. This is not a war, it is an invasion and occupation.
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The only folks involved who have any right to refer to our presence in Iraq as a war are the Iraqis themselves. We forfeited that right when we determined to be the aggressors, raising our bomb-filled fists and screeching "THIS MEANS WAR!!" without any real provocation whatsoever articulated or proven in that "this."
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The implications of such a shift in wording are enormous for not only how the public responds to the situation (as if the public could be much more outraged if we called it genocide of Americans), but for how the debate is actually undertaken, particularly in Congress.
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<a href="http://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2007/03/war-of-words.html">read in full…</a>
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">>> BEYOND IRAQ</span>
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Afghanistan:</span>
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<a href="http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/local/16942424.htm">A private security guard from Irmo was seriously injured </a>when a suicide bomber exploded his car next to a U.S. embassy convoy in Afghanistan. Tommy Cullinan, 27, works for North Carolina-based Blackwater Security Service, which has a contract to provide security for the U.S. embassy in Kabul.
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<a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070321/wl_sthasia_afp/afghanistanunrest_070321061213;_ylt=AoBU1P8IztwOo2tdxFCjNpvOVooA">The decapitated body of an Afghan truck driver supplying NATO forces in southern Afghanistan was found</a> dumped at the side of a highway.
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<a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070321/wl_sthasia_afp/afghanistanunrest_070321061213;_ylt=AoBU1P8IztwOo2tdxFCjNpvOVooA">Militants at the weekend cut off the noses and ears of three drivers supplying US military bases</a> in the mountainous eastern province of Nuristan. Police blamed the Taliban.
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<a href="http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/03/21/asia/AS-GEN-Afghan-Violence.php">A clash between U.S. troops and militants in western Afghanistan on Wednesday left one Afghan child dead</a> and three others wounded, Afghan officials said.
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">QUOTE OF THE DAY</span>: "We (…) need to stop talking about 'insurgents.' These people are, by definition, resistance fighters. Insurgents are, by definition, individuals who fight against an established government; there is no established government in Iraq, not one that the citizens fully recognize as independent of the US. On the other hand, a resistance is, by definition, a fight against an occupying force. This is no less trivial distinction, and it is also not unrelated to making the distinction between calling this a war or calling this what it truly is, an invasion and occupation." <span style="font-style: italic;">-- from"The War of Words" by Joseph Cannon (see above)
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</span>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5501771.post-1174421577619614732007-03-20T14:02:00.000-07:002007-03-20T15:43:15.623-07:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20070320/capt.bag10103201140.iraq_attack_bag101.jpg?x=380&y=252&sig=.ytnpOIJTSXOyq_FMQToVg--"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 380px;" src="http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20070320/capt.bag10103201140.iraq_attack_bag101.jpg?x=380&y=252&sig=.ytnpOIJTSXOyq_FMQToVg--" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">DAILY WAR NEWS FOR TUESDAY, March 20, 2007
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</span><blockquote></blockquote><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/photos/ss/events/iraq/082701iraqplane/im:/070320/481/bag10103201140;_ylt=As0X2cFX1X6j_hECHPOU6VnKps8F">Photo</a>: A man looks through a hole of a bulletproof Humvee window in the Baiyaa neighborhood in western Baghdad, Iraq, Tuesday, March 20, 2007. A U.S. military convoy was hit by a road side bomb, according to eyewitnesses and casualties were evacuated by a helicopter. (AP Photo/Asaad Mouhsin) <span style="font-style: italic;">(See below)</span>
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<blockquote></blockquote><a href="http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200703/20/eng20070320_359427.html">A roadside bomb detonated near a passing U.S. convoy on the Jadriyah bridge</a> in southern Baghdad, damaging a U.S. Humvee, killing and wounding the soldiers aboard," a police source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity. A witness at the scene, Ghassan Ali, said he saw a U.S. Humvee caught fire while the U.S. troops blocked the roads and cordoned off the area. "Two U.S. helicopters landed at the scene to evacuate the casualty," he added.
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<a href="x-msg://193/">Bring 'em on</a>: The DoD has announced a new death, one that does not appear to have been previously reported by CENTCOM. According to them, Specialist Marieo Guerrero, 30, of Fort Worth, Texas, was killed by a roadside bomb in Baghdad on Saturday, March 17th. His unit, the 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry Regiment of the 1st Infantry Division is currently attached to the 2nd Brigade of the 1st Cavalry Division in Baghdad. They are believed to be based out of FOB Prosperity in central Baghdad. No currently known death would seem to match this one.
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<span style="font-style: italic;">OTHER SECURITY INCIDENTS </span>
<span style="font-style: italic;"> </span><blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Baghdad:</span>
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<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6494199,00.html">A parked car bomb exploded near a main bus station in central Baghdad</a>, killing five civilians and wounding 18, police said.
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<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6494199,00.html">A suicide car bomber drove his vehicle into an Iraq army checkpoint</a> in a neighborhood in western Baghdad, killing one soldier and wounding another, police said.
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<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6494199,00.html"></a><blockquote><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6494199,00.html">A roadside bomb struck the area about five minutes later</a> but caused no casualties.</blockquote>
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<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6494199,00.html">A car bomb exploded in a tunnel in downtown Baghdad,</a> killing three civilians and wounding seven others, police said.
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<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6494199,00.html">Seven civilians were wounded in two separate attacks in southeastern Baghdad.</a>
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<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L2015598.htm">Mortars in southeastern Baghdad wounded another four.</a>
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<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L2015598.htm">A mortar round landed on a residential district and wounded a man in Zaafaraniya district</a>, south of Baghdad, police said
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Late Monday, U.S. and Iraqi troops engaged in a major operation as part of a security crackdown in the volatile Hurriyah neighborhood in northern Baghdad, state television said. <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6494199,00.html">Witnesses said many people were reported holed up in two Shiite mosques, surrounded by U.S. forces.</a> The state-run Iraqiya network said six civilians had been killed. The U.S. military did not comment on the reports.
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<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L2015598.htm">Mortar rounds wounded five people on Monday </a>just north of Baghdad, police said.
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<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L2015598.htm">A bomb in a mini bus wounded four people in eastern Baghdad</a>, police said.
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<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L2015598.htm">Police said they found bodies of 30 people shot on Monday in different districts of Baghdad</a>.
<a href="http://news.monstersandcritics.com/middleeast/news/article_1280234.php/11_Iraqis_killed_45_wounded_in_Baghdad_attacks__2nd_Lead_"><blockquote></blockquote>
Two Iraqis were killed and six others were wounded in a roadside car bomb </a>in a commercial complex in the Karada district, an Iraqi police source said
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<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/KAR051548.htm">Four mortar bombs killed at least seven and wounded 20 in Abu Dsheer</a>, a Shi'ite majority area, south of Baghdad, police said
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<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/KAR051548.htm">A car bomb near a mosque killed a man and wounded three others</a> in al-Ubaidi district in eastern Baghdad, police said
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Hilla:</span>
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<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=39891&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">A woman and her child were wounded in a mortar attack</a> on a residential neighborhood north of Hilla, a source from the Babel police command said on Tuesday.
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Al Zab:</span>
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<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L2015598.htm">Gunmen killed a man and wounded another in the town of al-Zab</a>, 70 km (40 miles) south west of Kirkuk, police said.
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Kirkuk:</span>
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<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=39894&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">Seven civilians were wounded in a car bomb late on Monday evening</a>, a police source in Kirkuk said on Tuesday. "The explosion occurred in the area of Tisaeen near a complex of schools," the source, who is from the Kirkuk police command's joint operations room, told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq.
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<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/KAR051548.htm">Police said they found the body of a policeman</a>, stabbed with a knife and bore signs of torture, in Kirkuk.
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<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/KAR051548.htm">Gunmen killed a policeman on a main road near the city of Kirkuk</a>, police said.
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Al Anbar Prv:</span>
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<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L2015598.htm">Police found the body of a man with gunshot wounds </a>in the Sunni stronghold of Falluja, 50 km (35 miles) west of Baghdad, police said.
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<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/KAR051548.htm">Police and tribal fighters killed 39 gunmen linked to al-Qaeda in the town of Amiriya</a>, some 5 km (3 miles) south of Falluja, Ahmed al-Dulaimi, Ramadi governor's office director, said. He said nine tribal fighters and eight policemen were killed and 17 wounded in the clashes. Doctor Abdul Sattar al-Esawi said that Falluja hospital received 17 bodies, including eight policemen and 16 wounded, three in serious condition.
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<span style="font-style: italic;">In Country:</span>
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<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L2015598.htm">Iraqi army soldiers killed three insurgents and arrested 101 others during the last 24 hours</a> in different parts of Iraq, the Defence Ministry said.
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">>> REPORTS</span>
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<a href="http://www.news24.com/News24/World/News/0,9294,2-10-1462_2086059,00.html">Small Israeli pilotless planes are gathering intelligence for US-led forces in Iraq</a> and Afghanistan, said the manufacturer in a statement on Monday. Elbit Systems, one of Israel's leading defence electronics companies, said the little "Skylark" can be carried and operated by a single soldier, covering an area within a range of 10km day or night, said the company.
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">>> COMMENTARY AND ANALYSIS</span>
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<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Felicity Arbuthnot: THE IDES OF MARCH</span>
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'Beware the ides of March', is said as a warning of impending and certain danger. Since it is from Plutarch, referring to a warning to Julius Caesar, it is unlikely to have influenced George W.Bush's 'shock and awe' decision to invade Iraq in March, since literature is not his forte. (Unless you count 'My Pet Goat'.)
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For Iraq though, March brings not alone the fourth anniversary of the illegal US led invasion, monumental destruction of life, all societal structures, history, the National Museum, libraries of ancient manuscripts, all records from educational qualifications to medical reports, births, deaths and marriages and never ending death and trauma beyond imagination, but the memory of the 1991 'turkey shoot' on the Basra Road and the US encouraged uprisings in the south and north - then bloodily put down - with US assistance. March marked the beginning of the forty day period of mourning for the thousands of retreating conscripts and civilian families incinerated in their vehicles, when B52's bombed the front and back of the sixty mile convoy, then relentlessly bombed the rest 'like sitting ducks', as one pilot explained.
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At least 'fifteen hundred tanks, armoured vehicles, jeeps, water and fuel tankers, ambulances, firetrucks, tractor trailors, buses and civilian vehicles and passenger cars ... some flying white flags' were 'pounded for hours' with anti-personel bombs 'and finally finished off with devastating B52 bombing runs'. It is thought that thousands were crushed, or incinerated in their vehicles. Windscreens and humanity melted. As the William Tell overture and the Lone Ranger theme, blasted out on the USS Ranger, 'planes reloaded and reloaded, returning to hit the convoy again and again, dropping everything from cluster bombs to five hundred pound bombs 'like sharks in a feeding frenzy'.
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US Air Force planes from Saudia Arabia 'raced north to join in the fun'. There was so much air traffic involved in the 'frenzy' that the 'killing box' had to be divided up by air traffic controllers to prevent aircraft colliding. 'I think we're past the point of letting (Hussein) get in his tanks and drive them back to Iraq ....' a US pilot said, adding: 'I feel fairly punitive about it.' Saddam Hussein, in whose name the United Nations denied medicines, food, pencils and even blackboards since he would personally misuse them, was now apparently capable of driving sixty miles of vehicles, single handedly. (…)
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The Iraqi pull out from Kuwait began on 26th February 1991, the ceasefire was signed on the 28th February. On 2nd March 1991, the US 24th Mechanised Division slaughtered thousands more Iraqi soldiers, an action approved by General Norman Schwatzkopf (who famously remarked: 'no one left to kill'. His autobiography is 'It doesn't take a Hero'. Indeed.) 'We really waxed them', said one Commander. Another American was recorded saying 'Say hello to Allah', as his Hellfire missile obliterated a vehicle. 'Yee-hah', said another voice. There was an attempt to cover up the carnage of another vehicle strewn road, since: '..it didn't look good coming after the ceasefire.' (Ramsey Clark, The Fire this Time, Thunder's Mouth Press.) The then US Ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, had told Saddam Hussein that America had 'no view on Arab-Arab conflicts.' Hussein had consulted her on the possible invasion. Iraq accused Kuwait of slant-drilling into their Rumaila oil field across Kuwait's border, destabilising Iraq's currency and moving Kuwaiti settlements well into Iraqi territory.
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One conscript who survived the horrors of the Basra Road, with the remnants of his unit, told me how they had walked the five hundred and fifty kilometres, through the destruction, by the body parts, home, to carpet bombed Baghdad, none knowing whether family or house had survived: 'We wanted to cry, but we had no tears left.' Eighty eight thousand five hundred tonnes of bombs had fallen on ancient Mesapotamia, which brought the world all we call civlized.
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As the wickedness of George W.Bush and his war criminal Administration are marked, four years on from the illegal invasion and destruction of the 'cradle of civilisation', another George Bush and other criminal acts should also be remembered. He may have taken to crying publicly over his son, he should also look in the mirror.
And on this March day another Minister in Iraq's legitimate government ('sovereignty and territorial integrity', guaranteed by the United Nations) is hanged at dawn, taking civilisation back five hundred years, under the blood-lust watch of America and Britain, in a further act of barbarism, we all should. The unspeakable sins of the son and his Whitehall lackey, are being perpetrated in our name.
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<a href="http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m31518">read in full…</a>
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<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Malcom Lagauche: HUSAYN AL-KURDI ON THE BA’ATH PARTY, KURDS, AND THE CIA</span>
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Husayn al-Kurdi as an expert on Middle Eastern Affairs. He is the president of News International. Over the past two decades, Al-Kurdi has had hundreds of articles published on the Middle East.
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<span style="font-style: italic;">ML: The current rewriting of history includes many "leftist" writers who opposed the Iraq invasion and criticize U.S. imperialism. However, they also condemn Saddam and say that he was put in power by the CIA. What’s your take on this?</span>
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HAK: I’ve read and read and can’t see where that’s true. What’s the source behind all these sources? There’s nothing at all.
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The thing we heard is that the CIA gave Saddam a list of communists. Even I believed this at one time. But, that’s an absurdity because everybody in Iraq knew who the communists were. They were public figures as well. A lot of them were tormenting the people a long time ago. The Ba'ath Party did not need a goddamn list from the CIA to say who they were, where they were, or what had to be done about them. Go behind the sources and see what it’s actually based on. The source will fold before your very eyes, just like Curveball and all the stuff he was coming out with.
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<span style="font-style: italic;">ML: Another fallacy the left mentions is that the U.S. supplied Iraq with much military equipment in the Iran-Iraq War, thus the CIA kept Saddam in power. In fact, Iraq only spent $200 million dollars with the U.S. for this time, mostly on helicopters. Its major suppliers were the Soviet Union and China, with whom Iraq spent billions. After 1990, the CIA/Saddam allegations took on a life of their own. How does this play into the myths now being written?</span>
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HAK: You are pointing out the general fact of the CIA’s activities toward Saddam and the Ba’ath. The version via the Kurds that no deal was ever good enough for them. Who put them up to it? Today, we know it was the CIA and Mossad working in tandem. (…)
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<span style="font-style: italic;">ML: Contrary to be popularly-held belief that the U.S. inserted Saddam in power, could it really be that the CIA was trying to undermine Saddam and the Ba’ath Party from day one?</span>
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HAK: Between the CIA and the Mossad, we have to take that into account. There is an overlapping project that has been in effect since the 1950s.
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I don’t remember the period of 1968 to 1973 as the CIA being supportive of the Ba’athists. They considered Iraq to be a frontline state against Israel and a part of the rejectionist front toward Israel and during that period the U.S. was not friendly toward Iraq. The U.S.’ biggest client at the time was Iran. Then, the U.S. signed off and had its own deal with Barzani to subvert Iraq. It was precisely in that time-frame they were carrying on their activities.
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<span style="font-style: italic;">ML: In 1973, the Ba’athists committed an unpardonable act in the eyes of the U.S. They nationalized Iraqi oil. How does this affect the interplay?</span>
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HAK: You’re approaching an area where the bad guys have always had it in for Saddam and the Ba’ath. Pan-Arabism is something the Israelis and the U.S. will never play. Then, you have the matter of "threatening their (U.S.) intereests" as an excuse to commit aggression. Then you had an Arab country becoming too strong. Then you had Saddam refusing to knuckle under. He wanted to go his own way.
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<a href="http://www.malcomlagauche.com/id1.html">read in full…</a>
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<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Iraq forever: FOUR YEARS AGO…</span>
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On the fourth anniversary of the Occupation and the invasion of Iraq..
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The Resistance will prevail and God's enemies are being and shall be defeated tomorrow! God's willing!
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Today! after four years of the bloodthirsty US, pigs Brits, and pagan Iranian aggression against Iraq!
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Four years ago.. we never thought that the aggression will end up into occupation!
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And four years ago we never imagined that Baghdad will burn as it did .. Our beautiful Baghdad, will be plundered and looted as it did!
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Four years ago we never ever though betrayal was so easy.. for some people!
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And four years ago we never imagined that Nizar Qabbani's prophecy that Arabs have died has become true!
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But..
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Four years ago we never thought that in Iraq there was such a Resisting people and in such a volume and in such a strength!
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And four years ago we fought only through orders from the government..
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And four years ago, US weapons scared us ..
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Four years ago the sacrifice for God and the homeland was not as much widespread and deepened and growing as is the case today!
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Four years ago our leaders were known and distinguished through their ranks, their cars and their names..
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While today our leaders are only distinguished through the level of their combat, sacrifice and martyrdom for God, honor and Iraqi immaculate soil!
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Four years ago we never though that the US will be bled to this horrendous extend and that the bloodthirsty US invaders will get burnt in Baghdad' streets, gates and ramparts on the hands of the believers men .. Today we witness with our eyes proper.. how these US gangsters filthy corpses fly in the air like torn loo papers while they die and pee on themselves with fright and desperation in their hiding spiders' holes..
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Four years ago we never thought that we will be able to defeat so fast the US with all its weapons ..Today we are witnessing the defeat and the collapse of the mightiest planetary force with all its alliances and all what it built such as technologies, weaponry and criminal gangsters trained to kill for more than fifty years.. Today, these US criminals in Iraq, hide behind their armors and armed vehicle when moving around.. They sleep behind their armors.. and all that has no meaning for the men of Iraq who combat them with simple weapons their beds being the sacred soil of Iraq and their cover and protection the Iraqi skies.. These men have nothing protecting them from the scorching summers' heat and the grinding winters' cold! These men carry in their hearts the armors of faith and they are protected by their perseverance and patience.. Their food is piety and faith in one single and unique God.. Nothing scares them but God's wrath and they only ask the protection from the mighty and most capable God! They ask Him mercy and grace through eyes filled with tears and prayerful hearts and wish to their souls to meet Him and be in amongst the martyrs and the good ones! They don't request from His worshipers nothing but to pray for them and this is the minimum of faith!
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<a href="http://www.al-moharer.net/">read in full…
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<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Whatever It Is, I'm Against It: HAPPY 4TH BIRTHDAY, IRAQ WAR! THEY’RE SO CUTE AT THAT AGE</span>
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Bush gave a little speech for the 4th anniversary (8 Friedman Units) of the Old Iraq War, with a painting of Teddy Roosevelt, presumably in Cuba, behind him. He didn’t spend much time on the Old Iraq War, which was initiated “to eliminate the threat [Saddam Hussein’s] regime posed to the Middle East and to the world.” He moves right on before you can ask, “Without the WMDs you said he had, what threat was that, monkey boy?”
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It’s another clean-slate moment for George, like quitting drinking and 9/11. He wants us to forget the boring Old Iraq War and focus on the New Iraq War, the “Baghdad security plan.” The New Iraq War is bright and fresh and, ya know, new, and isn’t bogged down after four long years, no, it’s “still in the early stages,” so what are you people being all impatient about? It will “take months, not days or weeks.” So, 4 or 30 times longer.
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“It can be tempting,” he says, “to look at the challenges in Iraq and conclude our best option is to pack up and go home. That may be satisfying in the short run” but blah blah contagion of violence blah safe haven blah blah. Yes, opposition to the war is all about giving in and doing what’s “satisfying,” it’s just self-indulgence and you people make me sick.
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<a href="http://whateveritisimagainstit.blogspot.com/2007/03/happy-4th-birthday-iraq-war-theyre-so.html">link</a>
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<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Roads to Iraq: BA’ATH PARTY: WE PROVED TO THE WORLD THAT “THE US IS A PAPER TIGER”</span>
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The neocons and the Zionists plan is the colonization of Iraq and use it as a launching base for full and direct control over the the oil in Middle Eastern countries and nations, and to move from Iraq, and in order to impose a new colonial world through the use of oil to blackmail other nations, destruct their economies, and disrupt all aspects of modern life, thereby to achieve the most desirable dream, to make the present century an American century.
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The Iraqi national resistance in all its factions successfully destroyed the base of this project is, making impossible to achieve the other two steps: The full control over all the oil countries, and the third, which is the colonization of the world.
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The Iraqi resistance strategy raised a serious global revolution against American imperialism, through compulsion to stop and prevent America from achieving any progress, and dealing with their project belligerently by making their army a daily target, draining the American economy and destroying their reputation, and we proved to the world that (America is a paper tiger).
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Khrushchev, former President of the Soviet Union, who put the earlier statement, failed with all the Soviet might and nuclear super power to put his words in practice, Mao Zedong, leader of China said (yes America is a paper tiger but it has nuclear fangs)! Iraq Resistance and the Baath Party proved that America is a paper tiger and we succeeded to remove its fangs making it a stray dog running, looking for a place to hide from the strikes of the resistance lions.
As a result of the defeat of America in Iraq, the world emerged from the fear of American blackmail and started to challenge the US, as in the case of Latin America, which was called (the American back yard).
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The armed resistance of the American occupation in Afghanistan evolved rapidly as a result of the Iraqi Islamic revolution and learning sophisticated, creative and unique methods of guerrilla warfare to combat.
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The Iraqi million Army fighters are tested, the world has witnessed for the first time in its history a guerrilla warfare based on a large regular army fighters, and thus America and NATO realized that they have fall in a quagmire and they will will not exit only to the tomb of inevitable defeat.
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<a href="http://www.roadstoiraq.com/2007/03/20/baath-party-we-proved-to-the-world-that-the-us-is-a-paper-tiger/">read in ful…</a>
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">QUOTE OF THE DAY</span>: "Today, as we enter the fifth year of the occupation the world has become convinced that armed Iraqi resistance has become the sole superpower." <span style="font-style: italic;">-- from the </span><span style="font-style: italic;">Ba’ath Party statement on Iraq entering the fifth year under occupation</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> (See above)
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</span><a href="http://www.al-moharer.net/"><blockquote></blockquote>
</a>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5501771.post-1174334155520313152007-03-19T13:15:00.000-07:002007-03-19T14:44:49.466-07:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/afp/20070319/capt.sge.grn67.190307150930.photo05.photo.default-512x341.jpg?x=380&y=253&sig=L9d7541q.lOAWN06ypmZZA--"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 380px;" src="http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/afp/20070319/capt.sge.grn67.190307150930.photo05.photo.default-512x341.jpg?x=380&y=253&sig=L9d7541q.lOAWN06ypmZZA--" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">DAILY WAR NEWS FOR MONDAY, March 19, 2007
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<a href="http://news.yahoo.com/photos/ss/events/iraq/082701iraqplane/im:/070319/photos_wl_me_afp/51cf5c5b22db6f8f4b1962315ba8071f;_ylt=Aj6Zj81coS7G1UEgTiCYr5jKps8F">Photo</a>: An Iraqi woman pleads with Iraqi National Police as they detain her son during a joint patrol with US soldiers in the Dora neighbourhood of southern Baghdad, 17 March. Iraqis are increasingly pessimistic about their future, according to a new opinion poll as the nation battles to curb relentless bloodshed four years on from the US-led invasion.(AFP/File/David Furst)
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<span style="font-style: italic;">SECURITY INCIDENTS
<blockquote></blockquote>
</span><span style="font-style: italic;">Baghdad:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
In Sharja district in central Baghdad, <a href="http://news.monstersandcritics.com/middleeast/news/article_1279358.php/Blasts_strike_Baghdad_many_casualties__1st_Lead_">three people were killed and 10 others wounded when an explosive device went off near a Shiite mosque</a>, an Iraqi police source said.
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<a href="http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/newssentinel/16933542.htm"></a><blockquote><a href="http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/newssentinel/16933542.htm">A bomb exploded during prayers at a Shiite mosque in the capital, killing at least eight worshippers</a> and wounding nearly three dozen on the eve of the war's fourth anniversary, police said. The attack occurred about 12:30 p.m., shattering windows and damaging a wall of the small green-domed mosque that is situated among several shops in the central Shorja market area. Police initially blamed it on a suicide bomber trying to enter the building but later said the blast was caused by a bomb placed in the corner behind the preacher's podium, leaving a crater in the floor.</blockquote>
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In Alwiya district also in central Baghdad, <a href="http://news.monstersandcritics.com/middleeast/news/article_1279358.php/Blasts_strike_Baghdad_many_casualties__1st_Lead_">a number of Iraqis were killed and wounded in twin blasts</a>, al-Iraqiya state TV reported. No further details were immediately available in either attacks
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<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L19449108.htm">A roadside bomb wounded four people in southern Baghdad,</a> police said.
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<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L19449108.htm">Iraqi army soldiers killed eight insurgents and arrested 66 others</a> during the last 24 hours in different parts of Iraq, the Defence Ministry said.
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Diyala Prv:</span>
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In Diyala province north-east of Baghdad, <a href="http://news.monstersandcritics.com/middleeast/news/article_1279358.php/Blasts_strike_Baghdad_many_casualties__1st_Lead_">unidentified gunmen shot one Iraqi dead and wounded another</a>, local Voices of Iraqi news agency reported citing an Iraqi police source.
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<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=39836&amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">Four civilians were killed and five others were wounded </a>when two katyusha rockets hit a residential area north of Hibhib town, 55 km north of Baghdad, said a police source.
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Dijelah:</span>
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<a href="http://kvoa.com/Global/story.asp?S=6244856">The mayor of a small Shiite village south of Baghdad was kidnapped and killed </a>today.Police say the mayor (of Dijelah) was abducted on his way to work. Later, his bullet-riddled body was found dumped along a highway. The village is about 100 miles southeast of the Iraqi capital.
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Iskandariya:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L19449108.htm/">A mortar round landed on a house, killing a woman and her daughter </a>on Sunday in Iskandariya, police said.
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<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L19449108.htm">Gunmen killed a man and wounded four others on Sunday</a> in two different incidents in drive-by shootings in the town of Iskandariya, police said.
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<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L19449108.htm">Gunmen killed a policeman in the town of Iskandariya</a>, 40 km (25 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Hilla:</span>
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<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L19449108.htm">Gunmen killed a man on Sunday in a town near Hilla</a>, 100 km (60 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.
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<a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070319/wl_mideast_afp/iraq_070319120406;_ylt=AiTvPmwQPlIOM7j_TcCID8ZX6GMA">Three people were killed when gunmen opened fire on them in the city of Hilla</a>, south of Baghdad, police said.
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Diwaniya:</span>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L19449108.htm"><blockquote></blockquote>
Police found the body of a police captain on Sunday in Diwaniya</a>, police said.
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<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L19449108.htm">Gunmen killed the head of the local passport office on Sunday in the city of Diwaniya</a>, 180 km (110 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Mahaweel:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L19449108.htm">Police found the body of a man with gunshot wounds in the head</a> in the town of Mahaweel, 75 km (50 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Dhuluiya:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L19449108.htm">Two police stations were badly damaged when suspected al Qaeda militants planted bombs in and around them</a> in the town of Dhuluiya, 80 km (50 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Dour:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L19449108.htm">A roadside bomb targeting an Iraqi army patrol killed one soldier and wounded three others</a> in the town of Dour, near Tikrit, the U.S.-Iraqi Joint Coordination Centre said.
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Tikrit:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L19449108.htm">Police found the body of an Iraqi soldier in the city of Tikrit</a>, 175 km (110 miles) north of Baghdad, the U.S.-Iraqi Joint Coordination Centre said.
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Samarra:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L19449108.htm">Gunmen attacked a police checkpoint</a>, killing a policeman and wounding three others in Samarra, 100 km (60 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Balad:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L19449108.htm">Insurgents attacked a police station near Balad with a car bomb and small-arms fire</a> on Thursday, the U.S. military said on Monday. Six people were killed in subsequent clashes -- three insurgents, two policemen and a civilian -- and one civilian was wounded, a U.S. statement said.
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Kirkuk:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L19487814.htm">Three car bombs and two roadside devices killed 18 people and wounded 37</a> in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk on Monday, police said. The blasts happened in different parts of the city but exploded within a few minutes. One car bomb targeted the local offices of the secular political party of former prime minister Iyad Allawi.
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<a href="http://www.france24.com/france24Public/en/administration/afp-news.html?id=070319112703.esgobm9s&cat=null"></a><blockquote><a href="http://www.france24.com/france24Public/en/administration/afp-news.html?id=070319112703.esgobm9s&cat=null">The first and the biggest attack, a car bomb near two mosques, killed 10 people and wounded eight</a>, police Colonel Taha Salaheddin told AFP. The bomb went off in central Kirkuk's Sector 90 district which houses the two mosques, one Shiite and one Sunni, as well as the emergency police command, Salaheddin said. He said 10 cars were completely burnt and 20 shops damaged.
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<a href="http://www.france24.com/france24Public/en/administration/afp-news.html?id=070319112703.esgobm9s&cat=null">The second car bomb went off in south Kirkuk's Ras Domeez market </a>near a branch of the Islamic Bank, killing five people and wounding 26, he said. Of the five killed, four were policemen whose patrol was passing by at the time of the blast.
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and <a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L19487814.htm">the third exploded in a commercial street</a>, Brigadier Sarhat Qader said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L19487814.htm">The three roadside bombs targeted Iraqi police and army patrols</a>, Qader said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/03/19/iraq.main/">The car bombs targeted an Iraqi police patrol, an education directorate building, and a mobile phone company</a>, according to police.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.france24.com/france24Public/en/administration/afp-news.html?id=070319112703.esgobm9s&cat=null">The fourth car bomb targeted a senior officer from Saddam Hussein's former army and destroyed a communication tower</a> but caused no casualties.
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Mosul:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L19449108.htm">A man was killed and two wounded on Sunday when clashes erupted between U.S. forces and gunmen</a> in the city of Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.
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<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L19449108.htm">The bodies of four people with gunshot wounds were found on Sunday</a> in Mosul, police said.
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<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L19449108.htm">A roadside bomb targeting a police patrol wounded two civilians</a> in the northern city of Mosul, police said.
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">>> NEWS</span>
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<a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070319/wl_mideast_afp/iraqjusticeramadan_070319191447;_ylt=AlCckxHz8JdgugUwxRNbkhZX6GMA">Iraq will execute Saddam Hussein's aide and former vice president</a> Taha Yassin Ramadan on Tuesday -- the day the war-ravaged nation marks the fourth anniversary of the US-led war to topple the former dictator, a lawyer from Saddam's defence team told AFP Monday.
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">>> REPORTS</span>
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">> </span>The optimism that helped sustain Iraqis during the first few years of the war has dissolved into widespread fear, anger and distress amid unrelenting violence, a survey found.
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The poll — the third in Iraq since early 2004 by ABC News and media partners — draws <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070319/ap_on_go_ot/iraq_poll_6;_ylt=Api55h8fXPcqdUbK_.aKGOVX6GMA">a stark portrait of an increasingly pessimistic population under great emotional stress.</a> Among the findings of this survey for ABC News, USA Today, the BBC and ARD German TV:
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_The number of Iraqis who say their own life is going well has dipped from 71 percent in November 2005 to 39 percent now.
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_About three-fourths of Iraqis report feelings of anger, depression and difficulty concentrating.
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_More than half of Iraqis have curtailed activities like going out of their homes, going to markets or other crowded places and traveling through police checkpoints.
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_Only 18 percent of Iraqis have confidence in U.S. and coalition troops, and 86 percent are concerned that someone in their household will be a victim of violence.
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_Slightly more than half of Iraqis — 51 percent — now say that violence against U.S. forces is acceptable — up from 17 percent who felt that way in early 2004. More than nine in 10 Sunni Arabs in Iraq now feel this way.
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_While 63 percent said they felt very safe in their neighborhoods in late 2005, only 26 percent feel that way now.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">> </span><a href="http://www.azzaman.com/english/index.asp?fname=news%5C%5C2007-03-17%5C%5Ckurd1.htm">The population of prisons in Iraq has soared in recent months</a> with tens of thousands of Iraqis currently in U.S. custody without trial.
<blockquote></blockquote>
U.S. troops and Iraqi government are investing heavily in the construction of prisons in the country with more than 100,000 Iraqis currently behind bars.
<blockquote></blockquote>
A parliamentary investigation commission has found that U.S. troops alone now detain more than 61,000 Iraqis and the figure is expected to swell as the Americans press ahead with their military operations.
<blockquote></blockquote>
More than 50,000 Iraqis were reported to have been arrested in the past four weeks as part of the joint U.S.-Iraqi military campaign to subdue Baghdad.
<blockquote></blockquote>
U.S. troops detain Iraqis merely on suspicion. Once detained, Iraqis may stay indefinitely as they are denied access to lawyers and Iraqi courts and government have no right to question U.S. troops’ actions.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Even Iraqi troops operations and activities now fall beyond the Iraqi judicial system as the country has been placed under emergency rule under which the courts have no power to question what the security forces do.
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<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Guardian: THE REGRETS OF THE MAN WHO BROUGHT DOWN SADDAM</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
His hands were bleeding and his eyes filled with tears as, four years ago, he slammed a sledgehammer into the tiled plinth that held a 20ft bronze statue of Saddam Hussein. Then Kadhim al-Jubouri spoke of his joy at being the leader of the crowd that toppled the statue in Baghdad's Firdous Square. Now, he is filled with nothing but regret.
<blockquote></blockquote>
The moment became symbolic across the world as it signalled the fall of the dictator. Wearing a black vest, Mr al-Jubouri, an Iraqi weightlifting champion, pounded through the concrete in an attempt to smash the statue and all it meant to him. Now, on the fourth anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq, he says: "I really regret bringing down the statue. The Americans are worse than the dictatorship. Every day is worse than the previous day."
<blockquote></blockquote>
The weightlifter had also been a mechanic and had felt the full weight of Saddam's regime when he was sent to Abu Ghraib prison by the Iraqi leader's son, Uday, after complaining that he had not been paid for fixing his motorcycle.
<blockquote></blockquote>
He explained: "There were lots of people from my tribe who were also put in prison or hanged. It became my dream ever since I saw them building that statue to one day topple it."
<blockquote></blockquote>
Yet he now says he would prefer to be living under Saddam than under US occupation. He said: "The devil you know [is] better than the devil you don't. We no longer know friend from foe. The situation is becoming more dangerous. It's not getting better at all. People are poor and the prices are going higher and higher."
<blockquote></blockquote>
Saddam, he says, "was like Stalin. But the occupation is proving to be worse".
<blockquote></blockquote>
According to an opinion poll of 5,000 Iraqis carried out over the past month, 49% say they are better off now than under Saddam, and 26% say life was better under Saddam. More than one in four said they had had a close relative murdered in the past three years.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">· Regrets of the Statue Man, the first of three films by Guardian Films to mark the fourth anniversary of the invasion, will be broadcast on ITV news at 6.30pm and 10.30pm tonight</span>
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<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,329749713-103550,00.html">link</a>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">>> COMMENTARY AND ANALYSIS</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Anthony Arnove, Asia Times Online: BILLBOARDING THE IRAQ DISASTER</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
As you read this, we're four years from the moment the administration of US President George W Bush launched its shock-and-awe assault on Iraq, beginning 48 months of remarkable, non-stop destruction of that country - and still counting. It's an important moment for taking stock of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Here is a short rundown of some of what Bush's war and occupation has wrought. (…)
<blockquote></blockquote>
Given the disaster that Iraq is today, you could keep listing terrible numbers until your mind was numb. But here's another way of putting the past four years in context. In that same period, there have in fact been a large number of deaths in a distant land on the minds of many people in the United States: Darfur. Since 2003, according to UN estimates, some 200,000 have been killed in the Darfur region of Sudan in a brutal ethnic-cleansing campaign, and another 2 million have been turned into refugees.
<blockquote></blockquote>
How would you know this? Well, if you lived in New York City, at least, you could hardly take a subway ride without seeing an ad that reads: "400,000 dead. Millions uniting to save Darfur." The <span style="font-style: italic;">New York Times</span> has also regularly featured full-page ads describing the "genocide" in Darfur and calling for intervention there under "a chain of command allowing necessary and timely military action without approval from distant political or civilian personnel".
<blockquote></blockquote>
In those same years, according to the best estimate available, the British medical journal <span style="font-style: italic;">The Lancet</span>'s door-to-door study of Iraqi deaths, about 655,000 Iraqis had died in war, occupation, and civil strife between March 2003 and June 2006. (The study offers a low-end possible figure on deaths of 392,000 and a high-end figure of 943,000.) But you could travel coast to coast in the United States without seeing billboards, subway placards, full-page newspaper ads, or the like for the Iraqi dead. And you certainly won't see, as in the case of Darfur, celebrities on the American Broadcasting Co's weekday television program Good Morning America talking about their commitment to stopping "genocide" in Iraq.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Why is it that we are counting and thinking about the Sudanese dead as part of a high-profile, celebrity-driven campaign to "Save Darfur", yet Iraqi deaths still in effect go uncounted, and rarely seem to provoke moral outrage, let alone public campaigns to end the killing? And why are the numbers of killed in Darfur cited without any question, while the numbers of Iraqi dead, unless pitifully low-ball figures, are instantly challenged - or dismissed?
<blockquote></blockquote>
In our world, it seems, there are the worthy victims and the unworthy ones. To get at the difference, consider the posture of the United States toward Sudan and Iraq. According to the Bush administration, Sudan is a "rogue state"; it is on the State Department's list of "state sponsors of terrorism". It stands accused of attacking the US through its role in the suicide-boat bombing of the destroyer USS Cole in 2000.
<blockquote></blockquote>
And then, of course - as Mahmood Mamdani pointed out in the <span style="font-style: italic;">London Review of Books</span> recently - Darfur fits neatly into a narrative of "Muslim-on-Muslim violence", of a "genocide perpetrated by Arabs", a line of argument that appeals heavily to those who would like to change the subject from what the US has done - and is doing - in Iraq. Talking about US accountability for the deaths of the Iraqis the US supposedly liberated is a far less comfortable matter.
<blockquote></blockquote>
It's okay to discuss US "complicity" in human-rights abuses, but only as long as you remain focused on sins of omission, not commission. The US is failing the people of Darfur by not militarily intervening. If only the US had used its military more aggressively. When, however, the US does intervene, and wreak havoc in the process, it's another matter.
<blockquote></blockquote>
If anything, the focus on Darfur serves to legitimize the idea of US intervention, of being more of an empire, not less of one, at the very moment when the carnage that such intervention causes is all too visible and is being widely repudiated around the globe. This has also contributed to a situation in which the violence for which the United States is the most responsible, Iraq, is that for which it is held the least accountable at home.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IC20Ak01.html">read in full…</a>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Lenin's Tomb: A TALE OF TWO SURVEYS</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
In one media outlet, the latest polling information from Iraq shows a hardy and resolute Iraqi populace bluffly denying civil war and stoically insisting that life is better than under Saddam Hussein, regardless of all prevailing conditions. In another, media outlet, carrying a different survey, the results says something completely different.
<blockquote></blockquote>
One account, headlined <span style="font-style: italic;">Resilient Iraqis ask what civil war?</span>, speaks of "striking resilience and optimism", a sense that perceptions of security have improved since Bush escalated the war, that only 27% believe there is a civil war, and a feeling among 49% that things - however bad - are better than under Saddam. The other, headlined <span style="font-style: italic;">Pessimism 'growing among Iraqis'</span>, reports declining confidence in the government and a mere 18% of the population having confidence in the occupiers. The former, by <span style="font-style: italic;">The Times</span>, links to related articles including "Iraqis: life is getting better"; "A turning point for Iraq"; and, "Violence slashed as troop surge hits Baghdad", some written by the same reporter. The BBC links to related articles such as "Australia PM returns from Iraq"; "US in second day of Iraq rallies"; "US general upbeat on Iraq 'surge'"; "UN pleads for Iraq support". (…)
<blockquote></blockquote>
And that's it: that is the sole basis for the <span style="font-style: italic;">Sunday Times</span>' ejaculation. A study that shows that Iraqi people think that security is terrible, fear that civil war is either imminent or in progress, say that the occupation has affected them all in the most devastating ways, and believe that security would improve immediately upon withdrawal of occupiers.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://leninology.blogspot.com/2007/03/tale-of-two-surveys.html">read in full…</a>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Missing Links: HERE'S HOW US POLITICAL SCIENTISTS ARE TALKING ABOUT IRAQI CIVILIANS</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
Colin Kahl is the political scientist who wrote in the November/December issue of <span style="font-style: italic;">Foreign Affairs</span> that "US compliance with noncombatant immunity in Iraq has been relatively high by historical standards, and it has been improving since the beginning of the war". By "historical standards" he was alluding to the fact counterinsurgencies in Philippines at the turn of the 19th century, and in South Vietnam more recently killed somewhere around 3% of the entire civilian populations in those countries, while the civilian death-toll in Iraq has been much lower on a dead-persons-per-capita basis. To understand what he means by "improvement since the beginning of the war", you would have to steel yourself, put on your white lab-coat and the read the whole article.
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Today, thanks to the public-spiritedness of one of Kahl's scientific colleagues, we are offered some hints about the latest thinking about this. First of all, it seems the military-academic community has actually borrowed from the medical community the concept of "best practices", only in this case they are called "COIN [which means counterinsurgency] best practices", and this "COIN best practices" is something that is being implemented under the new leadership of Petraeus. So not only have efforts to "spare the civilian population" been improving, they are actually now part of an ideal approach: They represent "COIN best practices". There appear to be two main components of this: First of all, naturally you try not to do too much shelling of civilian neighborhoods; you try to minimize atrocities, and so on. Secondly, this appears to involve "spreading American troops out into smaller bases from which they can work with Iraqi forces to provide local security".
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The next thing we learn is that there has recently been a "briefing", but the details of the briefing are kept out of sight, behind the three dots. All we can glean is that it appears US military authorities were doing the talking, and academics including Kahl were doing the listening and the nodding of the heads. Here's what Kahl says about the briefing:
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(…)
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In other words, among the other successful approaches to counterintelligence is the "Roman strategy", or scorched-earth approach, where the occupying forces annihilate target civilian populations. Kahl doesn't say this (along with its "somewhat softer, but still highly coercive" variants) is recognized as a shameful crime by every decent human being, he merely says it is "incompatible with norms against targeting of civilians embraced by the US military and political leadership." That is the first point. We have his word for it that the "Roman strategy" was "taken off the table," but only because they are "incompatible with the norms..." of the Bush administration. Am I the only person who hears an echo of the verbiage that has been used in the discussions about torture?
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<a href="http://arablinks.blogspot.com/2007/03/heres-how-us-political-scientists-are.html">read in full…</a>
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">>> BEYOND IRAQ</span>
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Afghanistan:</span>
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<a href="http://kutv.com/national/topstories_story_078054907.html">A car bomb exploded near a three-vehicle U.S. Embassy convoy on a busy road in Kabul</a> on Monday, wounding several people, one seriously, officials said. The blast, witnessed by an Associated Press reporter, badly damaged the front of one black SUV that was shunted to the other side of the road. First aid was administered to at least two people at the scene. The other two vehicles in convoy also were damaged, close to the burning wreckage of the car where the bomb was apparently planted. Joe Mellott, a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy, said several people in the convoy were wounded, one seriously. He did not identify them or say whether they were Americans. He said the U.S. ambassador, Ronald Neumann, was not in the convoy.
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A suicide car bomber attacked a three-vehicle U.S. Embassy convoy on a notoriously dangerous road in the Afghan capital on Monday, killing an Afghan teenager and wounding five embassy security personnel, officials said. <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/19/AR2007031900575.html">Five U.S. Embassy security personnel were injured,</a> one seriously.</blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Anthony D'Amato, Jurist: True Confessions? The Amazing Tale of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed </span>
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Students of the Stalinist purges of the 1930s will recall the astounding confessions made in open court by the accused persons. They had been severely tortured over weeks and months. But they showed up in court without external marks of torture. With all apparent voluntariness, they admitted subverting the Five-Year Plans that would have provided the Soviet people with necessary food items. They sabotaged factories, making sure the production lines were inefficient. They managed to import inferior metals so that Soviet tanks and automobiles would fall apart after a few months’ use. They infiltrated the Soviet Army and through dint of their persuasiveness, convinced the foot soldier that it was absurd to risk his life defending a dictatorial government. In short these accused persons, briefly in court on their way to the firing squad, took responsibility for everything that had gone wrong for the past two decades in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
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So why is it today that no one draws the connection between the Soviet purge trials and the confession of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed? Mohammed said that he had been tortured by his American captors. No one contradicted his assertion. Then he went on, with a straight and sincere face, to take responsibility for a long list of crimes recently perpetrated.
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<a href="http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/forumy/2007/03/true-confessions-tale-of-khalid-shaikh.php"> read in full…</a>
<blockquote></blockquote>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5501771.post-1174226079052374832007-03-18T07:43:00.000-07:002007-03-18T09:36:31.266-07:00<b><u>DAILY WAR NEWS FOR SUNDAY, MARCH 18, 2007</b></u><p>
<p><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20070318/capt.bag11303181321.iraq__invasion_anniversary_bag113.jpg?x=229&y=345&sig=Qh.K9z2xSC0PUeFIupeoBA--"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px;" src="http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20070318/capt.bag11303181321.iraq__invasion_anniversary_bag113.jpg?x=229&y=345&sig=Qh.K9z2xSC0PUeFIupeoBA--" border="0" alt="" /></a><p>Iraqi kids leave their makeshift home in the ruins of a former Iraqi Army air defense headquarters, in Baghdad, Iraq, Sunday, March 18, 2007, ahead of Tuesday's fourth anniversary of the U.S. led invasion on Iraq. This army complex was destroyed in the initial bombing campaign in 2003. (AP Photo/Samir Mizban)<p>
<p>
<a href="http://www.mnf-iraq.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=10679&Itemid=21">Dateline Tikrit</a>, incident location unspecified: A Task Force Lightning Soldier died Saturday in a non-combat related incident, which is currently under investigation. <i>Note: There are two releases with similar content. It is not clear whether this was a mistake, or whether there were in fact two deaths in the Tikrit area. Total U.S. dead since last TiI post is either 8 or 9. However, news reports are giving the toll variously as 5, 6, or 7. I have noticed that they tend consistently to understate the totals, but you can count for yourselves</i>.<p>
<p><a href="http://www.mnf-iraq.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=10684&Itemid=21">Unspecified location in Anbar</a>: A Marine assigned to Multi National Force-West died March 17 while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar Province.<p>
<p><b>Baghdad</b><p>
<p><a href="http://www.mnf-iraq.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=10678&Itemid=21">During a patrol in western Baghdad, an improvised explosive device detonated and killed four U.S. Soldiers and wounding [sic] another. Small arms fire followed the blast wounding one additional Soldier.</a><p>
<p><a href="http://www.mnf-iraq.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=10677&Itemid=21">While conducting a dismounted area reconnaissance patrol south of Baghdad, an improvised explosive device detonated killing one Soldier and wounding three others.</a> <i>(In addition to developing a case of bad grammar, as I noted in the comments a couple of days ago, the MNF publicists have taken to sandwiching the death notices between layers of "good news" about the recent accomplishments of the units, and taking the deaths and injuries out of the headlines. So, in the interest of being fair and balanced, here's the good news from this release, although unfortunately the grammar doesn't get any better. -- C</i>) In the last few weeks, this particular unit has found numerous IEDs, in which explosive ordnance disposal teams were called to disable and destroy each explosive device.<p>
<p><a href="http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1173879110726&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull">A roadside bomb hit an Iraqi police convoy in eastern Baghdad, killing two policemen and wounding five others, police said. Two vehicles were damaged.</a><p>
<p><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070318/wl_afp/iraq_070318103127;_ylt=AvvU4IG5tAmrbeamYR2cRIdX6GMA">An Iraqi policeman and one civilian were killed and five policemen wounded when a roadside bomb struck a police patrol near the renowned Al-Mustansiriyah University in eastern Baghdad on Sunday, security officials said.</a><p>
<p><a href="http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1173879110726&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull">police said a mortar round landed near a house in central Baghdad, killing a civilian and wounding another</a>.<p>
<p><a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IBO823109.htm">A total of 19 bodies were found shot dead on Saturday in different districts of Baghdad, police said.</a><p>
<p><b>Reuters also reports</b>: A roadside bomb killed a man on Saturday in al-Khadhraa district of western Baghdad, police said.<p>
<p><a href="http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/03/18/iraq.main/index.html">Hand grenade attack kills two, wounds one in the Shorja market</a>.<p>
<p><b>Baqubah</b><p>
<p><a href="http://www.mnf-iraq.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=10676&Itemid=21">An MNC-I Soldier died at approximately 1:30 p.m. Saturday as a result of being shot while conducting operations in Baqubah.</a><p>
<p><b>Diwaniyah</b><p>
<p><a href="http://localnewsleader.com/jackson/stories/index.php?action=fullnews&id=76451">Police found an unidentified man‘s body with signs of torture, dumped in central Diwaniyah</a>.<p>
<p><b>Hillah</b><p>
<p><a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IBO823109.htm">A roadside bomb exploded near a hospital and wounded a man in the city of Hilla, 100 km (60 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.</a><p>
<p><b>Mahmudiya</b><p>
<p><a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IBO823109.htm">The bodies of two people, shot and tortured, were found on Saturday in the town of Mahmudiya, about 30 km (20 miles) south of Baghdad, police said</a>.<p>
<p><b>Madean</b><p>
<p><a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IBO823109.htm">Mortar rounds landed in the town of Madaen, 45 km (25 miles) south of Baghdad, on Saturday, killing two people and wounding 15 others, police said</a>.<p>
<p><b>Kirkuk</b><p>
<p><a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IBO823109.htm">A roadside bomb targeting an Iraqi police patrol wounded three policemen, police said</a>.<p>
<p><b>Ramadi</b><p>
<p><a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IBO823109.htm">Iraqi police found the decapitated bodies of nine policemen with their hands bound and bearing signs of torture in a town near the city of Ramadi, 110 km (68 miles) west of Baghdad, where al Qaeda militants have a strong presence, police said</a>.<p>
<p><b>Fallujah</b><p>
<p><a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=39713&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">An Iraqi army base was fully destroyed on Sunday morning when a truck crammed with explosives detonated in eastern Falluja, leaving an unidentified number of casualties, a police source said</a>. "A truck crammed with explosives detonated this morning near the Iraqi army base at al-Salam hotel, eastern Falluja, leading to wide scale destruction of the base and leaving an unidentified number of casualties among the base personnel," the source told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI). He added, "the explosive-laden truck was detonated by a remote control device at 9:00 am." Iraqi security forces cordoned off the scene while reinforcements were sent to the location, the source added. The security forces fired over head to secure the operation to rush the wounded to nearby bases for treatment, he said. <p>
<p><b>OTHER NEWS OF THE DAY</b><p>
<p><a href="http://www.theday.com/re.aspx?re=3320ebd0-817f-4176-8cce-457081b16bd4">Military is shipping a new type of armored vehicle, the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle, to begin replacing the vulnerable armored Humvees</a>. <i>(It'll take a while, though, so far only 200 have been built. At 23 and 14 tons apiece, I don't imagine these babies get great gas mileage. The projected cost for the production run is $6 billion and rising. -- C)</i> Excerpt:<p>
<p><blockquote>Washington — In an effort to defend against roadside bombs in Iraq, the U.S. military is dispatching new vehicles designed to deflect the explosive forces of “improvised explosive devices,” as the military refers to the bombs, which are the top killer of American forces. The commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. James Conway, says the new vehicles have proven to be about 400 percent safer than armored humvees.<p>
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It is “a moral imperative, in spite of the expense” to get more of the vehicles to Iraq “as soon as we can ... at warp speed,” Conway said last week. The Marines, Army and Navy are now using more than 200 of the vehicles in Iraq and plan to dramatically increase the number there by early 2008 to about 4,100 vehicles. All told, the Marines, Army and Navy combined are scheduled to buy 6,738 of the vehicles — 3,700 for the Marines, 2,500 for the Army and 538 for the Navy. The project could cost more than $6 billion.<p>
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Members of Congress are pushing for even more. Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said last week that his panel would seek an increase. “We're going to provide whatever's needed,” Levin said. “This is an area we've taken an awful lot of losses in.” Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss, a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee, said it would be a “tragic” mistake if the Army didn't purchase more.<p>
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Approximately 70 percent of the U.S. fatalities in Iraq are from roadside bombs. Thus far, 3,196 American service members have perished in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion. <i>[Current total is actually 3,218. -- C</i>] The Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle has qualities of a tank, the ubiquitous humvee and an armored personnel carrier. Like the highly mobile humvee, it has wheels, not metal tracks like a tank. But like a personnel carrier, it can transport up to 12 GIs or cargo, depending on the configuration. And like a tank, it is well-armored.</blockquote><p>
<p><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070318/wl_mideast_afp/iraqunrestpolitics_070318143834;_ylt=Av.P731GaaVCIdmmRrV8TyVX6GMA">Iraqi forces raid Sunni MPs house</a>, claim they seized a cache of illicit weapons and a suspected sniper. This raid took place March 8, supposedly, and was just announced today. Of course, given that the security forces represent the Shiite government, it is impossible to assess the import of these claims. Excerpt:<p>
<p><blockquote>BAGHDAD (AFP) - Iraqi security forces seized a cache of weapons, including a sniper rifle, and arrested seven suspects in a raid on the house of a leading Sunni parliamentarian, officials said Sunday. Brigadier General Qassim Mussawi, spokesman for Iraqi forces in Baghdad, also said that four cars taken from Dhafer al-Ani's house had been tested by "non-Iraqi experts" and found to contain traces of explosives.<p>
<p>
Ani is a former spokesman for Iraq's biggest Sunni movement, the Islamic Party, which is part of the government of national unity. It was not clear whether Ani was in his west Baghdad home on March 8, when the raid took place, and he was not reported among those detained.<p>
<p>
Mussawi said the forces found "65 Kalashnikov assault rifles and other weapons and seized four vehicles. "We have dealt transparently with the detainees and released six of them, because we do not have enough evidence against them," he added. "We're still holding one of them who had a sniper rifle inscribed with a verse from the Koran -- 'If you shoot, and find your target, it is not you who shoots, but God'," he said, referring to a slogan popular with insurgents.<p>
<p>snip<p>
<p>The Islamic Party's website confirmed there had been a raid, in a statement that said the weapons were properly licensed and accused Shiite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki of ordering the raid.</blockquote><p>
<p>
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/18/world/middleeast/18insurgents.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&hp">NYT's Michael Gordon transcribes the Pentagon's analysis of the conflict</a>. <i>There is no critical thinking or journalistic enterprise of any sort apparent here, but it's probably worth knowing what the official line is. This guy should get a job as a court reporter, apparently he thinks that's the job description for what he does now -- the guy says it, and you write it down. -- C</i> Excerpt:<p>
<p><blockquote>WASHINGTON, March 17 — In January, when President Bush announced his plans to reinforce American troops in Baghdad, Shiite militias were seen as the main worry. Some analysts predicted that bloody clashes with Shiite militants in the Sadr City district in northeastern Baghdad were all but inevitable. Instead, during the early weeks of the operation, deadly bombings by Sunni Arab militants have emerged as a greater danger. In particular, the threat posed by the Sunni group Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia was underscored when American troops seized a laptop computer from a senior operative in the group who was killed in late December.<p>
<p>
Information from captured materials indicates that the group’s leadership sees “the sectarian war for Baghdad as the necessary main focus of its operations,” according to an intelligence report that was described by American officials. Reflecting concern over the bomb attacks, especially car bombings, American military officials have begun to emphasize that bringing security to the Iraqi capital will involve not only the protection of Baghdad neighborhoods, but also raids to shut down bomb factories and uncover arms caches in the largely Sunni areas on the outskirts of the city.<p>
<p>
“The Baghdad belts are increasingly seen as the key to security in Baghdad,” Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the American officer in charge of day-to-day operations in Iraq, said in an e-mail message. “I believe this is where you can stop the accelerants to Baghdad violence. We have already found a large number of significant caches in these areas related to car bombs and I.E.D.’s,” or improvised explosive devices, commonly known as roadside bombs. “The Shia have gone to ground for the most part, but there are still rogue elements of Shia extremists that are still a threat and conducting operations against the coalition, but more importantly against the government of Iraq,” he added.<p>
<p>
The threat has shifted on the eve of the fourth anniversary of the start of the war in Iraq, in which American forces toppled Saddam Hussein only to face a growing insurgency and find themselves involved in an arduous effort to head off growing sectarian strife.<p>
<p>
In its efforts to stabilize Iraq, American commanders have had to contend with Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, other Sunni Arab insurgent groups, a variety of Shiite militias, criminals and, they say, Iranian operatives. The greater Baghdad area seems to include all of them, making the mission there one of constant adjustment to adversaries who are revising their own tactics. </blockquote><p>
<p><a href="http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/031807Z.shtml">WaPo describes yesterday's march on the Pentagon</a>, but I'm more interested in their description of the pro-war counterdemonstrators. Note that they felt called to defend the Vietnam Memorial against vandalism by the demonstrators. What is going on in these people's minds, that they actually believe such idiotic nonsense? Excerpt:<p>
<p><blockquote>Much of the passion yesterday was supplied by thousands of counter-demonstrators, many of them veterans who mobilized from across the country to gather around the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Some said they came in response to appeals on the Internet to protect the Wall against what they feared would be acts of vandalism; no such acts were reported.<p>
<p>Others said they were tired of war protesters claiming to speak for the country. "I'm here because I think we need to commit to our troops in the field," said Guy Rocca, 63, a veteran who drove nine hours from Detroit. Some counter-protesters yelled obscenities and mocked the marchers as traitors. War protesters responded with angry words of their own, and police intervened at times to prevent shouting matches from escalating.<p>
<p>The counter-demonstrators ringed the Lincoln Memorial and continued along portions of Arlington Memorial Bridge. "You've got no pride and no honor," yelled Kenneth Murphy, a Vietnam veteran from North Carolina. When marchers reached the Virginia side of the bridge, they were greeted by more protesters at the traffic circle in front of Arlington National Cemetery, along with a banner that read in part: "You dishonor our dead on Hallowed ground." The war protesters might have found the warmest reception of the day at the Pentagon, where police had the building blocked off, but no counter-demonstrators were waiting. </blockquote><p>
<p>
<b>In-depth Reporting, Commentary and Analysis</b><p>
<p><a href="http://washingtonbureau.typepad.com/iraq/2007/03/the_number.html">Blogger Sahar tells the story of death in Baghdad</a>. Not for the faint of heart.<p>
<p><blockquote><b>The Number</b><p>
<p>
Every time I tell myself that my next blog will be a pleasant story of days of old, I am confronted with a different story that needs to be told.<p>
<p>
A friend of mine called me to tell me the bad news. Her brother had been kidnapped, and the ransom set at $100,000. For any Iraqi, such an amount spells disaster.<p>
<p>
Selling all they could sell, the whole extended family pitched in to save the poor man. They told the abductors that they couldn’t manage more than 20,000. (It is common knowledge that none can sell his house or his car; the odor of ready cash would attract others). Surprisingly, the criminals said “OK, have a woman bring the money to …..”. After leading her on a merry dance, a boy of sixteen or seventeen approached her, took the money and said, “We will contact you”. And that was the last they saw of them.<p>
<p>Two weeks later, their women combing the hospitals and then the morgues, had found no trace of Hani. They were told to speak to the contractor. “What contractor??”, “The one who is in charge of burying all the unidentified bodies we get.” “What??” So they asked around, and were directed to an ordinary looking man, who was not at all surprised to hear of their dilemma.<p>
<p>
“Yes, I’m in charge of burying the bodies that are not claimed. There is no room for all these bodies in the morgues. You must identify him first, and I will direct you to his grave.”<p>
<p>
“ How can we identify our brother??”<p>
<p>
“Don’t worry; I’m well set up!” He walks towards a really posh car, opens the door, takes out the latest laptop, and sets it on the bonnet. “I have here photos of all the bodies I bury. Each one is given a number that is engraved on the headstone of his grave in Nejef. Browse.” True enough, Iyman said, her sister started looking through hundreds of photographs, of the head and shoulders of people killed in the streets, without their folks knowing about them; but didn’t find her brother’s photo.<p>
<p>
“Try Abu Haider, or any of the others.” The contractor advised. “They are just as conscientious as I am.”<p>
<p>
“We found his picture! We have his number!” crying “His face was all bruised and there was a hole drilled in his forehead! Oh, Sahar! He died in pain! His hands were tied above his head!”<p>
<p>
They went to the wilderness that was being used as burial ground, on the outskirts of the city of Nejef. But there was no trace of Hani’s grave. They inspected each and every grave, each and every headstone for his number. But it was not there. They looked in all the graveyards, not just this one, but the number was not to be found.</blockquote><p>
<p><a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/print/200703190017">Tim Lambon describes how the surge is making Iraqis safer</a>. Excerpt:<p>
<p><blockquote>It's hard to describe the noise when a whole cabinet of crockery is emptied on to the floor. Even harder not to shout in indignation when the American soldier who intentionally tipped it forward, until the plates and dishes slid smashing to the floor, says without regret, "Whoops!" and crunches over the shards past the distraught owner. "Cordon and search" they call looking for Sunni insurgents and their arms and explosives. But at what cost to the battle for "hearts and minds"?<p>
<p>
The sweep was a co-operative action between Delta Company of the 2nd Battalion 12th Cavalry and the Iraqi Army's 246th Battalion. The plan was for the Iraqis to lead and the Americans to provide security and back-up. With engines throbbing, the force waited for 45 minutes at the start line for the Iraqis to arrive.<p>
<p>"And you think they haven't been calling their buddies in there to tell them to shift their sorry asses?" growled Sgt Penning in disgust. By the time we rolled into the middle section of the Baghdad neighbourhood of Ghazaliya, there wasn't a single shot being fired in our direction. Any insurgents were long gone. But the hapless residents were not. They watched, almost impassively, the random violence of the searching troops, too frightened to object. Some of the houses, whose Christian or Shia owners had fled, were empty. Occupied or not, if no one quickly answered the demands to open up, gates, doors and windows were smashed down or blown open with shotguns.<p>
<p>Inside, damage was done to anything breakable. Living-rooms became a jumble of furniture. Beds were overturned, cabinets thrown down, shelves emptied on to floors and beds: an orgy of destruction and arbitrary searching.<p>
<p>And yet the soldiers sometimes missed the obvious. In one house, no attention was paid to two computers. Just the day before, the platoon had received intelligence that someone in the area was using the internet to co-ordinate insurgent activities.<p>
<p>In one home, while I filmed upstairs with a couple of soldiers and the son of the house, on the ground floor an Iraqi soldier helped himself to $400 and the mother's identity papers. As the search progressed, several blocks later, the parents and their son pitched up and tried to retrieve the ID papers. The Iraqi commander shouted at them, incensed that they called his soldiers thieves, yelling that they were lying because they were insurgent sympathisers. Only when I showed him the footage of his soldiers turning over the house, did the colonel admit his men may have been responsible.<p>
<p>It was an extraordinary example of how such operations can exacerbate the problem in a Sunni neighbourhood not infested with insurgents, but definitely used as a transit area and a place to stash explosives and weapons. The population, borderline in support for the government, becomes further alienated and more likely to engage with the jihadi fighters.<p>
<p>Conventional armies are a sledgehammer to crack a nut when it comes to fighting guerrillas. With the US military's emphasis on "force protection", what is important is the recovery of weapons or the capture of insurgents who can kill US soldiers. Breaking up people's homes is an unfortunate by-product, the "collateral damage" of war.</blockquote><p>
<p><a href="http://welcome-to-pottersville.blogspot.com/2007/03/ides-of-march-2003.html">Frank Rich discusses history as alternate reality</a>. I'll just give you the excerpt down to the first event he cites, you should click the link and read the rest. <p>
<p><blockquote>Tomorrow night is the fourth anniversary of President Bush’s prime-time address declaring the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom. In the broad sweep of history, four years is a nanosecond, but in America, where memories are congenitally short, it’s an eternity. That’s why a revisionist history of the White House’s rush to war, much of it written by its initial cheerleaders, has already taken hold. In this exonerating fictionalization of the story, nearly every politician and pundit in Washington was duped by the same “bad intelligence” before the war, and few imagined that the administration would so botch the invasion’s aftermath or that the occupation would go on so long. “If only I had known then what I know now ...” has been the persistent refrain of the war supporters who subsequently disowned the fiasco. But the embarrassing reality is that much of the damning truth about the administration’s case for war and its hubristic expectations for a cakewalk were publicly available before the war, hiding in plain sight, to be seen by anyone who wanted to look.<p>
<p>By the time the ides of March arrived in March 2003, these warning signs were visible on a nearly daily basis. So were the signs that Americans were completely ill prepared for the costs ahead. Iraq was largely anticipated as a distant, mildly disruptive geopolitical video game that would be over in a flash.<p>
<p>Now many of the same leaders who sold the war argue that escalation should be given a chance. This time they’re peddling the new doomsday scenario that any withdrawal timetable will lead to the next 9/11. The question we must ask is: Has history taught us anything in four years?<p>
<p>Here is a chronology of some of the high and low points in the days leading up to the national train wreck whose anniversary we mourn this week [with occasional “where are they now” updates].<p>
<p>March 5, 2003<p>
<p>“I took the Grey Poupon out of my cupboard.”<p>
<p>— Representative Duke Cunningham, Republican of California, on the floor of the House denouncing French opposition to the Iraq war.<p>
<p>[In November 2005, he resigned from Congress and pleaded guilty to accepting bribes from defense contractors. In January 2007, the United States attorney who prosecuted him — Carol Lam, a Bush appointee — was forced to step down for “performance-related” issues by Alberto Gonzales’s Justice Department.]</blockquote><p>
<p><a href="http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Intelligence_experts_al_Qaeda_in_Iraq_0318.html">Well Duhhh Department</a>. Intelligence experts: al Qaeda in Iraq 'poses little danger' to US. <i>Unfortunately, the WaPo's editorial writers don't read their own newspaper. -- C</i> Excerpt:<p>
<p><blockquote>By Karen DeYoung and Walter Pincus Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, March 18, 2007; Page A20<p>
<p>
Al-Qaeda in Iraq is the United States' most formidable enemy in that country. But unlike Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda organization in Pakistan, U.S. intelligence officials and outside experts believe, the Iraqi branch poses little danger to the security of the U.S. homeland.<p>
<p>As the Democratic Congress continues to push for a military withdrawal, President Bush and Vice President Cheney have repeatedly warned that bin Laden plans to turn Iraq into the capital of an Islamic caliphate and a staging ground for attacks on the United States. "If we fail there," Bush said in a February news conference, "the enemy will follow us here."<p>
<p>Attacking the United States clearly remains on bin Laden's agenda. But the likelihood that such an attack would be launched from Iraq, many experts contend, has sharply diminished over the past year as al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) has undergone dramatic changes. Once believed to include thousands of "foreign fighters," it is now an overwhelmingly Iraqi organization whose aims are likely to remain focused on the struggle against the Shiite majority in Iraq, U.S. intelligence officials said.<p>
<p>snip<p>
<p>AQI's new membership and the allied insurgents care far more about what happens within Iraq than they do about bin Laden's plans for an Islamic empire, government and outside experts said. That is likely to remain the case whether U.S. forces stay or leave, they added.<p>
<p>The Sunni extremist movement in Iraq owes its existence to the U.S. invasion, said Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert and Georgetown University professor. "There were no domestic jihadis in Iraq before we came there. Now there are. . . . But the threat they pose beyond Iraq is not so certain. There will be plenty of fighting to keep them there for years."<p>
<p>In congressional testimony late last month, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell indicated that, despite bin Laden's rhetoric, it isn't necessarily true that al-Qaeda sees its future in Iraq. "I wouldn't go so far as to say al-Qaeda would necessarily believe that," McConnell said. "They want to reestablish their base, and their objective could be in Afghanistan."</blockquote><p>
<p>
<b>Quote of the Day</b><p>
<p><blockquote>[T}he war in Iraq is a historic, strategic and moral calamity undertaken under false assumptions. . . . If the United States continues to be bogged down in a protracted, bloody involvement in Iraq . . .the final destination on this downhill track is likely to be a head-on conflict with Iran, and with much of the world of Islam at large. . . . Indeed, a mythical historical narrative to justify the case for such a protracted and expanding war is already being articulated. Initially justified by false claims about weapons of mass destruction, the war is now being redefined as the decisive ideological struggle of our time, reminiscent of the earlier collisions with Nazism and Stalinism. ... This simplistic and demagogic narrative overlooks the fact that Nazism was based on the military power of the most industrially advanced European state, and that Stalinism was able to mobilize the resources of the victorious and militarily powerful Soviet Union . . . In contrast . . . Al Qaeda is an isolated Islamist aberration, and most Iraqis are engaged in strife because of the American occupation, which destroyed the Iraqi state . . . . To argue that America is already at war in a region with a wider Islamic threat of which Iran is the epicenter is to promote a self-fulfilling prophecy.</blockquote><p>
<p>Carter Admnistration National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Feb. 1. I have not found a complete version of these remarks on the web, but you can read a summary <a href="http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2007/Zbigniew-Brzezinski-Iran2feb07.htm">here</a>.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5501771.post-1174174457848199812007-03-17T16:54:00.000-07:002007-03-17T17:37:06.193-07:00<p><b>Site News: <span style="font-weight: bold;">DAILY WAR NEWS FOR Saturday, March 10, 2007</span></b></p><p>Just a reminder that Today's <a href="http://dailywarnewsblog.com/">Today in Iraq</a> report was prepared by Siun and can be found at our new home:</p><p> <span style="font-size:2em;"><a href="http://dailywarnewsblog.com/2007/03/17/daily-war-news-for-saturday-march-17-2007/">here</a></span></p>
<p>If you check the new site you'll see we've managed to rescue the archives, up to March 2005. Work on the remainder is ongoing - it's a massive effort as thousands of lines of code have to be manually cleaned up to remove the worst of the damaged code. This is the biggest delay (and involves considerable expense as I have to pay someone to help my team of volunteers to help us do it) but its worth both the cost and the delay as people use here to do research on the war using the archives. We were told it wasn't possible - it is but it is taking a lot of time and work.</p>
<p>Ready or not I'm going to close here next Saturday. The old postings will of course remain. Both comments here and the ability to make new postings here will be permanently disabled for everyone except Yankeedoodle and myself.
</p><p>
</p>
<p>markfromireland</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5501771.post-1174076506211307132007-03-16T13:38:00.000-07:002007-03-16T17:13:43.753-07:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/rids/20070316/i/r4009670252.jpg?x=380&y=253&sig=9e0A4eX162lrCSfDQM3sjg--"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 380px;" src="http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/rids/20070316/i/r4009670252.jpg?x=380&y=253&sig=9e0A4eX162lrCSfDQM3sjg--" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">DAILY WAR NEWS FOR FRIDAY, March 16, 2007</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://news.yahoo.com/photos/ss/events/iraq/010403armedforces/im:/070316/ids_photos_wl/r4009670252.jpg;_ylt=AlU2Tx4qDtruxGljPbVDQ5DKps8F">Photo</a>: Shi'ite worshippers chant slogans during a demonstration after Friday prayers in Baghdad's Sadr City March 16, 2007. Thousands of residents attended a protest opposing U.S. military checkpoints in Sadr City, protesters said. REUTERS/Kareem Raheem (IRAQ)
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=39611&amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">Bring 'em on</a>: Five U.S. army were killed and three others wounded in military operations in the capital Baghdad and Salah al-Din province on Thursday, coinciding with the U.S. House of Representatives' approval on a plan to withdraw soldiers by the end of 2008, the U.S. army announced on Friday.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/PAR633068.htm"></a><blockquote><a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/PAR633068.htm">A U.S. soldier was killed by an explosion when his patrol was attacked in Salahaddin province</a> on Thursday, the U.S. military said. Another soldier was wounded</blockquote>
<blockquote></blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;"><blockquote></blockquote>
OTHER SECURITY INCIDENTS</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Baghdad:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/PAR633068.htm">Mortar bombs killed one person and wounded five in Zaafaraniya </a>in southern Baghdad, a police source said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=39611&amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">A civilian was killed and four others were wounded when a roadside bomb went off</a> in Shoala neighborhood, northwest of Baghdad, a police source said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/news/special_packages/iraq/16910651.htm">A guard working for the minister of housing was killed by gunmen</a> in Kadhimiya neighborhood north Baghdad at 9 am Baghdad Local Time (BLT).
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/RAS560524.htm">A roadside bomb went off in the southern Saidiya district of Baghdad</a> on Wednesday, killing two people, police said.
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/RAS560524.htm">A suicide car bomb targeting an Iraqi army check point killed one Iraqi soldier</a> and wounded two civilians in the western Yarmouk district of Baghdad, police said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;"></span><a href="http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/news/special_packages/iraq/16910651.htm">17 anonymous bodies were found in Baghdad</a>. 15 bodies were found in Karkh, the western part of Baghdad in the following neighborhoods (7 bodies in hay Al Amil, 2 bodies in Dora, 2 bodies in Hurriya, 2 bodies in Yarmook, 1 body in Saidiya and 1 body in Baiya’a.) tow bodies were found in Rosafa, the eastern part of Baghdad in the nbeighborhoods of Selikh (one body ) and another body in Sader city.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Kirkuk:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/PAR633068.htm">A roadside bomb blew up next to a police patrol</a>, killing two policemen and wounding three in the centre of Kirkuk, 250 km (155 miles) north of Baghdad, a police source said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Tikrit:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/PAR633068.htm">Unidentified gunmen attacked a U.S. army patrol in central Tikrit</a>, capital of Salah al-Din province, setting a Hummer vehicle on fire, a security source in Tikrit said on Friday.
<blockquote></blockquote>
A police source in Tikrit police directorate said that <a href="http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/news/special_packages/iraq/16910651.htm">insurgents killed the administrative director of Salah Al Deen police directorate</a> near his house in AL Qadisiya neighborhood north Tikrit city today afternoon.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="5:%2017%20anonymous%20bodies%20were%20found%20in%20Baghdad%20today.%2015%20bodies%20were%20found%20in%20Karkh,%20the%20western%20part%20of%20Baghdad%20in%20the%20following%20neighborhoods%20%287%20bodies%20in%20hay%20Al%20Amil,%202%20bodies%20in%20Dora,%202%20bodies%20in%20Hurriya,%202%20bodies%20in%20Yarmook,%201%20body%20in%20Saidiya%20and%201%20body%20in%20Baiya%C3%A2%C2%80%C2%99a.%29%20tow%20bodies%20were%20found%20in%20Rosafa,%20the%20eastern%20part%20of%20Baghdad%20in%20the%20nbeighborhoods%20of%20Selikh%20%28one%20body%20%29%20and%20another%20body%20in%20Sader%20city.">Iraqi police patrol found a body of a kidnapped policeman</a> . the body was found near Door city south Tikrit.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Missan:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="One%20man%20was%20killed%20and%2012%20others%20injured%20in%20a%20mortar%20attack%20by%20unidentified%20gunmen%20on%20Friday%20in%20neighborhoods%20in%20central%20Hilla,%20100%20km%20south%20of%20Baghdad,%20a%20source%20from%20Babel%20police%20command%20said.">A member of the Missan Chamber of Commerce board of directors was killed</a> on Thursday night by unidentified gunmen fire in central Amara, 380 km southeast of Baghdad, an eyewitness said on Friday.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Hilla:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=39611&amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">One man was killed and 12 others injured in a mortar attack by unidentified gunmen</a> on Friday in neighborhoods in central Hilla, 100 km south of Baghdad, a source from Babel police command said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=39611&amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">A curfew was imposed all over the city of Hilla</a>, 100 km south of Baghdad, after the Sadrists , followers of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, announced staging a demonstration after the Friday noon prayer protesting raids and arrests by security forces, a police source said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Basra:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="One%20man%20was%20killed%20and%2012%20others%20injured%20in%20a%20mortar%20attack%20by%20unidentified%20gunmen%20on%20Friday%20in%20neighborhoods%20in%20central%20Hilla,%20100%20km%20south%20of%20Baghdad,%20a%20source%20from%20Babel%20police%20command%20said.">A British patrol came under an attack with RPG-7 missiles</a> on Friday with no reports of casualties, the spokeswoman for British forces in southern Iraq said on Friday.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=39611&amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">A total of eleven captives fled al-Shuaaiba jail,</a> 45km west of Basra, after exchanging their clothes with their visiting relatives, the spokeswoman for the Multi-National forces in southern Iraq said on Friday.
<blockquote></blockquote>
The spokesman of Basra police directorate said that <a href="http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/news/special_packages/iraq/16910651.htm">unknown insurgents killed a policeman in Al hartha area north Basra city.</a>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Muqdadiya:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/news/special_packages/iraq/16910651.htm">A group of insurgents broke up the bus station of Muqdadiya kidnapped 3 civilians</a> and took them to the orchards while tow other civilians were injured by fire opened by another insurgent group in Al Askari neighborhood.
<blockquote></blockquote>
A source in the 5th Iraqi army division said that <a href="http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/news/special_packages/iraq/16910651.htm">4 insurgents were killed and 10 others were arrested in a combined military operation in Muqdadiya town</a> early morning today. The source confirmed that another group arrested Emad Mohammed Al Jobori known as the sniper of Al Mansoriya and three of his assistants during a searching raid north Muqdadiya town.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Diyala Prv:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=39611&amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">At least 15 people, including four policemen, were wounded when a suicide attacker detonated explosives strapped to his body</a> in Diala province, 57 km northeast of Baghdad, a security source said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/news/special_packages/iraq/16910651.htm">Two civilians were killed by gunmen who targeted a car in Olibat neighborhood in Khalis town</a> 15 KMs north Baquba city.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/news/special_packages/iraq/16910651.htm">Police patrols in Baquba city found the body of a kidnapped policeman</a> thrown downtown the city. The source said that the policeman was kidnapped few days ago.
<blockquote></blockquote>
A source in Kanaan city (20Kms south east Baquba city) said that <a href="http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/news/special_packages/iraq/16910651.htm">insurgents killed today afternoon 5 guards working in tow fuel stations in Kanaan city and burnt their bodies</a>. The insurgents bombed the two fuel stations. The 5 victims were both Shiite and Sunnis from the tribes of Dahkliya, Zehirat and Al Obid.
<blockquote></blockquote>
A source in the Iraqi army 5th division said that <a href="http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/news/special_packages/iraq/16910651.htm">10 Iraqi army soldiers were injured (4 are seriously injured) when a suicide car bomb attacked an under construction check point</a> west Baquba city.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Kefil:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/RAS560524.htm">Gunmen set fire to an office of the political movement of Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr</a> in the town of Kefil, south of Hilla, on Wednesday night, police said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Dinwaniya:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/RAS560524.htm">Clashes erupted between insurgents and police when they attacked a police station in the town of Dhuluiya</a>. Five insurgents were killed, including Syrian and Saudi fighters, Interior Ministry spokeaman Abdul-Kareem Khalaf told Reuters. A police officer was killed and another wounded.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/RAS560524.htm">Police found the bodies of three people, shot dead,</a> on Wednesday in the town of Dhuluiya, 80 km (60 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Balad:</span>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/RAS560524.htm"><blockquote></blockquote>
U.S. forces targeting al-Qaeda militants in Iraq killed two insurgents and detained 11 others</a> during a raid east the town of Balad.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Mosul:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/RAS560524.htm">A car bomb killed two people and wounded 11 others in the city of Mosul</a>, 390 km north of Baghdad.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="text-decoration: underline;"></span><a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/RAS560524.htm">A car bomb targeting a police patrol wounded a policeman in the northern city of Mosul</a>, police said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">>> NEWS</span>
<a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070316/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq;_ylt=Au8.GN14cUssY89MIw80DlVvaA8F"><blockquote></blockquote>
A radical Shiite cleric called on his supporters to resist U.S. forces in Iraq</a>, and a local militia commander blamed an attack against the mayor of Sadr City on a faction unhappy about cooperation with Americans.
<blockquote></blockquote>
"The occupiers want to harm this beloved (Sadr City) and tarnish its name by spreading false rumors and allegations that negotiations and cooperation are ongoing between you and them," Muqtada al-Sadr said in a statement read to worshippers by Sheik Haider al-Jabri. "I am confident that you will not make concessions to them and will remain above them. Raise your voices in love and brotherhood and unity against your enemy and shout 'No, no America.'"
<blockquote></blockquote>
The statement read in the main Shiite district in Baghdad came a day after gunmen opened fire on the convoy carrying Mayor Rahim al-Darraji in eastern Baghdad, seriously wounding him and killing two of his bodyguards, police and a local official said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Al-Darraji was the principal negotiator in talks with U.S. officials that led to an agreement to pull Shiite fighters off the streets in Sadr City, a stronghold of the feared Mahdi Army, and a local commander said suspicion fell on a group of disaffected militiamen who are angry about the deal.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070316/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_iraq_troops_5;_ylt=AibxvIIgYQSi90gD8QlUfrhX6GMA">Some 2,600 soldiers from a combat aviation unit will go to Iraq ahead of schedule</a>, part of the support troops the Pentagon has said are needed to back the extra combat units President Bush is sending there.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Defense Secretary Robert Gates approved the deployment of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division combat aviation brigade 45 days earlier than planned, meaning they will go around May, a Defense Department official said Friday.
<blockquote></blockquote>
The approval will mean roughly 30,000 troops eventually will go to Baghdad and Anbar Province in the Bush administration's buildup to crack down on rising sectarian violence and insurgents, said the official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the information.
<blockquote></blockquote>
The new aviation unit will provide transport helicopters and gunships to assist ground brigades already flowing in for the buildup. Officials said that Gen. David Petraeus, the new U.S. commander in Iraq, wanted the buildup to move as quickly as possible.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070316/wl_uk_afp/iraqbritainusmilitary_070316184700;_ylt=An93x7QL2CzoLPT4THOb4BZX6GMA">A coroner accused the US military of a criminal breach of the international law of armed conflict</a> after the "friendly fire" death of a British soldier in the early days of the Iraq war.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Andrew Walker ruled that Lance Corporal Matty Hull was unlawfully killed when two US jets mistakenly attacked his clearly-marked convoy in southern Iraq and criticised the Pentagon for failing to cooperate fully with the inquest.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">>> REPORTS</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m31431&hd=&size=1&l=e">Five Resistance groups reportedly form unified command and common organization</a>, in opposition to call to join al-Qa'idah.
<blockquote></blockquote>
In a dispatch posted on Thursday, Quds Press reported that a source close to the Resistance organization the Islamic Army in Iraq, one of the largest Resistance groups, said that five major Resistance groups had agreed to unite their armed efforts and political positions.
<blockquote></blockquote>
The source told Quds Press that leaders of the Islamic Army, the Army of the Mujahideen, the Army of the Rashideen, the 1920 Revolution Brigades, and the Islamic Resistance Front (Jami') held meetings over three consecutive days to reach agreement on uniting their efforts in resisting the occupation and its stooges and uniting their political positions. The groups will also take one common name and chose a general commander, according to the source.
<blockquote></blockquote>
The source told Quds Press that the organizations will announce the conclusion of their discussions, the new name for the group and the name of their commander in a joint communiqué. He said that all the groups had agreed to set up a united front organization and a united Shura (Consultative) Council.
<blockquote></blockquote>
The move comes two days after a voice message issued by the Amir of the group known as the Islamic State of Iraq – a prominent member in which is the al-Qa'idah organization – in which he called on all the Iraqi Resistance groups to join the "Islamic State of Iraq and take oaths of allegiance to him.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m31431&hd=&size=1&l=e">read in full…</a>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">>> COMMENTARY AND ANALYSIS
<blockquote></blockquote>
</span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Truth About Iraqis: </span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-style: italic;">HOW SADR AND THE US HELPED EACH OTHER KILL IRAQIS ...</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
</span>I have read with utter disgust some of the reports on so-called anti-war websites which have pronounced that Muqtada Sadr is the true face of Iraqi resistance.
<blockquote></blockquote>
But Muqtada flees to Iran every time he hears his father wail from hell (read: US forces enter Iraq for some or that security sweep) or the Iraqi resistance manage to take out some of his commanders.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Iran, as everyone in Iraq knows, is one of the major two players in Iraq, seeking to rid my people of their heritage. They still blame Arabs for their Qadisiya losses 1400 years ago. They still blame every nationalist in Iraq for the war against them.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Fanatical, maniacal, Iran and the mullahs who run it are responsible for more carnage than the US military.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Despite the blunders and massacres committed by US troops, the US is seen to be the lesser of two evils in Iraq, more civilized than the Safavids.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m31421&hd=&size=1&l=e">read in full…</a><span style="font-weight: bold;">
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Gorilla's Guides: SCENES FROM AN IRAKI CHILDHOOD</span></span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://gorillasguides.com/wp-content/windowslivewriterscenesfromanirakichildhoodmarch15th2007-f63220070315-girl-in-ruins-of-bombed-home-iskandariyah5.jpg">This photo</a> is from Iskandariya, 50 kilometers (30 miles) south of Baghdad, Iraq. It was taken today Marc 15th 2007. A car bomb exploded as a bus was passing. The bomb killed at least four people and wounded 24 others it also destroyed this child’s home. Al-Askandariya is 40 km south of Baghdad, and 50km north of Hilla. It is mostly Shia and is where the American FOB Kalsu is located.
<blockquote></blockquote>
As you can see the photograph shows a young girl standing in the ruins of her home. Her home was destroyed by the car bomb targeting the bus.
<blockquote></blockquote>
The bus was targeted because it was taking employees of the government run, mechanical industries plant to work. Specifically the Hateen Munitions Complex. The bombing was part of the ongoing campaign by guerillas resisting the American invasion to make American invaded Irak so chaotic, so ungovernable, so horrific, that the American invaders leave.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Americans never understand this so I will spell it out for them in terms that not even an American can fail to understand. Your invasion is so hated that those resisting your invasion consider no sacrifice to be to great to get rid of you. They have adopted the American tactic of simply ignoring all civilian casualties as “collateral damage.”
<blockquote></blockquote>
There are many reasons why military analysts call car bombs “<span style="font-style: italic;">the poor man’s airforce</span>” and one of them is that those who use the weapon do not care even slightly that they are killing civilians. As a Muslim and an Iraki I find it disgusting that Muslims and Irakis would sink to the level of the American military. As a parent I am outraged that the presence of your troops has resulted in this child’s life being put in danger and her home being ruined.
<blockquote></blockquote>
I am tired of hearing American lies that the corrupt, cynical, and brutal invasion of my country that your country carried out on the basis of a pack of lies that nobody who know Irak believed was carried out for any reason other than seize control of Irak. I am tired of hearing the American lie that the loathsome American presence is necessary to prevent civil war.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Here is the truth. The civil war and the sectarian attacks are <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">caused</span> by the presence of your hated and hateful troops. Nothing that America does will make Irak “better.” Every second that your hated and hateful soldiers, your hated and hateful hated “diplomats,” your hated and hateful ”consultants,” and your despicable <strike>security contractors</strike> mercenaries stay in Irak leads to more death, more destruction, more ruined children’s lives.
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<a href="http://gorillasguides.com/2007/03/15/scenes-from-an-iraki-childhood-march-15th-2007/">read in full…</a><span style="font-weight: bold;">
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>> BEYOND IRAQ
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<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Lenin's Tomb: THE UNIVERSAL CONFESSION</span>
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Oh fucking please. Having tortured Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM from here on in, because terror suspects having complete names is an unaffordable extravagance), elicited the answers they required (or perhaps not) and released their very own transcript, officials in the Bush administration are saying that maybe KSM 'exaggerated' a bit. No doubt the multinational guffaw at the finding that their suspect is guilty of every substantial outrage for the last twenty five years (barring his work for the CIA in Afghanistan) has prompted this. But, seriously, fuck off! <span style="font-style: italic;">KSM</span> lied? The man who was being tortured<span style="font-style: italic;">? He</span> lied? The whole <span style="font-style: italic;">point</span> about torture is that it elicits false confessions, usually ones fed to the suspect by the interrogator.
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Let's go over the list: 9/11; plot to kill Jimmy Carter, and other former presidents (why?); "the assassination attempt against Pope John Paul II" (why?); managing an anthrax and biological weapons cell; cut off "with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew Daniel Pearl"; 1993 WTC bombing; planning the Richard Reid shoe-bombing plot; the killing of American soldiers in Kuwait; the Bali bombings; plot for a post-9/11 series of 'Independence Day'-style attacks on American monuments; plot to bomb the Panama Canal; plan to attack U.S. military ships and oil tankers in the Straits of Hormuz, the Straits of Gibraltar and the Port of Singapore; plot to bomb suspension bridges in New York City; plan to use burning fuel trucks to take down the Sears Tower (how?); a plot to destroy Big Ben, Canary Wharf tower and Heathrow Airport; attempt to attack Thai nightclubs frequented by US soldiers; a post-9/11 plot to blow up the New York Stock Exchange; plot to use Saudi planes to blow up Israeli buildings; plot to attack US embassies in Indonesia, Austrial and Japan; sending "several mujahadeen" to Israel to survey potential targets; bombing a Mombasa beach resort in 2002; attempt to hit an Israeli plane departing from Kenya with a rocket; plot to attack Nato headquarters in Brussels; plans to attack nightclubs visited by the US in South Korea; Operation Bojinka, plan to take down 12 American airliners; plot to assassinate General Musharraf; plan to attack an oil company in Sumatra which is allegedly owned by Kissinger; plot to attack Nato headquarters; plot to attack nuclear power plants in the US; plot to attack American, British and Jewish targets in Turkey.
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And he 'exaggerated' a bit. What's the point of such an obvious pack of lies? The extraction of false confessions is not about persuading people of the veracity of some story or other, although it may do that. In the interrogation process, the attempt is to get the torture victim to accept the irrelevance of their own conceptions of fact and fiction, and to award the interrogator the right to determine what is true and what is not. Analogously, the release of this information is an assertion of power's right to narrate, it's permission to determine the 'facts', however absurd. Further, it contains the assertion that imprisonment in Guantanamo and torture in a secret cell is what elicits the 'truth'.
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<a href="http://leninology.blogspot.com/2007/03/universal-confession.html">link</a>
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<span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;"> Well that's the war on terror all wrapped up. we can all get back to enjoying our freedoms.</span>
<span style="font-style: italic;" class="byline">-- comment by paul | 16 Mar, 14:43 | at the above post</span></blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;" class="byline">
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</span>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5501771.post-1173988696693264272007-03-15T13:24:00.000-07:002007-03-15T15:01:35.490-07:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7220/2167/1600/177365/latuff.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7220/2167/320/434328/latuff.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">DAILY WAR NEWS FOR THURSDAY, March 15, 2007</span>
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Little Red Riding Hood, Iraq version. Art by Carlos Latuff at "<a href="http://www.tales-of-iraq-war.blogspot.com/">TALES OF IRAQ WAR by Latuff</a>" (See below "Carlos Latuff…")
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<a href="http://www.mnf-iraq.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=10600&Itemid=21">Bring 'em on</a>: Two Soldiers died as a result of injuries sustained from explosions near their vehicles in separate attacks. Task Force Lightning Soldiers were attacked while conducting combat operations in Diyala province Wednesday. Another Soldier died as a result of injuries sustained from small arms fire. Nine Soldiers were wounded and taken to a Coalition medical facility for treatment. <span style="font-style: italic;">(MNF - Iraq)</span>
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<a href="http://www.mnf-iraq.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=10612&Itemid=21">Bring 'em on</a>: A Soldier assigned to Multi National Force-West was killed Mar. 14 while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar Province. <span style="font-style: italic;">(MNF - Iraq)
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</span><a href="http://www.mnf-iraq.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=10613&Itemid=21">A Marine assigned to Multi National Force-West died Mar. 14 in a noncombat related incident</a> in Al Anbar Province. <span style="font-style: italic;">(MNF - Iraq)</span>
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<span style="font-style: italic;">OTHER SECURITY INCIDENTS</span>
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Baghdad:</span>
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<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=39489&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">Unidentified gunmen killed an associate of Iraqi Housing Minister</a> Bayan Dizayee, in an attack in Kadhemiyah area, northern Baghdad, according to a source in the housing ministry. "Gunmen showered Asou Abdullah Ghafour with bullets while he was on his way to his work," a media source from the ministry, who preferred not to be named, told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq.
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<a href="http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/CrisesArticle.aspx?storyId=IBO544230">A car bomb targeting a joint Iraqi army and police checkpoint exploded in central Baghdad</a> on Thursday, causing an unknown number of casualties, police said. The blast shook buildings and windows in the normally busy Karrada district.
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<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6482769,00.html">A suicide car bomber apparently targeting a senior city official struck an Iraqi military checkpoint</a> Thursday in a Shiite neighborhood in Baghdad, killing at least eight people, officials said.
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<a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070315/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_sadr_city_official_1;_ylt=AhjQSW9NWjxeqQG4XNNN3F5X6GMA">The top official in Baghdad's district of Sadr City was seriously wounded when gunmen ambushed his convoy</a> in eastern Baghdad, killing two of his bodyguards, according to police and a local official. Rahim al-Darraji has been involved in negotiations with U.S. and Iraqi government officials seeking to persuade the Shiite militias that dominate the sprawling slum to pull their fighters off the streets ahead of a security crackdown to stop the sectarian warfare in Baghdad. His convoy was attacked in a drive-by shooting in the mostly Shiite area of Habibiyah.
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<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=39513&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">An Iraqi civilian was killed and another wounded when a mortar round fell onto a Shiite slum</a> in Baghdad's eastern Sadr City, a police source said.
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Diyala Prv:</span>
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<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=39484&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">A forensic medicine department in Diala province received 11 unidentified bodies</a>, which had been found in different parts of Baaquba, 57 km northeast of Baghdad, according to a medical source.
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Iskandariyah:</span>
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<a href="http://www.thekansascitychannel.com/news/11256295/detail.html">A car bombing in Iraq's so-called "Triangle of Death" killed at least four people</a> on Thursday. The bomb in a parked car blew up next to a bus packed with workers. Besides the four known dead, at least two dozen other people were wounded. It happened in the city of Iskandariyah, 30 miles south of Baghdad.
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Police captain Muthanna al-Maamuri, based in nearby Hilla, said <a href="http://ca.today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2007-03-15T105657Z_01_N14602023_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-IRAQ-USA-PENTAGON-COL.XML">the blast killed six people and wounded 23 on the bus</a> carrying workers for a state mechanical industry company. Another police source said seven were killed and 35 wounded.
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Hillah:</span>
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<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=39481&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">A total of 44 suspected militants were arrested after an armed attack on a local police chief</a> in southern Hilla city, 100 km south of Baghdad, a source in Babel police department said. "Chief of al-Kafl police station Major Khaled Abdel Hussein was wounded in an attack by gunmen Thursday morning," the source, who asked to be unnamed, told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI), noting that one of his companions was killed in the attack. "The chief was amongst a police patrol, assigned to protect pilgrims heading for Najaf to commemorate the death of Prophet Mohamed," he highlighted.
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Amarah:</span>
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<a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070315/wl_afp/iraq_070315101457;_ylt=At1Tmnfh2sg6TP1n1mMnkgBX6GMA">A former Baathist member was shot dead in the southern city of Amara by gunmen,</a> police said.
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Dalouiya:</span>
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<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=39467&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">U.S. forces made on Thursday morning an airdrop operation in Dalouiya district</a>, in Salah ad-Din province, killing two young men and arresting nine others, including a former senior officer in the Iraqi army, while a gunman was killed and another was arrested in an attack by a group of armed men on a police station, a police source said.
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Meanwhile, <a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=39467&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">unidentified gunmen attacked al-Herdaniya police station, in northern Dalouiya</a>, the source highlighted, noting that clashes erupted between the attackers and police forces. "A gunman was killed and another was arrested in the attack," the source said, adding that a policeman was seriously inured in the clash.</blockquote>
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Tikrit:</span>
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<a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070315/wl_afp/iraq_070315101457;_ylt=At1Tmnfh2sg6TP1n1mMnkgBX6GMA">A top police officer and his driver were shot dead in Tikrit</a>.
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"<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=39469&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">Iraqi police patrols found late Wednesday unidentified bodies of two women</a> in a deserted house in Shurqat district," the source told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI). "The decayed bodies bore signs of gun shots and were sent to the forensic medicine department in Tikrit," he added.
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Baiji:</span>
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"<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=39469&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">The U.S. forces opened fire Wednesday night against a civilian car near al-Riyashi gas station in Baiji district, killing the driver</a>," a source in Baiji police stated, giving no further details.
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Mosul:</span>
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<a href="http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=19996">US troops killed an Iraqi soldier and wounded three more</a> during a raid targeting an Al-Qaeda network in the restive northern city of Mosul, the military reported on Thursday. The incident occurred when US-led forces came under small arms fire attack during the raid. "Coalition forces returned fire, killing one and wounding three others," a military statement said. "Coalition forces later identified the armed men as Iraqi army soldiers."
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Al Anbar Prv:</span>
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"<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=39517&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">An explosive charge went off near a U.S. vehicle patrol at noon today in west of Amiriyat al-Falluja, destroying a Hummer vehicle</a>," an eyewitness told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI). Amiriyat al-Falluja, 20 km south of Falluja, is a hotspot that witnesses repeated attacks against U.S. forces. There was no immediate comment from the U.S. army on the incident.
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A police source said unknown <a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=39517&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">gunmen this afternoon attacked an Iraqi army base in western Falluja</a>. "Iraqi soldiers engaged in a fight with the attackers," said the source, adding that the clashes lasted for 20 minutes and light and mid-sized arms were used. The source, who could not say whether there were casualties among the soldiers or the attackers, said "the clashes left no casualties among the civilians."
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<span style="font-style: italic;">In Country:</span>
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<a href="http://www.baltictimes.com/news/articles/17504/">A soldier serving in Iraq was injured March 12 in an attack on a Latvian unit</a>. The attack came at approximately 17:40 local time while the unit was on patrol. Corporal Vladislavs Fursovs received minor injuries to his hand when a shell exploded near the Hummer military vehicle in which he was on patrol.
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">>> NEWS</span>
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">></span> Prime Minister Tony <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070315/wl_afp/britainiraqmilitary_070315165844;_ylt=AupS2e2QHWMok352zZxPwlVX6GMA">Blair refused to apologise for the Iraq invasion</a>, insisting the country is not at civil war despite mounting violence nearly four years after the 2003 conflict.
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In a television interview days before the March 20 anniversary of the US-led invasion, he insisted that deposing Saddam Hussein was justified.
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"I do not either regret the strength of our alliance with the US or standing by the US president and the American people in the aftermath of September 11 and I'm never going to do that," he told Sky News.
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He was speaking as car bombs and shootings claimed 26 lives and the US military announced the deaths of five more troops, in the latest day of bloody violence in Iraq.
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> <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070315/pl_nm/iraq_usa_congress_dc_3;_ylt=AuE8ZoIFibfEfJR8Qhp6nrVX6GMA">A Democratic plan to withdraw all U.S. combat troops from Iraq by September 1, 2008, was approved </a>by a key committee of the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday. (…)
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The legislation marked the first time a congressional committee voted to put binding limits on the duration of the 4-year-old war in Iraq. But the measure's future was uncertain.
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House Democratic leaders are girding for a close vote in the full House and the legislation is unlikely to attract enough support in the 100-member Senate, where a 60-vote majority is often needed for controversial initiatives.
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">>> REPORTS</span>
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">> </span>The US Defense Department released a report saying that <a href="http://www.alsumaria.tv/en/Iraq-News/1-1677-Attacks-in-Iraq-at-their-highest-level.html">attacks in Iraq which occurred during the last three months of this current year have reached their highest levels since the beginning of 2003</a>. Despite that most attacks are targeting Coalition forces, victims are mainly amongst innocent citizens and civilians, the report said. The report highlighted problems regarding Iraqi security forces which are estimated now at 330,000 units since February.
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<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Lauren Frayer, Associated Press: STRYKERS LOSE 10 ON 1st DAY IN DIYALA</span>
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Dozens of U.S. Stryker combat vehicles roared into Baqouba at sunrise. The enemy was ready. As the dawn call to prayer fell silent, the streets blazed with insurgent fire. Within minutes of the start of their first mission in Diyala province Wednesday a voice crackled across the radio: "Catastrophic kill, with casualties."
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Inside the rear of one Stryker, soldiers shushed one another and leaned closer to the radio. They all knew what it meant. A U.S. vehicle had been lost to hostile fire.
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Nearly 100 Strykers, armored troop carriers with 50-caliber machine guns, were called north from Baghdad into the province and its capital to try — yet again — to rout Sunni insurgents, many who recently fled the month-old Baghdad security operation.
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The fighters have renewed their campaign of bombings and killings just 35 miles northeast of the capital as the war enters its fifth year. Diyala province is quickly becoming as dangerous as Anbar province, the Sunni insurgent bastion west of Baghdad.
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Rocket-propelled grenades pounded buildings Wednesday where U.S. soldiers sought cover. Mortars soared overhead and crashed to earth spewing clouds of deadly shrapnel.
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Gunfire rattled ceaselessly — the hollow pop of insurgent AK-47s and whoosh of grenade launchers nearly drowned out by shuddering blasts from the 50-caliber machine guns.
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Soldiers screamed into their radios for backup. Apache attack helicopters swooped in, firing Hellfire missiles.
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By day's end, one soldier was dead, 12 wounded and two Strykers destroyed. The Americans said dozens of insurgents were killed but gave no specific number.
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It was a bloody first day for the 2nd Infantry Division's 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment — the crack Stryker battalion dispatched from Baghdad's northern suburbs.
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"They threw everything at us — RPGs, mortars — and a guy even tossed a grenade just in front of my vehicle," said Capt. Huber Parsons, the 28-year-old commander of the 5-20's Attack company. "But the most devastating was the IEDs," the Coral Gables, Fla., native said. He was talking about improvised explosive devices — roadside bombs.
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One Stryker was lost in a particularly sophisticated ambush.
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Struck head-on by an IED, the rubber-tired armored vehicle was swallowed up in the bomb crater. Insurgents emerged from hiding, firing RPGs in unison.
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The Stryker crew was trapped. One U.S. soldier was killed. All nine other crew members were wounded, though six later returned to duty.
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The other Stryker was destroyed when a roadside bomb exploded as the armored vehicle drove over it. The nine-man squad got out alive, three with injuries. (…)
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The Stryker group came to Baqouba on Tuesday full of optimism about pacifying Diyala, as they did earlier in parts of Baghdad and in the northern city of Mosul.
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Confidence faded Wednesday in the hail of insurgent fire and news of casualties among comrades.
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"Our first day and we lost one already," said 22-year-old Spc. Jose Charriez of Hermiston, Ore. "You realize how quickly your life can go."
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<a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070315/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_under_fire_1;_ylt=AscUQngotZEivuYUFxf3U15X6GMA">read in full…</a>
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">>> COMMENTARY AND ANALYSIS</span>
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<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Reality-based educator: PRESS GAMES</span>
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The Associated Press declares the surge "a success" because violence in Baghdad is down this week. Juan Cole refutes:
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<span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">The US press is so busy looking for signs of improvement that they have already forgotten about the slaughter of hundreds of Shiite pilgrims just last week, and are interpreting the relative calm of Sunday and Monday as some sort of turning point. Unlikely.</span><span style="font-style: italic;">
<blockquote></blockquote></span><span style="font-style: italic;">In fact on Wednesday it was reported that police had found 17 bodies in the streets of Baghdad. A judge was assassinated in broad daylight. Guerrillas fired katyushas at the posh Karrada district. Militiamen shot 4 men at a Sunni mosque in the southern Risala district. In the northern city of Mosul, police found 4 bodies. There were scattered bombings and assassinations elsewhere in the country.</span></blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;"></span>
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The violence in Iraq has ebbed and flowed since the start of the occupation. Just because we're currently in an "ebb period" doesn't mean the violence in Iraq is over. Not by a long shot. The levels of violence after an ebb period have often grown from the levels before the ebb period. And as Professor Cole notes, wasn't it just last week that hundreds of Shiite pilgrims were slaughtered by Sunni insurgents?
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<a href="http://reality-basededucator.blogspot.com/2007/03/press-games.html">link</a>
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<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Lenin's tomb: IRAQI RESISTANCE "WINNING"</span>
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According to dissident Iraqi Kurd, Kamal Majid, the Iraqi resistance is winning. The 77-year-old academic told a conference on War, Imperialism and Resistance that his visit to the country he left when it was being ruled by Saddam is confidently taking on the occupiers, but "the Americans have invested $350 billion and they are not going to go home easily. They are not going to leave tomorrow. This is also what happened in Vietnam." Interestingly, he touched on the death squads, making the following suggestion:
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<span style="font-style: italic;">"What happened is that the Americans trained death squads (of Iraqis) in Hungary before the invasion to take on members of one another community. My own cousin, a Shia, was trained in Turkey. But when he was asked to kill Sunnis, he just ran away.</span>
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<span style="font-style: italic;">"It was the Americans who spoke about Shia majority areas and Sunni triangles. Iraqis never used such expressions earlier. Despite American propaganda (that only Sunnis are against them), three Shia groups are fighting the Americans."</span></blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;"></span>
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I knew that there were militias being used by the Americans very soon, but I have not before heard that there were squads of Iraqis being trained in Hungary prior to the invasion. Of course it wouldn't be surprising: the CIA used Iraqi exile groups to launch a series of terror campaigns in Iraq during the 1990s, including the blowing up of a schoolbus. They would presumably have reckoned that they might need to wage a terror war, even if they totally underestimated the scale of resistance.
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Indeed, despite all the current talk of civil war - which I'll come to in a minute - the main fears of US military leaders at the moment are resistance fighters picking up activity in the north of the country while Baghdad is under lockdown. There has been a recent 30% rise in attacks in Diyala - a 70% rise in attacks on coalition troops since last Summer - and so Bush is sending in thousands more troops in a drastic escalation (which some US antiwar activists are resisting with direct action).
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Now, about the civil war. Although, as I have repeatedly indicated, there is a genuine civil war dynamic, what is interesting is how this is being used ideologically. We have already seen it used as an excuse to continue the occupation, to 'contain' the fighting. However, there is an increasing trend among establishment liberals in particular to say 'well, if they don't want to be liberated, then fuck em up the arse with a big stick', while the Bush administration insists that all was going well until the bad men started killing each other. Obviously, their narrative is deeply racist, as per this account from <span style="font-style: italic;">Time Magazine</span>. As Richard Marsden points out, it transforms America's ruination of Iraq, into Iraq's ruining of "US hopes": the occupiers wanted so much for the people of Iraq, but those ungrateful, angry, hateful bastards have <span style="font-style: italic;">spoiled everything.</span> It obviously omits the American strategy of promoting sectarianism and running death squads, so that inevitably the combat has to be explained as the result of some deep historical loathing between Shiites and Sunnis.
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The tipping point in Bush administration's narrative is the bombing of the al-Askari mosque. Even on the day it happened, you could see this becoming the <span style="font-style: italic;">cri de coeur </span>of the apologists for occupation: 'we' would have been able to up and leave, having safely midwived a free Iraq, had it not been for the troublemakers. The Washington Post gathers some serious experts to challenge these claims - but all on the basis of whether US strategy was 'working' or not. I await the next batch of statistics on resistance attacks, but the reality is unlikely to have altered a great deal since mid-2006 when it was confirmed that long after the al-Askari shrine attack the attacks on troops still far outnumbered the attacks on civilians. If anything, the statistics for Diyala, which is a mixed province, indicate that the war against the occupiers is much more the focus than it was one year ago. They're gambling an awful lot on this escalation, and if it doesn't work they've got their excuse prepared: the Iraqis simply couldn't live up to our noble aspirations for them.
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<a href="http://leninology.blogspot.com/2007/03/iraqi-resistance-winning.html">link</a>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Kurt Nimmo, Another Day in the Empire: ABC UNMASKS "CURVEBALL" FOUR YEARS TOO LATE</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
ABC News is surprised, simply flabbergasted. In a "special report," Brian Ross tells us about the Curveball "intelligence failure" and quotes flummoxed officials, including an outraged Collin Powell, who will go down in history as the fool who presented a passel of neocon lies and fairy tales in dog and pony show format before the United Nations, thus providing a transparent pretext to invade Iraq and systematically slaughter more than 650,000 of its citizens.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Back in February, 2003, I was insisting here that Powell’s evidence was little more than Brothers Grimm nonsense designed to scare small children and witless American adults who invariably believe everything the government tells them, no matter the inexhaustible track record of lies and deception stretching far back into history, not that history interests the average American, who is far more captivated by American Idol and Deal Or No Deal.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Ross begins his "report" by characterizing the Curveball story, admitted to be the neocon centerpiece for invasion and mass murder, as little more than an "intelligence failure." In fact, it was not an intelligence failure, but rather a contrived bit of disinformation planted by the neocons through their "cherry picking" operation at the Office of Special Plans.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://kurtnimmo.com/?p=797">read in full…</a>
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<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Socialist Worker: CARLOS LATUFF: A COMIC-STRIP TAKE ON IRAQ REBELLION</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
Carlos Latuff is a Brazilian cartoonist who deploys the style of classic US superhero comics – but for very different political ends.
<blockquote></blockquote>
“I try to use a traditional and established medium to spread the point of view of the anti-imperialist resistance,” he told <span style="font-style: italic;">Socialist Worker</span>. “Usually the heroes, the good guys, are from the US.
<blockquote></blockquote>
“I thought it’s time to present a different sort of hero – the real ones, those who defend their homes from foreigner invaders.”
<blockquote></blockquote>
Juba The Baghdad Sniper, Latuff’s latest strip, is set in Iraq. It follows the adventures of a supershot Baghdad sniper and his battles to outfox US occupation troops. “Juba, as well as the Iraqi resistance fighters, are the modern heroes, just like the Viet Cong were in the past,” he says.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/article.php?article_id=10921">read in full…</a>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">>> BEYOND IRAQ</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">QUOTE OF THE DAY</span>: "[Spc. Jeremiah Westerfeld of 2nd Infantry Division's 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, the crack Stryker battalion dispatched from Baghdad's northern suburbs to "pacify" Diyala] bent over and offered a reporter his shoulder as a step to break her fall. They dropped down into a scruffy yard, thick with foliage and muddy ruts. A dog barked wildly. Smoke grenades were thrown for cover. Someone shot the dog." <span style="font-style: italic;">-- from "Strykers lose 10 on 1st day in Diyala" (see above)
</span>
<span style="font-style: italic;"></span>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5501771.post-1173897124802418052007-03-14T12:32:00.000-07:002007-03-14T13:17:59.020-07:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://images.abolkhaseb.net/gi-newsletter/GI%20SPECIAL%205C13-6.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 380px;" src="http://images.abolkhaseb.net/gi-newsletter/GI%20SPECIAL%205C13-6.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">DAILY WAR NEWS FOR WEDNESDAY, March 14, 2007</span>
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<a href="http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m31366&hd=&size=1&l=e">Photo</a>: Iraqi citizens plead with foreign occupation soldiers from U.S. 2nd Platoon Charlie Troop, 3rd Squadron of the 61st Cavalry Regiment not to destroy their belongings. They are forced at gunpoint to get out of their own home while the foreigners search it, taking away whatever they want. <span style="font-style: italic;">(GI Special 5C13 caption)</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.mnf-iraq.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=10586&Itemid=21">Bring 'em on</a>: March 13, a MND-B unit struck a roadside bomb while on a combat patrol in a southern section of the Iraqi capital, killing one Soldier and wounding three others. <span style="font-style: italic;">(MNF- Iraq)</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.mnf-iraq.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=10585&Itemid=21">Bring 'em on</a>: March 13, a MND-B unit struck a roadside bomb while conducting these types of combined security operations in a northeastern section of the Iraqi capital, killing one Soldier and wounding another.<span style="font-style: italic;"> (MNF- Iraq)
<blockquote></blockquote>
</span><a href="http://www.mnf-iraq.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=10598&Itemid=21">Bring 'em on</a>: A Marine assigned to Multi National Force-West was killed Mar. 13 while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar Province.<span style="font-style: italic;"> (MNF- Iraq)</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">OTHER SECURITY INCIDENTS</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Baghdad:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
In western Baghdad, <a href="http://www.brandonsun.com/story.php?story_id=45951">a suicide car bomber slammed into an Iraqi army checkpoint in the neighbourhood of Yarmouk</a> , killing two civilians and wounding four others, police said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L14349672.htm">Gunmen wounded the head of Baghdad's Adhamiya Municipality</a>, and killed two of his bodyguards, police said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Iskandariya:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L14349672.htm">A Sunni mosque was badly damaged when gunmen planted bombs inside it</a> in the town of Iskandariya, 40 km (25 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Dinwaniya:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L14349672.htm">Gunmen killed two police officers and wounded another in a drive-by shooting </a>in the southern city of Diwaniya, 180 km (110 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Tikrit:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.newsone.ca/piercelandherald/ViewArticle.aspx?id=75082&source=2">The head of the local Iraqi Red Crescent Society branch in Tikrit was abducted by gunmen</a> on Monday night.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Tuz Khormato:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.brandonsun.com/story.php?story_id=45951">A suicide bomber struck a market in northern Iraq, killing at least eight people and wounding 25,</a> police said. The explosion occurred just before noon as the market was crowded with shoppers in Tuz Khormato, 210 kilometres north of Baghdad.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Kirkuk:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=39371&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">An Iraqi civilian was killed when an explosive charge went off near his private car</a> in southwest of Kirkuk, 250 km northeast of Baghdad, a security source said Wednesday. "An explosive charge detonated late on Tuesday near a civilian car on the highway linking Tikrit to Riadh in southwest of Kirkuk," the source, who asked not to be named, told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Fallujah:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L14349672.htm">The bodies of two men were found, with gunshot wounds and signs of torture</a>, near the Sunni Arab stronghold of Falluja, 50 km (35 miles) west of Baghdad, police said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
"<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=39413&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">Unidentified gunmen opened fire against an army vehicle patrol in al-Julan neighborhood</a>, north of Falluja, on Wednesday afternoon," the source, who asked to be unnamed, told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI). "Fierce clashes erupted after the attack between Iraqi forces and the armed men," the source added, giving no further details.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=39413&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">Two cleaners were killed by U.S. forces in Falluja</a>, the source said. "Bullets were fired from a U.S. base in Arbayeen Street, near to a mosque in al-Dubat neighborhood in central Falluja, wounding two cleaners who were rushed to the hospital. However they died of their wounds," he noted. The U.S. forces are using a residential house as a military base in al-Dubat neighborhood.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">>> NEWS</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/03/14/africa/ME-GEN-Iraq-Saddams-Sons.php">The bodies of Saddam Hussein's sons and a grandson have been exhumed and reburied near the ousted leader's grave</a> in his hometown north of Baghdad, tribal officials said Wednesday.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Saddam's sons, Odai, 39, and Qusai, 37, and his 14-year-old grandson Mustafa died July 22, 2003, in gunbattle with U.S. troops in the northern city of Mosul and had been buried in the main tribal cemetery in Tikrit, 130 kilometers (80 miles) north of the capital.
<blockquote></blockquote>
But Sunni leaders of Saddam's tribe decided to move the remains Tuesday to the courtyard of the ornate building in which the ousted leader was laid to rest after he was hanged on Dec. 30 after being convicted for crimes against humanity. He was buried the next day in a grave chipped out of an interior floor of a building he had built for religious events.
<blockquote></blockquote>
"We wanted to put the bodies of Saddam's family in one place," said Thaer Ismael of Saddam's tribe.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">>> REPORTS</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">></span> The Pentagon is actively considering a series of fallback positions for Iraq in the event that President George Bush’s plan of expanding the US military presence fails.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Among the options are adoption of the El Salvador model, which would see Washington withdraw most of its 150,000-plus troops and replace them with a few hundred, or few thousand, military advisers.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m31366&hd=&size=1&l=e">A more drastic option also being looked at is to retreat inside Baghdad’s Green Zone and the heavily fortified airport on the outskirts of the city.</a>
<blockquote></blockquote>
An adviser familiar with discussions inside the Pentagon said there was great pessimism about whether Mr Bush’s troop "surge" would work, and military planners were studying a range of alternatives.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Winslow Wheeler, a senior fellow at the Centre for Defence Information thinktank, who was involved in El Salvador, also said the El Salvador model was not viable in Iraq. "It is not sufficient to train indigenous forces.
<blockquote></blockquote>
They have to have a government they are willing to die for. There is no moderate centre in Iraq for which people are willing to die."
<blockquote></blockquote>
Referring to the chaotic scenes that accompanied the US pullout from Saigon, Mr Wheeler said retreat into Baghdad’s fortified zones would be tantamount to "bringing in the wooden steps for helicopters to take us out.
<blockquote></blockquote>
"That is just the final stage before the failure becomes apparent."
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">></span> Prime Minister Nouri <a href="http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/03/13/africa/ME-GEN-Iraq-Oil.php?page=2">al-Maliki fears the Americans will withdraw support for his government — effectively ousting him — if parliament does not pass a draft oil law by the end of June</a>, close associates of the Iraqi leader told The Associated Press on Tuesday.
<blockquote></blockquote>
The legislature has not even taken up the draft measure for a fair distribution of the nation's oil wealth — only one of several U.S. benchmarks that are now seen by al-Maliki, a hardline Shiite, as key to continued American support for his troubled government.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Beyond that, the al-Maliki associates told AP, American officials have informed the prime minister they want an Iraqi government in place by year's end that would be acceptable to Iraq's Sunni Arab neighbors, particularly Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt.
<blockquote></blockquote>
"They have said it must be secular and inclusive," one al-Maliki associate said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
To that end, al-Maliki made an unannounced visit Tuesday to Ramadi, the Sunni insurgent stronghold, to meet with tribal leaders, the provincial governor and security chiefs in a bid to signal his willingness for reconciliation to end the bitter and bloody sectarian war that has riven Iraq for more than a year.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">> </span>Less than half of Americans think the United States can win the war in Iraq, according to a CNN poll released Tuesday.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Forty-six percent said the United States could not win the war in Iraq.
<blockquote></blockquote>
And although 46 percent also said the United States still could win, <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/03/13/iraq.poll/index.html">the results mark the first time since the war began four years ago that a majority of Americans said the United States is not capable of winning</a>. (Watch what the latest polls say about the war )
<blockquote></blockquote>
An even smaller percentage, 37 percent, said the United States will in fact win the war in Iraq; 54 percent said it will not. An all-time low of 29 percent said things were going well in Iraq. (Interactive: Poll results)
<blockquote></blockquote>
Fifty-four percent of Americans said the Bush administration deliberately misled Americans about whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction before the U.S.-led invasion.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">>> COMMENTARY AND ANALYSIS</span>
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<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">M.R. Narayan Swamy, NewKerala.Com: 'IRAQI RESISTANCE WINNING, BUT IT WILL BE A LONG WAR'</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
Drawing an analogy with Vietnam, a long-time Iraqi dissident says the armed resistance in his country against the US is winning, but it will take a long time to make the American troops go home.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Kamal Majid, a Professor Emeritus in the University of Wales (Cardiff), also said here that Iraqis had every right to invite foreigners to join the fighting against the US troops as Washington too had other governments on its side.
<blockquote></blockquote>
"The Iraqi people are optimistic that they will succeed (against the US)," Majid told an "International Conference on War, Imperialism and Resistance" here, drawing thunderous applause at the end of an impassioned speech.
<blockquote></blockquote>
And soon afterwards, the 77-year-old academic, who counts Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih and Irrigation Minister Latif Rashid as his students, told IANS that he expected violence in Iraq to continue for a long time.
<blockquote></blockquote>
"It will take a very long time (to make the Americans pull out)," Majid said. "After all the Americans have invested $350 billion and they are not going to go home easily. They are not going to leave tomorrow. This is also what happened in Vietnam."
<blockquote></blockquote>
An Iraqi Kurd, Majid said he had not visited Iraq for decades - first because he was bitterly opposed to deposed ruler Saddam Hussein and now because he feared death at the hands of Americans and "these people" - a reference to Deputy Prime Minister Salih and minister Rashid. "I hate them," he added.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Majid squarely blamed the Americans for the Shia-Sunni sectarian conflict in Iraq that has claimed hundreds of lives and threatens to rip apart the country as never before.
<blockquote></blockquote>
"There was no such conflict before the Americans came," he said. "My own uncle, a Sunni, had nine children, six of whom married Shias.
<blockquote></blockquote>
"What happened is that the Americans trained death squads (of Iraqis) in Hungary before the invasion to take on members of one another community. My own cousin, a Shia, was trained in Turkey. But when he was asked to kill Sunnis, he just ran away.
<blockquote></blockquote>
"It was the Americans who spoke about Shia majority areas and Sunni triangles. Iraqis never used such expressions earlier. Despite American propaganda (that only Sunnis are against them), three Shia groups are fighting the Americans.
<blockquote></blockquote>
"We do hope that once the Americans leave," Majid added, "Shias and Sunnis will realize that they need to live in peace, and for 200 centuries more." (…)
<blockquote></blockquote>
And in comments that appeared to justify the use of suicide bombers, he went on: "The Americans decide where to fight and what weapons to use. We also need (to do that). War has no laws. War has no logic. The enemy uses their own bombs, the resistance uses its (weapons).
<blockquote></blockquote>
"The US uses armies from other countries. So it is also our right to invite people from other countries to fight for our rights. They are not foreigners, they are fighting for us."
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.newkerala.com/news.php?action=fullnews&id=5142">read in full…</a>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Marc Lynch, Guardian: AN EYE ON ALLAWI</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
Will Iyad Allawi, the rotund one-time Iraqi Prime Minister and current London resident, be the next Prime Minister of Iraq? He certainly seems to want the job, and he suits the Bush administration's agenda suspiciously well. But his return to power would not only fail to end the civil war - it would also signal a decisive end to democratic aspirations in Iraq and the Arab world, increase America's role at a time when most Americans would prefer to leave, and pave the way to a confrontation with Iran.
<blockquote></blockquote>
While Allawi has only recently returned to the headlines, his bid for a return to power has actually been going on for more than half a year. Allawi's re-emergence dates back to last November, when he began appearing frequently in the Saudi-owned Arab media, and popped up in Amman, Jordan, as a key interlocutor in "secret" talks between the Americans and the Sunni insurgency. Last week, as Allawi's name started to flood the local papers, the Fadhila Party split off from the Shi'ite United Iraqi Alliance and made noises about joining with Allawi's Iraqi National List. While Fadhila has not formally joined with Allawi, the talk of forming the non-sectarian, anti-Iranian "National Salvation Front" long mooted by the Sunni leader Saleh al-Mutlaq continues to grow. Allawi has been negotiating widely, including a recent trip to Kurdistan, ostentatiously accompanied by American Ambassador Zal Khalilzad (Kurdish leader Mahmud Othman says that they are "interested", and KDP leader Masoud Barzani today traveled to Riyadh with Allawi). Iraq-watchers these days entertain themselves by counting votes to see if he might be able to somehow cobble together a Parliamentary majority to unseat Maliki (Moqtada al-Sadr hopping on board is the latest, rather unlikely, rumor).
<blockquote></blockquote>
Allawi's return reflects more than his own considerable appetite for power: the fact is that his political profile fits American objectives in the region far better than Nuri al-Maliki, Abd al-Aziz al-Hakim, or any of the other major Shia candidates. Allawi is Shia, but, unlike his long-time rival Ahmed Chalabi, does not even pretend to have rediscovered his religious roots. Allawi presents himself as an Iraqi nationalist, able to appeal across sectarian lines and - most importantly - eager to pursue a hard line against Iran. The anti-American edge which he cultivated last December, when he reached out to the insurgency and flirted with Sadr, seems to have faded as American interest in him has grown. And he is much-admired in Amman and Riyadh, key players in the Bush administration's shiny new coalition of "Sunni moderate states" (pro-American dictators on board with the anti-Iranian campaign).
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/marc_lynch/2007/03/an_eye_on_allawi.html">read in full…</a>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Norman Solomon, Dissident Voice: THE PRAGMATISM OF PROLONGED WAR</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
The days are getting longer, but the media shadows are no shorter as they cover the war in Iraq through American eyes, squinting in Washington’s pallid sun.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Debated as an issue of politics, the actual war keeps being drained of life. Abstractions thrive inside the Beltway, while the war effort continues: funded by the U.S. Treasury every day, as the original crime of invasion is replicated with occupation.
<blockquote></blockquote>
More than ever, in the aftermath of the Scooter Libby verdict, the country’s major news outlets are willing to acknowledge that the political road to war in Iraq was paved with deceptions. But the same media outlets were integral to laying the flagstones along the path to war -- and they’re now integral to prolonging the war.
<blockquote></blockquote>
With the same logic of one, two, and three years ago, the conformist media wisdom is that a cutoff of funds for the war is not practical. Likewise, on Capitol Hill, there’s a lot of huffing and puffing about how the war must wind down -- but the money for it, we’re told, must keep moving. Like two rails along the same track, the dispensers of conventional media and political wisdom carry us along to more and more and more war.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Mar07/Solomon13.htm">read in full…</a>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">>> BEYOND IRAQ</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Afghanistan:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_News/Munitions_explosion_kills_13_in_Kabul/20070314-064142-9695r/">A massive explosion in a Kabul bazaar where guns and ammunition are sold killed at least 13 people</a> and injured 15 others early Wednesday. The blast left a 10-foot crater and damaged hundreds of buildings, some more than a block away, the BBC reported. After initial confusion, an Afghan deputy interior minister said the explosion was not terror-related, CNN reported.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-03/14/content_5843736.htm">An Australian helicopter carrying Australian troops and reporters has narrowly avoided an attack by a rocket</a> in Afghanistan, Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) radio reported Wednesday.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">QUOTE OF THE DAY:</span> "Haditha is like a police state, surrounded by a dirt berm topped with concertina wire, with two tightly controlled entrances and no private cars permitted to drive in the town proper." <span style="font-style: italic;">-- from "</span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://washtimes.com/world/20070312-102159-7094r.htm">Gains in stability slow but tangible in Haditha</a><span style="font-style: italic;">" in the</span> Washington Times
<blockquote></blockquote>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5501771.post-1173743820099197442007-03-12T17:56:00.000-07:002007-03-13T17:10:34.693-07:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/rids/20070313/i/r728837738.jpg?x=227&y=345&sig=MfPDp95VIge5mqdne1wPqQ--"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 270px;" src="http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/rids/20070313/i/r728837738.jpg?x=227&y=345&sig=MfPDp95VIge5mqdne1wPqQ--" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">DAILY WAR NEWS FOR TUESDAY, March 13, 2007</span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">
</span><blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://news.yahoo.com/photos/ss/events/iraq/082701iraqplane/im:/070313/ids_photos_wl/r728837738.jpg;_ylt=Aj6Zj81coS7G1UEgTiCYr5jKps8F">Photo</a>: A boy walks past a rocket shell stuck in a road after an attack in Baghdad March 13, 2007. The attack killed three people and wounded six others, police said. REUTERS/Namir Noor-Eldeen (IRAQ)
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">SECURITY INCIDENTS</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Baghdad:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/03/13/iraq/main2562029.shtml">A roadside bomb hit a minibus carrying Industry Ministry employees in northern Baghdad</a>, killing two workers and wounding six.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L1356733.htm">A total of 15 bodies with gunshot wounds were found on Monday</a> in different districts of Baghdad, police said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.indiaenews.com/middle-east/20070313/42832.htm">Insurgents blew up a roadside bomb on the Muhammad al-Qasim Highway Street</a> in eastern Baghdad, killing a civilian and wounding two.
<a href="http://www.indiaenews.com/middle-east/20070313/42832.htm"><blockquote></blockquote>
Gunmen attacked a police patrol near the Rubaie street in Zaiyounah</a>, killing three policemen and injuring another.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L1356733.htm">A Katyusha rocket landed on a commercial street of Karrada</a> in central Baghdad, killing two people and wounding two others, police said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=39288&amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0"> Two civilians were killed and six others wounded when a Katyusha missile fell in central Baghdad</a> on Tuesday, Iraqi police sources said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L1356733.htm">A roadside bomb killed one person and wounded two people in northern Baghdad</a>, police said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=39277&amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">A Hummer vehicle was destroyed when gunmen clashed with Iraqi and U.S. forces</a> in the Sunni neighborhood of Raghiba Khatoon, northeast of Baghdad, an eyewitness said. "Fierce clashes erupted at 10:00 am today between unknown gunmen and a combined force of Iraqi and U.S. troops in Raghiba Khatoon neighborhood in northeast of Baghdad," an eyewitness told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq. He added "the clashes continued for a while and destroyed a Hummer vehicle." The eyewitness could not say whether the destroyed vehicle was Iraqi or American.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=39272&amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">Bodies of two young men were found in the area of al-Waziriya</a>, east of the capital Baghdad, on Tuesday morning. "A patrol of al-Aazamiya police found the bodies of two young men, which showed signs of having been shot," a source near al-Aazamiya police station told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq. Local residents said the two bodies were thrown out of a vehicle that then escaped to an unknown place.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=39307&amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">Unidentified gunmen killed the Central Baghdad prosecutor</a>, Iraqi police sources said. "Gunmen intercepted the vehicle of investigating judge Omar Abdul-Nabi, while he was heading to work on Tuesday morning, and opened fire at him in the central Baghdad neighborhood of al-Karrada," a security source told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://uk.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUKKHA34606420070313">Gunmen killed four worshippers and wounded a fifth person in a drive-by shooting attack</a> on a Sunni Muslim mosque in southern Baghdad on Tuesday, police sources said. The gunmen attacked the worshippers as they left the small Sunni mosque in the mixed Risala neighbourhood in the Iraqi capital. Neither the motive behind the attack nor the identity of the assailants was clear but shootings motivated by sectarianism are common in the area.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Suwayrah:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
In Suwayrah, 25 miles south of Baghdad, <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/03/13/iraq/main2562029.shtml">police dragged two bodies out of Tigris River,</a> a morgue official said in Kut. The bodies showed signs of torture.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Dinwaniya:</span>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L1356733.htm"><blockquote></blockquote>
Police found the body of a man, with gunshot wounds and signs of torture</a>, in the southern city of Diwaniya, 180 km (110 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Kut:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
In Kut, <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/03/13/iraq/main2562029.shtml">gunmen killed an interpreter working for coalition troops.</a>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L1356733.htm">The bodies of two people were retrieved from a small waterway near the city of Kut</a>, police said. The victims had gunshot wounds in different parts of their bodies with signs of torture.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Iskandariya:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L1356733.htm">Gunmen killed the general director of mechanical industries company</a>, in the town of Iskandariya, 40 km (25 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Tikrit:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
"<a href="http://english.people.com.cn/200703/13/eng20070313_357147.html">Unknown gunmen showered with bullets a civilian car with three persons from one family aboard</a> when they were heading to their work in Tikrit University, in eastern Tikrit, killing two of them and kidnapping the third," the source said on condition of anonymity.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://english.people.com.cn/200703/13/eng20070313_357147.html">A roadside bomb detonated near an oil tanker in eastern Tikrit</a>, killing its driver and destroying the tanker as well.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Kirkuk:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
Police reported <a href="http://www.metimes.com/storyview.php?StoryID=20070313-045316-5987r">one policeman killed and three wounded when gunmen attacked a police checkpoint</a> in the northern city of Kirkuk.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L1356733.htm">A roadside bomb killed four firefighters on Monday</a> when it exploded near their vehicle in a town near Kirkuk, police said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Mosul:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
The US military also reported <a href="http://www.metimes.com/storyview.php?StoryID=20070313-045316-5987r">two "anti-Iraqi forces" killed by rockets fired from US helicopters while they were placing a roadside bomb</a> in the northern city of Mosul. Three men were seen laying the bomb "and covering the tracks of the command wire by smoothing the dirt over top of it," a military statement said. "Coalition helicopters in position nearby immediately responded and engaged the emplacers with rocket fire." Two militants were killed and three wounded.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L1356733.htm">A total of 13 bodies with gunshot wounds were found during the last 48 hours</a> in the northern city of Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Ramadi:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L1356733.htm">Iraq's Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki flew to the western city of Ramadi </a>on Tuesday on his first visit to the heartland of the Sunni Arab insurgency fighting his U.S.- backed government.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">>> NEWS</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">> </span><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/iraq;_ylt=AtVOo6MKL85Z1qr_9Zz0UFlX6GMA">Some 700 American soldiers rolled into Baqouba</a> on Tuesday, shifted out of Baghdad to help carry the security campaign against sectarian violence to a nearby volatile province where Sunni Arab insurgents fled ahead of the crackdown in the capital.
<blockquote></blockquote>
The fresh troops from the Army's 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment — equipped with Stryker armored vehicles — joined 3,500 U.S. and 20,000 Iraqi soldiers already in Diyala, where insurgents have stepped up attacks as violence appears to be ebbing in Baghdad.
<blockquote></blockquote>
U.S. commanders said they had been planning to fan out from Baghdad into communities around the capital, such as Baqouba 35 miles to the northeast, to go after insurgents and clandestine workshops that rig car bombs used in attacks in the capital.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">> </span><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070313/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_maliki;_ylt=AiG9ZVRCWqbsHzw.KkrT1sgLewgF">Iraq's Shiite prime minister traveled to the militant stronghold of Ramadi</a> on Tuesday to reach out to Sunni leaders at a time when U.S. officials are increasingly optimistic about their chances of undermining Sunni tribal support for the insurgency.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Nouri al-Maliki, making his first trip to Anbar province as Iraq's leader, met with influential clan chiefs who have found themselves caught between militant groups and the U.S.-backed government — and sometimes doing business with both.
<blockquote></blockquote>
"I am not saying that the challenges are over or will soon be over," al-Maliki told the meeting in remarks broadcast by government television. He applauded Sunni tribes and clans that had "risen up and countered terrorism."
<blockquote></blockquote>
The meetings were held in a Saddam Hussein-era palace on a U.S. base on the western outskirts of Ramadi, and al-Maliki did not venture into the dangerous heart of the city, one of the most violent in the country.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Al-Maliki flew to Ramadi for the one-day visit in a Black Hawk helicopter with Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and strolled across the base surrounded by heavily armed bodyguards.
<blockquote></blockquote>
> <a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article1505832.ece">The Iraqi Government has arrested a woman who alleged last month that she was raped by three Iraqi policemen</a>, claims that provoked a spate of sectarian killing, two Iraqi officials told <span style="font-style: italic;">The Times</span>.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Sabrine Janabi’s rape case has polarised Iraq’s Sunni and Shia communities at a moment when the country is already enmeshed in a low-level civil war. Shia officials have accused her of being a proxy for Sunni militants who want to sabotage a security plan for Baghdad, while Sunni politicians have pointed to her story as proof of the sectarian nature of Shia Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s Government.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Janabi shocked Iraq last month when she appeared on Al-Jazeera television and accused three policemen of detaining her and then raping her in their garrison.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">>> REPORTS</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">> </span>The International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), the global union federation for oil workers, issued <a href="http://www.ww4report.com/node/3335">a call for "strong condemnation" by supporters of workers' rights of US-led military raids on union offices in Baghdad</a> on February 23 and 25. During the raids, targeting the General Federation of Iraqi Workers (GFIW), a member of the union’s security staff was arrested and office equipment was destroyed. On February 19, the Iraq Syndicate of Journalists was raided and computers and membership records were confiscated. The ICEM statement says that it "is calling on trade unions worldwide to directly protest this unprovoked attack on a trade union federation that stands for nation building and bettering the living conditions inside Iraq." The federation calls on "trade unions and others to write to Iraqi embassies in their home countries, as well as to send messages of solidarity to GFIW leaders that their efforts to build strong trade unions in Iraq will succeed and with it, fair and just reconstruction for all Iraqi people."
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">> </span><a href="http://staugustine.com/stories/031307/nation_4464662.shtml">More than a quarter of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have filed injury claims with the government</a>, according to an internal Department of Veterans Affairs report. Of the nearly 690,000 veterans who served in those combat zones, more than 180,000 had filed claims by the end of last year, the report showed. That's more than a 50 percent increase over where claims stood near the end of 2005, when the number of claims from the war was 115,000, according to the VA.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">> </span>Although the announcement that Britain is withdrawing 1,600 troops from Iraq was labeled a success by US policy makers,<a href="http://www.freemarketnews.com/WorldNews.asp?nid=36239"> officials at the British Foreign Office and Ministry of Defense are in talks to hire mercenaries to take the place of the troops</a>, according to the <span style="font-style: italic;">Scotsman</span>. Policy makers expect an increase in demand for mercenaries to fill the gaps of troops that are redeployed elsewhere. Mercenaries will also be in high demand for security services, highway patrolling, and the training of Iraqi soldiers. Britain has already spent an estimated $314 million on mercenaries. The US has spent much more, and it has been projected that there will be more contractors in Iraq than troops.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">>> COMMENTARY AND ANALYSIS</span>
<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"><blockquote></blockquote>
Robert Dreyfuss , TomPaine: IRAQ: PULLED OUT OR PUSHED OUT</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
Two parliaments, half a world away from each other, struggled with calls to end the war in Iraq yesterday. In Washington, Democrats in the U.S. Congress ended weeks of squabbling to settle on the outlines of a legislative plan to end the war no later than August, 2008, and perhaps sooner. Meanwhile, in Baghdad, a new constellation of political parties is beginning to take shape in the Iraqi parliament, united around the idea of asking U.S. forces to leave Iraq as soon as possible. Tremendous obstacles stand in the way of pro-peace forces both in Congress and in Iraq’s parliament, but if I had to guess, I’d bet that the Iraqis will ask the United States to get out of Iraq long before Congress can force the issue. (…)
<blockquote></blockquote>
While Congress may be stymied, however, something important is happening in Iraq.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Few Americans pay attention to Iraqi politics, but over the past few days something has occurred that could change the course of the war. For the first time since the Iraqi election of 2005, a coalition of Sunni and Shiite Arab parties and leaders is starting to take shape, across the sectarian divide that has fueled the civil war. It began two days ago, with the announcement by the Fadhila (Islamic Virtue) party that it is leaving the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), to become an independent political party.
<blockquote></blockquote>
With 15 seats in the Iraqi parliament and with a significant grassroots base throughout the Shiite areas of southern Iraq, Fadhila is a nationalist party committed to the idea of a unitary Iraqi state. It is opposed to the breakup of Iraq into regions or statelets. And its leader, Nadim al-Jaberi, is explicitly opposed to sectarianism. He is committed to reaching out to Sunni parties and secular groups to find common ground, and a new political coalition. Most important, like most of the Sunni parties in Iraq, al-Jaberi and Fadhila support the rapid withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Fadhila is currently negotiating with Sunni and secular parties—including the Sunni religious bloc, a quasi-Baathist Sunni nationalist party and the secular Iraq National List led by former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi—on the formation of a new Sunni-Shiite-secular bloc in Iraq that would have nearly 100 votes in the 270-member Iraqi parliament.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Not only that, but Fadhila is a “Sadrist” party, whose origins lie in loyalty to the powerful Sadr clerical family. Fadhila is not loyal to Muqtada al-Sadr, the thirty-something mullah who leads the Mahdi Army. But there are enough ties between Fadhila and the Mahdi Army that perhaps Muqtada’s own bloc could be persuaded to join the emerging new coalition, too. (Late last year, Muqtada’s party pulled out of the Iraqi government, and according to Iraqi insiders Sadr is also talking to the same nationalist, Sunni and secular forces about the creation of a new “government of national salvation.”) Along with a handful of independent Shiite members of parliament, that would give the new coalition enough power in parliament to have a vote of no confidence in hapless U.S. ally Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, topple his government and then reconstitute a nationalist Iraqi government that could ask for the withdrawal of U.S. forces. Even part of the ruling Dawa party, Maliki’s own party, is said to favor the idea.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Yesterday, members of the Iraqi parliament representing all of those parties—Fadhila, Allawi’s bloc and the Sunni parties—held an unprecedented teleconference with a dozen members of Congress, both Democrats and Republicans, an event organized by Representative Jim McDermott (D.-Wash.). Fadhila’s Nadim al-Jaberi took part in the teleconference, and he minced no words. “Putting a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops is a very important step in giving Iraqis confidence that the occupation will end,” he said. Jaberi also added that by quitting the UIA, Fadhila has permanently splintered the Shiite bloc. “We have opened a very wide door in redrawing the Iraqi political map,” he said, hinting that Muqtada al-Sadr’s party might walk through that door and join the new bloc.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Other Iraqi parliamentarians, including Saleh Mutlaq of the Iraqi National Dialogue Front, along with representatives of the Iraqi Accord Front (Sunni) and the Iraq National List, also took part in the teleconference with Jaberi. All called for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq, along with emergency efforts to reconstitute a new Iraqi government and to rebuild the Iraqi armed forces.
<blockquote></blockquote>
The emerging new Iraqi coalition is fragile, and it could easily fall apart or fall victim to intensified sectarian warfare. Many obstacles lie in its way, including the attitude of the Kurds, the opposition of the powerful Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) and other factors—including, of course, the machinations of the United States and its ambassador in Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad. But it’s at least possible that by the summer a new government could start taking shape in Baghdad, one that could (among other things) assert its nationalist credentials by demanding a timetable for a U.S. pullout.
<blockquote></blockquote>
President Bush, of course, would do everything he could to prevent the emergence of such a new coalition in Iraq, including possibly the use of military force against its leaders. Unlike with Nancy Pelosi’s legislation, however, at least the White House can’t veto something that the Iraqi parliament passes.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2007/03/09/iraq_pulled_out_or_pushed_out.php">read in full…</a>
<blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">
[shorter post today, no time for more -- zig]</span>
</blockquote>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5501771.post-1173733397563596372007-03-12T15:03:00.000-07:002007-03-12T17:56:44.230-07:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/nm/20070313/2007_03_12t180905_450x303_us_mental_illness.jpg?x=380&y=255&sig=9wo16cnDwtRdD5xWqbt76w--"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 380px;" src="http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/nm/20070313/2007_03_12t180905_450x303_us_mental_illness.jpg?x=380&y=255&sig=9wo16cnDwtRdD5xWqbt76w--" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">DAILY WAR NEWS FOR MONDAY, March 12, 2007</span>
<blockquote></blockquote><blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://news.yahoo.com/photos/ss/1479/im:/070312/photos_hl/2007_03_12t180905_450x303_us_mental_illness;_ylt=Aj6Zj81coS7G1UEgTiCYr5jKps8F">Photo</a>: File photo shows a U.S. soldier kicking open a cupboard in a building to search for suspicious items while on a joint patrol with Iraqi National police in a suburb of Baghdad March 7, 2007. (Fabrizio Bensch/Reuters)
<blockquote></blockquote><blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.centcom.mil/sites/uscentcom2/Lists/New%20Casualty%20Reports/DispForm.aspx?ID=1643&Source=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Ecentcom%2Emil%2Fsites%2Fuscentcom2%2FLists%2FNew%2520Casualty%2520Reports%2FCurrent%2520Reports%2Easpx">Bring 'em on</a>: On March 11, a MND-B unit in support of an on-going air assault mission southwest of the Iraqi capital was struck by a roadside bomb, killing one Soldier and wounding two others. <span style="font-style: italic;">(CENTCOM)</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.centcom.mil/sites/uscentcom2/Lists/New%20Casualty%20Reports/DispForm.aspx?ID=1642&Source=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Ecentcom%2Emil%2Fsites%2Fuscentcom2%2FLists%2FNew%2520Casualty%2520Reports%2FCurrent%2520Reports%2Easpx">Bring 'em on</a>: Task Force Lightning Soldiers were attacked while conducting combat operations in Salah ad Din province today. One Task Force Lightning Soldier died as a result of injuries sustained from an explosion.<span style="font-style: italic;"> (CENTCOM)</span><blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.mnf-iraq.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=10543&Itemid=21">Bring 'em on</a>: A Marine assigned to Multi National Force-West was killed Sunday while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar Province.<span style="font-style: italic;"> (MNF - Iraq)</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.mnf-iraq.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=10542&Itemid=21">A Multi-National Division – Baghdad Soldier died March 11,</a> due to a non-battle related cause.<span style="font-style: italic;"> (MNF - Iraq)</span><blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">(Tikrit?) </span><a href="http://www.centcom.mil/sites/uscentcom2/Lists/New%20Casualty%20Reports/DispForm.aspx?ID=1641&Source=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Ecentcom%2Emil%2Fsites%2Fuscentcom2%2FLists%2FNew%2520Casualty%2520Reports%2FCurrent%2520Reports%2Easpx">A Task Force Lightning Soldier died Sunday in a non-combated related incident</a>, which is currently under investigation.<span style="font-style: italic;"> (CENTCOM)</span><blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">OTHER SECURITY INCIDENTS</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Baghdad:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.casperstartribune.net/ap/headlines/d8nqj4000.txt">A roadside bomb blasted an Agriculture Ministry convoy in southeastern Baghdad</a>, killing three security guards and wounding another, officials said. The blast targeting the Ministry employees occurred in the Zayouna area of the city. Agriculture Minister Yarrub Nazim was not in the convoy.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.casperstartribune.net/ap/headlines/d8nqj4000.txt">A joint Iraqi-U.S. patrol was targeted by two roadside bombs</a> detonated about 50 yards apart in western Baghdad Monday afternoon, wounding two civilians, police said. It was not clear if any soldiers were injured.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=39210&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">Three employees from the Iraqi labor and social affairs ministry were kidnapped</a> in the western Baghdad area of al-Mansour on Monday, a ministry source said. "Unidentified gunmen kidnapped at noon on Monday three employees from the ministry who were boarding a ministry vehicle near the embassy of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in Baghdad's Mansour district," the source told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/16889045.htm">A man was killed and 4 others injured in an IED explosion</a>. The IED was put under a parked car in the leather factory in Karrada Kharij (Karrada out)downtown Baghdad at 12 pm Baghdad Local Time.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/16889045.htm">One Iraqi army soldier was killed and another was injured when a suicide car bomb stopped in their check point to be searched</a> in Al Yarmouk neighborhood at 4:45 p.m.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Iraqi police said <a href="http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/16889045.htm">a U.S. military convoy shot a man was driving his car in Al Saidiyah neighborhood</a> near the fire dept building in the area around 5 p.m. No further details about the incident.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/16889045.htm">Police found 20 dead bodies throughout Baghdad</a> . 2 bodies were found in the eastern side of Baghdad (Rusafa) near Al Qanat highway. The other 18 corpses were found on the western side of the city (Karkh) in the following neighborhoods: 5 bodies in Yarmouk, 4 bodies in Ghazaliya, 3 bodies in Dora, 2 bodies in Adil, 2 bodies in Al Saidiya, 2 bodies in Al Amil.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Diyala Prv:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://news.trendaz.com/cgi-bin/readnews2.pl?newsId=896679&lang=EN">Armed men entered a village in Diyala province after sunset</a>, seized the residents' weapons and made a request that turned out to be an ultimatum. ``They asked us to join the Islamic State of Iraq,'' Sameer Muhammad, who lives in the village, said Sunday. ``After that, they burned the houses of those who work with the army or police.'' At least 31 houses in the predominantly Shiite neighborhood were doused with gasoline and set ablaze, said residents, who quickly fled the raging fire, leaving behind loved ones and belongings, and walked miles to find shelter. A spokesman for the Sunni insurgent group the Islamic State of Iraq said early Monday that the group had killed 20 men suspected of being members of the Iraqi army or the Mahdi Army, a Shiite militia.
<blockquote></blockquote>
"<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=39259&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">An armed group attacked a police vehicle patrol in central Baaquba, where clashes erupted between the two sides</a>," the source, who asked not to be named, told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI). "Five policemen were injured during the attack," he added, noting that there was no report on casualties among the gunmen.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<blockquote>In a separate incident, the source said "<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=39259&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">unknown gunmen killed two civilians north of Baaquba, while the two were heading to their work</a>", the source asserted.</blockquote>
<blockquote></blockquote>
A source in Khanaqeen district police directorate said that <a href="http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/16889045.htm">3 civilians were injured in an IED explosion happened in Ban Mil village</a>, one of the villages of Khanaqeen district north east Baquba. The source said that the IED was planted to target the Shiite pilgrims who were doing their ceremonies of Arbaieniya visit of Imam Hussein but the parade of the pilgrims changed its way.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Iskandariyah:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
On Sunday evening, <a href="http://www.casperstartribune.net/ap/headlines/d8nqj4000.txt">two mortar shells exploded on a soccer field in Iskandariyah</a>, 30 miles southeast of Baghdad, police said. A 3-year-old boy and a 4-year-old boy were killed; two other children were injured.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Mussayab:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L12354742.htm">The body of a man, shot dead and bound, was found on Sunday in the town of Mussayab,</a> 60 km (40 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Mahaweel:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L12354742.htm">The body of a man, shot dead and tortured, was found in the town of Mahaweel</a>, 75 km (50 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Basrah:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<blockquote></blockquote><blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.kuna.net.kw/home/Story.aspx?Language=en&DSNO=960736">British military bases in the southern Iraqi city of Basra came under rocket and mortar attack</a>, a spokesman for the British Forces in Southern Iraq said on Monday. Shatt Alarab Hotel, home to the British 1st Battalion the Staffordshire Regiment, in Central Basra, was attacked with rockets and mortars last night, the spokesman said, noting that three British military vehicles were destroyed. Unknown gunmen launched a pre-dawn rocket attack on two other British military bases in the city, the spokesman said, noting that there were no casualties reported.
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A source in Basra police directorate said that <a href="http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/16889045.htm">a police man was killed and his son was injured when an MNF patrol opened fire on his car</a> last night while the man was driving his car on the high way near Basra international airport.
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Salahuddin Prv:</span>
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In the Salahuddin province northwest of Baghdad, <a href="http://www.casperstartribune.net/ap/headlines/d8nqj4000.txt">Iraqi-led forces backed by U.S. warplanes staged raids against suspected insurgent training bases</a>, including sites linked to anti-aircraft batteries, the U.S. military said. At least seven suspected insurgents were reported killed.
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Ninawa Prv:</span>
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<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=39234&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">Unidentified gunmen killed the director of the state-owned water supply company in Badoush</a>, northwest Ninawa province. "Unidentified gunmen, driving a modern car, opened fire against the director of the water supply company, Abdullah Mohammad Ahmed, while he was leaving his office in Badoush, killing him on the spot," the source told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq.
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Mosul:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=39198&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">A prominent member of the dissolved Baath Party was killed by unidentified gunmen in the city of Mosul</a>, 402 km north of Baghdad, an official source in the Ninawa police operations room said on Monday.
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"<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=39234&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">The headquarters of Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) in Mosul was hit by two mortar shells</a> on Monday, leaving a guard severely wounded," an official source from the PUK in Mosul said.
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Al Anbar Prv:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L12354742.htm">A suicide bomber rammed his vehicle into an Iraqi police checkpoint in the western city of Ramadi</a>, wounding 11 people, including four policemen, police said.
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">>> NEWS</span>
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">> </span>The White House confirmed Monday that <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070312/wl_mideast_afp/usiraqmilitaryplan_070312203335;_ylt=AgXYFqfaCmQrVaerR8RwH3NX6GMA">Pentagon planners are preparing a plan for a phased pullout of US troops from Iraq in case the current "surge" strategy fails</a> or is undercut by Congress.
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White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe cited Secretary of Defense Robert Gates saying it would be irresponsible for the United States to not have considered a fallback plan if the current escalation in troop levels fails to achieve the goal of quelling violence in the country.
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"Gates addressed this last week, that it would be negligent not to be thinking about various possible outcomes for the future," he said. (…)
<blockquote></blockquote>
A drawdown of forces in Iraq, the <span style="font-style: italic;">LA Times</span> said, would be in line with comments made last month by Gates, who told Congress that if the surge of 21,500 combat soldiers failed, the backup plan would include moving troops "out of harm's way."
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Such a plan would also be close to the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, of which Gates was a member before his appointment to the Pentagon, the paper said.
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"This part of the world has an allergy against foreign presence," the report quotes a senior Pentagon official as saying of Iraq.
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"You have a window of opportunity that is relatively short. Your ability to influence this with a large US force eventually gets to the point that it is self-defeating."
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">> </span><a href="http://www.kuna.net.kw/home/story.aspx?Language=en&DSNO=960522">The US and Iran are to hold meetings in Washington on security and stability in Iraq</a>, a statement by the Iraqi President Jalal Talabani's office said Monday quoting US ambassador in Baghdad, Zalmay Khalilzad.
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Khalilzad had visited Talabani in hospital in Amman where he acquainted him with the outcome of the security conference held in the Iraqi capital earlier this week, the statement added.
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The presidential statement also quoted Khalilzad saying the US delegation met with Iranian counterparts at the Baghdad security meeting, stating meeting outcome was 'positive'. The two sides decided to meet again for talks on achieving security and stability in Iraq and the region.
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No date was set for the proposed meeting, nor who will attend.
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">>> REPORTS</span>
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<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Baath Party Statement: THE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE OVER IRAQ IS A US' NEW PLOTTING SCHEME</span>
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It is clear therefore that the Conference to be held in Baghdad is nothing else but another US attempt to drag some Arab governments into selling Iraq for a very cheap price and for few pennies…Besides, if this scheme takes shape, it will intensify even more the armed Resistance to inflict upon the occupier enemy more and more losses… after undermining and systematically wrecking militarily the puppet government… and undertaking fierce combat operations against the Arab and Islamic forces and tools which might participate into the so called imposing security plan in Iraq…and wiping them out. This of course will bring the US again to the ground zero of its killer failure… forcing it to directly confront the Resistance… and finding itself again in front of two choices the sweetest being the bitter… choosing either between a humiliating and a dishonorable withdrawal or enduring the fatal collapse.
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Our Party while ascertaining these essential observations, wants to remind the Iraqi, the Arab masses and the International public opinion that the idea of an International Conference over Iraq is yet another proof of the US defeat… Here we must remember how the US' administration always ignored and prevented the involvement of any international or regional parties into the Iraq invasion' crisis!
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Moreover! Our Party asserts that it will never ever accepts any changes into the Liberation process according any US, servile Arab or Iranian collaborating games, specially after the Resistance and the Baath have succeeded into wrecking the latest security plan, exactly the same way as they did for all the previous ones.
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<a href="http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m31301&hd=&size=1&l=e">read in full…</a>
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>> COMMENTARY AND ANALYSIS
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</span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Video: Luis Jorba, Amics21.com: BAGHDAD RAP</span>
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In the lead up to the invasion 100s, if not 1000s, of human shields went to Baghdad, among them a group of Spaniards, and a film crew who created the award-winning documentary <span style="font-style: italic;">Bagdad Rap</span>. The Spanish version has been up on Google a few months, and with the director’s permission I decided to put up a version with English subtitles.
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Lots of other people have documented the cruelty of this war, what makes this one special is you actually get to hear what Iraqis had to say about it all. And they come across as a sophisticated, modern citizenry, not like the other lot.
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<a href="http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m31314&hd=&size=1&l=e">link</a>
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<blockquote></blockquote><a href="http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,2031172,00.html"></a><blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">The Business of Emotions: A RESPONSE TO TIME MAGAZINE'S "WHY THEY HATE EACH OTHER"</span>
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<span style="font-style: italic;">"Sunnis vs. Shi'ites, Why they Hate each other. What's really driving the civil war that's tearing the Middle East apart."</span>
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So proclaims the cover of the March 5th, 2007, issue of <span style="font-style: italic;">Time</span> magazine, U.S and Pacific editions. Presumably, they know better than to put it on the cover of the European edition.
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It reminds me of the "Iraq at war with itself" cover of <span style="font-style: italic;">The Economist</span>, May 2006, which featured the face of a bawling Iraqi man. I commented on it here.
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Then it was the face of grief. Now it's the face of hate.
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In both cases, Iraqis are portrayed as unfortunately <span style="font-style: italic;">emotional</span> before the typical reader of <span style="font-style: italic;">Time</span>, whose "person of 2006", let us recall, was You, the face of which is rationality itself, a computer.
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Note the shades of "Why do they hate us?" which followed the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.
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Beyond this (staged and unconvincing) image of these two hate-ful Iraqis, we find the now familiar American explanation of these 'hateful warring sects', in <span style="font-style: italic;">Behind the Sunni-Shi'ite Divide.</span>
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The lead-in from the contents page gives the gist:
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<span style="font-style: italic;"><blockquote>The war between the two Islamic sects has left the U.S.'s hopes of building a stable Iraq in ruins. A look at the roots of the struggle —and whether anything can stop it.</blockquote></span>
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This must be such a comfort to American readers. The guerrilla war against their soldiers, which is intensifying even during the present security crackdown, is not mentioned in this <span style="font-style: italic;">Time</span> article.
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Thus, in the space of a year the "narrative" has been transformed from the Iraq which America has ruined to the ruins of the "U.S.'s hopes". So it's Americans we should empathize with. If it wasn't for these over-emotional Iraqis, they'd have rebuilt the country, packed up and gone home by now.
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No wonder they didn't run this cover in the European edition. They think little enough of America as it is.
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Rather slap a declaration on its cover, and then presuming to clear up any lingering misunderstanding in the actual news story, <span style="font-style: italic;">Time</span> would do better to form the words into a question: Why <span style="font-style: italic;">do</span> they hate each other?
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It's a good question, because until recently, whether Iraqis were Sunni or Shi'ite was not the defining feature of their identity. (…)
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During the Presidency of Saddam Hussein, integration of Sunnis and Shi'ites continued. Most of his government were Shi'ia. As I recall, the majority of those "most wanted" depicted on playing cards by the U.S. Department of Defense, are Shi-ites, not Sunnis.
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They married each other and lived together as Muslims and <span style="font-style: italic;">Iraqis</span>. A little over a year ago they were fighting together side-by-side in the resistance to the occupation.[Link]
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So well might we ask, Why all the sectarian killing now?
<blockquote></blockquote>Most basically, if someone tries to kill you and yours, the emotions of anger and hate are a normal response. When there is no State justice system and given Iraqis tribal sense of honour, that those who are attacked will retaliate should surprise no one—least of all those inciting this civil war.
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There is now a rat's nest of attacks and retaliation, causes and effects. But let's start with the event which seems to have transformed a united Iraqi resistance to the occupation into a civil war, the bombing of the al-Askari mosque, a little over a year ago.
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My own thoughts on this at the time are in <span style="font-style: italic;">The al-Askari mosque: who were those masked gunmen?</span>
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<span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">Is it true that the mood on the street following the destruction of the dome was anti-Sunni? Not according to Sami Ramadani, writing in </span>The Guardian<span style="font-style: italic;">: The word on the street was (and is) that</span> this was the work of the U.S. and its allies—U.S. and Israeli flags were burned in protest—not Sunni extremists.<span style="font-style: italic;"> The mood was anti-occupation, not sectarian.</span></blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;"></span>
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So who were those masked gunmen who took around 12 hours to plant the explosives under that dome, in the then U.S. controlled Samarra?
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It's a question many Iraqis are asking even now. It underlies Akram Abdulrazzaq's <span style="font-style: italic;">Iraq's Car Bombers—Who are They?</span> Why is it that of the thousands of car bombs, not a single owner of these cars has been identified?
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He goes on:
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<span style="font-style: italic;"><blockquote>Before Baghdad fell to U.S. troops, the country had a sophisticated car registration system, and the authorities were able to identify the owner of any wrecked vehicle in a matter of minutes.</blockquote></span>
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So why not now?
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Don't these cars have registrations and serial numbers? We have yet to hear of the authorities identifying the owner of a single vehicle used in a car bombing or even where it came from.</span></blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;"></span>
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Iraqis, he argues, are not persuaded by the authorities' "naive excuses".
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<span style="font-style: italic;">They need the Americans and the Iraqi authorities they support to tell them where in the world all these car bombs are coming from. How is it that they manage to sneak through so many American and Iraqi checkpoints and road blocks, especially in Baghdad?</span></blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;"></span>
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With more than 80,000 American troops now in Baghdad, and every modern means of technology available to them, how indeed.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Amin al-Hashmee, in <span style="font-style: italic;">Hiding Iraq’s Death Squads is No Game,</span> asks:
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<span style="font-style: italic;">How can one ignore the fact that with all of their capabilities, the occupiers and the government failed to prevent a vehicle carrying hundreds of kilos of explosives from freely crossing the border, traveling the streets and passing through check point after check point? On top of that, the authorities have been unable to identify even a single car bomb or person who prepares them; and they have failed to inhibit their passage through government checkpoints on their way to park amid shops and innocent people.</span></blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;"></span>
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Wouldn't you think that the "security services" would make a special effort at the February 12 ceremony at the Shorja market to mark the one year anniversary of the bombing of the al-Askari mosque? Two car bombs. At least 80 people killed. [Link]
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Where did these cars come from? Who owned them? How is it that the perpetrators of these car bombings are always "unknown"?
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A lot of the cars used as car bombs, you may be surprised to learn, come from the United States. So argues Debbie Hamilton of Right Truth. She believes that they are supplied by "Muslim/Arab used car dealers", in support of the "terrorists", but a rather more obvious conclusion is possible.
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Consider also Are the 70,000 Pentagon Mercs in Iraq killing Shias, Sunnis? published in <span style="font-style: italic;">Aljazeera</span>, a review of Robert Pelton's book <span style="font-style: italic;">Licensed to Kill: Hired Guns in the War on Terror</span>:
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">Could some of the Pentagon’s hired Mercenaries be the real perpetrators of the daily bombings and assassinations of Sunnis and Shias in Iraq?</span>
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Is the current disaster taking place in the war-torn country part of a wider plot to provoke a U.S./Israeli planned civil war that will dismember Iraq?</span></blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;"></span>
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Just who is accountable for this privatized war machine?
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And while we're on this topic, whatever became of those two British SAS soldiers, disguised as Arabs, caught about to plant a bomb near a religious festival in Basra? John Pilger's account is here. My own is here. See also Steve Watson's <span style="font-style: italic;">Who are the Real Terrorists in Iraq?</span>
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Why isn't <span style="font-style: italic;">Time</span> magazine asking questions such as these? Americans (and the British, come to that) have such an exaggerated opinion of themselves that they don't believe "they" could have a hand in inciting this civil war.
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If the recent BBC World Service poll, which evaluates the USA alongside Iran, Israel and North Korea, is any guide, the rest of the world appears not to have this problem.
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<a href="http://businessofemotions.typepad.com/drrm/iraq/index.html">read in full…</a>
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<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Pepe Escobar, Asia Times Online: THE FALL GUY IN IRAQ </span>
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The Bush administration has perfected the art of fall-guy selection. The more convoluted the plot, the more credible the fall guy must be. As Lewis "Scooter" Libby was the fall guy in Washington, Premier Nuri al-Maliki will be the fall guy in Baghdad.
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The Baghdad conference on Saturday was a derivative talk-fest setting up three committees to prepare the way for another meeting at the foreign-minister level next month in Istanbul. The subtext, though never explicit, is more glaring: it is the absolute
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US impotence to guarantee security or stability in Iraq, and the desperate search for a way out, now pitting the "axis of fear" (Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates) against the "axis of evil" (Iran and Syria).
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The spiraling equation in Iraq is stark. The more that a lone Sunni Arab mujahid with a rocket-propelled grenade launcher can take down a US$25 million Apache helicopter, the more Pentagon counterinsurgency tactics will include "surgical strikes" with minimal "collateral damage" on occupied civilians.
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The more President George W Bush displays brute force in the non-stop surge, and the more Muqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army lies low, even in a monster slum like Sadr City (whose "street" name is Madinat al-Thawra, "City of the Revolution"), and the more Sunni guerrillas wreak havoc over unprotected Shi'ites (114 dead and more than 150 wounded pilgrims to Karbala last Tuesday; 31 pilgrims coming back from Karbala on Sunday - the day after the Baghdad conference).
<blockquote></blockquote>
The everyday safety of scores of Shi'ites used to be guaranteed by the Mehdi Army. The Jaish al-Mehdi's main tasks are socio-economic, with a heavy focus on education and charity, but they also involve security, most of all in impoverished Baghdad. The Mehdi Army was already splintered into at least three factions. But now, as a consequence of the surge, neighborhood associations as well as commanders not totally faithful to Muqtada have decided not to lie low anymore - and in effect to reorganize Shi'ite civilian defense.
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If a US Army base, rather a Fort Apache, is set up in the "City of the Revolution" - as is taken for granted in Baghdad - it won't fall in the short term. But it will fall eventually - when the Mehdi Army totally unmelts from the civilian population. For the moment, the US Cavalry is bombing their houses (in Karbala) or raiding them (in Najaf) just to find nothing.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Munthir al-Kewther, born in Najaf, holding a PhD in Islamic philosophy from Kufa University and currently dean of a Dutch journalism faculty, has been adamant in denouncing a systematic US assassination spree targeting key Mehdi Army and Sadrist leaders. The best example, according to Dr Kewther, "was the assassination last December of Sahib al-Ameri in front of his wife and children in his house in Najaf. Al-Ameri was the secretary general of the Shahidollah Institute, a charitable organization that helps poor and displaced people. He had no connections whatsoever to the Mehdi Army" (see The Sadr movement 'will eventually triumph', <span style="font-style: italic;">Asia Times Online</span>, March 7).
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This fits in a much bigger picture - the apocalyptic devastation of a whole country directly or indirectly engineered by the Bush administration. No fewer than 4 million Iraqis have been killed directly or indirectly, or been forced into exile.
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<a href="http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IC13Ak05.html">read in full…</a>
<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"><blockquote></blockquote>
</span>
<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Missing Links: ON TO ISTANBUL</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Al-Sabah</span>, a newspaper controlled by the Green Zone government, pointed out that the main three-hour session of the Baghdad get-together yesterday was held in the strictest secrecy. Which means that the accounts in AFP, Reuters and AP (and <span style="font-style: italic;">Aswat al-Iraq,</span> for that matter) are thus made up mostly of what the generally talkative Iraqi and American spokesmen had to say afterwards and in their public speeches. In a nutshell, Maliki said the violence that is killing Iraqis is the same violence that killed others in Madrid, London and the World Trade Center, adding this is something that requires a unified international response, sounding like Bush vintage 2003-4. David Satterfield even got to try out his Colin Powell imitation (according to AP), when he "pointed to his briefcase" and said we have proof of Iranian involvement, to which the Iranian representative replied that the US is only trying to cover for its own failures. But the media message was very tightly controlled, and it was the same in Arabic as in English, namely: Everyone has to help restore stability, including helping the Maliki government in its reconciliation program. (Saudi Arabia and the Iraqi groups of the Sunni persuasion appear not to have made public statements at all). And the Americans on the one side, and the Iranians and the Syrians on the other, "interacted", which is seen as a very positive thing. (…)
<blockquote></blockquote>
But on the whole, the distilled reporting ended up creating a picture of teenage dating behaviour. They (US on one side and Iran and Syria on the other) succeeded in "breaking the ice", although Khalilzad noted he and the Iranians were never alone out of earshot of the others. And they agreed to meet again. <span style="font-style: italic;">Al-Hayat</span> noted that it was only the sound of mortar fire outside that reminded the participants that there are other groups that need to be consulted in this.
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<a href="http://arablinks.blogspot.com/2007/03/on-to-istanbul.html">read in full…</a>
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<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">The United States of Monsters: CHENEY SENDS US WOUNDED, MILITIA IN IRAQ, SCRAPS ITS LAST PUPPETS</span>
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Lack of “US Coalition” Troops in Iraq, Afghanistan</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
The US strategic reserve is nearly exhausted, which has not satisfied the demands of wars in Iraq, Afghanistan.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Today Deputy US President (aka “Vice President”), Dick Cheney rejects a 'sudden withdrawal' (read: any withdrawal) of US troops from Iraq and strongly reaffirmirs US support for Israel.
<blockquote></blockquote>
In a situation, where huge numbers of extra troops are required not to end the war, the question is where to find them as this is proving more and more difficult.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Coalition of “willing”</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
These days the "coalition of the willing" has proven more and more unwilling, resulting in the US puppets in Iraq whining for support as in here: S. Korean troops asked to stay longer in Iraq. As such devices are not nearly enough but just enable the US not to use its own troops to replace these.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Congress reinforcements</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
Dick Cheney’s Spokesman, ”President” George Bush has asked Congress for an extra 8,000 troops for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, on top of the 21,500 reinforcements announced two months ago. Not surprisingly, US military officials have hinted that there will be even more requests for troops for Iraq in May, when General David Petraeus submits a new strategic plan.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Sending US injured, madmen, militia back to Iraq</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
The current US administration has very personal ideas on honoring the troops: As the US military scrambles to pour more soldiers into Iraq, a unit of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division at Fort Benning, Ga., is deploying troops with serious injuries and other medical problems, including GIs who doctors have said are medically unfit for battle. Some are too injured to wear their body armor, according to medical records, but who cares? It’s not the GI’s war, anyway.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Who are the “mentally unfit", really?</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
The absurd story Mentally Unfit, Forced To Fight makes one only wonder why not all the “mentally unfit”, especially those in Capitol Hill, Pennsylvania Avenue and so on wouldn’t be send too: they would be find a suitable company for themselves: A quarter of US war vets diagnosed with mental disorder: study
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Doubling The tours of US GIs</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
The US attempts to crawl after ever-strengthening Iraqi Resistance will of course "add to GI's tours", which in practice will mean that in the near future the US Army, Marines “volunteers” will have to serve two years in Iraq, Afghanistan instead of the current one year in tour for every two years away.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">US Militia (Military Police) sent in too</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
Finally, to relieve US combat troops for the ethnic cleansing of Iraq, US is preparing to send its militia (MPs), which – as Gen. Petraeus says, ‘Was Always Anticipated’ by military planners.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Regional Conference has failed</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
Of course the need of militia was “anticipated”, as so was the failure of the “regional conference”, which wont solve Iraq war, as Syria and Iran won't provide the troops required immediately by the US.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Plan B? – Iran’s got it!</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
How to solve the situation in Iraq? While the US has all-encreasing troubles with sustaining its own coalition, Iranian Judiciary chief Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi has come forth with alternative plan "stressing" that Iraq is "in need of an Islamic coalition" which could "stretch a protection umbrella over the heads of all Iraqi groups and forces." Of course the "protection umbrella" must be understood here in its broadest sense, especially covering the electric drill death squads provided to Iraqis by al-Sadr’s “Mahdi Army” and SCIRI’s “Badr Brigades”.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Blank Cheque for Mass Murderer</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
Recently, U.S. “President” George W. Bush has approved sending 4,400 additional troops to Iraq. This comes with a cost of $3.2 billion, which he has already asked Congress pay for. What the true cost of all the crippled, "mentally unfit", the US militia and puppet forces sent in will be is revealed in a story Bush wants blank cheque for more troops: George Bush has called on Congress to provide financing for the Iraq war "with no strings attached". In other words, Dick Cheney and his spokesmen want a blank cheque for funding the mass murder, ethnic cleansing of the Iraqis.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Why the Escalation (aka Surge) will fail</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
Anyone with the simplest knowledge of the military issues and ability to compare will notice that the US Armed Forces are approaching the culmination point in which e.g. the Nazi Germany had reached 1944, a year before the end of the WW II: the country, out of troops, had to send the wounded, the deaf, militia, reservists and anything it still had, to the front. Such attempt didn't change the course of war then and it won't do it this time. The heroic Iraqi Resistance combatants all know these facts and will never surrender now that the victory over the first occupier of Iraq, the US and its lackeys is falling to their hands. How the second war, against Iran and its puppets in Iraq will be, shall be seen in the future, in which the US plays no part. What I’m wondering at is that the people of US will go on allowing Cheney, Bush and their lackeys harm them.
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<a href="http://theunitedstatesofmonsters.blogspot.com/2007/03/cheney-sends-us-wounded-militia-in-iraq.html">link</a>
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">>> BEYOND IRAQ</span>
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Afghanistan:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=391262007">Western forces killed five Afghan civilians in an air strike in the southern province of Helmand</a>, a tribal elder said on Monday. The elder, Meera Jan, said civilian houses were hit in the attack. As well as the five people killed, four were wounded, he said. A spokeswoman for NATO troops in Afghanistan said an air strike had been carried out in the Gereshk district of Helmand province late on Sunday but NATO forces were not involved. A spokesman for a separate U.S.-led force said he had no information about any air strike.
<a href="http://www.wtnh.com/Global/story.asp?S=6211963"><blockquote></blockquote>
NATO and Afghan troops clashed with suspected insurgents in southern Afghanistan</a>, shortly before calling in an airstrike on a compound that left two militants dead, a spokesman said.
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<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> The Guardian: Brazil: ANGRY CROWDS HUNT BUSH</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
Some arrived clutching banners telling "Mr Butcher" to go home. Others brought effigies of "The Warlord" dangling miserably from a hangman’s noose. A handful dressed up as the grim reaper, while some women paraded through the streets with stickers of George Bush and Adolf Hitler placed tastefully over their nipples.
<blockquote></blockquote>
If President Bush needed a reminder of his growing unpopularity in Latin America, it was here in São Paulo in the shape of a 10,000-strong human wave marching noisily through the financial district.
<blockquote></blockquote>
There was none of the famed Brazilian hospitality. Even before Mr Bush arrived in Brazil on Thursday to begin a six-day tour of Latin America the protesters were out en masse. "Persona non grata" read one placard. "Get out you Nazi" said another.
<blockquote></blockquote>
In case the message still hadn’t hit home, there was one other taunt - this time in English: "Bush, kill yourself."
<blockquote></blockquote>
Hours before Mr Bush touched down in São Paulo protests broke out across Brazil. In Rio de Janeiro the US consulate was spattered with red paint. In Porto Alegre protesters burned George Bush dolls. The centre of São Paulo erupted in violence.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Massive corruption scandals involving Brazilian politicians rarely elicit this kind of reaction. Even top-flight Brazilian football teams sometimes struggle to draw such crowds.
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<a href="ttp://www.uruknet.info/?p=m31311&hd=&size=1&l=e">read in full…</a>
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<a href="http://whateveritisimagainstit.blogspot.com/2007/03/we-want-american-people-to-see-us.html"></a><blockquote><a href="http://whateveritisimagainstit.blogspot.com/2007/03/we-want-american-people-to-see-us.html">By the way, have there been any mass demonstrations against Hugo Chavez’s tour?</a> Clashes with police? Burnings of Venezuelan flags and effigies in red shirts? Maybe there have been, and they just haven’t been reported in the, you know, Liberal Media. Funny, that.</blockquote>
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<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Paul Craig Roberts, ICH: THE FUTURE HAS CAUGHT UP WITH US</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
John Derbyshire is the sole remaining adult writing for <span style="font-style: italic;">National Review</span>. In a recent issue he noted that Aldous Huxley’s novel, <span style="font-style: italic;">Brave New World</span>, first published in 1932, now reads like contemporary news. Huxley’s fearsome predictions of a 26th century world have all come true six centuries early--in vitro fertilization, genetically modified crops, stem-cell research, promiscuous recreational sex, the demise of marriage and families, and the epidemic use of prescription and illegal drugs to escape from anxiety, frustration and disappointment.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Alas, Franz Kafka’s novel, <span style="font-style: italic;">The Trial</span>, published in 1925 and George Orwell’s novel, <span style="font-style: italic;">1984</span>, published in 1949, also have been turned into period pieces by the practices of the Bush Regime.
<blockquote></blockquote>
In Kafka’s novel, Josef K. is arrested for reasons never given, tried for an unspecified crime, and executed.
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<span style="font-style: italic;">The Trial</span> is the model for the Bush Regime’s Military Tribunals, which permit execution on the basis of hearsay, secret evidence unknown to the defendant, or confession extracted by torture.
<blockquote></blockquote>
For the past five years, the Bush Regime has held people in secret prisons without warrants, charges, or access to an attorney. Most detainees have been tortured and abused. Bush’s real world victims suffer from more disorientation and hopelessness than Kafka’s character, Josef K.
<blockquote></blockquote>
In Orwell’s <span style="font-style: italic;">1984</span>, people are subjected to relentless spying. A state or alleged state of war is used to maintain total control over everyone. Lies have replaced truth, and the media serves as propagandist for the Ministry of Truth. The meaning of words, such as “freedom” has been perverted. The attitude of <span style="font-style: italic;">1984</span>’s all powerful government is “you are with us or against us.” (…)
<blockquote></blockquote>
Amazing but true--three novels of the early 20th century predicted present day America.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17288.htm">read in full…</a>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">QUOTE OF THE DAY</span>: "We envy the people who die in one piece now" <span style="font-style: italic;">-- <a href="http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/world/story/3907088p-4518601c.html">Ahmed al Yasseri</a>, a</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> Baghdad</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> resident who works in the Shorja market, where a triple car bomb killed at least 67 people a few weeks ago; he travels nowhere but the path between home and work.
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</span>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5501771.post-1173622420623192482007-03-11T07:29:00.000-07:002007-03-11T09:31:42.756-07:00<b><u>DAILY WAR NEWS FOR SUNDAY, MARCH 11, 2007</b></u><p>
<p><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/afp/20070311/capt.sge.ejo74.110307132600.photo01.photo.default-393x512.jpg?x=264&y=345&sig=YiX5E7j3KdLxDsC3Dkjm7w--"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px;" src="http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/afp/20070311/capt.sge.ejo74.110307132600.photo01.photo.default-393x512.jpg?x=264&y=345&sig=YiX5E7j3KdLxDsC3Dkjm7w--" border="0" alt="" /></a><p>
<p>Iraqis run for cover as smoke billows from the site of a car bomb attack in Baghdad's Karada neighbourhood. Insurgent attacks have claimed another 58 Iraqi lives, including 31 Shiite pilgrims slaughtered in a car bomb attack on a convoy returning from a religious festival.(AFP/Wisam Sami)<p>
<p>
<p>
<p>
<p>
<p>
<b>Baghdad</b><p>
<p><a href="http://origin1.mercurynews.com/nationworld/ci_5412457">Suicide car bomber rams truck bringing pilgrims back from Karbala, killing 32 and injuring 24</a>. AFP (see below) reports that five of the injured are in critical condition. (This AP report also refers vaguely to "a bomb-rigged car and a suicide bomber with an explosives belt packed with metal fragments that together killed five in Baghdad." It is not clear whether this refers to incidents reported more specifically below.)<p>
<p><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070311/ts_afp/iraqunrest_070311123946;_ylt=ArOXq0YE.oQJxmEXfHmtN8lX6GMA">10 commuters killed, 8 wounded by suicide bomber on a minibus near Mustansiriyah University</a>. AFP also reports:<p>
<p><ul><li>A car bomb attack targeting a police checkpoint in Baghdad's southeast Karrada district killed two civilians and wounded six others, police said.<p>
<li>Two civilians were killed when unknown gunmen shot them south of Baghdad in the district of Mashru, police said.</ul><p>
<p><a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IBO129439.htm">A car bomb parked on the side of the road killed one Iraqi soldier and wounded another in the Yarmouk district of western Baghdad, police said</a>. Reuters also reports:<p>
<p><ul><li>A U.S. drone for air surveillance went down in Ur district in northeastern Baghdad, police said. The U.S. military confirmed that a drone was recovered but it was intact.<p>
<li>The Iraqi army arrested 53 suspected insurgents in Baghdad, the Defence Ministry said.<p>
<li>U.S.-led forces captured 15 suspected insurgents in raids around Iraq targeting al Qaeda and militants working with foreign fighters, the U.S. military said.</ul><p>
<p><a href="http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-03/11/content_5831727.htm">A scar bomb near the Talbiyah bridge in eastern Baghdad killed a civilian and wounded three others,</a>, a source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity. <b>Xinhua also reports car bomb on Arasat Street in Baghdad's southern neighborhood of Masbah wounded five civilians.</b><p>
<p><b>Baladruz (Diyala Province)</b><p>
<p><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070311/ts_afp/iraqunrest_070311123946;_ylt=ArOXq0YE.oQJxmEXfHmtN8lX6GMA">Five labourers were killed when a bomb ripped through their bus near Baladruz</a>, police lieutenant Mohammed Salim said. Ten other labourers were wounded, he added.<p>
<p><b>Mahmoudiyah</b><p>
<p><a href="http://origin1.mercurynews.com/nationworld/ci_5412457">A roadside bomb killed two women in a car.</a><p>
<p><b>Mussayab</b><p>
<p><a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IBO129439.htm">A roadside bomb killed three policemen and wounded seven others while they were trying to dismantle it in the main road in the town of Mussayab, police said</a>. <p>
<p><b>Reuters also reports</b>: Gunmen wearing army uniforms killed two men in a drive-by shooting in the town of Mussayab, 60 km (40 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.<p>
<p><b>Daquq</b><p>
<p><a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IBO129439.htm">Police found the bullet-riddled bodies of two people, bearing signs of torture, in the town of Daquq, 40 km (25 miles) south of Baghdad, police said</a>.<p>
<p><b>al-Siba (south of Basra)</b><p>
<p><a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=39148&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0"> "Al-Siba police found the body of an Iranian soldier who drowned in the Shatt al-Arab river," the source, who declined to be named, told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI)</a>. The Iranian's body was in military uniform and the identification found with him indicated his name: Hadi Ahmed," the source said, adding "a large sum of money was also found with him." <i>(Note: This is an odd story, which I would view skeptically. This story also refers to Iranian infiltrators arrested earlier. It seems improbable that Iranians in military uniform, carrying ID, would be trying to wade across the Shatt al-Arab. I would be interested in knowing which militia controls that area -- C</i>)<p>
<p><b>Mosul</b><p>
<p><a href="http://www.indiaenews.com/middle-east/20070311/42589.htm">Late on Saturday, a suicide bomber wearing an explosive belt blew himself up at a reception of the Iraqi Islamic Party's headquarters in the al-Ghzlani area southwest of Mosul,' Muhammad Shaker al-Ghannam, head of the local party's branch told Xinhua</a>. The blast killed three desk clerks at reception and wounded two guards, he said.<p>
<p><b>Kirkuk</b><p>
<p><a href="http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0700world/tm_headline=iraq--seven-killed-in-bombings--shootings&method=full&objectid=18738035&siteid=50082-name_page.html">The bodies of two men, shot execution-style in the head, were found on a road south of Kirkuk, 180 miles north of Baghdad, said police Brig. Burhan Tayib Taha</a>.<p>
<p><b>Ramadi</b><p>
<p><a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IBO129439.htm">Iraqi army killed three insurgents and arrested five suspected insurgents in the insurgent stronghold of Ramadi, 110 km (70 miles) west of Baghdad, the Defence Ministry said.</a><p>
<p>
<b>Other News of the Day</b><p>
<p><a href="http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21361648-23109,00.html">Iraqi woman whose family was massacred by U.S. soldiers yesterday speaks to Australian reporters</a>. Excerpt:<p>
<p><blockquote> By correspondents in Baghdad March 11, 2007: US forces opened fire on an unarmed Iraqi family's car and killed a father and his two young daughters, the man's wife said today. The US military confirmed that three Iraqis were killed and three more wounded in yesterday's shooting in east Baghdad, after the car's driver ignored or missed signals for him to stop.<p>
<p>
“They just opened fire randomly on us,” said Akhlas Abduljabbar, a Sunni housewife from Zafaraniyah, south of Baghdad, whose family was travelling through the war-torn city. “They killed my husband and two daughters and my three-year-old boy was wounded in the head. " The Americans' translator told me 'Flee, don't stay, they're going to kill you',” she added.<p>
<p>
Mrs Abduljabbar identified her dead husband as Rifat Abduljabbar and the daughters as Fatima, 11, and Hafsat, 12. She said she had heard that some Iraqi bystanders were also hurt.<p>
<p>
The US military said the vehicle failed to respond to paratroopers' warning signals as it approached their patrol in the Adhamiyah security district. “The paratroopers followed established protocol for escalation of force but the vehicle continued to advance toward them forcing them to disable it with small arms fire,” it said.
“Three Iraqis were wounded and three were killed in this incident. The wounded were provided immediate medical assistance. Iraqi police and national police secured the area and Iraqi police evacuated the wounded. “The incident is under investigation,” it said.</blockquote><p>
<p>
<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/10/AR2007031001397.html">Bush approves a further escalation of U.S. troop strength in Iraq</a>, adds 4,700 to the 21,500 previously announced; also sends 3,500 more to Afghanistan, bringing U.S. forces there to an all-time high. Asks Congress for $3.2 billion to pay for the increases, doesn't say where it will come from. Excerpt:<p>
<p><blockquote>By Peter Baker, Washington Post Staff Writer. Sunday, March 11, 2007; Page A01 ANCHORENA PARK, Uruguay, March 10 -- President Bush approved 8,200 more U.S. troops for Iraq and Afghanistan on top of reinforcements already ordered to those two countries, the White House said Saturday, a move that comes amid a fiery debate in Washington over the Iraq war.<p>
<p>
The president agreed to send 4,700 troops to Iraq in addition to the 21,500 he ordered to go in January, mainly to provide support for those combat forces and to handle more anticipated Iraqi prisoners. He also decided to send a 3,500-member brigade to Afghanistan to accelerate training of local forces, doubling his previous troop increase to fight a resurgent Taliban.<p>
<p>
Although officials had foreshadowed the additional forces for Iraq in recent days, the latest troop increase in Afghanistan had not been known and will bring U.S. forces there to an all-time high. The deployments underscore the challenges facing the United States in both countries and further stretch an already strained military. In Iraq particularly, the moves could fuel suspicions that a troop increase initially described as a temporary "surge" may grow larger and last longer than predicted.<p>
<p>
Bush did not comment on his decision during the second day of a six-day Latin America tour. But aides released a letter he signed Friday night aboard Air Force One as he flew to Uruguay from Brazil, asking House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for $3.2 billion in emergency funding to pay for the additional units. He proposed cuts in other spending to offset the cost.<p>
<p>
"This revised request would better align resources based on the assessment of military commanders to achieve the goal of establishing Iraq and Afghanistan as democratic and secure nations that are free of terrorism," Bush said in the letter.<p>
<p>
The president's decision came as congressional Democrats are struggling to find a way to reverse direction in Iraq. Bush aides said this week that the president would veto a House Democratic spending plan that would require him to certify that the Iraqi government has met certain benchmarks by certain dates to keep U.S. forces in the country. The plan would require, under any circumstance, that troop withdrawals begin March 1, 2008, and that remaining troops be out of combat roles by Aug. 31, 2008.<p>
<p>
Pelosi blasted Bush on Saturday. "With his veto threat," she said, "the president offers only an open-ended commitment to a war without end that dangerously ignores the repeated warnings of military leaders, including the commander in Iraq, General [David H.] Petraeus, who declared in Baghdad this week that the conflict cannot be resolved militarily."</blockquote><p>
<p><a href="http://www.columbiatribune.com/2007/Mar/20070311News029.asp">German woman kidnapped in Iraq on Feb. 6 with her son is shown on Internet video</a>. Woman tearfully describes threats to kill her son and her if German does not give in to kidnappers demands to remove its troops from Afghanistan. Germany has not said what the people were doing in Iraq. Excerpt:<p>
<p><blockquote>CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - An Iraqi insurgent group threatened to kill a German woman and her son kidnapped in Iraq unless Germany withdrew its troops from Afghanistan within 10 days, according to a video posted yesterday by the group.<p>
<p>
The video, from a previously unknown group calling itself the "Arrows of Righteousness," shows the abducted woman, identified as Hannelore Marianne Krause. She wears a blue scarf over her head, has eyeglasses and is shown seated on the floor, next to her grown son.<p>
<p>
"I am here threatened by these people. They will kill my son in front of my eyes, then they will kill me if the German forces do not pull out of Afghanistan," she sobbed, speaking in German as an Arabic translation scrolls over the screen. The woman appeals to German Chancellor Angela Merkel to respond to the kidnappers’ demands.</blockquote><p>
<p><a href="http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/03/11/africa/ME-GEN-Iran-Iraq.php">Iran Foreign Ministry Spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini comments positively on yesterday's brief security conference in Baghdad</a>. Not clear when or where a follow-up conference at the Foreign Minister level might take place. Excerpt:<p>
<p><blockquote>TEHRAN, Iran AP: Iran's Foreign Ministry on Sunday said an international conference in Baghdad that saw Tehran and Washington hold direct talks for the first time since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq was constructive and a first step toward promoting security and stability in the war-torn country. Tehran also expressed hope that a proposed second, follow-up meeting on Iraq would be successful, according to Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini.<p>
<p>
"If such a conference to be held at the foreign minister level happens in the near future in Baghdad, then it is possible to expect success," Hosseini told reporters. Hosseini declined to say if Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki would attend the proposed second meeting.<p>
<p>
The spokesman said Saturday's meeting in Baghdad included "constructive negotiations" among the delegations and could be considered a "first step" in promoting security and stability in Iraq. Hosseini also said Iran was ready to support any plan that would help end the bloodshed in its neighboring country. "Leaving security affairs to the Iraqi government, arranging a timetable for the departure of foreign forces, and taking an indiscriminate approach to all terrorist groups can bring peace and security in Iraq," Hosseini said.<p>
<p>
Despite Hosseini's optimistic words on Sunday, during the Baghdad meeting Saturday, the U.S. and Iranian envoys traded harsh words and blamed each other for the country's crisis. During the talks, U.S. envoy David Satterfield pointed to his briefcase which he said contained documents proving Iran was arming Shiite Muslim militias in Iraq.<p>
<p>
"Your accusations are merely a cover for your failures in Iraq," Iran's chief envoy Abbas Araghchi shot back, according to an official familiar to the discussions who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.</blockquote><p>
<p><a href="http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,21361682-5001028,00.html">U.S. acknowledges that the body of Major Troy Gilbert, F-16 pilot shot down on Nov. 27, was taken by insurgents</a>. Decries attempts to exploit Gilbert's death by the Islamic State in Iraq.<p>
<p><a href="http://www.iribnews.ir/Full_en.asp?news_id=233089&n=22">Iraq VP Tareq al-Hashimi arrives in Tehran for talks, after a four day trip to Syria</a>.
<a href="http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200703/11/eng20070311_356337.html">Turkish Commander Ilker Basbug says over 3,500 members of the Turkish Kurdish guerrilla movement PKK are active in northern Iraq (i.e. Kurdistan)</a>, says they have been infiltrating into Turkey.<p>
<p><b>In-Depth Reporting and Analysis</b><p>
<p><a href="http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,2031172,00.html">Senior U.S. military officers tell the Association of the US Army, and reporters for The Observer, that Iraqi insurgents are tactically ahead of the U.S.</a> Excerpt:<p>
<p><blockquote>Paul Beaver in Fort Lauderdale and Peter Beaumont Sunday March 11, 2007: The US army is lagging behind Iraq's insurgents tactically in a war that senior officers say is the biggest challenge since Korea 50 years ago.<p>
<p>
The gloomy assessment at a conference in America last week came as senior US and Iraqi officials sat down yesterday with officials from Iran, Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia in Baghdad to persuade Iraq's neighbours to help seal its borders against fighters, arms and money flowing in. During the conference the US, Iranian and Syrian delegations were reported to have had a 'lively exchange'. In a bleak analysis, senior officers described the fighters they were facing in Iraq and Afghanistan 'as smart, agile and cunning'.<p>
<p>
In Vietnam, the US was eventually defeated by a well-armed, closely directed and highly militarised society that had tanks, armoured vehicles and sources of both military production and outside procurement. What is more devastating now is that the world's only superpower is in danger of being driven back by a few tens of thousands of lightly armed irregulars, who have developed tactics capable of destroying multimillion-dollar vehicles and aircraft.<p>
<p>
By contrast, the US military is said to have been slow to respond to the challenges of fighting an insurgency. The senior officers described the insurgents as being able to adapt rapidly to exploit American rules of engagement and turn them against US forces, and quickly disseminate ways of destroying or disabling armoured vehicles.<p>
<p>
The military is also hampered in its attempts to break up insurgent groups because of their 'flat' command structure within collaborative networks of small groups, making it difficult to target any hierarchy within the insurgency.<p>
<p>
The remarks were made by senior US generals speaking at the Association of the US Army meeting at Fort Lauderdale in Florida and in conversations with The Observer. The generals view the 'war on terror' as the most important test of America's soldiers in 50 years.<p>
<p>
'Iraq and Afghanistan are sucking up resources at a faster rate than we planned for,' one three-star general said. 'America's warriors need the latest technology to defeat an enemy who is smart, agile and cunning - things we did not expect of the Soviets.'<p>
<p>
Other officers said coalition rules of engagement were being used against the forces fighting the insurgency. 'They know when we can and cannot shoot, and use that against us,' said one officer, reflecting the comments of US soldiers in the field. Another said recent video footage of an ambush on a convoy, posted on the internet, was evidence that insurgents were filming incidents to teach other groups about American counter-measures.</blockquote> <p>
<p><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/03/11/nsoldiers111.xml">Complaints emerge in the UK about treatment of injured troops</a>, reminiscent of the ongoing scandal in the U.S. Excerpt:<p>
<p><blockquote> By Alex Berry The Telegraph: Troops wounded in the line of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan have made a series of complaints about the appalling treatment they have been receiving on NHS wards. Letters sent to Ministry of Defence officials and health chiefs reveal the despair of service personnel and their families at the level of care in civilian hospitals.<p>
<p> One letter details how Jamie Cooper, 18, the youngest soldier wounded in Iraq, was forced to spend a night lying in his own faeces after staff allowed his colostomy bag to overflow. On another occasion his medical air mattress was allowed to deflate, leaving him in “considerable pain” overnight despite an alarm going off, according to the letter from his parents. Others complain of pain relief arriving hours late, wrong tablets being given out and MRSA infections.<p>
<p>
Des Browne, the Defence Secretary, said that troops injured in conflict should receive the best possible treatment, amid wider concerns about the quality of military care. "Where there are individual cases that fall short of the very high standards that I and others demand, then we need to address these and I will address them. They are unacceptable," he told the BBC1 Politics Show. He said an investigation was underway into the case of Jamie Cooper.<p>
<p>
Lord Guthrie, the former Chief of Defence staff, told the Observer: “The handling of the medical casualties from both Afghanistan and Iraq is a scandal.” Prime Minister Tony Blair and other senior figures who had visited the hospital had been presented with a “whitewashed version”, he added. Military and political leaders seemed “more interested in finding excuses for why things are not good than in correcting them”, Lord Guthrie said. Conservative defence spokesman Liam Fox accused the Government of “an act of betrayal against our bravest soldiers”.<p>
<p>
The publication of the letters came as new figures revealed British troops who suffered mental illness after serving in Iraq and Afghanistan were having to wait up to 18 months for treatment.</blockquote><p>
<p><b>Whisker's Round-up of the Wounded</b><p>
<p><i>(I've just selected six today in the interest of space. As always, there are plenty more where these came from -- C</i>)<p>
<p><a href="http://email.lhi.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/16832006.htm">Adam Poppenhouse, 21, lost part of a leg as the result of a roadside bombing Dec. 3. Poppenhouse's right leg was amputated above the knee, and his left foot was seriously injured</a>. In late February at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center -- using a computerized prosthetic leg and his fused and braced foot, and with the aid of a walker and canes -- Poppenhouse walked using both legs for the first time since he was wounded. Before that, he had been walking using the prosthetic leg only.<p>
<p>
<a href="http://email.lhi.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.goupstate.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070304/NEWS/703040373/1051/NEWS01">Andrew Kinard, a Marine second lieutenant, lost his legs and suffered massive internal and external injuries in October</a>. He has spent grueling months in surgery and physical therapy to rehabilitate his ravaged body.<p>
<p>
<a href="http://email.lhi.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/news/nation/16856383.htm">A U.S. Marine from Bellefonte who was critically wounded in Iraq last month has taken steps toward recovery but at the same time developed new life-threatening complications, according to his mother</a>. Marine Cpl. David Emery Jr., or "D.J.," is in intensive care at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., suffering from a long list of severe wounds and related illnesses after a suicide bomb attack in Anbar province in Iraq on Feb. 7. His legs were essentially shattered, as was an arm, by the suicide blast, which killed another Marine. Emery also suffered a severe abdominal wound. The Marine remains on a ventilator and undergoes dialysis because his kidneys are not functioning on their own. While Emery is now aware of his surroundings and able to communicate by pointing to letters of the alphabet, he has developed a blood infection that is causing veins and other blood vessels to collapse, said Connie Emery, the injured Marine's mother. "It's breaking his body down," she said in a telephone interview from Bethesda, Md., where she and her son's pregnant wife, Leslie, have been staying as guests of the Marine Corps. "(His doctors) don't know how much more of this he can take. The body can only take so much." Emery has been in and out of surgery for days, mostly to clean still-open wounds and to deal with collapsing blood vessels due to infection.<p>
<p>
<a href="http://email.lhi.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/news/local/states/california/16875870.htm">Lance Cpl. Brian Vargas was injured Jan. 17 in Hit while on patrol in Iraq</a>. Vargas was on a rooftop searching for insurgents when a sniper's bullet tore through his left hand and hit his right cheek. He was facing straight forward when the bullet struck him. There was shrapnel in his eye, tongue, cheek and jaw. Vargas said he has trouble speaking, memory loss and attention-span problems. Although doctors removed the shrapnel from his hand, some remains in his face.<p>
<p>
<a href="http://email.lhi.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.registercitizen.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=18063587%26BRD=1652%26PAG=461%26dept_id=12530%26rfi=6">U.S. Army Pfc. Michael Brown, 24, was shot during an early morning raid in an alleyway in the city of Ramadi on Feb. 20</a>. He was assigned to lead the troops as they searched for insurgents believed to be hiding out in the city, Brown's father Steven said. "He was the point man for the unit," Steven Brown said. "He kicked in a door (in the alley) and was shot in the back." The bullet entered Brown's lower back below the Kevlar vest he wore and exited through the front of his abdomen, Brown said. The gunshot was the second time Brown was injured in combat in 10 weeks. The first was a roadside bomb blast that broke his leg, arm and resulted in a concussion, Brown said.<p>
<p>
<a href="http://email.lhi.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.coshoctontribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070310/NEWS01/703100305">Navy veteran and paraplegic Mark Mix, 36, was injured three years ago in Iraq</a>. Mix, who served as a petty officer third class in the Seabees - the U.S. Navy's Construction Batallions - initially was injured during a firefight in the Philippines in 2002, and was later paralyzed from the waist down in 2004 after a mortar attack in Iraq crushed four of his vertebrae, he said.<p>
<p>
<b>Quote of the Day</b><p>
<p><blockquote>On most flights, as soon as that bulkhead door opens, there is a scramble to get off the plane. On Flight 1220, even though the door was open, an entire planeload of adults sat silently, waiting for the body to be removed. I witnessed the flag-draped coffin of one of our finest slowly carried away by six Navy officers. I did not witness a single dry eye on the plane. I heard a woman nearby say, "Why must America's most honorable die for a decision made under less than honorable pretenses?" I will never forget what I saw that night: real pain and sorrow from average Americans for a young soldier whom none of us have ever met. Somewhere out there are this boy's parents, deeply mourning their loss. Sadly, our government's efforts haven't just insulated the public from the mounting losses; the families of the soldiers are unable to see and feel the people who mourn alongside them.
The leaders on Capitol Hill continue to fight about if and when to bring our troops home from the Iraqi debacle. But until they make the correct decision, our soldiers will continue to come home one by one -- in the cargo holds of planes just like Delta Flight 1220.</blockquote><p>
<p><a href="http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/03/11/a_soldiers_last_flight_hits_home/">Business traveler John J. McSheffrey Jr., describing his flight from Atlanta to Boston</a> <i>Note: Mr. McSheffrey also managed to take a photo with his cell phone of the coffin being removed from the plane, surrounded by a Navy honor guard. Ordinarily we are not permitted to see this. Unfortunately, the Globe has not made the photo available on the web.</i>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5501771.post-1173574118627173702007-03-10T16:45:00.001-08:002007-03-10T16:52:04.066-08:00<p><b>Site News: <span style="font-weight: bold;">DAILY WAR NEWS FOR Saturday, March 10, 2007</span></b></p><p>Just a reminder that Today's <a href="http://dailywarnewsblog.com/">Today in Iraq</a> report was prepared by Siun and can be found at our new home:</p><p> <span style="font-size: 2em;"><a href="http://dailywarnewsblog.com/2007/03/10/daily-war-news-for-saturday-march-10th-2007/" target="_blank">here</a></span></p><p>markfromireland</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5501771.post-1173475783072150252007-03-09T13:29:00.000-08:002007-03-09T14:01:00.703-08:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.iraqslogger.com/images_full_column/73532962.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px;" src="http://www.iraqslogger.com/images_full_column/73532962.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">DAILY WAR NEWS FOR FRIDAY, March 9, 2007</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.iraqslogger.com/index.php/post/1820/Photo_of_the_Day_Fire_in_Baghdad">Photo</a>: Smoke billowing from a fire engulfs a neighbourhood of Baghdad 09 March 2007. The fire erupted during a street battle between unidentified gunmen. Patrick Baz/AFP/Getty Images <span style="font-style: italic;">(Via IraqSlogger)</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.mnf-iraq.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=10483&Itemid=21">Bring 'em on</a>: A Marine assigned to Multi National Force-West was killed March 9 while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar Province.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">OTHER SECURITY INCIDENTS</span>
<span style="font-style: italic;"> </span><blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">In Country:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.thebostonchannel.com/news/11211116/detail.html">A Cape Cod man who dismantled explosives in Iraq for an environmental management, consulting and technical services company was killed on the job</a> Thursday, his sister said. Donald Neil, 44, of Barnstable, Mass., was handling ammunition on a military base outside Baghdad, said his sister, Lisa Couture. The ammunition detonated, and Neil died instantly. The blast also injured two others, she said. Neil, a Berlin, N.H. native, had been working for Tetra Tech Inc., of Pasadena, Calif. It was his second tour in Iraq as a civilian. He had previously served in the U.S. Army for more than 20 years.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Baghdad:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/16870192.htm">10 anonymous bodies had been found in Baghdad today</a>. The bodies were found in Karkh, the western part of Baghdad in the following neighborhoods (4 bodies in Yarmook, 2 bodies in Ghazaliya, 2 bodies in Dora, 1 body in Saidiya and 1 body in Hay Al Jami’aa.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Diyala Prv:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=39016&amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">The Baaquba public hospital's forensic medicine department received seven unidentified bodies</a> from several areas in the province of Diala, 57 km northeast of Baghdad, medics said on Friday.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Karbala:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=39019&amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">A mortar round landed on a road leading to Karbala,</a> 110 km south of Baghdad, targeting Shiite pilgrims coming on foot from the Iraqi capital to visit the shrine of the third Shiite Imam Hussein, an eyewitness said. The attack occurred in al-Khanafus area, 10 km north of Karbala, and caused no casualties, he added.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Kirkuk:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/iraq;_ylt=Aj_FvUOKYYcDz98c0tLEdThX6GMA">Two Iraqi soldiers were shot dead while driving in a car </a>Friday in the oil hub of Kirkuk, a security official said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/iraq;_ylt=Aj_FvUOKYYcDz98c0tLEdThX6GMA">A civilian died in a roadside bomb blast in the oil hub of Kirkuk</a>, a security official said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Ramadi:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=39037&amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">Unidentified gunmen blew up a communication tower in Ramadi</a>, Anbar province, using explosive charges, a security source said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Haditha:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=39045&amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">Sheikh of al-Mawali tribe in Anbar province was killed by a group of gunmen</a>, local residents in Haditha city, 380 km west of Baghdad, said on Friday. "Unidentified gunmen stormed the house of Sheikh Berm Affan in al-Refaai neighborhood north of Haditha in the early hours on Friday and opened fire against him," an eyewitness told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI) over the phone, noting that the old man died on the spot. "The attackers fled the scene after the attack," he added.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Hilla:</span>
<a href="http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21356925-23109,00.html"><blockquote></blockquote>
Ten Iraqi policemen were missing after insurgents attacked a police station</a> north of Baghdad overnight, killing one policeman and wounding three more. A group of insurgents stormed the police station in Hibhib, in Diyala province, setting fire to vehicles and destroying the building, according to witnesses.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">>> NEWS</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070309/ap_on_go_ot/us_georgia_iraq_2;_ylt=Atz5DjDxFBI1f59.NTt3zRNX6GMA">The Republic of Georgia said it is raising the number of its soldiers serving with the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq to more than 2,000</a> from the current 850.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Georgia's ambassador to Washington said one reason for more than doubling the country's commitment to the fight was to send a signal to NATO, which the former Soviet republic is trying to join.
<a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070309/us_nm/iraq_usa_troops_dc_1;_ylt=AtN4W3JnoHTTAvzj3IZqYWJX6GMA"><blockquote></blockquote>
The U.S. commander for northern Iraq has asked for more troops</a> to clamp down on insurgent attacks and sectarian violence in the volatile province of Diyala, he said on Friday.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Maj. Gen. Benjamin Mixon said he had moved additional forces from his own area into Diyala and requested extra troops from elsewhere in the country from Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, the top commander of day-to-day operations in Iraq.
<blockquote></blockquote><blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070309/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_070309202408;_ylt=Aig.g2ngm9JYEMwKOvVuj.wXIr0F">The Islamic State of Iraq announced it would soon release a video on the death of a U.S. Air Force pilot </a>whose F-16 jet crashed Nov. 27 north of Baghdad, according to IntelCenter, which monitors insurgent Web sites.
<blockquote></blockquote>
The pilot, Maj. Troy L. Gilbert, was listed officially as "whereabouts unknown" but then reported by the U.S. military as dead following DNA tests from remains at the scene. IntelCenter said it was unclear what the video would show.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">>> REPORTS</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
Al-Melaf cites a senior security official that said <a href="http://www.iraqslogger.com/index.php/post/1818/Sadr_City_Base_One_of_Baghdads_Largest">U.S. troops are in the process of building one of the largest military bases in Baghdad in the middle of Sadr City</a>, the Mahdi Army’s stronghold. The source said that U.S. military officers met with city elders who overwhelmingly approved the U.S. decision, which they said would largely improve security in their district. According to the website, construction of the base will start soon and will employ a large number of the city’s impoverished youth.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Raw Story: DANGER OF RAPE BY MALE SOLDIERS IS HIGH FOR FEMALE SOLDIERS IN IRAQ</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
Sexual assault of female US soldiers by their male colleagues in Iraq is a widely known problem, reports Salon.com.
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"The danger of rape by other soldiers is so widely recognized in Iraq that their officers routinely told them not to go to the latrines or showers without another woman for protection," writes Helen Benedict.
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Unwritten codes of loyalty prohibit some woman from reporting abuse that is taking place, says Benedict.
<blockquote></blockquote>
"My team leader offered me up to $250 for a hand job. He would always make sure that we were out alone together at the beginning, and he wouldn't stop pressuring me for sex. If somebody did that to my daughter I'd want to kill the guy. But you can't fit in if you make waves about it. You rat somebody out, you're screwed. You're gonna be a loner until they eventually push you out," one soldier told her.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Another soldier told Benedict she carried a knife with her at all times. "The knife wasn't for the Iraqis," she said. "It was for the guys on my own side."
<blockquote></blockquote>
Excerpts from the article below:
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.rawstory.com/news/2007/Danger_of_rape_by_male_soldiers_0307.html">read in full…</a>
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<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">IraqSlogger: IRAQI WOMEN FACE UNPRECEDENTED PERSECUTION</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
Amidst the chaos and violence of US-occupied Iraq, the significance of widespread gender-based violence has been largely overlooked. Yet Iraqi women are enduring unprecedented levels of assault in the public sphere, "honor killings," torture in detention, and other forms of gender-based violence.
<blockquote></blockquote>
In honor of International Women's Day today, MADRE, a global women's human rights organization, has released a new report on the incidence, causes, and legalization of gender-based violence in Iraq since the US-led invasion.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Houzan Mahmoud, representative of the Organisation for Women's Freedom in Iraq (OWFI), said at a panel discussion at the UN launching the report:
<blockquote></blockquote><blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">"Women are not only being targeted because they are members of the civilian population, women--in particular those who are perceived to pose a challenge to the political aspirations of their attackers--have increasingly been targeted simply because they are women."</span></blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;"></span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
The report, <a href="http://www.madre.org/articles/me/iraqreport.html">Promising Democracy, Imposing Theocracy: Gender-Based Violence and the US War on Iraq</a>, documents the use of gender-based violence by Islamists seeking to establish a theocratic state and makes the case that US policy decisions have empowered radicals at the expense of women's rights.
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<a href="http://www.iraqslogger.com/index.php/post/1811/Iraqi_Women_Face_Unprecedented_Persecution">link</a>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">>> COMMENTARY AND ANALYSIS
</span><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">UPI: IRAN BIG WINNER IN IRAQ SO FAR</span><span style="font-weight: bold;">
<blockquote></blockquote>
</span>Iraqi Shiites and Sunnis agree on one thing -- the big winner so far in the bitter sectarian strife in their country is Iran.
<blockquote></blockquote>
"America handed Iraq to Iran on a golden plate," Saleh al-Mutlaq, a Sunni politician, told the Chicago Tribune. "Everything Iran fought for in the Iran-Iraq war, America gave to it when it invaded."
<blockquote></blockquote>
Vali Nasr, an Iranian-born scholar who teaches at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif., agrees.
<blockquote></blockquote>
"For Iran, the war in Iraq turned out to be a strategic windfall," he wrote in the journal Foreign Affairs.
<blockquote></blockquote>
In 2001, the Shiite government in Iran was flanked by hostile Sunni regimes -- Saddam Hussein on the west and the Taliban in Afghanistan to the east. The United States removed both.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Now, many Shiite leaders in the Iraqi government are men who spent years as refugees in Iran and Iranian arms are turning up across the border.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://washingtontimes.com/upi/20070308-095447-3161r">link</a>
<span style="font-weight: bold;"><blockquote></blockquote>
</span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Reuters: DREAMS OF BOMBS, BAD GUYS HAUNT BAGHDAD'S CHILDREN</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
Iraqi children are haunted by dreams of bad guys wielding knives or kidnapping relatives. For some, like 13-year-old Zaman, the nightmares become reality. She was abducted, beaten and threatened with rape.
<blockquote></blockquote>
"Zaman suffers from shaking, nervousness, a stutter and sleep disorder," said Haider Abdul-Muhsin, a psychiatrist at Baghdad's Ibn Rushd hospital who treats children suffering the consequences of war, four years after the U.S. invasion.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Abdul-Muhsin said Zaman was abducted in Baghdad last month on her way home from school. Zaman was not at the hospital when Reuters visited, but Abdul-Muhsin said few children he had treated recently had affected him as much.
<blockquote></blockquote>
"An elderly woman asked her to help her carry some plastic bags across the road to find a taxi. While she was taking her bags back from Zaman, she grabbed her and forced her into the taxi. She anesthetized Zaman and tied her up," he said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
The girl was held in a room with 15 other girls for seven hours before being released by police who raided the house.
<blockquote></blockquote>
"They beat her, they told her that they would send her to insurgents as a forced 'bride'," Abdul-Muhsin said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Four years of war and now sectarian chaos that threatens to tear Iraq apart has had an enormous impact on children.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Car bombs explode every day in Baghdad. Mortar bombs rain down on some neighborhoods. Death squads roam the streets and kidnappings are rampant. Kicking a soccer ball around on the streets is like dicing with death.
<blockquote></blockquote>
There are no figures on the number of children killed in violence since U.S. forces invaded in March 2003 and toppled Saddam Hussein -- although the United Nations says 34,500 civilians were killed in violence last year in Iraq alone.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Big car bomb attacks at Baghdad's markets often kill children. But even if they are not physically maimed, much of their pain comes from what they see and hear.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Outside Abdul-Muhsin's office, 9-year-old Ghufran was standing waiting as her father discussed her case.
<blockquote></blockquote>
"I have a headache," she said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Ghufran saw an explosion and while not hurt in the blast, she has suffered epileptic fits ever since.
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"Whenever she sees the scene of an explosion or hears the sound of a blast or sees people dressed in black, she has an epileptic fit," Abdul-Muhsin quoted her father as saying.
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<a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070308/wl_nm/iraq_war_children_dc_2">read in full…</a>
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<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Needlenose: ANOTHER HALF-TURN ON THE WHEEL THAT STRETCHES THE RACK</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
I had naively believed that by now, even the Shrub-in-Chief would agree to reluctantly scale down our involvement in Iraq as the structure of our military began to crack under the strain. But he's determined to make our troops wait for Godot no matter what the cost:
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Despite the strains, some military officials in Iraq say it is unrealistic to expect a troop buildup of several months</span> to create enough of a breathing space for Iraqis to achieve political reconciliation. . . . </span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">The recent National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq also suggested that the Iraqi Security Forces would not be able to assume the major responsibility for securing Baghdad in the near future. An unclassified version of the report noted that “<span style="font-weight: bold;">the Iraqi Security Forces, particularly the Iraqi police, will be hard pressed in the next 12 to 18 months to execute significantly increased security responsibilities</span>, and particularly to operate independently against Shia militias with success.”</span>
<blockquote></blockquote></blockquote>
So, as things stand, we're going to wind up shattering our armed forces for the sake of a plan that has no practical chance of working. That's how powerful and deeply embedded Dubya's delusion is.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/3867">read in full…</a>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">This Can't Be Happening!: THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS IN IRAQ</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
What’s going on in Baghdad?
<blockquote></blockquote>
Wasn’t that "surge" and security crackdown supposed to be reducing the violence?
<blockquote></blockquote>
Certainly that was the argument Bush made when he announced his latest new "strategy" of adding 21,500 troops to the occupying force in Iraq. He said that the so-called "surge" was needed to "reduce the cycle of violence," but so far, the violence has only increased, with more bombings, more killings, more Iraqis—both Shias and Sunnis—dying--albeit spread around in the areas outside of the central city--and more American troops being killed.
<blockquote></blockquote>
This is progress?
<blockquote></blockquote>
I guess maybe it is in the Through the Looking Glass world inhabited by the president and by the vice president, who recently declared that the decision by Britain to cut and run from Basra was a sign of "progress" in the Iraq War.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.thiscantbehappening.net/2007.03.01_arch.html#1173372286661">read in full…</a>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Mahmood Mamdani, London Review of Books: THE POLITICS OF NAMING: GENOCIDE, CIVIL WAR, INSURGENCY</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
The similarities between Iraq and Darfur are remarkable. The estimate of the number of civilians killed over the past three years is roughly similar. The killers are mostly paramilitaries, closely linked to the official military, which is said to be their main source of arms. The victims too are by and large identified as members of groups, rather than targeted as individuals. But the violence in the two places is named differently. In Iraq, it is said to be a cycle of insurgency and counter-insurgency; in Darfur, it is called genocide. Why the difference? Who does the naming? Who is being named? What difference does it make?
<blockquote></blockquote>
The most powerful mobilisation in New York City is in relation to Darfur, not Iraq. One would expect the reverse, for no other reason than that most New Yorkers are American citizens and so should feel directly responsible for the violence in occupied Iraq. But Iraq is a messy place in the American imagination, a place with messy politics. Americans worry about what their government should do in Iraq. Should it withdraw? What would happen if it did? In contrast, there is nothing messy about Darfur. It is a place without history and without politics; simply a site where perpetrators clearly identifiable as 'Arabs’ confront victims clearly identifiable as 'Africans’.
<blockquote></blockquote>
A full-page advertisement has appeared several times a week in the New York Times calling for intervention in Darfur now. It wants the intervening forces to be placed under 'a chain of command allowing necessary and timely military action without approval from distant political or civilian personnel’. That intervention in Darfur should not be subject to 'political or civilian’ considerations and that the intervening forces should have the right to shoot – to kill – without permission from distant places: these are said to be 'humanitarian’ demands. In the same vein, a New Republic editorial on Darfur has called for 'force as a first-resort response’. What makes the situation even more puzzling is that some of those who are calling for an end to intervention in Iraq are demanding an intervention in Darfur; as the slogan goes, 'Out of Iraq and into Darfur.’
<blockquote></blockquote>
What would happen if we thought of Darfur as we do of Iraq, as a place with a history and politics – a messy politics of insurgency and counter-insurgency? Why should an intervention in Darfur not turn out to be a trigger that escalates rather than reduces the level of violence as intervention in Iraq has done? Why might it not create the actual possibility of genocide, not just rhetorically but in reality?
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n05/mamd01_.html">read in full…</a>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">>> BEYOND IRAQ</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Afghanistan:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.thebostonchannel.com/news/11211116/detail.html"> Afghan and Iranian border guards fought a gunbattle in western Afghanistan</a> on Friday that left one Afghan and one Iranian dead, an Afghan official said. The guards exchanged fire in the western province of Nimroz after the Iranians had crossed some 100 meters (yards) into Afghan territory.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Blah3: CLEANING UP AFTER HE LEAVES</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
Who can blame them? We'll probably have to perform a purification ritual on the White House once he's out of there.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">Mayan leaders announced that priests will purify a sacred archaeological site to eliminate "bad spirits" after US President George W. Bush visits next week. </span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">"That a person like (Bush), with the persecution of our migrant brothers in the United States, with the wars he has provoked, is going to walk in our sacred lands, is an offense for the Mayan people and their culture," Juan Tiney, the director of a national association of indigenous people and peasant farmers, said Thursday. </span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">[...] </span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Tiney said the "spirit guides of the Mayan community" decided it would be necessary to cleanse the sacred site of "bad spirits" after Bush's visit so that their ancestors could rest in peace.</span></blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;"></span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
Says a lot about how Bush has changed the world's view of America, doesn't it?
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.blah3.com/article.php?story=20070309012529269">link</a>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">QUOTE OF THE DAY</span>: "I don't know what it was called, and I don't know where it was. All I know is that we sent away every man -- pretty well every male over five feet tall -- that we found in our house raids, and I never saw one of them return to the neighbourhoods we patrolled regularly." <span style="font-style: italic;">-- <a href="http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m31238&hd=&size=1&l=e">Joshua Key</a>, 28, who after serving in Iraq went home on a two-week leave </span><span style="font-style: italic;">in December 2003 and deserted the army</span><span style="font-style: italic;">, eventually crossing the Canadian border at Niagara Falls with his family</span><span style="font-style: italic;"><blockquote></blockquote></span><span style="font-style: italic;"></span>
<blockquote></blockquote>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5501771.post-1173386442843769752007-03-08T11:08:00.000-08:002007-03-08T13:12:58.010-08:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/afp/20070308/capt.sge.dna11.080307021358.photo01.photo.default-403x512.jpg?x=271&y=345&sig=KU._kJQtjvf4w5MFXXTsFA--"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 280px;" src="http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/afp/20070308/capt.sge.dna11.080307021358.photo01.photo.default-403x512.jpg?x=271&y=345&sig=KU._kJQtjvf4w5MFXXTsFA--" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">DAILY WAR NEWS FOR THURSDAY, March 8, 2007</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://news.yahoo.com/photos/ss/events/iraq/082701iraqplane/im:/070308/photos_wl_afp/345658b1ce6b4cfd109b17d8f013dd40;_ylt=AlU2Tx4qDtruxGljPbVDQ5DKps8F">Photo</a>: An Iraqi Shiite mourns over the body of a relative at the Hilla hospital morgue, central Baghdad. Thousands of Shiite pilgrims braved a deadly gauntlet of sectarian attacks on Wednesday, amid fears that a backlash against Sunnis could undermine the US-led Baghdad security plan.(AFP/Majed Ahmed)
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.theadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070308/NEWS01/703080313/1002">Bring 'em on</a>: A Lafayette soldier injured in Iraq last week died Wednesday in a San Antonio hospital, according to family members. Mark Graham, a 2002 graduate of St. Thomas More, was on patrol Friday in northwest Baghdad when his Bradley vehicle was struck by an improvised explosive device.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">OTHER SECURITY INCIDENTS</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Baghdad:</span>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/KHA838258.htm"><blockquote></blockquote>
Four mortar rounds crashed into the heavily fortified Baghdad International Airport compound</a> on Thursday, including one which struck the main terminal, but there were no casualties, security sources said. "Nobody was hurt, two of them landed in an empty area but one of the mortars hit the seventh floor," a security source speaking to Reuters from the airport said. Attacks on the large airport compound are fairly common but rarely does a mortar round land within the direct vicinity of the terminal building.
<a href="http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=21242"><blockquote></blockquote>
A cameraman with privately-owned Biladi TV, was killed in a car-bomb blast</a> yesterday in the al Dawra district in the south of Baghdad as he was filming Shiite pilgrims leaving the capital for the holy city of Kerbala, 110 kilometres south of the Baghdad. Biladi TV is affiliated to the Shiite al-Dawa political party.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.kesq.com/Global/story.asp?S=6196520&nav=9qrx">Iraq gunmen in Baghdad have opened fire on Shiite pilgrims</a>, wounding two of them and sending pilgrims and onlookers running for cover.Today's machine gun assault is the second attack this week on Shiites heading to Karbala for religious celebrations which start tomorrow.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/PAR836840.htm">Iraqi soldiers killed four insurgents and arrested 176 suspected insurgents</a> during the last 24 hours in different parts of Iraq, the Defence Ministry said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=38971&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">Iraqi students rallied and prevented a U.S. force from entering the campus of the second largest university in Baghdad</a>, an eyewitness student said. "U.S. forces tried this morning to raid the campus of al-Mustansiriyah university, east of Baghdad, but students gathered in rallies to protest the move," a student, who was present there, told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI). He added "the rallies led the force to withdraw from the location."
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Dhuluiya:</span>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/PAR836840.htm"><blockquote></blockquote>
Dozens of militants stormed two police stations and confiscated all the weapons there</a> and kidnapped a policeman in the town of Dhuluiya, 80 km (60 miles) north of Baghdad, local police said.
<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=38972&amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0"><blockquote></blockquote>
</a><blockquote><a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=38972&amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">A group of gunmen attacked three police stations in Dalouiya</a>, Salah ad-Din province, abducting two policemen and seizing an amount of weapons, a police source said.
<blockquote></blockquote></blockquote>
"<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=38972&amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">A booby-trapped car and an explosive charge went off at a U.S. vehicle patrol</a> that was trying to back up the police forces," he added. No immediate comment on the number of casualties from among the U.S. personnel was available.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=38972&amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">U.S. aircrafts and choppers bombarded al-Basateen, al-Jubur districts for more than two hours</a>. Billows of black smoke were seen rising from the shelled areas, the source noted. Dalouiya, a Sunni town, is 90 km north of Baghdad.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Balad:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/PAR836840.htm">Gunmen killed an Iraqi soldier on Wednesday in the town of Balad</a>, police said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/PAR836840.htm">Gunmen opened fire at an army checkpoint, killing two soldiers and wounding three others</a> in the town of Balad, 80 km (60 miles) north of Baghdad, police said
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Hawija:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/PAR836840.htm">A roadside bomb killed two civilians in the town of Hawija</a>, 70 km (40 miles) southwest of Baghdad, police said.
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/PAR836840.htm"><blockquote></blockquote>
Gunmen killed a man in the town of Hawija</a>, police said.
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/PAR836840.htm"><blockquote></blockquote>
Gunmen killed two Iraqi soldiers in a drive-by shooting in the town of Hawija</a>, police said
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Shirqat:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/PAR836840.htm">Gunmen killed two policemen when they attacked a police checkpoint in the town of Shirqat</a>, south of Mosul, police said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Mosul:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/PAR836840.htm">U.S. forces killed seven insurgents and arrested six others</a> during an operation while targeting al-Qaeda in Iraq, the U.S. military said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200703/08/eng20070308_355710.html">A suicide car bomber struck a police patrol in the city of Mosul</a>, some 400 km north of Baghdad, on Thursday, killing four policemen and wounding eight civilians, local police chief said. "A suicide bomber blew up an explosive-laden car into a passing police patrol near the Mosul Hotel in western city," Brigadier Muhammad al-Wagga, the city's police chief told Xinhua by telephone. The attack completely destroyed a police vehicle, killing four policemen aboard and wounding eight bystanders, he said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Kirkuk:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=38981&amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">Five civilians were wounded when a car bomb went off in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk</a>, a police source said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Fallujah:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=38979&amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">Unknown gunmen launched an attack with machine rifles and small arms against an Iraqi army base in Falluja</a>, a security source said. "Unknown gunmen launched this afternoon an attack on an Iraqi army base in al-Sinaa district in central Falluja," the source told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI). The source added "the attack occurred today at 1:30 pm, followed by 15 minutes of clashes." "The gunmen used small arms and machine rifles in their assault against the base," the source added. The source could not say if there were casualties among the Iraqi soldiers.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Diyala Prv:</span>
<a href="http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/16861967.htm"><blockquote></blockquote>
Gunmen killed the secretary of Diyala governor</a>, while he was heading back to his home in Khaniqeen city. The gunmen attacked his car near Imam Wais area killing him and injuring one of his companions on Tuesday’s night.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/16861967.htm">Gunmen killed a woman and injured a man in central Baqouba</a> on Tuesday night, police said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/16861967.htm">Gunmen stormed a house of a displaced family that returned to their home recently</a> in Hibhib town (25 Km north of Baqouba). Gunemen using three vehicles with no plate numbers parked in front of the family's house. The gunmen stormed the house using Kalashnikovs and other machineguns killed the old mother along with her two sons on Thursday's afternoon.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/16861967.htm">Gunmen killed an Iraqi police officer as he was leaving his home in Sharban town</a> today early morning.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/16861967.htm">Gunmen stopped a bus and killed an old man and kidnapped a young man </a>was with him in the bus in Al Aswad area. The incident occurred on a main road not far away from an American base in the area, security sources said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
On Thursday morning <a href="http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/16861967.htm">police found a disfigured chopped head in Al Hadida area</a> (north west of Baqouba.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">>> NEWS</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">></span> Prime Minister Nuri <a href="http://www.iraqslogger.com/index.php/post/1803/Maliki_Suspends_Cooperation_With_UK_Forces">al-Maliki plans to suspend cooperation with British forces in southern Iraq</a> until the completion of an investigation into the Sunday raid on Basra's police headquarters, according to statements made by Minister of State for National Assembly Affairs Safa al-Din Mohammed al-Safi and reported on Alsumeria TV.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Alsumeria also reported that Maliki may file an official complaint with the UN Security Council if the investigation reveals any wrongdoing.
<blockquote></blockquote>
The Basra police headquarters houses an intelligence detention center, and the raid uncovered a number of prisoners who showed signs of having been tortured during interrogation.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">></span> <a href="http://www.iraqslogger.com/index.php/post/1797/Iraqi_Parties_Shuffle_the_Cards">The Fadhila party, representing 15 seats in the Iraqi parliament, has withdrawn from the governing coalition</a>, according to reports in the Arab media. The general secretary of the party, Nadim al-Jaburi announced in statement read at a press conference in Baghdad on Wednesday.
The party will join a newly formed parliamentary coalition formed by a major Sunni bloc and the Iyad Allawi's Iraqi List.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Jabiri said that the withdrawal happened after his party became convinced of the need for “a national project built on the basis of the unity and sovereignty of Iraq.”
<blockquote></blockquote>
Fadhila is the strongest party in the Basra area and its supporters are predominantly Shi'a Arabs. It had been a member of the governing Shi'a-based coalition since the formation of the government after the most recent elections.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">></span> Insurgents have sought to intensify attacks during a Baghdad security crackdown and additional U.S. forces will be sent to areas outside the capital where militant groups are regrouping, the new commander of U.S. forces in Iraq said Thursday.
<blockquote></blockquote>
U.S. Gen. David Petraeus said the troop buildups outside Baghdad will focus on Diyala province northeast of Baghdad, a growing hotbed for suspected Sunni extremists fleeing the U.S.-Iraqi security operation in Baghdad.
<blockquote></blockquote>
But Petraeus stressed that<a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070308/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_petraeus_6;_ylt=AhIx6hI3ngczKniPimJwyCVX6GMA"> military force alone is "not sufficient" to end the violence in Iraq and political talks must eventually include some militant groups now opposing the U.S.-backed government.</a>
<blockquote></blockquote>
"This is critical," Petraeus said in his first news conference since taking over command last month. He noted that such political negotiations "will determine in the long run the success of this effort."
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">></span> <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070308/pl_afp/usiraqmilitary_070308185404;_ylt=AlToGLfFL9lGCJS6pqnHXvtX6GMA">The Pentagon is to send more soldiers to Iraq</a> on top of the extra troops announced in January which may now have to stay in the country until February 2008.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Wednesday that the US commander in Iraq, Lieutenant General David Petraeus, had asked for an additional 2,200 military police to help guard Baghdad jails which risk overflowing as a security clampdown bites.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Petraeus had also asked for additional troop reinforcements, but that request has not yet been approved, Gates said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">></span> In a direct challenge to President Bush, <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070308/ap_on_go_co/democrats_iraq_21;_ylt=AiIY7_6u1lxKLtF60CDBtdFX6GMA">House Democrats unveiled legislation requiring the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq by the fall of next year</a>. Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the deadline would be added to legislation providing nearly $100 billion the Bush administration has requested for fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span name="intelliTxt" id="intelliTXT">> <a href="http://www.playfuls.com/news_10_17972-Portugal-Closes-Baghdad-Embassy-For-Security-Reasons.html">Portugal will close its embassy in Baghdad for security and financial reasons</a>, media reports said Thursday.
</span><blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">>> REPORTS</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.iraqslogger.com/index.php/post/1798/Al-Baghdadi_Led_Mosul_Prison_Raid">The man known as Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, alleged leader of the militant Sunni organization Islamic State of Iraq, led the attack on the Badoush prison</a> in Mosul yesterday, according to a “high-level” security source in Mosul.
<blockquote></blockquote>
The Iraqi newspaper <span style="font-style: italic;">al-Mada</span> carries an exclusive report, in which the anonymous source also states that the Iraqi security apparatus has evidence that al-Baghdadi is in the Mosul area, having arrived there at the beginning of March, leading operations in the area, the most recent being the attack on the prison building.
<blockquote></blockquote>
High level operations were underway to track al-Baghdadi, the source added.
<blockquote></blockquote>
The attack on the prison was the biggest of its kind, with 200 armed fighters in more than 40 vehicles overwhelming the prison guards who numbered only 40. 147 prisoners escaped in the raid, among them 40 prisoners of “Arab nationality” and 50 who were rounded up after attacks on Mosul airport last year.
<blockquote></blockquote>
All but 47 of the prisoners had been recaptured, the source told <span style="font-style: italic;">al-Mada</span>, and a “wide security operation” was underway to track the remaining fugitives.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Contradictory reports circulated in the media about the alleged capture of individuals involved in the attack. One source said that 40 attackers were captured, while other local security officials refused to confirm that figure, saying that an official announcement would come in a press conference Thursday or Friday.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">>> COMMENTARY AND ANALYSIS</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Roads to Iraq: HUNTERS OF THE DEMINING VEHICLES</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
- Since I am not allowed to link directly to the video, then I will link to Al-Jazeera report which shows clips from the video.
<blockquote></blockquote>
A new video released by the resistance called “Hunters of the Demining Vehicles”
<blockquote></blockquote>
The video shows and counts all the sorts of vehicles used by the US army, and its specifications, year released on duty and how much did it cost to manufacture the vehicles….etc.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Give you an example:
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">Type of vehicles used in Iraq are:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">1- Buffalo</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">2- Cougar</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">3- RG-31 Nayala</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">4- Meerkat</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Buffalo</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Made of very hard steel, in a “V” shape, contains a digital camera connected with a screen in the driving chamber….etc.</span></blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;"></span>
<blockquote style="font-style: italic;"></blockquote>
What the group also claim that they made an electronic circuits that distorting the deminers capabilities to discover mines, the video shows some electronic schemes of these circuits.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Also said that they formed a research group led by a former Iraqi retired officer to study US army weapons with a budget of 7 Billion USD.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Here is Al-Jazeera report:
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">[video]</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
- Is Baghdad security plan really working or it is just the “Green Zone” government are reporting less.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Iraqi writer Sarmad Al-Iraqi counts 17 violence operations not mentioned by the media for yesterday, these operations are from 8 o’clock in the morning until 3 o’clock in the afternoon.
<blockquote></blockquote>
He accuses the “green Zone” government with misleading the public saying they are making progress while they are just reporting less.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Here are the incidents:
<blockquote></blockquote>
1- car bomb exploded on police check point in Al-Saydiya district – Baghdad.
<blockquote></blockquote>
2- clashes between the resistance and the US occupation forces in Al-Dora district.
<blockquote></blockquote>
3- clashes near Al-sarafiya Bridge, and mortars fires – 2 dead, 3 injured.
<blockquote></blockquote>
4- bomb explosion near Art Academy, 1 dead, 4 injured.
<blockquote></blockquote>
5- explosion on a Iraqi national gaurds, the dead and injured not counted.
<blockquote></blockquote>
6- at 11 o’clock morning, clashes started again in Al-Dora between resistance and American forces.
<blockquote></blockquote>
7- car explosion near Yarmouk hospital, 7 dead and others injured.
<blockquote></blockquote>
8- car explosion on the lead to Al-sania’a district.
<blockquote></blockquote>
9- bomb explosion in Yarmouk and fire clashes erupted after that.
<blockquote></blockquote>
10- armed guards escorting the pilgrems to Karbala, fired on houses in Al-Saydiya.
<blockquote></blockquote>
11- clashes with three police check points in Al-baya’a.
<blockquote></blockquote>
12- car explosion in Al-Bayia’a tank station.
<blockquote></blockquote>
13 bomb explosion in Al-wazeriya, 4 dead.
<blockquote></blockquote>
14- bomb explosion in bab-Al-Muatham, dead and injured not counted.
<blockquote></blockquote>
15- bomb explosion in Al-Sulaikh, 2 dead.
<blockquote></blockquote>
16- bomb explosion under Al-baiya’a bridge.
<blockquote></blockquote>
17- clashes started again in Al-Dora between Iraqi army and the resistance continued after 3 o’clock.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.roadstoiraq.com/2007/03/07/hunters-of-the-demining-vehicles/#comments">read in full…</a>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">IragSlogger: STEVE SIMON OUTLINES BUSH CHOICES ON PULLOUT</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
Steve Simon, CFR senior fellow and Middle East security expert, in an interview posted today perfectly articulates the dilemma faced by the Bush Administration in timing the military withdrawal from Iraq:
<blockquote></blockquote><blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">"They can wait to withdraw as part of a victory or they can withdraw in advance of a rout. That seems to me really to be the choice, because public opinion in the United States has turned very decisively against the war, and casualty tolerance is a very brutal thing under these circumstances. So, public opinion and the way in which politicians act on it could well force a withdrawal sooner rather than later, or at least sooner than the administration would like. And it makes sense given that possibility for the United States to disengage militarily from Iraq while it can still do so as a deliberate and methodical volitional act, instead of one being forced upon it."</span></blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;"></span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
The idea of what "victory" in Iraq might look like is constantly under revision, but the Bush Administration may be hoping that the surge will improve the situation just enough to allow a withdrawal under the imprimatur of success--no matter how fleeting.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.iraqslogger.com/index.php/post/1795/Steve_Simon_Outlines_Bush_Choices_on_Pullout">read in full…</a>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Citizens For Legitimate Government: THE IRAQ THAT GEORGE BUILT</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
One quick read of this article on the estimated two million refugees from Iraq* and the other two million left homeless inside Iraq and one sees the story of the war and the Iraq that George built.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Bush and Cheney have more than decimated Iraq. That is, in a country of 26 million people, Bush and Cheney have killed directly, caused the deaths indirectly, or caused the evacuation, of over four million people. That is, over 15% of the population has been cut up, root and branch, from the nation. Focusing on two people, a doctor and spouse, CNN tells the story of far too many Iraqis. Abtan, a doctor, fled to Jordan to avoid certain decapitation. He has lost ten relatives and four friends to violent death, "including two doctors murdered at work. His wife has lost three relatives. They have no plans to return to Iraq anytime soon, but they want better lives now."
<blockquote></blockquote>
Further, those fleeing Iraq are, like Abtan, of the professional class consisting of doctors, lawyers, engineers and professors seeking work elsewhere. In other words, Iraq is undergoing a literal brain drain, with the intelligentsia either losing their heads or becoming cells of a national intelligence hemorrhaging, leaving only the most rabid lunatics and their helpless victims behind. The country has actually lost its mind.
<blockquote></blockquote>
This is the Iraq that George built. This is the democracy that the invasion has produced. This result alone should be enough to impel the US Congress to impeach Bush and Cheney, try them for treason and war crimes, and take over the executive office until the next "election." The world needs to be made safe from them.
<blockquote></blockquote>
But for reasons that involve both political allegiance of the most despicable sort-the kind that allows people to keep dying to protect party interests-and political cowardice of the most egregious kind-Democrats afraid of being called names-we have nothing but tepid and tumid resolutions with built-in waivers for Bush to violate them.. In other words, we get nothing but the same carte blanche to continue on the path of no-return.
<blockquote></blockquote>
How far down to hell will we allow Bush to dig in Iraq before we remove the shovel from his hands and…
<blockquote></blockquote>
Smack me over the head when this is over. That's what it will take to convince me that I've woken up from the nightmare.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.legitgov.org/comment/rec_report_070307.html">link</a>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Whatever It Is, I'm Against It: ALSO, WEREWOLVES. LOTS OF WEREWOLVES.</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
Gen. David Petraeus calls those who attacked Shiite pilgrims “thugs with no soul” and says we must “control the demons responsible for the vicious sectarian violence of the past year - demons who have torn at the very fabric of Iraqi society.”
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://whateveritisimagainstit.blogspot.com/2007/03/also-werewolves-lots-of-werewolves.html">link</a>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Born at the Crest of the Empire: "THE SURGE" IS GOING TO BE BIGGER, LONGER, BROADER, AND MORE VIOLENT THAN PROMISED.</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
In the last 12 hours we have reporting that "the surge" is going to be bigger (US approves more troops for Iraq,) longer (Buildup in Iraq Needed Into ’08, U.S. General Says,) broader ("additional U.S. forces will be sent to areas outside the capital,") and more violent (U.S.: Iraqi insurgent attacks intensifying) than promised.
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Not that I'm surprised by any of these, but the real story is that all of these represent a planning recognition that what was proposed will not work.
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Nobody wrote that story.
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<a href="http://bornatthecrestoftheempire.blogspot.com/2007/03/surge-is-going-to-be-bigger-longer.html">link</a>
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">>> BEYOND IRAQ</span>
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Afghanistan:</span>
<a href="http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/117335492630210.xml&coll=2"><blockquote></blockquote>
A top Taliban commander said the group has 4,000 fighters bracing to rebuff NATO's largest-ever offensive in southern Afghanistan</a>, now in its second day. Suicide bombers are ready, land mines have been planted and helicopters will be targeted, Mullah Abdul Qassim, the top Taliban commander in Helmand province told the Associated Press.
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<a href="http://ca.today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2007-03-08T162841Z_01_L08672250_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-AFGHAN-COL.XML">Taliban and NATO troops fought battles in southern Afghanistan as the alliance pressed ahead with its biggest offensive</a> to quash the insurgents. With more than 4,500 NATO troops and 1,000 Afghan soldiers deployed, Taliban fighters sheltered in houses, NATO said. This could not be independently verified and the Taliban could not immediately be contacted for comment.</blockquote>
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It is with deep regret that <a href="http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/DefenceNews/MilitaryOperations/BritishSoldierKilledInHelmandProvinceAfghanistan.htm">the Ministry of Defence must confirm the death today, Thursday 8 March 2007, of a member of 29 Commando Regiment Royal Artillery</a> in Helmand province, Afghanistan. He died in hospital at Camp Bastion from injuries sustained when a grenade was fired at a UK base in Sangin. <span style="font-style: italic;">(MoD UK)</span>
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<a href="http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htart/articles/20070308.aspx">The British army is sending some heavy artillery to Afghanistan.</a> Not big (155mm) guns, but big rockets. Several MLRS launchers are being sent, equipped with GPS guided rockets (MLRS). Despite requests from the troops for heavier artillery, the British have only sent a few 105mm howitzers.
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<a href="http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/03/08/europe/EU-GEN-Germany-Afghanistan-Death.php">A German working for a humanitarian aid group in northern Afghanistan has been shot to death</a>, the organization said Thursday.
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<a href="http://www.570news.com/news/international/article.jsp?content=w030832A">Two Canadian convoys have been hit in separate attacks in the Kandahar area</a>. Maj. Dale MacEachern of Task Force Afghanistan says one attack involved a suicide bomber in a vehicle. The other involved what the military calls an improvised explosive device. No Canadians were hurt, and there was no word on civilian casualties.
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<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Jack A Smith, Asia Times Online: THE FUTURISTIC BATTLEFIELD</span>
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While most Americans are concentrating on extricating the US government from the debacle in Iraq, and most peace activists are simultaneously concerned that the Bush administration will launch a war against Iran, the leaders of the Pentagon are planning how to win wars 10, 20, and 50 years from now.
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Washington is preparing for every contingency, from rooting out a handful of suspected terrorists halfway around the world to possible wars with Russia and China.
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The Defense Department's drawing boards are groaning under the weight of blueprints for sustaining total military dominance of land, sea, air and outer space throughout this century. The costs of supporting the US government's martial propensities will be astronomical in terms of the social programs and benefits denied American working people, not to mention the consequences of living in a state of permanent warfare.
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The recent decision to escalate the Iraq war with a "surge" of 21,000 more troops, the plan to increase the armed forces by another 92,000 troops, and President George W Bush's request for US$716 billion to meet the Pentagon's warmaking needs in fiscal year 2008 are a harbinger of what's coming next - new technologies for fighting future wars on the ground, improvements in the nuclear stockpile and delivery systems, and the militarization of outer space, among other military goals.
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<a href="http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/IC09Aa01.html">read in full…</a>
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">QUOTE OF THE DAY</span>: "We will export death and violence to the four corners of the Earth in defense of our great nation." <span style="font-style: italic;">-- President George W Bush in Bob Woodward's book</span> Plan of Attack <span style="font-style: italic;">(quoted in "The Futuristic Battlefield"; see above)</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5501771.post-1173296262557669662007-03-07T11:28:00.000-08:002007-03-07T15:01:13.330-08:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/nm/20070307/2007_03_07t082230_450x303_us_iraq.jpg?x=380&y=255&sig=Tywkt3htEARS31vxRXI2tQ--"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 380px;" src="http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/nm/20070307/2007_03_07t082230_450x303_us_iraq.jpg?x=380&y=255&sig=Tywkt3htEARS31vxRXI2tQ--" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">DAILY WAR NEWS FOR WEDNESDAY, March 7, 32007</span>
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<a href="http://news.yahoo.com/photo/070307/photos_ts/2007_03_07t082230_450x303_us_iraq&g=events/iraq/082701iraqplane;_ylt=AlUA51odI_Q3m6H1LiGMM7dg.3QA">Photo</a>: An Iraqi soldier fires his machinegun at suspected insurgents during clashes in Baghdad's Doura district, March 7, 2007. (Ali Jasim/Reuters)
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<a href="http://www.centcom.mil/sites/uscentcom2/Lists/Current%20Press%20Releases/DispForm.aspx?ID=4628&Source=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Ecentcom%2Emil%2Fsites%2Fuscentcom2%2FLists%2FPress%2520Releases%2FCurrent%2520Releases%2Easpx">Bring 'em on</a>: On March 7, an MND-B unit was conducting a route clearance patrol in order to secure a commonly traveled route of improvised explosive devices northwest of the Iraqi capital when they were struck by a roadside bomb, killing three Soldiers and wounding another. <span style="font-style: italic;">(CENTCOM)</span>
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<span style="font-style: italic;">OTHER SECURITY INCIDENTS</span>
<span style="font-style: italic;"><blockquote></blockquote>
In Country:</span>
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<a href="http://en.rian.ru/world/20070307/61705051.html">A Georgian helicopter involved in humanitarian operations in Iraq has crashed</a>, Georgia's Imedi TV company reported Wednesday. The crew - three Ukrainian pilots, who sustained minor injuries - and an undisclosed number of Iraqi passengers have been taken to a U.S. military hospital, the TV company said. The Novosti-Georgia news agency reported that the Tusheti airline, which owns the helicopter, excluded the possibility of a terrorist act and said that technical failure was the most likely cause of the crash.
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Baghdad:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/articles/2007/03/07/ap/headlines/d8nnaf1g0.txt">The biggest attack on pilgrims Wednesday occurred in Dora</a>, a mostly Sunni neighborhood of southern Baghdad, where a roadside bomb killed at least seven people, police said. Immediately after the blast, gunmen moved in and fired on the victims. About 14 were wounded, they said.
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<a href="http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/articles/2007/03/07/ap/headlines/d8nnaf1g0.txt"></a><blockquote><a href="http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/articles/2007/03/07/ap/headlines/d8nnaf1g0.txt">Gunmen also opened fire on Shiite pilgrims on a bridge in southeastern Baghdad,</a> killing three and wounding five, police said.
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<a href="http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/articles/2007/03/07/ap/headlines/d8nnaf1g0.txt">Another shooting left one pilgrim dead and four wounded in central Baghdad</a>, police said.
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<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/PAR730995.htm">Gunmen wounded six pilgrims in Baghdad as they were heading to the holy city of Kerbala</a> to commemorate the Arbain, the end of 40 days of mourning since Ashura, which marks the death of Prophet Mohammad's grandson in 680, police said.
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<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/PAR730995.htm">The Iraqi army killed 13 insurgents and arrested 157 others during the last 24 hours</a> in different parts of Iraq, the Defence Ministry said.
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<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/PAR730995.htm">A suicide car bomber killed one policeman and wounded 17</a>, including 10 policemen, in Saidiya in southern Baghdad, police said. The bomber targeted police who were marshalling Shi'ite pilgrims walking to Kerbala and the wounded included seven pilgrims.
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<a href="http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_News/20070307-091729-6132r/">A suicide car bomber struck an Iraqi police checkpoint</a> in a southwestern Baghdad suburb and killed seven police officers and one pilgrim, police said. The blast injured at least 25 others.
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<a href="http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/news/special_packages/iraq/16846224.htm">The head of relations and media department in tourism committee Ahmed Gati’a was killed</a> when gun men shot him in Al-Iskandariya district (South of Baghdad).
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<a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/iraq;_ylt=Ah0084cRALfk_kU1D6rE79BX6GMA">An official at Yarmukh hospital in Baghdad said the bodies of eight pilgrims were brought in</a> overnight -- seven killed by a roadside bomb and one shot -- and that 23 wounded were treated
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<a href="http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/news/special_packages/iraq/16846224.htm"></a><blockquote><a href="http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/news/special_packages/iraq/16846224.htm">24 anonymous bodies were found in Baghdad. </a>23 were found in Karkh, the western part of Baghdad in the following neighborhoods (7 bodies in Dora, 5 bodies in Hay Al Amil, 3 bodies in Baiyaa, 2 bodies in Ghazaliya, 1 body in each of Saidiya, Hurriya, Abo Disheer, Jami'aa and Amiriya). A body was found in Al Ameen one of the neighborhoods of Rosafa, the eatern part of Baghdad.
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Diyala Prv:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/CrisesArticle.aspx?storyId=IBO765486">A suicide bomber blew himself up in a cafe in a town northeast of Baghdad</a> on Wednesday, killing at least 26 people, police said. The blast occurred in the town of Balad Ruz, in the religiously mixed province of Diyala. Balad Ruz police chief Faris al-Umayri said the bomber killed 26 people and wounded 25 others. Another police source put the death toll at 30.
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Iskandariya:</span>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/PAR730995.htm"><blockquote></blockquote>
Six Shi'ite pilgrims were killed and 13 were wounded </a>after they were hit by mortar bombs in the town of Iskandariya, 40 km (25 miles) south of Baghdad.
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Hillah:</span>
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<span style="font-style: italic;">(update)</span> The targeted violence came a day after two suicide bombers exploded themselves among pilgrims lining up at a checkpoint, <a href="http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/articles/2007/03/07/ap/headlines/d8nnaf1g0.txt">killing at least 120 people and wounding about 190</a>, police and hospital officials said.
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Dinwinaya:</span>
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<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/PAR730995.htm">Gunmen killed a police officer along with his 10-year-old son </a>on Tuesday in a drive-by shooting in Diwaniya, 180 km (110 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Basra:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=38862&amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">A gunman was wounded by British forces when he attacked along with an armed group a British base</a> in the city of Basra, 550 km south of Baghdad, the spokeswoman for the Multi-National forces in the southern Iraq said on Wednesday.
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"A British military base in central Basra came over night under attack with light-arms," Captain Katie Brown told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI) over the phone. "The British forces started a shootout with the attackers, causing the injury of a gunman", she added.
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"<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=38862&amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">Another British base at the Shatt al-Arab hotel came under two separate attacks</a> late Tuesday", the spokeswoman noted, underlining that the attacks caused no damage inside the base.</blockquote>
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Dujail:</span>
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<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/PAR730995.htm">Gunmen killed four Shi'ite men and wounded another</a> on Tuesday in a drive-by shooting near the town of Dujail, police said.
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Kirkuk:</span>
<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=38900&amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0"><blockquote></blockquote>
Two Iraqi policemen were wounded on Wednesday </a>when an explosive charge went off near their police vehicle patrol in Kirkuk, 250km northeast Baghdad, said a police source.
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Mosul:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=38922&amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">A gunman was killed on Wednesday in clashes with Iraqi soldiers</a> in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, a security source said.
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Fallujah:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
During Wednesday afternoon <a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=38898&amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">unidentified gunmen attacked the Iraqi army military base in al-Ressala neighborhood,</a> west of Falluja," the source told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI). "The armed men used machine guns and Rocket Propelled Grenades (RPGs) in their attack," he added. Fierce clashes then broke out between the two sides. There was no immediate comment on the number of casualties, the source noted.
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<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=38898&amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">Falluja police found the bodies in a street in al-Baath neighborhood</a>, in central Falluja, with signs of gunshots to the head and chests, he highlighted.
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">>> NEWS</span>
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<a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070307/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_conference_3;_ylt=AuxyL_9P6qBMAKMyD28E_uhX6GMA">Iran confirmed it will take part in an international conference alongside the United States in Baghdad</a> on Saturday, a gathering Iraq hopes will break the ice between the bitter rivals to help end its bloody conflict.
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In a sign of how difficult it will be resolve the differences separating the various sides, the conference of Iraq's neighbors, the United States and the U.N. Security Council powers will be attended by officials on the level of deputy foreign minister. A hoped-for session of higher level diplomats has been postponed until later.
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<a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070307/us_nm/bush_vermont_impeach_dc_4;_ylt=AvrzHXyrIko1LX8xMi2_CydX6GMA">More than 30 Vermont towns passed resolutions on Tuesday seeking to impeach Bush</a>, while at least 16 towns in the tiny New England state called on Washington to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq.
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">>> REPORTS</span>
<blockquote></blockquote><blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/iraq_insurgents_profile_us_armored_cars/20070306-021254-7340r/">A new video released by insurgents in Iraq profiles the different kinds of armored vehicle used by U.S. forces</a> and shows successful attacks against each type.
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The 25 minute video was posted on Islamic extremist Web sites Monday by the media arm of the Islamic State of Iraq -- an umbrella organization for Sunni Islamic extremist groups, believed to be led by al-Qaida. Details were provided to United Press International by IntelCenter, a counter-terrorism consultancy that tracks such Web sites for clients including U.S. government agencies.
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The video profiles the Buffalo, Cougar, RG-31 and Meerkat armored vehicles, according to the consultancy. "This is the first video we are aware of that profiles U.S. vehicles and then shows attacks against them," said IntelCenter's Ben Venzke in a statement.
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<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Roads to Iraq: US EMBASSIES IN EUROPE ARE SHOPPING ADVISERS FOR MALIKI</span>
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It was a country full with scientists and researchers, now the “Green Zone” government can’t find a single person to work as an advisers for Maliki.
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The US department of State mobilized its embassies in European capitals to search advisers who are ready to work inside the “Green Zone”.
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Elaph manged to hold its hand on an official documents in three pages issued by the US Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the American embassy in Baghdad containing terms and skills regarding the selection of advisers for Maliki for the fields: Political affairs and international relations, agriculture, oil and gas, electricity, planning and financial affairs, housing, transport, social health, water and sewage treatments and education.
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Conditions required are: speaking Arabic and English fluently, decisions making, and the place of work inside the “Green Zone” in center of Baghdad, enjoying all the facilities of the compound [restaurants, swimming pools and sport centers] protected by military forces, advisers transport will by protected by military forces
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The documents did not specify the nationality of the applicants but proffered to be Iraqis, interviews will be conducted in a Hotel in London.
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<a href="http://www.roadstoiraq.com/2007/03/06/us-embassies-in-europe-are-shopping-advisers-for-maliki/">link</a>
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<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Video: Sue Harris: POISON DUst</span>
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Poison DUst tells the story of young soldiers who thought they came home safely from the war, but didn't. Of a veteran's young daughter whose birth defect is strikingly similar to birth defects suffered by many Iraqi children. Of thousands of young vets who are suffering from the symptoms of uranium poisoning, and the thousands more who are likely to find themselves with these ailments in the years to come. Of a government unwilling to admit there might be a problem here. Filmmaker Sue Harris skillfully weaves the stories of these young veterans with scientific explanations of the nature of "DU" and its dangers, including interviews with former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, New York Daily News reporter Juan Gonzalez, noted physicist Michio Kaku, Dr. Rosalie Bertell, Dr. Helen Caldicott and Major Doug Rokke- the former U.S. Army DU Project head.
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Every American who cares about our troops should watch this film. Everyone who cares about the innocent civilians who live in the countries where these weapons are used should watch this film. And everyone who cares about the hatred of Americans that may result from the effects of our government's actions in using these weapons, should watch this film. Is there a cover-up?
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m31187&hd=&size=1&l=e">link</a>
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<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">An interview with General Wesley Clark, ICH: SEVEN COUNTRIES IN FIVE YEARS</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">AMY GOODMAN: Do you see a replay in what happened in the lead-up to the war with Iraq -- the allegations of the weapons of mass destruction, the media leaping onto the bandwagon?</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
GEN. WESLEY CLARK: Well, in a way. But, you know, history doesn’t repeat itself exactly twice. What I did warn about when I testified in front of Congress in 2002, I said if you want to worry about a state, it shouldn’t be Iraq, it should be Iran. But this government, our administration, wanted to worry about Iraq, not Iran.
<blockquote></blockquote>
I knew why, because I had been through the Pentagon right after 9/11. About ten days after 9/11, I went through the Pentagon and I saw Secretary Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz. I went downstairs just to say hello to some of the people on the Joint Staff who used to work for me, and one of the generals called me in. He said, “Sir, you’ve got to come in and talk to me a second.” I said, “Well, you’re too busy.” He said, “No, no.” He says, “We’ve made the decision we’re going to war with Iraq.” This was on or about the 20th of September. I said, “We’re going to war with Iraq? Why?” He said, “I don’t know.” He said, “I guess they don’t know what else to do.” So I said, “Well, did they find some information connecting Saddam to al-Qaeda?” He said, “No, no.” He says, “There’s nothing new that way. They just made the decision to go to war with Iraq.” He said, “I guess it’s like we don’t know what to do about terrorists, but we’ve got a good military and we can take down governments.” And he said, “I guess if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem has to look like a nail.”
<blockquote></blockquote>
So I came back to see him a few weeks later, and by that time we were bombing in Afghanistan. I said, “Are we still going to war with Iraq?” And he said, “Oh, it’s worse than that.” He reached over on his desk. He picked up a piece of paper. And he said, “I just got this down from upstairs” -- meaning the Secretary of Defense’s office -- “today.” And he said, “This is a memo that describes how we’re going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran.” I said, “Is it classified?” He said, “Yes, sir.” I said, “Well, don’t show it to me.” And I saw him a year or so ago, and I said, “You remember that?” He said, “Sir, I didn’t show you that memo! I didn’t show it to you!”
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<a href="http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17253.htm">read in full…</a>
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">>> COMMENTARY AND ANALYSIS</span>
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<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> Sheila Samples, ICH: LOST IN THE LUST OF THE WEREWOLVES</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
Sometimes I wonder if Americans are unaware of the malicious devastation the Bush administration is wreaking upon this good earth and its inhabitants, or if they just don't give a damn. I wonder if they ever put a "face" on even one of the hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women and children who are lost forever -- victims of arrogance, lust for power, insatiable greed. And lies .. all lost because of evil, deliberate lies.
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I wonder why so many denizens of this Christian nation seem unable or unwilling to wrap their minds around the reality that Iraqi people are human beings just as they, themselves, are -- not rabid dogs to be hunted down and slaughtered. Perhaps it's because, in order to remain sane or to avoid being targeted by the Bush administration, they traded their Christianity for Religion, their Love for Hate -- their Life for Death. For protection from the Butcher of Baghdad, far too many Americans far too easily traded their souls to the Werewolf of Washington.
<blockquote></blockquote>
They don't want to know what it's like for families to cower in terror as their doors are kicked in, mothers and daughters raped, fathers and sons dragged off, never to be seen again. They don't want to know about prisoners being humiliated and tortured, secretly "rendered" to countries for more torture, held captive for endless years without charges, without hope, without life. They don't want to know about Iraq's rich culture, its secular society, its formidable institutiions of learning. According to the late Columbia University professor Edward Said, all of this, along with Iraq's "long-suffering people were made invisible, the better to smash the country as if it were only a den of thieves and murderers." (<span style="font-style: italic;">Al-Ahram Weekly</span>, 24 - 30 April 2003)
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17250.htm">read in full…</a>
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<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Stephen P. Pizzo, Atlantic Free Press: SURGING FOR SHIITES</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
What They Say: Less than a month into the surge the level of violence in and around Baghdad has fallen sharply. US and Iraqi government troops have moved peacefully into Sadr City, the stronghold of the powerful Shia Mahdi Army.
<blockquote></blockquote>
All that is true. Violence has dropped and the Mahdi Army has become all but invisible.
<blockquote></blockquote>
The question is not what's happening, but why it's happening. Why has the violence dropped?
<blockquote></blockquote>
The administration believes it's because their latest "clear and hold," surge strategy has finally turned the trick for them. High fives all around.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Wrong. Quite the opposite in fact. Here's what's really happening.
<blockquote></blockquote>
When Bush first announced his surge plan Shiite leaders, (particularly that little two-legged tumor, Muqtada al-Sadr,) took stock of the situation and decided that, rather than being a threat to them, Bush's surge was a potential solution – to the "Sunni problem."
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The last time Americans tried to pacify Baghdad, including Sadr City, both Shia and Sunni engaged US troops and took a beating. They weren't defeated, but they lost lots of fighters, expended valuable resources and their own neighborhoods were left shattered.
<blockquote></blockquote>
This time, Shiites decided why not just lay low, just sit out the surge. It;s a luxury Shiites knew their Sunni opponents could not afford. The Sunnis, Iraq's minority sect, is fighting for nothing less than its very survival. And the day the Sunnis stop fighting is the day they lose, in a region where "losing" doesn't mean "wait til next season." Because there will be no next season for the losers.
<blockquote></blockquote>
And so it has come to pass. The car and suicide-bombs going off in Baghdad today are almost entirely Sunni inspired attacks. Those attacks will spark precisely the kind of counter-attacks by US/Iraqi troops in Sunni strongholds Shiites are counting on.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.atlanticfreepress.com/content/view/1115/81/">read in full…</a>
<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"><blockquote></blockquote>
Missing Links: PARLIAMENT FAILS TO GET A QUORUM FOR ITS INAUGURAL SESSION</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
Yesterday Adnan al-Dulaimi announced that the bloc he leads (Iraqi Accord Front, Sunni, 44 parliamentary seats) is joining with the Iraqi List or Wifaq party (25 seats) led by Ayad Allawi. (This was the first actual announcement of any other group joining with Allawi, although there have been a lot of premature claims along those lines).
<blockquote></blockquote>
Today, the Fadhila party, which has 15 seats in the legislature, and is probably the strongest local power in Basra, said it is withdrawing from the Shiite coalition led by Abdulaziz al-Hakim (United Iraqi Alliance UIA, alias Unified Iraqi Coalition, UIC), and will sit in parliament as an independent party, in order to underline its opposition to any coalition-forming based on religion or sect. Fadhila did not announce that it was joining the Allawi group, merely that it was withdrawing from the UIA. (The UIA includes Hakim's SCIRI, the Dawa party to which Maliki belongs, and, officially at least, the Sadrists). A report elsewhere that Fadhila and others have already joined with the Allawi group is incorrect.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Also yesterday, it was announced that the Iraqi parliament attempted to meet for the inaugural session of the new parliamentary period, but failed to reach a quorum. A member of the UIA explained to the Aswat al-Iraq reporter that they are going to try again on Monday. The reporter asked the UIA person about the list of potential criminal cases including abainst parliamentarians, said to be in the possession of Maliki, and the UIA person said: The first step will have to be a request from the judicial authorities for lifting parliamentary privilege for whatever persons they think should be investigated, and only then will parliament have to act.
<blockquote></blockquote>
The journalist notes that the new schedule means the next big political event will be the Baghdad meeting with neighboring countries, the US, and security council members, scheduled for Saturday.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://arablinks.blogspot.com/2007/03/parliament-fails-to-get-quorum-for-its.html">link</a>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">>> BEYOND IRAQ</span>
<blockquote></blockquote><blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/War_Terror/2007/03/06/3704639-cp.html">A young soldier from Stellarton has been killed in a friendly-fire shooting at the NATO base in Kandahar</a>, Afghanistan, according to a family member.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Mohammed Theib Al-Hamidani, Al Medina: WHO GAVE AMERICA THE RIGHT?</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
It can no longer be hidden: The extreme surge in America's global military power is suppressing heads of state who stick their necks out to expose facts and lay bare the truth. As this goes against its wishes, America alleges various pretexts to pursue its policies.
<blockquote></blockquote>
But the question here is, who granted America the right to be international judge, prosecutor, and executioner in the name of its own self-preservation? And who granted America the right to label all of its enemies as terrorists and reactionaries?
<blockquote></blockquote>
And who granted America the right to make the sound of bombs louder than the voice of the law? And why does America spend millions of dollars on mountains of weapons here and there, while children are dying everyday? How does the world benefit from War in the Stars [Star Wars]?
<blockquote></blockquote>
Is there any mercy, pity, etc. left in the armies of communications and information experts, who have been used and are still being used to brainwash the public until there's nothing but misguidance, deceit, duplicity and lies? All that seems to matter is the implementation of plans to discipline anyone who takes a stand against America.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Where are the reforms and the positive effects that America was to leave behind it in the Middle East? Where is democracy that it calls for from morning to evening? Where is the security that America claims to be working so hard to spread among the world's people?
<blockquote></blockquote>
There is nothing to refer to except blood, destruction, shame and infamy. Despite all of America's resources, failure has followed every step toward reform that it has tried to implement. So what value is there in America's presence? What lofty Semitic example does it claim as pride for itself? What was the sin of the Vietnamese when America bombed them with napalm? What crime did the children of our neighbor Iraq commit when America placed economic sanctions on them, denying them food and medicine and causing them to contract lethal illnesses, etc.? And what sin have certain weak nations such as Somalia committed, beyond lacking the domestic strength to properly manage their domestic and foreign politics?
<blockquote></blockquote>
Indeed, the policies that the world leader (America) commits today don't rise above barbarism and inhumanity. And all of these are implemented right under the ears and eyes of international organizations.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.watchingamerica.com/almadina000002.shtml">link</a>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Left I on the News: THE WAR AT HOME</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
Armies and helicopters going after defenseless people - it's not just a scene from Iraq or Afghanistan:
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">An army of 300 federal immigration agents raided a New Bedford leather manufacturer today and arrested the company's owner and three managers on charges that they hired illegal workers to meet labor demands fueled by millions of dollars in contracts with the US military.</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">During the early morning blitz, agents also took into custody up to 350 employees who had been working at Michael Bianco Inc., a waterfront factory that employs about 500 people, predominantly immigrants from Guatemala and El Salvador. Some employees fled when agents stormed the building, and helicopters hovered overhead to alert authorities of escape routes.</span>
<blockquote></blockquote></blockquote>
This is a scene that is now being repeated all over the country. To the delight of some capitalists, however, their low-paid immigrant labor is now being replaced in some cases by even lower-paid (60 cents an hour!) inmate labor.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://lefti.blogspot.com/2007_03_01_lefti_archive.html#117321417996732729">link
<blockquote></blockquote>
</a><span style="font-weight: bold;">QUOTE OF THE DAY</span>: "The Iraqi people as a whole - Shi'ite and Sunni alike - they all despise the Americans and are bristling for revenge. No amount of troops can overcome this level of hatred and determination." <span style="font-style: italic;">-- Dr <a href="http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IC07Ak01.html">Munthir al-Kewther</a>, born in Najaf, Iraq, currently dean of the faculty of media and journalism at al-Huraa University in the Netherlands.
<blockquote></blockquote>
</span>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5501771.post-1173207928459517272007-03-06T11:05:00.000-08:002007-03-06T12:26:10.280-08:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20070306/capt.bag10203060822.iraq_car_bomb_bag102.jpg?x=380&y=271&sig=Hk8dUuKUsOtDrrih747kfw--"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 380px;" src="http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20070306/capt.bag10203060822.iraq_car_bomb_bag102.jpg?x=380&y=271&sig=Hk8dUuKUsOtDrrih747kfw--" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">DAILY WAR NEWS FOR TUESDAY; March 6, 2007
</span><blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://news.yahoo.com/photos/ss/events/iraq/082701iraqplane/im:/070306/481/bag10203060822;_ylt=AhJfj0F7rnEh4BwF9s.R4XPKps8F">Photo</a>: A boy inspects an Iraqi army jacket arranged together with a sheep skull and parts of a damaged Iraqi army vehicle left after a car bomb attack in west Baghdad, Iraq, Tuesday, March 6, 2007. A car bomb went off Monday in west Baghdad's Jamiaa neighborhood, targeting an Iraqi army patrol. (AP Photo/Asaad Mouhsin)
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.mnf-iraq.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=10387&Itemid=21">Bring 'em on</a>: Six Task Force Lightning Soldiers died as a result of injuries sustained following an explosion near their vehicles. Three other Soldiers were wounded and taken to a Coalition medical facility for treatment. <span style="font-style: italic;">(MNF - Iraq)</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.mnf-iraq.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=10389&Itemid=21">Bring 'em on</a>: Task Force Lightning Soldiers were attacked while conducting combat operations in Diyala Province Monday. Three Task Force Lightning Soldiers died as a result of injuries sustained following an explosion near their vehicles. One other Soldier was wounded and taken to a Coalition medical facility for treatment.<span style="font-style: italic;"></span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/release.aspx?releaseid=10578">Bring 'em on</a>: The DoD has just announced a new death, not previously reported by CENTCOM: California Army National Guardsman Specialist Christopher D. Young, 20, of Los Angeles, California. Young died in a roadside bomb attack in the vicinity of Safwan just north of the Kuwaiti border on a main convoy route in Basrah Province on Friday, March 2nd. <span style="font-style: italic;">(DefenseLink)</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/release.aspx?releaseid=10577">Bring 'em on</a>: The DoD has announced a new death, not previously reported by CENTCOM: Navy Lieutenant Commander Morgan C. Tulang, 36, of Hilo, Hawaii. Morgan died of "natural causes" in Kuwait on Friday, March 2nd. <span style="font-style: italic;">(DefenseLink)
<blockquote></blockquote>
</span><a href="http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/DefenceNews/MilitaryOperations/PrivateJonathonDanyWysoczanDiesInUkFromInjuriesSustainedInIraq.htm">Bring 'em on</a>: The British Ministry of Defense has announced the death of a British soldier who had been deployed to Iraq. Private Jonathon Dany Wysoczan, 21, had been sent out with a patrol last week in south Basra to investigate the site of a possible mortar firing. While serving as top gunner on his vehicle, he was struck by a single bullet from a sniper's rifle. He was immediately evacuated to a nearby medical facility, and from there was flown to a hospital in the United Kingdom. He died, however, on Sunday, March 4th. <span style="font-style: italic;">(MoD UK)</span>
<span style="font-style: italic;"><blockquote></blockquote>
</span><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070306/ts_afp/iraq_070306185327;_ylt=AgYDJ6ZZ1QKvqIHT6Gf7dfVX6GMA">Insurgents slaughtered at least 118 Shiite pilgrims in a surge of attacks across Iraq</a> on Tuesday that included a double suicide bombing on a crowded street that claimed 90 lives.
<blockquote></blockquote>
The attacks marked one of the bloodiest days since the start of a US-led security plan designed to quell sectarian violence, and triggered fears of reprisal attacks by Shiite militiamen on Sunni targets. <span style="font-style: italic;">(See below under "Other Security Incidents")</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/KHA659520.htm">Dozens of gunmen stormed an Iraqi jail in the northern city of Mosul and freed up to 140 prisoners</a> in one of the biggest prison breaks since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, police said. Militants attacked Mosul's northwestern Badoush prison just after sunset in the ethnically mixed city and overwhelmed police, who were forced to call the U.S. military for backup. Most of the prisoners were believed to be insurgents, police said. It was unclear if there were any clashes between gunmen and police during the incident.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">OTHER SECURITY INCIDENTS</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Baghdad:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.spokesmanreview.com/ap/story.asp?AP_ID=D8NML6EO0">There were at least three shootings and three bomb attacks against groups of pilgrims</a> making the journey Tuesday. Four were killed when a parked car bomb exploded in western Baghdad's Yarmouk neighborhood, police said. More than a dozen people also were wounded in the attack, they said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070306/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_070306120406;_ylt=AuUI33Z.8ALCk.qPvMJruQBX6GMA"></a><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070306/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_070306120406;_ylt=AuUI33Z.8ALCk.qPvMJruQBX6GMA"></a><blockquote><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070306/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_070306120406;_ylt=AuUI33Z.8ALCk.qPvMJruQBX6GMA">At least 20 Shiite Muslims were killed on their trek to Karbala</a>, where they would mark the end of a 40-day mourning period after the death of the Prophet Muhammad's grandson.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070306/wl_afp/iraqunrest_070306134057;_ylt=AsVnj3aenyknuXp8T45lqrFX6GMA">At least 28 Shiite pilgrims heading to the shrine city of Karbala were among 43 Iraqis killed on Tuesday</a> in a spate of insurgent attacks
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.france24.com/france24Public/en/administration/afp-news.html?id=070306111924.na6nug14&cat=null">A total of seven pilgrims were killed in three separate car bombings in Baghdad</a>, which also wounded 42 others, security and hospital officials said.
<blockquote></blockquote><blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.spokesmanreview.com/ap/story.asp?AP_ID=D8NML6EO0">Another pilgrim died in a roadside bomb attack in Waziriya</a>, in northern Baghdad, police said. Five others were wounded in attacks across southern Baghdad.
<blockquote></blockquote><a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/KAM648330.htm">A roadside bomb targeting pilgrims heading to the holy city of Kerbala wounded two</a> in the Ilaam district of southern Baghdad, police said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/KAM648330.htm">A roadside bomb exploded near pilgrims, wounding two in northern Baghdad's Sulaikh neighbourhood</a>, police said.
<blockquote></blockquote><blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/KAM648330.htm">A car bomb killed two pilgrims and wounded 10 others when it targeted a group of pilgrims</a> passing through southern Baghdad's Doura district, police said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/KAM648330.htm">A car bomb killed 12 pilgrims and wounded 23 others</a> when it targeted a group of them passing through southern Baghdad's Doura district, police said.</blockquote>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.spokesmanreview.com/ap/story.asp?AP_ID=D8NML6EO0">Five policemen died when a bomb exploded near their convoy in Maamil</a>, a southeastern suburb of Baghdad, police said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.spokesmanreview.com/ap/story.asp?AP_ID=D8NML6EO0">A police convoy was hit south of Baghdad,</a> killing a commander and wounding four guards, police said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.spokesmanreview.com/ap/story.asp?AP_ID=D8NML6EO0">A roadside bomb exploded next to a fuel tanker in north Baghdad's Sarafiyah neighborhood</a>, killing two people and wounding four others, police said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">(update)</span> One possible sign of brewing troubles was <a href="http://www.spokesmanreview.com/ap/story.asp?AP_ID=D8NML6EO0">30 bullet-ridden bodies found across Baghdad</a>. Many of those killings are blamed on Shiite death squads, and Monday's figure was the highest in weeks.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.france24.com/france24Public/en/administration/afp-news.html?id=070306111924.na6nug14&cat=null">A mortar attack in Baghdad's Al-Dura district claimed the lives of two civilians</a>, an official said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/KAM648330.htm">A roadside bomb targeting an Iraqi army patrol killed two civilians and wounded 10 others</a> near a fine arts college in central Baghdad, police said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/KAM648330.htm">A bomb targeting an Iraqi army checkpoint killed four soldiers and wounded one civilian</a> in eastern Baghdad's Ubaidi district, police said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Diyala Prv:</span>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/KAM648330.htm"><blockquote></blockquote>
Gunmen attacked Turkmen Shi'ite pilgrims heading to the holy city of Kerbala</a>, killing two pilgrims and wounding 15 in a drive-by shooting near the town of Khalis, 80 km (50 miles) north of Baghdad, police said
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Musayyib:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.spokesmanreview.com/ap/story.asp?AP_ID=D8NML6EO0">Gunmen killed two men, including a former Baath Party member, in separate attacks south of Baghdad</a>, police Capt. Muthana Khalid said. The first attack took place in Musayyib, about 40 miles south of Baghdad, when gunmen in a sedan killed a man who was walking in the street, Khalid said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/KAM648330.htm">A roadside bomb exploded outside a house, wounding a man on Monday in the town of Mussayab</a>, about 60 km (40 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Hilla:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.spokesmanreview.com/ap/story.asp?AP_ID=D8NML6EO0">A Baathist was killed when gunmen in a BMW attacked him in the al-Hur al-Gharbi area</a>, about 16 miles west of Hillah.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/06/AR2007030600118.html">Two suicide bombers exploded themselves in a crowd of Shiite pilgrims</a> south of Baghdad on Tuesday, killing at least 10 people, police said. The coordinated attack happened on a main street in Hillah, about 60 miles south of Baghdad, said Capt. Muthana Khalid. Sixteen others were wounded in the blasts, he said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<blockquote>Two suicide bombers blew themselves up Tuesday in a crowd of Shiite pilgrims streaming toward a shrine south of Baghdad,<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/06/AR2007030600118.html"> killing up to 90 people</a>, police said. The coordinated attack happened on a main street in Hillah, about 60 miles south of Baghdad, said Capt. Muthana Khalid. More than 150 others were wounded in the blasts, he said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
"<a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070306/wl_mideast_afp/iraq_070306154521;_ylt=Ak8RGUQ9bIKUSWI.oURTSzRX6GMA">Among the wounded, there are 50 in a critical condition</a>. Eighty percent of the casualties are young men, but there are women and children among the dead," he told AFP at the hospital.</blockquote>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Suweira:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.france24.com/france24Public/en/administration/afp-news.html?id=070306111924.na6nug14&cat=null">A police commander from Kut was shot dead and four of his security guards were wounded after being ambushed</a> by unknown gunmen while on patrol, police said. The ambush occurred at Suweira, 60 kilometres (38 miles) south of Baghdad.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Iskandariyah:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
In Iskandiriyah, also to the south,<a href="http://www.france24.com/france24Public/en/administration/afp-news.html?id=070306111924.na6nug14&cat=null"> a civilian was killed and two were wounded in a bomb explosion</a>, a security official said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Latifiya:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.spokesmanreview.com/ap/story.asp?AP_ID=D8NML6EO0">Gunmen opened fire on pilgrims in two separate incidents in Latifiyah</a>, 20 miles south of Baghdad, police said. Three people were killed and at least nine hurt.
<blockquote></blockquote><blockquote>
<a href="http://www.france24.com/france24Public/en/administration/afp-news.html?id=070306111924.na6nug14&cat=null">Another five were gunned down in two separate attacks near Latifiyah</a>, 40 kilometres (25 miles) south of the capital. At least 15 more were wounded.
<blockquote></blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Kut:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=38819&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">The commander of Wassit police’s 2nd regiment was killed and three of his security force were wounded </a>on Tuesday when an explosive charge went off targeting his motorcade near Kut city, 180 km southeast of Baghdad, a security source said. "An explosive device detonated in the early hours of Tuesday targeting the motorcade of Colonel Salam Fakhri, commander of Wassit police’s 2nd regiment, while it was traveling on a highway north of Kut," the source told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Basra:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
"<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=38776&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">An attack occurred on Monday night on a British base in the central Basra area of al-Saie</a>, where the shells hit a house adjacent to the base, wounding two civilians as reported by the police," Capt. Katie Brown, the media spokeswoman for the Multi-National Force-Iraq (MNF-I) in the south told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=38776&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0"></a><blockquote><a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=38776&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">Gunmen attacked in another incident the same base with light guns </a>and British forces fired back, wounding two of the gunmen, she said.</blockquote>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=38776&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">The British bases in the former presidential palaces in central Basra, the base in the Basra International Airport in northwest of the city and the base at the Shatt al-Arab hotel came on Monday night and Tuesday morning under several attacks</a> but no losses were reported.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Tarmiya:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/KAM648330.htm">Gunmen ambushed and killed three Shi'ite pilgrims and wounded 13 others</a> near the town of Tarmiya, 30 km north of Baghdad, police said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Tikrit:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/KAM648330.htm">Gunmen killed at least three pilgrims and wounded 10 others</a>, including women and children, police sources said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Udhaim:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/KAM648330.htm">At least three Shi'ite pilgrims were killed and 25 wounded when gunmen opened fire at their convoy</a> near the town of Udhaim, 100 km north of Baghdad, police said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">(s. of?)</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">Kirkuk:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.france24.com/france24Public/en/administration/afp-news.html?id=070306111924.na6nug14&cat=null">Gunmen attacked a convoy carrying an Iraqi lawmaker and his family and killed four of his relatives</a> as they were heading towards Baghdad on their way to Karbala, the Shiite Turkoman politician told AFP. Mohammed Mahdi al-Bayati, a member of Iraq's main Shiite parliamentary bloc, said he was heading from his hometown of Kirkuk south towards Baghdad when his armed three-car cortege was attacked. "Gunmen ambushed us between Himrin mountain and the Mudaim dam. Clashes went on for 17 minutes and four of my relatives were killed and two others injured," he told AFP by telephone from the scene.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=38809&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">Five people were wounded when three mortar shells hit a police station and the house of a police official</a> in Kirkuk, an Iraqi police source in Kirkuk said on Tuesday. "A group of unidentified gunmen fired three mortar shells in the direction of al-Adala police station, south of Kirkuk, and one of them landed near the house of Brig. Munis Saed Isahaq," a source from the police joint operations room told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Mosul:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=38800&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">A police patrol found two unidentified bodies in the area of Wadi Akkab,</a> in the city of Mosul, the Ninawa police command's operation room director said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IBO665603.htm">A car bomb targeting an Iraqi army patrol in Mosul killed five and wounded 18</a>, mostly civilians, police said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">>> NEWS</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.iraqslogger.com/index.php/post/1764/Sadr_City_Rejects_US_Presence">The Sadr City Municipal Council rejected a proposal to open a joint security center with U.S. troops</a> in the Shi’ite district, after media reports that representatives from Sadr City had reached an agreement with the U.S. military to allow American presence, the Sadrist Nahrain Net website reported.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Council chairman Abdul Hussein Al-Ka’abi said that the talk of security cooperation with U.S. troops is “illogical” since it contradicts the demands of the city’s residents for the withdrawal of Americans from Iraq. “Citizens of the city reject American participation in security because they feel the city is stable and is one of the safest areas of Baghdad,” Al-Ka’abi said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Al-Ka’abi also denied media reports yesterday that Rahim Sayhoud, one of the two mayors of Sadr City, had agreed to the suggestion. Nahrain Net comments that U.S. troops plan to increase their presence in Sadr City in order to strike the Sadrist Movement and the Mahdi Army in one of their main strongholds in the country.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">>> REPORTS</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
For the first time since the beginning of the Baghdad security plan, <a href="http://www.iraqslogger.com/index.php/post/1774/Armed_Mahdi_Army_Men_Spotted_in_Baghdad">armed Mahdi Army fighters have been observed in the capital.</a>
<blockquote></blockquote>
Slogger eyewitnesses saw a vehicle Tuesday carrying four Mahdi Army fighers with their weapons clearly visible, heading for the al-Risala area of the city, which had suffered heavy Sunni militant attacks during the day in the al-Risala area of Baghdad.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Civilians in the al-Risala and surrounding areas were under attack by the Omar Brigades, an extremist Sunni group, sources in the capital say.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Before the Security Plan, the Mahdi Army had protected civilians in the area, but since the beginning of the crackdown has not maintained a visible presence.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Whether this is an isolated event or the change in the militia's policy of laying low during the plan is still unknown.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070306/pl_nm/iraq_usa_dc_2;_ylt=AlMre3uJl6r2s0jjEvM7KG1X6GMA">The number of U.S. troops needed to carry out Bush's Iraq security plan could approach 30,000</a>, significantly more than he projected in January, a senior Pentagon official said on Tuesday.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Telegraph: GUNFIGHT AT BAGHDAD'S DESERTED SHOPPING MALL</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
Water no longer flows in the fountain in the lobby. Razor wire ascends the still steps of the escalators. The shops are shut but full of goods abandoned when the owners were forced to quit by the encroaching violence.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Midday at the Al Adel Shopping Centre in Baghdad should have seen middle class families wandering between clothing and bric-a-brac shops laid out over four levels. Instead a lone American sniper from a Brigade Reconnaissance Team platoon took position on the roof.
<blockquote></blockquote>
A motorway flyover intersection and busy roundabout lay in his immediate line of sight. Nearby an Iraqi National Police checkpoint, set up to intercept car bombs and militia gunmen, came under fire from two directions.
<blockquote></blockquote>
On the ground the nervous policemen were poised to do the "death flower" - the Iraqi tendency to fire wildly in all directions in response to incoming fire.
<blockquote></blockquote>
The attacker to the north wasn't visible but an assailant firing from a rooftop to the south with an AK47 assault rifle was spotted from the sniper's higher vantage point. A clean hit from the American sniper silenced the gunman and the checkpoint was able to remain in position, continuing to screen vehicles passing through a busy section of the city.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/03/06/wiraq06.xml">read in full…</a>
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<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Raju Thomas, Times of India: FLASHBACK: REPORT SUPPRESSED: IRAN GASSED KURDS, NOT IRAQ</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Published 16 September 2002.</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
The repeated American propaganda weapon to rationalise the deaths of more than one million innocent Iraqis since 1991 through economic sanctions is that Saddam Hussein used poison gas against Iranians during the Iran-Iraq war and against Iraq’s own Kurdish citizens. The accusation is now being invoked to launch a full-scale American assault on Iraq. This claim of Iraq gassing its own citizens at Halabjah is suspect. First, both Iran and Iraq used chemical weapons against each other during their war. Second, at the termination of the Iran-Iraq war, professors Stephen Pelletiere and Leif Rosenberger, and Lt Colonel Douglas Johnson of the US Army War College (USAWC) undertook a study of the use of chemical weapons by Iran and Iraq in order to better understand battlefield chemical warfare. They concluded that it was Iran and not Iraq that killed the Kurds.
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<a href="http://www.the7thfire.com/Politics%20and%20History/GaseousLies.htm">read in full…</a>
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<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Video: UrukNet: EX CIA ANALYST: SADDAM DID NOT GAS THE KURDS!
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</span><a href="http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m31151&hd=&size=1&l=e">link</a>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Roads to Iraq: TARIQ AZIZ: IRAN GASSED THE KURDS</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
I don’t think that news agencies reported what former Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz today said today:
<blockquote></blockquote>
Aziz testified today that:
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Iraqi forces didn’t use poison gas against the Kurds, but Iran did, pointing out that Iraq did not possess mustard gas, and this was also mentioned in a report published by the Pentagon in 1989 and confirmed by “The New Yorker” newspaper.</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">He said: In1991 both Kurdish [warlords] Talabani and Barazani visited Baghdad in different delegations and met with Saddam Hussein, they never mentioned any attacks with poisonous gas on Kurds or destroying their villages.</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.roadstoiraq.com/2007/03/05/tariq-aziz-iran-gassed-the-kurds/">read in full…</a>
<blockquote></blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Video: Washington Post: GHOSTS OF ABU GHRAIB</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
Ghosts of Abu Ghraib," a new HBO documentary produced and directed by Rory Kennedy, daringly approaches a scandal that hardly anyone wants to see reexamined -- least of all, one can safely assume, the Bush administration and the Pentagon.
<blockquote></blockquote>
The reason is not just that what happened at Abu Ghraib is, to understate in the extreme, unpleasant. The documentary says it's also because this breakdown was not so much nervous as inevitable -- and not so spontaneous, having been sanctioned by the top brass, including former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17242.htm">link</a>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Video: Alive in Baghdad: FPS, ANOTHER IRAQI MILITIA</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
The Facility Protection Service, or FPS, was first created in 2003, to deal with the drastic problem of looting and defacing of government buildings, as well as museums, mosques, and other historic and cultural structures.
<blockquote></blockquote>
The FPS quickly became a funnel for money going to various factions on opposing sides of Iraq’s loomming sectarian conflict. Men such as Muhammad Yaseen Taha were hired by the Sunni Endowment to protect Sunni mosques and cultural centers, while other men were hired to protect Shi’a monuments. These men quickly became more loyal to their direct, sectarian employers than thee Iraqi government or the Iraqi state as a whole.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Now there are men paid with money earmarked for the FPS on all sides of Iraq’s conflict. It has been rumored that Shi’a members of the FPS, loyal to Muqtada Sadr or others were largely responsible for the large outbreak of attacks after the Samarra shrine bombing in February 2006.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Muhammad Yaseen Taha speaks about his work as an agent of the FPS, and his feelings about the situation in Baghdad. It remains to be seen how the FPS situation will be resolved. On one side they are being linked to Iraq’s death squads, on the other side Lt. General Petraeus and others are depending on the FPS and other mercenary forces for the success of the new security plan.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://aliveinbaghdad.org/2007/03/05/fps-another-iraqi-militia/">link</a>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">>> COMMENTAY AND ANALYSIS</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Malcom Lagauche: OPERATION ROPE-A-BUSH</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
On a steamy night in 1974, Mohamed Ali fought George Foreman for the World Heavyweight boxing title. This was the most-publicized event in the history of boxing. The media followed both fighters daily and broadcast their training sessions and posed myriad questions to them. Ali was in his element in front of the cameras, while Foreman tried to keep a lower profile.
<blockquote></blockquote>
The undefeated Foreman was the odds-on favorite. He was the reigning champion and younger and stronger than his opponent. In addition, he was mainstream America’s challenge to the brash, draft-dodging Ali. When Foreman won the boxing gold medal at the 1972 Olympic Games, he sat in his corner and waved a small American flag.
<blockquote></blockquote>
For the first seven rounds, Ali stayed on the ropes and blocked Foreman’s punches. The fight announcers were bewildered. "Why is he doing this?" they pondered. "Why doesn’t he fight back?" By the end of the seventh round, many broadcasters were openly saying that Ali was over the hill. Foreman had pummeled him for seven rounds and taken away much of the former champ’s strength.
<blockquote></blockquote>
The eighth round began with the "experts" thinking it was just a matter of time until Foreman floored the braggart. Ali took to the middle of the ring for the first time, danced like the Ali of old, and knocked out Foreman. The shock was heard around the world.
<blockquote></blockquote>
It quickly became evident that Ali had planned what all the world saw. When interviewed, he called his strategy "rope-a-dope." Within a day, all the sportswriters who predicted his demise were praising his foresight and intelligence.
<blockquote></blockquote>
The illegal invasion and ensuing occupation of Iraq holds many similarities to the Ali-Foreman fight. A seemingly quick U.S. military victory in March and April of 2003, with fewer casualties than anybody predicted, ended with a victory statement on May 1, 2003 by George Bush standing under a huge banner stating, "Mission Accomplished."
<blockquote></blockquote>
The pro-war pundits were euphoric. They told of how the Iraqi Republican Guard who were supposed to defend Baghdad disappeared before a definitive battle and inferred they were scared to stand up to the U.S. military.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Just weeks prior, the Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister, Tariq Aziz, stated: "We will welcome the Americans in Baghdad. Unfortunately, we’ve run out of candy and will have to substitute bullets." The West laughed. The press said that Aziz was only a puppet for Saddam and that he would make any foolish statement to placate his boss.
<blockquote></blockquote>
The press reported the one-sided victory, but few asked "why?" Why did the Republican Guard disappear? Why was there no one to be found in the Iraqi government? Why was there little opposition to the occupation of Iraq for a few weeks? The answer lies in a plan that had been implemented a few years before the March 2003 invasion that organized a resistance to the occupation. Iraqi officials knew full well that their dilapidated military was no match for the U.S. and if they stood head-to-head, the entire military and government would have been destroyed.
<blockquote></blockquote>
On April 8, 2003, Mohamed Sahaff (The Iraqi Information Minister) made a statement to the press that produced even more laughter than that of Tariq Aziz. He was talking about Baghdad becoming the graveyard for many U.S. soldiers. Then, a reporter pointed to a U.S. tank and hollered to Sahaff, "Look! The Americans are already in Baghdad." Sahaff turned around, saw the tank, and stated, "We’ve got them right where we want them." He walked off the podium and has not made a public appearance since.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Both Aziz and Sahaff made accurate statements. They knew of the plan to let a resistance movement take over the hostilities. A few months after Sahaff’s statement, in an interview from Qatar, a journalist asked him if he had any regrets about making the statement "We’ve got them right where we want them." Sahaff replied that it was early days and history was still to be written and no one should jump to conclusions. Within a few months, a full-blown resistance was at battle with U.S. forces.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Within a few weeks of Bush’s victory announcement, Iraqis began firing back at the U.S. military, only this time on their terms, using ambushes and guerrilla tactics. The U.S. is infatuated with assessing names to any military action. In Iraq, there have been hundreds of "operations." If we compare Ali’s victory to the pre-invasion plans for the Iraqi resistance, we can call it "Operation Rope-a-Bush."
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.malcomlagauche.com/id1.html">read in full…</a>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Imad Allo, Azzaman: THE BENEFITS OF U.S.-STYLE DEMOCRACY</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
The achievements of U.S.-style democracy which the current U.S. administration has tried to apply in Iraq are numerous.
<blockquote></blockquote>
The benefits Iraqis have gained from these achievements have prompted the administration to try and spread them throughout the Middle East, taking Iraq as a small experiment.
<blockquote></blockquote>
And here are a few examples of these achievements and their advantages in case you have not yet heard of them or have not experienced them for the bad luck of not being able to live in Iraq.
<blockquote></blockquote>
The U.S. democracy has interrupted power supplies and caused chronic fuel shortages.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Iraqis have given up even dreaming of going on a picnic to their once beautiful tourist spots like the Habaniya Lake or the ancient Akarkouf.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Iraqis now dread to go to the cinema - if there any cinemas left in the country. Eating out is a dream of the past and taking the children for an outing is unthinkable.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Under the U.S. democracy in Iraq you must be a prisoner of your own house or you risk being killed, injured or kidnapped.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Even staying home is no longer safe. It is very likely for unidentified gunmen to storm your house in the middle of the night or in broad day light.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Millions of Iraqis are now on holiday in Syria or Jordan, spending the extra foreign cash they have been earning due to massive U.S. reconstruction works.
<blockquote></blockquote>
There have never been so many Iraqi tourists in foreign countries. Internal tourism is also booming, with whole quarters, towns and villages currently on holiday.
<blockquote></blockquote>
If you happen to be in the capital Baghdad, a major advantage of U.S. style democracy is denial of sleep.
<blockquote></blockquote>
U.S. warplanes, helicopter gun ships, tanks and other armored vehicles spring to life at night. The U.S. military love Baghdad nights and their warplanes are fond of low-flying when it is dark.
<blockquote></blockquote>
The U.S. thinks democracy can only take roots if practiced at night amid deafening noises, indiscriminate shelling and bombing and breaking of doors and windows.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.azzaman.com/english/index.asp?fname=opinion%5C2007-03-06%5Ckurd1.htm">read in full…</a>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">24 Steps to Liberty: NO ELECTRICITY UNTIL 2013!</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
The Associated Press reported today that "Getting full-time electric power turned on in Baghdad….. won't be accomplished until 2013," quoting U.S. officials.
<blockquote></blockquote>
I couldn’t link to the story at the time of writing this entry, because I got it from a wire service that requires subscription. So, I think you can wait until it is in newspapers and read it.
<blockquote></blockquote>
The news didn’t surprise me, but it did strike me that they come out and say this now. In a time when all the efforts are said to focus on quelling violence in Iraq, especially in Baghdad, and bringing Iraqis the hope back of a better future, I don’t think this news is the right thing to say now.
<blockquote></blockquote>
The story talked about how much power the Baghdadis get now. "In January, it was 4.4 hours; in February, it was 5.9," the story said. That isn’t true! I talk to my family every morning and they’ve been telling me that my neighborhood, which is a hardcore Sunni neighborhood, has been getting ONE hour of electricity per day and for months now!
<blockquote></blockquote>
The U.S. has spent $4.2 billion on the power issue in Iraq so far, the AP said. Where did the money go?
<blockquote></blockquote>
I just cannot convince my stubborn mind that the U.S. is that stupid that no one is figuring out where the money is going. Sometimes I think that they "trust" the Iraqi officials that much that they hand them all these billions and say "go ahead and spend it on electricity projects. No, you don’t have to report to us." But then I remember: it doesn’t work this way.
<blockquote></blockquote>
I know it is corruption, but I don’t know for sure what the U.S. is doing to prevent that.
<blockquote></blockquote>
If it were for me, I wouldn’t deal with the same people for four years if I see my money disappears and don’t see any progress. Therefore, I ask myself "if I think this way, is it possible that the U.S. administration has no one to think like me!"
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://twentyfourstepstoliberty.blogspot.com/2007/03/no-electricity-until-2013.html">link</a>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Left I on the News: PERSPECTIVE</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
The "Mega Millions" lottery jackpot is up to $355 million. The San Jose Mercury News provides this helpful comparison about what you can use the money for if you win (on its front page!):
<blockquote></blockquote>
273 Bugatti Beyrons, the most expensive production car, at $1.3 million @
<blockquote></blockquote>
17 tickets to outer space, at $20 million a trip
<blockquote></blockquote>
An 80 GB iPod for everyone in San Jose ($349@)
<blockquote></blockquote>
...or... about a day of the war in Iraq
<blockquote></blockquote>
It's not the usual comparison about what the money being spent on war could be used for (schools, housing, health care, etc.), but it certainly brings home the message!
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://lefti.blogspot.com/2007_03_01_lefti_archive.html#117319676021336342">link</a>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">>> BEYOND IRAQ</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Afghanistan:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
It is with deep regret that <a href="http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/DefenceNews/MilitaryOperations/RoyalMarineKilledInHelmandProvinceAfghanistan.htm">the Ministry of Defence must confirm the death of a Royal Marine </a>from 42 Commando, today, Tuesday 6 March 2007, in Helmand province, Afghanistan. The Royal Marine was killed when his unit came under fire during a deliberate clearance operation in the Kajaki area. <span style="font-style: italic;">(MoD UK)</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/breaking-news/world/asia/article2332728.ece">Taliban rebels are claiming to have abducted a British journalist</a> in Afghanistan's violent Helmand province. A source close the rebels said the man was seized along with two Afghans after they entered a Taliban-controlled area without permission. He said they were being held on suspicion of being spies. The British man has been named as John Nichol, but no further information about him was immediately available.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.maysville-online.com/articles/2007/03/05/ap/headlines/d8nml7181.txt">NATO-led troops launched an offensive against Taliban militants</a> in a volatile southern Afghan province where hundreds of militant fighters have amassed. The operation, which will eventually involve 4,500 NATO troops and 1,000 Afghan soldiers, was launched at the request of the Afghan government and will focus on the northern region of Helmand province, NATO's International Security Assistance Force said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">QUOTE OF THE DAY</span>: "What is happening in Baghdad is a new kind of tactics that comes prior to the tempest. The attacks are expected to be harsher and more painful." <span style="font-style: italic;">-- one </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070306/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_sunnis_strike_back_1;_ylt=AuYP_N3__.RsEKkGCSKHyLxX6GMA">Sunni leader</a><span style="font-style: italic;">, associated with an insurgent group with ties to Saddam Hussein's banned party, speaking to AP on condition of anonymity
<blockquote></blockquote>
</span>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5501771.post-1173123940685952532007-03-05T11:45:00.000-08:002007-03-05T13:21:50.366-08:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/afp/20070305/capt.sge.cpd07.050307101053.photo00.photo.default-512x345.jpg?x=380&y=255&sig=FYVbwzGkgplIh2j5pqUZjA--"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 400px;" src="http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/afp/20070305/capt.sge.cpd07.050307101053.photo00.photo.default-512x345.jpg?x=380&y=255&sig=FYVbwzGkgplIh2j5pqUZjA--" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">DAILY WAR NEWS FOR MONDAY, March 5, 2007</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://news.yahoo.com/photos/ss/events/iraq/082701iraqplane/im:/070305/photos_wl_afp/af8118997b71800183ce1fad42f4c83e;_ylt=AiC8rzxczQMawhaDpVVu49PKps8F">Photo</a>: Smoke billows from the site of a car bomb attack engulfing Bab al-Moazam Mosque in Baghdad.(AFP/Patrick Baz) <span style="font-style: italic;">(See below "A suicide car bomber…)</span><blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.mnf-iraq.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=10379&Itemid=21">Bring 'em on</a>: One 13th Sustainment Command (Expeditionary) Soldier was killed and one was wounded in an improvised explosive device attack on their M-1117 Armored Security Vehicle while traveling in a convoy south of Tikrit at approximately 9 p.m. Mar 4. <span style="font-style: italic;">(MNF - Iraq)</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">OTHER SECURITY INCIDENTS</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Baghdad:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.spokesmanreview.com/ap/story.asp?AP_ID=D8NM0E8G0">A suicide car bomber shattered a relative lull in Baghdad's violence, killing at least 26 people</a> in a blast that touched off raging fires and a blizzard of bloodstained paper from a popular book market. On Monday, black smoke drifted over central Baghdad from burning shops, cars and book stalls in the mixed Sunni-Shiite area around Mutanabi street along the Tigris River. At least 54 people were wounded in the suicide blast, and the death toll could rise, police said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<blockquote>The police source said<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2026997,00.html"> the death toll around the Mutanabi market could rise</a>. A second bomb exploded on another street in the booksellers' district around the same time, but it was not clear how many casualties it caused.
<blockquote></blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.spokesmanreview.com/ap/story.asp?AP_ID=D8NM0E8G0">Gunmen opened fire on Shiite pilgrims in several places around Baghdad</a>, killing at least seven people, police said. The Shiites were apparently heading to shrines and holy sites in southern Iraq for the annual commemoration of 40-day mourning for the death an important 7th century warrior, Hussein.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.eveningecho.ie/news/bstory.asp?j=262247024&p=z6zz47896&n=262247902">Three people were killed and six wounded in the Bab al-Muadam area</a> of northern Baghdad around mid-morning local time, police said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.eveningecho.ie/news/bstory.asp?j=262247024&p=z6zz47896&n=262247902">Two Shiite pilgrims were killed in south Baghdad's Dora neighbourhood.</a>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/03/05/iraq.main/index.html">One killed, two wounded along a highway in southern Baghdad</a>; 11:15 a.m.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/03/05/iraq.main/index.html">One wounded in southwestern Baghdad's Saydiya neighborhood</a>; 11:30 a.m.
<blockquote></blockquote>
After nightfall, <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/03/05/ap/world/mainD8NLVHQ01.shtml">U.S. artillery was heard across Baghdad</a>. In recent days, U.S. gunners have hit suspected Sunni insurgent staging grounds south of the city.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/PAR524043.htm">The bodies of 20 people were found shot dead and some showing signs of torture</a> on Sunday in the western half of Baghdad known as Karkh, police said. Baghdad has become increasingly divided into Shi'ites on the east and Sunni Arabs on the west side of the Tigris, though there is a crossover.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/PAR524043.htm"></a><blockquote><a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/PAR524043.htm">The bodies of six people, including children, were found in Adhamiya district</a> of Baghdad, police said.
<blockquote></blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/PAR524043.htm">Iraqi security forces killed 10 insurgents and arrested 68</a>, including 5 of Arab nationality, over the past 24 hours in and around Baghdad as part of Operation Imposing Law, the Joint Operation Centre for the plan said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/PAR524043.htm">A roadside bomb exploded near pilgrims heading to the holy city of Kerbala</a>, killing at least two people and wounding 10 others in central Baghdad, police said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/PAR524043.htm">A car bomb targeting a police patrol killed a policeman and wounded another</a> in the western Adel district of Baghdad, police said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Diyala Prv:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
In Baquba, 60 kilometres (35 miles) north of Baghdad, <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070305/ts_afp/iraq_070305165909;_ylt=Asd7wDW2ZS3JZgF_SsPeg.xX6GMA">four policemen were shot dead and two civilians wounded in a series of violent incidents</a>, a security official said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Karbala:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
The military would not comment further, but <a href="http://www.spokesmanreview.com/ap/story.asp?AP_ID=D8NM0E8G0">a member of the Karbala provincial council, Hamid Kanoush, said his house was raided and his brother arrested.</a> Kanoush also serves as a senior official in al-Sadr's political office in Karbala. Five American helicopters hovered over his house as U.S. troops stormed inside, he said. They carried away his brother, Saad Kanoush, and destroyed furniture and pictures of al-Sadr.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Diwaniya:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/PAR524043.htm">Gunmen killed a former member of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party in front of his house</a> on Sunday in the city of Diwaniya, 180 km (110 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Ishaqi:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/PAR524043.htm">Gunmen wounded four policemen on Sunday while they were gathered in the garden of a friend </a>in Ishaqi, police said
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/PAR524043.htm"></a><blockquote><a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/PAR524043.htm">Gunmen killed five policemen in a drive-by shooting in the town of Ishaqi</a>, 100 km (60 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.</blockquote>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Dalouiya:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
"<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=38761&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">A bomb exploded at a U.S. minesweeper Monday afternoon in al-Siddiq village in Dalouiya, destroying it completely</a>", the source told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<blockquote>"<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=38761&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">A U.S. Hummer was also set ablaze and another was damaged when an explosive device was detonated in a separate attack</a> targeting a U.S. vehicle patrol in the city", he added, noting that two American helicopters were seen landing in the area to carry wounded.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Meanwhile, the source asserted that <a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=38761&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">fierce clashes broke out between Iraqi troops backed by U.S. forces and gunmen in al-Jubur district in central Dalouiya</a>. No word has been said yet about the casualties, he noted.
<blockquote></blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Sulaiman Bek:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/PAR524043.htm">The bodies of four people, shot and tortured, were found in the town of Sulaiman Bek</a>, 90 km (55 miles) south of Kirkuk, police said
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Kirkuk:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/PAR524043.htm">Gunmen killed a policeman while he was driving in the city of Kirkuk</a>, 250 km (155 miles) north of Baghdad, police said
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Fallujah:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=38751&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">An Iraqi soldier was killed and two others were wounded on Monday</a> when an explosive charge went off allegedly targeting their patrol near Falluja city, a security source said. "An explosive charge was detonated this afternoon near an Iraqi army vehicle patrol in al-Garma district, 10 km east of Falluja, killing one soldier and wounding two more," the source, who asked not to be named, told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq.
<blockquote></blockquote>
An eyewitness told VOI that<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=38751&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0"> three mortars were fired onto the U.S. army base in al-Saqlawiyah district</a>, 15 km northwest of Falluja, on Monday at 2:00 pm. There was no immediate comment from the U.S. army on the shelling incident.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">>> NEWS</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.kuna.net.kw/home/Story.aspx?Language=en&DSNO=958053">Iraqi President Jalal Talabani's house in Baghdad caught fire Sunday</a>, Iraqi security source said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
The security source did not give details on the incident nor the cause of fire, adding that ambulances and civil defense people rushed to the scene.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Last month, Talabani suffered a health setback but his condition was stable, and later improved when he was sent immediately to hospital in the Jordanian capital.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/03/05/africa/web-0305iraq.php">Iraqi special forces and British troops stormed the offices of an Iraqi government intelligence</a> agency in the southern city of Basra on Sunday, and British officials said they discovered about 30 prisoners, some showing signs of torture.
<blockquote></blockquote>
The raid appeared to catch Iraq's central government by surprise and raised new questions about the rule of law in the Shiite-dominated south, where less than two weeks ago Britain announced plans for a significant reduction in its forces because of improved stability.
<blockquote></blockquote>
News of the Basra raid, with its resonant themes of torture and sectarian-driven conflict, coincided with the next stage of the intensified security plan here in Baghdad, where more than 1,100 American and Iraqi soldiers moved into Sadr City, a stronghold of Iraq's largest Shiite militia. The soldiers met no resistance in what the Americans called the plan's biggest test yet.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, a conservative Shiite, condemned the raid in Basra. He publicly said nothing about the evidence of torture.
<blockquote></blockquote>
"The prime minister has ordered an immediate investigation into the incident of breaking into the security compound in Basra and stressed the need to punish those who have carried out this illegal and irresponsible act," said the full text of a statement issued late Sunday by his office.
<blockquote></blockquote>
It remained unclear why he sought to pursue the raiding force aggressively rather than the accusations of prisoner abuse. Efforts to reach officials in his office were unsuccessful.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070305/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_conference_3;_ylt=AvCbkBhQf2pBa0JhUztd69BX6GMA">Iran's foreign minister indicated his country would take part in the international conference on Iraq</a> on Saturday, which would be the first public U.S.-Iranian encounter in nearly three years.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said his government was in the final stages of making a decision about the conference in Baghdad, but added: "Some countries proposed a sub-ministerial level meeting and we agreed."
<blockquote></blockquote>
Last week, the Iraqi government invited its neighboring states and the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council to the conference. The United States quickly said it would attend, making a diplomatic shift after months of refusing to talk to Iran about calming the conflict in Iraq.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">>> REPORTS</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
According to the United Nations Children’s Agency (UNICEF), <a href="http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=70509">about one in 10 children under five in Iraq are underweight and one in five are short for their age</a>. This means that some 4.5 million children in the country are under-nourished.
<blockquote></blockquote>
But this is only the tip of the iceberg, according to Claire Hajaj, Communication Officer at UNICEF Iraq Support Centre in Amman (ISCA).
<blockquote></blockquote>
"Many Iraqi children may also be suffering from 'hidden hunger’ - deficiencies in critical vitamins and minerals that are the building blocks for children’s physical and intellectual development," Hajaj said. "These deficiencies are hard to measure, but they make children much more vulnerable to illness and less likely to thrive at school."
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070305/ap_on_re_mi_ea/israel_us_iraq_1;_ylt=AkfSmWZ5EwFQ_AWXcBdEXKhX6GMA">An Israeli state-owned corporation has won a contract to supply the U.S. Marine Corps with state-of the-art armored vehicles for use in Iraq</a>, the latest in a long line of Israeli defense sales for use in the war.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Amit Tzimer, spokesman for weapons maker Rafael, said Sunday that, in partnership with U.S. manufacturer PVI, Rafael has signed up to deliver 60 of its new Golan vehicles at a total price of $37 million.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Delivery will be made to the Marines in the United States in May, he said. (…)
<blockquote></blockquote>
Tzimer said that the initial deal was part of the first phase of a U.S. program to procure a total of 40,000 armored vehicles, and Rafael hoped for more orders in the future.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.roadstoiraq.com/2007/03/04/maliki-to-punish-the-people-who-raided-the-police-compound-in-basra/"></a>
<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Reuters: U.S. BUILDS BAGHDAD GARRISONS TO FIGHT VIOLENCE</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
Barricaded in a small garrison in a Baghdad neighborhood, U.S. soldier Aaron Larson keeps an uneasy eye on the traffic for suicide car bombers.
<blockquote></blockquote>
A mortar bomb had just landed a few meters away, shaking the sandbagged outpost where some 30 American soldiers are hunkered down with Iraqi police and army under a new security plan to rein in sectarian violence in the Iraqi capital.
<blockquote></blockquote>
"We feel like sitting ducks here," said Larson. "They are watching us all the time. We don't know what they'll do next."
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070305/lf_nm/iraq_outpost_dc_1;_ylt=Aur.hWV621YRc.ZBDZBpxiVX6GMA">read in full…</a>
<blockquote></blockquote><blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">GI Special 5C3: PETRAEUS’ SITTING DUCKS</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">[Incredible. This lying murderous asshole Petraeus has the face to call sitting around in little exposed forts "counterinsurgency." That’s what the French did in Vietnam. It’s what every stupid loser occupying a country for an Empire has done since the Roman Empire. It absolutely guarantees defeat. It’s a sign of combined weakness and incompetence. </span> <span style="font-style: italic;">[And the reporter buys it. Talk about dying in vain: this plan goes for a world class record. T]</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
March 1, 2007 By Joshua Partlow, Washington Post Foreign Service [excerpts]
<blockquote></blockquote>
BAGHDAD, Feb. 28 -- American soldiers are leaving their sprawling fortress-cities and establishing many small outposts in the capital's most violent neighborhoods in a major tactical shift under the two-week-old Baghdad security plan.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Informed by counterinsurgency theory that calls for placing units full-time among the people they want to sway, U.S. troops are using their new bases to work with their Iraqi counterparts, uncover more battlefield intelligence and reinforce, by their sustained presence, the message that they will not allow militants unfettered freedom of movement.
<blockquote></blockquote>
But along with these advantages, American soldiers say these outposts pose new risks to their own safety and require pulling soldiers off patrols to protect their lodgings.
<blockquote></blockquote>
The threats became apparent this month when a car bomb exploded at a U.S. outpost in Tarmiyah, north of Baghdad, killing two U.S. soldiers and wounding 29 others.
<blockquote></blockquote>
At a new U.S.-Iraqi base in the Jamiyah neighborhood of western Baghdad, a platoon of American soldiers guards the front gate and watches from the rooftop.
<blockquote></blockquote>
"These little combat outposts, they are more exposed: Your routes in here are very limited, and they're definitely watching us," Staff Sgt. Marcel Weaver, 35, said of the insurgents operating in the neighborhood around the base. A grenade "attack is coming, I can guarantee that."
<blockquote></blockquote>
U.S. soldiers have opened 15 of about 30 planned "joint security stations" in the capital. They have also set up an unspecified number of smaller "combat outposts."
<blockquote></blockquote>
U.S. military spokesmen did not respond to requests for information about how many such outposts are operating in Baghdad or how many times they have been attacked.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Early Sunday, the U.S. Army battalion commander for the Jamiyah base gathered his top staff inside the station's control room, in what used to be a wedding hall, and discussed the distressing trend of violence just outside their base.
<blockquote></blockquote>
The day before, a few hundred yards from the front gate, insurgents blasted rocket-propelled grenades at an Iraqi-guarded checkpoint, followed the barrage with small-arms fire, then detonated two car bombs when American troops rushed to respond.
<blockquote></blockquote>
"What is it about this checkpoint that makes it such a magnet?" asked Lt. Col. Dale Kuehl, the battalion commander, studying a large aerial map of western Baghdad. "Why does it always get attacked?" he asked again, prodding his staff.
<blockquote></blockquote>
His soldiers answered that the recent arrival of Iraqi and U.S. soldiers in the embattled neighborhood had created an enticing target for insurgents.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Kuehl agreed that the ambush may have been designed to draw out the Americans. "Yes, they probably have determined that we are here, and this would have been the route we would have taken to get out," he said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m31122&hd=&size=1&l=e">read in full…</a></blockquote><a href="http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m31122&hd=&size=1&l=e"></a>
<blockquote></blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"><blockquote></blockquote>
David Phinney, AlterNet: ASIAN WORKERS TRAFFICKED TO BUILD U.S. EMBASSY IN BAGHDAD</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
Things began looking more sketchier than ever to John Owen as he boarded a nondescript white jet on his way back to Iraq in March 2005 following some R’n’R in Kuwait city.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Employed by First Kuwaiti Trading & Contracting, the lead builder for the new $592-million US embassy in Baghdad, Owen remembers being surrounded at the airport by about 50 company laborers freshly hired from the Philippines and India. Everyone was holding boarding passes to Dubai -- not to Baghdad.
<blockquote></blockquote>
"I thought there was some sort of mix up and I was getting on the wrong plane," says the 48-year-old Floridian who was working as a general construction foreman on the embassy project.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Seven months after signing on with First Kuwaiti in November 2005, he quit.
<blockquote></blockquote>
In the resignation letter last June, Owen told First Kuwaiti and US State Department officials that his managers physically assaulted and beat the construction workers, demonstrated little regard for worker safety, and routinely breached security.
<blockquote></blockquote>
And it was all happening smack in the middle of the US-controlled Green Zone -- right under the nose of the State Department that had quietly awarded the controversial embassy contract in July 2005.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=15&ItemID=12256">read in full…</a>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">>> COMMENTARY AND ANALYSIS</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">IraqSlogger: US PAPERS MONDAY: PLAN B IS PLAN A</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
There is no well-articulated “Plan B” for Iraq, Karen DeYoung and Thomas Ricks conclude in the <span style="font-style: italic;">Post</span>. While this may be what many people had thought already, DeYoung and Ricks comb through the evidence and describe the “mix of optimism and evasion” that appears whenever the subject of a backup strategy is broached with an administration official. "Plan B was to make Plan A work," Tennessee Governor Philip Bresden recalled after a White House meeting last week. “Over the years of U.S. involvement in Iraq," they write, "new plans have been launched with assurances of success -- the return of sovereignty to a handpicked Iraqi administration in the summer of 2004; a democratically elected government in January 2005; "Plan Baghdad," designed to retake the capital from insurgents and militias, in the summer of 2006. The current Plan A is arguably already Plan D or beyond.” While no one in the administration is talking about full withdrawal, the list of suggested alternative courses of action in case of "Plan Baghdad's" failure include very drastic moves, such as redeploying US forces to isolated bases in the Iraqi desert.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.iraqslogger.com/index.php/post/1739/US_Papers_Monday_Plan_B_is_Plan_A">read in full…</a>
<blockquote></blockquote><blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"></span><a href="http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=15&ItemID=12256"></a>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Missing Links: DECONSTRUCTING THE ALLAWI SCHEME</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Al-Quds al-Arabi</span> devotes its top news story this morning to breaking down the Allawi-threat into its component parts. First, as for Allawi's own motives, the journalist cites "Iraqi observers" who prefer not to be named, to the effect that
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">[T]he escalation by former prime minister Ayad Allawi of his critical language vis-a-vis the government, and his threat to withdraw from it, are explainable by his [prior] knowledge of the approach of ministerial changes by Maliki, and [this is an] attempt by Allawi to get a bigger slice of the government pie, considering that he didn't obtain much of anything at the time of the formation of the current government.</span>
<blockquote></blockquote></blockquote>
The Bush administration, according to this way of looking at things, has its own fish to fry:
<blockquote></blockquote><blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Washington, for its part [the journalist writes], is trying to use Allawi as an element of pressure against Maliki, to intimidate him and bring him into line so that he continues the fight against the Mahdi Army [even though it is] his ally. And the fact that US ambassador Khalilzad accompanied [Allawi] in visiting Barzani was a way of suggesting to Maliki that Allawi could be [Maliki's] replacement in the event that Maliki fails in carrying out the American orders with respect to fighting the Mahdi Army and other Shiite militias.</span></blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;"></span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
According to this way of looking at things, the writer says, Allawi's calculation is that at least he should end up with a bigger share of ministerial appointments. But the writer also notes that while Maliki promised a shakeup, he didn't actually say which ministries will be involved, or whether or not the shakeup will involve the all-important security-related portfolios.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://arablinks.blogspot.com/2007/03/deconstructing-allawi-scheme.html">read in full…</a>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">>> BEYOND IRAQ</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Afghanistan:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote><blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/05/world/asia/05afghan.html?ex=1330750800&en=3879f07f6b66f99f&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss">American troops opened fire on a highway filled with civilian cars and bystanders</a> on Sunday, American and Afghan officials said, in an incident that the Americans said left 16 civilians dead and 24 wounded after a suicide car bombing in eastern Afghanistan. One American was also wounded.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6458484,00.html">A NATO airstrike destroyed a mud brick home, killing four generations of an Afghan family</a> - nine people in all - during a firefight between Western troops and militants, Afghan officials and relatives said Monday. Militants late Sunday fired on a NATO base in Kapisa province, just north of Kabul. When fighter aircraft returned fire they hit a civilian home, killing five adults and four children between the ages of 6 months and 5 years, said Gulam Nabi, 51, a relative of the victims.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.zeenews.com/znnew/articles.asp?aid=358076&sid=SAS">US and Afghan forces reportedly attacked a Pakistani Army border post</a> in the North Waziristan region and took away a shepherd for questioning.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Syed Saleem Shahzad, Asia Times Online: TALIBAN FIRE OFF SPRING WARNING</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
Recent Taliban operations in southwestern Afghanistan's Helmand province and Pakistan's anti-Taliban swoop in its southwestern province of Balochistan mark a broadening of the struggle into Pakistani territory.
<blockquote></blockquote>
The Taliban claim to have overrun the Kabul-installed administration in Nawzad district headquarters in Helmand and all surrounding villages.
<blockquote></blockquote>
This only confirms the belief among North Atlantic Treaty Organization officials that until a broader strategy is devised that takes in the whole region - including the Pakistani border areas - there can be no level playing field between NATO and the insurgency, and NATO will be the loser.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/IC06Df01.html">read in full…</a>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">QUOTE OF THE DAY:</span> "Checkpoints can intercept armed groups. But they cannot intercept or stop car bombs, because car bombs are looking for checkpoints.'' <span style="font-style: italic;">--</span><span style="font-style: italic;">comment on the current "security crackdown" in Baghdad by</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> <a href="http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m31085&hd=&size=1&l=e">Adnan Ubaidi,</a> the editor of </span>Al-Istiqama<span style="font-style: italic;">, a newspaper published by the leading Shiite voting bloc in the Iraqi Parliament, quoted in the </span>Los Angeles Times
<blockquote style="font-style: italic;"></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;"><blockquote></blockquote>
</span>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5501771.post-1173018629886613712007-03-04T06:17:00.000-08:002007-03-04T08:30:53.716-08:00<b><u>DAILY WAR NEWS FOR SUNDAY, MARCH 4, 2007</b></u><p>
<p><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/rids/20070304/i/r2692450855.jpg?x=266&y=345&sig=9RrL4NlPf2L4CTrfHzyyaA--"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px;" src="http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/rids/20070304/i/r2692450855.jpg?x=266&y=345&sig=9RrL4NlPf2L4CTrfHzyyaA--" border="0" alt="" /></a><p>
<p>A boy weeps while holding a placard during a rally near Kirkuk, about 250 km (150 miles) north of Baghdad, March 4, 2007. The boy joined the protest to ask for the release of his father, who protesters said was among those arrested during a joint U.S.and Iraqi military raid two days ago. REUTERS/Slahaldeen Rasheed (IRAQ) <i>Note: I would have featured coverage of this event in the news of the day, but I find it mentioned only in picture captions. Other photos show a decent sized crowd. -- C</i><p>
<p>
<p>
<b>Baghdad</b><p>
<p><a href="http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/03/04/africa/ME-GEN-Iraq-Violence.php">Policeman killed when gunmen attack a police station in Azamiyah district</a>. Perpetrators escaped.<p>
<p><b>AP also reports</b> a bomb hidden in a cigarette cart exploded in central Baghdad, wounding four civilians and damaging two cars, police said.<p>
<p><a href="http://news.monstersandcritics.com/middleeast/news/article_1272448.php/Iraqi_journalist_killed_in_Baghdad__2nd_Lead_">Prominent journalist Mohan al-Zaher killed near his home in western Baghdad</a>. Iraqi Journalists Syndicate says he was killed resisting a kidnapping. al-Zaher has written columns critical of the Iraqi government and the U.S. occupation. <i>This DPA article also has additional information about the discovery yesterday of the body of Jamal al-Zubaidi, the managing editor of Baghdad's al-Safir (the ambassador) newspaper.</i><p>
<p><b>DPA also reports:</b><p>
<p><ul><li>Iraqi forces freed Tamer Sultan, an Iraqi defence ministry advisor, after he was earlier captured by militants from the same area.<p>
<li> Separately, a civilian was killed and three people were wounded when an explosive devise was detonated in a district in central Baghdad.</ul><p>
<p><a href="http://news.bostonherald.com/international/middleEast/view.bg?articleid=186302">Hundreds of U.S. troops enter Sadr City, seal off streets, conduct house-to-house searches</a>. They meet no resistance and apparently find nothing.<p>
<p><b>AP also reports</b> that U.S. troops raided a mosque in Baghdad and captured three people they identify as "suspected insurgents." An Iraqi woman was wounded in the incident and transported to a hospital.<p>
<p><a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/KAM453911.htm">A car bomb targeting a police patrol killed one person and wounded four others in the southern Doura district of Baghdad, police said</a>. <i>Note: This is the district the U.S. shelled overnight on Thursday</i>. <b>Reuters also reports</b><p>
<ul><li>A roadside bomb near an intersection wounded two people in Doura district, police said.<p>
<li>A total of 10 bodies were found shot dead on Saturday in different districts of Baghdad, police said.<p>
<li>Gunmen attacked a police patrol and killed a policeman and wounded two others in Adhamiya district in northern Baghdad, police said. <i>This could refer to the same incident reported by AP, but they describe the attack as on a police station, rather than a patrol.</ul></i><p>
<p><b>Baqubah</b><p>
<p><a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/KAM453911.htm">A roadside bomb exploded near an Iraqi army patrol, killing four soldiers in a village near Baquba</a>.<p>
<p><a href="http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/IRAQ?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2007-03-04-07-26-30">Roadside bomb kills three women and a child,</a> Shiite pilgrims on their way to Karbala. However, the target appears to have been a nearby U.S. convoy. Six people wounded, not stated whether any were Americans.<p>
<p><b>Basra</b><p>
<p><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070304/wl_mideast_afp/iraqunrestbasra_070304101635;_ylt=AqFRFDSZ7AAjPo7DI23r2dtX6GMA">British military says that coalition troops raided the local headquarters of the Iraqi interior ministry's domestic intelligence agency, and freed 37 prisoners</a>. British say they found evidence of torture and links to bomb attacks. Iraqi police say that U.S., rather than British troops accompanied Iraqis in carrying out the raid. <i>(If true, this would seem to be evidence that the British have already started to withdraw from active combat in the region. Note that in this case we have one faction of Iraqi forces joining the occupation in attacking another faction. -- C</i><p>
<p><b>Salahuddin Province</b><p>
<p><a href="http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/IRAQ?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2007-03-04-07-26-30">The U.S. military announced that more than 50 insurgents were detained in a three-day operation last month in Salahuddin province north of Baghdad</a>. Three suspected insurgents were killed in the raids, the military said. <i>(As usual, we're just expected to take their word for it that all of the detainees and all the dead are "insurgents." --C</i>)<p>
<p><a href="http://www.kuna.net.kw/home/Story.aspx?Language=en&DSNO=957945">KUNA, discussing the same announcement, says it also states that "10 terrorists were killed after proving that they financed attacks against the coalition forces stationed in Abu Ajil."</a> KUNA also provides details on specific locations of the activities.
<b>Tikrit</b><p>
<p><a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/KAM453911.htm">Two bodies found shot dead east of the city</a>.<p>
<p><b>Mosul</b><p>
<p><a href="http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/IRAQ?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2007-03-04-07-26-30">Two police killed, three injured, when gunmen open fire on a checkpoint</a>.<p>
<p><a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/KAM453911.htm">A total of nine bodies were found shot dead on Saturday in different districts of the city</a>.<p>
<p>
<b>Other News of the Day</b><p>
<p><a href="http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/IRAQ?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2007-03-04-07-26-30">Sadrist MP Falah Hassan complains about the U.S. operations in Sadr City</a>, saying "We told (Prime Minister Nouri) al-Maliki that if there is an arrest operation against anyone, it should be done by Iraqi forces. We understood that Iraqi forces only would conduct the search and if they faced resistance, then U.S. forces could intervene, but that was not the case with today's operation." AP report suggests that continued forbearance by Sadrist movement is in doubt.<p>
<p><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070304/ts_nm/arabs_iraq_withdrawal_dc">Arab League calls on UN Security Council to set a timetable for withdrawal of foreign forces from Iraq</a>, articulates other goals for the country. <i>(Nothing new here -- C</i>)<p>
<p><blockquote>CAIRO (Reuters) - The Arab League said on Sunday the
United Nations Security Council should set a timetable for the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Iraq. Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa listed what the Cairo-based organization believed were the key issues for easing the crisis in Iraq.<p>
<p>
Apart from setting a timetable for U.S.-led coalition to leave, the list also includes a call for the fair distribution of wealth and the disbanding of all militias, which are demands that Arab leaders have repeated many times. "I suggest that these foundations be included in a binding U.N. Security Council resolution that all Iraqi and other parties with present roles in Iraq should respect and follow," Moussa said in a speech to a meeting of Arab foreign ministers.<p>
<p>
The United States has rejected calls for setting a date for its troops, who make up the vast majority of multinational forces, to leave the country they invaded in 2003. Arab governments have little influence in Baghdad. The Arab League representative in Iraq resigned in January because of his frustration over the situation in the country. </blockquote><p>
<p><a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=38650&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Gutierres, addressing the Arab Foreign Ministers, urges the International Community to do more for Iraqi refugees</a>. Excerpt:<p>
<p><blockquote>Cairo, March 4, (VOI) – On Sunday, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), António Gutierres, urged the international community to shoulder its responsibilities towards Iraqi refugees and to help the countries that host them, particularly Jordan and Syria. "The mass media showed great interest in developments in Iraq but no one showed interest in the ensuing tragedy: the largest displacement in the region since 1948," Guterres said in his inaugural address of the 127th session of the Arab foreign ministers meeting in Cairo on Sunday.<p>
Guterres pointed out, "millions of Iraqis decided to leave their homes to escape threats against their lives or to relocate to other areas inside the country."
The UNHCR praised Jordan and Syria for having taken on the largest refugee burden. Syria hosts about one million Iraqis and Jordan 750,000, adding that these two countries have been left unassisted, which caused price hikes there as well as other problems.<p>
"I totally understand the fears these two countries have about their own national security but after all the (Iraqi) refugees are victims of terrorism and can never be terrorists," said Guterres.<p>
The UNHCR chief also announced that an international conference on Iraqi refugees would be held in Geneva in April, and said he had discussed with Syria and Jordan "the preparation of this conference and the way to make it a success."
Between 600,000 and one million Iraqi refugees are believed to have fled to Syria, and around 750,000 are estimated to be in neighboring Jordan.</blockquote>
<a href="http://www.iranmania.com/News/ArticleView/Default.asp?NewsCode=50104&NewsKind=Current%20Affairs">Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini tells state television that Iran has "received proposals" from the U.S. requesting talks about Iraqi security</a>. Not stated whether this is in connection with the upcoming multilateral conference but that would appear to be the case.<p>
<p><a href="http://www.kuna.net.kw/Home/Story.aspx?Language=en&DSNO=957931">30 to 50 Syrian companies expected to take part in Iraq Reconstruction Fair scheduled for November of this year</a>. <i>(I post this simply because it is instructive that the Iraq Reconstruction Fair will take place in Kuwait - C)</i><p>
<p><a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=38646&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">Deja vu Department: Maliki holds a press conference, says promised cabinet reshuffle will take place in "two weeks," offers no specifics</a>. <i>Note: This story says he first promised it in November, but eve that was actually just the repetition of a pledge first made last summer -- C)</i> He discusses other issues, including the upcoming security conference and militia infiltration of the Interior Ministry, which he denies. Excerpt:<p>
<p><blockquote>Baghdad, March 4, (VOI) – Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said on Sunday that the cabinet reshuffle he had announced in November 2006 will take place "very soon," in a couple of weeks.<p>
Maliki, in a press conference held in Baghdad, declined to name the ministries or ministers that will be included in the shakeup. It is a message for all the ministers who have proved to be inefficient in their posts, that they will be subject to change," Maliki said.<p>
Iraqi politicians had urged Maliki to make changes to his cabinet lineup. Several observers warned that the Maliki government might collapse if the expected reshuffle failed to bring an end to the sectarian strife that has led to remarkable acts of violence in Iraq.<p>
Meanwhile, Maliki said the Iraqi army represents a mainstay of the country's security and stability, stressing that the former army officers attending a conference in Baghdad represent all groups from the Iraqi people and are far from sectarianism and political influences. The Baghdad security plan needs politicians, the military and the citizens," said the Iraqi premier. sked whether there were flaws or infiltrations into the Iraqi interior ministry, Maliki said "there are no flaws or infiltrations in the interior ministry but bad people, not just in the interior ministry but also elsewhere. Reports in the Arab and foreign mass media should not be relied on because they rely on opponents of the government, whose aim is to render the Baghdad security plan a failure," noted Maliki.</blockquote><p>
<p>
<b>In-Depth Reporting, Commentary and Analysis</b><p>
<p><a href="http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/news/16822106.htm?source=rss&channel=twincities_news">Hearst's Eric Rosenberg reports that funding for Sunni militants in Iraq is coming from Saudi Arabia</a>, discusses the proxy confrontation between S.A. and Iran in Iraq. Excerpt:<p>
<p><blockquote>During his inaugural appearance before Congress last week, the new U.S. intelligence czar made a rare public reference to one of Washington's secret dreads. Mike McConnell, the new director of national intelligence, said there are funds coming from Saudi Arabia, an ostensible U.S. ally, to help Sunni insurgents in Iraq, while Iran is supporting the Shiite militias there.<p>
<p>
McConnell's testimony undergirds U.S. concerns that the Iraq civil war could turn into a direct Saudi-Iranian confrontation, with American military forces caught between warring combatants for Islam's two dominant strains. Separately, Brian Jenkins, a military expert with Rand Corp., a national security and foreign policy research organization, said: "What we already are seeing in Iraq is an emerging proxy war between Saudi-backed Sunnis and Iranian-backed Shia."<p>
<p>
If that proxy war cascades into a direct Iranian-Saudi military clash, it could imperil much of the world's oil supply. Saudi Arabia, Iran and Iraq are Nos. 1, 3 and 4, respectively, in terms of proven oil reserves.<p>
<p>
Nawaf Obaid, then a security adviser to the Saudi government, alluded to the tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia in November when he warned in an op-ed column that a U.S. withdrawal of forces from Iraq would result in "massive Saudi intervention to stop Iranian-backed Shiite militias from butchering Iraqi Sunnis." The Saudis fired Obaid after the column was published in the Washington Post.<p>
<p>
Tensions between the two nations are the main topic at a summit this weekend that Saudi and Iranian leaders were holding in Saudi Arabia.</blockquote><p>
<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/04/world/middleeast/04baghdad.html?_r=2&hp&oref=slogin&oref=slogin">NYT's Damien Cave discusses the hardening of sectarian divisions in Baghdad</a>. <i>Not news, exactly, but this is a detailed description of the situation.</i> Excerpt:<p>
<p><blockquote>BAGHDAD, March 3 — After centuries full of vibrant interaction, of marrying, sharing and selling across sects and classes, Baghdad has become a capital of corrosive and violent borderlines. Streets never crossed. Conversations never started. Doors never entered.<p>
<p>snip<p>
<p>The goal of the new Baghdad security plan is to fix all of this — to fashion a peace that stitches the city’s cleaved neighborhoods back together. After three weeks, there are a few signs of progress. The number of bodies found daily has decreased to 20 or fewer from 35 to 50. In some areas closely patrolled by American troops, a few of the families that fled the violence are said to be returning.<p>
<p>
But even in neighborhoods that are improving or are relatively calm, borders loom. Streets once crossed without a thought are now bullet-riddled and abandoned, the front lines of a block-by-block war among Shiite militias, Sunni insurgents, competing criminal gangs and Iraqi and American troops.<p>
<p>
Some Americans who have seen both Bosnia and Iraq say Baghdad has come to resemble Sarajevo as it began to unravel in the 1990s, latticed with boundaries that are never openly indicated but are passed on in fearful whispers among neighbors who have suffered horrific losses. Like jagged wounds, the boundaries mark histories of brutal violence. And for Iraqis, they underscore a vital question at the heart of the new plan: can scarred neighborhoods ever heal? </blockquote><p>
<p><a href="http://washingtonbureau.typepad.com/iraq/2007/03/baghdad_chaos_p.html">Blogger Wissam calls the Baghdad Security Plan the "Baghdad Chaos Plan</a>. <i>His English is sometimes hard to understand but I think you'll get the idea</i>. <p>
<p><blockquote>Iraqi government call it (BAGHDAD SECURITY PLAN) and we call it (BAGHDAD CHAOS PLAN) every single member in the security system taking money from the people to be released like for example I have paid in one day 30,000 Iraqi dinars to the traffic police and the peace keeping forces to be forgiven for the mistake that I did, my mistake was that I was driving my car in the street to go to my work in the time that I not suppose to be driving I mean the government have silly law obligate me to drive three days a week in the street in Baghdad because the numbers of the car as you know the (odds and even ) numbers my car was odd and I was driving in the even day so can you imagine he took 15,000 Iraqi dinars to him self instead giving me the 30,000 Iraqi dinars penalty recede from the government and the keeping peace forces guy did the same thing at the time that it is non of his responsibility….<p>
<p>
Can you imagine that you are driving very happy and suddenly an Iraqi army soldier taking a guy from his car because he was wanted to the American and the Iraqi Government because he was related to the Mahdi Militia I was very happy when sow <i>[saw</i> that I was feeling that there is some good will be happen in our future suddenly again the keeping peace forces show up again and they pulled there weapons to the soldiers head and they asked him to release the guy the Iraqi army in coincidence were driving by the same area and they sow that scene they got mad and they start shooting at each others and the funny thing that they didn't mentioned about it on TV so we still have the big hope in Baghdad chaos plan to bring more chaos for us till Almaliky give Baghdad to mahdi militia successfully without any contradiction from the American side..<p>
<p>
Thanks for your time</blockquote><p>
<p><a href="http://washingtonbureau.typepad.com/iraq/2007/02/775.html">Blogger Sahar discusses the economic desperation in the capital</a>. <i>(And props once more to McClatchy for giving its Iraqi employees the opportunity to address us directly -- C)</i>. <p>
<p><blockquote>Yesterday I went to the bank. Wow! I thought. So many people! Iraqis are not “bank oriented” people, if they have any excess; they tend to keep it at home. Previous experiences have taught us not to trust banks; they have been known to hold on to your money when you need it in a jiffy!<p>
<p>
But looking at the numbers inside that bank, I thought, “I have been out of touch; bad girl.” I go in, only to find people pushing and shoving one another; fighting, shouting and cursing each other. “This is not normal,” I said to myself. I try to reach the employee with whom I have business, but my efforts are to no avail. One human current pushes me this way and another pulls me that. A proper riot!<p>
<p>
I began to have serious misgivings.<p>
<p>
“What is this all about?” I asked a lady who was trying, in vain, to keep from being crushed between two men, to my right, “Have you got any idea?” “Where do you come from? Don’t you know that the government is giving people relief? At last we are remembered!”<p>
<p>
“Really!! That’s excellent!!” It was my good fortune to be at the bank this day! Although half suffocated, I felt elated at being “remembered”. “How much?” “10 000 Dinars!” (Equivalent to $7.75, purchasing power: 50 eggs).<p>
<p>
….. Numbness.. …..<p>
<p>
Fighting ….. Rioting ….. Flayed nerves and hot tempers flying ….. for 10 000 Dinars.
Where do I come from? How many thousands have been decommissioned? How many thousands were in Saddam’s army, police and intelligence agencies? Thousands of others – professionals - dismissed from their government jobs on pretext of debathhification? Yet more thousands displaced; and more still terrorized into a futile stay-at-home existence??<p>
<p>
Riots in the bank for ID 10 000, $ 7.75. And for $100; what would they be prepared to do? For $500? For $1000??<p>
<p>
How many will cross that line? It’s not easy to see your family starve for principles. Mercenaries on Iranian payroll. Mercenaries on American payroll. Mercenaries on ANY payroll.<p>
<p>
Hear! Hear! An army for a pittance. Gather yea all, who have an interest to participate in this charade. Stakes are high! All of Iraq is the stage.</blockquote><p>
<p><b>Whisker's round-up of the wounded</b><p>
<p><i>It's long, but I'm going to post the whole thing today, in the context of the recent revelations about the way some of these people have been treated by the national leaders who want people to believe that opponents of the war don't "support the troops.</i><p>
<p><a href="http://email.lhi.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.timesargus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070225/NEWS01/702250385/1002/NEWS01">Petty Officer 3rd Class Dustin E. Kirby, a Navy corpsman whose efforts to save a wounded Marine in Iraq in October and his own wounding by a sniper on Christmas</a>. Kirby was struck by a bullet in the left side of the face while near a bunker on the roof of Outpost Omar, a Marine position in Karma, a city in Anbar province. The bullet, which he said was an armor-piercing 7.62 mm round fired from a Dragunov-style sniper rifle at a range of 400 to 600 yards, passed through his head and exited at the side of his mouth. In traveling this path, it did not strike his brain, spinal column or major veins or arteries, he said. Kirby's therapy and treatment are less extensive. The bullet tore away seven teeth, the right side of his lower jaw, several patches of nerve and a section of his tongue. It also shattered part of his lower skull, near the roof of his mouth. Surgeons have rebuilt his face with bone and skin from one of his legs, he said, and secured the damaged tissues with 14 metal plates.<p>
<a href="http://email.lhi.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.walb.com/Global/story.asp?S=6143824">Twenty-two-year-old Daniel Houghton was transferred to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC. He'd been recovering at a hospital in Germany since his Chinook Helicopter crashed in Afghanistan September 18th</a>. His family from North Carolina was able to see him for the first time Sunday night and say he still remains in serious condition with multiple injuries. Houghton is a pararescuer with the 38th Rescue Squadron stationed at Moody Air Force Base. Eight troops were killed in that same crash.<p>
<a href="http://email.lhi.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.timesargus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070225/NEWS01/702250385/1002/NEWS01">Lance Cpl. Colin Smith, a machine gunner in the vehicle's turret who was shot through the skull by a sniper in Karma in late October</a>. The bullet that struck Smith, the same type that struck Kirby, destroyed the top regions of both frontal lobes of Smith's brain. But since being medically stabilized and beginning a range of therapies, he has begun to walk with assistance and a four-pronged cane, to smile and to mimic sounds and repeat words he hears, his father said. Because of damage to areas of the brain that control speech, Bob Smith said, it was not clear how fully Colin Smith would recover his ability to converse. Similarly, he has extremely limited movement on the right side of his body. It is too soon to predict how much range of motion and strength will return.<p>
<a href="http://email.lhi.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/news/nation/16791161.htm">A U.S. Marine from Bellefonte who was seriously wounded in Iraq is "still fighting" for life at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md.</a>, where his family and fellow Marines are keeping vigil, his father said. Marine Cpl. David Emery Jr.'s, legs and left arm were shattered on Feb. 7 in a suicide bomb attack in Iraq's Anbar province. Emery, 21, nicknamed "D.J.," also suffered a severe abdominal wound, including a severed artery that caused his kidneys to shut down, his family said. He is on a ventilator and is also suffering from pneumonia. "Right now he's maintaining his own blood pressure," David Emery. "They took him off the medication for that. So that's a positive sign. He's still on a ventilator, and they're still doing dialysis every day. And every day they are cleaning his wounds. "They haven't even started working on his fractures yet," the elder Emery said. "We take it a day at a time. Every day he holds on, there's some improvement. It means he's not getting worse." David Emery Jr. has not regained consciousness since he was wounded in the bombing.
<p>
<a href="http://email.lhi.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/metro/stories/MYSA022507.01B.soldier_house_help.111d4e0.html">Since he has been home from the hospital, the simple task of taking a shower has been a sort of awkward minuet for Army Staff Sgt. Christopher Edwards, a victim of burns in Iraq</a>. It involves hopping to the bathroom door of their Cibolo home, rising and sitting in a wheelchair and, depending on how much verve either of them possesses, a cradle lift to get him seated beneath the water. After the shower, reverse the steps and repeat. the injuries came in Sunni Arab territory in April 2005, when, as he puts it, he "was blown up" in a security patrol. The fuel from his fighting vehicle left third-degree burns on about 80 percent of his body. He has since undergone some 30 surgeries, battling constant pain, his care supervised at Brooke Army Medical Center.
<p>
<a href="http://email.lhi.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.in-forum.com/ap/index.cfm?page=view%26id=D8NHCSD00">Ben Lunak, 22, a Marine corporal, was wounded in on Feb. 25, 2006 when the Humvee in which he was riding drove over a roadside bomb</a>. He had been stationed near Ramadi, west of Baghdad. He lost part of a leg and has had multiple surgeries. His right leg had to be amputated below the knee. A year later, Lunak is home in Grand Forks, working at Northern Plains Grain Inspection and recovering from injuries. He gets around on one natural leg and his pick of two prosthetic legs, plus one more on the way.
<p>
<a href="http://email.lhi.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.sungazette.com/news/articles.asp?articleID=15271">Army Staff Sgt. Christopher Bain, 35, of Newberry, who, on April 8, 2004, suffered severe injuries as a result of enemy rocket-powered grenades</a>. Bain, after spending extensive time at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington and undergoing surgery to both his arms and back over the last three years. Bain, after spending extensive time at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington and undergoing surgery to both his arms and back over the last three years
<p>
<a href="http://email.lhi.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.thestarpress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070225/NEWS01/70225005/1002">On Friday, Angela Shepherd was the recipient of the phone call that no parent of military personnel stationed in Iraq wants to receive</a>. Her 23-year-old son, Cory Shepherd, had been gunned down by a sniper while completing work for the day on a military bunker. reserve corporal with the U.S. Marine Engineer Support Battalion, had “taken a hit to the legs.” She was told to go home to await further word. A single bullet had passed through both of her son’s legs as he stood on top of the bunker his unit had been building, but it had not damaged bones or major blood vessels.
<p>
<a href="http://email.lhi.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.kake.com/news/headlines/6085811.html">A relative of Specialist Johnny D. Jones of Derby says he is in serious condition after being flown to Walter Reed Hospital</a>. Jones was the driver of the vehicle that Sgt. Dave Berry was riding in when an I.E.D. was detonated. Berry was killed and two other Kansas Guardsman, Peter Richert and Jerrod Hays, were seriously injured. All of the men serve in the 1st Battalion, 161st Field Artillery, Kansas Army National Guard. Families of the victims have told KAKE that other soldiers were injured, but neither the Department of Defense nor the Kansas National Guard are commenting on injuries, or the circumstances surrounding the attack.
<p>
<a href="http://email.lhi.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.wgtndailynews.com/articles/2007/02/26/news/news2.txt">Staff Sergeants Jerrod Hays, 38, was flown to a hospital in Germany where he underwent surgery Friday.Hays suffered injuries to his face, eye and left hand</a>. His wife, Nancy Hays, said he took a good blow to the back from the impact. He is expected to survive
<p>
<a href="http://email.lhi.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.newsnet5.com/news/11128933/%2520http://www.newsnet5.com/news/10443797/detail.html">Last year, Sgt. Shurvon Phillip was on patrol when his Humvee hit a roadside bomb</a>. The Marine took the brunt of the explosion. Phillip, a member of the Brook Park-based 3rd Battalion 25th Marines, is now confined to a wheelchair, trapped in a body he cannot control. Phillip understands everything going on around him. To respond favorably, he flares his nostrils or blinks his eyes. He keeps his face deadpan to show that he's thinking about something or to respond unfavorably
<p>
<a href="http://email.lhi.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=17905802%26BRD=1163%26PAG=461%26dept_id=103377%26rfi=6">A Hillsboro man wounded by a roadside bomb in Iraq last week was still recuperating Monday from his injuries in a military hospital in Germany</a>. Peter Richert, a specialist with the National Guard, was traveling with 12 other soldiers either Wednesday or Thursday when the bomb exploded in the vicinity of their vehicle. According to Roger Sinclair, a National Guard recruiter who lives in Hillsboro and has been in contact with officers in Richert's battalion since the attack, one soldier was killed by the blast and 12 others, including Richert, were wounded to varying degrees. As of Monday night, the extent of Richert's injuries were not fully known by his parents, Ed and Phyllis Richert of Hillsboro, even though they have been in contact with their son since the incident. "What I do know is that one leg was amputated," said Phyllis Richert. "I don't know exactly what point along the leg. We were told, verbally, below the knee, but the paperwork says above the knee." She added that Peter apparently sustained other injuries as well, but doctors were most concerned about the leg.
<p>
<a href="http://email.lhi.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.kfvs12.com/Global/story.asp?S=6145281%26nav=8H3x">23-year-old Sgt. Casey Helms of Bismarck, Missouri came home last weekend, after being seriously injured earlier this month</a>. Casey Helms has an obvious limp and scars on his face and body, and while he's very matter of fact about what happened to him - he's also counting his blessings, because he's home again in one piece. "There's shrapnel down my right leg and stomach and colon. I have a collapsed lung, fractured cheek bone and shrapnel in my left eye," Helms says.
It all sounds pretty frightening, but it's the wounds you can't see like the memories of the suicide bomber walking towards him - that bother Sgt. Helms the most. "He was about 12 feet from me, and killed three others near me when he blew up.
<p>
<a href="http://email.lhi.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.wbay.com/Global/story.asp?S=6153877">Last July, a Green Bay soldier serving in Iraq was seriously injured in a roadside bomb attack. Jeff Vorpahl's recovery continues</a>. He wears the scars from a blast Vorpahl says he never saw coming. He was the driver of a Humvee near the Iraq-Kuwait border when the bomb exploded. The explosion left Vorpahl with massive head injuries, loss of hearing, and a broken jaw. "The major limitations right now are my back and neck problems, and my jaw, it was all broken up in here, but other than that I've been pretty lucky."
<p>
<a href="http://email.lhi.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.masslive.com/springfield/republican/index.ssf?/base/news-8/1172738628239450.xml%26coll=1">Army Sgt. Mark R. Ecker II has begun the long process of healing, and his family says he's determined to rise above his tragedy</a>. The 21-year-old East Longmeadow man lost both his feet last week after stepping on an explosive in Ramadi, Iraq, where he was leading a platoon through the streets and buildings of the city on a hunt for insurgents.
<p>
<a href="http://email.lhi.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.jg-tc.com/articles/2007/03/02/news/news002.txt">Staff sergeant John Grissom, 28, suffered a severely perforated ear drum in the right ear and a head injury in November</a>. The humvee in which he was riding on while on patrol in Iraq ran over approximately 60 pounds of improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, linked to propane tanks. Grissom said after he got out from under the damaged vehicle, he soon realized he couldn’t hear anything.<p>
<a href="http://email.lhi.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.ksdk.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=113831">Lance Cpl. Lukas Bell has been recovering after getting shot through both legs while serving in Iraq</a>.
<p>
<a href="http://email.lhi.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://abclocal.go.com/wtvg/story?section=local%26id=5083182">Shot by a sniper. A local soldier, Sgt. Matthew Keil, is seriously injured while fighting in Iraq</a>. was shot in the shoulder by a sniper. The church's reverend says the shooting left the 25-year-old paralyzed
<p>
<a href="http://email.lhi.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.kesq.com/Global/story.asp?S=6167357%26nav=9qrx">Lance Corporal Derrick Sharpe, 19, was critically injured in an explosion September 23rd in Iraq. He was given only a 30 percent chance to live</a>. His right leg was amputated. Sharpe will be home for a month before returning to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington for rehabilitation.---His right leg had to be amputated. Scars mar much of his body. One of his kidneys doesn’t function. He has flashbacks that prompt him to reach for his rifle
<p>
<a href="http://email.lhi.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://kdka.com/topstories/local_story_061213348.html">Sgt. Paul Statzer has been getting medical care at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. Near Fallujah, a roadside bomb took away half his head and face</a>. Statzer nearly died from his injuries. At Walter Reed, he underwent extensive reconstructive surgery – first on his skull, then his face. Last, he received a prosthetic eye. Now that he’s home, he won’t be going back to work. He’s on full disability, dealing with seizures and blood pressure problems.
<p>
<a href="http://email.lhi.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.sanduskyregister.com/articles/2007/03/03/front/doc45e8a53a466e2038469609.txt">Captain Larry Robinson M.D. was injured Thursday in Iraq when a humvee he was riding in hit an improvised explosive device</a>. Robinson is a medic in the 82nd Airborne Division of the Army where he was serving as a family physician in Iraq. his injuries were not life threatening. His skull was fractured, and four bones in his face were broken, Emily said. Larry Robinson was cleared for travel to Germany and eventually the United States, where he will receive restorative surgery
<p>
<a href="http://email.lhi.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=145365%26command=displayContent%26sourceNode=145191%26contentPK=16790520%26folderPk=83726%26pNodeId=144922">A Teenage soldier has survived against the odds after being ripped apart by mortar bombs while serving in Iraq</a>. Jamie Cooper, 18, from Kingswood, had to be brought back from the brink of death during a frantic evacuation flight and was told he would never walk again after losing the use of a leg. Then while in hospital in the UK he caught the superbug MRSA - twice. Jamie's dramatic story began in the early hours of November 26 last year when he was serving in Iraq with the Royal Green Jackets regiment. Jamie was testing radio equipment prior to the regiment going out on a routine patrol. It was then that the camp outside the city's Shatt al Arab Hotel came under attack and Jamie was hit by two mortar bombs which ripped a hole through his stomach. Jamie said: "We were getting mortared every night but this was the first time it hit the camp. The first bomb took out my hands and right arm. "I tried to crawl to cover but the second one landed and took out my left bum cheek and the nerves in my leg. Shrapnel went through my pelvis to my stomach. His dad Phillip said: "The military people lost him on the plane on the way back, but managed to revive him. They did not think he would survive." "Doctors have said it will take another 18 months to a year for a recovery although his leg will always be damaged and of no use to him.
<p>
<a href="http://email.lhi.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.moberlymonitor.com/articles/2007/03/03/news/news1.txt">Chief Warrant Officer Patrick Scrogin, 24, was seriously injured Thursday as a U.S. Army helicopter he was in made a “hard landing” in northern Iraq Thursday</a>. According to Scrogin's brother Bill, Moberly, Patrick and his co-pilot were aboard an OH-58 Kiowa when the helicopter's computer failed. Scrogin's injuries are extensive. The two pilots were first taken to an American military hospital in Kirkuk, about 180 miles north of Baghdad. Currently he is in Landstuhl, Germany and Scrogin said he will probably be moved to Walter Reed Hospital, Washington, D.C., by Tuesday. “So far,” said Scrogin, “he has lost his left leg below the knee and three fingers on his left hand. He has a crushed pelvis, five fractured vertebra in his upper back and fractured facial bones.”<p>
<p>
<b>Quote of the Day</b><p>
<p><blockquote>Why are we trying to divide up the peoples of the Middle East? Why are we trying to chop them up, make them different, remind them - constantly, insidiously, viciously, cruelly - of their divisions, of their suspicions, of their capacity for mutual hatred? Is this just our casual racism? Or is there something darker in our Western souls?</blockquote><p>
<p><a href="http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article2323413.ece">Robert Fisk</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5501771.post-1172965386007571852007-03-03T15:35:00.000-08:002007-03-03T15:44:29.936-08:00<p>
<b>Site News: <span style="font-weight:bold;">DAILY WAR NEWS FOR Saturday, March 3, 2007</span>
</b></p>
<p>Just a reminder that Today's <a href="http://dailywarnewsblog.com/">Today in Iraq</a> report was prepared by Siun and can be found at our new home:</p>
<p> <a href="http://dailywarnewsblog.com/2007/03/03/daily-war-news-for-saturday-march-3-2007/"><span style="font-size: 2em;">here</span></a>.</p>
<p>markfromireland</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5501771.post-1172864559883316592007-03-02T11:42:00.000-08:002007-03-02T13:29:36.040-08:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20070302/capt.bag10803021657.iraq_kidnapping_bag108.jpg?x=380&y=303&sig=wwwZRZF1hnLFwthGjjVV4Q--"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 360px;" src="http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20070302/capt.bag10803021657.iraq_kidnapping_bag108.jpg?x=380&y=303&sig=wwwZRZF1hnLFwthGjjVV4Q--" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">DAILY WAR NEWS FOR FRIDAY, March 2, 2007
</span><blockquote></blockquote><blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://news.yahoo.com/photo/070302/481/bag10803021657;_ylt=AjXVKkNkAJ4nc4.0BPOz3VRX6GMA">Photo</a>: This picture posted on a Web Site on Friday, March 2, 2007, claims to shows gunmen guarding blindfolded men, some wearing Iraqi military uniforms, at an undisclosed time and location in Iraq. (AP Photo) <span style="font-style: italic;">(See below)</span><span style="font-weight: bold;">
</span><blockquote></blockquote><blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/iraq;_ylt=AmUpwXBlWlfWvQLKLjopC7NX6GMA">The bodies of 14 policemen were found Friday northeast of Baghdad</a> after an al-Qaida-affilated Sunni group said it abducted members of a government security force in retaliation for the rape of a Sunni woman by members of the Shiite-dominated police.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Brig. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, an Interior Ministry spokesman, said the bodies were discovered Friday afternoon in Diyala province. The policemen were kidnapped Thursday on their way to their homes in Diyala for leave, he said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Earlier Friday, the Islamic State of Iraq said in a Web statement that it seized 18 Interior Ministry employees in Diyala in retaliation for "the crimes carried out ... against the Sunnis," including the alleged rape last month of a Sunni woman by policemen in Baghdad.
<blockquote></blockquote>
In a second statement, the group announced that its "court" had ordered the "execution" of the men and that a video depicting their deaths would be posted later, according to the SITE Institute, which monitors extremist Web sites.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Photos accompanied the claim, showing up to 18 blindfolded men, seven of them wearing Iraqi military uniforms. All had their hands tied behind their backs.
<blockquote></blockquote>
But Khalaf cast doubt on whether the 14 slain policemen were the same men shown on the Web site photos.
<blockquote></blockquote>
"We found the 14 policemen's bodies, but they are not those who are in the fabricated images on the Web site," he told The Associated Press. "The Diyala police told us that they don't know who those people shown on the Web site were."
<blockquote></blockquote><blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1171894556252&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull">Bring 'em on:</a> Two US soldiers and an interpreter were killed by a roadside bomb northwest of Baghdad on Friday, the US military said. The soldiers were conducting a patrol to clear a major road of explosives, when the bomb struck, the military said in a statement. Another soldier was wounded in the blast, it said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.mnf-iraq.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=10280&Itemid=21">Bring 'em on</a>: A Marine assigned to Multi National Force-West was killed Wednesday while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar Province.<span style="font-style: italic;"> (MNF - Iraq)</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">OTHER SECURITY INCIDENTS</span>
<blockquote></blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;"><blockquote></blockquote>
Baghdad:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/news/nation/16817759.htm">A roadside bomb exploded Thursday alongside the convoy of a prominent Shiite cleric </a>whose high-level political ties have made him the target of past assassination attempts. The imam was not injured, but several bodyguards were wounded.
<blockquote></blockquote>
The attack against Jalal Eddin Sagheer, a prominent member of Iraq's parliament, came
on one of Baghdad's quietest days in months.
<blockquote></blockquote><blockquote></blockquote>
<blockquote>But the calm was broken after nightfall. <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17413060/">The rumbling of artillery fire was heard throughout Baghdad.</a>
<blockquote></blockquote>
In recent days, U.S. gunners have pummeled areas of south Baghdad used as suspected staging ground for car bombings and other attacks.
<blockquote></blockquote>
There was no immediate word from the military on the latest apparent barrage. Residents said the shelling was concentrated on the mostly Sunni area of Dora.
<blockquote></blockquote><blockquote></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L02302555.htm">A car bomb killed 10 people and wounded 17 in Habibiya</a>, a district in the Shi'ite militia stronghold of Sadr City in Baghdad, a police source said. A Reuters photographer on the scene said the blast ripped through a used car market in Sadr City, a Shi'ite militia stronghold in northeast Baghdad. Residents there told him 11 people had been killed
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21317303-1702,00.html">A car bomb exploded close to a police checkpoint</a> in the southwestern neighbourhood of Saydia, killing one policeman and wounding two of his comrades, a security official said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Salman Pak:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.auburnpub.com/articles/2007/03/02/ap/headlines/d8nk0f0g0.txt">The U.S. military said Friday that eight suspected militants were killed</a> a day earlier in a raid in Salman Pak, just southwest of Baghdad. U.S. forces came under small arms and mortar fire, and killed three armed men moving toward them, the statement said. Twenty minutes later, troops were fired upon again and shot dead four suspects. Another man was killed in a vehicle nearby, the statement said
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Iskandariya:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L02102323.htm">The U.S. military said insurgents fired mortar rounds that killed four Iraqi civilians</a> and wounded 10 in Iskandariya. A police source had said eight people were killed in clashes there and it was not clear if the reports were referring to the same incident.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Basrah:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://news.monstersandcritics.com/middleeast/news/article_1271729.php/Attack_on_British_base_in_Basra_sets_fuel_stores_alight__Roundup_">An attack on a British military base in Basra in southern Iraq set ablaze fuel stores</a> but caused no structural damage or casualties, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) in London said Friday. The petrol and diesel storage area caught alight after 'indirect fire' hit the base, which is near the Shatt al-Arab Hotel in the centre of Basra. the blaze, the spokesman said. The fire happened at 7.00 pm (1600 GMT) on Thursday at the base, which comes under regular attack, the BBC said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2007100139,00.html">A third British soldier was fighting for life last night as crack sniper teams emerged as a terrifying new threat in Iraq</a>. The soldier was critical after a third attack in 24 hours on Our Boys in Basra. On Tuesday one of the hit squads killed Rifleman Daniel Coffey, 21, from the 2nd Battalion, the Rifles. He was shot through the head watching out for enemies while half-in, half-out of an armoured vehicle. A second soldier hit in the chest on Wednesday was stable in hospital last night. At 4.15pm on Wednesday the third victim, in full body armour and a helmet, was also hit in a Warrior fighting vehicle. The Staffordshire Regiment soldier had been detained at a car crash for 40 minutes.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=38547&amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">Three elements working for a foreign security company were wounded on Friday</a> as an explosive charge exploded at a convoy of sport utility vehicles (SUVs) west of the southern Iraqi city of Basra, an eyewitness said. "An explosive device went off at a convoy of three SUVs in al-Zubair-Shouiyba road west of Basra," an eyewitness told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI).
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Um Qsar:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=38534&amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">Two soldiers from the Multi-National forces in southern Iraq were wounded on Friday</a> when an explosive charge went off at their patrol in the southern Iraqi city of Basra, the spokeswoman for the Multi-National forces in southern Iraq said. "An explosive charge was detonated on Friday afternoon at a Multi-National forces vehicle patrol in Umm Qasr town wounding two soldiers," Captain Katie Brown told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI) by telephone.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Umm Qasr town is 60 km west of Basra. It hosts the American run Bucca detention centre with more than 10,000 inmates. The spokeswoman did not identify the nationality of the wounded soldiers. British, Danish and U.S. troops are situated in the southern Iraqi city of Basra.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Balad:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
Police said <a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L02102323.htm">six bodies were found in Balad</a>, 80 km (50 miles) north of Baghdad, on Thursday.<http:>
</http:><blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Kirkuk:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
A security source said <a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=38502&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">an Iraqi army soldier was wounded when he was attacked by gunmen</a>. He was rushed to a hospital in Kirkuk, a city 250 km northeast of Baghdad.<http: op="modload&name=news&file=article&sid=38502&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">
</http:><blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Hawija:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L02102323.htm">U.S. forces killed two insurgents found placing a roadside bomb on a road south of Hawija</a>, 70 km (43 miles) southwest of Kirkuk, the U.S. military said. Another suspect was wounded and
detained.<http:>
</http:><blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Al Anbar Prv:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1171894556252&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull">Gunmen killed two members of the local soccer team</a> during training in the Western Iraqi city of Ramadi on Friday, police said. One of the dead was a leading member of the Ramadi Footballt. Another soldier was wounded in the blast.<http: cid="1171894556252&pagename=jpost%2fjparticle%2fshowfull">
</http:><blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">(update) </span>A community leader in the western Iraqi city of Ramadi provided <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/28/AR2007022801051.html">additional information Wednesday about a deadly car bombing earlier this week that U.S. officials said did not occur.</a>
<http:></http:><blockquote></blockquote>
Raad Sabah al-Mukeilef, a sheik who said he lives about 500 yards from where the bomb exploded Monday, said in a telephone interview Wednesday that he believes members of the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq set off the bomb near a playground after being unable to get past a checkpoint that leads to his house, which is near a government building. "He came in a pickup," Mukeilef said. "Instead of coming in my street, he did it in a small park for children."
<blockquote></blockquote>
Mukeilef said he has participated in a U.S.-backed group of sheiks opposed to Sunni insurgents. Mukeilef's account corroborated information provided Tuesday by Col. Tariq al-Alwani, the security supervisor in Anbar province in western Iraq. Both men said the blast killed 16 children and three women, one of whom died Wednesday from her wounds.
<http:></http:><blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;"></span><http:><http:>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">>> NEWS
<blockquote></blockquote>
</span><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070302/wl_mideast_afp/iraqunrestsadr_070302104530;_ylt=AuXUJ71gV3gmfFSaXVb1zqJX6GMA">Iraqi and US security forces will be allowed to set up a base in the militia bastion of Sadr City</a>, the district's mayor said Friday, but should rein in a controversial special unit.
</http:></http:><blockquote></blockquote>
Sheikh Rahim al-Daraji, mayor of the large Shiite district of east Baghdad, said local leaders had held talks with US and Iraqi commanders and that a joint security station would begin operating on March 13.
<blockquote></blockquote>
"Other technical details related to Baghdad security plan have also been agreed on. A place at the entrance of the city shall be used as a first centre," he told AFP in a telephone interview on Friday.
<blockquote></blockquote>
But Daraji, who is close to radical anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's movement, said local people would not cooperate with what he called the "dirty squad", a US-led Iraqi special unit that has carried out arrests in the area .
<blockquote></blockquote>
US troops have no permanent base inside Sadr City, a sprawling Shiite slum area, and the area has become a stronghold of Sadr's Mahdi Army, an illegal militia of black-clad Shiite fighters.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Now, after a year of sectarian violence in Baghdad, a joint force of US and Iraqi troops and police has begun an ambitious operation to regain control of the city district by district.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Already, 15 fortified outposts known as "joint security stations" have been built in flashpoint districts and Sadr city is one of the next places in line for a permament US military presence.<span style="font-weight: bold;">
<blockquote></blockquote>
</span><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070302/wl_mideast_afp/iraqunrestfranceqatar_070302151257;_ylt=AuZ5OJjiAAPvCF5mXcdMZIlX6GMA">Iraq is nearing partition</a>, French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said Friday as violence between Sunni and Shiite Muslims raged on in Baghdad.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Following talks with his counterpart from Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem bin Jabr al-Thani, Douste-Blazy on Iraq told reporters: "We are clearly in agreement on one unfortunate fact: We are close to partition."
<blockquote></blockquote>
The French foreign minister said the only solution to Iraq's descent into more chaos was a withdrawal of international forces in 2008 and restoring the rule of law.<span style="font-weight: bold;">
<a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070301/pl_afp/usmilitaryhealth_070301224439;_ylt=AjdBRA1QshI41_eWkvvaD2BX6GMA"><blockquote></blockquote>
</a></span><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070301/pl_afp/usmilitaryhealth_070301224439;_ylt=AjdBRA1QshI41_eWkvvaD2BX6GMA">A general running a renown US Army hospital for soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan was relieved of command</a> Thursday, becoming the first senior officer sacked in a scandal over negligent patient care.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Major General George Weightman "was informed this morning that the senior army leadership had lost trust and confidence in the commander's leadership abilities to address needed solutions for soldier-outpatient care at Walter Reed Army Medical Center," the army said in a statement.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Army Secretary Francis Harvey put Lieutenant General Kevin Kiley, the army's surgeon general, in charge of the medical center on a temporary basis until a replacement for Weightman was found.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">The Washington Post,</span> in a series of stories published last month, exposed how wounded soldiers convalescing at the hospital were often lost in a bureaucratic morass as outpatients, or housed in rooms with mold-covered walls, holes in the ceiling and infestations of rodents and cockroaches.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Walter Reed is a renowned army specialty hospital and rehabilitates thousands of amputees and war wounded from Iraq and Afghanistan.<span style="font-weight: bold;">
<blockquote></blockquote>
>> REPORTS</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">AlertNet: U.S. HOUSE DEMOCRATS SEEK MORE WAR FUNDS THAN BUSH</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
U.S. House of Representatives Democrats will more than fully fund President George W. Bush's request for money to fight wars in Iraq and Afghanistan this year, but are still debating conditions that could be attached, senior lawmakers said on Thursday.
<blockquote></blockquote>
"There will be $98 billion for the military part," about $5 billion above the Bush administration's request, said Rep. John Murtha, chairman of a defense spending panel overseeing war funds. (…)
<blockquote></blockquote>
The additional money House Democrats want to add in includes $1 billion more for U.S. troops girding for a spring offensive in Afghanistan, Murtha said, and nearly $1 billion more to treat wounded American soldiers suffering from brain injuries and psychological problems related to combat.
<blockquote></blockquote>
With other add-ons to the massive spending bill, including more U.S. Gulf Coast rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina, possible aid to farmers who have suffered crop losses and around $3 billion added in to help close some U.S. military bases and modernize others, the price tag could rise significantly above $100 billion, according to several lawmakers and congressional aides.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N01426347.htm">read in full…</a>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">IraqSlogger: IT'S GAME ON IN RAMADI</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
The 1st Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division (1-3ID)is currently engaged in street to street fighting in central Ramadi. The much anticipated attack follows months of hands off policy as troops were routinely sniped and attacked with orders not to retaliate.
<blockquote></blockquote>
After much planning U.S. forces along with a collection of hired local tribesmen from nearby Sofia (a suburb of Ramadi) and other groups are attacking and clearing the are house by house. The tribes have been formed into paramilitary units called "Emergency Response Units" and are linked with U.S. troops.
<blockquote></blockquote>
The 1st Battalion, 9th Infantry Regiment (1-9), 2nd Infantry Division has been given the dirty job of house to house combat in Ramadi's center. Many of the houses have been booby trapped in anticipation of the attack. The U.S. Military estimates that there are around 60 insurgents remaining in the area of 15,000 people. Initial estimates put the insurgent numbers at between 100 and 200.
<blockquote></blockquote>
The city of half a million is a Sunni stronghold and the objective is to establish a foothold in a rundown collection of abandoned and destroyed homes called the Mulaab district. Ultimately the U.S. and Iraqi forces hope to build and hold nine fortified police stations to control the city.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.iraqslogger.com/index.php/post/1700/Its_Game_On_In_Ramadi">link</a>
<blockquote></blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold;"><blockquote></blockquote>
>> COMMENTARY AND ANALYSIS
<blockquote></blockquote>
</span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Lenin's Tomb: BBC BANS ANTIWAR SINGLE</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
Well, you may have already heard that the the antiwar single, a cover of Edwin Starr's 'War - What Is it Good For?' has made it into the top ten already. It's presently at number six in the charts with precious few resources, and could, with sufficient effort, make it to number 1. The BBC, in their infinite rubberiness, have decided to ban it, fearing that its antiwar message will offend the government. It has already appeared in a number of news broadcasts, and news items, and it has been played across the world. However, senior sources in the BBC say that a banning order has been promulgated, preventing the single from being given further coverage on its programmes. This comes after a radio segment that was due for broadcast this afternoon was pulled at the last moment. It would be a little bit embarrassing if the BBC was to avoid playing the number one single in the charts, launched by mass campaign from below, with few resources.
<blockquote></blockquote>
You can watch the video here, and when you've done that, kindly text "peace1" to 78789, whereupon you can collect your own copy. (<span style="font-style: italic;">See below</span>)
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://leninology.blogspot.com/2007/03/bbc-bans-antiwar-single.html">link</a>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Ugly Rumours: A MESSAGE FROM TONY:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
Hi Pop Pickers,
<blockquote></blockquote>
You may or may not know that I was in a band at university called Ugly Rumours - which is a coincidence as it was my ugly rumours that got us into the war in Iraq in the first place! The war has killed approximately 650,000 civilians and more than 3000 British and US soldiers, without us finding any weapons of mass destruction.
<blockquote></blockquote>
I've joined up with Stop the War Coalition and CND to release a pro peace song. On the 26/02/07 "Ugly Rumours" - fronted by yours truly - are putting out a cover version of the Edwin Starr classic "War (What is it good for?)". We are aiming to get the track in to the UK pop charts in March. March is the 4th year anniversary of the invasion of Iraq and also when Parliament is due to discuss the issue of Trident. We can highlight the lack of support for the government on these issues via the pop charts. The mainstream media will report on it if enough people from StWC, CND and others who care buy our track. (Plus I want to be remembered as the UK's highest charting British Prime Minister of all time!)
<blockquote></blockquote>
You can buy/pre-order the track NOW or at anytime by texting the word "PEACE1" to 78789 or by clicking the button below. The song will only cost you £1.50 (plus standard network charges) with all the profits going to support the good work that Stop the War Coalition do. We only need around 5000 sales to get Ugly Rumours into the charts so please take the time to buy it NOW!
<blockquote></blockquote>
I know I didn't give you a chance to vote on Britain going to war so please think of this as a musical referendum on me before I leave office!
<blockquote></blockquote>
PLEASE forward this site to as many people as you can and tell them about my great new single and video. (Check out my video below with cameos from my old friends, George Galloway, my real life sister in law Lauren Booth and Brian Hoare). You can join my Ugly Rumours fan club by entering you email address below, we will then send you exclusive video links for our other promos and information on how Ugly Rumours are progressing in the charts.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Yours always,
<blockquote></blockquote>
Tony Blair
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.uglyrumours.com/">link</a>
<blockquote></blockquote></blockquote>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Born at the Crest of the Empire: WHY US SOLDIERS ARE STILL DYING IN IRAQ</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
Wesley Clark was on Democracy Now this morning and during his extended interview, he made an observation as to why he felt the US has to stay in Iraq.
<blockquote></blockquote>
If the US were to withdraw, Saudi Arabia would be forced to fill some of the vacuum for their own interests in offsetting Shia power in Iraq and the region. The most likely way the Saudis would accomplish this is by arming Sunni groups in the Iraq civil war. (<span style="font-style: italic;">No surprises yet.</span>)
<blockquote></blockquote>
But then Clark pointed out that the Saudis would likely fund the best trained, most committed Sunni fighters, Al Qaeda.
<blockquote></blockquote>
So, the argument is that US soldiers are dying because "our ally" is threatening to fund, arm, and train the next generation of Al Qaeda who, after fighting US marines for four years, has more than enough hatred and recruits to terrorize the US for a generation.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Not exactly the clean, "fight them over there so we don't have to fight them over here" argument, eh?
<blockquote></blockquote>
(I am struck by the parallel that we are also confronting Iran over its nuclear program to prevent the Israelis from "confronting" Iran.
<blockquote></blockquote>
With "friends" like these........)
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://bornatthecrestoftheempire.blogspot.com/2007/03/why-us-soldiers-are-still-dying-in.html">link</a>
<blockquote></blockquote><blockquote></blockquote><a href="http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=15&ItemID=12247"></a>
<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Raymond Whitaker, The Independent: BELEAGUERED & BEWILDERED: PROSPECT OF DEFEAT LOOMS FOR BRITISH ARMY</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
When Tony Blair rose in Parliament last week to announce that 1,600 troops would be withdrawn this spring from Iraq, he did not say that an almost equal number would be sent to Afghanistan at roughly the same time. That news only emerged a day and a half later.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Why did the Prime Minister keep silent? Because to have announced the two deployments simultaneously would have made clear that all the problems the military have been complaining about, notably the "overstretch" caused by sending undermanned, inadequately equipped forces into two hostile environments at once, have not been solved.
<blockquote></blockquote>
What Mr Blair managed to disguise was that his long-awaited announcement of the beginning of the retreat from Iraq was in fact a slowdown. Military chiefs were desperate to pull 3,000 troops out of Iraq by summer; instead they got only half that number. The rest may leave by the end of the year - if conditions allow. But as one officer with experience there said: "The security situation on the ground in Basra is very volatile. Nobody knows what is going to happen day to day."
<blockquote></blockquote>
With talk in military circles of further much-needed reinforcements likely to be sent to Afghanistan in coming months, not least because other Nato members are refusing to provide them, the strain on resources can only increase. That will expose the deficiencies in equipment even more starkly.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=74&ItemID=12227">read in full…</a>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Matt Taibbi, RollingStone: WHY CAN'T WE TALK ABOUT PEACE IN PUBLIC?</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">"The fellas from 121 started showing up the other day. It's starting to sink in... I'll have to go home, the opportunities to kill these fuckers is rapidly coming to an end. Like a hobby I'll never get to practice again. It's not a great war, but it's the only one we've got. God, I do love killing these bastards. ... Morale is high, the Marines can smell the barn. It's hard to keep them focused. I still have 20 days of kill these motherfuckers, so I don't wanna take even one day off. " -- letter home from an unnamed Marine F/A -18 pilot in Iraq.</span>
<blockquote></blockquote></blockquote>
The above letter arrived in my inbox via an email circular sent by an acquaintance of mine, a defense analyst and former congressional aide named Winslow Wheeler. It came alongside a pained commentary by another former Pentagon analyst named Franklin (Chuck) Spinney, who is probably best known for the famous "Spinney report" of the mid-'80s which exposed the waste and inefficiency of many hi-tech Defense Department projects. (…)
<blockquote></blockquote>
What worries me about it is this unabashed glee in killing people from high altitudes might not be a psychiatric aberration, but an inevitable consequence of the entire structure of our economy, which is based heavily on government spending in the area of high-technology defense manufacturing. When Spinney focuses on this gruesome and bloody letter from a single Marine pilot, he's not ripping an individual soldier but showing graphically how the tail has, by now, wagged the whole dog -- how a society whose economy is based on hi-tech defense spending will first tend to gravitate inexorably toward hi-tech defense solutions to policy problems, and then over time will raise whole generations instilled with an implicit belief in and enthusiasm for such lunacies as the "surgical strike." Here's how Spinney put it:
<blockquote></blockquote><blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">We all know that the American Way of War is to use our technology to pour firepower on the enemy from a safe distance. Implicit in this is the central myth of precision bombardment that dates back to at least to the Norden Bombsight in World War II ... Of course this is all hogwash, as the conduct of the Iraq War has proven once again. Real war is always uncertain and messy and bloody and wasteful and accompanied by profound psychological and moral effects. But these preposterous theories are central to the American Way of War, because they justify the maintenance of a high cost hi-tech military which is so essential to the welfare of the parasitic political economy of the military-industrial-congressional complex that is now seamlessly embedded in our political culture.</span></blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;"></span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
The reason I'm even writing about Spinney's letter this week is that we're now just seeing come into focus the first outlines of the rhetorical parameters for the 2008 presidential campaign. Among other things, I'm seeing a lot of TV commentators pound home the theme that the Democratic party needs to shed its reputation for "pacifism." An article I saw about Rudy Giuliani last week saluted the former mayor for being sensible on Iraq without being a "peacenik." After four years of Iraq, we still can't talk about peace in public! This evil bullshit has been buried in the commercial media's descriptive campaign language seemingly forever by now, but it may be time -- in the wake of this Iraq disaster -- to start thinking about where it comes from and what effect it may have on the national psyche.
<blockquote></blockquote>
I believe that Marine pilot is driven by the same forces that render the presidential candidacy of someone like Dennis Kucinich impossible in America. A country that feeds itself through the manufacture of war technology is bound to view peace, nonviolence and mercy as seditious concepts. It will create policies first and then people to fit its machines, finding wars to fight and creating killers to fight them. If that's true of us, and I think it is, our troubles won't be over even if someone brings the Iraq war to an end. We'll be treating the symptom and not the disease.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/48601/">read in full…</a>
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<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Left I on the News: THE "WASTED LIVES" KERFUFFLE</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
Democrats are criticizing John McCain and Republicans are criticizing Barack Obama for precisely the same thing - saying that the lives of 3,100+ American soldiers who have died in Iraq were "wasted." Obama has "apologized" for using that word, saying he should have said "sacrificed"; McCain likewise says he should have said "sacrificed" but refuses to apologize.
<blockquote></blockquote>
What an absolutely absurd discussion. How on earth does it "denigrate the troops" (the expression that is being used to describe this "mistake") to say their lives were wasted? <span style="font-style: italic;">They</span> weren't the ones who decided to invade Iraq, or who didn't send sufficient body armor or armored troop carriers, or who made countless other bad decisions which have led to their deaths. It surely wasn't a lack of "bravery" which killed them; it was the decisions of their superiors and the politicians (and behind them, the corporations) who sent them to their deaths. Telling the truth about why they died doesn't "denigrate" them, it <span style="font-style: italic;">honors</span> them.
<blockquote></blockquote>
And when it comes to "wasted" lives, let's say that the ones who are already dead are dead, and arguing about whether their lives were "wasted" or just "sacrificed" is mere pedantic semantics. But when it comes to the lives that will be lost <span style="font-style: italic;">tomorrow</span>, or <span style="font-style: italic;">next week</span>, or <span style="font-style: italic;">next month</span>, we leave the realm of semantics. If you acknowledge that the war was a "mistake" (which it really wasn't, it was quite deliberate and intentional policy, but let's leave that aside for the moment and stick with conventional language), and if you acknowledge that it cannot be "won" (again, a bogus word, but let's move on), then for sure any lives which are lost now <span style="font-style: italic;">will</span> be "wasted," no question about it, and putting someone in harm's way with a decent chance of dying, with no significant chance of achieving any "success," <span style="font-style: italic;">that</span> is "denigrating" them - giving their lives so little worth that they can be sacrificed for nothing.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Enough! Stop the war now! Not next year. Not next month. Now!
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://lefti.blogspot.com/2007_03_01_lefti_archive.html#117280028400393822">link</a>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Arthur Silber, Once Upon a Time…: A NATION OF STUPID CHILDREN, WHO REFUSE TO GIVE UP THE LIES</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
By the age of eight or nine, most children realize that Santa Claus isn't a real person, just as they know the Easter Bunny and similar pleasantries are only make-believe, tales of imagination offered to add a bit of fun to the holidays. The great majority of children give up these fantasies without experiencing emotional upheaval that remotely approaches serious trauma. Those very rare children fortunate enough to be raised by adults who accord them the seriousness and respect they deserve know such stories to be ones of invention from the beginning.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Unfortunately, the great majority of Americans -- led by a relentlessly trivial and mendacious political class and a comparably anti-intellectual media -- never approach again the psychological achievement of children who undergo this transition. Still more unfortunately, most of these same children, while able to recognize fabrications of the Santa Claus variety, become prisoners of the American mythology that I recently discussed. Their pathetic plight is understandable in one sense, since almost no one will disabuse them of the lies with which they comfort themselves. Nonetheless, one can legitimately hope and expect that upon attaining adulthood, more individuals would be prepared to exercise even limited independent powers of assessment. But if you have such expectations, you will almost always be disappointed.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Thus it is that we have repellently idiotic episodes of the following kind:
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">[press reports on the unbelievable "US soldiers: Wasted or sacrificed?" controversy; only in America… -- zig]</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
"The selfless patriotism" of those "who have died to protect our interests in Iraq..."
<blockquote></blockquote>
What "interests" are those precisely, Senator? Iraq had not attacked us and did not seriously threaten us. Both facts were known to our leaders before the invasion of Iraq began, just as they were known by many "ordinary" citizens, both here and abroad. This was a naked, criminal war of aggression, now continued by means of an equally criminal occupation, against a third-rate country that was virtually defenseless before our onslaught. We have murdered more than half a million innocent Iraqis, and destroyed an entire nation. If by "interests," McCain and the rest of our ruling class mean the "right" of the United States to uncontested world hegemony, then let them say so and be damned. No other "right" or "interest" explains or "justifies" our monstrous acts -- but that one most certainly does.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Moreover, our ongoing occupation of Iraq, which no one is prepared to even try to end, has resulted in the fragmentation and significantly increasing strength of a global jihadist movement -- which many experts (and non-experts) predicted before this catastrophe began. We have created far more enemies than we had before, and we therefore face greater dangers now than we did four years ago. Those dangers continue to increase every day that we remain.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Moreover, the costs of this sickening war and occupation have burdened the United States with a huge and growing debt to be paid off by our children, by their children, and by their children unto infinity, depending upon how much longer this continues. Our economy was already grossly distorted by the ravages of the military-industrial, corporate statist complex -- and now the damages have cracked the foundation wide open. (…)
<blockquote></blockquote>
The truth is infinitely worse than that these lives have been "wasted":<span style="font-weight: bold;"> these deaths have served to strengthen our enemies and weaken our own country in countless ways that our actual enemies could never have achieved on their own.</span> That these lives have been "wasted" is the best one can say, not the worst. They are the greatest boon our enemies could dream of. These lives have not been "wasted": they are the precious tribute laid at the feet of our enemies, by our <span style="font-style: italic;">own leaders</span> in the pursuit of indefensible and criminal aims.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Of course, the recognition of this truth requires that we act like adults, and that we are capable of coherent thought, shorn of lies. We must be willing to give up the myth of the "noble soldier" who "selflessly sacrifices" his life for the glory of the Perfect and Good United States -- and see that these individuals died in a criminal war of aggression launched to consolidate and expand America's hegemonic role, a goal embraced by almost every leading politician, Republican and Democratic, over many decades of entirely avoidable conflict, chaos and death. (…)
<blockquote></blockquote><blockquote></blockquote>
But it is almost impossible to deal with the fact that so many Americans, almost all our political leaders, and our media virtually without exception are so relentlessly stupid, and so resolutely determined to remain so. As this latest episode in national idiocy proves yet again, and for the millionth time, this laughably pathetic state of affairs certainly would appear to be the unalterable truth of where we are.
<blockquote></blockquote>
And so we debate whether these lives were "wasted." With the blind ferocity of religious maniacs, we enforce our new Puritan code, which demands that certain prohibited thoughts may never be uttered. Violation of this code means banishment from public life and from further "serious" consideration. Every matter of importance is reduced to the intellectual level of a remarkably backward house pet.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Meanwhile, no one will stop this criminal war and occupation. And <span style="font-style: italic;">no one will do a goddamned thing to stop the next war</span>, which could alter all our lives forever.
<blockquote></blockquote>
How in the world do most Americans face themselves each morning? Someone needs to explain that to me. I truly would like to know.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2007/03/nation-of-stupid-children-who-refuse-to.html">read in full…</a>
<blockquote></blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">QUOTE OF THE DAY</span>: "Why in God's name should our military, in the words of Chalmers Johnson, regularly 'deploy […] well over half a million soldiers, spies, technicians, teachers, dependents, and civilian contractors in other nations' -- and why should we have over 700 bases in 130 countries around the globe? There is only one reason for insanity of this kind: we are absolutely convinced we are 'entitled' to rule the world, by military force on a scale never before seen in all of world history. If that is what you believe, then say so -- and be damned." <span style="font-style: italic;">-- from Arthur Silber's "A Nation of Stupid Children, Who Refuse to Give Up the Lies" at Once Upon a Time (see above)
<blockquote></blockquote>
</span>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5501771.post-1172771757297756912007-03-01T09:09:00.000-08:002007-03-01T11:41:57.340-08:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/rids/20070301/i/r2433399605.jpg?x=280&y=345&sig=YKc.c25gMqTEoBbFfb992w--"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 280px;" src="http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/rids/20070301/i/r2433399605.jpg?x=280&y=345&sig=YKc.c25gMqTEoBbFfb992w--" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">DAILY WAR NEWS FOR THURSDAY, March 1, 2007</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://news.yahoo.com/photos/ss/events/iraq/082701iraqplane/im:/070301/ids_photos_wl/r2433399605.jpg;_ylt=AlU2Tx4qDtruxGljPbVDQ5DKps8F">Photo</a>: Women gather scattered books from the floor of a mosque in Baghdad March 1, 2007. A joint force of U.S. and Iraqi personnel raided a mosque in the Shaab district of Baghdad, witnesses said. REUTERS/Kareem Raheem (IRAQ)
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.centcom.mil/sites/uscentcom2/Lists/New%20Casualty%20Reports/DispForm.aspx?ID=1630&Source=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Ecentcom%2Emil%2Fsites%2Fuscentcom2%2FLists%2FNew%2520Casualty%2520Reports%2FCurrent%2520Reports%2Easpx">Bring 'em on</a>: A Marine assigned to Multi National Force-West was killed Feb. 28 while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar Province. <span style="font-style: italic;">(CENTCOM)</span>
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<span style="font-style: italic;">OTHER SECURITY INCIDENTS</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Baghdad:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/KAM139478.htm">A roadside bomb killed one person and wounded four others near Beirut square</a> in northeastern Baghdad, police said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/03/01/iraq.main/">A roadside bomb exploded near a minibus filled with Baghdad City Council officials</a> in the eastern part of the capital, killing one official and wounding four others, an Iraqi Interior Ministry official said. The attack took place along Palestine Street, near Beirut Square. The minibus had no markings to indicate it was carrying government officials.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=38451&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">Unidentified gunmen killed an Iraqi civlian and kidnapped another</a> on Thursday in the Shiite Sadr City in eastern Baghdad, an eyewitness said. "Four masked gunmen attacked two civilians in al-Falah street of Sadr City, killing one of them and forced the other at gunpoint to unknown destination", an eyewitness told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/KAM139478.htm">The bodies of 10 people were found shot dead on Wednesday in different districts of Baghdad</a>, police said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Diyala Prv:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
On Thursday, <a href="http://www.spokesmanreview.com/ap/story.asp?AP_ID=D8NJC3OG1">the U.S. military said American and Iraqi troops killed 10 militants and seized six weapons stashes</a> in Diyala province northeast of Baghdad. The raids took place over the past three days, it said. The 10 were killed Monday in Muqdadiyah, a town in Diyala about 60 miles northeast of Baghdad, the military said in a statement. Five others were detained in the operation
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Iskandariya:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/KAM139478.htm">Fierce clashes between insurgents and police left at least eight people dead and 11 wounded</a> in the town of Iskandariya, 40 km (25 miles) south of Baghdad, police sources said. Casualties were from both sides.
<blockquote></blockquote><blockquote>
Armed clashes broke out between Iraqi police and gunmen in Iskandariya, south of Baghdad, killing at least five people and injuring seven, including policemen, an Iraqi police source said. <a href="http://news.monstersandcritics.com/middleeast/news/article_1271290.php/Five_Iraqis_killed_seven_wounded_in_armed_clashes">The gunmen had attacked electricity workers who were conducting maintenance operations</a> on the road between Mahawil and Iskandariya cities at Hillah, 100 kilometres south of the capital, the source added.</blockquote>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Kirkuk:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.mnf-iraq.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=10264&Itemid=21">A U.S. Army OH-58 Kiowa helicopter performed a hard landing south of Kirkuk</a> this morning. The two injured pilots onboard were evacuated to a military treatment facility in Kirkuk.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Mosul:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/KAM139478.htm">A roadside bomb exploded near the convoy of the head of police</a> in the northern city of Mosul, killing one of his security guards, police said. Al-Hemdani was unharmed
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Habaniya:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/KAM139478.htm">Several mortar rounds landed in a residential district</a>, killing four people and wounding 14 others on Wednesday night in the town of Habaniya, 85 km (50 miles) west of Baghdad, police said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Fallujah:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070301/wl_nm/iraq_wedding_dc_1;_ylt=Agz6pyRGEDiKPNebd6Ik16dX6GMA">A car bomb targeting a convoy of cars carrying guests at the wedding of an Iraqi policemen killed five people</a> and wounded 10 in the western city of Falluja on Thursday, a police source said. The source said the victims were guests driving in procession behind the bride and groom, as is traditional at Iraqi weddings.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Amiriyat al Falluja:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070301/ts_nm/iraq_dc">Iraqi security forces killed dozens of al Qaeda militants who attacked a village</a> in western Anbar province on Wednesday, during fierce clashes that lasted much of the day, police officials said on Thursday. Interior Ministry spokesman Abdul Karim Khalaf said foreign Arabs and Afghanis were among some 80 militants killed and 50 captured in the clashes in Amiriyat al Falluja, a village where local tribes had opposed al Qaeda. A police official in the area, Ahmed al-Falluji, put the number of militants killed at 70, with three police killed. There was no immediate verification of the number of casualties from medical sources.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">>> NEWS</span>
<a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070301/ts_nm/iraq_enclave_push_dc_1;_ylt=Aoow2vrZcou31a_WdSVk6M5X6GMA"><blockquote></blockquote>
U.S. and Iraqi troops will soon launch a major sweep in the Shi'ite militia bastion of Sadr City</a>, military officials said on Thursday, a pivotal moment for the make-or-break security crackdown in Baghdad.
<blockquote></blockquote>
American-led forces have conducted targeted raids in the Mehdi Army militia stronghold of anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr aimed at death squad leaders, but have so far held off from a concerted push into the teeming slum.
<blockquote></blockquote>
In the new campaign, U.S. and Iraqi troops will set up joint checkpoints in Sadr City and conduct large-scale door-to-door operations on houses and buildings, a significant escalation in a plan regarded as the last chance to avert sectarian civil war.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Washington calls the Mehdi Army the greatest threat to peace in Iraq. Sadr is a key political ally of Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and the raids could test Maliki's pledge to target all militants regardless of sectarian affiliation.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Details of the plan emerged during a meeting of senior U.S. and Iraqi military commanders on Thursday in Sadr City, which was also attended by the mayor of Sadr City.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Sipping minted tea in a police station as four helicopter gunships hovered overheard, they agreed to set up a joint security station in Sadr City in a few days.
<blockquote></blockquote>
It will be the first U.S. forces have had a permanent presence in the slum since the 2003 invasion.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">>> REPORTS</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/16804031.htm">Sunni Muslim insurgents remain by far the biggest threat to American troops in Iraq</a>, despite recent U.S. claims that Iran is providing Shiite Muslim militia groups with a new type of roadside bomb, a review of American casualty reports shows.
<blockquote></blockquote>
While U.S. military officials have held briefings to publicize their concerns about the potent bombs known as explosively formed projectiles (EFPs) or penetrators, casualty reports suggest that such weapons in the hands of Shiite militias are responsible for a relatively small number of American deaths.
<blockquote></blockquote>
U.S. officials have said that attacks with such weapons increased 150 percent in the past year. But a review of bombings by location shows that less than 10 percent of attacks that killed at least two American service members in the past 14 months were in areas where Shiite militias are dominant.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Those reports show that fewer than half the bomb attacks on heavily armored U.S. vehicles such as Abrams tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles were in areas where Shiite militias dominate.
<blockquote></blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"><blockquote></blockquote>
Kasia Anderson, Truthdig: RAMADI BLAST DETAILS DIVERGE</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
The many conflicting, even contradictory, media accounts of Tuesday’s explosion in Ramadi are reaching head-spinning proportions. The mystery deepened Wednesday, a full day after the BBC and other news outlets originally reported that 18 children were killed and 20 others injured by a car bomb as they gathered to play football in the western Iraqi city. At this point, the cause of the explosion, who was responsible, and the number of resulting deaths or injuries remain uncertain.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Truthdig reviewed multiple sources but found distressingly little overlap by Wednesday’s end. To recap: Initial reports of the deaths of 18 boys ages 10 to 15 were countered by an American spokesman Tuesday, who described the blast to Reuters as a “controlled” detonation set off by U.S. troops. He also said he was unaware of any other explosions in that area and that about 30 people were injured, including a few children, but none killed.
<blockquote></blockquote>
To make matters more confusing, an update from Reuters on Tuesday quoted an American military representative, Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, who suggested that “two separate incidents” may have occurred in the same area.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Meanwhile, Wednesday’s <span style="font-style: italic;">Washington Post</span> brought word that 16 children and two women had been killed by a bomb in a truck, according to Iraqi Col. Tariq al-Alwani. The Post piece also cited a <span style="font-style: italic;">Los Angeles Times</span> report that included a statement from Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who pointed to “criminal gangs” as responsible and condemned their “crime against children in their innocent playgrounds.”
<blockquote></blockquote>
The AFP ran a version closely resembling the first on this list. The United Arab Emirates newspaper <span style="font-style: italic;">Khaleej Times</span> picked up the story, which remained on the paper’s site Wednesday, reiterating the 18-dead-and-20-wounded count and chalking the blast up to insurgent activity in the volatile city, thought to be an outpost for al-Qaida in Iraq. Sunni Sheikh Hamid al-Hais, as well as an unidentified defense official, weighed in for the AFP and stuck with the original death toll.
<blockquote></blockquote>
So, were U.S. forces behind the Ramadi blast? Criminal gangs? Were there two “incidents” Tuesday or one? Was the explosion contained or intentionally deadly? The story may change again, but we hope it will soon be a coherent and verifiable report rather than yet another round in an international game of telephone.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20070228_ramadi_blast_details_diverge/">link</a>
<blockquote>
</blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">IraqSlogger Video: IRANIAN CARTOON LAMPOONS BUSH AND IRAQ WAR</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
Broadcast Shown Wednesday on State Satellite Channel, IRINN
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.iraqslogger.com/index.php/post/1671/Iranian_Cartoon_Lampoons_Bush_and_Iraq_War">link</a>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">>> COMMENTARY AND ANALYSIS</span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">
<blockquote></blockquote>
</span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Fatih Abdulsalam, Azzaman: RAPING A COUNTRY</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
Reports of Iraqi soldiers raping women of their own country are a stigma of shame on the forehead of the U.S.-backed government.
<blockquote></blockquote>
In our conservative Muslim society, victims of rape seldom speak out for fear of shaming their families. But it seems rape incidents by U.S.-trained Iraqi soldiers have become so numerous that they only needed an intrepid victim to speak out for the rest to follow.
<blockquote></blockquote>
The government first thought it could hide such heinous crimes the way it has been able to cover up the crimes of corrupt officials, ministers and militia leaders.
<blockquote></blockquote>
But rape is not an ordinary crime in Iraqi society and the perpetrators cannot be pardoned the way so many criminals walk freely in Iraqi streets.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Iraqi soldiers are not the first to perpetrate such crimes. Many say they learned the profession from their masters in the U.S. army.
<blockquote></blockquote>
The U.S. occupation troops have done similar dirty deeds. Their rape of the Iraqi virgin, Abeer, will never halt Iraqis’ calls for revenge.
<blockquote></blockquote>
So the troops which are supposed to guard security are now involved in the worst acts of human rights violations in a country they say they have come to liberate.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.azzaman.com/english/index.asp?fname=editorial%5C2007-02-23%5Ckurd.htm">read in full…</a>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Chris Floyd, Empire Burlesque: SUPPORTING THE TROOPS: "SHUT UP AND SUFFER"</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
Because some soldiers were ballsy enough to tell the press about the callous way the Bush gang treats the cannon fodder it sends off to die, kill, maim and be maimed in a useless, pointless, illegal, corrupt, immoral, murderous, mismanaged war, now all the soldiers in Walter Reed Army Medical Center’s Medical Hold Unit are being subjected to a punishment regimen – and banished to an area where they will be inaccessible to the press. So reports that well-known bastion of defeatist pink-lib Islamo-wimpism, the <span style="font-style: italic;">Army Times</span>:
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">Soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center’s Medical Hold Unit say they have been told they will wake up at 6 a.m. every morning and have their rooms ready for inspection at 7 a.m., and that they must not speak to the media.</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">"Some soldiers believe this is a form of punishment for the trouble soldiers caused by talking to the media," one Medical Hold Unit soldier said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. It is unusual for soldiers to have daily inspections after Basic Training.</span>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Soldiers say their sergeant major gathered troops at 6 p.m. Monday to tell them they must follow their chain of command when asking for help with their medical evaluation paperwork, or when they spot mold, mice or other problems in their quarters.</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">They were also told they would be moving out of Building 18 to Building 14 within the next couple of weeks. Building 14 is a barracks that houses the administrative offices for the Medical Hold Unit and was renovated in 2006. It’s also located on the Walter Reed Campus, where reporters must be escorted by public affairs personnel. Building 18 is located just off campus and is easy to access.</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">The soldiers said they were also told their first sergeant has been relieved of duty, and that all of their platoon sergeants have been moved to other positions at Walter Reed.</span>
<blockquote></blockquote></blockquote>
<blockquote></blockquote>(…) They literally, demonstrably, do not care what happens to the actual human beings in the U.S. armed forces. In fact, they are demonically adamant that more and more soldiers be sacrificed to their war of aggression and crony conquest, dying – or living lives blighted by pain and suffering – for the sake of the Iraqi "oil law." (Or, in the case of most of the bootlickers, for the sake of their own warped and stunted psyches, their apparent need to experience vicarious murder and domination – seeing the state as an extension of themselves – in order to assuage or cover up the various inadequacies, anxieties and craven fears that bedevil them.)
<blockquote></blockquote>
This is a remarkable state of affairs: a militarist faction that doesn't even take care of its soldiers. Once again, we see a glaring example of the blind and brutal stupidity that is the hallmark of the Bush White House. (And this stinking fish most definitely rots from the head.) The early Caesars had the good sense to keep their legions sweet, especially the Praetorian Guard; even Saddam Hussein knew enough to take good care of his Republican Guard. But the Bushists merely chew up their soldiers and spit them out, like drunks heaving after a binge.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.chris-floyd.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1052&Itemid=135#jc_allComments">read in full…</a>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Gwynne Dyer, The Hamilton Spectator: EVEN DOONESBURY PLAYS U.S. BLAME GAME</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
As the people who talked the United States into the Iraq war try to talk their way out of the blame for the mess they made, one dominant theme has emerged:
<blockquote></blockquote>
Blame the Iraqis.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Our intentions were good. We did our best to help. But the Iraqis are vicious, incompetent ingrates who would prefer to kill one another than seize the freedom we brought them.
<blockquote></blockquote>
It's not our fault it turned out so badly.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Somebody must be to blame, and it cannot be us, so it must be those brutal, stupid Iraqis.
<blockquote></blockquote>
This comforting myth started on the right, among those who had been eager supporters of "a war of choice to instill some democracy in the heart of the Middle East," as <span style="font-style: italic;">New York Times</span> columnist Tom Friedman put it in his column four years ago.
<blockquote></blockquote>
So fast is the myth taking root in America, however, that it has now even infected that icon of liberal irony, the Doonesbury comic strip. (…)
<blockquote></blockquote>
The strip runs daily in 1,400 newspapers around the world, and often serves as the vehicle for political or social commentary from a liberal perspective. It never supported the invasion of Iraq, but Monday's strip was a classic exercise in stereotyping and blame-shifting.
<blockquote></blockquote>
An American colonel, planning the day's operation in the streets of Baghdad, notices that his Iraq army opposite number has not shown up yet, and sends a soldier to find him.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Cut to the Iraqi army officer: Still behind his desk, coffee cup in hand, ashtray full of cigarettes. He says to the young American soldier: "It's not in my book. Are you sure it's today?" U.S. soldier wearily replies "Yes, sir. You'll recall we fight every day."
<blockquote></blockquote>
Unravelling the message doesn't take a Marshall McLuhan: U.S. troops are carrying the burden of the war while lazy, cowardly Iraqis shun their duty. They don't deserve us.
<blockquote></blockquote><blockquote></blockquote><blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.hamiltonspectator.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=hamilton/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;cid=1172617812847&call_pageid=1020420665036&col=1112188062581">read in full…</a>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Kim Sengupta and Patrick Cockburn, The Independent: HOW THE WAR ON TERROR MADE THE WORLD A MORE TERRIFYING PLACE</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
Innocent people across the world are now paying the price of the "Iraq effect", with the loss of hundreds of lives directly linked to the invasion and occupation by American and British forces.
<blockquote></blockquote>
An authoritative US study of terrorist attacks after the invasion in 2003 contradicts the repeated denials of George Bush and Tony Blair that the war is not to blame for an upsurge in fundamentalist violence worldwide. The research is said to be the first to attempt to measure the "Iraq effect" on global terrorism. It found that the number killed in jihadist attacks around the world has risen dramatically since the Iraq war began in March 2003. The study compared the period between 11 September 2001 and the invasion of Iraq with the period since the invasion. The count - excluding the Arab-Israel conflict - shows the number of deaths due to terrorism rose from 729 to 5,420. As well as strikes in Europe, attacks have also increased in Chechnya and Kashmir since the invasion. The research was carried out by the Centre on Law and Security at the NYU Foundation for Mother Jones magazine.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Iraq was the catalyst for a ferocious fundamentalist backlash, according to the study, which says that the number of those killed by Islamists within Iraq rose from seven to 3,122. Afghanistan, invaded by US and British forces in direct response to the September 11 attacks, saw a rise from very few before 2003 to 802 since then. In the Chechen conflict, the toll rose from 234 to 497. In the Kashmir region, as well as India and Pakistan, the total rose from 182 to 489, and in Europe from none to 297.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_easthttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif/article2311307.ece">read in full…</a>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Nermeen Al-Mufti, New Anatolian: SPECIAL PRESENT FOR WOMEN'S DAY</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
In an interview back in 2003, President Bush said that if his country were occupied he would resist. Indeed he is resisting what he calls "terror" toward making the world safer for Americans and America. An important stage of his "resistance" was invading, occupying and destroying Iraq.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Yet, in occupied Iraq, resistance is being describing as terror and insurgency as long as the occupier is being described as "the liberator." The whole world silently watches the violence, destruction, crimes against humanity and daily bloodbaths brought into Iraq by the American "liberators"! Bush has the right to resist, yet Iraqis don't.
<blockquote></blockquote>
In March, while women all over the world will celebrate International Women's Day, the women of Iraq will have their own very special present. Three Iraqi women will be executed on March 3. The women: Wasan Talib, 31 years old and a mother of three-year-old daughter who has been with her mother till now; Liqaa Omer Mohammed, 26 years old and a mother a three-month-old daughter who was born in jail; and Zaineb Fadhil, 25 years old. According to lawyer Waleed Al-Hilali, a member of the Iraqi Lawyers Union, the court refused to let the lawyers in to defend the three women, who have been in jail for more than a year, accused of attacking the American occupying forces and being "terrorists."
<blockquote></blockquote>
Iraq's "liberators" promised to bringing human rights and especially women's rights to Iraq! Paul Bremer, the former Bush viceroy in occupied Iraq, said during dismantling the Iraqi state that there would be no more death sentences in Iraq!
<blockquote></blockquote>
After a while of this "promise," the death sentence was back "because the situation in Iraq needs it."
<blockquote></blockquote>
The "rights" brought to the Iraqi women were: rape, displacement, imprisonment and poverty. According to IRIN news agency reports, 2 million Iraqi poor women became the breadwinners for their families after losing husbands, brothers, fathers and sons in the ongoing violence, and 60 women were raped and 800 were persecuted in just three months last year. According to the Iraqi Human Rights Society, 2,000 women are in jail for security cases. According to the Iraqi official numbers, thousands of women were among the civilian causalities of the violence; among them were professors, academics, journalists, teachers, and housewives, and most were mothers. Many Iraqi and international organizations, societies and personalities appealed to the Iraqi authorities and Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, who is on record as being opposed to the death penalty, to not execute the three Iraqi women and are still awaiting a reply. The first step toward bringing democracy is to not face violence by another violent action.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Women all over the world will have colorful roses on their international day, while Iraqi women will have the ongoing black and red colors, as a very special present.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.thenewanatolian.com/opinion-23667.html">link</a>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Born at the Crest of the Empire: ONE LAST FRIEDMAN BEFORE IRAQ'S COLLAPSE?</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
Reportedly, the military experts advising Petraeus have said he has one Friedman left.
An elite team of officers advising US commander General David Petraeus in Baghdad has concluded the US has six months to win the war in Iraq - or face a Vietnam-style collapse in political and public support that could force the military into a hasty retreat.
<blockquote></blockquote>
For summary value, it's well worth a read. <span style="font-style: italic;">(See below)</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://bornatthecrestoftheempire.blogspot.com/2007/02/one-last-friedman-before-iraqs.html">link</a>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">The Guardian: US COMMANDERS ADMIT: WE FACE A VIETNAM-STYLE COLLAPSE</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
An elite team of officers advising the US commander, General David Petraeus, in Baghdad has concluded that they have six months to win the war in Iraq - or face a Vietnam-style collapse in political and public support that could force the military into a hasty retreat.
<blockquote></blockquote>
The officers - combat veterans who are experts in counter-insurgency - are charged with implementing the "new way forward" strategy announced by George Bush on January 10. The plan includes a controversial "surge" of 21,500 additional American troops to establish security in the Iraqi capital and Anbar province.
<blockquote></blockquote>
But the team, known as the "Baghdad brains trust" and ensconced in the heavily fortified Green Zone, is struggling to overcome a range of entrenched problems in what has become a race against time, according to a former senior administration official familiar with their deliberations.
<blockquote></blockquote>
"They know they are operating under a clock. They know they are going to hear a lot more talk in Washington about 'Plan B' by the autumn - meaning withdrawal. They know the next six-month period is their opportunity. And they say it's getting harder every day," he said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
By improving security, the plan's short-term aim is to create time and space for the Iraqi government to bring rival Shia, Sunni and Kurd factions together in a process of national reconciliation, American officials say. If that works within the stipulated timeframe, longer term schemes for rebuilding Iraq under the so-called "go long" strategy will be set in motion.
<blockquote></blockquote>
But the next six months are make-or-break for the US military and the Iraqi government. The main obstacles confronting Gen Petraeus's team are:
<blockquote></blockquote>
· Insufficient troops on the ground
<blockquote></blockquote>
· A "disintegrating" international coalition
<blockquote></blockquote>
· An anticipated increase in violence in the south as the British leave
<blockquote></blockquote>
· Morale problems as casualties rise
<blockquote></blockquote>
· A failure of political will in Washington and/or Baghdad.
<blockquote></blockquote>
"The scene is very tense," the former official said. "They are working round the clock. Endless cups of tea with the Iraqis. But they're still trying to figure out what's the plan. The president is expecting progress. But they're thinking, what does he mean? The plan is changing every minute, as all plans do."
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2023865,00.html">read in full…</a>
<blockquote></blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Roads to Iraq: HOW SERIOUS IS THE NEW IRAQ OIL LAW?</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
Question: What is the common theme among all Iraqi oil minsters after the occupation [4 or 5 ministers]?
<blockquote></blockquote>
Answer: All of them promised that oil production to reach 3-5 Million barrel a year, but it never reached even the production line before the occupation [the embargo years].
<blockquote></blockquote>
Yet Al-Maliki still promising people that the new oil law is for the benefit of the Iraqi citizens. Isam Al-Chalabi former Iraqi oil minister answers this:
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">Adoption of the oil law right now is the result of the U.S. insistence . they did not find anything else to announce at least any achievement.</span>
<blockquote></blockquote></blockquote>
The “Green Zone” government, SCIRI delivering Iraq’s Holy Grail to Bush/Cheney and Big Oil - in exchange for not being chased out of power by the Pentagon.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Abdul Aziz al-Hakim who spent all his life calling America [The Big evil], is much more of a Bush ally than Maliki, who is from the Da’wa Party. No wonder SCIRI’s Badr Organization and their death squads were never the target of Bush death machine. Unlike Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mehdi Army (Muqtada is against the oil law).
<blockquote></blockquote>
The SCIRI certainly listened to the White House, which has always made it very clear: any more funds to the Iraqi government are tied up with passing the oil law.
<blockquote></blockquote>
The question now is what is the meaning of a law, the “Green Zone” government can not be implement?
<blockquote></blockquote>
Group of Iraqi oil experts, studied the new law, and their conclusions are here in brief:
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">1.Timing</span>
<blockquote></blockquote><blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">The current security situation is not proper to pass a law aiming foreign investments to improve the Iraqi economic situation.</span>
<blockquote></blockquote></blockquote>
How can foreign companies to take this law seriously, while it is impossible for them to go to Iraq?
<blockquote></blockquote>
Check for example the warning issued by Oil Employees in Basra:
<blockquote></blockquote><blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">We strongly warn all the foreign companies and foreign capital in the form of American companies against coming into our lands under the guise of production-sharing agreements.</span></blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;"></span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
Conclusion:
<blockquote></blockquote>
Iraqi oil law is just an ink on papers which will never see the light.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.roadstoiraq.com/2007/02/28/how-serious-is-the-new-iraq-oil-law/">link</a>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">>> BEYOND IRAQ</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m31043&hd=&size=1&l=e">An attack at an Afghan air base where US vice-president Dick Cheney was staying shows that the Taliban and al-Qaeda have penetrated local intelligence agencies</a>, analysts and officials said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
The blast early on Tuesday at Bagram air base near Kabul also highlights the increasing sophistication of the extremist outfits as they prepare for a feared spring offensive against Western troops, they said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
"This shows how much the militants have penetrated the intelligence of the Afghan security forces. It is a most shocking attack," retired Pakistani general turned analyst Talat Masood told AFP.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Cheney's visits to Pakistan and Afghanistan were unannounced and shrouded in even tighter secrecy than when US President George W Bush travelled to the two countries in March 2006.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Author Ahmed Rashid, who has written a book on the Taliban, said the bombing was a "very provocative" move by the Taliban.
<blockquote></blockquote>
"They were waiting for a high-level visit to carry out an attack. This visit, although highly secretive, was known in circles in Kabul and Islamabad," he said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">WorldNetDaily: SOME AMERICANS SORRY CHENEY SURVIVED</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
Some of Dick Cheney's many fierce enemies on the left were unable to withhold their glee today after the vice president escaped an apparent assassination attempt in Afghanistan.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Cheney was unharmed when a suicide bomber attacked the entrance to the main U.S. military base in Afghanistan where he spent the night, killing up to 23 people and wounding 20.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Readers of the Huffington Post, a popular blog run by pundit Arianna Huffington, responded to an Associated Press account of the attack with at least a dozen pages of vitriol before the thread of posts was shut down.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Comments posted to the site include:
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">Better luck next time! (TDB)</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Dr Evil escapes again ... damn. (truthtopower01)</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">So Cheney is personally responsible for the deaths of 14 innocent people ... and then he waddles off to lunch!! What a piece of sh--! (fantanfanny)</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Jesus Christ and General Jackson too, can't the Taliban do anything right? They must know we would be so gratefull (sic) to them for such a remarkable achievement. (hankster2)</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Hey, Thalia, lighten up. I, for one, don't wish Cheny (sic) had been killed. I wish he had been horribly maimed and had to spend the rest of his life hooked to a respirator. Feel better now? (raisarooney)</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Let's see ... they're killing him over there so we don't have to kill him over here? (ncjohn)</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">And they missed!? Oh, Hell. Like Mamma used to say, I guess it's the thought that counts ... (Anachro1)</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">You can never find a competent suicide bomber when you need one. (Mark701)</span></blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;"></span>
<blockquote style="font-style: italic;"></blockquote><blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=54459">read in full…</a>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Left I on the News: ABC NEWS SPOTS (AND SPOUTS) "PROPAGANDA"</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
ABC News tonight aired a piece taken from an al Qaeda website, showing a suicide bomber in Afghanistan preparing a bomb, loading his car, and then ending with a large explosion as a U.S. Army convoy passed by. At the end of the piece, anchor Charlie Gibson asked the reporter Brian Ross, "Isn't a tape like that nothing more than propaganda?" [transcribed, as is the quote below, by me from video available here] This from a network which, like every other U.S. corporate media outlet, has aired literally hundreds of "gunsight" videos provided by the U.S. military over the years of buildings exploding, targets "taken out," and so on. Somehow I don't recall ABC or anyone else identifying any of those as "propaganda."
<blockquote></blockquote>
Nor did Gibson seem to be aware that just a few sentences earlier he had indulged in a bit of propaganda all on his own, when he introduced the piece by stating "It is almost impossible to comprehend the mind of a teenager who believes there's glory in taking innocent lives, or more to be gained in death than in life." Of course, this young man almost certainly believes no such thing. What he was convinced of, I have no doubt, is that there's glory in killing <span style="font-style: italic;">members of an army occupying your country</span>, and that the cause he was fighting for was a cause worth dying for. Rather a different thing than "killing innocent people for glory."
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://lefti.blogspot.com/2007_02_01_lefti_archive.html#117271414997372159">read in full…</a>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">QUOTE OF THE DAY</span>: "How Do You Know Your War Is Lost? When You Use Aircraft To Bomb The Capital Of The Nation You Occupied 4 Years Ago" <span style="font-style: italic;">-- </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m31042&hd=&size=1&l=e">GI Special 5B27</a><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="font-style: italic;">title commenting on Juan Cole's reporting that last Saturday the US Air Force launched a series of bombing raids on southeast Baghdad.</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5501771.post-1172691962469360992007-02-28T11:05:00.000-08:002007-02-28T14:36:30.840-08:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLtHJWiShHwpEjYManAPBVus47lGqVIP3v9-rZb10ilsWU4eJ3DaVtTjVhpJjtEIQsty-reUD9vFgDkBUQuE-xZXJclaRfzzOGMKbXMT7BURrKyGMlj4ENRywNCrm1u0TZxou0/s320/DSCN4706.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 370px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLtHJWiShHwpEjYManAPBVus47lGqVIP3v9-rZb10ilsWU4eJ3DaVtTjVhpJjtEIQsty-reUD9vFgDkBUQuE-xZXJclaRfzzOGMKbXMT7BURrKyGMlj4ENRywNCrm1u0TZxou0/s320/DSCN4706.JPG" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">DAILY WAR NEWS FOR WEDNESDAY, February 28, 2007
</span><blockquote></blockquote>
Photo: A view of the dozens of corpses lying in the streets of Baghdad, often for weeks. These scenes of Iraq's civil war have become such a daily part of people's lives so much that they don't bother to remove the bodies. Those were taken in Adhamiya a month ago and the victims were judged as "strangers" or "spies" before they were shot and thrown with the garbage in the street. People in the neighbourhood just covered them with blankets and moved on. Those bodies are rarely counted in the daily death toll, and when they are counted they're just "unknown corpses." <span style="font-style: italic;">("</span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://healingiraq.blogspot.com/2007_02_01_healingiraq_archive.html#8947194012053877173">Scenes from Baghdad</a><span style="font-style: italic;">", Healing Iraq blog)
<blockquote></blockquote>
</span><a href="http://www.centcom.mil/sites/uscentcom2/Lists/New%20Casualty%20Reports/DispForm.aspx?ID=1629">Bring 'em on</a>: On Feb. 27, an MND-B unit was conducting a joint patrol with the Iraqi national police in order to provide continuous security and reduce the levels of violence in a western urban district of the Iraqi capital when they received small arms fire, killing one Soldier. <span style="font-style: italic;">(CENTCOM)
<blockquote></blockquote>
</span><a href="http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/DefenceNews/MilitaryOperations/BritishSoldierKilledInIraq.htm">Bring 'em on</a>: It is with deep regret that the MOD must confirm the death of a British soldier in Iraq as a result of an incident on the morning of 27 February 2007. The soldier was serving with the 2nd Battalion The Rifles (formerly 1st Battalion Royal Green Jackets). He was on a routine patrol in the Al Maqil district of Basra which was attacked by small arms fire. <span style="font-style: italic;">(MoD UK)</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Baghdad:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/news/breaking_news/16800637.htm">A car bomb killed at least ten people in a crowded commercial area of western Baghdad</a> on Wednesday, police said. The blast occurred in Baiyaa, a mixed neighborhood, just after the morning rush hour, police said. At least 20 people were wounded, they said. Baiyaa is one of Baghdad's most popular shopping districts, with hundreds of stores and kiosks.
Witnesses said several shops and stalls were damaged, and four cars were incinerated by the explosion. Charred clothes hung from vendors' stalls
<blockquote></blockquote><blockquote>
Shortly after the Baiyaa blast, <a href="http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/news/breaking_news/16800637.htm">at least four more explosions rang out across the Iraqi capital</a>. It was unclear whether they were additional bombs or controlled blasts set off by the U.S. military. Sirens blared through the streets.</blockquote>
<blockquote></blockquote>
U-S commanders in Iraq report<a href="http://wkbt.com/Global/story.asp?S=6153227"> U-S forces have killed eight more suspected militants and captured a-half dozen others</a>.A statement today says the eight deaths happened when U-S helicopters and jets fired on insurgents hiding in a palm grove on the northern outskirts of Baghdad. U-S intelligence had linked the militants to attacks on American troops. Two other suspects were captured in that operation.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<blockquote>The military says <a href="http://wkbt.com/Global/story.asp?S=6153227">four more suspects have been captured in raids today</a> elsewhere in Baghdad.</blockquote>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-02/28/content_5784945.htm">A suicide car bomber struck a police station in a busy area in central Baghdad</a> on Wednesday, wounding two policemen, an Interior Ministry source said. "A suicide bomber drove an explosive-laden car into the entrance of the Bab al-Shiekh police station at around 3:00 p.m. (1200 GMT), but the guards shot the driver dead while the explosives partially detonated," the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.
<blockquote></blockquote>
The attack occurred in a busy area where the key parking lot of Garage al-Nahdhah is located, the source said. "Some of the explosive charges did not immediately explode, but were gradually detonated later, which gave enough time for people and policemen to flee the scene," the source added.
<blockquote></blockquote>
A suicide car bomber attacked a police station in Nahdha district in central Baghdad,<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L2845873.htm"> killing two policemen and wounding another two</a>, police said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-02/28/content_5784945.htm">A mortar round landed on the heavy fortified Baghdad Hotel </a>in the eastern part of central Baghdad, which houses foreign contractors, the source said. It was not clear whether there was any casualty as the area is protected by U.S. and others foreign forces.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6446608,00.html">The tortured body of a senior police officer was discovered in central Baghdad</a>, about two months after the man disappeared, an Interior Ministry official said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-02/28/content_5785438.htm">Five mortar rounds landed at a crowded market in the Shurta al-Rabia neighborhood</a> in southwestern the capital on Wednesday afternoon, killing four people and wounding 20 others," the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.<span style="font-style: italic;"></span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Diyala Prv:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=38393&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">Iraqi police forces killed a gunman and freed a captive during a security crackdown</a> in west of Diala province, 57 km northeast of Baghdad, a police source said. "A U.S. and Iraqi combined force launched last night a security crackdown in al-Hadid district, west of Baaquba", the source, who asked not to be named, told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI).
<blockquote></blockquote>
"Fierce clashes erupted during the operation between gunmen and Iraqi forces, which led to the killing of a gunman, while other gunmen fled the scene", he added. The source said "no casualties were reported among the combined force", he noted. He said that the forces managed to free a civilian, who was kidnapped by a group of armed men.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Muqdadiya:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://news.monstersandcritics.com/middleeast/news/article_1270675.php/Two_brothers_of_a_Sunni_MP_killed_in_Muqdadiya__Extra_">Two brothers of a prominent Sunni Iraqi member of the parliament were shot dead</a> Wednesday, an Iraqi police source said. Unidentified gunmen shot dead the two brothers of MP Salim Abdullah, spokesman for the Sunni National Concord Front, in Muqdadiya, some 100 kilometres north-east of Baghdad, the source added. Abdullah is also a member in the Iraqi Islamic party led by the Iraqi Vice President Tarek al-Hashimi.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Al Maail:</span>
<a href="http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/news/breaking_news/16800637.htm"><blockquote></blockquote>
Six mortar shells landed on the Shiite Muslim village of al-Maail </a>south of the Iraqi capital, killing one person and wounding 14, police said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;"> Al Rasheed:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-02/28/content_5785438.htm">A roadside bomb detonated on the mainroad at the al-Rasheed town</a>, killing a civilian and wounding two others.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Iskandariya:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/PAR830640.htm">Several mortar rounds landed in a residential district, killing a man and woman</a>, in the town of Iskandariya, 40 km (25 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Mahmoudiyah:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/news/breaking_news/16800637.htm">Three roadside bombs exploded in Mahmoudiyah</a>, about 18 miles south of Baghdad. One civilian was killed and three others were wounded, police said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L2845873.htm">Mortars killed one civilian and wounded another four from the same family</a> in the town of Mahmudiya, 30 km (20 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Hilla:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=38404&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">Two Iraqi policemen were killed when mortar shells landed onto a police checkpoint</a> north of Hilla, 100 km south of Baghdad, a police source said. "Two policemen were killed today when three mortar rounds hit a police checkpoint manned on the highway about 60 km north of Hilla city," the source, who asked not to be named, told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI). He added "a building near the checkpoint was also damaged in the attack
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Basrah:</span>
<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=38357&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0"><blockquote></blockquote>
Three British bases were attacked with Katyusha rockets</a>, but there was no damage. "The British bases at former President Saddam Hussein's palaces in central Basra, at Shatt al-Arab Hotel in north of the city and at Basra International Airport were attacked over night with Katyusha rockets and no damage was reported", Captain Katie Brown told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI) over the phone.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<blockquote>An eyewitness in a residential area near Basra International Airport said that<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=38357&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0"> the British base there witnessed three different rocket attacks on Tuesday.</a> "Warning sirens kept wailing in the base three times," he added.</blockquote>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;"> Tikrit:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/PAR830640.htm">Gunmen shot dead a man inside his car </a>on Tuesday in Tikrit, 175 km (110 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=38392&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">Unidentified gunmen killed a taxi driver while on his way home</a> late Tuesday in al-Suqour neighborhood , north of Tikrit, the source added.
<blockquote></blockquote>
"<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=38392&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">U.S. soldiers opened fire late Tuesday at a civilian vehicle with two young men aboard, killing them on the spot</a>", the source, who asked not to be named, told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI). He said "the forces suspected that the two young men were gunmen trying to plant bombs that would target U.S. vehicle patrols."
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=38392&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">Police forces found an unidentified body that had shot wounds</a> in north of Tikrit, he said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Mosul:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
Police said <a href="http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/news/breaking_news/16800637.htm">a high-ranking officer and his driver were killed in a drive-by shooting</a> in Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad,. Col. Abdul-Hadi Mohammed Saleh was on his way to work when gunmen sprayed his car with machine gun fire, Brig. Abdul-Karim al-Jabouri said. Saleh's driver was killed and his bodyguard injured, al-Jabouri added.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;"> Himreen:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/PAR830640.htm">Police found a body shot in the head in the town of Himreen</a>, 120 km (75 miles) south of the northern oil city of Kirkuk, police said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Kirkuk:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=38370&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">Four Iraqi soldiers were wounded when an explosive device went off on the highway</a> southwest of Kirkuk, 250km northeast Baghdad, while an official in Kirkuk police department survived an attempt on his life in south of the city, a police source said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Riyadh:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=38369&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">At least four Iraqi soldiers were seriously wounded when a roadside bomb struck their patrol</a> in the town of Riyadh, 60 km (40 miles) southwest of the northern oil city of Kirkuk, an army source said.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Al Anbar Prv:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=38369&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">At least four people were killed and six others were wounded when two mortar shells were fired onto al-Khalidiyah city</a>, east of Ramadi, 110 km west of Baghdad, an eyewitness said on Wednesday. "Two unidentified mortar shells landed over night on al-Khalidiyah marketplace, killing four civilians and wounding six others, including a boy", an eyewitness told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI) over the phone. The wounded were rushed to the city's medical centre, he added, highlighting that the attack caused severe material damage to several stores near the main mosque in the city.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=38398&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">An Iraqi army base was attacked with mortar shells near Falluja city</a>, 45 km west of Baghdad, a security source said. "Three mortar shells landed today afternoon onto the Iraqi army base in Garma town," the source told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI). Garma town is 10 km west of Falluja city. The source who could not say if there were casualties among the Iraqi soldiers said "the Iraqi troops blocked all the ways leading to the base after the attack."
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">In Country:</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">(update)</span> <a href="http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/foreign/display.var.1223414.0.0.php">THE RAF Hercules transport aircraft destroyed in Iraq two weeks ago was crippled by an insurgent booby-trap as it landed</a> under cover of darkness on a remote desert airstrip, The Herald can reveal. Sources say an initial investigation report on the incident in Maysan province said the special forces' C130 aircraft was hit when it touched down to deliver rations and fuel for mobile patrols along the Iranian border. The £45m J-model Hercules suffered "significant damage" which insiders say might have included a fuel tank fire after the bomb detonated, although all 38 crew and passengers escaped with minor injuries.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">(update) </span><a href="http://www.houmatoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070228/API/702282412">A report that 18 boys were killed this week in a car bombing in Ramadi is "false,"</a> a senior U.S. military official said Wednesday. Iraqi state television reported Tuesday that the attack occurred that day in the Sunni insurgent stronghold west of Baghdad. Iraqi police and military confirmed the account, but later said the bombing took place Monday.
<blockquote></blockquote>
The offices of the president and prime minister had also denounced the reported attack. On Tuesday, a military statement said 30 civilians and one Iraqi soldier were injured by flying debris when troops destroyed 15 bags of explosives. None of the injuries was life-threatening, it added. "There was no second blast," Fox told reporters, "and there was no 18 children killed."
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">>> NEWS</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070228/wl_nm/iran_usa_iraq_dc_2;_ylt=ArxPgUywe8kGg2Ssk5csCEBX6GMA">Iran is reviewing Baghdad's invitation to attend a regional conference </a>on ways of easing tensions in Iran's neighbor, a senior official said on Wednesday.
<blockquote></blockquote>
The United States has said it will attend both a mid-level meeting in March and a ministerial meeting that may be held in April. Syria, accused by Washington of igniting tension in Iraq by failing to control its border, has also been invited.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said Tehran was considering the offer.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Iranian officials had previously said Tehran was not interested in discussions before U.S. troops pulled out of Iraq.
<blockquote></blockquote>
"In order to help resolve problems in Iraq, Iran will do its utmost. We will attend the meeting if (we reach the conclusion) that it is in Iraq's interests," Larijani was quoted by Iran's state television as saying.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">>> REPORTS</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Nabil's blog: THE NEW SECURITY PLAN!</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
It's been almost 13 days since the Iraqi army and police supported by American troops started to carry out the new security plan, did anything change??
<blockquote></blockquote>
I think, yeah, actually there are things that have changed, now we have more blocked streets, and more fake checkpoints and patrols who practice sectarian violence in day and night.
<blockquote></blockquote>
It became almost impossible for people who lives in Karkh side to come to Alrasafa side on time and vice versa.
<blockquote></blockquote>
During my final exams in college, some students couldn't make it to college, others were like 2 hours late, because all streets and bridges are blocked, the rest suffered a lot to come to college and they had to bear the bad language and tirades of the soldiers in every single checkpoint.
<blockquote></blockquote>
The streets are still empty and filled with horror, gunmen and militias are still roaming the streets even in the presence of American or Iraqi patrols.
<blockquote></blockquote>
its really funny that the policy of those patrols is that if those gunmen won't hit us we won't hit them, so they can do whatever they want to do to the harmless people as long as they don't shoot us.
<blockquote></blockquote>
I think this is really what making Maliki and his crap security plan successful.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://nabilsblog.blogspot.com/2007/02/new-security-plan.html">link</a>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">McClatchy Newspapers: BAGHDAD SEES RESURGENCE OF BOMB, MORTAR ATTACK DEATHS</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
Nearly two weeks into the newest Baghdad security plan, the daily count of murder victims dumped on the city's streets has declined significantly, a likely sign that Shiite Muslim militia groups aligned with the Iraqi government have reined in their members or sent them out of the capital.
<blockquote></blockquote>
But deaths from bombings and mortar attacks, after an initial decline, have returned to the levels of the previous two months, suggesting that the plan's initial measures have had little impact on the Sunni insurgent groups believed to be responsible for most of that violence.
<blockquote></blockquote>
U.S. and Iraqi officials have released only limited information about what steps they've taken to secure the city since the plan's official kickoff on Feb. 15. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki told President Bush last week that the plan, dubbed Operation Enforcing the Law, so far had been a "dazzling success." U.S. officials have been more cautious, saying that it may be months before the plan can be labeled a success or a failure.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Statistics compiled from official daily reports of the Interior Ministry and other Iraqi government sources, as well as interviews in 20 Baghdad neighborhoods about the plan's initial measures, however, show that some early judgments are possible about the plan's effectiveness. With most members of Congress expressing skepticism about the plan's prospects for success, such information could prove useful in the debate over Bush's plan to commit a total of 17,500 additional troops to the plan in the coming months.
<blockquote></blockquote>
From Dec. 1, 2006, through Feb. 14, the number of people killed in public places from violent attacks averaged 14.8 a day. From Feb. 15 through Monday, the number declined, but just barely, to 13.8. Car bombs were up slightly, from an average of 1.2 a day to 1.6, while roadside bombs were identical at 1 per day.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Injuries, on average, rose from 40.4 a day to 52.8 since the start of the plan, while bodies dumped by death squads declined from 22.8 a day to 14.6.
<blockquote></blockquote>
The increase in car bombs is particularly troubling. Members of Shiite militias often have cited Sunni car bombings as the driving force for their activities, which include targeting Sunnis for kidnapping and execution. On Sunday, the government announced new measures to stop car bombs, including prohibitions against parking or standing along major streets.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/16789110.htm">read in full…</a>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">IraqSlogger: MUST-SEE: BOB WOODRUFF'S "TO IRAQ AND BACK"</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
ABC News anchor Bob Woodruff was nearly killed a year ago in an IED attack in Iraq. He's made a near-miraculous recovery. Bob Woodruff's hour-long documentary was broadcast last night on ABC. For those who missed it and for those in Iraq and elsewhere who couldn't see the ABC telecast, you can watch the entire program in six segments here:
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">-- Part one: The explosion (9'15")
<blockquote></blockquote>
</span><span style="font-style: italic;">-- Part two: The 36-day coma (12'16")
<blockquote></blockquote>
</span><span style="font-style: italic;">-- Part three: Wounded warriors (8'33")
<blockquote></blockquote>
</span><span style="font-style: italic;">-- Part four: Are we ready for our injured? (7'45")
<blockquote></blockquote>
</span><span style="font-style: italic;">-- Part five: The human cost of war (7'52")
<blockquote></blockquote>
</span><span style="font-style: italic;">-- Part six: Closing thoughts (52")</span></blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;"></span>
<blockquote style="font-style: italic;"></blockquote>
Woodruff will appear on CNN's "Larry King Live" program tomorrow night.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.iraqslogger.com/index.php/post/1654/Must-See_Bob_Woodruffs_To_Iraq_and_Back">link</a>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Left I on the News: MARCH ON THE PENTAGON MARCH 17!</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
The <a href="http://www.marchonpentagon.org/">March 17 March on the Pentagon</a> is shaping up as a major step forward in the struggle to stop ongoing imperialist wars in Iraq and elsewhere. The ANSWER Coalition reports today that after a major free speech battle with various government entities for permits, the route is now fully permitted, and, in addition, a major collection of pro-impeachment groups have now signed on as endorsers, including such groups as After Downing Street, CODE PINK Women for Peace, Democrats.com, Democracy Rising, Gold Star Families for Peace, the Green Party of the United States, the National Lawyers Guild, Progressive Democrats of America, and World Can't Wait-Drive Out the Bush Regime. There are more than 200 cities organizing transportation. And there's an impressive list of speakers, which you can see at the link above.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://lefti.blogspot.com/2007_02_01_lefti_archive.html#117263201043865329">read in full…</a>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">>> COMMENTARY AND ANALYSIS</span>
<blockquote></blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"><blockquote></blockquote>
Missing Links: OIL AND GAS LAW: BEHIND THE "AGREEMENT"</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
(…) the <span style="font-style: italic;">Al-Hayat</span> reporter quotes a spokesman for the Iraqi Accord Front, the biggest Sunni bloc in the national parliament, Salim Abdullah, who said: "Current circumstances are not appropriate for the adoption of an oil and gas law...We look on this law with skepticism and concern, in the light of the continuing security situation, which doesn't help in establishing a low like this one, particularly since it concerns the exploitation of oil, which is the most important element in Iraqi national income". He added: "We in the Iraqi Accord Front have a feeling foreign corporations had a role in deciding on this in their own interests, and we reject what the law suggests by way of privatization of the gas sector and transferrence of its management to foreign exploitation companies." And he added that revenue distribution should be free of sectarianism.
<blockquote></blockquote>
And the reporter quotes a member of the Oil Gas and Natural Resources committee of the national parliament who said there will not be quick passage of in parliament, "because of existing differences between the political blocs..."
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://arablinks.blogspot.com/2007/02/oil-and-gas-law-behind-agreement.html">read in full…</a>
<blockquote>
</blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Mother Jones: IRAQ 101</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
All right, no more excuses, people. After four years in Iraq, it's time to get serious. We've spent too long goofing off, waiting to be saved by the bell, praying that we won't get asked a stumper like, "What's the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite?" Okay, even the head of the House intelligence committee doesn't know that one. All the more reason to start boning up on what we-and our leaders-should have learned back before they signed us up for this crash course in Middle Eastern geopolitics. And while we're at it, let's do the math on what the war really costs in blood and dollars. It's time for our own Iraq study group. Yes, there will be a test, and we can't afford to fail.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold;">IRAQ 101: From Allawi to Zarqawi</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">Players, Haters: Iraqi Politics at a Glance</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">CIVIL WAR: Lost in Transition</span>
<span style="font-style: italic;"><blockquote></blockquote>
Things Fall Apart: The Iraqi Civil War FAQ</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">THE COST: Paying the Price</span>
<span style="font-style: italic;"><blockquote></blockquote>
Down the Drain</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">AFTERMATH: Long-term Thinking</span>
<span style="font-style: italic;"><blockquote></blockquote>
Breaking the Army</span><span style="font-style: italic;">
</span><span style="font-style: italic;"><blockquote></blockquote>
The Iraq Effect: The War in Iraq and Its Impact on the War on Terrorism
</span><blockquote></blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.motherjones.com/news/featurex/2007/03/iraq_101.html">read in full…</a>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17194.htm"></a>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Malcom Lagauche: ESTIMATES BASED ON ESTIMATES</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
The number of deaths attributed to Saddam Hussein by the West is incomprehensible. If you add them all up, it seems he killed more people than the number who inhabit Iraq. He had to work overtime and must have had advanced weaponry of which no one is aware.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Numbers and techniques abound: 182,000 during the Anfal campaign (Despite the numbers, not one body has been found. Maybe Saddam had a secret vaporizing ray); 5,000 in Halabja (About 300 bodies were found and there is much doubt as to the origin of the gas used against the Kurds); and hundreds of thousands in the south of Iraq.
<blockquote></blockquote>
In November 2003, word came out that more than 400,000 bodies had been discovered in mass graves in Iraq. "The whole country is a mass graveyard" was the slogan of the day. Finally, proof of Saddam being the Butcher of Baghdad was there for the whole world to see. Case closed.
<blockquote></blockquote>
Let’s go forward a few months from the discovery of the almost half million bodies. On July 18, 2004, the headline of the day for the British paper <span style="font-style: italic;">The Independent</span> read, "British Prime Minister Admits Graves Claim Untrue." How could that be? George Bush and Tony Blair don’t lie. If we can’t trust them, who can we trust? Certainly not Saddam, even though he told the truth about WMD. That must have been a fluke.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.malcomlagauche.com/id1.html">read in full…</a>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Blah3: THERE ARE NO DEPTHS TO WHICH THEY WILL NOT STOOP. NONE.</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
Make no mistake - Team Thug will go to any lengths to justify Bush's failed war. And if it means minimizing catasrophic injury to our fighting men and women, what the hey? No skin off Jim Nicholson's nose.
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">WOODRUFF: You think americans fully understand how many injured there are in this war? </span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">NICHOLSON: I think it — i think it cuts both ways. I think Americans are always very surprised to know the number of amputations, for example, which is fewer than 600 in total. They’re probably also surprised to know that 200,000 come to the VA for some kind of medical treatment. That’s probably more than they think. </span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: italic;">WOODRUFF: You have mental disorders — 73,000; diseases of nervous system — 61,000; symtpoms, signs of ill-defined conditions — 7,000; diseases of musculoskeletal system — 87,000. These are numbers beyond the 23,000. </span>
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<span style="font-style: italic;">NICHOLSON: <span style="font-weight: bold;">A lot of them come in for dental problems</span>, others come in for a lot of the normal things that people have. We’re providing their healthcare. Some I suppose are because of their service over there. But they weren’t evacuated for that. </span>
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<span style="font-style: italic;">WOODRUFF: But they got some kind of injury, some kind of problem because of the war. </span>
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<span style="font-style: italic;">NICHOLSON: That’s possible, yes.</span>
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Nicholson is supposed to be standing up for injured service men and women, not laughing off loss of limbs and brain injuries as 'dental problems.'
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This insensitive son of a bitch should resign. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Today</span>.
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<a href="http://www.blah3.com/article.php?story=2007022811581156">link</a>
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<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Roads to Iraq: A HIDDEN WAR INSIDE THE “GREEN ZONE”</span>
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Some new information about the failed attempt to assassinate Abdul-Mahdi <span style="font-style: italic;">[Iraq's vice president, who escaped unhurt Monday after a bomb exploded in municipal offices in Baghdad where he was making a speech -- zig].</span>
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According Iraqirabita, a car was prepared two days before the attempt to follow his movements.
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With Abdul-Mahdi himself said today that the assassination is an inside job and some influential government official behind it, Iraqirabita say that Maliki cooperating with Mahdi Army.
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<span style="font-style: italic;"><blockquote>investigations conducted by the police, showed that a certain official behind the blast</blockquote></span>
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Few weeks ago people spoke about Abdul-Mahdi, that he is the best candidate to take Maliki’s position, was it an attempt from Maliki to remove the “best candidate” from his way.
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The good news about all this is; this prove that there is a hidden war inside the “Green Zone”, and the US sooner or later will join..or they are already joined.
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<a href="http://www.roadstoiraq.com/2007/02/27/a-hidden-war-inside-the-green-zone/">link</a>
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David Ray Griffin, ICH: NEOCON IMPERIALISM, 9/11, AND THE ATTACKS ON AFGHANISTAN AND IRAQ</span>
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One way to understand the effect of 9/11, in most general terms, is to see that it allowed the agenda developed in the 1990s by neoconservatives—-often called simply “neocons”---to be implemented. There is agreement on this point across the political spectrum. From the right, for example, Stefan Halper and Jonathan Clarke say that 9/11 allowed the “preexisting ideological agenda” of the neoconservatives to be “taken off the shelf . . . and relabeled as the response to terror.”1 Stephen Sniegoski, writing from the left, says that “it was only the traumatic effects of the 9/11 terrorism that enabled the agenda of the neocons to become the policy of the United States of America.”2
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What was this agenda? It was, in essence, that the United States should use its military supremacy to establish an empire that includes the whole world--a global Pax Americana. Three major means to this end were suggested. One of these was to make U.S. military supremacy over other nations even greater, so that it would be completely beyond challenge. This goal was to be achieved by increasing the money devoted to military purposes, then using this money to complete the “revolution in military affairs” made possible by the emergence of the information age. The second major way to achieve a global Pax Americana was to announce and implement a doctrine of preventive-preemptive war, usually for the sake of bringing about “regime change” in countries regarded as hostile to U.S. interests and values. The third means toward the goal of universal empire was to use this new doctrine to gain control of the world’s oil, especially in the Middle East, most immediately Iraq.
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In discussing these ideas, I will include recognitions by some commentators that without 9/11, the various dimensions of this agenda could not have been implemented. My purpose in publishing this essay is to introduce a perspective, relevant to the debates about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Cheney, that thus far has not been part of the public discussion.
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<a href="http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17194.htm">read in full…</a>
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">>> BEYOND IRAQ</span>
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<span style="font-style: italic;"> Afghanistan:</span>
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<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6403671.stm">Suspected pro-Taleban militants in Pakistan's tribal areas have killed a cleric they accused of spying for US forces</a> in Afghanistan, officials say. The man's beheaded body was found dumped in a bag by a roadside in South Waziristan on Wednesday.
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<a href="http://rawstory.com/news/afp/US_military_chief_categorically_den_02272007.html">The head of the US military declared "categorically" Tuesday that the United States is not planning air strikes against Iran.</a> "It is not true," said General Peter Pace, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, when asked during an appearance in Congress about suggestions that the US military was preparing to launch air strikes on Iran.
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Asked by Senator Robert Byrd if he was categorically denying the reports, Pace replied: "Categorically sir".
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<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Jessica Long: I’M AMERICAN….SHHH!! DON’T TELL!</span>
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I represent the 7% of Americans that travel abroad each year. Ordinarily, I would be proud to belong to this statistic. Yet having done the majority of my globetrotting during the Bush Administration years, I find my nationality to be the biggest cause of stress in my travels. I have learned that being an American is something you can no longer be proud of- well, at least if you have any knowledge of global affairs. In fact I am ashamed of my nationality. But wait a second here…. before I am accosted by the headstrong patriot with ten “United we stand” bumper stickers adorning his SUV, let me say this: I understand the value of pride in opportunity, equality and justice- but NOT in nationalism for the sake of nationalism! And that is what is at stake here: American insular ideology. Traveling abroad has allowed me a new perspective on this skewed American self-image. I am grateful for my opportunities, my freedom, and my standard of living- but I am ashamed of my government’s corruption, my people’s ignorance and my nation’s neo-colonial egotism. But you needn’t be a hardcore lefty to agree with me. All you need is to go abroad to be reminded of the global hatred toward our nation.
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<a href="http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17198.htm">read in full…</a>
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">QUOTE OF THE DAY</span>: "Many parts of Iraq are stable now. But, of course, what we see on television is the one bombing a day that discourages everybody."<span style="font-style: italic;"> -- </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://thinkprogress.org/2007/02/26/laura-one-bombing-day/">Laura Bush</a><span style="font-style: italic;"> today on CNN's "Larry King Live"
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